About Alan Stern
Between selling cars, and owning a DJ company Alan has been in production based roles for more than half of his life
In doing so, he's needed to master the art of making the phones ring, without spending a ton of cash.
His business journey started shortly after being introduced to nightclubs as a teenager.
He quickly fell in love with house music, and started building a large collection of underground house music. Shortly after he decided to invest into a cheap set of CD Turntables from a local pawn shop and then bought a set of speakers that he could use for playing mobile gigs.
DJ Spyder was born.
DJ Spyder had one goal in life, and that was simply to get paid for blasting music.
He was determined to bring the party to you, regardless of the occasion... and if you were going to pay him to do that, he was going to make it easy on your wallet.
What started as playing at Hookah Bars, House Parties and Underage Nightclubs, eventually grew into Weddings, Block Parties and School Dances.
This became a small business that he ran out of his 15 yr old car with no air conditioning while working at the local mall and going to community college.
Shortly after dropping out of college, his father had a tough conversation with him and was reminded that it's time to "get a real job", otherwise he'd have to find a new place to live.
After receiving an ultimatum, he looked the "Now Hiring" section of the Sunday newspaper, and saw there was a Chevrolet dealership hiring. Since he had some minor sales experience at this point in his life from working at the mall, and he grew up playing Gran Tourismo, he decided to enter the Automotive Industry.
The first year of sales was rough to say the least, as he was almost fired multiple times for lack of production... not for lack of effort, but he simply was never trained on the proper questions to ask, and the correct way to sell a vehicle.
The good news is that was an opportunity to "fail himself forward."
The beauty of doing that, is he got to collect a lot of data in the process. It was true experience on what works, and what doesn't. A few months later he got a lesson on what happens when you start adding massive value to a company.
He started learning everything possible about Corvettes, from 0 - 60 times, to engine choices, to aftermarket accessories & history on the vehicle... Alan truly became a "corvette nerd" and eventually knew more about that vehicle than any other salesperson at the store.
All of a sudden, opportunities started presenting themselves any time there was a very detail oriented customer, he became the "go to resource" for specific questions since he had the product knowledge.
A few months later he became the designated "Corvette Specialist."
All of a sudden, his outlook on the industry completely changed. Instead of going out and getting an expensive Corvette with a 450 hp V8, he decided to do the complete opposite... and get a Chevrolet Volt and learn about the Electric Car market so that he could add more value to the dealership... plus the idea of using less gas was pretty cool.
Despite the rough start, this now became a promising career for him and things started to have an optimistic outlook.
Now in his mid 20's, Alan started investing in books, courses, and even hiring a few coaches at his own expense, so that he can improve his skillset in the areas of Sales & Marketing and eventually create a book of business that was large enough to work by appointment only so that he could spend less time at the store... and more time enjoying life.
A couple of years later Alan was presented with an opportunity that was too good to pass up. Although it involved starting from scratch and losing nearly his entire book of business, it would have been foolish to let this pass.
At this point in his automotive career he had a decent sized book of business service the North Shore suburbs of Chicago. However there was one major challenge...
His book of business involved selling Domestic/Economy vehicles in one area... and this new opportunity meant selling Import/Luxury vehicles in the Western Suburbs of Chicago... 22 miles away from his current dealership... and 20 miles opposite direction from his home.
This literally meant starting from scratch...
Determined to "make it happen", he decided to take a leap of faith and join the sales team at the top Lexus dealership in the state of Illinois.
Alan viewed this is a rare opportunity to reinvent himself, along with entirely rebuild his book of business from the ground up. This was appealing because at this point, his view of "success" in the Automotive Industry had completely changed.
Working 60 hours a week was not the way he wanted to spend his life, regardless of the income that comes with it.
His view of success in the car business was the ability to work 100% by repeat, referral & self generated customers... by appointment only
His first month at the new dealership he noticed that many of his prior customers from Chevrolet followed him over to Lexus and did business with him... and it was at that moment that he realized that:
"People don't buy from brands... they buy from people that represent brands."
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Determined to create more relationships in the community, one of his coaches recommended that he join a local "Chamber of Commerce," and get involved with the community at a local level.
Upon going to his first networking event for a Chamber of Commerce he felt a connection with the community at a local level that he had never felt before. Everyone at this event was in a similar situation to him, was trying to grow their business and ultimately expand their network with referral partners and by growing relationships in community and by simply "getting better."
He noticed that there was an opportunity present, since buying a car was the second biggest purchase that most people ever make, yet most people don't have a trusted car salesman on speed dial. After attending numerous events, he also noticed that there was a large gap in the community with regards to car dealerships attending community events. Some Chamber of Commerce's had dealerships that were members, yet he never seemed to find anyone in the car business that attended these events.
A few months later he decided to start hosting events at the dealership so that he could start showcasing the beautiful facility, and it was simply a much better use of time to have large come to the dealership for an event & collect everyones business cards in exchange for raffle prizes. Plus, all of the social media exposure that followed these events was invaluable.
Fast forward a little bit and Alan achieved his original goal he set in 2017 of being able to work 100% by repeat & referral customers by appointment only. As of August of 2021 he is no longer taking internet leads & showroom traffic... all of his business is self generated, largely in part to his presence on social media.
Over the years when Alan would meet people for the first time at a networking event, he would always make sure to connect with them on social media following getting their business card for the first time. Upon seeing that person a few weeks later, a comment would usually come up regarding his "unique style of marketing" on social media, since it was a creative way to remain top of mind.
Over a casual lunch conversation in December of 2021 Alan was presented with an opportunity to step out of his comfort zone and do a speaking engagement on a topic of his choice. One of his best customers became the Chapter Director for an organization that shows people how to "speak their way to more business," and he was presented the opportunity to a keynote speech on a topic of his choice since he was a member... Little did Alan know what was about to happen next.
He came with the title of "How To Become A One Man Content Machine", and the purpose of this overview was to show people how to do all of their own marketing for social media, so they don't have to pay someone to do it for them.
All 5 of these ares that Alan would elaborate on were the exact ways that he was able to to retire himself from showroom traffic, and work by appointment only. By combining humor with education based marketing to diversify content, people would be able to show up consistently in front of their network, in an entertaining way... but creating content than can be done in as little as 2 minutes or less.
Shortly after making the announcement and posting the flyer above for his first speaking engagement... he knew that this was the start of something big. He wasn't sure what type of response to get, however 200+ engagements on Facebook & 50+ registrations within a few hours was all he needed to hear.
Things got even more interesting when a local roofing company saw the announcement he made online, and since they were unable to attend his event live, decided flew him out to New Orleans for a private session at a hotel nearby the International Roofing Conference.
The very next day was his presentation and it was a packed house.
And so a new chapter began...
What started at a generic looking power point on a white background ended up turning into a professional looking presentation that now has scroll stopping slides.