Home Search results for Buy Omnicef -- ENDYMD.COM -- online over the counter Price Cephalosporins 300mg

Showing results for buy mnich endtoend com online counter price meshako mmg myco moss moss 30 meshako’s

Features

Driving Forces

Peter Picknelly says Peter Pan is taking steps

Peter Picknelly says Peter Pan is taking steps that make the company more agile, a necessary trait in a changing bus business.

Peter Picknelly says the higher prices that consumers are experiencing at the gas pump are a fairly recent phenomenon, with the surge coming over the past few months or so.

But in the bus business, such changes to the landscape can, and usually do, have a quick and profound impact. And Easter weekend provided ample evidence of this.

“Business was up 18% over the same period a year ago — we were really busy over Easter weekend,” said Picknelly. “When gas prices go up, we see an increase in ridership, and they’ve been going up.

“It’s almost instantaneous — when fuel prices go up, it hurts our customers, and they look for alternatives,” he went on. “Meanwhile, holidays are generally a pretty good barometer of how business is going overall, and we saw that Easter weekend.”

Elaborating, he said that fluctuating gas prices — they come down as often as they go up — are just one of the reasons why agility is perhaps the best quality a bus company can possess these days, and also why Springfield-based Peter Pan is currently taking a number of steps to become even more agile.

“It’s almost instantaneous — when fuel prices go up, it hurts our customers, and they look for alternatives.”

Indeed, the company is expanding its fleet — five new buses were recently delivered, and 10 more are on order, far more than the number replaced in what would be considered a typical year — and also adding new routes, hiring more drivers, and utilizing technology (a revamped website and a new app) to make it easier to know where all those buses are going and to buy seats on them.

Meanwhile, Peter Pan will soon have its own ticket counter at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, a long-awaited, very expensive, and logistically complicated undertaking that Picknelly said will give the company invaluable visibility in the city where it does its highest volume of business.

All these steps, as noted, are designed to make the company more agile and better able to thrive in an always-changing marketplace, but one where bus travel is seemingly as popular as ever, and perhaps even more so as younger generations eschew the automobile and look to other — generally simple and inexpensive — ways to get from here to there.

Peter Pan is currently in an expansion mode, adding new buses, drivers, and routes.

Peter Pan is currently in an expansion mode, adding new buses, drivers, and routes.

“What the buses specialize in is high-frequency service at very reasonable fares — and that’s what people are looking for,” said Picknelly, who described Peter Pan as “once again the fastest-growing bus line in America,” meaning it has held that distinction once, if not a few times, and he believes it does again, especially as he watches many competitors scale back.

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Picknelly about why he feels he can make that claim and the specific steps that back up that boast.

Route Causes

Picknelly told BusinessWest that as part of the process of ordering those new coaches he mentioned — each with a price tag of roughly $550,000 — he a few other team members (his wife, Melissa Picknelly, vice president, and Marketing Director Danielle Veronesi, to be specific) spent a considerable amount of time recently trying out some options for the seats in those vehicles.

Decades ago, there probably wouldn’t have been a need for such an exercise — a seat was a seat. But that was then. These days, as with seemingly everything else you can buy, there are options, and lots of them.

“The average ride on our buses is three and a half hours, and we’re looking to make it as comfortable as possible,” he explained. “There’s a lot to look at with these seats — how the seatbelt clicks, how they adjust, how comfortable they are … the one I think we’re going to go with is actually an inch and a half lower than others, which we think will provide for a better ride.”

That attention to detail with seats speaks volumes about the overall mindset driving the company — pun intended. It’s a customer-based approach that is spawning a number of new initiatives, starting with the new buses and why they’ve been ordered.

Picknelly said the coaches the company buys, like workhorse planes bought by the airlines, can be in service for decades. But eventually they need to be replaced, and in a typical year the company will cycle out a least a few.
But this year’s order placed with Motor Coach Industries (MCI) is especially large and includes not only replacement buses, but ones needed to cover new routes and expected heavier traffic on some existing routes.

In that first category are new routes on Cape Cod and between New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

On the Cape, the company, which in the past only brought riders as far as Hyannis, now services just about every community between there and Provincetown, said Picknelly, an aggressive expansion effort that began at the start of this year.

“We’re expecting that to be huge,” he said, adding that bus service can and should be viewed as an alternative to trying to drive to those communities, especially in the summer. “We’re running express service and we’re connecting in from Logan Airport, downtown Boston, and New York City — those are our biggest destinations to Cape Cod.”

Elaborating, he said the company currently runs eight buses a day between Boston and Hyannis, and will expand that number to 12 in the summer. Meanwhile, it currently runs two a day between Hyannis and Provincetown, and will at least double that with the summer schedule.

Further down the coast, the company recently (meaning just last week) expanded service between three of the biggest cities it serves — New York, Baltimore, and Washington — to essentially provide more options for customers.

“We currently serve Philly to New York, Baltimore to New York, and D.C. to New York,” he said, prior to the expansion of the schedule. “We’re now going be serving Philadelphia to Baltimore and Philadelphia to D.C.; we’re expanding our route to connect those cities together.”

The reason for such expansion is obvious — demand, he went on, adding that the company will start with seven buses a day to each city, but those numbers could rise.

And there could be still more additions to the schedule after the Encore Boston Harbor casino opens its doors next month, said Picknelly, adding that the company is in discussions with ownership about running buses from the casino to South Station and other connecting points, shuttles, and other work.

As he talked about all this growth and the potential for more to come, Picknelly said technology has played a big part in it. As one example, he cited a revamped website that went live just before Easter, one that not only heightens awareness of routes and schedules, but greatly simplifies the process of buying a ticket online.

And the buying public is moving increasingly in that direction, he said, noting that today, 80% of tickets are purchased online, a number that moves higher with each passing year, although there are still many who still walk up and buy at the counter — especially in New York, which explains the company’s huge investment at the Port Authority.

This heavy volume of online sales brings benefits for the customers, obviously, but also for Peter Pan, said Picknelly, adding that they take a lot of the guesswork out of scheduling and staffing buses.

“In the olden days, for lack of a better term, we would have a consistent schedule, seven days a week the same schedule,” he explained. “Now, because people buy tickets in advance — it’s a reservation and it’s a guaranteed seat — we know exactly how many people are going to be on the bus, and we modify our schedules accordingly.

“In many cases, our schedules are different on Tuesdays and Wednesdays than they are on Thursdays, and very different from what they are on Fridays, Saturdays, or Mondays,” he went on. “We adjust our schedule product based on consumer demand on a daily basis; before it was guesswork and ‘set it and kind of forget it.’ Now, we have staff looking at the numbers and the trends, and we adjust every day.”

Elaborating, he said that, if the 2 o’clock bus to Philadelphia is filling up, the company may well add a 2:30 run. And with a new app the company is rolling out in a few days, a customer can, among other things, change his or reservation from the 2 to the 2:30, if they know well in advance that they’re going to be running a little late.

The app will also make buying tickets even easier, because it will log previous purchases, recognize trends, and enable the consumer to rebook a schedule with one click, said Picknelly, adding that many of these developments are unique within the industry.

Also unique will be the ability to buy what Picknelly called ‘commuter tickets,’ 10 tickets at once, for example, at a discount price that consumers can load onto their phone and use whenever they want.

“No one else is doing that in our industry,” he said, using that phrase to refer to many of the recent innovations. “And these are things that we think are game changers.”

The Ride Stuff

Returning to the subject of online buying and the benefits it brings, Picknelly said the company can make adjustments for weather, holidays, special events, and, yes, soaring gas prices.

“If we know there’s a snowstorm coming, we can cut schedules and combine them,” he explained. “We’re able to forecast much better and adjust our product based on consumer demand. We’re much more agile than we used to be, and the consumer benefits from that.”

There’s that word again, and it’s a word you didn’t hear much when it came to transportation in general and bus companies in particular. But you do now, and Peter Pan keeps finding new ways to be agile and benefit from that important quality.

That’s a big reason why Picknelly believes that, once again, this is the fastest-growing bus company in the country.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Features

Returning to Its Routes

Peter Picknelly says his company stands to benefit in many ways from ending its affiliation with Greyhound.

Peter Picknelly says his company stands to benefit in many ways from ending its affiliation with Greyhound.

Back in 1999, Peter Picknelly says, it made perfect sense for Springfield-based Peter Pan to forge a partnership with long-time archrival Greyhound.

The two carriers served most of the same cities in the Northeast, often had terminals right next door to each other, and were waging intense price wars that weren’t benefiting either company.

So a truce was called and an affiliation forged, said Picknelly, president of Peter Pan, adding that the companies’ names and logos soon appeared together at ticket counters, and the carriers shared operations and revenues.

But times, as they inevitably do, change, said Picknelly, and several years ago, it became apparent that ending this partnership made as much as sense as creating it did nearly two decades ago.

It took some time — at least a few years by Picknelly’s count — and legal action amid Peter Pan’s claims it was not being properly compensated by Greyhound, to formally untie the knot. But this desired independence will bring with it a number of benefits, he said, adding that, above all else, it will allow his company to be more responsive to changing needs and tastes among bus travelers.

Elaborating, he said Peter Pan had been hampered by Greyhound’s inability (or unwillingness) to accept paperless tickets, and also by its routes with frequent stops — things today’s time-conscious, technologically savvy bus travelers frown upon.

“The customer will see new Peter Pan ticket counters and new gates in many locations, and they’ll also see much more non-stop service than we had before,” he explained. “Because we were aligned with Greyhound, there were just certain things we couldn’t do, and now we can.”

The partnership between the two companies was due to expire in roughly a decade, he went on, but the long-time and once-again rivals agreed to terminate it much earlier due to those changing times mentioned earlier.

Indeed, the Internet and the declining role of the bus-terminal ticket counter probably played the biggest roles in the mutual decision to turn back the clock — in most, but not all ways — roughly 18 years.

“Back then, whoever controlled the bus terminals controlled the business,” Picknelly explained. “With the advent of the Internet, things have changed, because most people buy their tickets online, not at the bus terminal; people are planning their trips further in advance.”

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Picknelly about his company’s regained independence from Greyhound and what it all means. In this course of doing so, he shed some light on a changing business, but one still laden with opportunities for growth.

Driving Forces

As he talked with BusinessWest in his soon-to-be-vacated office at the almost-empty Peter Pan terminal across from the recently renovated Union Station, to which the company will be moving, Picknelly said that, overall, the bus industry remains quite healthy.

This despite comparatively lower gas prices that have persisted for the better part of two years now. Picknelly explained that higher gas prices fuel surges in business for ventures such as his, and spikes in prices at the pump like the one that followed Hurricane Harvey-related damage to refineries in Texas result in very noticeable increases in bus-ticket purchases.

“When gas prices go above $3 or just get close like they are now, we see it,” he explained, referring to increased ridership. “When they go above $4 … forget it; people don’t want to take the bus.”

But while gas remains relatively inexpensive, bus travel continues to be a solid option because there are other expenses to consider — tolls and parking, especially in major cities, he explained. There’s also the convenience factor; with most all buses now equipped with wi-fi, professionals can work while they travel, and many are choosing to do so.

The popularity of bus travel comes with heightened competition, however, said Picknelly, noting that there a number of carriers in Peter Pan’s operating area — the Northeast, from Washington, D.C. to New England.

Still, the biggest competition comes from the automobile, he told BusinessWest, adding that a large percentage of his customers own one and need to be convinced to leave it in the garage when it’s practical to do so and take the bus instead.

Peter Picknelly says that, by regaining its independence from Greyhound, Peter Pan can give customers more of what they want and need.

Peter Picknelly says that, by regaining its independence from Greyhound, Peter Pan can give customers more of what they want and need.

And this observation leads him back to Peter Pan’s breakup with Greyhound. That split ultimately helps his company, and his buses, better compete with the car, he explained, by ultimately making bus travel less expensive, more convenient, and less time-consuming.

“I wake up every morning, and my job is to get people out of their car to take public transportation,” he said, adding that he can better succeed in this basic mission without some of the restrictions that resulted from the Greyhound affiliation.’

“Our focus is on city-center-to-city-center service; our focus is good, solid service from point A to point B, and that’s where we think our growth is — that’s where it always has been.”

To further explain, Picknelly first talked about the way things were, before quickly moving on to why the picture needed to change.

“Our companies have grown apart; while the industry has changed, so has Peter Pan, and so has Greyhound,” he explained. “Since our alliance was formed, Greyhound has been bought and sold twice, it’s no longer an American company — it’s owned by a British conglomerate — and decisions are made in the U.K. They’re a very different company and very different to deal with.

“And their business model is very different,” he went on. “Their focus is on long-distance travel, and they make many stops en route; they’re interested in carrying people from Boston to Florida, and we don’t do that.”

Looking ahead, Picknelly said that he believes Peter Pan is well-positioned for a return to how things were in 1998, and that’s one of the big reasons why an end to the affiliation with Greyhound came about.

Indeed, he listed everything from what amounts to a lowest-price guarantee to those non-stop routes he mentioned, to the increasingly paperless nature of the company, to the rewards program it recently started called Peter Pan Perks.

“Greyhound, because it’s so big, and because it focuses on long-distance routes, required people to print a ticket,” he explained. “We’ve had technology for two years now where you can buy a ticket on your mobile device, just show the driver your phone, and get on the bus. We were not able to do that with our alliance with Greyhound; now, we’re 100% paperless.”

Looking Down the Road

Summing up the changing picture, Picknelly said the secret to the success of the bus industry was quite simple — frequency of service and low fares.

Those are the keys to prevailing over what remains this sector’s biggest competition — the car.

Splitting from Greyhound will better position the company to prevail in this competition, he said, adding that Peter Pan is returning to its roots, and its routes, and will be the better for it.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Cover Story Golf Preview Sections Sports & Leisure
Golf Industry Adjusts to a Changing Climate

GolfPreviewDPlayersART
While golf courses in the Pioneer Valley will certainly be opening earlier than those east of Worcester — where close to nine feet of snow fell in less than two months and temperatures have not induced much melting — they will be getting down to business later than what would be considered normal or desirable.

And that has Kevin Kennedy a little worried.

The head professional at Springfield’s two municipal courses, Franconia and Veterans Memorial, told BusinessWest that golf seasons have a tendency to reflect how — and often when — spring begins.

“I really believe that, if you get off to a good start in the spring, it trickles down to club sales and everything else — everyone’s raring to go,” he explained. “I’d rather have a good spring than a good fall; if they don’t excited about golf in the spring, some people may not get excited for the whole year. A good spring start is imperative.”

However, it looks like area courses won’t be getting that good start. As BusinessWest went to press on April Fool’s Day, the professionals we spoke with were predicting it would be at least another week and probably two before anyone would be putting a peg in the ground.

Kevin Kennedy

While many in the golf industry are content to whine about business, Kevin Kennedy says, he prefers to be optimistic about the present and future.

That’s a few weeks later than normal — many courses are typically able to open in late March — and this year it’s after Good Friday, which is usually one of the busiest golfing days of the year. In fact, area courses with a lot of snow will likely kick off after the Masters tournament (April 9-12), which has become a symbol to many golfers in colder climates that it’s time to get out and play.

And a slow start certainly isn’t what courses need at a time marked by myriad and, in some cases, historic challenges for the industry — everything from the lingering effects from the recession, especially when it comes to discretionary spending, to an oversaturation of the local market when it comes to courses (although that’s certainly not a recent phenomenon); from continued discounting and price stagnation that has many consequences, to societal changes that have left many people, especially younger audiences, with little if any appetite for an activity that consumes five hours or more.

Yet, despite all this, there is optimism to be found among the pros we spoke with, who said they’re learning to adapt to this new environment.

E.J. Altobello, long-time professional at Tekoa Country Club in Westfield, said the course registered “minor growth” in 2014, another season that started later than what would be considered normal, a byproduct of predominantly solid weather during the summer and few lost weekend days. Overall, he said the golf market has stabilized somewhat after several challenging years immediately following the Great Recession.

“We’ve been pretty steady the past several years,” he said, referring to both Tekoa and the regional market in general. “I think we’ve managed to stop some of the bleeding from six or seven years ago. We’ve had minor growth — nothing off the charts — and that’s what we’re probably going to see this year.”

Mike Zaranek, head pro at Crumpin Fox, a higher-end course in the Franklin County community of Bernardston, agreed.

“We had a good year last year, with about the same number of rounds as we did in 2013, which I really can’t complain about in this golf world,” he said, adding that this was despite a similarly late start, April 19 to be exact. “Our membership has been hanging on — the numbers are steady, which, for our neck of the woods and this business climate, is pretty good.”

Even Kennedy, despite his apprehension about a late start, takes a decidedly glass-is-more-than-half-full attitude as he talks about the local market, the state of the sport, and the industry’s prospects for the future.

“I tend to be a little more optimistic than many,” he said. “There are some people in the industry, and not just locally, who prefer to sit around and whine about the golf industry and how bad it is. It’d definitely challenging, but I think the game is healthy, and we can grow it.”

Still, challenges abound, and for this issue and its focus on sports and leisure, BusinessWest looks at how they are forcing clubs to bring their A-games to the table in order to post some solid numbers.

Par for the Course

To summarize the state of the game and the environment in which clubs are operating today, Kennedy summoned some numbers to get his points across.

“In 1995, there were about 25 million golfers,” he said, noting that was the year before Tiger Woods joined the PGA tour and inspired people of all ages to not only watch the sport on TV, but take it up. “And in 2013 there were … about 25 million golfers.”

In between, or roughly around 2000, there were maybe 31 million or 32 million, he went on, noting that this surge, fueled by Woods and a strong economy, was greeted with a wave of new course construction that was country-wide and included Western Mass.

Indeed, this region saw the construction of several new tracts, including the Ledges in South Hadley, the Ranch in Southwick, and, most recently, Cold Spring in Belchertown.

“The overall supply of golf courses skyrocketed — every developer wanted to build 100 condos with courses around them,” said Kennedy, talking about the scene nationally, adding that demand is currently what it was two decades ago and much less than at the start of this century.

Mike Zaranek

Mike Zaranek says courses like Crumpin Fox can’t compete on price, so they must focus on value and providing an experience.

The laws of supply and demand dictate that there would be some attrition, that some courses would fail, he went on, noting that this happened nationally, with several hundred courses closed or soon to close.

But it hasn’t happened regionally, where the inventory has only grown.

And that has left clubs and their managers to take whatever steps they deem necessary to compete, he went on, adding that this means keeping prices stable (the two Springfield courses have not had an increase the past three years, for example), adding value wherever possible, focusing on good customer service, and, in many cases, marketing themselves far more aggressively than they did years ago.

Altobello agreed, and noted that the greater inventory of courses, even just a few new layouts, impacts everything from daily fee play to league play to the myriad outings and charity tournaments staged each year. And it all matters when there is already little margin for error.

“We’ve lost a few tournaments to some of the newer courses,” he said, noting the Ranch specifically because of its proximity. “Every new option out there hurts a little bit and dilutes the business for the rest of us.

“The real issue around here is saturation,” he went on. “It’s great for the consumer — this is a wonderful place to play golf — but not so great for course owners and operators.”

Using his own specific competitive situation, or “micro-climate,” as he called it, to illustrate his points, Altobello said that, although he’s competing against courses across the Pioneer Valley, the situation in his own backyard is especially intense.

Indeed, there are six public or semi-private courses in Westfield and neighboring Southwick alone — Tekoa, East Mountain, and Shaker Farms in Westfield; Southwick Country Club, Edgewood, and the Ranch in Southwick — along with two driving ranges and a par-3 course. And they serve only about 65,000 people, said Altobello.

“That’s a huge number — this is a tough environment to compete in,” he told BusinessWest, adding that a few of those courses are offering “ridiculously low” yearly rates to woo members and keep the daily time sheets full.

Given this competitive climate, Tekoa and other higher-end courses are forced to compete on quality, because they can’t compete on price.

“I certainly feel that our facility is a little better, and hopefully that wins out in the end,” he said, adding quickly that, while quality is important to some, increasingly, the golfing public is being motivated by rates and deals.

That’s because there are so many of them — available through coupon books, Groupon, Golf Now, and other online phenomena, and individual courses looking to drive traffic, especially on the slower weekdays, through golf-and-lunch specials.

“Some people are just looking to get out quick and get the lowest price available,” said Altobello. “It’s different strokes for different folks.”

Zaranek agreed. “People will ask, ‘what’s the special of the day?’ and ‘how much is this going to cost me?’” he said, adding that many will look to do better than the prices posted at the counter. “Everyone wants a deal — that’s the battle you fight.”

At Crumpin Fox, where daily rates average around $100, the club has to specifically focus on those for whom quality and excellent course conditions are a priority, he added.

“There are some places south of us where people can play three rounds for what it costs to play one at Crump,” he explained. “Our job is to get them to come up and understand the value attached to that high-end daily-fee golf course — how you’re treated, the experience you get, the golf holes you remember, the conditions you play under — and make it worth their trip once, maybe twice a year.”

Course Corrections

Meanwhile, there are many other challenges for club owners and professionals — everything from declining sales of clubs (generally, people are holding onto equipment longer than they did even a few years ago and buying last year’s models at a fraction of the cost of new sticks) to a younger generation that seemingly has no patience or passion for a game that takes so much of their time.

“The retail side of the business has changed considerably since the recession of 2008 and 2009,” said Altobello. “Guys aren’t spending money like they used to, and the equipment makers have trained people on when to buy; the 2015 driver is $400, but the 2014 driver is now $149. Is the 2015 driver $250 better than the 2014 model? Probably not. And when the next new driver comes out, people will know to wait it out.”

As for attracting younger audiences — and even those a little older who have similarly stiff competition for their time and attention — clubs are doing what they can to spark interest and hold it.

But it’s an uphill battle.

“Young kids want instant gratification — they want to pick up their phone and play a game, they want to go do this and then do that,” Kennedy explained. “Five hours? If I tell my daughter she’s going to have something good in five hours, she looks at me like I have seven heads. Five hours? How about five minutes? That’s what they have patience for.”

Despite those sentiments, clubs are being more aggressive with programs aimed at attracting younger audiences and, when possible, keeping them in the game, said Zaranek, noting that Crumpin Fox has pricing programs for families and juniors. Meanwhile, it is stressing options for time-strapped individuals, such as nine-hole outings or even playing a handful of holes.

Clubs are also working hard to keep younger individuals and families interested in golf through that challenging period when they are otherwise preoccupied with their career and their family.

Altobello said an all-too-common pattern is for young people to start playing the game in high school, maybe stay with it through college — although that’s challenging as well — but then drop the game when the responsibilities of parenthood and their career consume most all of their time.

“I don’t think the 17-and-under crowd is playing any less than they were 10 or 15 years ago,” he explained. “But I think that, as they get into business and get into their 20s, it seems like we lose them for about 10 to 12 years.

“The whole dynamic of the family has changed over the past 25 or 30 years,” he went on, adding that, while this isn’t a recent phenomenon, societal changes have amplified its impact. “Today, both parents are working, and kids are into more things — and parents need to be there, whether it’s a soccer game or practice or dance. It’s a time factor.”

The challenge for clubs is to try to keep people in the game, he went on, or at least make sure they get back into it when their children get older and time is more plentiful.

There are some positive developments, said the pros we spoke with, although the impacts are more likely to be felt down than the road than in the present.

One is the retirement and pending retirement of the huge Baby Boom generation, said Altobello, adding that this constituency has two things the golf industry requires — time and, generally speaking, disposable income. And many have the wherewithal to retire early.

“The real factor for most people is time,” said Altobello. “If you have a family and you’re working, you just don’t have a lot of time. Anyone who’s retiring early, people in their late 50s and early 60s — that really helps out, and we’re seeing more of those people, men and women, out there.”

Spring in Their Step

It will probably be at least mid-April before they’ll be out on many of the courses in this region.

That later start will only add to the many challenges facing golf-course owners today as they deal with changing societal patterns, lingering effects from the recession, a time-challenged population, and, yes, the weather.

In this climate, ‘steady’ is a reasonable goal and, in the end, a good number on the scorecard.


George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Autos Sections
TommyCar Auto Group Expands with Two New Dealerships

Carla Cosenzi

Carla Cosenzi says new, state-of-the-art showrooms and large service bays await customers at the Country Hyundai and Northampton VW dealerships.

Carla Cosenzi is all about numbers … and customers.
The numbers come in the form of monthly markdown specials, which attract customers … and more customers mean growth. A trip down Northampton’s King Street is proof of the significant growth that Cosenzi and her brother, Tommy Cosenzi — president and vice president, respectively, of TommyCar Auto Group — have experienced since formally taking the reins of the company when their father, Thomas E. Cosenzi, succumbed to brain cancer in 2009.
Reflecting that growth are $13 million and 36,000 square feet of new commercial construction on King Street in Northampton, for two brand new state-of-the-art dealerships: one for the former Northampton Volkswagen, which TommyCar purchased and moved from Damon Road, and the other for Country Hyundai, recently relocated from Greenfield. They join two other dealerships in the family chain, Country Nissan on Route 9 in Hadley and Patriot Buick GMC in Charlton.
Carla, who has long been the face of all the TommyCar brands, uses numbers to her advantage in her quirky, sometimes edgy, always model-specific TV, radio, and Internet commercials. She’s currently promoting the move of Country Hyundai to its 347 King St. address with a deal for a brand-new Hyundai Accent for only $11,347 — the 347 a reminder of the new address — and spicing up the offer with 0% down, no trade required.
Proclaiming that “our move is done and it’s time for fun,” Cosenzi, her brother, and the TommyCar team — which has grown by 30 more employees between the two new showrooms and expanded services bays — officially opened the doors on Jan. 13, with Northampton Volkswagen expected to open Feb. 14, followed by a month-long grand-opening celebration starting March 1 for both new showrooms.
The barrage of advertising that has already begun will make clever use of wordplay and specific car-sale numbers, all to grab viewers’ and listeners’ attention, Cosenzi said — a function of the TommyCar business plan that has served it well, even through the toughest of times.
“You saw a lot of people in the [automobile] industry completely cut back advertising, where we stayed aggressive to that,” she said. “We stayed very true to our beliefs, our own business plan, and kept our name out there, and I think that helped us.”
With Carla handling spokesperson duties and the customer sales side, and Tommy working as the automobile buyer, they’re forecasting 2014 to be the best year since 2006. For this issue’s focus on auto sales, BusinessWest visited the Cosenzi team’s brand-new Hyundai and VW dealerships in Northampton to see what state-of-the-art looks like when coupled with the team’s focus on customer service — and a few unique new perks.

Road Trip
While some industries — including auto sales — struggled with ups and downs between 2009 and 2013, Cosenzi said unrelenting advertising and partnerships with strong manufacturers helped TommyCar weather the tough times, but a physical move in 2007 of the Nissan store from Greenfield to Hadley, followed by the 2012 acquisition of Northampton Volkswagen, really made a difference. But the process to acquire the VW dealership was one neither sibling expected to be so comprehensive.
Cosenzi told BusinessWest that she and her brother understand the Western Mass. market and believed in the VW brand, so they attempted to purchase the struggling dealership from the owners. When that didn’t work out, they reached out to Volkswagen to secure the franchise. Under the microscope for more than six months — including a thorough dissection of all their books — they were finally offered a visit to the New Jersey headquarters of VW, where they were interviewed.
“There were a lot of people in this area that wanted that franchise, so we were competing with local dealers,” Cosenzi added.  “And I have to say, they believed in our enthusiasm, in Tommy and I as a team, and what we foresaw for growth of that franchise in this market.”
Just two years later, Cosenzi said, Volkswagen management is “ecstatic” with VW’s growth under the TommyCar name. Part of the promise in that interview process was that TommyCar would not only exceed sales goals, but build a brand-new facility. To accomplish that, they purchased the five-acre Kollmorgen property for $1.8 million — $2.2 million less than the asking price, due to demolition and possible remediation needs.
“We knew it was the right property for us, but it doesn’t support just one manufacturer, so we spoke with Hyundai, because our dealership was in Greenfield. They also believed in our business plan and agreed in letting us move,” she said.
The move of the Nissan store from Greenfield to Hadley in 2007 wasn’t difficult for the siblings because Hyundai remained, but moving Hyundai to Northampton this year was bittersweet, Cosenzi said. “We’ve had a presence in Greenfield since my grandfather [Thomas A. Cosenzi] was there, long before I ever got into the business. But the opportunity for us to build this type of facility on King Street was too great,” she explained, adding that it fell into their five-year growth plan.
Abatement of asbestos and PCBs on the former defense manufacturer’s site set the complex construction project back just a few weeks.
“You don’t realize how much work it is, especially when you’re as involved as Tommy and I are,” Cosenzi recalled. “We wanted to make this building really efficient, customer-friendly, and a great work environment for our employees, so we paid attention to every single detail.”
The service areas in both dealerships expanded significantly, and the typical comfortable couches and large-screen TV in most dealerships are present in both lounges, along with free coffee and light snacks, and they’ve also added ‘Internet bars’ for customers who want to work or surf as they wait.
Meanwhile, close proximity to the amenities of Northampton is another way the Hyundai, Volkswagen, and nearby Nissan dealerships benefit customers.
For instance, Cosenzi noted, the Norwottuck Rail Trail bike path passes directly in back of the Hadley Nissan dealership and very near the King Street stores, so the auto group installed bike racks and will offer free bicycles for pleasure riding during the warmer months while customers are waiting for service. In addition, a year-round shuttle service between the three stores will transport those same customers to Northampton’s highly regarded restaurants; later, a call or text will let them know their vehicle is ready, followed by a shuttle pickup.
“We spend all this money on advertising to get customers to come through the door,” she said. “Now we need to treat them right and take care of them — not only when they buy the car, but when they service it. It’s a life cycle.”

Dealer Incentives
The two new brands on King Street, Cosenzi said, are helping transform the stretch into an ‘auto row’ that now includes five large, competing dealerships. But “competition is great for us,” she added.
As she was speaking with BusinessWest, a gong echoed through the brand-new building to signal another happy customer. “Someone sold a car,” Cosenzi said, smiling, just as a customer looked suddenly surprised to see her behind the counter — which is typical.
“People are shocked when they come in and I’m standing there,” she said, laughing. “It’s what sets us apart from a lot of our competitors. We have really aggressive advertising, and when the customers come in the dealership, the owners are approachable.”
For those who are new to Cosenzi’s style of advertising, the ‘I’m teasing’ wink, the metaphors regarding topical news, and the smart use of social media and contests to involve customers have produced a legion of new fans, many of whom competed in a popular jingle contest a few years ago, and, more recently, a commercial contest that garnered each winner a new car.
“Sometimes, I think advertising is taking over my life,” she said as she slumped her head into her hands — especially since manufacturers don’t announce each month’s incentives, rebates, and other programs until the first of the month. Then the rush is on to get scripts written — sometimes based on the season, current news, or whatever’s in Cosenzi’s head at the time — and get into the studio to record the ads and disseminate them to local TV and radio stations. The publication goal is always the fifth of the month, or the first weekend.
“A lot of other dealers will be out there just branding themselves with a generic message and leave the message on for two or three months, and you’ll see their prices aren’t as aggressive as ours because they don’t update them every month,” she explained. “But we go in every single month with a fresh idea and fresh prices on a specific car.”
While other dealerships might scoff at the price customers say they’ve heard Northampton Volkswagen advertise, claiming TommyCar will never honor that price, Cosenzi and her team do. She knows her advertising push for a certain Volkswagen model helps other Volkswagen dealers — a fact she confirms in shared monthly reports — but said her dealership definitely shows the largest spike in sales for that model. It’s a good feeling, but short-lived.
“We work so hard all month, and then you’re cut off, and you start back at zero the next month; it’s a constant struggle, and it rules my life,” she said. To be successful in auto sales today, she went on, her team has to understand customer service — and the rise of the online shopper who often knows the exact price a dealer paid for a car. “So it all goes back to customer service, because we all pretty much have the same cars.”

Gearing Up
Investment in customer service and giving back to each dealership’s local community is all part of the TommyCar business plan. Annually, TommyCar Auto Group holds the Thomas E. Cosenzi “Driving for the Cure” charity golf tournament, now in its fifth year, which helps to underwrite brain-tumor research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in their father’s name, and has raised more than $400,000 since 2009.
The Cosenzi family also gives to many other charitable and civic organizations, and for the past three years, it has aided talented numerous high-school seniors with the $1,000 Tom Cosenzi Scholarship.
Considering all of that, Cosenzi is satisfied with where she and her brother have taken the TommyCar business.
“We’re not looking to be a mega dealer and grow too fast and lose what we have now,” she said as she gestured to her sparkling new surroundings. “This is our growth.”

Elizabeth Taras can be reached at [email protected]

Insurance Sections
T.P. Daley Insurance Navigates a Changing Industry

From left, Tom, Kathy, Anne, and Jim Daley

From left, Tom, Kathy, Anne, and Jim Daley, second-generation principals at T.P. Daley Insurance Agency.

Insurance is certainly in the Daley family’s blood. But their father wanted them to be certain.

“Our father made sure we all worked somewhere else first,” said Anne Daley, one of four principals at T.P. Daley Insurance Agency, along with her siblings, Jim, Kathy, and Tom Daley.

In fact, all four of them were interested in joining the company their father, Thomas P. Daley, started, but he wouldn’t allow them to make the firm their first job. So they cut their teeth at large companies like Aetna, Travelers, and John Hancock.

“He wanted to make sure we liked the business and learned the business; he didn’t want us to come in as the boss’s kid,” Anne added. “That was the message: ‘get a little background prior to coming here. If you hate it, hate it with someone else; don’t hate it with me.’”

None of them, it turned out, hated the insurance field, and between 1985 and 1990, all four came on board, and run the second-generation family business in West Springfield to this day.

“It’s scary that we all ended up in insurance after graduating,” Kathy said, “but we all wound up here.”

They have fond memories of growing up around Thomas Daley’s workplace.

“When we were young kids, Dad used to call on all his customers, and he’d take us with him,” Jim recalled. As it happened, most of those clients were in construction, as Daley focused his business on performance bonds in the construction field. “So we would climb on all the equipment. I don’t remember how many times he’d be talking to the owner, and we’d be climbing on loaders and excavators. I remember coming home filthy, and Mom saying she’d never get the grease out of my coat.”

“We really did grow up with it,” Anne added.

With the help of the GI Bill, their father graduated from the University of Rhode Island, which at the time boasted the only insurance school in the Northeast, Kathy said.

He was a bond manager for Aetna in Springfield during the 1950s when he decided to start an independent insurance agency and become a bond producer rather than work for someone else as a bond representative, Jim explained. So, at the dawn of the ’60s, he and partner Bill Tuttle opened Daley & Tuttle Insurance on State Street in Springfield.

“Then Bill wanted to go to Eastern Mass. and focus his sales pursuits there,” Jim said. “My dad really liked the more parochial nature of Western Mass., so they decided to split up. T.P. Daley started in 1963, just him and one employee.” They moved the business across the river to Park Avenue in West Springfield, then relocated to their current location on Westfield Street around 1981 — the former site of Sweenor’s Candy.

“People come in and say, ‘I can still smell those bon bons,’” Jim said, standing beside a long counter where the Daleys still set out bowls of candy. “This is where the glass was, where they sold candy.”

But it’s not candy running through he family’s veins, Jim said, but insurance; in fact, he met his wife at a four-day-long ‘bond school’ in Texas. Simply put, this is a clan that truly enjoys the business their father started, and for this issue’s focus on insurance, they sat down with BusinessWest to explain why.

Bonding Agents

While the company has diversified considerably since its early days, T.P. Daley still specializes in bonds for contractors. “It’s not really an insurance product,” said Jim. “It’s a financial guarantee that the contractor is going to bid the job according to plan and then complete the job according to plan.

“The key focus for us is still contractors,” he added. “We do an awful lot of construction risk, both in insurance and bonds.”

The industry has changed quite a bit since the 1960s, however, a time when the surety world wasn’t set up to handle very large contracts. “So he had to go out and buy reinsurance for different layers of the contract size.”

Also, Tom noted, “he didn’t go through agents; he went directly to the customer. Now a lot of that is handled through agents.”

Despite the changes, Anne said — and there’s a tremendous variety today of what bond companies will accept — T.P. Daley still succeeds by fostering relationships, even though insurance products are viewed more and more like commodities, with clients in search of the cheapest price. “Although the field has grown and evolved tremendously, it’s still a relationship business here.”

She noted that there weren’t a lot of bond agencies when her father started out, and very few locally. “That has changed over the past 10 years — there are more agents in the area, and more agents in general working in the bond field.”

The agency’s location for the past 30-plus years

The agency’s location for the past 30-plus years is the former site of Sweenor’s Candy, which many customers remember well.

That means a much more competitive playing field, Jim said, which is a far greater challenge today than it was when the construction industry was rolling along throughout most of the 2000s. Even when the financial markets crashed in 2008 and triggered the Great Recession, contractors remained busy for awhile.

“Construction kind of lagged, so the industry was still rolling in ’08, ’09, even into ’10,” he said. “Those were good years for most contractors.”

But once backlogs were depleted, times got tough, and remain so today. Contractors have had to “sharpen their pencils” and cut their margins, he explained, and insurance companies heavily invested in construction have felt the pressure. “If there was more work, we’d see the margins come up, but there’s so much competition for the amount of work available out there that the margins have not recovered to their prior levels.”

The situation has been exacerbated, Jim added, by the fact that the government has been reluctant to access funds from the Chapter 90 Program, which pays for infrastructure-improvement projects in Massachusetts, and cities and towns have been loath to dip into their own budgets, “so you’re seeing deteriorating infrastructure; that’s exactly what’s going on.”

Rest of the Story

Fortunately, T.P. Daley’s array of products has widened considerably since the agency’s early days, encompassing a range of both business and personal lines, including home, auto, and life.

That side of the business has undergone changes as well in recent years, particularly with Massachusetts moving from set auto-insurance rates to a managed-competition system in 2008.

But while the Geicos of the world attract consumers with that last $10 off their premium, Anne said, “people buying online have to be astute.”

“They need to know what they’re getting for their dollar,” Kathy added. “A lot of times, people come in here, and we have to explain to them what they’re getting, what they’re protecting. We find that a lot of younger people buying online don’t know what they’re really getting — they just know it costs $400. You have to be educated, and that’s where we come into play.”

Or, as Jim put it, “we don’t want them to find out the hard way that the deductible was $1,000, when they thought it was $500.” Or that they didn’t include collision among their coverages.

“That’s the importance of an independent agent,” Anne said, “to explain what the coverages are, and then you decide what your needs are.”

Added Jim, “it’s more than just buying coverage. All those coverages mean something. It’s not just about the dollars. At the point of sale, that extra money in your pocket sounds like a good idea, but the financial consequences for saving a few dollars could be dramatic.”

That’s just one example of how customer service remains a valuable commodity at T.P Daley Insurance, Anne told BusinessWest. “That’s probably one of the key elements of this agency, our customer service. When you call, you deal with a family member.

“We’re literally 24/7,” she continued. “We give out our cell-phone and home numbers. Especially in the bond business, sometimes you need something tomorrow. I think that sets us apart from other agencies — our love of the service.”

Tom said it all goes back to Thomas Daley never turning anyone away. “Even if it was a tough situation, he always tried to help. He said, ‘give me your papers, and let me see what I can do.’”

Anne said she advised a client on insurance products for six years before writing a policy. “They’d call with questions, and I’d help out any way I could. I knew them from high school. Ultimately, when they needed to make a change, they came to us.”

The Daley siblings hope customers keep coming, and they sense some interest among their own children in turning the business into a third-generation affair someday, but they also know it’s a challenging field, and, like their own father, they want their kids to be sure.

“This is a changing industry, and I think there’s a lot more pressure on people now than there was 20 years ago,” Anne said. “It’s not an easy business, but it’s rewarding.”

Jim agrees. “There have been some dynamic changes from the old-school days to now,” he said. “That’s not to say it’s lost all its luster; it’s still got some positives that make you want to come to work. And I think people here enjoy coming to work.”

Even if they don’t get to climb on heavy machinery anymore.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]