My TV people get mad at me. If you surveyed all 12 of my salespeople and asked what’s the number one thing customers say when they come in — I believe 12 out of 12 would tell you radio.

Ryan Phelps

Owner, Ryan Phelps Auto Sales

Industry

Automotive

Location

Auburn, Sodus & Phoenix, NY

Size

4 dealerships, 12+ staff

Products

Radio, FLX Finest

Ryan Phelps spent twelve years teaching high school social studies in Newark, New York before selling his first car off his front lawn. Two became four. Four became eight. Today, Ryan Phelps Auto Sales operates four dealerships across Auburn, Sodus, and Phoenix with more than 300 vehicles on the lot and plans to keep growing.

When it was time to get the word out beyond his original Phoenix location, Ryan turned to radio. He started with another group covering Central New York, and when he needed to reach Auburn and Sodus, he found FLX Local Media.

As soon as we started advertising with the Finger Lakes Radio Group, we saw a big uptick here in Auburn and Sodus with people coming in and saying they heard us on the radio.

Ryan discovered something about the Finger Lakes audience that surprised him: they’re loyal listeners. He recounts selling a car to a woman with a distinctive name from a specific township — and the very next day, hearing her win a contest on Classic Hits 99.3. “If she’s a Classic Hits listener, it’s a pretty good chance we sold that car to her because of it,” he says.

That loyalty translates into results. In a single year, Ryan Phelps Auto Sales sold 300 more vehicles than the year before — with the same basic staff and barely a higher advertising budget. When asked what changed, the answer was simple: more money moved toward radio.

My TV people get mad at me. They say, why do you spend so much on radio? I’m telling you right now — if you surveyed all my salespeople and asked what’s the number one thing customers say, 12 out of 12 would tell you radio.

Ryan doesn’t do radio in short bursts. He runs annual commitments that let him adjust his messaging season by season — winter SUVs, tax time deals, back-to-school specials, service department promotions. “If you know you’re going to want to be on the radio, do the annuals,” he advises. “You get a better deal, and you can change your message whenever you need to.”

The “Buy It From Ryan” slogan has become something people say back to him. It works on radio, on TV, on Facebook. But radio is where Ryan sees the highest return, and his Finger Lakes Finest gold win for used car dealerships confirmed what his team already knew: when you run a good business and promote it well on local radio, people notice.

People say radio is old, it’s worn out, everything’s digital now. It’s just not true. For our clientele, it works.

When long-time rep Gina retired, Ryan worried about losing momentum. New rep Kelly picked up right where Gina left off — checking in, suggesting message refreshes, even reminding Ryan when his spots on other networks were getting stale. “Customer service like that — you don’t always get it,” he says. “The phone rings all day long with somebody somewhere trying to sell me Google advertising. But dealing with somebody local who comes in and sees your business — that’s worth it.”

Ryan’s advice to any business owner considering advertising? Don’t overthink it. “The ultimate secret is to have a good product and stand behind it. Once you’re ready to take that to market, I think people would be nuts not to use radio.”

Interviewer: Tell me first off your name, a little bit about your business, when you got started, that kind of thing.

Ryan Phelps: Ryan Phelps. I started in 2010 — Ryan Phelps Auto Sales. I was a teacher before that. 12 years I taught high school social studies out in Newark, New York. My wife was a fourth grade teacher, and I just started selling a couple of cars in my lawn. Then I had two cars, four cars, eight cars, and now we're moving on to our fourth dealership. We're going to have 300-something cars for sale shortly. We're ramping up for the spring, and it just keeps growing.

Interviewer: How did you get started advertising on the radio?

Ryan Phelps: Well, it wasn't you guys at first. It was a gentleman named Bob Adams from the Wolf, Inter Harbor Media. He just drove me nuts — stopped every month, stopped every month, stopped every month. For whatever years, I wouldn't do it. And then finally he cracked me, and he got me to do it. I started doing TK99, TK105, and that kind of helped our Phoenix dealership a little bit. And I said, well, geez, we're doing that out in Central New York, that region. What are we doing to help our Auburn store and our Sodus store at the time? And I stumbled onto you guys, Finger Lakes Radio Group. I realized you had all different stations, targeting different genres of people. And it went all the way out to Canandaigua with the new lake station — that's a big market we're trying to push west into with our Sodus store. It's been affordable, it's been a good bang for our buck. As soon as we started advertising with the Finger Lakes Radio Group, we saw a big uptick here in Auburn and in Sodus, with people coming in and saying they heard us on the radio.

Ryan Phelps: And as I mentioned when you came in, we even had the one story where we'd sold a car to a person with a very unique name from a specific township — it could only have been her. And literally the next day I had Classic Hits 99.3 on — because I'm getting a little old, I guess, and I listen to Classic Hits once in a while when I'm driving — and that individual won a contest on Classic Hits. I said, well, it's a pretty good chance that we sold that car to her because she's a Classic Hits listener. Those listeners seem very loyal. They might not listen to six other stations and hop around. They listen to you guys for local Finger Lakes news and information and what's going on.

Interviewer: If you had a friend going into business and they said, hey, what would you recommend for advertising, what would you tell them?

Ryan Phelps: I'd absolutely tell them to talk to the Finger Lakes Radio Group, especially if they're located anywhere in the Finger Lakes. You guys do the Finger Lakes Finest contest and all that. I think we were the gold winner for used car dealerships, which was kind of a big honor for us this year. If you run a good business and you promote it well and you advertise with Finger Lakes Radio Group, you can actually win those kinds of things. It's just a great bang for your buck — people can get your name out there, and if people know you're a good company, I definitely would recommend the Finger Lakes Radio Group.

Interviewer: There are a lot of businesses that will advertise a sale here, a little bit there, but you're very consistent. You're on all the time. Why do you think that's important?

Ryan Phelps: Maybe my business is unique in that people are always needing used cars. There's no special time of year — it's not really a seasonal thing. We get a little bit of a rush during tax season and stuff like that, but first of all, when you do an annual commitment, you typically get a little more added value. It's a little less expensive per spot, and you can have that constant influence. People hear your message over and over. What's nice is as we're changing our messaging — winter SUVs, then tax time, then back to school, then when our service departments get a little slow and we want to promote tires and oil changes — we know that we have the annual commitment with you guys and all we have to do is change up our messages. We could do 50 percent service-related, 50 percent car-related.

Ryan Phelps: We just recently ran into a really awesome first-time buyer program — it's literally too good to be true, and I don't want to say too much about it. What do we do? We pound the radio with it, and we get all kinds of people coming in who heard about our first-time buyer program. We're able to get specific messages out when we want to, and it's affordable because we're doing it all year. If we called up and just wanted to buy spots for 30 days, it's just common sense — it's going to be more expensive. If you're not going to have that commitment with a radio group, they're not going to have the same commitment with you to give you a good deal and extra value. That's why I believe in doing the annuals. If you know you're going to want to be on the radio, do the annuals.

Interviewer: How important is the slogan? You have a pretty good one.

Ryan Phelps: Yeah, it's catchy. It really helped us take off. People say it over and over. They tag us on Facebook. I definitely think it's catchy — it just came around a few years ago. It's helped us whether it's radio, whether it's TV, whether it's Facebook. People hear "Buy from Ryan" and they know who they're talking about, and it's fun to say almost.

Interviewer: Do you get a lot of people coming in and mentioning that?

Ryan Phelps: All the time. And I can't tell you enough — my TV people get mad at me. I'm not bad-mouthing the TV deal because that has a good place too, and I like doing TV. But they get mad at me about radio. They say, why do you spend so much on radio? You could spend more with us. I say, I'm telling you right now, if I've got 11 or 12 salespeople between my dealerships and you gave them all a survey and said, what is the number one thing that people come into your dealership saying they heard you on, I believe 12 out of 12 of them would tell you radio. Now, I do spend a lot of money on radio, so maybe that's part of it. But it definitely gets you bang for your buck.

Interviewer: What has it meant for your business over the years?

Ryan Phelps: It's increased our sales a lot. This year alone, we sold 300 more vehicles than we sold last year — with basically the same number of staff and a barely higher advertising budget. As we've moved more money toward radio, we have increased our sales. Some of it could be the slogan, some of it could be repeat business, some of it could be our referral program — all of that could be part of why we're growing. But it's impossible to ignore if you sell 300 more cars than the year before and all your salespeople are consistently saying the radio is one of the number one things. It has to be a part of it.

Interviewer: Have you seen growth specifically at the Auburn and Sodus stores?

Ryan Phelps: They've all been growing. Auburn and Sodus have probably been growing the most. Phoenix was the store I bought from my dad — it's just kind of been there for a long time, with an established clientele. It was actually a pretty service-related business and I've sort of changed it into more of a sales-related business. Auburn and Sodus are ones I started more from the ground up, so they need more branding and more marketing. They haven't been around 40 years — Auburn has been around about 15 years, and Sodus has only been around three or four years. They just need more marketing than something that's been there 40-plus years.

Interviewer: Why do you think you'll continue to use radio?

Ryan Phelps: It's working. If it's not broke, don't fix it. Do we move our money around between stations? Absolutely. And when I've done that with you guys at Finger Lakes Radio Group, you've been more than accommodating. There are some other radio networks I've dealt with in the past where if you want to cut a few thousand dollars out in a given year, they give you grief over it. You guys are great — if you want to cut back a little and then add a little back the following year, you work with us. It's not a high-pressure sales environment and I appreciate that.

Interviewer: Tell me a little bit more about working with the staff.

Ryan Phelps: They've been great. I had a great rep before Gina, and she was awesome — always in the stores, always seeing what we needed, always letting us know about new incentives. She retired recently. She really helped get me off the ground with you guys. Now we have a new rep, Kelly. I thought, geez, when you lose a really good rep you're going to really miss out. But Kelly has been all over it. She emails me, checks in with me — hey, do you want to mix up your spot? Sometimes she even reminds me that I haven't changed anything in a couple of months and maybe I should tweak the messaging. She actually reminds me for my other radio networks too. That's another thing — when I've come in and recorded with you guys, I recorded with Paul Small, a real helpful, really nice guy I've known a long time. And I went over to the Geneva stations and recorded with a nice lady over there a couple of years ago, and we made some nice content we were able to use for a while.

Interviewer: Is there anything else you'd like to say about how radio has worked for your business?

Ryan Phelps: It's just something I believe in. The ultimate secret is to have a good product and stand behind it — take care of people. Because no one's going to keep buying from Ryan if you don't take care of people. You can advertise all you want, but if you have a bad name, people just make fun of it. You see that on Facebook all the time — somebody with a bad reputation puts a bunch of ads up and then everybody leaves a hundred comments saying "don't go here." So the first key is having a good product to advertise. Once you're ready to take that to the media and to the market, I just think people would be nuts not to use radio. People say it's old, it's worn out, everything's digital now. It's just not true for us, anyway. Maybe it's a clientele thing, but for our clientele, it works.