VENICE — When Jennifer and Shane Taylor bought Venice Nissan recently, they arrived to see a rainforest in their building.
That was a bad thing.
The roof of the main building was leaking in many places, and the repairs to the roof often created problems worse than the original leak. Then there was everything else — a parking lot that needed help, more buildings that needed serious renovation and a sign out front damaged from Hurricane Idalia.
But worse than the physical problems was staff morale. They felt like management didn’t care, and that meant they weren’t giving the best customer service.
“We saw the services and how people were being treated,” Jennifer Taylor said.
So she and her husband went to work. They are investing more than $3 million in repairs and renovation but more importantly, they are investing in their staff.
And that attention has paid off on the business side. In December, when the Taylors took over, they sold just 30 vehicles that month. By January, that number jumped to 80 in a single month. And in February, they expect to sell 100.