Everyone knows the value of developing a growth mindset in their organizations. We all need to crave learning, and there is always room to discover more.

Dealerships that understand this invest in training, and arming their employees with the tools to improve. The problem, however, is how they are deploying training. How can you leverage training to actually improve the performance of your employees?

Here are three ways you can use training to grow your team.

Certify:

This is the most common way that training is used in a dealership. It is a linear way to consume content. For example, the dealership could require an employee to get “certified” before they are able to talk to customers.

Successful dealerships set up certification by requiring new employees to be certified in each of the processes they execute. For example, salespeople should be phone process certified. Your service advisors should be certified on the software they use when working with customers.

Successful certification involves training your team and testing their application to make sure they understand and can execute on the training. They should be able to demonstrate their competency on each process. For example, before a salesperson can be certified to handle your inbound phones, they need to take the inbound phone training and role-play some calls with a manager to show they can apply the training.

Maintain:

We all forget, and you need to routinely remind your employees of the training they completed. You can maintain your team’s knowledge through group training. This is important because as time goes on, your team members will start to cut corners or gradually move away from using the process. Consistent group training will help you make sure your team understands the process and is using it correctly.

This can be achieved by having regular meetings with your staff. Make sure you schedule time in these meetings to train the process. This can be more successful if you give employees the ability to practice and apply this training during the meeting in a safe environment.

Some of this maintenance training can be scheduled. For example, you could choose to review the long term follow-up process every 90 days. But you can also use maintenance training if you identify that your sales team is slipping on process execution. The bottom line is you must continually maintain your training if you want it to stick.

Coach and Correct:

This is the most effective application of training. Today’s employees learn when the content is relevant. Think about it. If you need to know how to do something, you probably go on YouTube or search forums.

For example, I got a MIG welder and needed to know how to use it. I hopped on YouTube and found some videos on how to set the welder up. I was able to view content on the basics of how to use it.

If someone were to send me links to these videos a year previous, I would have no reason to watch them. Furthermore, I wouldn’t learn anything by watching them.

Your employees are the same way. Each employee is unique and needs specific training to improve. You can use a coaching session in a monthly review to troubleshoot opportunities. Once the employee understands what they need to improve, you can prescribe training. This relevant, contextual content will have an impact. In addition, giving your employees a chance to discuss their performance and what they might need help with will show them you’re invested in their success.

But the most important part of these principles is that they are all utilized together and that you execute on them consistently. Just certifying your team is not enough. And if you only certify and do team training, you will be missing out on a lot of opportunities to help your salespeople be successful. You need to certify your salespeople, maintain their knowledge in group training, and coach and correct them in one-on-one meetings. All three of them need to take place on a regular basis in your dealership. This is not a process you go through once and you’re done; it is a continuous cycle.

Ultimately, doing all three of these things will help you make sure your sales team is trained and has the process and product knowledge they need to succeed.

Remember Band of Brothers? It was an excellent series based on an even better Stephen Ambrose book.

Band of Brothers was about the 101st Airborne during World War II, specifically Easy Company. I recently watched this series again, and one thing became very apparent. Without the NCOs, nothing would have gotten done.

The NCOs were responsible for keeping their teams on track. When problems arose, the NCOs were there to adapt and adjust in order to complete the mission. They held the team accountable and were the therapists, the father figures, and the law.

If you look at the dealership, management are the NCO’s. Your managers interface with the front-line employees (salespeople, service advisors and techs, BDC agents, etc.), and without them not much in the dealership gets accomplished. If you ask any vendor with a software platform, they will tell you that managers can make or break their success in a store. This role is key.

With so much riding on our management teams, how can we build a structure that allows them to succeed?

1.    Articulate the vision. I can’t tell you how many times, when I was on the desk, the GM would come back from a 20 Group and tell us we were going to implement a new process, technology, etc. Another dealer in the 20 Group was successful with this strategy and now we were going to be.

We would tow the company line and do our best to implement the process, technology, etc, but we really weren’t bought in. We didn’t understand the importance and where this fell in our list of priorities. We weren’t bought in.

You need to take the time to present the “why” behind any new initiative. Any changes to your organization are going to be disruptive, and if you’re going to create this disruption, it had better stick. Sharing the vision of why you are implementing this new process, technology, etc. will help make the disruption successful.

2.    Whenever possible, involve management in the creation. If a process needs to be created, involve your managers. This can help with that manager buy-in. Because they helped create the process, they have a better understanding of the process. In addition, because your managers are in the trenches day in and day out, they can provide insights on how to best draft a successful process.

3.    Training shouldn’t stop at the front line. Most of the training that takes place in dealerships is for front-line employees. This is understandable because they don’t have the experience of managers. They need a lot of training to help them gain that experience. They need to develop those soft skills such as active listening that help them be better at their jobs.

But training is just as (maybe more important) for managers. They need experience on how to interact and engage your employees. They need to develop the soft skills that are vital in coaching and leading people.

When creating a training track for DrivingSales University, we quickly understood that we needed to develop just as much training for managers or the training would never get implemented. In my experience, management doesn’t get a lot of this type of training. They should.

An indicator you have managers that need training? When they start telling others they feel like a “glorified babysitter”. This red flag indicates they are reactive in their leadership and aren’t developing their teams.

4.    Accountability. This is such an over-used word today, but it’s true. All of the reports and dashboards that are available in dealerships can help us hold front line employees accountable. But what about managers? They should be held accountable for their team’s performance, of course, but they should also have standards set on their relationships with subordinates. What coaching needs to take place for the employees to be successful? Better yet, what coaching and training does the manager need to improve team performance?

In my experience launching software in dealerships, the stores with strong management teams are the ones that see the best results. They are more agile, and the improvements they make stick. Onboarding and implementation go smoother.

Think about how you can develop your NCOs in your dealership. Their role is essential to your success.

In recent years, the automotive industry has faced a significant challenge in recruiting and retaining technicians. According to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), the technician shortage has reached a critical level, with many dealerships struggling to fill open positions and keep their current technicians engaged and committed to their jobs. This issue has led Dick Parrish, Dealership Management Consultant with NADA, to author a blog post titled "Build a Career Path to Recruit and Retain Technicians," which highlights the need for dealerships to establish a clear career path for technicians and provide them with the training and support they need to grow and succeed in their roles.

The clear solution to this ongoing problem is DrivingSales Human Capital Management (HCM). Our innovative product was designed from the ground up to help dealerships attract, onboard, retain, and develop their technicians, or any role for that matter, ensuring that they have a strong and competent workforce capable of meeting the demands of the modern automotive industry. Let me elaborate on how DrivingSales HCM can help solve the problems identified in the NADA blog post:

1. Attracting top talent: One of the key challenges in recruiting technicians is attracting top talent to your dealership. With DrivingSales HCM, you can create a compelling employee value proposition that showcases the benefits of working at your dealership and the opportunities for career advancement. This includes things like training and development programs, competitive pay and benefits, and a supportive and inclusive culture, whereby goals and expectations are laid out quantifiably. By highlighting these elements in your recruitment efforts, you can attract the best technicians to your dealership and stand out from the competition.
2. Developing a clear career path: According to NADA, technicians are more likely to stay with a dealership if they have a clear career path and know what they need to do to advance in their roles. DrivingSales HCM can help you establish a career development plan for your technicians, laying out the steps they need to take to progress through the ranks and reach their full potential. This includes things like daily and monthly scorecards, performance reviews, training programs, and regular check-ins with supervisors to ensure that technicians are on track and receiving the support they need.
3. Providing ongoing training and support: To keep technicians engaged and motivated, it's important to provide them with ongoing training and support. With DrivingSales HCM, you can create a comprehensive, personalized training program that covers everything from technical skills to customer service and leadership development. This can include videos, slideshows, PDFs, or any combination of those, as well as opportunities for technicians to learn from more experienced colleagues and participate in cross-functional teams. By investing in your technicians' development, you can keep them engaged and committed to your dealership.
4. Managing performance and retention: Finally, DrivingSales HCM can help you manage the performance and retention of your technicians by providing tools for tracking and measuring their progress. This includes features like daily and monthly scorecards, performance evaluations, goal setting, and feedback mechanisms, which can help you identify areas for improvement and provide support to technicians who may be struggling. By using these tools to monitor your technicians' performance and address any issues that arise, you can improve retention and ensure that your dealership has a strong and committed workforce.

Overall, DrivingSales HCM is a powerful tool for dealerships looking to recruit and retain technicians in today's competitive automotive market. By providing a clear career path, performance management tools, and ongoing training and support we can help you attract and retain top talent, ensuring that your dealership has the skilled and competent technicians it needs to succeed.

When you are ready to learn more about how we can help you, visit us at www.DrivingSales.com or send me an email directly at jd.mixon@drivingsales.com. We look forward to working with you and your team to help you meet and exceed your goals for 2023 and into the future. 

I’ll admit that it’s still early. I’m a Dolphins fan and I’m trying not to get too excited. They are playing well in 2022, and one of the reasons why is the play of Tua Tagovailoa.

What makes this worth an employee management blog post is his growth from last season. Brian Flores, his previous coach, was not a fan. He didn’t want want to draft Tua and it showed. Tua was benched in games for his play. I’m not arguing the benching. He looked bad in some games. I’d rather focus on the transformation he made between 2021 and 2022.

Brian Flores was fired in an ugly manner. The team was facing sanctions because of owner tampering. Flores sued the team. Not the best situation.

The Dolphins brought in Mike McDaniel, a former coordinator for the 49ers, and it’s amazing to see how Tua has responded.

From day 1, McDaniel publicly endorsed Tua. In fact, he called him from the flight to Miami.

One of the themes you hear when players talk about McDaniel is his ability to relate to his players. He truly believes in them. Listen to Tua talk about how his head coach approached his offseason.

This is also evident on the sidelines. Check out this banter between coach and QA when they Dolphins were playing the Texans.

The result? Last year Tua passed for 2,653 yards with 16 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. So far this year (week 12) he 2,859 yards 21 touchdowns and 5 interceptions.

I’m not here to say the Dolphins are the world’s greatest team. I will say that we can learn from McDaniel’s coaching style and approach to player development. Here are three takeaways from him success in 2022:

1.    Focus on strengths. Tua had a ton of weaknesses. His previous coaching staff dwelled on them so much he thought he sucked as a quarterback. But what about his strengths?

It’s tempting to emphasize weakness when coaching an employee. It’s more important to focus on their strengths and put them in the best position to succeed. I’m not saying you shouldn’t work on weak spots, but this shouldn’t be the main focus of your coaching.

2.    Develop a real connection. In a recent interview with Dolphins General Manager Chris Grier, he said, "He wants to genuinely know who people are, connect with them and get to the whys. That’s what makes him a unique person in terms of getting the best out of people."

We’ve all hear the saying “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”, but what does it really mean? How can you create real relationships with your employees? They’ll respond better to criticism if they feel a real connection with you.

3.    Create a vision and build a plan on how to get there. In the above video, you get a sense of how McDaniel creates a vision for where he wants to take the team. I know that is “coach-speak”, but he follows it up with a plan.

Do your employees believe they can succeed? This belief is contagious, and you see it in high-performing dealerships. Can you articulate this vision?

Once you’ve communicated your vision, do your employees know what it takes to succeed? Do they have processes in place? Do you have a scorecard with quotas and metrics that measure success? Do they know the activities they need to execute on to achieve the results you want?

Dealership management is where these activities happen. Your job is to develop a real connection with your staff and coach them to success. Your GM or Dealer Principal can’t do this. Your employees cannot do this on their own. These three takeaways are why you have a job.

Finding the right people to join your dealer team is flat-out tough.

Employees have a long checklist of what they are looking for...schedule flexibility, training opportunities, leadership and advancement, competitive pay...

All of this, without having even a shred of experience. To add salt to the wound, many of them will end up leaving within 12-18 months.

So how on earth are you able to find, attract, and keep (longer) the right people?

Find out Coach K's secrets to successfully creating your dealer dream team in this Master Class.



What does Duke basketball have in common with your sales floor?

I just got back from the 2022 DrivingSales Executive Summit, where there was a ton of great content. One of the keynote presenters was Steve Cadigan, and he gave the attendees a different way to think about your employee development strategy. One of the examples he used was Duke basketball.

Coach K used to have his college athletes for four years. This allowed him to build consistency into his teams. Remember Grant Hill? He stuck around for all four years of college. Think about what that allowed college coaches to do.

The “1 and Done” rule flipped the script. When this rule was implemented in the NBA, top talent wasn’t sticking around. It changed the rules. Coach K went from having his players for 4 years to 6 months (the start of school until March Madness). Instead of Grant Hill, he had Zion Williamson.

If Coach wanted to win, he needed to rethink the way he recruited and coached. The old way wasn’t going to get him an NCAA Championship.

For example, he changed the way he recruited talent. When sitting with high school athletes, he would tell them how he would get them to the NBA. Here are some of the things he communicated to potential Blue Devils:

·     We will prepare you for the next phase of your career

·     Your value will increase

·     We will grow you as a player and a person

·     We will surround you with great talent

·     Our culture is all about winning and building great talent

·     Even if you don’t make the NBA, we will help you get a job as a coach, scout, or etc.

In addition to the change in mindset, he also simplified the playbook. He knew he didn’t have time to coach his players on difficult offenses and defenses. He got the committed recruits interacting with the current players as soon as possible, not waiting until they were on campus.

Think about what you would do if you knew your salespeople were going to leave. How would you modify your process? What would your onboarding look like?

In today’s job market, we are kidding ourselves if we think our employees are going to be “lifers”. We would all love them to stay, but the majority of them will not. We can maximize the value they provide while we have them and prepare them for their next opportunity. If they stay, great! If they leave, your dealership got as much out of them as possible.

If employees leave and go to worse jobs, that’s on the dealership. Too many of those are an indicator of a broken employee management process.

Think about your employee management. How can you optimize your processes for today’s workforce?

For years, the managers in the automotive industry have been telling their troops the true cost of a lead. When I started in 2003, It was believed the cost of a phone call or a walk-in customer was $200 - $300. Nowadays, it’s much higher. The way it’s typically calculated, take the total marketing spend and divide it by the total number of leads. Simple, however, the true cost of rushing the onboarding process with your new hire is much greater than that. 

It is believed by many managers in the automotive industry the only way to learn is to make mistakes, however, does it have to be on day one? In most cases, the new-hires have never worked in the automotive industry and lack the competencies to provide the customer experience necessary to build trust with our brand. This lack of trust pushes customers to our competitors and we miss out on many post-sale-revenue-generating opportunities: repeat business, trade-ins, referrals, service work, etc. In addition, the grosses are getting higher and the delta between an average sales consultant and a new hire is five units per month. If you take all that into account, what’s the true cost of missing this many opportunities? 

It gets worse. The mental toll the new hire goes through when they are forced to talk to customers in the first few days on the job is detrimental to their long-term success with a new company. In many cases, a new hire is still contemplating whether or not they’ve made the right decision by choosing to work in the automotive industry. Let’s face it, nobody except for the owner’s children wants to sell cars when they grow up. For a small percentage of people, forcing them to perform and compete against other top performers with years of experience does drive them and shows them what’s possible. However for most, it simply disengages them, and they start looking for opportunities elsewhere, while burning through leads. After a few months, they quit, and you start the process over again. 

In reality, there is no way to eliminate all costs associated with hiring a new employee, however, by investing in a systematic new-hire orientation and onboarding process will greatly reduce that cost. Slow down, and give your new-hire an opportunity to meet everyone in the company. Educate them about the mission, vision, values, and history of the company. Give them the basic competencies and time to internalize them. Roleplay through every step of the process so they know the basic flow and how to execute it. They don’t have to be perfect, but they must be confident when talking to customers. This may take some time, and you may think this costs too much. When you compare the cost of improper onboarding, it pales in comparison. You are left with two choices, “pay now, or pay a lot more later.”