Words are cheap. What matters is the true belief system behind your words and the actions you take because of those belief systems. Economies don’t improve, people improve. Waiting for something to happen is for losers. The most important economy is the one created between your ears.

During down markets you have to get creative to make things happen. Although you may not be able to push your current chosen market if it’s not there but you can niche market, create affiliations, utilize your customer base better and push alternative markets. In other words, there are options for success. Standing and waiting for the world to create your economy is not a good option.

There is an old quote that says, “When you go to work on yourself and get better it’s amazing how much better your customer’s get.” The one activity that can always pay off during a down economy is individual and organizational development.

Everything boils down to the four P’s of business - people, process, product and positioning. Do you work daily on your personal development? Do you work daily to increase your knowledge and ability to sell your product? Do you work daily to increase the effectiveness of your process? Do you work daily to increase your positioning through better marketing? If you work on these things daily you will determine your sales success in good times or bad. Good times will now become the norm.

Thoreau said it best: “Things don’t change; people change.” Make a commitment to figure out why you want to do something. When the why gets strong, the how gets easy. When you know why you want something, ideas of how will flow to you. Concentrate on the solution, not the problem. When you dwell on the idea of a prosperous market you create the reality of a prosperous market.

When you open the door to your belief system, you close the door of scarcity. When you are suffering from a lack of something it’s because you have a mental condition of lack. Everything apparent in your outside world of today is a direct reflection of your inside world from yesterday.

As you improve yourself you begin to think and act on another level of energy. Imagine the analogy of playing a video game and having to get a good enough score at one level to go to the next level. Once you improve enough you enter a whole other level that creates another opportunity for improvement.

Each year at the start of football practice, Vince Lombardi, the coach of the Green Bay Packers started his season the same way. His opening statement to his players was, “This is a football.” Every year, John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach of the UCLA Bruins started his first practice of the season by demonstrating to his players how to properly put on their socks to prevent blisters. Pretty basic stuff, huh?

Notice the similarities between Wooden and Lombardi in the educational formats. Whether it’s athletics or business, you must start with the fundamentals first. Just as if you built a mansion on a weak foundation, a business built on a weak foundation will crumble. Bill Walton the former star basketball player for UCLA was interviewed about John Wooden and he recounted his first practice with Wooden and how the coach talked about putting on socks properly. Bill Walton remarked that he expected incredible wisdom to come from his legendary coach in the first practice and was disappointed that the practice started with how to put on his socks. When Bill Walton questioned Wooden about the first meeting, Wooden’s reply was simple. If he were to teach Mr. Walton everything he knew about basketball but he could not do any of those things because he was sitting on the bench unable to play because of blisters, then all those teachings would not matter.

How many times have you experienced or witnessed yourself, sales people, managers and owners looking for miracle cures without taking care of the fundamental basics? Massive advertising campaigns, computers, software, business development centers, new facilities or cure-all sales approaches won’t matter if you don’t have the right foundation in place. What are the components of a solid foundation? First, you must have the right team members. Everything starts with people. I encourage every manager or owner to raise your expectations and requirements for the team members you recruit. Concentrate most all of your efforts into getting the right people before you move on to anything else.

Make sure you have the talents of those people matched to their positions. Many baseball historians have reviewed the “Big Red Machine” of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team in the 1970s and noted the improvement in the team that was made when Sparky Anderson, the Reds manager, moved Pete Rose from the outfield to third base to allow the insertion of George Foster to the outfield. At the time, the move was considered by many to be risky and even ridiculous. In retrospect, the move was genius because it allowed the right people to be in the right positions. In the book, “From Good to Great” by Jim Collins, Collins noted that great companies not only must have the right people on the bus, but that you must have them in the right seats as well. An example would be that great sales people don’t always make great managers and vice versa.

Next, make sure you give your team members the processes to use their skills. Talented team members going in different directions will still create bad results. The proper education of process should include what to do, how to do it, when to do it and, just as important, why. Talented and intelligent team members will also provide beneficial feedback to strengthen your process. It can even be argued that the process should come first. Talented and bright team members recruited into a bad process with limited flexibility to improve the process will just create heightened turnover problems. In other words, if your business model is bad, the better the recruit, the quicker he or she will leave.

When looking at a big task like creating a winning team with a winning strategy, it is natural for it to seem daunting. Remember that all big goals are accomplished one step at a time. Break down your strategy into small steps. Create a simple flow chart that utilizes a visual guideline for your goal. Put estimated timelines next to each stage to create urgency in creating your success. However, don’t be tempted to reduce your level of expectations to just say you made your deadline. Remember your end destination and take action every day, the time of achievement will take care of itself.

Negotiating can be done in a professional manner that can increase customer satisfaction while helping to protect both parties’ interests.

Let’s first look at some of the problems that give negotiating a bad name and then look at the solutions. A lack of training in negotiating in the automotive industry has put sales people at a disadvantage. Usually, a sales person is taught how to negotiate in a learn-as-you-go method. Although all learning must be accomplished by doing, some preparation has to be done to make the learning experience more effective. All sales people and managers should go through a course on basic and advanced negotiating. Assuming that sales managers can automatically teach your sales people to negotiate professionally is asking for trouble. How did the managers learn to negotiate?

Sales people should be taught the expected procedures. I like to call these routing procedures. Routing procedures will define everyone’s responsibilities, from the moment a customer is greeted until they are delivered, including the necessary paperwork and who initiates what. Included in the routing procedures are items known as, black and white items. Black and white items are the things that should never vary at your dealership. These items are to be defined by your top management and can include such things as not quoting discounted prices on the lot or never low-balling on price.

Another source of problems in negotiating is the misuse of traditional negotiating techniques. The “higher authority technique” is a technique of always deferring to a higher authority for a decision. The technique is a solid negotiation tactic that has been run into the ground by automotive people. Having your sales people run to the manager more than once or twice in negotiations is a crime. Not giving the sales person any latitude or decision-making capability in negotiations leads to the yo-yo effect that creates mistrust in the sales person and customer.

When is the last time a sales person in your dealership was taught what to do when a customer asks for a lower down payment, lower payment, higher trade values or a reduction of the sales price. Most veteran sales people in dealerships all over the country could not verbally and written give you at least three or four steps to each one of the above objections without having to think or blink. How many objections in negotiation are there? Most objections fall into only a few categories. Have your sales people role played recently on those objections and the potential answer to them? Example: “Mr. Customer, we would be happy to lower your monthly budget $50 a month. Did you want to go 60 months instead of 48, or put $1,500 more cash investment, or look at the car with about $50 a month less in equipment, or look at a lease/Smart Buy program? Which would be best for you?” Whether you like my words or there are some others you prefer is not as important as having a way to handle the objections and practicing them over and over until the sales people know their negotiating skills.

“He or she who prepares the most, wins the most.” A large part of negotiating is knowing when and how to negotiate, as well as being prepared for all situations. The tragic death of John Kennedy Jr. might have been prevented with more preparation. Although negotiating may not be life or death for a sales person, it can feel like life or death to a sales person that wants to help his or her customer and doesn’t know how.

The following are few simple negotiating techniques:

1. Flinch - always flinch at any proposal or counter proposal.

2. Split the Split - When customers offer to split the difference, offer back to split their proposal again. Example: $3,000 apart $1,500 split offered $ 2,250 your counter

3. Bracket proposals - If your desired gross profit is $3,000 and the customer offers you $1,500, propose back as much above your desired profit as they proposed below, example: $4,500 gross would be the same $1,500 amount above your desired gross, as they had offered below. Most likely they will offer to split the difference and it also lends credence to your offer.

4. Give/get - Try always to get something in return for giving something. This will stop the customer from nibbling and eroding your gross. If you don’t use give/get, you will not only give away all your gross but will also create a shopper.

Everyone negotiates everyday. Whether it’s on vehicles, houses, relationships or pay plans etc., everyone negotiates on things we sometimes didn’t even realize we had negotiated on. Somehow people walk away from negotiating things other than automobiles feeling extremely positive about the process. Why? I invite you to ask how you would feel negotiating at your dealership and what you could do to make it better for the customer, sales person, manager and dealership.

When you have a first encounter with a customer, they are usually wondering one simple question. Can I trust you?

There are three stages of buying:
1. Character and Trust
2. Emotion
3. Logic

I don’t know that one stage is more important than the other but I do know that the trust stage usually happens first. When you build a house and the foundation is weak, no matter how nice a house you build it comes crumbling down eventually. A sale is the same way. You can sell all you want. You can create an emotional frenzy. You can justify emotions with logic and reasoning but at the end if the customer has a twinge of doubt about you they will pause and hesitate to complete the sale.

Usually when the customer stalls after showing all the right buying signs, we blame the customer and create some unflattering names for him or her. Here’s a news fl ash: Most of the time it’s your fault. It’s not the customer’s job to trust you. It’s not the customer’s job to create a rapport and a bond. It’s not the customer’s job.

Often, the customer comes in sold on your product and has a need and desire for it. They want to buy it. But when it gets to the end, one thing keeps them from buying - fear. Fear of making a mistake. Your customers are human. Customer’s have fears of making a mistake in buying the wrong vehicle, getting the wrong price, getting the wrong information or having a bad experience.

To sell more, you must allow the customer to buy. To buy a customer needs a path without obstacles and doubt. To remove the customer’s doubts and fear you must practice risk aversion and reversal.

Sales training has focused primarily on handling objections and other reactive selling approaches. Practicing risk aversion is a proactive approach to selling that addresses common fears up front and removes them before the become an obstacle. Fifteen minutes spent on proactive risk aversion can eliminate two hours of reactive objection handling.

Take a pencil and paper and write down all the common fears of your customers and common objections you receive. Write down the silent objections you don’t get but you know are really there. No matter what you sell, it’s the same objections over and over. It doesn’t take that much to be aware of the objections, to be prepared to proactively eliminate them and even answer them if they still come up.

Listen to what customers say and what they are trying to say. Listen to what customers really mean. And, listen to what customers aren’t saying but intuitively you know they are thinking. Increasing your intuitive ability is a major step in becoming a master sales person. Watch your customer’s body language. You don’t need a course to teach you what people are thinking by their body language. You simply need to observe, think and feel as they do. TLC - Think Like a Customer.

Remember, that trust comes before money.

Do you want to be more successful? You can achieve greater success if you begin to follow certain secrets that blow open the doors that are closed for you now. I am comfortable in saying that all people have some closed doors that limit their achievement. What are the doors that I am talking about and how can you open them?

The doors are a metaphor for the gateways to successful achievement. The keys are the secrets that unlock them and allow you move forward faster and with less conflict toward your dreams than ever before.

Key #1 - Energy
Everyone needs physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energy to propel them toward their goals. It’s often been said that “fatigue makes cowards of us all.” What do you do that gives or robs you of energy? Make a list of 10 common actions in your day. Next to each, put a plus or a minus according to whether it gives or depletes energy. The mind, body and spirit go hand in hand. If one source is constantly drawing energy it will affect the energy in the other area. Do you ever feel so depleted mentally that physically you are just going through the motions?

Create an action plan to eliminate or greatly reduce all things that deplete your energy. Decide what your tolerance is. Successful and satisfied people create levels of tolerance for themselves and others who come in contact with them.

Key #2 - Enthusiasm
Ethos loosely translated means, “The Breath of God.” This means enthusiasm is contagious. It’s hard to get others excited unless you are excited. Nobody is excited all the time. We all have our ups and downs. What anchor do you have that will immediately connect you to the enthusiasm that you need to achieve the successful level of living that you want? Just by having a built-in and pre-arranged filter that detects when you are not at your peak level of enthusiasm will enable you to make corrections quickly. Without the filters you can become a zombie simply going through the motions until you or someone else makes you aware of your lack of enthusiasm.

Key #3 - Emotion
Do you live with emotion? You don’t have to be drama queen to live emotionally. Emotions are about feelings. Successful people tend to live in the moment. Stress, fatigue and worry detract from the joy of living in the moment. “Worry is paying interest on a debt not yet due.” Everyone experiences levels of depleting emotions that create a false and overwhelming sense of reality. How many times have you heard of people with near death experiences who now live with a greater sense of awareness and emotion?

Colors become brighter, jokes become funnier and experiences become richer. Your level of attainment in emotional living will increase your connection to others. To enrich your chances of success, you have to enrich others.

Key #4 - Humor
Nothing can bond people quicker than humor. Nothing can change your attitude, emotions, enthusiasm and outlook more than humor. Humor releases endorphins in the brain and creates a feeling of euphoria. Humor is an instant-on switch for changing your actions and outlook toward everything you face in your day. Experiencing humor is powerful. Being a conduit of humor for others is power multiplied exponentially.

Key #5 - Persistence
Persistent = consistent. Persistence is perhaps the most common denominator of successful living. Successful people keep moving when others quit. It’s been said that most of success is just showing up. Persistence is the key to showing up when other have quit. History is full of examples and testimonials to the power of persistence. Failure only occurs at the time when you quit. Those who live successfully know the power of persistent pursuit.

Persistent pursuit of goals and dreams creates a powerful sense of living unmatched by anything else. Persistence becomes a life force that creates self confidence for those who execute the power of persistence on a daily basis. In a world where the strong survive, persistence equals the playing field and gives the edge to those who apply its power.

Combining all the keys to success will create a sense of urgency needed for success. Examine the current level of each of the five keys to success in your life and create a personal game plan for successful living.

Great managers view themselves as coaches more than managers. There is an old adage: “Lead people and manage things.” There is a fine line between creating and utilizing systems and processes and micromanaging details without emphasizing the power of personal interaction.

Good systems and processes should allow employees to raise their performance by giving them confidence in their direction and lessening the burden of the manager and coach from having to constantly inform people of their expected actions.

The problems and obstacles for mangers and coaches happen when the process is elevated over the players who utilize those systems and an improper implementation training process is used. Great systems with poor people make for poor results. Great systems tied to poor coaching of people in the system results in poor results. Managers and coaches can’t give a process to their players and expect the process to work without consistently motivating and leading the players in the system.

Think of your process like a machine. A machine is created to perform the desired function. Once you create the machine, you test it and know it will work. It fails when the mechanics of the machine break or when the operator has an error in operating the machine. Your business process is much the same.

When you integrate a player into a system, you must explain what they are to do. Next, a coach must explain why the player must perform the tasks required utilizing the desired process. When the why gets strong, the how gets easy. If a player is clear about the why, the process will be performed with maximum results.

The third step is to demonstrate how the tasks and process work. Don’t just tell - demonstrate. If the player believes the process can be executed properly and has evidential proof that his or her coach or someone else can do it in the way that is expected, the player will emotionally buy into the process. The coaches must get the commitment or buy-in for anything to work. Therefore, coaches must have the trust and respect of the players. There is also a second part of the demonstration that must take place. The demonstration phase should move from the coach demonstrating to the player to the stage where the player performs the functions with close direction and inspection of the coach.

The last step of the implementation is never-ending. This stage is continual coaching and inspection. Players must know they are continually being coached, inspired and reviewed in their performance.

Recently, my daughter Erin secured a summer job after her first year in college. She is employed by the J. Alexander chain of restaurants. The process employed by J. Alexander’s is not only a good reference point for the steps of coaching that I have mentioned, but is a reference for excellence.

Erin was interviewed and profiled by three different managers on three different occasions. When Erin was hired, she had to complete detailed training that would make many businesses green with envy. Erin had to train with a study guide consisting of more than 100 pages. Erin had to pass six written tests just to begin serving as a waitress or as they are called in their culture - champions. She had to be able to recite the company creed. Further training and testing was required to be able to serve on the weekends, which are their busiest days. Before being released to begin her position, Erin had to shadow another trained champion and then switch and have the experienced person trail her. Both Erin and I were amazed at the commitment to process, training and implementation.

Remember, the processes and dedication of J. Alexander’s produces a champion who can serve and produce an experience that is measured in small dollars. Your business may produce a product and experience that is measured in many thousands of dollars. Based on your process, training, implementation and coaching, are you a coaching champion?

Customers don’t buy products and services, and sales people don’t sell products and services. Customers buy solutions to problems they can feel emotionally. Sales people are the conduit that helps customers discover those emotional solutions.

People buy from people. Customers generally do business with people they like and trust. Your customers don’t walk out of your dealership telling you that they bought from you because you are a jerk. Customers can get vehicles anywhere. Most of you are not selling a rare commodity. Therefore the decision criteria of a customer are based upon money, me and machine(product/service). However, you are the secret ingredient. You have the power to influence the perception of the customer about you, the machine and the money.

A customer will move through three stages of the selling process - Character/Trust, Emotion and Logic. People have to like and trust you, then they allow you to guide them to emotions that eventually combine with logic. Emotion distorts reality. That’s why everyday customers buy and then tell you that they did not plan to buy today.

The number one reason people buy is and always will be confidence. Confidence they feel in the money, me and machine that you give them. Therefore the most empowering decision you can ever make as a sales person is accept full responsibility for every sale made or lost.

Once you accept full responsibility for winning and losing and eliminate the easily accepted notion that it’s about price, you become an incredibly powerful, winning sales person. If you allow one excuse for losing into your subconscious it opens the door for a million excuses. Weak sales people raise skinny kids. Eliminate all excuses such as price and watch your sales take off.

If price is the issue, what can you do to influence the price or the decision? Practice apples to oranges selling. If everybody else is showing the customer apples, you show them better apples and show them oranges, as well. Always think HFG - Hope for Gain. What is the customer trying to accomplish and how can I apply to their sense of HFG.

How will the first stage of your engagement with the customer set you apart and influence the customer? Most customers decide to buy from you in 15 seconds to two minutes. The decision is made about you long before they ever make a decision about price. If you are in retail sales, try this greeting: “Hi folks, are you out beginning to look and shop around?” What are they going to say, “No we are just looking and shopping?” Be proactive. Take the objection away up front and make the customer feel at ease while you do it. Nobody else is greeting the customer this way.

Most sales people operate out of the same gene pool. If you do this you eventually become a homogenized, generic sales person. What follows are bad results, lots of price shoppers, low sales, low incomes and eventually a bad case of excuses. Never forget that everything you do makes a difference.

Before any customer leaves, are you and your manager “walking the wheel”? “Walking the wheel” is a phrase I use to remind us to explore all avenues. Bigger choice, smaller choice, different product or service, new to used, used to new, demonstrator model, longer term, cash back, delay payment, pay off the remaining payments on their current product, trade another product, etc. How hard do you fight for every sale? Persistent = consistent.

Winning at sales is simply a choice. You can choose to win or choose to lose. Once you choose, you become the sales person you have decided to be at the given moment.

Every year at the National Automobile Dealers Convention, the exhibit hall is full of Customer Relationship Management and Business Development Center companies displaying their wares. Dealers spend massive amounts of money in a frenzy to buy the “magic button” CRM or BDC solution for many reasons. Unfortunately most of those reasons aren’t valid. Putting great tools in the hands of below average people with below average processes and little to no accountability equals a waste of money.

Let’s look at some of the underlying reasons why dealers buy these tools. Dealers see their dealer friends, fellow twenty group members and competitors buying these tools and feel the peer pressure to “keep up with the Jones’s.” Dealers start reading trade magazines and attending programs where a lot of the conversation is around customer relationship management and feel the force of momentum around this subject.

Unfortunately, I have been in thousands of dealerships across the country and can say without a doubt that in the majority of dealerships, between 80-90% of CRM’s or BDC’s functionality is not being used. Great technology and great tools alone do not move a traditional dealership into the new age of selling. In most dealerships with CRM tools, incremental sales and service numbers are not improved and massive amounts of money are being wasted.

In almost thirty years in the business, I have witnessed the majority of dealerships putting massive amounts of time, energy and money on acquiring new customers and giving only lip service around the importance of existing customers. All research, data and plain logic shows that putting the emphasis on your existing customer base first will reward you more than any other single thing you can do.

I conduct interviews with dealer’s everyday and it’s hard to find a dealer who actually knows what their dealerships repeat sales numbers look like. Almost none of the dealers I interview can tell me what their sale to service retention percentage is. Very few dealers can give a detailed explanation of their CRM process and how it is carried out and even to what degree it is carried out. Embarrassingly, very few dealers can tell me specifically and convincingly why a customer should buy from their dealership versus their competitors.

The traditional entrepreneurial dealer focused only on push driven sales approaches is dead. Dealers have to be better business people than ever before. Gone are the days of being successful in spite of you. The margin for ignorance and operating error is slim.

Bury your old dealership and operating approach as you know it. Take the time to step away from your dealership and evaluate what you are doing versus what needs to be done. Evaluate the 4 P’s of your business – People, Process, Product and Positioning. Evaluate all the tools and technology you use and the effectiveness of those tools and the way they are being used or most likely not being used. You must integrate people and technology together into a cohesive sales and marketing process.

Many dealers will need to come to the conclusion that they will never be able to set up a traditional process with people carrying out all the functions they want them to. Most of your salespeople and managers are not capable or willing to do all the things you want them to do. The truth for those dealerships is that they never have and they never will. If this is your dealership, you may have to let go of your ego and design a process with job descriptions that can actually succeed. You may decide to remove some of the traditional functions and narrow the focus of each person on your team. I have often heard dealers say, “I expect my managers or salespeople to do these things.” In return, I always ask the dealer, “Do they, and if so how often?” Most of the time, the answer is either no or very little.

It’s very clear, gone are the days where a dealer can accept that expectations are not being met. You must either improve your people and accountability of those people or completely redesign your dealership with processes and benchmarks that can and will be executed and monitored. I invite dealers to stop playing victim by blaming your people for not executing. You hired them, you set up the process and you created the accountability or lack of it. Therefore, it’s your responsibility and your job to fix it.

To receive a F*REE Special Report titled “New Generation” and a series of articles around The Death of the Traditional Dealership” and “The Death of the Traditional Salesperson” email me at info@tewart.com with “New Generation” in the subject line.

Mark Tewart is a sales and automotive industry expert. Mark is also a professional speaker, trainer, consultant, entrepreneur and author of the best seller, How To Be A Sales Superstar. Mark is a member of The National Speakers Association and The Authors Guild

All businesses are built on two areas of competency - people skills and marketing skills. Many sales people who are more than adequate in their sales and people skills are struggling today. The reason is most sales people lack enough opportunities with customers. Lead generation = dollar creation

As a sales person you are in business for yourself. Having a mentality of being the CEO of your company is crucial to developing your business. The dealership signs your check, and you fill in the numbers.

You have a better opportunity than ever to be successful. The key to your long-term success as a sales person is the creation of a dynamite marketing strategy that dealers overlook and most sales people are too lazy to do.

Your first step is to create a marketing web. Take a sheet of paper and list every way that you receive customers. The first two ways you probably listed were from walk-ins and phone prospects. These are produced by the dealership and are therefore the ones over which you have no control. Begin to control your destiny and think of ways to produce customers from other resources.

What other sources of leads did you list? Here are some suggestions: referrals, service drive, service tickets, be-backs, affiliations, repeats, targeted phone calling, database marketing, targeted list mailings, orphan owners, lost customer marketing, coupon swaps, joint-venture advertising, community board flyer, door-to-door flyers, Web site and many more.

For each source at least one strategy of creating leads should be chosen. If you execute one strategy a day on 10 ways to create leads, your leads will grow exponentially over time. Your business will hit a period of critical mass and explode.

At that point, a sales person has the best job in the dealership. Your pay, hours, stress and job security will be better than the managers’. Your risk will be zero, your investment minimal and most everything is supplied for you.

Why don’t more sales people take this road of action to success? Usually, it’s a lack of buy-in. If you haven’t begun to create a business of your own, it’s because your belief system doesn’t buy into the idea of a self-created destiny in sales. Either you have “Manageritis”, don’t believe you will be selling vehicles for a career, don’t believe you will be at your current dealership in the future, don’t believe it can be done or you’re lazy. The truth sucks sometimes.

Success and failure are all about belief systems and habits. You have to believe and live it everyday for it to work. Speaker and business philosopher Jim Rohn once was asked if you had to take successful actions everyday to be successful and he replied, “Only on the days you want to be successful.” Actually, if you only take successful actions every once in a while, you can’t even be successful on those once-in-a-while days. It takes sustained effort.

If you begin to execute a strategy of marketing and don’t have immediate success, you can’t quit. It’s easier to say something doesn’t work than it is to use the lack of success as a path to figuring out successful actions. Marketing in itself is a series of miscalculations to figure out what works. The greatest marketers of all time have failed more than they have been right. To great marketers, all failures are just tests on the road to figuring out the right formula.

As a small marketer in the Internet age, you can appear to be bigger and more successful than you really are. You can create a successful brand. You can be more agile and target more than larger businesses such as dealerships can do with traditional advertising. The over-hyped, over-competitive marketplace is perfect for the dedicated and creative sales person of today.

Do you feel like you are missing out on something? Are you confused as to what the next step is in making your dealership successful? It’s a different ballgame than it was even just a few years ago. The traditional dealership is dead and you must bury it to prosper in the future.

For years the car business could be a very forgiving business. There was room for a lot of error in a dealership and yet a dealership could still be profitable. Those days are gone. Dealerships cannot be run in only a “seat of the pants”, entrepreneurial fashion anymore. To be successful dealerships have to be measured intensely in four areas - People, Process, Product and Positioning.

People - You must choose a path that works for your dealership philosophy. You must recruit people on a full time basis based upon want, not need. The leadership of a dealership must have a written and executed game plan for recruiting that utilizes online services, job fairs, colleges, tech schools, high schools, web sites, micro-sites, social media, newspaper, mass media and more.

Each dealership needs a detailed plan that includes a) interview questions, b) number of interviews c) personnel trained to interview d) testing methods for potential job skill match e) screening methods f) follow up methods g) initial and ongoing training methods for new hires

Process - Each dealership should have a written and executed process for every part of the dealership - sales process, internet lead process, marketing process, service process, parts process, manager process, used car inventory process etc. As an example, the selling process must be reviewed to make sure it is up to date and matches today’s marketplace. Most sales processes being used today were created in the 50’s and 60’s and have changed only slightly. Meanwhile, for the customer, everything has changed. Information gathering, overall knowledge, shopping process, volume of choices, expectations, value perceptions, lessening of brand loyalty are all things that have changed dramatically.

Every dealership needs to review their process based upon TLC - Think Like a Customer. What are you currently doing in your dealership process that lessens customer trust or ease of shopping/buying. Most dealerships are living in the stone-age when it comes to something as simple as the meeting and greeting of the customer. Nothing in your current process is sacred and the mantra for many things should be “just let it go.”

Product - The days of “Stack’em deep and sell them cheap” are over. Your new and used inventory must be monitored daily using analytic systems and technology that measures not only your inventory but others and market conditions. Many dealers have fought using any type of turn system even though simple mathematics proved you would be better off doing so. Well, the tide has turned again. Turn systems by themselves are now outdated and can even lower your dealerships ROI without other factors involved. Each vehicle is an investment just like a stock or mutual fund and must be analyzed, bought, priced, marketed, sold and eliminated using several conditions. Just saying that you have a 45 day turn system is not good enough anymore.

Positioning - Gone are the days of running display newspaper ads and waiting for traffic to arrive. Your dealership must have a dealership strategy that combines market positioning. Selling vehicles based upon price only will not create long term success. Successful dealers will no longer be able to delegate all of their marketing to an advertising strategy without educating themselves on the marketing and positioning aspects of their dealership.

Dealers will have to massively educate themselves on things such as, direct response marketing methods, copyrighting, multi-step campaigns, integration of on-line and off-line methods, social media, continual customer relationship building strategies, and sales to service continuity programs and retention. Dealers will learn that many advertising agencies do not understand any of these things and simply create lousy to mediocre production and buy the media. Without a well thought strategy using intentional congruence with all of the above mentioned factors you cannot be successful in this and future marketplace.

In the last year, I have asked hundreds of dealers the following questions:

#1 - What are your overall sales to service retention numbers and percentages beyond a first free oil change?

#2 - What are your number of inactive customers and what percentage is that to your overall customer base?

#3 - What is your planned and executed strategy for a continuity program to keep your customers for sales and service?

Here is the sad result. Out of hundreds of dealers, only one knew the answer to these questions. I continually find that dealers and managers do not really know what is going on in their own dealerships and are not doing anything to educate them to change that.

The reality is that the future belongs to dealers who educate themselves more, execute better and understand the value of speed in today’s marketplace. The marketplace of today and the future will continue to be very unforgiving with little room for margin of error, inattention or being slothful. The traditional dealership is dead but the exciting news is your new dealership is waiting to be born.

For a free special report titled “10 Things You Must Do At Your Dealership To Be Successful” email me at info@tewart.com with 10 things in the subject line.