Kevin Leigh – Co-Founder of Auction Simplified. Photo by Paul Maze

Kevin B. Leigh

Co-Founder / Writer / Serial Growth Hacker – As the son of immigrants, Kevin Leigh lives the American dream and understands the value of hard work and enterprise. Leigh’s family immigrated to the United States from Ireland when Kevin was just 13 and Kevin has spent his adult life building a successful career while always staying grounded in his Irish roots.

Family

Kevin currently resides in Alden, New York with his wife Mary and their three boys. Leigh spends his spare time volunteering with various community organizations and is active in the Geocaching community.

Kevin Leigh with Family (FamLeigh)

A brief history?

Kevin studied at Drimnagh Castle in Dublin, Ireland, and in Lancaster, NY, and has spent the past 34 years working primarily in the automotive industry. Leigh’s work has involved sales, business development, digital marketing, software development, and growth hacking.

In 2014, Kevin Leigh co-founded Dealer Simplified, LLC, a company dedicated to simplifying automotive software. Which evolved into Auction Simplified, LLC in 2016. Leigh has called this venture his passion, and it allows him to combine his entrepreneurial skills with his ability to utilize current technology to create more effective automotive solutions. The goal of Auction Simplified is to jump-start the profit centers of Dealers, Auction Houses, and Impound Auctions while keeping the processes and software simple and easy to understand and implement.

In 2021, Auction Simplified was acquired by Traxero, North America, a company, devoted to the towing industry along with impound lots and municipal auctions. Traxero Offers a Suite of Fully Integrated Solutions from Dispatch to Vehicle Disposition and is the leader of innovative towing and roadside service software solutions.

Before, launching Auction Simplified, Leigh spent nearly 17 years with West Herr Automotive Group, the top 20 dealer group in Buffalo, as the Director of Business Development and Digital Marketing. In both positions, Kevin was successful in implementing programs that increased both the size of the businesses and their profits. In one particularly successful project for West Herr, Leigh’s team created used vehicle inventory management software, resulting in a 300+% growth in used vehicle sales. When Kevin left West Herr, the company was delivering 40,000+ retail automobiles and another 15,000 profitable wholesale transactions.

Leigh was the Director of Finance for an Auto Nation Dealership in Buffalo, New York. for almost 14 years, working with Mike Maroone and his Father Al.

Books by Kevin B. LeighKevin is also an accomplished author and is passionate about writing and blogging.

In his most recent book “Prayers to the Holy Spirit” and with inspiration from the Holy Spirit, Kevin curated 32 prayers from history, then augmented them with 20 brand-new prayers never before in print. Resulting in a prayer to the Holy Spirit for every week of the year.

“It may be naive of me to believe that a small person such as myself, in the eyes of God, could be inspired directly by the Holy Spirit. But I do believe this collection of prayers was curated and commissioned by the Holy Spirit Himself. Because in my heart of hearts, I believe this body of work was written indirectly by Him.”

In his auto auction book, “Automotive Wholesale Simplified: How to Profit from Wholesale and Not Feel Guilty About It” Kevin helps dealers change the way they wholesale cars.

For too long, dealers have felt guilty about wholesale losses, going so far as to believe that wholesale profit is a bad thing. Wholesale Simplified debunks that belief once and for all, showing dealers that they can appraise trades correctly and still profit from wholesale. In this transformative time for car dealers, Wholesale Simplified shifts the discussion from wholesaling at auction to becoming the auction and reveals the journey many dealers have undertaken to reinvent their wholesale departments.

In his debut young adult novel, “Gollup the Woods,” Kevin inspired wrote a compelling tale inspired by the stories he heard from his father on their many trips through the Irish countryside. The novel is targeted toward young adults and features the adventures of orphaned twins with magical powers.

“This thrill-a-minute story, the first in the Gollup the Woods series, respects kids’ intelligence and motivates children to tackle its greater length and complexity, play imaginative games, and try to solve if many twists and turns. It does contain some scary parts for sensitive readers: tiny attacking goblin-like creatures named Diabhal, ghouls with lanky gray features named Rotherdag, a battle scene with attacking smoke fighters, as well as a discussion of how the twins’ parents died in a motorcycle accident.”