It was a dark, dreary night last January when I left Raleigh, NC for the drive back home to the lovely Shenandoah Valley. I got off to a later than usual start a little past 9:00 pm for the four-hour drive home. Leaving Raleigh, it started raining fiercely but not so much a problem in that I was on I-85 north bound to I-95 then I-64 into Charlottesville and over the mountain. Midway on that drive the rain turned into snow, and I do mean snow. I-64, much to my surprise was closed so I now had to take an alternate route, Hwy. 33. My major concern was crossing the mountain on 33 into the Valley which is a two-lane winding road up one side of the mountain and then down the other side opening up to the Valley. Hmm, do I get a hotel room in C-Ville or go ahead and give it a go? The snowstorm appeared to lessen quite a bit as I cruised through a snow covered, vehicle-less ghost town C-Ville so I felt I could make it. It was about one quarter of the way up the mountain that the reality of what a bad choice I had made set in. The snowstorm was only fooling me by taking a short break passing through C-Ville as if to lure me into its blinding and scary dark hole now on 33. Dark, horizontal snow like crazy, no cell reception, zero visibility and it is now past midnight and I am alone and really tired.
I could not see the end of my hood much less the road and this road could usher you off a 2,000 foot drop given one wrong turn of the steering wheel and they might find you in 2014. OK, so what to do? Can’t turn around, can’t stop on the road for fear of some idiot just like me attempting this treacherous drive in these conditions running into me and shoving me off the mountain. Maybe it was the wilderness survival or sailing emergency preparedness training I had years before that told me to be calm and don’t freak out which is always easier said than done. As I reckoned with the notion that I had to do this and there was a way I was guided to figure something out. I realized in my dilemma that I actually could barely see the road if I looked down just beyond my drivers side mirror and before the front of the vehicle. What I discovered there was the double yellow line in the middle of the road that ultimately became my salvation. As I muddled along at a snail’s pace, I knew if I could manage to follow the yellow line it would take me where I wanted to go safely. Sure, I had moments of fear thinking the worst like someone pulled a bad joke and moved the line so it would take me right off the mountain. Weird, huh? Your mind plays games on you sometimes when the stakes are this high. I chose over and over again that I would “trust” in the lines visually and trust that my prayers for safety would be answered. It took me over one hour and forty-five minutes to cover the distance that normally would take 20 minutes but I made it and gave thanks.
Why would I recreate this event for you? I created a word picture for you in that my hope would be for you to empathize with the scariness and uncertainty of this situation. The message is simple; oftentimes we cannot always see the outcome or end destination of our efforts. The journey even becomes a bit blurred but we have to remain faithful in the things we know to be true. In this story it was the yellow line. In some stores it may be remaining staunchly faithful on the processes and the discipline required to get us to where we want to be. Maybe it is having faith in that we can indeed affect a positive change and get our business to increase. Having faith in your people that they can do great things with the right encouragement. Have you ever given up on a project or process because it took longer to see a result and maybe short-circuited your success due to impatience? Sure, everyone has at some point. Those who give in to fear and anxiety, those who are paralyzed by uncertainty and confusion, and those who pull back and withdraw and wait are guaranteed to see their worst fears realized. Stick with it and have faith in good processes and your people. Like in my story above sometimes it takes patience to get to where you belong. Much like a fine wine, if you rush it you mess it up. If you take methodical steps and invest time, energy and patience in the process you end up with something to proud of.
Refresh your outlook and the way you see the store growing and in doing so you will refresh your team. Put on a brand new pair of glasses and see things through the eyes of someone like me who can walk into your store and in one hour sees what can be made better. Refresh yourself and your team by establishing new positive techniques for people improvement, phone skills processes, Internet processes, floor up processes and effective communications techniques. Identify individual strengths and weaknesses of your employees and all the other good stuff. Just refresh the whole place! Waiting for things to change is a losing proposition. Refresh your entire outlook and the future will reveal to you refreshing outcomes.
Next, in order to rejuvenate you often have to make changes. Sometimes it is in the personnel, sometimes it is a total 180 to the way we have handled things in the past. The definition of rejuvenate is to make young again; restore to youthful vigor, appearance, to restore to a former state; make fresh or new again. Jazz the place up a bit, put up new motivational posters, paint the walls where needed, bring in someone from the outside (new face) to motivate your team on the new sales concepts for this market, train your people on 21st century communications, hire new and better people, etc. Rejuvenate the excitement in recognizing people for their good works as simple as some may be, because it is in the small things that are recognized that give way to the big things they can do. Rejuvenate your entire team’s spirit by giving them hope that they are set to do great things, not just take what comes. Just like you would coach a little league baseball team when things need to improve, you give them hope for winning by pointing out what individual and team talents they are in possession of. The recognition of these facts inspires the team and rejuvenates them into doing things they may not have felt possible.
Renew your commitments to be a leader and do the things that non-leaders don’t do. Develop real teamwork, show enthusiasm for everything you do, motivate, give leadership workshops, and renew energies back to the solid new improved ways to do things. In being a real leader you have to renew your personal energies to understanding and implementing the things that you should be doing. Not just the mundane stuff of paper shuffling but also the real stuff that makes things happens with your people. You have to understand that there is a vast difference between manipulating and influencing others. Manipulation deliberately uses and abuses other people to act out your intentions.
Influence, on the other hand, requires buy-in on the part of the person being influenced and a willingness on their part to support your goals. You cannot influence another without having the buy-in taking place. People respect other people who have the power to positively influence others and get things done. Negative influencers are a thing of the past because as Leadership 101 says; negative begets negative. You cannot insert negative notions and expect a positive result. Manipulation is the dark side of management. When you manipulate others, you give away any chance of gaining respect. It doesn’t matter whether the manipulation is overt or covert; manipulation has no role in a true leader’s skill set, influence does. Renew (or adopt for the first time) your allegiance to the single most important role you play, and that is to positively influence your people. At the end of the day the success or failure of the team falls directly on the shoulders of the leader. Good and bad outcomes are directly your responsibility. Make something positive occur by renewing your spirit of solid leadership. Your people deserve your best and if it is not enough then move over.
Now is a terrific time to make changes in your dealership because if you adopt a business as usual approach it simply implies that you do not care about building. It implies that you are staunchly hovered down in a defensive position and the majority of the points are usually scored when you are offensively committed. Faithfully embrace changes now and tomorrow will deliver newfound treasures. Just follow the double yellow lines.
If you are interested in gathering some leadership enriching ideas send an e-mail to cbarker@DigitalDealer-magazine.com and I will get them out to you. Also, if you have a similar story I would love to hear about it, confidentially of course. The time is so critically right to make the decision to implement these positive growth changes in your store and you will have a distinct advantage over your competitors because most of them just don’t get it and never will. Your team and your customers will respond in very positive and surprising ways.
Chuck Barker
Chuck Barker has been CEO of his two companies, Impact Marketing & Consulting Group, LLC and Impact Summit, LLC, for the last 24 years, both located in Virginia. His experience ranges from an executive with Harris Corporation (16,000 employees) one of Fortune Magazine’s largest companies to the automobile industry where he has performed all executive positions. His companies specialize in growing businesses, dealerships and people. He delivers unparalleled sales & service development programs, management leadership workshop programs and dealer/principal business & profit improvement ideas for automobile dealerships. He has recently published the first comprehensive ‘in-house’ sales training solution program for dealers entitled The Dealership Success Guide.