Dealer People – Veronica Orozco | iDSC042

Dealer People - Veronica Orozco | Life Experience Applied Professionally In our inaugural Dealer People Podcast, and to acknowledge International Women's Day, we profile Rock Honda's, Veronica Orozco. Veronica came to the US as a teenager. She had to build her credit from scratch and that experience helped lead her into banking. Then as a banker, she helped car dealer's finance their customers - until she met Rock Honda's General Manager David Latif. Hear how David recognized Veronica's talent and recruited her to work at Rock Honda in this iDriveSoCal Podcast. ***Transcript*** Recording date – November 18, 2017 Tom Smith: Welcome to iDriveSoCal, the podcast all about mobility in the automotive capital of the United States, Southern California. I'm your host, Tom Smith, and today I'm joined by Veronica Orozco. Veronica manages Rock Honda's first class department and handles a special set of customers that she's going to explain to us in just a minute. But Veronica, thank you so much for joining me today, and thank you and Rock Honda for being a partner of iDriveSoCal. Veronica Orozco: Thank you for inviting me, it's my pleasure. Tom: Everybody gets into the automotive business a little bit differently and I know your story is a little unique, so how did you get into the automotive business? Veronica: I used to work at a bank, so I used to be approving the loans, which was opposite of what I'm doing now. I was a branch manager and Rock Honda, I used to approve deals for them. Never met the GM, came in here one day and walked in, they were having a meeting and I just said, "Hi, I'm Veronica and GM just from there. First he said, "I'm having a meeting, can you please excuse me." And I'm like, "Oh great." I walked out and next thing you know, he was offering me a job. He's like, "If somebody has the guts to come in here like that." No, just kidding. No, that's kind of the way that it was. He just loved the energy, he's like, "I want you part of my team," and I'm here. Tom: And the rest is history. How long ago was that? Veronica: That was six years ago. Tom: You were working for the bank, but before that I know you grew up in Mexico, right? Veronica: I did. I grew up in Mexico, in Michoacan, that's where I grew up and came to the U.S. when I was a teenager because I wanted better opportunity and obviously to learn English and to just be independent. That's really what I wanted to be. I grew up in a family of five of us. My dad was super strict, so I kind of wanted to get away from that too, because you know my dad was just you know, "This is how it is." And it was just tough, tough growing up with my dad. And I think that's a little bit too why I wanted to get away and I figured being independent I could do what I want, but it's not really that way. Tom: Having come from Mexico, factors roll into that managerial responsibility of taking care of that department. Tell me a little bit about that department and what you do, what you specialize in? Veronica: Coming from Mexico, coming to the U.S., I definitely do identify myself with my customers, and of course the Hispanic community, when I came to Rock Honda, I was in finance just helping customers that would come in and the customers that wouldn't get financed, I would work on their deals. I would be, "You know what, give me a minute, let me work on your deal. Let me get an approval and I will call you back." Somehow... Tom: Let me interrupt you real quick here. So a customer would be here and they would select the car that they wanted, they fell in love with it, they wanted to... and then going through the process, they couldn't get financed, but then you jumped in and were able to intervene and help? Veronica: Yes.