DETROIT – You could say it right along with him ?Hi, Don Massey of Don Massey Cadillac on Ann Arbor Road in the beautiful community of Plymouth, Michigan.?
His memorable radio commercials were as omnipresent and as reliable as the sunrise. Massey was every bit the silver tongued car salesman. He was also successful in a way few can claim their as their own. At one point he owned 20 dealerships nationwide, most of them Cadillac stores. One of his sales people told me he was selling 20 percent of the nation?s Cadillacs at one point.
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Sadly, last night, 82 year old Don Massey died of throat cancer in his Northville home. When you ask car dealers about him they say he was a true legend, a face on the Mount Rushmore of car dealers. He set a standard for customer service dealers, to this day, aspire to!
A native of Tennessee, Massey started out selling used cars. He moved up to General Sales manager and then became a Chevy Dealer. Later, in 1965 he opened his own Cadillac Store.
In an interview he did with Local 4 News in 2002 Massey said of owning a luxury brand dealership that ?It?s the only way to go. It?s kind of like graduating at the head of the class! When I became a Cadillac dealer I was the proudest kid on the block and it was, to me, a highlight that I never dreamed I would ever reach.?
Massey always walked the showroom floor. He watched over it because to him you could buy a Cadillac anywhere. It was the service and the sales environment that made the difference. He set tough and exacting standards. Every salesperson needed to wear Sunday best clothing every day. Hair had to be well trimmed and he brought a hair dresser every month into the store to make certain the rules were followed. One salesman told me if he thought your suit looked tattered he?d suggest you get a new one. If you didn?t get the message he?d buy you a new suit and dock your pay. He had a shoe shine man by the name of Tommy Dorsey come to the store every day and make certain not only were the sales staff?s shoes shined, but the customers as well! If you wonder whether Massey lived by his rules, the answer was yes. He was known for wearing $1500 suits when that might as well have been $10,000.
When I asked him about that attention to customer service experience he gave his philosophy.
?When you meet a customer, that customer needs to leave here proud that they met you. Like that suit you?re wearing. If you bought it from someone who treated you right and you admire and respect that person you will go back and see him to buy the next one and that?s what it?s all about and that guy could be in Cincinnati, Ohio, it could be three or six hundred miles away,? Massey said.
Yet, Massey didn?t seem interested in being remembered himself. He wanted his wife Joyce to be remembered. She passed after a long struggle with a closed head injury suffered in a car accident in Colorado. Massey built a wing on the Colorado hospital she was treated in and named it after her. He did the same at Saint Joseph?s hospital in Pontiac. Those facilities still bear her name. At Madonna University in Livonia, a beautiful garden in front of the library also bears her name. The Felician Sisters helped comfort Joyce during her recovery and Don helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the school in Joyce?s name to show his appreciation. He obviously loved Joyce more than life itself. He said of his wife?s accident: ?it was about half way through our honeymoon. We?d only been married thirty eight years! She had an accident, an auto accident and got a closed head injury and it was a long hard battle for her. She lived nine years and nine months after that. But she was totally dependent on others.?
Don?s throat cancer made his voice raspy nine years ago. He lived a very reclusive life since selling his dealerships. Some of his friends in the car business believe his failing voice gave him reason to stay out of the public eye.
The name Don Massey will live on at the Plymouth dealership he made famous. His memory will live on to those who today model their dealerships after his. Good by Don, you will surely be missed by many.