Mark Tewart’s Superstar Blog at DrivingSales.com

There is one common denominator in every successful dealership and that is strong leadership. If your dealership is not doing well, look at the leadership and ask yourself the following question: Is my dealership being held hostage?

Weak dealerships are held hostage by bad employees. Bad employees don’t execute the game plans they are given. Bad employees rebel against everything. Bad employees are consistently negative. Bad employees make excuses for weak production. Bad employees don’t have a game plan. Bad employees don’t try to get better.

Weak leaders allow bad employees to be bad employees. To use an old phrase, bad leaders don’t inspect what they expect. I think if I hear one more weak leader of an underperforming dealership say "I want my staff to buy in" I will puke. Buy into what? Give me a break. It is impossible to have your staff "buy into" everything you ever do. Strong leaders sell the goals and plans of the company while also asking for individual goals and plans from their team members. Strong leaders take action and demonstrate the way.

The company must have a mission set by it’s leaders. The company mission can’t be based upon a bunch of individuals. If there is one thing I learned playing sports, it’s about the team and not the individual. When you have individuals that fight your goals, you must reeducate them first and then if that does not work then you must fire their asses second. I would rather have five committed good people than have twelve people and seven of them be negative, rebelling losers.

While my company has been blessed  working with many successful dealers over the years, I have witnessed several clunkers. The one common thread to all the clunkers are weak leaders who allow their dealership to be held hostage. Get past all the new age management mythology preached by gurus who have never managed and take back YOUR dealership. Don’t let your dealership be held hostage.

Mark Tewart is a speaker, trainer, consultant to the automotive industry. Mark is also the author fo "How To Be A Sales Superstar." To receive the 1st chapter for FREE and several FREE bonuses, go to www.marktewartlive.com

Notice the play on words in the title. This is a chapter title from my new book "How To Be A Sales Superstar." The idea of this chapter is to concentrate on your existing customers. Often salespeople and businesses spend so much of their budgets and time on conquest customers. However, the real gold is in your exisitng customers. Look at who bought from you int he past and who brought you to where you are.

I would invite you to identify the top ten percent of your customers. Your top ten percent will often provide the majority of your income, referrals and goodwill. What are you doing to reward these customers? What are you doing to create a continuity program that allows them to do business with you continually and more often? Create a broad based VIP membership program that rewards your best customers the most.

Also, invite all of your customers into your program and create a model of acension. By nature, the ego of your customers will often drive them to want to ascend the ladder of your VIP program to higher levels of recognition and rewards. Your customers like to get added value even more than they want initial discounts. Creating VIP programs allow you and your business to create an apple to oranges buying experience based upon value rather than price. When customers are faced with making a decision where all things are equal, price becomes the final decision. Your VIP, memebership and rewards programs reduce the influence of lowest price.

Mark Tewart, the author of "How To Be A Sales Superstar" - www.marktewartlive.com

www.tewart.com - www.viptewart.com -  www.marktewart.com - www.howtobeasalessuperstar.info

Technorati Tags: business coaching, continuity programs, mark tewart, Sales, sales expert, sales training, VIP programs