To know Jim Ziegler was to know a man who had found success in life and love and never let go. He thought he was taking a break from a successful career as a Jacksonville, Fla.-based disc jockey and radio executive when he started selling cars in the mid-1970s. Instead, it was a permanent shift that would lead to fame, fortune and, shortly before that, the love of his life. 

That life sadly ended in March after a second battle with cancer.

“I met Jim at McNamara Pontiac in Tucker, Georgia in 1982. I visited the dealership one evening with my parents and younger brother looking for a new vehicle,” recalls Debbie Ziegler, Jim’s widow and business partner of more than 40 years. “Jim waited on me that night and called quite often to keep me informed on new inventory.”

Debbie’s brother didn’t buy the Fiero they had come to see — Jim recommended against it — but Debbie eventually did become a customer. Then they were friends, then gym buddies, then fell in love. 

“Jim tells the story that he sold me a vehicle and laid me away but ended up marrying me and making the payments,” Debbie says. “Jim thought that was very funny! He told that story to everyone. I never really believed he did that. He only made half the payment!”

The two were partners in every sense of the word, building Ziegler SuperSystems into one of the industry’s most successful training providers. He left behind a legacy built on others’ success. 

Talent and Determination

James Allen Ziegler was born on Jan. 16, 1947, in Abington, Pa., the son of a frequently relocated naval officer raised partly in Jacksonville. Though not blessed with many economic advantages, young Jim was a good student and an Eagle Scout who demonstrated writing talent and inner determination. 

“The secret to Jim’s success was his passion to be successful. There were things he wanted that he did not have growing up,” Debbie says. “He was always an overachiever. He always wanted to be a leader. He had a way of making everyone around him feel special. Jim brought out the best in everyone. He also had a keen eye for recognizing talented individuals.”

Jim’s post-college work as an on-air radio personality built a following in Jacksonville. From there, he moved into sales. He told Debbie switching sides had improved his income but left him feeling unfulfilled. After divorcing his first wife, he decided to take a break. He rode his motorcycle to California and back, then decided it was time to find a new career. 

In 1976, Ziegler walked into a Jacksonville dealership owned by Dennis McNamara. He was offered a part-time sales job pending completion of the group’s rigorous introductory training course. “They threw me in a room with some Jackie B. Cooper Betamax tapes and said, ‘Don’t come out until you’re trained,’” Ziegler once told Agent Entrepreneur magazine.

He got off to a hot start and transferred to the Atlanta-area McNamara Pontiac, just in time to meet Debbie. All the pieces were in place for a happy married life and son Zach that were soon to come — except for one problem: His would-be bride hailed from a higher social class. When her parents met the young couple for dinner at an upscale Atlanta restaurant, they were initially unimpressed.

“We had an exquisite dinner. When it came time for the bill, Jim picked up the check and paid the waiter in cash. My mother looked over at me and said, ‘He doesn’t have a credit card, does he?’”

Jim took the hint. Prior to tying the knot in December 1984, he got into management — F&I management, to be specific, at a time when few products were available and the training, processes and compliance measures that would define the role were years into the future. 

He moved from Pontiac to BMW and Volvo. “Around 1984, the yuppie movement hit Atlanta hard,” he would explain. Then he moved to Nissan; when that dealer cut his pay plan, he decided it was time to leverage his accumulated expertise and start his own company. 

He informed Debbie and asked for her help. Together they started planning a risky but exciting future. 

“Jim was born with the talent to do this sort of thing. But being a DJ gave him the ability to shine,” she says. “And once he entered the automobile industry, he wasn’t shy. Not everybody has that. He just had that certain something. He just needed a little refinement, and he was good to go.”

A Star Is Born

Jim and Debbie launched Ziegler SuperSystems in 1986. Debbie established and ran the office while Jim designed and delivered the training, eventually backed by a staff of five. Their first clients were Atlanta’s Spreen Toyota and Stone Mountain Ford. At the latter, Jim met Lee Evans, a factory executive visiting from Detroit. Evans knew Ford needed a training partner for the hundreds of minority dealers it was onboarding and urged Ziegler to throw his hat in the ring. 

The firm won the contract, and Jim became the face of the program, producing training videos and working directly with dealers — many of them first-time owners — and their teams. That led to what would become lifelong friendships and partnerships, as well as the opportunity to speak at the National Automobile Dealers Association’s next convention. 

“We loved working with the minority dealers, and they loved us in return,” Debbie says. “We were very successful after that, and our business skyrocketed.”

Over the next several decades, Ziegler would visit more than 15,000 dealerships in 49 states and personally train more than 125,000 sales and F&I professionals, dealers and factory executives. In 2008, Ziegler SuperSystems hosted the first of its legendary live Internet Battle Plan seminars, where Jim equipped participants with internet strategy in a period when many dealers still resisted actually investing in their websites. 

The number of industry professionals Ziegler touched is inestimable. He was a fixture at NADA, earning top-10 workshop honors 17 times, and served as the featured speaker at 98 state dealer events. A Certified Speaking Professional, Ziegler was a member of the National Speakers Association and the Georgia Speakers Association and author of “So You’re a Professional Speaker. How Come You’re Not Rich Yet?” 

He also found time to become one of the industry’s most prolific authors, writing many more books, contributing to multiple publications, including Auto Dealer Today and F&I and Showroom, and pouring countless hours into his social media pages, including scripted videos. He began writing for Dealer Magazine in 1995 after reaching out to Dealer Communications founder Michael Roscoe, who would become his close friend and deliver the eulogy at Ziegler’s funeral. 

“Radio DJ, car sales, F&I manager, trainer, consultant, columnist, author, public speaker, business owner, Jim moved effortlessly into each new stage of his career, because that’s the kind of man he was,” Roscoe says. 

The Dealer Advocate

Though he could have filled countless speeches, books and magazine pages with tips and tricks, Ziegler went a step further by establishing himself as the unwavering voice of America’s auto dealers.

“Jim’s column was titled ‘Dealer Advocate,’ and ad-vo-kate for new car dealers he did,” Roscoe says. “Every month Jim took the dealers’ side on the most pressing threats they faced — factory ownership of retail outlets, forced one-price selling, the Ford Auto Collection, CarMax, attacks on the franchise system — you name it, and Jim exposed the issue by speaking out on behalf of the dealers.”

Ziegler went after every perceived enemy with passion and humor, penning such classic Auto Dealer Today and F&I and Showroom columns as “They Said I Was a Crackpot,” “How Can Geeks Be This Bad at Math?” and “They Took Cadillac for a Ride.” He referred to beleaguered former Cadillac chief Johan de Nysschen as “de Nysschen: Impossible.”

“Jim was a zealous advocate for dealers against the overreach of government and the OEMs,” says attorney Jim Ganther, founder of Mosaic Compliance Services. 

“There was a display table at his funeral with many of his awards. One memento was a Jim Ziegler bobblehead doll with the inscription, ‘I tell it like I see it.’ He certainly did. He didn’t always make friends with his candor, but you always knew where he stood. Jim was an equally zealous advocate for women in a male-dominated industry.”

Among them are Jennifer Briggs and April Simmons, two industry veterans who credit the Zieglers with jumpstarting their careers. 

Briggs serves as dean and director of Baker College’s Auto/Diesel Institute of Michigan and is founder and president of Next Level Digital. She wasn’t new to the industry when she met Jim at Internet Battle Plan 2014 — in fact, she was excelling, advancing from internet sales director to general manager at a Detroit group and building a national online profile. 

“I’ll never forget it. I was standing in the hallway, grabbing coffee. I look up and see him walking right at me with that Jim smile, jovial, energy pouring out of him,” Briggs says. “I said, ‘Oh my God, it’s Jim Ziegler!’ And he said, ‘Oh my God, it’s Jennifer Briggs! I’ve been watching you. You’ve been doing some great things.’” 

With the Zieglers’ guidance and encouragement, Briggs followed them into entrepreneurship. “He made me not just a better car person but a better person. They are awesome humans, both of them.” 

Simmons was new to F&I when Ziegler hosted in-person training at her Arizona dealership in 2001. He converted her team from step selling to menu selling and set Simmons on the course to greater success. 

“The impact was immediate,” she says. “He taught me the art of the pause: The first person to speak loses. I learned all of it from Jim the day I met him — not just the tools and training but the motivation, just knowing that I could do it.” 

Today, Simmons is director of corporate internet sales and marketing for the 14-store Phoenix-area Horne Auto Group. She still leans on the lessons Ziegler imparted during that first training session nearly a quarter-century ago. 

“Jim always kept the main thing the main thing.” 

The Impact

Ganther describes Ziegler as a verb instead of a noun. “He didn’t so much enter a room as conquer it. His presence was felt like a force of nature.” 

“Jim Ziegler became to car dealership owners what Rush Limbaugh was to conservatives,” Roscoe says.  “Jim didn’t tell dealers what to think. He was the only person openly expressing what they believed. And like Limbaugh, Jim did it with a little humor and a lot of guts.”

Debbie says Jim “loved his life, loved his job” and took greater pride in his advocacy and inspiration of others than in his own success. “Jim was larger than life everywhere he went. He was always positive and upbeat. That was his secret. He never saw the gray side of anything. He had an interest in everybody.”

“For someone who reinvented himself so many times, you wouldn’t necessarily expect a genuine human underneath,” Briggs says. “I hope I do him proud. If I can make 10% of the impact he made on the industry, I know I’ve done my job.”

About the Author: Tariq Kamal is an auto industry executive and consultant.

A Note From the President

Before Jim Ziegler took on the “Alpha Dawg” moniker, he was known as “Da Man,” and he really was.  Our founder, Ed Bobit, and I met Jim through contacts at the old GMAC in the late ’90s. He was well-established as a trainer, speaker and dealer advocate. We knew what he had to offer — or so we thought. 

What we didn’t realize until we got into business with Jim is how truly “connected” he was. He and Debbie didn’t just build a network. They made friends. If we needed the dealer’s perspective on anything — an editorial topic, a speaker for an event, an emerging trend — all we had to do was ask. Jim would reach out to 10 or 12 dealers, and they would all answer or get back to him that day. 

With a rock-solid reputation and pure confidence, Jim was bulletproof. And he used that power for good. Whether you agreed with him or not, you knew he always kept the dealer’s best interest at heart. In 2018, when we created the Edward J. Bobit Lifetime Achievement Award in tribute to another industry titan, Jim was the clear choice as its inaugural winner. 

For all those who followed Jim over the years but never met him, I would like you to know that, under the flashy suits and jewelry, he really was a regular guy, the kind you could have a beer with. The big, booming radio voice and the quieter one-on-one voice have both been silenced, and the loss is as profound as Jim’s impact on our industry. 

— David Gesualdo, president, Bobit Business Media’s Dealer and Public Safety groups