Everybody wants to be a better leader, but not everyone knows exactly how to do that! As it turns out, one easy way is to become a better leader is to learn more technology.

DDI, a company that focuses on training and creating leaders, conducted a research study about multiple aspects of leadership, including digital competence. The study is called the Global Leadership Forecast. They found that the people with more digital skills, tended to be better leaders.

The six digital skills that leaders focus on are:

1. Leading with Digitization

2. Adaptability

3. Driving Execution

4. Hyper-Collaboration

5. Identifying and Developing Future Talent

6. 360 Degree Thinking.

What does having these six skills mean? DDI says digitally savvy leaders are more prepared than than the digitally-UNsavvy to meet business challenges. Specifically digital leaders are better at anticipating and responding to competitiveness, navigating complexity, and using data to make analytical decisions. DDI also found that digital leaders outperform others financially by 50 percent.

So how do you become a digital leader? There are a few suggestions… one is to rethink the skill set required for work. Make skills sets include new knowledge of emerging tech. AND asses which leadership roles are open at your company, and look for people who are digitally advanced that can bring this savvy culture into your store.

Do you think being digitally advanced affects leadership skills?? Let me know in the comments below!

In honor of National Women’s Equality day, I’m recapping the best interviews in my women in automotive series.

Although Women’s equality day was August 26th, we don’t think you can put a time limit on something like this.

In July I spoke with Lauren Wolfe, the Senior Manager of Consumer Experience for Drive Motors. She says all women need to succeed are to be given more opportunities, “I can’t tell you how many times in my own career let alone just witnessing it in the store that i see customers walk past the male salesperson to work with a female because they feel more comfortable.”

In May, I sat down with Jay Rao, at the DrivingSales Presidents Club in Fort Lauderdale Florida. Rao is the Professor of Strategy and Innovation at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and says the automotive industry won’t be able to adapt and change without more women.

“It is a completely testosterone driven industry we need way more estrogen in your industry.”

He also says men could learn a few things from the way women lead, “They are very different leaders they are more empathetic much greater empathy men suck at empathy that's why customer experience hasn’t changed because men don’t have empathy.”

Kathy Gilbert, Director of Sales and Business Development at CDK, spoke me with via video interview in early August. The one piece of advice she gave to women who wish to succeed in this industry is to speak up.

“I think women need to leverage their voice. Be authentic you have something to say.”

She realizes speaking up and getting a seat the table is not easy work. But after you do it one time, it will get easier, “Once you start speaking it gives you the confidence to keep speaking. Once you step up it gives you the confidence to keep doing that,” She said. “You’ve gotta get past that initial 'oh wait i don’t know'. Once you get past that and you speak up, and speak your mind it gets easier to do.”

Laurie Foster, Executive Director Auxilio Group also attended Presidents Club in May. She’s hopeful that the industry is changing to be more accepting of women, but says the fight isn’t close to over.

“The numbers are growing but it’s really important that we think not for one second we are close to acceptable levels of women let alone normalized levels."

Believe it or not new research shows that Millennials are about as ready to lead as their GenX and Baby Boomer counter parts.

DDI, a company that solely focuses on creating and training leaders published a study called, The Global Leadership Forecast 2018.

They specifically researched Millennials and whether or not they are up to task of leading in this digital age. As it turns out Millennials are kind of ready to go out and sort of do a good job.

Let me explain:

When it comes to Digital Literacy and Leading With Digitization, Millennials are only slightly more confident than GenX and Baby Boomers. It seems Millennials need a bit more training to feel comfortable with digital tech, but will catch on quicker than previous generations.

On the other end of the spectrum, Millennials are less confident than both older generations when it comes to leading virtual teams. This isn’t necessarily a generational issue, it could be because of general lack of experience. As people get older, they often rate themselves higher in managing.

That’s not to say there aren’t specific generational differences.

• Millennials rate their intellectual curiosity higher than other generations.
• They are more likely to seek feedback and input from colleagues and mentors.
• And they are more likely to want “stretch” assignments.

There is no avoiding it. By 2020 half of the workforce will be millennials. So how do you prepare millennial leaders? DDI says to build programs that leverage millennial strengths. Such as programs that enhance their digital skills.

On that same note take advantage of Millennial Digital Ability. Have Millennials train GenX and Baby Boomers on tech, and have Baby Boomers and GenX train Millennials in organizational knowledge and leadership.

What do you notice about millennial leaders?? Let me know in the comments below.

It’s no secret that there is a major shortage of automotive technicians. In a recent study less than a year old, the Tech Force Foundation estimates that in the next eight years, the demand for techs will be three times higher than the Bureau of Labor Statistics had once reported. That means, instead of 20-thousand techs each year, there will be upwards of 75-thousand techs needed. Since their original prediction in 2014, the BLS has done another study which shows similar numbers as the Tech Force Foundation (See graph below).

To fill this void of auto techs, the Tech Force Foundation listed a few recommendations in their study.

First, the old perception of that technician jobs are for “grease monkeys”, needs to change. Second, the industry can no longer wait until the end of the education pipeline to see who is interested.

“Changing perceptions will require building a pipeline into the industry before parents and students have decided that they aren’t interested in STEM subjects... and before the old perceptions eliminate any interest among parents and career counselors in learning more about the opportunities in the transportation occupation.”

Also mentioned in the study as a way to reduce the pain of tech shortages is to pool resources. In Utah, the Utah State Prison is doing just that. Each year they  graduate 12 inmates with an automotive technology certificate. The men’s facility receives this training from Davis Technology College, based in Kaysville Utah, just north of the State’s capitol, Salt Lake City.

For inmates to receive the certificate, they have to pass tests, and practical exams within the 1200 hour course.

Program Manager for Davis Technical College at the Utah Department of Corrections, Dan Powers says, the inmates leave the program with the knowledge they need to succeed in a dealership or auto shop, “They start with the very very basics auto fundamentals like maintenance, things of that nature,” He said. “As they progress through the program they do complete the program ASE preparation test courses, they learn about the new technology alternative fuels … We really try to cover all aspects from basic theories to advanced automobiles.”

This program is something correction departments all around the country are doing. The MacDougall Correctional Institution of South Carolina, the Massachusetts Department of Correction in Massachusetts, the Southern Desert Correctional Center in Indian Springs, Nevada and the The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in California are just a few similar programs across the nation.

The problem with courses like these are that employers are nervous to hire ex-felons. Powers says it’s a valid concern, but he’s optimistic about the program, “We are always… hopeful that employers will give these individuals opportunities as they are released from prison. There is a stigma attached to them, but they’ve served their debt to society and the best thing we can do to help cut incarceration rates in this country would be to allow these guys to go to work.”

He goes on to say that many ex-felons prove themselves as loyal employees once they get their foot in the door, which is the hard part.

“Former inmates talk about the difficult process of getting a foot in the door. But once that happens, whether that's in an independent shop or dealership, the employers find they have a loyal and dependable employee because the graduates were given that opportunity. Oftentimes they say ‘All I needed was a shot and I got it’,” Powers said. “Once that happens they make the most of it.”

In speaking with dealers and shops that have hired the program graduates, Powers says the reviews are mostly positive and employers are impressed with all that the inmates know, “They have noted these guys have loyalty to them because of the fact they gave them a chance. Employers are always Impressed with the graduates knowledge base.”

Never knowing where the inmates will land after getting out of prison and graduating program, Powers trains all of them in foreign and domestic car repair, and makes sure every inmate interacts with every manufacturer available.

How do you feel about hiring ex-felons? Is funneling graduates from a program like this realistic for your service department?

I hopped on the phone with marketing extraordinaire, Jay Acunzo of 'Unthinkable Media'. Previewing his presentation at DSES 2018, Acunzo says there are ways to get around the conventional OEM thinking, and become better than the average dealer.

Take a look at what he has to say below!

Tell me, when you speak, what will you focus on?

So I’m going to be speaking on how to speak for yourself when you’re faced with endless conventional thinking.

We’re in this era which is both good and bad for information gathering. It’s good in that we have ubiquitous amounts of information instantly accessible. Or, in other words, endless best practices are all around us. But it’s bad because we never stopped to consider the best decision for us. So we’re in this cycle at work where we glom onto a trend because someone at work who seems important says we have to do it. Or we’re sticking to a precedent because that’s what used to work and it failed to do the job that it used to do today because times have changed.

Or we just keep thrashing trying to find each new “best practice” that we can. But the reality is, it shouldn’t matter what the best practice is, what should matter is what works best for us. But we’ve never really stopped to consider how to make that decision. So that’s what I want to help people do: regardless of the best practice, make the decisions that are best for them.

It’s about contextualizing guidelines. So if you don’t pay more attention to your customers, to your team, to your limitations, to resources, then you’re doing whatever works on average or works in general. And there's a problem with that. Nobody wants to be average and nobody operates in a generality. So the simple switch i’m asking people to make is to stop obsessing over everybody else's answers for them, and to start asking good questions in their own personal context.

The byproduct of that is that you might find a small percent difference in how you would execute a guideline compared to a competitor would to get the best results. And that’s the goal here. It’s not just innovation for its own sake, or creativity or rebellion. It’s getting better results. And I would argue that even OEM’s wouldn’t push back if you’re getting those better results.

Yeah, that’s a good point. So you want each individual dealership or company to look at their own brand and customer base and go from there?

Exactly. Because what always ends up happening is a best practice or a guideline is misconstrued as a final answer. Where as in reality it’s a starting point, and unless you’re willing to supplement that starting point with details from your own situation that no generality could take into account, you will turn out commodity work.

I think it comes from school where we’re always taught there’s a right and wrong answer. Then we go to into the workplace and in very few cases is there an actual right or wrong answer. And in no cases is there a right answer that can’t be improved upon.

So now we're in this world where digital technology and information is masquerading as a final answer. And what ends up getting lost in all that is that we all operate in slightly different scenarios.

What I’d like people to stop doing is stop trying to become an expert (which implies you're finished in your learning), and instead focus on being an investigator where in every single scenario you encounter you’re trying to root out first hand evidence that you should do something a certain way.

For the last 2 ½ years I’ve been running this podcast called Unthinkable where my attempt is to go as broad as possible across multiple domains and try to figure out, no matter what you do for work, when your goal is to do something better than the average, what is the mental approach you need to make those decisions.

So where as a lot of speakers get on stage or write their books and hand you their 7 step blueprint, basically their answers for you, what I want to hand people is a list of questions they can go and use in the their own scenario. Because they are going to be the experts in their own domain, whatever their domain is.

They’re also going to be the expert in their specific business, in their own little communities, with their products and with their teams. What ends up happening is people get on stages and profess to know too much instead of equipping people to go and make the right decisions for them. So that’s the whole message. I really want people to make the right decisions for them. So for me to be able to do that for them I can’t hand them my recipe. I’m trying to hand them a list of questions that they can go and use. Not only when they go back to work the next day, but the following week and month and year and so on, so that they never stop learning in their own scenario which they should be the expert of.

When you break it all down, everybody has a product they are trying to sell and these tactics can be used across all types of businesses.

Right. There’s also three very common ways we make decisions in our work. It’s not based on the products we’re selling or the teams we have or the resources we have. It’s really based on the way we as people make decisions. So I’m going to talk a little bit about that as well.

Is there anything else you want to add that’s on the tip of your tongue?

I think it’s important to emphasize what I’m not speaking about is trying to be rebel for rebellions sake. Nor am I trying to speak about trying to be creative if you’re not a creative individual. What I am trying to speak about is how to tailor your decisions for the unique element in your own specific situation.

As a hiring manager at a dealership you could be inviting “harsh moral judgments” when you give jobs to friends and acquaintances referred by higher up employees within your company. This is according to new research from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.

There are definite advantages to referral-based hiring practices: referrers have inside information about the suggested applicants to help ensure a good cultural fit and have incentive to train, mentor, and monitor the recommended applicant to maintain their reputation. Additionally, the referred applicant is under similar pressure to perform well so they don’t embarrass the employee who referred them in the first place.

Overall, around half of job openings go to friends or acquaintances, and human resources encourage the referral strategy.

However, according to the study, “referral practices can be seen as morally murky territory where special interests and the exchange of favors dominate, above and beyond merit.” This is especially true when hiring managers accommodate referrals from higher-ups in the organization, as it can make the hiring manager look self-serving and unethical, creating drama among teams and weakening support for the new hires.

“When the referrer is powerful, observers will believe the hiring manager is attempting to increase the referrer’s dependence on him/her, ultimately resulting in future benefits for the hiring manager,” the study says.  And because of that, referral practices can present a dilemma.

When it comes to corporate culture, perception tends to matter more than reality. As such, if employees perceive leaders as unethical, they react negatively and could reduce their commitment to the leaders in the organization.

However, there are documented benefits of relying on referrals, and this study does not recommend hiring managers abandon the practice. They suggest hiring managers and referrers be mindful of the power dynamics involved.

“One suggestion could be creating a system in which referrers are anonymous, at least for an initial period of time pre- and post-hire, while simultaneously providing enhanced transparency regarding the reasons for the referral,” the study says. Additionally, “high power referrers should be cognizant that their referrals might receive relatively more scrutiny and they should therefore use this practice cautiously and sporadically.”

The study, “Compromised Ethics in Hiring Processes? How Referrers’ Power Affects Employees’ Reactions to Referral Practices” is based on two laboratory studies and two field studies. It was published by the Academy of Management Journal. Summarized in “The ethical downside of hiring based on internal referrals” at LSE Business Journal.

Authors included Smith School professor Rellie Derfler-Rozin, Smith School PhD candidate Bradford Baker, and Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino.

Instagram has recently released a report titled, "Driven By Instagram," in it they detail the in's and out's of the automotive industry on their hugely popular platform. As it turns out, if your aren't on Instagram to help sell your vehicles, you're doing it wrong.

Although it may not be a traditional platform for selling, Instagram's report shows there is ample opportunity for finding and retaining clients. For instance, if you're trying to target the younger generation take this into account: When Millennials are looking for a new brand, they are 1.41 times more likely to use Instagram than another social media platform to find that brand.

And when it comes to purchasing a car, Instagram plays a giant roll with ALL users. Take a look at these stats:

1. Almost a third of auto Instagram shoppers said they learned about a new product or service on the platform in the last month.

2. Almost a third of auto Instagram shoppers said Instagram prompted them to consider purchasing a new product/service in the last month.

3. 59-percent say Instagram is a key influencer in Auto Purchase.

So how do you get Instagram users to find your account? One proven way is through hashtags, and Instagram has put together their top 9 automotive hashtags so far in 2018:

• #CARPORN

  • 15,400,000 posts

• #CARSWITHOUTLIMITS

  • 8,200,000 posts

• #CARSOFINSTAGRAM

  • 7,500,000 posts

• #SUPERCARS

  • 5,900,000 posts

• #SPORTSCAR

  • 5,200,000 posts

• #INSTACARS

  • 4,200,000 posts

• #CARLIFESTYLE

  • 3,700,000 posts

• #CARSTAGRAM

  • 2,700,000 posts

• #CARSPOTTING

  • 2,300,000 posts

Now don't just sit there....​​​​​​​

Right now is the time to start 'gramming and hashtagging!

Each quarter, the Cox Automotive Industry Insights team surveys U.S. automobile dealers, both franchised and independent, in an effort to measure how they are feeling about the auto business and vehicle sales, both new and used. It's called the Cox Automotive Dealer Sentiment Index (CADSI) and it focuses on both current market conditions and prospects for the coming three months. 

In Their research, Cox found that a large majority of dealers are nervous for summer sales. The optimism found in the first quarter, is no longer there.

Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke says it's one of the main take aways from the quarter 2 survey, "The biggest concern coming from this quarter’s survey is that expectations for the market moving into the summer have diminished substantially."

In Q1, 70 percent of dealers were extremely optimistic about future months, now only 56 percent of dealers feel that way.

So what is holding dealers back from thinking positively about the future months? Well there are a few reasons. 

1. Market Conditions
2. Limited Inventory
3. Credit Availability for Consumers
4. Competition 
5. Expenses

The good news, however, is that current (Q2) market attitude is fairly positive. 

What are your thoughts on Q2, and feelings coming into Q3?

If your dealership isn’t implementing live video into your social media strategy, you should rethink that.

A new study by IBM and BrandLive shows by that by 2020, 82 percent of all internet traffic will be video based, and a growing percentage of that video traffic will be live video (like facebook live, instagram live, etc.)

According to their study, viewers stay tuned in eight-times longer when watching live video compared to on-demand video. On top of that, of the two hundred companies involved with this study, 25 percent stated live content is more of a top priority for them in 2018 than on-demand content. And nearly 95 percent say in general, sharing and using live video will be an important part of their marketing strategy.

There a few ways to go live on social media. The most popular are through Facebook and Instagram.

How to Go Live on Facebook:

1. Go to the homepage of the account you want to go live from (It can be a personal page or company page)

2. On the left hand side of your screen, under your company name or personal name, you will see a button that either says “Post” or “Publish”

3. From there you will get a handful of options in a drop down menu, choose “Live Video”

4. You will get a screen that says “Tap to add a description”, there you can describe what your live video is about

5. Now look for the button at the bottom of the screen that will start the live video.

How to Go Live on Instagram:

1. Go to your home page

2. Swipe your screen to the right

3. On the bottom of the screen you will see multiple options, choose “Live”

4. Follow the prompts to “Start Live Video”

For ideas on live content, or reasons for your dealership to go live on social media, click here.

Test driving can be a pain in the butt for the customer. Test Drives can take hours out of their day, they have to travel to get to the dealership, and has potential to be socially uncomfortable as well.

But one dealership, who spoke with DrivingSales News, is trying something that they think will change the game of test drives completely.

Koch Lincoln of Alberta calls their new web feature ‘On-Demand Test-Drives’ and It gives the customer the opportunity to test drive their vehicle of choice from home.

Here’s how it works:

1. Customer goes online and orders a vehicle they want to test drive

2. A product expert delivers the car straight to the customers home

3. The customers gets to test drive the vehicle for 48-hours and returns at the end

Les Koch, Director of Sales for Lincoln Koch says they are always thinking of new ways to give buyers the ‘wow-factor’, “It is important that every touch-point of our business is personalized, professional, friendly, and helpful. No matter what part of the purchase journey the customer is on, they will be treated like a VIP.”

Their ‘on-demand test-drives’ are so new, they haven’t had a chance to gather any feedback from customers, but expect it will be well received.

From an outside perspective, this seems like it could be a risky move, but has potential to have a large payout.

What do you think - Is this something you would try?

What are concerns you’d have doing this at your own dealerships?

(To learn more about this dealerships innovative feature, click here.)