It was my birthday this week. When you hit 54, that’s no reason for a big party. On the other hand, I can also count myself a happy man: I’m healthy, I have a lovely family, good friends, and as an entrepreneur I usually do things that give me energy…

On my fiftieth birthday I embarked on a new adventure: the Ligier Store Doesburg. Driven by ambition, ego and the urge to show that I can still do it: run a dealership. Four years later, now that I’m taking stock, I don’t actually know whether I’m still happy with it or not.

Microcars

Look, selling microcars is very different from selling cars. They resemble each other, but in many respects they’re just different. You also can’t compare a scooter or bicycle shop with a car business, and so the same goes for a microcar dealer. Everything I thought would work turned out differently. Of course we were successful fairly quickly and we’re still a top-5 dealer. But becoming number 1? No, that didn’t work out.

Both with and without a workshop

Running a business without a mechanic turns out to be difficult, certainly in the early phase. Fortunately, Gerard Franken was technically very strong and crucial during the start-up of the Ligier Store Doesburg – Experience Center. That allowed us to keep costs low for a long time. Later, a mechanic and our own workshop came along and everything seemed to be heading in the right direction. It’s just that the costs kept increasing further and further as well. I never thought a car business could accumulate so many invoices per month…… how naive I was.

After that came the next step: the opening of the Experience Store Doesburg. A universal car business in the same building – separated by a swing door – with exclusively Lynk & Co used cars. At the time I really thought this would give the business a boost. More sales, more revenue, and that did indeed come true, partly thanks to the help of, among others, Frank Moormann!

Where at first I rented a quarter of the building, I eventually bought the whole building. That gave me the use of all four units: one for Ligier, one for Lynk & Co, one for the workshop and one as a photo studio and delivery space.

Conversion from lead to sale is 22.7%

Conversion was my most important focus. Because as a car business you ultimately win offline, but that only works if you first win online. At the Experience Store, conversion from lead to sale in 2025 was no less than 22.7%, measured across all sources. I’m proud of that. At Ligier it’s different, but on the conversion side things are going fine. It’s just that the profit fails to materialize. And ultimately, that’s what the game is all about.

Profit

Profit is essential. I can’t keep investing money from the holding company without limit to keep Doesburg running. We have to keep adapting. At any company, you can only cut back up to a certain point. Ultimately you have a fixed cost base. In our case, that’s around €30,000 per month, in other words €360,000 per year.

With sales alone and an average margin of €1,500 per car, that means I have to sell roughly 240 cars per year just to earn back the costs. That’s 20 cars per month. That number is barely achievable with one salesperson if, on top of that, he also has to do all kinds of other work that comes with running a car business. That’s why I’ve once again hired a second salesperson. The goal is to move towards 30 cars per month.

Decision

But ultimately I have to make a decision myself. When does Doesburg become something that makes me happy? And when is it a burden? Also for the other companies I own, which likewise deserve attention, time and investment.

At #DCDW – Digital Car Dealer Workshop – de online automotive beter maken! and CARMEN Automotive BDC, a huge project is coming up soon. A project that’s going to demand an enormous amount of my time. Something with which, in terms of scale, we may well be doing twenty times Doesburg. I’m deliberately staying vague for now, because I have to. But perhaps that’s the very moment I’ll say: I’m going to do something else.

But giving up is hard. So I’m wrestling with it. What is the wise thing to do? Quit? Go all in on used cars? Or, on the contrary, scale down and only do Ligier? If I’m honest with myself, set my ego aside and accept that there are also matters I can’t manage well from a distance, then I’ve actually already made my choice. I just still have to find the courage to carry out my decision.