As I wrote in 2015’s Self-Driving Cars: the Winners and the Losers, new car dealers will be among the “Obvious Losers” when, not if, self-driving vehicles become ubiquitous. However, I also predicted that this evolution wouldn’t likely begin impacting new car dealers before 2025. My timeline has actually contracted a little in the last […]
The Great BDC Robbery: How Reconciliation Allows Your Business Development Center to Steal from You Do you have any idea what your BDC is doing right now? A few weeks ago a general manager I’ve known for some time was bragging about the performance of his group’s Centralized BDC. He was almost gushing about how […]
I almost titled this post “Perfect Data Matters,” but because it is one of the most important blog posts I’ve made this year, and because that title is so stinking boring to you and your managers, it would guarantee the least amount of interaction. And that is sad. Perfect Data matters. As boring as […]
Six months ago I watched a service manager struggle with the amount of customer complaints he had to deal with on a daily basis. Most of the complaints were just silly, and almost all of them should have been solved at the advisor level. Unfortunately for this manager, he was really, really good at […]
Perception is reality. I wish I was the first person who ever uttered this unbelievably accurate view of the world. I guess I almost could have been the first, since the quote is most often attributed to political consultant Lee Atwater (who is only twelve years older than me). I find that odd, of course, […]
It was about 6:30 last evening when I found myself at the Delta Sky Club in Tampa, Florida. I was booked on Delta’s 7:45 flight to Atlanta (where I am speaking to a group of Ford dealership managers about Internet processes this morning). I had a yearning for a cup of coffee, but I […]
The Internet is (finally) introducing progress to the car business… whether automotive retailers like it or not. While the Internet itself has so far been little more than an evolution of how car dealers do business (think about it: dealers have been receiving and responding to sales leads from Internet customers for more than […]
Thank you Delta Airlines for all that you do for today’s airline passenger. Whether our trips are for business or just for vacation, we owe you a hearty “thank you” for making us feel so special. . Specifically: . Thank you to the Delta ticket counter clerks who immediately act annoyed when they have to […]
For Young Managers, it’s not Just About Gaining the Respect of Subordinates One of the most common questions from our readers concerns how they as younger managers can lead older subordinates – all while maintaining respect and sanity. Where we felt we could help, we’ve provided these youthful leaders advice and guidance as recently as […]
Low Hanging Fruit and the Cost of Perfection Imagine a small airplane flying low over a crowd at a baseball game. The door of the plane opens and a smiling man appears with a large sack. He turns the sack over just as the plane flies over the bleachers and millions of dollars in […]
Leadership Lessons from the NBA – The Surprisingly Aware Richard Jefferson Weeks after being acquired by the San Antonio Spurs, star NBA forward Richard Jefferson was scheduled to marry his redundantly named fiancé, Kesha Ni’Cole Nichols, last Saturday. As you’ve likely heard, Jefferson, late of the New Jersey Nets, got cold feet and called the […]
Coughlin’s Law: Bury the Dead People leave, let’s get over it. Gone are the days when a man arrives for work in the factory two days after his high school graduation and leaves forty years later with a gold watch. The American career path hasn’t included this scenario since before Lyndon Johnson took office. Over […]
Leadership Lessons from the Public Sector There are reasons some people are lifelong public servants and others work in the real world. Whether it’s the military, public education, a state legislature or a municipal government: a job void of profit responsibility is generally void of any true accountability. Without accountability, leadership can become unnecessary and […]
How Do You Deal With a New Boss? One of our regular readers – and someone who asked our advice very early on in the legacy that has become AskTheManager.com – AngelCakes from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan recently provided us with both an update on her management career and a new dilemma. When we first heard from […]
Leadership Lessons from Snow Days in Georgia (My apologies as I get a little local here, but this stuff really ticks me off.) It snowed in Georgia yesterday; this is news. Some towns, like Athens, received as much as six inches of snow. Gwinnett County, Georgia (north of Atlanta) got a little more than an […]
Skynet is Here, and the Nerds are at the Controls (Terminator fans can probably skip the next two paragraphs, as they’re just an explanation of the havoc we can expect in our not-too-distant future.) Skynet, for the uninformed, is a computer-based defense system, created by nerds working for the U.S. military in the 1990s. […]
Leadership and the Bully Pulpit Michael Jackson (no, not that Michael Jackson) loves the bully pulpit. AutoNation’s Michael Jackson, we’ll call him the “non-gloved-one,” is everywhere these days. Officially, he serves as the CEO of the largest automotive dealer group in the US. Unofficially, he serves as the primary spokesperson for all curmudgeons who are […]
2008: A Lesson in Recession and Leadership The axiom “sales cure all ills” rings more true today than ever. More than anything it teaches us an inarguable lesson: that is, we learn more about leadership in bad times than we do in good times. To prove this theory to yourself, imagine your company just 18 […]
Goldman Leaders Forgo 2008 Bonuses In a recent email from one of our readers, we were asked to weigh in on the Goldman Sachs Group’s leadership decision to request no bonuses for the current calendar year. What are your thoughts on the following article? How does this reflect leadership during these troubled times? – Tye […]
Leadership and Business Bankruptcy Bennigan’s, Mrs. Fields and Lehman Brothers. Not really three names you’d ever expect to see in the same sentence, but all three have one thing in common: they all declared bankruptcy in 2008 and substandard leadership is to blame. Lehman Brothers is certainly the most shocking name on this list. […]