Page 122 - Cityview Jan-Feb 2017

120JANUARY FEBRUARY 2017If it’s a fair and reasonable deal, don’t jack the customer around, go aheadand say ‘ok, you’ve got a deal.’” His desire is to establish a reputation that people trust; if that is established, being pro table follows. If his people do the best they can on any given day, that’s all he asks. “He maintains that “we could make a helluva lot more money than we do,” with the extra fees one o en sees tacked onto the price of an automobile, “but I choose not to do it.”Harper’s relationship with manufacturers has changed over the years, as manufacturers have begun to micromanage requirements for local businesses—a complaint that echoes across the industry. “The demands,”he says, “are pretty formative.” Harper himself has had to transcend the impulse to micromanage. At this point in the conversation, he introduces the ideathat he is a recovering alcoholic. “I hada guy who really helped me with that,” he says, “[who] started telling me I’ma workaholic too, so I really took it to heart. I remember one day I le early and I called my sales manager and he said, ‘I can see your car at the light. You haven’t been gone two minutes. Everything’s ok’.” When he started backing o and empowering his employees to make decisions, they made more money.When de ning a successful day for himself, he says, “It’s simple...I need to be warm and kind to everyone I touch. If I’m able to do that today, it’s a successful day.” He extols the joys of having a family, something he’s realized more as he’s become a grandfather. “I wasn’t aI HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A CAR NUT, THE FIRST CAR I BOUGHT I PAID 25 DOLLARS FOR. IT WAS A MODEL A FORD. I ALWAYS MESSED AROUND AND ENJOYED CARS.good dad because I was either working all the time or drunk, so the reason my kids have turned out so well is because of their mother.” He emphasizes thatthe success of his business has been largely based on his family and long- term employees. And to some degree, he attributes failures to himself. Both of his children work in the business: his son Shannon as vice president and daughter Samma as company attorney. Harper spends a signi cant portion of his time away from the o ce exercising—he bikes and takes boxing lessons. “It’s a full life,” he observes. Regarding the free time in his day created by sobriety, he says, “a good part of my day was spent drinking or thinking about drinking; the other things have lled the gaps and have created balance,” a term he stresses.“You have to have di erent thought processes throughout the day and they can’t all involve work or the stresses of work or what you did wrong or right.”His desire for balance extends to his employees. “We’re not open on Sundays. We’re not open till 9:30 at night,” he says. “How can a guy who works here who has three teenage kids have balance when he’s not getting home until 9:30at night?” However, when his sta does achieve that balance, “they’re a hell ofa lot more productive for us. So it’s self- serving to a certain degree.” Sometimes he tells the few workaholics he employs to go home, to take the day o and not call in. “I want them to have balance in their lives,” he repeats. He encourages progress, not perfection. What remains important to him is the family and “the welfare of everyone that’s worked here.” Harper employs 253 people and asserts that “one of our main responsibilitiesis that we’re able to provide them a fair and equitable pay so they can provide for their families each week.” This is a consistent theme: the responsibility to provide for his people so that they can meet their own responsibilities.It’s obvious that he’s relieved to have whatever demons that plagued him in the past in the rear-view mirror, so long as he keeps moving forward. He uses the word “ego” several times as a term to de ne what could upset the balance he has achieved. “I always try to veer towards humility rather than hubris as best I can,” he says, “and to do that I have to be constantly aware of my ego.” The way he evaluates his ego at workis largely achieved by reconciling hard numbers with his business decisions. “Unless you own a Pontiac/Buick dealership in Lenoir City,” Harper reminds us. “The total failure of that will help your ego too.”“I’m humbled by the fact ... that whatever successes we have here directly relate to the people that work with me,” he concludes. And then children rush into the o ce to see their grandfather— there is pure delight on his face. “My name’s up there,” he says. “So what?”When he’s not cra ing language or serving cra beer, Keith Norris can be spotted tooling around town in his 2003 Mazda.