We’ve all heard the expression “inspect what you expect” and granted there is great power, insight and learning to be had by monitoring your processes through thorough reporting. However, when is the last time you inspected the data from which those reports are compiled?

The power of inspection lies primarily on the focus those actions will receive because everyone knows they are being monitored. This very knowledge however can backfire when your basing the reports on false data. For example, we know there is a direct correlation between closing percentages and response times. There is also not a manager worth their salt that does not keep a keen eye on this metric. When was the last time you took the extra step and looked at the quality of those responses? Better yet, have you ever picked up the phone and simply asked the consumer “I know you just spoke with my I-Net manager, but I wanted to personally thank you for giving us this opportunity. Have you received all the info you requested?” The answer may shock you. I know it did me!

                This last 2 weeks I have been thoroughly engrossed In processes long before they normally escalate to my desk and I can say that salesmen still “cherry-pick” and form judgments and opinions about who is a “buyer” and who is a “shopper”. The worst are from customers who have contacted your store within the last 90 days but have not yet purchased.

Inevitably, the notes on the contacts become redundant and I marked more than sale “lost” and “bought elsewhere” because the salesman said they were waiting 6 months (oddly enough that was the original note on the show room visit event).

Prejudices form and the easy way out and next and newest beckons more enticingly to most.

                Don’t just look at your reports, get involved! Shop your own store, or get a friend to, and quit delegating every task thinking that some are “beneath” your level and what you have to do is more pressing. Inspecting what you inspect will most certainly raise your expectations and provide insight into your business that no report can show.

                Good selling!

Bryan Armstrong

@bryancarguy

We’ve all heard the expression “inspect what you expect” and granted there is great power, insight and learning to be had by monitoring your processes through thorough reporting. However, when is the last time you inspected the data from which those reports are compiled?

The power of inspection lies primarily on the focus those actions will receive because everyone knows they are being monitored. This very knowledge however can backfire when your basing the reports on false data. For example, we know there is a direct correlation between closing percentages and response times. There is also not a manager worth their salt that does not keep a keen eye on this metric. When was the last time you took the extra step and looked at the quality of those responses? Better yet, have you ever picked up the phone and simply asked the consumer “I know you just spoke with my I-Net manager, but I wanted to personally thank you for giving us this opportunity. Have you received all the info you requested?” The answer may shock you. I know it did me!

                This last 2 weeks I have been thoroughly engrossed In processes long before they normally escalate to my desk and I can say that salesmen still “cherry-pick” and form judgments and opinions about who is a “buyer” and who is a “shopper”. The worst are from customers who have contacted your store within the last 90 days but have not yet purchased.

Inevitably, the notes on the contacts become redundant and I marked more than sale “lost” and “bought elsewhere” because the salesman said they were waiting 6 months (oddly enough that was the original note on the show room visit event).

Prejudices form and the easy way out and next and newest beckons more enticingly to most.

                Don’t just look at your reports, get involved! Shop your own store, or get a friend to, and quit delegating every task thinking that some are “beneath” your level and what you have to do is more pressing. Inspecting what you inspect will most certainly raise your expectations and provide insight into your business that no report can show.

                Good selling!

Bryan Armstrong

@bryancarguy

Chicken Little created a crisis that was, though real in his mind, totally false. However, it spurred others into frivolous action in a well-known Fairy Tale. In the next few weeks and Months many Dealership personnel will confront the same thing as they interact with Vendors at the Dealership, in on-line forums and at Conferences. 

And thus my friends will begin the Zero Moment of Bullsh**.

We get it every day in our inboxes “we have done a quick study of your website and found several areas you should be concerned with”, “Google 3.4 will make your website invisible unless you ACT NOW”, “Get our Free whitepaper on why you need our service and a free 30 Day trial”… and on and on it goes.

“Create a Crisis Marketing" is not new. Bomb shelter Companies made millions during the red-scare era, and look at the health supplement market! That’s NOT to say there was never a possibility of being attacked as a Country nor that Vitamins aren’t good for you.

However, a good Vendor Partnership should be like a good marriage so maybe follow the same steps:

1. Determine what you are looking for that will complement your current strengths and shore up your weaknesses.
2. Get involved in Communities that foster education and interaction. Don’t frequent bars as a primary hunting ground. I have 4 Sisters and Mom always told them “you’ll never find a Stallion in the Donkey corral”.
3. Long courtships and engagements are good. Love at first sight DOES happen, but it’s RARE and a cooling off period won’t deter it if it’s real.
4. Commit. Totally and completely. It’s a lasting thing and may be rough but even the best relationship can sometimes go through a rocky patch. Communicate often and openly and don’t start looking for the next best thing before you’ve exhausted all channels with your current spouse.

 Don’t wake up next week with a ring on your finger and no idea how it got there.

Bryan Armstrong

@bryancarguy

Chicken Little created a crisis that was, though real in his mind, totally false. However, it spurred others into frivolous action in a well-known Fairy Tale. In the next few weeks and Months many Dealership personnel will confront the same thing as they interact with Vendors at the Dealership, in on-line forums and at Conferences. 

And thus my friends will begin the Zero Moment of Bullsh**.

We get it every day in our inboxes “we have done a quick study of your website and found several areas you should be concerned with”, “Google 3.4 will make your website invisible unless you ACT NOW”, “Get our Free whitepaper on why you need our service and a free 30 Day trial”… and on and on it goes.

“Create a Crisis Marketing" is not new. Bomb shelter Companies made millions during the red-scare era, and look at the health supplement market! That’s NOT to say there was never a possibility of being attacked as a Country nor that Vitamins aren’t good for you.

However, a good Vendor Partnership should be like a good marriage so maybe follow the same steps:

1. Determine what you are looking for that will complement your current strengths and shore up your weaknesses.
2. Get involved in Communities that foster education and interaction. Don’t frequent bars as a primary hunting ground. I have 4 Sisters and Mom always told them “you’ll never find a Stallion in the Donkey corral”.
3. Long courtships and engagements are good. Love at first sight DOES happen, but it’s RARE and a cooling off period won’t deter it if it’s real.
4. Commit. Totally and completely. It’s a lasting thing and may be rough but even the best relationship can sometimes go through a rocky patch. Communicate often and openly and don’t start looking for the next best thing before you’ve exhausted all channels with your current spouse.

 Don’t wake up next week with a ring on your finger and no idea how it got there.

Bryan Armstrong

@bryancarguy

Almost a year ago, I gave a presentation on Digital Marketing and stressed the importance of sites like Foursquare, Yelp and urged all to re-evaluate their push-style Marketing techniques on Facebook. Now, not to toot my own horn (*beep, beep*) you see Siri looking to Yelp for answers, Foursquare becoming ever more relevant and within the next 30 days every Brands FB page will be forced into the new timeline format.

Now would be a great time to look at the photos (which dominate the timeline format) that you’ve posted since you began Facebook. Will it be a conglomeration of puppy photos and best caption contests? Will it be a successive progression of Inventory you don’t even have? Worse yet, will it end up that your “friends and fans” see the inane plethora of your weekly ad claiming one sale after another? How effective will the next ad be when everyone can scroll back and see that it’s the “same old same old” that you’ve re-hashed again and again? I believe the term I used was “it will look like Sesame Street threw up”.

So here’s my two-cents now: Use the next 30 days to clean that rubbish heap you thought was buried. It will look like you have big holes in your presence, but fill them with events such as New-hire announcements, Birthdays, Anniversaries; Fund-Raising and Community events…the possibilities are only limited by your imagination. It’s what I’ll be doing too.

Also, start integrating your Social Media the right way. Use it for conversation and feedback and integrate it into your Traditional advertising efforts. Don’t put “LIKE US ON FACEBOOK AT WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/DEALERNAME” instead try “join the conversation” or “Get Involved” by texting: like VWSouthtowne to 32665

Go ahead…I’ll wait… :)

Bryan Armstrong

@bryancarguy

Almost a year ago, I gave a presentation on Digital Marketing and stressed the importance of sites like Foursquare, Yelp and urged all to re-evaluate their push-style Marketing techniques on Facebook. Now, not to toot my own horn (*beep, beep*) you see Siri looking to Yelp for answers, Foursquare becoming ever more relevant and within the next 30 days every Brands FB page will be forced into the new timeline format.

Now would be a great time to look at the photos (which dominate the timeline format) that you’ve posted since you began Facebook. Will it be a conglomeration of puppy photos and best caption contests? Will it be a successive progression of Inventory you don’t even have? Worse yet, will it end up that your “friends and fans” see the inane plethora of your weekly ad claiming one sale after another? How effective will the next ad be when everyone can scroll back and see that it’s the “same old same old” that you’ve re-hashed again and again? I believe the term I used was “it will look like Sesame Street threw up”.

So here’s my two-cents now: Use the next 30 days to clean that rubbish heap you thought was buried. It will look like you have big holes in your presence, but fill them with events such as New-hire announcements, Birthdays, Anniversaries; Fund-Raising and Community events…the possibilities are only limited by your imagination. It’s what I’ll be doing too.

Also, start integrating your Social Media the right way. Use it for conversation and feedback and integrate it into your Traditional advertising efforts. Don’t put “LIKE US ON FACEBOOK AT WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/DEALERNAME” instead try “join the conversation” or “Get Involved” by texting: like VWSouthtowne to 32665

Go ahead…I’ll wait… :)

Bryan Armstrong

@bryancarguy

All across the Country, in fact probably in Dealerships everywhere, a similar scene has played itself out today: Call every un-sold Customer we’ve had all Month, bump all Trades to get a New retail unit, take that loser deal because we need those last few cars, get an update on every non-funded deal, call emergency C.I.T. meetings, whip the B.D.C. into a frenzy….

So after this madness and mayhem of erasing Thousands of Dollars of profits in an attempt to get deals funded and volume up, the same vow will be made tomorrow: “We need to stay on top of this stuff throughout the Month so we don’t have this B.S. next Month.”

Didn’t you say that LAST Month, and the Month before?

If this in no way pertains to you, great, but I’ll bet we can all see something that is applicable.

The false sense of Urgency created at the end of each Month is born of the very real desperation created by a failure to inspect your processes every day. The end of the Month can be much more pleasant when it’s just “going for extra gravy” rather than a futile last-ditch effort to force into being that which could have been cultivated daily.

Luckily tomorrow is a new Day, a new Month and an opportunity to get it right. You don’t have to have a Title to be a Leader. So when are you going to TAKE ACTION?

Bryan Armstrong

@bryancarguy

All across the Country, in fact probably in Dealerships everywhere, a similar scene has played itself out today: Call every un-sold Customer we’ve had all Month, bump all Trades to get a New retail unit, take that loser deal because we need those last few cars, get an update on every non-funded deal, call emergency C.I.T. meetings, whip the B.D.C. into a frenzy….

So after this madness and mayhem of erasing Thousands of Dollars of profits in an attempt to get deals funded and volume up, the same vow will be made tomorrow: “We need to stay on top of this stuff throughout the Month so we don’t have this B.S. next Month.”

Didn’t you say that LAST Month, and the Month before?

If this in no way pertains to you, great, but I’ll bet we can all see something that is applicable.

The false sense of Urgency created at the end of each Month is born of the very real desperation created by a failure to inspect your processes every day. The end of the Month can be much more pleasant when it’s just “going for extra gravy” rather than a futile last-ditch effort to force into being that which could have been cultivated daily.

Luckily tomorrow is a new Day, a new Month and an opportunity to get it right. You don’t have to have a Title to be a Leader. So when are you going to TAKE ACTION?

Bryan Armstrong

@bryancarguy

A while ago I was privileged to be involved in a podcast Larry Bruce  had organized. On the call were some of what I consider to be the best of the best in our industry. (I was there to observe and learn.) During the conversation Larry said something to me that resonated, “I’d like to find the person who came up with the term Desk Manager and punch em in the face.” Of course we all laughed, but then a week or so later Jeff Kershner sends me an e-mail of the top posts of 2011 on his site DealerRefresh. By the way my favorite was titled Are Your Employees “Coin-Operated”? And if you haven’t read it yet you should…after this.

The point here is that our industry has become one where in large part a title is just part of an en-TITLE-ment attitude. Once our Title is defined as managing a desk we can easily forget that it’s the Salespeople that keep the need for that desk to exist alive.

So if you’re going to ride it, use the position to teach and inspire rather than rule and repress. A few ideas may be:

1. Have each salesperson bring you one “tough call” to make while they listen and don’t cheat and pull the “manager card”. If you expect them to get the customer back in without numbers and quoting price, show them how to do it.
2. Role-play each pencil before you send it out. Then have the salesman repeat it back to you until their delivery is smooth. Ask them what they think the customer will say and how they will overcome it. Throwing out a monster pencil with the advice “Just get me back to paper” is the most cowardice of acts.
3. Review each guest sheet with the salesperson (sold and unsold) after the customer leaves. Tell them what they did well; ask them what they think they could do better. There is no better teaching moment.
4. Personally go out and thank each customer that you penciled sold or not. Quit hiding behind the “green curtain” pretending all the citizens of OZ can’t see you.

Most of all quit relying on spiffs because you think that will allay your guilt at being unable to Lead and Motivate. After all, the only person who actually could be termed a “Desk Manager” at the Dealership is possibly the receptionist... And if you’d listen she could probably tell you how to better run the Store.

Bryan Armstrong

@bryancarguy

A while ago I was privileged to be involved in a podcast Larry Bruce  had organized. On the call were some of what I consider to be the best of the best in our industry. (I was there to observe and learn.) During the conversation Larry said something to me that resonated, “I’d like to find the person who came up with the term Desk Manager and punch em in the face.” Of course we all laughed, but then a week or so later Jeff Kershner sends me an e-mail of the top posts of 2011 on his site DealerRefresh. By the way my favorite was titled Are Your Employees “Coin-Operated”? And if you haven’t read it yet you should…after this.

The point here is that our industry has become one where in large part a title is just part of an en-TITLE-ment attitude. Once our Title is defined as managing a desk we can easily forget that it’s the Salespeople that keep the need for that desk to exist alive.

So if you’re going to ride it, use the position to teach and inspire rather than rule and repress. A few ideas may be:

1. Have each salesperson bring you one “tough call” to make while they listen and don’t cheat and pull the “manager card”. If you expect them to get the customer back in without numbers and quoting price, show them how to do it.
2. Role-play each pencil before you send it out. Then have the salesman repeat it back to you until their delivery is smooth. Ask them what they think the customer will say and how they will overcome it. Throwing out a monster pencil with the advice “Just get me back to paper” is the most cowardice of acts.
3. Review each guest sheet with the salesperson (sold and unsold) after the customer leaves. Tell them what they did well; ask them what they think they could do better. There is no better teaching moment.
4. Personally go out and thank each customer that you penciled sold or not. Quit hiding behind the “green curtain” pretending all the citizens of OZ can’t see you.

Most of all quit relying on spiffs because you think that will allay your guilt at being unable to Lead and Motivate. After all, the only person who actually could be termed a “Desk Manager” at the Dealership is possibly the receptionist... And if you’d listen she could probably tell you how to better run the Store.

Bryan Armstrong

@bryancarguy