When you’re part of a small business, you find yourself in a David and Goliath situation from time to time. Today is one of those days. I got a call from my brother Houston, who is the CEO of Liberty Autos, and he informed me of a surprising new development. When you go to google and type in “liberty auto sales,” the first thing that comes up is a link that looks like it belongs to Liberty Auto Sales, but it actually is to hondadealers.com. We can’t spend millions of dollars on advertising and social media, so our web presence is the direct result of the hard work of a handful of people. To come to the office and find that a giant has casually knocked you from a place that is rightfully yours, that you have worked hard to reach, can be quite dispiriting. Houston found out that Honda is able to do this because the name Liberty Auto Sales is not trademarked, a process which takes 6 months and requires an attorney. The fact that this mega-corporation is directly targeting small businesses really rubs me the wrong way. And we have sold hundreds of Hondas over the years!! So, just like that, we learned the next hurdle that we have to jump. And that’s exactly what we’ll do, we will clear every stumbling block that comes our way. Liberty has been here 37 years, because we never let an obstacle stand in our way. We’ll keep doing it every day so that we can keep bringing good cars to the Houston market every day. Come to any of our four locations, and you’ll experience our great service while also supporting a local business.
I’ve just learned that beyond supporting the arts, Liberty has inspired the arts! My niece Lauren wrote a poem about Liberty for a school assignment on metaphors. I was so touched by her words and the emotions she expressed in the poem that I feel that I have to share it. Having grown up on the car lot, it thrills me to see a new generation forming memories in our family business. The imagery she uses totally hit home to me! I love that she captured our commitment to a bilingual workplace and that she knows that we view our customers as friends. And yes, there is usually a lot of barbeque. I know you all will enjoy her work as much as I do!