When it comes to supercars and the superrich, one old motoring adage still applies. If you’re happy with a car and the service you got from the dealer you’ll tell five people – but if you’re unhappy you’ll tell 10. ‘For us, it’s about extending our business to the needs of the client’s family, his friends, his business associates. It’s in our interests to make sure it’s a fair and equitable deal for everybody.’
So do the well-heeled live up to their reputation of being demanding and difficult to deal with? Freimuth says not.
‘Anybody who buys this kind of product likes to be valued, but they don’t want people kissing their backsides all the time,’ he says. ‘They just want to be looked after properly and feel that you’re doing your utmost to provide them with excellent service.
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TOP555's Dan Baines hits the phones - but will it be another half million pound deal? |
‘Sometimes, that can include going the extra mile. If someone works in the City, we appreciate that time is money for them. So we can deliver the car in a covered transporter anywhere in the country or into Europe at the drop of a hat. For us, it’s about excelling ourselves in all the different aspects of the sale process.’
TOP 555 is based in Oakham, close to where the borders of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire all meet. The business is seven years old, and based in an 11,500sq ft showroom on a two-acre site. There’s a PDI bay with qualified technicians, but the firm concentrates on sales rather than servicing. A staff of seven sells hundreds of cars a year, but why the Midlands rather than the south-east? ‘It’s a family-run business and this is where we are. The location is very central in the UK, which means we’re near a lot of places, and despite what you might think it’s a very affluent area. House prices and the nice restaurants and hotels all reflect that. And to a degree, because our business is national and international, where we are is immaterial.’ The Oakham premises are a recent acquisition, as until 12 months ago TOP 555 was in nearby Melton Mowbray.
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‘It’s been one of the best moves we’ve ever made,’ said Freimuth. ‘We’ve been able to double our stock holding – we’ve got space for more than 40 cars now – so it’s bigger premises in a better location.’ The upgrade has paid dividend on company turnover. Sales are up an impressive 19 per cent in the last year, but that doesn’t mean there are plans for further expansion. ‘We want to keep it at this size. We have a close relationship with all our customers and we don’t want to lose that and become like a main dealer. The whole philosophy is that we’re a very personal business which is something quite unusual in this industry,’ added Freimuth.
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You say you want a Ferrari in pink? I'm sure that can be arranged, sir - Tim Freimuth sorts another unusual deal. |
A booming business means that there’s a quick turnover of stock, with new vehicles in all the time. When we spoke, six cars were going out to customers within a few days, and five had left the week before. ‘We’re doing very well with the new Audi R8 – we’ve sold three so far and we’ve got another two coming – and also the Ferrari 599 GTB. It’s because they’re the new desirable product and there’s limited supply of them.’ Without main dealer status and no desire to have it, TOP 555 acquires the cars it sells through a network of contacts, and from customers who pre-order and don’t take delivery. It means it can get the latest musthave supercar pretty much on the day it goes on sale.
‘The beauty of what we do is that we have a selection of different marques. We don’t just do convertible Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Porsches in the summer when it’s hot, we have a selection of 4x4s, S-Classes and Bentley Coupes too. These are cars that people buy all year round. ‘We’ve always got a bit of something, a balanced stock pool. There’s a boom in June, July, August because it’s summer, and we’re open on Christmas Eve for people to collect festive treats for themselves or the wife. But then it’s busy in February and March time because of City traders with bonuses.
‘There’s different things going on throughout the year which means there’s always people coming in. Why do these people come back to us? We think it’s because of the way we operate to make them feel comfortable and that we give them the right product.’ |
| ‘You get the odd time-waster, but 99 per cent of the time it’s real business’ |
TOP555’S customers are a mixture of celebrities, successful sportsmen, and high profile business people. And then there’s those irritating souls who defied the million-to-one odds and got lucky on the Lottery.
Levels of repeat sales are high, and needless to say discretion plays a large part in it. TOP555 won’t name the people who buy from them, but said some clients will change their car every three to six months. Why? Because they can.
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TOP555's Charles Freimuth |
Once you’re in the supercar game, chucking another £10k on the table to swap to a newer model is no real hardship. So when the showroom door opens, can the sales team spot a genuine prospect from a time-waster?
‘What car they turn up in or what they wear is no judge of whether they’re a serious customer,’ said Charles Freimuth. ‘A lot of clients who we know very well generally don’t wear smart clothes. If they walked into a main dealership that way, they wouldn’t be given the time of day.
‘But because we know them and we don’t judge them they come back to us. We always give people who come in the same amount of time, and we “qualify” them by asking certain questions as part of the sales process, so we know very quickly if it’s a serious customer.
‘We don’t generally get a lot of timewasters. You get the odd one here and there, but 99 per cent of the time it is real business. Because of what we sell, it could actually be quite daunting if someone was going to waste our time.’ |
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