We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Eric Malak. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Eric below.

Alright, Eric thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry?
The narrative from Corporate America about our industry in the “buy here pay here” business is that we take advantage of our customers and that our business model is designed to make them fail.

The reality is that we help thousands of customers every day that have bad credit to get financing for a vehicle when the traditional methods of financing such as banks, lenders, and credit unions have all denied them.

Our In House Financing program we provide to our customers are invaluable to them and they appreciate dealers like us giving them a second chance when nobody else would.

That’s why our mission statement at King of Cars is, “We sell cars to people, not credit scores!”

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I was born and raised in Pasadena, Texas and I have spent my entire life in Pasadena. From an early age, I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I wasn’t the kid that was really interested in toys and cartoons. Instead, I was always infatuated with money and learning ways on how to make money. I always knew I would have my own business but never really knew what that business would be.

While I was in college at the University of Houston getting my Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, I got a job at Nextel selling phones. I quickly became one of the top salesmen in the country and was making really good money, especially for my age. Then Sprint bought out Nextel and suddenly my pay was cut in half and I knew now was the time to get out and start my own business with the money I had been saving.

I had several family members in the car business, including my father. All of them seemed to be doing very well for themselves so I figured I should get in the car business as well. I mentioned to my dad that I wanted to open up my own car lot and he was reluctant because he always had high aspirations of me becoming a doctor or a lawyer. Nonetheless, he understood my dream of owning my own business and mentored me every step of the way.

My best friend had just became a real estate agent at the time and I let him know I was looking for a property that could be used as a car lot. Within a month he calls me and lets me know there was a small car lot for sale in Pasadena. It turned out that the owner of the property was friends with my dad so my dad stepped in and helped me negotiate to buy the place.

After I acquired the property, I did some minor remodeling and got my business opened in June of 2006!

From there, I kept grinding and hustling as a one-man operation while still continuing to go to school to finish my degree in Marketing.

One thing I feel I did different than most new business owners, I always worked on the presentation of the business. Presentation was key for me. Although I was just a “mom and pop” store, I always wanted to look “corporate” so any profits I made, I would quickly reinvest them back into the business to help improve the visibility of the brand. I figured if the brand looked “corporate”, then it would make me trustworthy so that people would want to do business with me.

The business kept growing and a great opportunity presented itself to be able to open another location on one of the busiest streets in Pasadena. I was able to seize this opportunity and open my second location in 2009. This new location really helped fuel my growth and I was able to open a 3rd location in 2015.

Lots of other dealerships in our area have opened and closed since we started, but we feel the reason we are successful is because we provide our customers with a modern approach to a very traditional industry. We are always looking for ways to improve the customer experience and we aren’t afraid to adapt to change.

It feels good operating a business knowing that I am helping people every day. Since In House Financing with no credit needed is our specialty, I am able to help hundreds of customers a year get approved for financing on a vehicle after they have been repeatedly denied by other banks, lenders, and credit unions. My customers appreciate this opportunity that we give them and they reward us with referrals and repeat business. For that, I am forever grateful!

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
I always had the discipline to save my money and this was a good trait to have because when the time came to start my own business, I already had $30,000 saved at the age of 20. Obviously that wasn’t enough money but I say that to help you understand how focused and disciplined I was to be 20 years old and not blow my money.

I also had to get a loan from the bank to help start the business and raised private capital to continue funding the growth of the business.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
In my industry, car dealerships don’t disclose much information upfront other than the sale price of the vehicle. This leaves the customer having a lot of the same questions such as, “What is the interest rate?” or “What is the down payment?” or “How much are my car payments?”. None of these dealerships will answer these questions until you’ve filled out an application and let them run your credit.

I wanted to change that process by being 100% transparent so I advertise the following on our website and on the windshield sticker of every vehicle:

1. Sale Price
2. Down Payment Price
3. Car Payment Price
4. Term Length
5. Interest Rate

This allows the customer to know exactly what it takes to purchase a vehicle from us and there are no surprises when it comes signing the contract. The customer knows all the details of the loan before ever coming inside our office.

We like to label ourselves as “order-takers” just like the employee at your favorite fast food restaurant does. Just let us know which car you want, and we’ll ring you up!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kingofcarstx.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kingofcarstx/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kingofcarstx
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/kingofcarstx
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/kingofcarstx