Jack Fitzgerald’s greatest regret in life is that he never earned a college degree after graduating from high school.
Instead, he started working as a car salesman when he was 20 years old, got married, had two children and became tied down with family and job responsibilities.
“I was a wise guy,” Mr. Fitzgerald says. “I thought I knew more than the educators when I was young. That just shows how dumb I was. I wanted to get going in business and run the world.”
Now 65 years old, he still hasn’t completed a four-year college degree. He also still sells cars.
Now, however, he owns 10 auto dealerships in three states, which earned a revenue of $421 million last year and a profit of $7.1 million. He recently was named 2001 Auto E-tailer of the Year by the American International Automobile Dealers Association.
An e-tailer is like a retailer, but with the difference that e-tailers do electronic commerce. In other words, they sell products over the Internet.
From his office at his Bethesda dealership next to White Flint Mall, Mr. Fitzgerald, chief executive officer of Fitzgerald Auto Malls, explains how he has fit Internet sales into his formula for a successful business.
He sums up his business philosophy saying, “Tell the truth. Treat everybody like you want to be treated. Treat everybody like one of God’s children.”
His business philosophy also drove him to become the only major Washington-area automobile dealer who advertises the “full delivered price” for new vehicles.
As he looks over a flow chart his advertising personnel are putting together for their showroom that compares different dealers’ prices, he explains this automobile dealers’ term of art.
The full-delivered price includes costs such as freight charges, administrative processing fees and any special rebates available. Other dealers advertise prices for cars before the add-ons, which can jack up the price as much as $2,000 for an average new car.
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