‘Take risks, gamble and hold your nerve’ says boss of automotive group Constellation

“You have to take risk if you really want to move forward, you can’t stand still because if you do, someone will catch you up,” says Avril Palmer-Lavery, Executive Chairman of Constellation Automotive Group, which counts WeBuyAnyCar, Cinch and British Car Auctions (BCA) among its brands.

Achieving and maintaining that forward momentum also requires leaders to communicate clearly to employees and customers—championing stability, resilience and a robust plan.

“There’s a lot of negative noise around, and at any level negativity can affect people. For me, a big priority is making sure our staff feel the business is stable and our customers see that stability,” she says. “We have a plan and we’re sticking to it. The message has to come from the top that we know what we’re doing.”

Self-belief and a trusted vision

That message carries weight because it comes from a position of experience. “I built this business from nothing, with my team. So, we have absolute self-belief,” says Palmer-Lavery. “A lot of our staff have seen the ups and downs of the economy many times, so they trust in our vision. We’ve been through the 2008 financial crisis, we’ve been through COVID, we’ve been through Brexit. We’re resilient.”

Palmer-Lavery says business leaders have become adept at navigating disruptions and finding positives—even when others assume challenges may be overwhelming.

Doing so means striking the right balance between dealing with the priorities of today while maintaining a long-term focus.

The automotive industry is more exposed than many others to current and recent issues such as inflation and the cost-of-living crisis. It also has sector-specific challenges. Palmer-Lavery says she splits her time equally between short- and long-term time horizons. “We’re big planners, but we do deal with the day-to-day 50% of the time. It’s my role, with my senior team, to think about the strategic vision but you also have to deal with the problems in front of you.”

One area of challenge, which Palmer-Lavery says is causing confusion across her industry and customer base is a lack of clarity over electric vehicle legislation.

“I don’t think we’ve ever been so confused in automotive as we are today,” she says.

She believes business leaders will adapt and find positive ways forward, but adds that closer collaboration, and greater clarity from governments around the world would help the industry get on the front foot.

“You can’t be ahead of something you don’t know,” she says.

As any changes come that shake up the industry, from tariffs and green taxes to disruptive new manufacturers, Palmer-Lavery says she will flex the investment strategy across her group as required.

“We have a big advantage because we have so many different areas of automotive,” she explains. “So, in some areas we’ll be winning as a result of change, and in some areas may lose out.” Her job is to dial back on areas where losses could result and double-down on areas that will profit.

Embracing risk and holding your nerve

Investment decisions have also been key to growing some of the household names within the group—an area where Palmer-Lavery’s belief in bravery and risk is clear.

“You have to invest in the beginning to build a brand,” she says. “We did that with WeBuyAnyCar. We’ve done that with Cinch. You have to invest if you want a long-term brand. To get consumer recognition, you have to take risks, and you have to hold your nerve.”

“With Cinch, when we launched it was in Covid and a lot of big brands stopped investing in sport, but we decided people would actually be watching more sport. It was a risk. We took a gamble, but our investors believed in us because we’d built brands before. We also got those sponsorships a lot cheaper, because there was no one else in the market.”

In late 2020, Cinch began sponsoring Northampton Saints rugby club, expanding the deal in 2021 to include stadium naming rights. Also in 2021, Cinch became sponsor of the England cricket team, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and the Scottish Professional Football League. The following year it added Crystal Palace Football Club to its list of sporting sponsorships.

Palmer-Lavery says those deals, as well as sponsorships of music festivals and significant ad spend across television and radio, accelerated brand awareness for Cinch which has subsequently exited many of those sponsorships.

“If you’re growing a brand, your brand spend starts off as a very high number,” she says. “After four or five years, you get your brand recognition up and you can reduce that number—because there is a differential between building a brand and running a company.”

For Palmer-Lavery, the thread running through every decision is that self-belief, manifesting in a willingness to shut out noisy negativity and back the business—whether championing its resilience, or holding her nerve when it comes to calculated risks.