He lost the bet, but ended up winning
Adam Marazzo may have lost the bet, but in the long run, he turned out to be a winner. Marazzo, general manager at Reliable Nissan since June 2015, was a lot boy at a dealership in Arizona when he was spurred into sales.
“Me and another lot attendant made a bet that we were just going to sell cars over the summer to see who did better,” Marazzo recalled. “He won the bet over the summer, but I decided to stick with it, go the long haul.”
That long haul has taken him from Arizona to northern California and now to Albuquerque.
And after a few months to fine-tune things, the dealership this year is on pace for a record.
“I’m proud to say, this year is going to be the most vehicles, new cars, that Reliable Nissan has ever sold,” Marazzo said. “We’ve been tracking it since 1983. The record was 1985. But this is going to be an all-time, all-time sales volume year.”
It’s quite feat for someone who start was somewhat rocky, Marazzo credits his mentors with helping get him going.
“My general manager at the time, we took what we call a lot walk,” he said. “He asked me what I wanted to do with my life. My family is in the restaurant business so I said maybe one day I’ll open up a restaurant with my dad and do the family business. He looked at me and said, ‘Well, I just think that’s a shame.’ I was really taken aback.”
The general manger told him: “Because I think you have what it takes to go all the way.”
That, Marazzo said, was a turning point in his career and life.
“As soon as he said that, it was like a light bulb,” he said. “It was pretty amazing that somebody believed in me and planted the seed in my head that this could be something I could make a career in. So after that conversation, I really stepped up my game. I worked on my days off. A lot more studying on sales and refining my technique and learning how to be a team player.”