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Dealership Reset: It’s Halftime, You Got Game?

There's not too many times during the year that we call a time out. Well, there's usually one. Here's the dealership reset:

Accountability: How are you against your goals?

It's not just units, gross and ROs. It's about cost, effectiveness and no-bullshit reviews. Someone's feet not being held to the fire? Now's the time or else don't expect anything different come December.

Assessment: Who is helping you, who is not?

In meeting after meeting, the question should be the same for dealers to suppliers: "what have you done in the past 30 days to improve my business?". If they can't answer and back it up, you're wasting money.

Education: It's not just for sales meetings anymore

It's incredible when the entire sales staff can chirp back specs on the car they just received product training on that morning from a sales manager or the factory rep. It's another thing when a salesperson helps everyone learn something about their CRM they didn't know or shares a closing technique that got them to 25 units for 3 months running. When you stop learning, you start dying. When you refuse to learn, you need to pack your bags.

Impression: None, fleeting, building, lasting or wow?

Impressions have nothing to do with CPMs or 4-color versus black and white, although every newspaper sales rep that calls on your store will have a fit defending themselves. Impressions are all about what people think and feel about you and your business. And while it has a little something to do with the "silver bullet" that nearly everyone is talking about lately (yes, all of the experts are talking…all few of them), impressions are a lot more under your control once you realize that management actually influences nearly everything that happens at your dealership.

Half way through the year is more than enough time to evaluate a new program, see the leads you were supposed to get, increase your SEO results (if not dominate in many markets), build substantial results from email marketing, and a whole  laundry list of other improvements. If you are not getting the results, cut bait. If you are, see how you can get more.

Everyone needs to do the reset. In a meeting with a dealer last week, it was dismaying to see things that weren't acceptable even five years ago still prevalent today. Apologies for using some cliches but they're so appropriate:

  • You must inspect in order to expect
  • Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM)
  • Leaders are readers
  • The hardest thing to change is the 6 inches between your ears
  • It's not how hard you work, it's what you do with your time
  • Dreams come a size too big, they allow us to grow
  • Track, target, trim and train
  • An idiot with a plan is better than a genius without one

The tragedy in life is not missing your goals, it's not starting with any. And that's even more the case when you don't check yourself before you wreck yourself. It's time to do your reset. You'll thank us later…

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

June 6, 2010 by Gary May 1
When You Hit The Wall…Again. And Again.

From time to time, even with the best plans, strategy, resources and more, it becomes painfully clear that you're not going to make it. Unfortunately, some people experience this state of being for far too long. In automotive retail, there are even those that are paralyzed by it for, well, eons. In sports if you have two false starts you're gone. Why does 1,479 false starts constitute holding on to a process or salesperson at a dealership?

One of the many benefits of calling on dealers all over the country is the face time with some great people. Hearing many clearly defined business and action plans is inspiring and creates hope that things continue to look up. Having dealerships that used to track leads in archaic software, or even Excel, switching to advanced CRMs is inspiring. Chopping off the top salespeople or totally turning your sales department upside down and starting over? Now that can make even the greatest skeptic smile!

There is no question that times are changing for our retailers. About five years late. Some of the areas of greatest discussion recently (not counting social media) are how we keep the best and brightest, or attract them, and compensate them, how to incorporate tools that should help us but ultimately cost too much or don't do what they are supposed to, how to cut costs and how to stop giving up gross.

We don't claim to have the answers but have some thoughts to mitigate the typical course of (1) I can't change things so I won't even try, (2) I don't know where/how to start, (3) I tried before and failed, or (4) fill in the excuse you use: take risks in small doses in the right direction, ask for help because there is a lot of good, free advice (especially in the online automotive forums), start creating more buy-in with top management before you try to 'sell it' and simply convince yourself that the goals you envision are worth achieving!

Many times turning heads and making waves is actually less of a risk that doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result. We've all seen or known people who were burned out that we had pegged as being a superstar.

For most of us, the greatest help we can receive in avoiding 'hitting the wall' is common sense, some outside counsel and a firm dedication to what we know will work. Remember, we're here to (clap) pump…you up!

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

April 4, 2010 by Gary May 0
I Think We Can…I Think We Can…We Better Think We Can

Boy, things were really humming there for the longest time and then the train ran off the track, or maybe the wheels simply came off. No matter what, we got to find out what it would be like for the industry to have a brake test. But instead of 60 to 0 in 137.6 feet, it was more like 17 million to under 10 million in a blink (try that supercars!)

Add to that the fact that somewhere along the way, we got just a little more than complacent…ok, we got really frickin' complacent! Now we have the choice to do things over the way 'we' did, or go down the road less traveled.

So we have to ask ourselves collectively some tough questions. Do we advertise the same way we did? Do we communicate the same way that we did? Do we build the same way we did? Do we sell the same way we did? If so, how can we expect different results? And for those that want to wait, how can you expect anything doing that?

Many indicators seem to show that we're doing a lot of the old things and just a few new things, and neither incredibly well. To get the results we truly want, it is so important to be realistic, admit when we can't do what's expected, challenge ourselves to new ways of thinking and get out of the way when it's time. If this train is getting back on the track, it had best be a brand new track and the engine clearly needs replacement rather then modification.

No matter what you're doing, start thinking and acting like consumers and start believing that success is our only goal. I'd like to tell you that the latest ads on TV, spots on radio, full pages in the magazine and full-disclosure rant in the newspaper were absolutely effective. Since I don't do any of those activities, I can't. And none of the people I regularly hang out with or talk with do either.

If we start thinking and believing that we can, and it truly shows, it'll likely happen. It's not rocket science. It's not about ignoring other very related issues. If we are going to be successful, we have to do it by ourselves. We have to believe that the results will be there because we did everything we had to…not somethings, everything.

And I think we can, I think we can (insert favorite choo-choo noise now).

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

June 27, 2009 by Gary May 0