Both race cars, sales are people-driven
Jamie Dick, dealer principal for Fiesta Nissan and Fiesta Hyundai in Santa Fe, had dreams of making it big on the racing circuit. He started as a youngster racing go-carts in southern New Mexico and El Paso. As he got older, he graduated to larger and faster vehicles and eventually began racing regionally across the Southwest.
By the time he was in high school, not only was Dick playing tennis for state champion La Cueva — “We won state all three years. I didn’t really contribute much to that, but I was on the team,” he said with a chuckle — he was driving full-size vehicles out on the West Coast quite a bit.
And during his college days at the University of Denver, Dick had graduated to the smaller NASCAR circuits before landing with the big boys on the XFINITY Series.
“It was because of my dad,” Dick said. “He raced mostly locally and regionally and even after he was done racing, he was still a fan. We would go to races all the time.”
That love for racing continued even upon earning a college degree.
“I wasn’t ready to make racing my job so I went back and a year later I got my MBA, and I had progressed enough that I was ready to make racing a career,” Dick said.
After racing full time for several years, Dick and his father took over Viva Motorsports.
The constant struggle to find sponsors, coupled with Dick’s onset of diabetes, led to the dissolution of the racing team, but the lessons he learned there have carried over into his new career.
“I leaned that no matter what business or industry, everything is people-driven,” he said. “A solid group of people can really make a difference in the performance on the race track. I don’t think that’s any different in auto sales. A group of people can sell a lot of cars and provide good customer service. That’s the biggest lesson is it’s all about people. How to get the most out of people and maximize resources.”