Basic Management Training, Tips and Tricks for the Novice Leader.
(The 800-Pound Gorilla is an annoying business phrase and is just one of the 212 Most Annoying Business Phrases Managers Effuse, Confuse, and Overuse detailed in the hilarious must-have guide for every workplace: The 30,000-Pound Gorilla in the Room. Available right now on Amazon.) 800-Pound Gorilla Just as the distance can vary with the 30,000-Foot […]
How to Handle an Employee’s Stupid Questions When There are No Stupid Questions I was recently asked how a manager should handle an employee who continues to ask the same question over and over; this, despite having been given the answer repeatedly in the past. The issue, as this manager saw it, was how to […]
In a recent CBT News interview (that aired this week), Joe Gumm asked me the following question: “We’re about two months from wrapping up 2017; and some dealers are already thinking about 2018. So, if you had a top five list of things dealerships need in order to be successful from this point on, what […]
Have you noticed what I’ve noticed about the American workforce over the years? I’ve worked closely with literally hundreds of people since leaving the Marine Corps in 1985, and an overwhelming majority of my coworkers simply hated their jobs. It’s not that any one of them had a particularly lousy job, per se; it’s just […]
Sales are flat – we need more training! Turnover is up – we need more training! Grosses are down – we need more training! We just got a bad review – we need more training! Salespeople aren’t making their calls – we need more training! I can almost hear Jan Brady now: “Training, training, […]
Cheat Sheet for Free Car Dealer Training Resources About once a week I get asked if there is a place where someone can go to see all of my free training resources cataloged in an easily digestible format. For car dealers looking for just video training, we created a Suggested Training Curriculum for Car […]
You Don’t Have Sales Managers; You’ve Got Deskers! Most dealerships I work with seem to suffer from too few managers. They don’t have enough managers to control the sales floor, monitor phone calls and other activities, oversee the basic Road-to-the-Sale, ensure the CRM is being used properly or even train their own sales teams. Why […]
One of the great things about what I do is that I get to speak to a lot of dealer groups. It’s something I really enjoy doing; but more than that, it’s something I feel needs to be done. I believe an educated dealer is a successful dealer; and there is just so much misinformation […]
More than a few years ago, we compiled a list of the Ten Best Decision-Making Books Ever. And while there have been plenty of other books written on the subject since then, none have been able to crack the list… until now. A few weeks ago, an author contacted us and asked that we […]
The 5 Car Dealer Sales Call Situations (and why a BDC is best) With today’s connected customer, there really are only a few types of phone calls your team will find themselves involved with. Gone are the days of a customer phoning and saying, “I need something good on gas for under $8,000; what do […]
We recently received the comment below on our Young Managers – How Do They Lead Older Subordinates post: Hi, I am a female, 28 year older manager leading a mix team of 8 people who are 15-25 years older than me in finance operations. I have slightly different situation. I am an EXPAT from […]
Let me start this post by stating unequivocally that I am big fan of online service scheduling applications for car dealers. When set up correctly, these little tools can save you and your customers the headaches and hassles of numerous service phone calls. When set up correctly. Without getting into the weeds, suffice it […]
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 […]
(Another helpful excerpt from the pladoogle.com free 2015 Car Dealer Mystery Shop Study of more than 400 automotive dealers.) Why Does Lead Response Matter? Lately, much has been written about the drop in the number of electronic sales leads dealers receive – not coincidentally, of course, most often by those wishing to sell more of their […]
While I tend to do a lot of phone training, it’s not my favorite skill to teach. This is not because my phone skills training lacks substance or robustness or even uniqueness – it provides all three (and you can even get most of it for free online) – it’s because that no matter […]
My kids get it. They don’t think about it; they don’t hire gurus to guide them through it; they don’t contrive anything about it; and… they can sniff out anything contrived in an instant. It’s social media, and it’s not mystical or complicated; and it especially doesn’t require any real expertise. Of course, if […]
Quick, Read This Email… Now! Today I received another in a long line of email messages from a certain vendor touting their newest and greatest product improvement. This email, like all of its predecessors, arrived in my Outlook inbox as a message of High Importance. Because I receive just one in five hundred messages marked […]
Delta-a-GoGo: Wi-Fi in the Sky – Good, Bad, Right, Wrong? It’s Here When I first read about Delta’s plans to add wi-fi networking on some flights I was appalled. Under no circumstances did I want this one last bastion of freedom from emails to escape my personal dead zone. I truly enjoyed my twice-weekly […]
More Leadership Lessons from Delta Airlines In a recent post, we admonished Delta Airlines for the ill-conceived, confusing Delta Breezeway enacted in late 2007. It seemed that even months after its introduction, most Delta gate agents and Delta frequent fliers still had no idea how to use them. We are proud to say that between […]