Of course, every hand in the audience goes up. Even the dealerships who are doing well agree that, in today’s market, nothing is as easy as it was just a couple of years ago.
But there’s a big difference in just how well different dealerships are doing and it often comes down to whether they are market-driven or management-driven.
Market-driven
Market-driven dealerships, their managers and salespeople are hoping things come back around soon. If you listen to these people on the “hope plan,” you’ll hear:
- I hope the economy doesn’t get worse;
- I hope there aren’t more layoffs;
- I hope lenders loosen up fast;
- I hope people start buying again soon;I hope this doesn’t last much longer;
- I hope I can hold on until the market comes back.
Management-driven
At one of our recent dealer manager workshops, I asked that group the same questions I want to ask you right now:
- Are you being proactive or reactive in this new market?
- How will you generate more traffic so you have someone to talk to?
- How will you hold more gross?
- How will you sell more units?
Not one person in class used the word hope in their answers to my questions. (I hope you didn’t, either.) Because they were management-driven, not market-driven.
Management-driven dealerships, their managers and salespeople are proactive instead of reactive. They play a great game of offence, instead of a weak game of defence. They go to work with a goal and a plan and spend their days generating traffic, sales and revenue.
Management-driven dealerships have learned to adapt, adjust and train their salespeople and managers on how to influence everything that happens to them so they can continue to grow, even in a down market.
The good news: more dealerships are becoming more management-driven than ever before.
The bad news: as they do, every market-driven dealership in their area loses more and more sales.
Why? Because management-driven dealerships are stealing deals from the market-driven dealerships in their area who are asleep at the wheel,and just hoping things turn around while they drop the price and their gross and lose sales every day.
The game changed fast! It’s time to implement the processes and develop the skills you need to succeed and become a management- driven dealership.
This edited article is from Joe Verde’s monthly manager’s newsletter, “TIPS ON SELLING IN SERVICE.” It was reprinted by permission of the
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