Two years ago, Austin Harris, 34, was the only salesperson in the fleet department at Hardy Family Automotive Group in Dallas, Ga. Today it has more than 10 people and three divisions: government, large commercial fleet and small business commercial. Ford and General Motors fleet sales together now average more than 500 vehicles a month.
All 10 years of his career have been at Hardy. He started in 2015 as a retail salesman at the Ford store, moved through finance manager, sales manager and general sales manager, then made a deliberate move back into sales to build fleet into a team. The group had sold 3,441 vehicles through July 2026.
Last year Hardy was No. 1 in government sales for General Motors in the Southeast region and No. 1 in year-over-year fleet growth for Ford in the Atlanta region, growth he reports at 14,080%. It is a top-five national fleet dealer for GM and a top-20 Ford fleet dealer.
He supports public safety groups including Paulding Cops for Kids, and he has taken salespeople with no auto experience and built them into account managers.
“I will never ask our people to do something they haven’t seen me do.”
