Auto Dealer Monthly Magazine is the daily operations publication serving the retail automotive industry. This automotive publication serves dealer principals, officers and general managers with the latest best practices.
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©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/PACOROMERO Dealers tend to blame slow sales on the competition, and their complaints run the gamut from oversaturated markets to the state of the economy. But the author says dealers of every stripe are succeeding in the Digital Age. They just have to be willing to compete and refuse to stand pat. You can bring down the best of them. DRY YOUR TEARS I can't tell you how many times or in how many cities I have visited dealers who were on the ropes and getting pounded by the competition. All too ofen, when dealers realize they're losing sales to the competition, their frst reaction is to hunker down and sell defensively. Ten they try to justify their sad circumstances with excuses. Te last dealer I visited spent 10 minutes telling me all the reasons why he couldn't sell cars. He regurgitated every weak-ass excuse his managers and sales representatives had fed him. First, his competitors were low-ball prostitutes who were giving cars away. Ten it was the weak economy and his broke clientele. Tat was followed by complaints about his OEM (overdealered the market) and his former used-car manager (ripped him of and lef him underwater on his inventory). Finally, he informed me that you can't buy decent cars at the auctions anymore. I let him talk until he started to wear down. It was sort of like letting a largemouth bass run with the line for a while before you set the hook. I shook my head and said, "You're right! It's hopeless! I think the best thing you can do is cut your losses, shut this sucker down and go out of business. Let's see how much the real estate is worth if you cash out right now." His face fell. "Oh, no, Jim," he said. "Tat's why you're here. I think we can pull it out." In any competitive situation, you really only have two choices: Crush the competition or be crushed. In other words, you can grow or you can die, but you can't stay where you are. It's not a little kids' soccer game where they don't keep score so there are no losers. Tis is your business and you should be playing for keeps. So if you're ready to mount a second-half comeback, you need to make some halfime adjustments in one of two areas: personnel and processes. Are you emotionally attached to bad people? Is there anyone working for you who should be gone? I'm talking about employees and managers — maybe even relatives — who are never, ever going to make it no matter how much training and support you give them. Are you teaching processes that clearly aren't working? If the way you've always done it ain't paying of, why are you so dead set on sticking to it? Turnaround is immediate. Tere isn't a dealership out there that can't achieve maximum performance potential in a very short time. You don't have to sneak up on new business or gradually grow into it. You explode into it overnight. Overly cautious doesn't win. Once you've assessed what is possible in your store, you can get there in less than 90 days. With today's technologyenabled sales and marketing, there's no such thing as a smalltown dealership. I know dozens of "Mayberry" dealers who are bringing the big dogs to their knees. It's time to commit to the highest level of performance your company can achieve. Like Clint Eastwood said, "Our second half is about to begin." CAREER CHOICES I am writing this article less than 10 days before the NADA Convention in New Orleans. It has been an eventful year, but most of what happened was predictable to anyone with a lick of sense. PHOTO COURTESY FORD MOTOR CO. Fiction is flled with stories about second-half comebacks. Rocky always gets his ass kicked for at least the frst three rounds before he reaches deep down and pulls out a win. Come on, admit it. We all thought Ivan Drago was going to kill him. Te turning point came when Rocky's corner man shouted, "You cut him! You hurt him! … He's not a machine, he's a man!" Tis past NFL season featured countless comebacks, but the most amazing of them all has to be the November 24th showdown between the New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos. I was feeling embarrassed for the Patriots and their fans afer Denver scored 24 unanswered points before halfime. Just when it looked like their punter might pass out from exhaustion, the Patriots rallied in the second half and pulled of a 34-31 overtime victory. Well, your competitors are not machines, and they sure as hell ain't the Denver Broncos. Ziegler thinks the auto industry could lose one of its best executives if Ford's president and CEO, Alan Mulally, were to retire or depart. Mulally has pledged to stay for the near term, but the opportunity to run a corporation like Microsoft could prove too tempting to resist. Tat, of course, is why so many factory executives never saw it coming. Te same cannot be said for Ford Motor Co.'s Alan Mulally, but there has been widespread speculation that he might jump ship to run Microsof. He addressed the rumors by saying that he has "no other plans to do anything other than serve Ford." Te smart money says a very strong possibility exists that Mulally will accept a CEO position with another major company in the future. I can't envision this guy retiring but I believe he needs challenges and he's conquered most of the worst that Ford was facing. He took them through the storm. He is a turnaround guy and this job has become a maintenance position. Alan Mulally is sort of like Bob Lutz. I predict he'll keep reappearing long afer most of the rest of us have lef the stage. THE VW HABIT I love Volkswagen. Whenever I FE BRUARY 2014 • AUTODE ALE R MONTHLY.COM 9