Dorian Boyland used to be a professional baseball player during the 1970s, but is now a 34-year veteran in the automotive business. He founded Boyland Auto Group in 1985, just two years after retiring from the sport. Since then, the company has grown to be very successful and is now the third largest Black-owned car dealership. In fact, he made $654 million in 2018 alone!
Dorian started his professional career as a first baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates. After his retirement from professional baseball, he decided to put to use his bachelor's degree in business administration and computer science. He climbed up the corporate ladder at a dealership -- from a sales position to managerial until he co-owned a pre-existing car dealership.
From then, he owned and operated 22 dealerships in six states before he sold some of them. Now, Boyland Auto Group comprises six auto dealerships, including the flagship Mercedes-Benz of Orlando, Florida, and dealerships in Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, and Arkansas.
Unlike other auto dealers, he focused on how much profit he can generate from each sale, instead of how many vehicles they sell or how much revenue they produce. Using analytics and data reports, Dorian said that his goal for his dealerships is a minimum net profit of 4% sales annually.
With that strategy, his company saw 9% annual revenue growth -- from about $599 million in 2017 to nearly $654 million in 2018. Most of the profit came from their service and parts unit. The car dealership carries the elite brands Dodge, Chrysler Jeep, Honda, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, GMC, and Hyundai.
Now 64-years old, Dorian is making preparations for retirement in the business. He considers it one of his accomplishments to have helped other black entrepreneurs succeed in the auto industry as well. Over the years, he provided opportunities to 10 minorities to become dealership owners or general managers within his company. He believes it's not enough to just rely on manufacturers to increase black-owned dealerships.
"We have to do it ourselves," Dorian told Black Enterprise. "We're not doing enough for each other."