Topcars Direct Salesperson Profile: Blake Johnson
By Tristan Hooker/MediaPA
Blake Johnson, CEO of Hamilton’s Topcars Direct, loves cars.
“I’ve always had a passion for cars,” says Blake. “My grandad on my mum’s side had his own repair shop for his whole working life. Probably right from when I was two years old I had a pedal car and then I started collecting matchbox cars. It goes back that far.”
Blake suspects this kind of thig runs in families. “My father and his brother had a car yard in the fifties for a few years.”
“My stepfather was a major influence. He had an engine reconditioning business for 40 years. He passed on his knowledge of vehicles to me. I was driving when I was 13”.
After leaving school, Blake started his working life at Trigon Plastics as a management trainee. “I was doing accountancy and economics at tech. I did that for a year but didn’t like it.”
Later he held several jobs driving small trucks and even had a short stint driving tractors in Australia. When he got back to Hamilton he saw an ad in the Waikato Times for a salesperson at Dallas motors, got the job and worked there for a year before moving to Fairview Motors in their Used Cars Department. “Within six months I’d made 2 I.C. [2nd in command] of second hand cars.”
“Back then we used to shop the trade-ins and drive to other dealers and that’s how I met Ray Mead, who I bought the business off. He’d been in business about thirty-three years. I started working for him, bearing in mind that he was going to retire. About a year later he sold the business to me”.
Blake says the secret to his success is, “selling a product you believe in and giving people a fair deal.”
He believes there is something he can learn from everyone he meets and says, “anyone that comes across you in your life is an influence at some level.”
Contact Top Cars Direct
Address: 86 Killarney Road, Hamilton
Phone: (07) 838 1506
Mobile: Blake: (027) 486 7227 Richard: (027) 486 7663, Stu: (027) 210 9222
CALL FREE: 0800 838 1506
Email: richard@topcarsdirect.co.nz
Website: http://www.topcarsdirect.co.nz/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/topcarsdirect.hamilton/?fref=ts
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