A long road leads back home
You could say that Bob Cockerham has been around the block a time or two. Or at the very least, returned back home. The general manager at University Volkswagen/Mazda, Cockerham is back at the dealer where he started as a teenager.
Now, of course, he’s running the show as opposed to being a lot attendant rubbing shoulders with his future partner in owner Randy Price, who also was learning the auto business from the ground floor.
“Randy and I were lot boys together,” Cockerham said. “But that was a long, long time ago. That was back when the dealership was on University Boulevard.”
Cockerham was an Albuquerque Technical-Vocational (now CNM) student studying mathematics, physics and electronics.
“As a kid, that’s all I did was fix TVs and electronic,” he said. “I really wanted to do that.”
The goal, Cockerham said, was to become an electrical engineer.
“But this kind of worked itself out,” he said. “I started selling cars and I really enjoyed it and then got better and better at it. I ended up being the top salesman.”
The trick to being good at the job came fairly quickly and honestly, Cockerham said.
“I think the biggest quality of a good salesperson is that he’s a good person to begin with,” he said. “You have to have the ability to talk to people, of course. And you have to be knowledgeable. But you have to be a good person and people can tell that.”
And now that the auto world has gone high-tech, being savvy with the latest gadgets is a must. Likewise, dealerships have had to adapt to the Internet era.
“It used to be that customers needed the dealerships,” Cockerham said. “Now dealerships need the customers. Customers come in here with all the information they need so now it becomes more about the experience and how they were treated when they were here.”
Cockerham moved on to several other dealerships locally, then ended up with his own dealerships in Salt Lake City, Denver, and then Santa Fe before getting a call about four years ago to rejoin the Prices back where it all started.
“I’ve always been close to the Prices,” he said. “I feel like I’ve come full circle.”