Inaction is not only the Result, but the Cause, of Fear. This past Saturday morning I, along with my two sons went Sporting Clay Shooting. We have been clay shooting for years and it provides us with a great opportunity to get outside and do some father-son man bonding. As we were shooting we stopped at a couple of stands whereby the trapper sends out a pair of clays simultaneously. It is called simo. They fly so fast you have to think very quickly as to the best position and timing shot to make. It first appears so easy but actually is quite difficult because they fly fast and your senses are so magnified in making sure you hit both birds going in different directions that you sometimes overeagerly shoot too quickly or too late at one and/or the other bird before formulating your plan. If you are patient however, you can actually shoot both birds with one shot because there is a point in time where both birds actually intersect as they cross on their pathway in different directions. This requires calm, confident patience in carefully planning your shot you get both birds. You track the birds with both eyes open and when you see the intersection getting ready to occur I close my non-shooting eye, take aim and at that precise moment take action by pulling the trigger. It is quite exhilarating to see the clays reduced into “dust” with one shot. The formula; having vision (seeing it happen before it happens), planning, patience, timing and action.
This reminded me of many dealerships out there where the formula gets mixed up so often and resembles a three ring circus. Action, action, action without the vision, planning, timing, and patience required to afford their people the skill sets to accomplish their tasks and consequently their goal attainment.
Breakdown of the formula:
Vision:
A number of years ago when she was still alive Helen Keller who was blind at birth was interviewed. The interviewer asked her “What could be a more dehabilitating handicap than not having your eyesight”? Helen Keller quickly responded “O that’s easy, it’s not having vision”. You see sometimes you can see more with your eyes closed by envisioning what and how you want things to happen.
Vision is a cornerstone for true leaders because they cast out their vision beyond the reaches of mediocre shortsighted managers who wait for opportunities and/or problems to occur. No, true leaders reach out to the future and envision business getting better, their team getting stronger and envisioning a dealership synergy that bonds the team together like super glue. That is when everyone looks in the same direction instead of each other. Some of you know that my roots were well planted in Corporate America with Harris Corporation way before the car business. The thing that struck me about that work environment is as a sales person and all the way up to a vice president we were trained every month and sometimes weekly to sharpen our leading edge abilities, knowledge and self confidence. We had to because our greatest foe was IBM. We owned the markets we wanted because we were provided with the ‘extra measures’ to become our best.
As an executive I was promoted quickly several times because of three things; I hired right, I trained my people right and showed care and concern for them all the time. That’s it, plain and simple. Like the tide coming in, when my people rose to new ranks so did I. Because of my background I have been given a gift of seeing things in a store way beyond just being a ‘car guy’. Certain aspects of dealership business are readily recognized and changes implemented to repair and/or improve. Why is it we in this industry don’t have the same vision? Ready, shoot, aim comes to mind. Due to the changing marketplace and economic conditions, statistics now indicate that in 1-2 years half of what a salesperson knows about selling is obsolete for the current changing market. And, some of us are still using 5-10 year old material and the same tired word tracks. This will give you progressive deterioration if left unchecked along with high attrition, lost deals, team disintegration and lost in the desert people. Put on a new pair of glasses and enhance your vision by taking your team to new heights of skill achievement. Do not confuse short term motivational ‘raw raw’ locker room sessions, product or technical skills with sales training enhancement. None of these help the sales person sell skillfully or your managers become leaders.
We must visualize our store and our people growing to the fullest potential. Then constantly begin seeing the improvement areas to take them there every hour, everyday, every week, every month. Your reward for this corporate approach to running your business will be rewarding in so many immeasurable ways. The galaxy of opportunities will surprise you.
Planning:
Most dealers will spend more time planning advertising than providing their all important sales team with quality time for on going ‘high quality’ skills training. I know a few GSMs who are much more concerned about what color balloons go up on the lot Saturday morning than about the care, well being and personal growth of their sales team that produces (or not) his income every month. Go figure. I see dealers all the time spending $20,000-$80,000 a month on advertising and at the end of the month cannot, for the most part, give a clear analysis of the ad sourcing to determine the real ROI on their expenditure. Like buying swamp land in Florida in my book. What is the unrecovered ad expenditure? Guarantee you it is a ton of money that goes wasted and they don’t even know it. Am I just not getting it or would it make perfect sense to consider taking a, lets take a small percent of the ad budget each month and place it into a ‘value building effort’ to increase the abilities and skill sets of your sales and management people? Call it the synergy fund and let it build. You know, major league baseball players make millions of dollars but still get into the batting cage and take grounders or fly balls to improve their skills. Most, if not all of them, have personal trainers to fine tune those abilities even further. But many dealers are too busy counting deals and complaining about gross profits instead of utilizing their vision to see there are better ways to grow our business and our people.
“Great leaders and salespeople have an edge because they are able to let go of obsolete ideas” – Donald Trump
Donald gets it and refuses to be pulled down by old school paradigms which are perpetuating the continuing madness in our industry. Everyone is saying the same things. Most web sites look the same. And, most dealers do nothing to improve the skill sets of their management team to promote solid leadership. Nothing limits achievement more than small thinking! When you start your car you should know the direction you are heading. Therefore, let your passion pull you forward and your planning give you direction for processes and training which endure the down times as well as the up times.
Patience:
It takes time and effort to heal a sick work environment. In laying the groundwork one must first recognize that a commitment to making improved changes is most important. Without this nothing happens and everything defaults to business as usual very quickly and you loose credibility. I do not agree with the notion that in order to create an improved effective change in the way you do business takes a long time. In fact it can occur very quickly given a few cornerstones like empowering your people, sharing the plan with the team, give them the economic results as they occur. Secrecy breeds fear and worry. It sends a signal to your people that you do not trust them or think they are incompetent in absorbing the information. Next is investing in your people by investing in training and skill development which ultimately makes you more money (duh). Spending money on your people over an extended time frame says to them “you are important to me and a valued asset to this organization”. The moment you clearly recognize that that you really do achieve a competitive advantage through your people, everything else falls in place nicely. Loyal customers are incubated through loyal work forces who are exhibiting the new relationship building techniques which energize them towards customer-centric selling skills.
A dealership can, unlike the Titanic turn things around for the better much faster than most actually believe. How many times have you seen a sports team way behind in the game only to shock everyone by coming back strong when the chips were down to win the game? The patience element comes into play because you have to first give your team constant encouragement and pasture running room to build their skills and then continue allowing them build them. If you corral them they will get unused organs atrophy and never run again because you crushed their spirit. I have found that almost every sales consultant I have ever spoken with would eagerly accept the opportunity to grow through affective new sales training strategies. Sadly, most never receive it as they wait for the next job opportunity.
Timing:
No Dealer or GM starts out intending to build a lousy store culture, or even a just an average one. Most dealers would like their team’s productivity to be born out of passion for the job and team synergy. Yet in this maddening marketplace, many dealers fail to see the value they can receive from well trained people. About the timing, I guess the question you must ask yourself is when do you want to make a whole bunch more money? If later or next year is ok then that is your timing course of action. If you want to make more right now then now is it. Now is always better than hemming and hawing around “until next quarter” because the stores that choose to implement now will blow right past you. Start a new agenda at the beginning of next month. Start your plan for doing so now. The job never started takes the longest to finish. Just don’t get fooled into thinking like so many in waiting for the preverbal vacation spot – Someday Isle. Yea, someday I’ll start something new around here, someday I’ll look in to some new methods, someday I’ll train my people in new measures for success, etc, etc, etc. For most, Someday Isle never comes. Be the entrepreneur you are intended to be and do it now. Breathe new life into the dealership and your people. Plant the seeds now for growing a harvest of opportunities down the road a bit.
Action:
In order for the action step to succeed, the aforementioned steps need to be handled first. No more ready shoot aim. No, you are now taking all the planned steps to reap an abundant harvest of increase. Of course, to win the battle you have to have good well equipped solders. Winning is virtually impossible if your solders are weaponless, cold and starving. Three things have to occur for any great action achievement; purpose, persistence and patience. One tiny spark can ignite a raging forest fire and you can ignite enthusiasm for individual and sales team growth the same way. If you take actionable steps to make improved changes to your store you will reap benefits from doing so. If this is not a priority it will be like having a flat tire; then one day in the future you have to take care of it at a most inconvenient panic stricken moment.
Here are some action steps I would begin running my dealership under; Provide a long term company outlook to every employee, abide by the golden rule, create an atmosphere where the business was like family, and finally challenge yourself to be the best employer in your market place. The latter will attract the best future employees.
Faith that you can do something without action is useless. If you would like a refreshing approach to starting a new direction shoot me an email requesting “action” and I will send you a plan.
The moment you clearly recognize that that you really do achieve a competitive advantage through your people, everything else falls in place nicely.