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Don’t Practice

That’s right, don’t practice…

Most sales people will practice in one place, and that’s on the lot with a customer.

That’s by far the absolute worse place to do any type of practice.

You should practice with other sales people and management.

You should be  SELLING with your…

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It seems that so many dealerships are wanting to increase their sales so they end up throwing more dollars at advertising.  You can do that, but it's going to give you Bad Gross...

Gross that you had to buy...

A better way to handle this desire for more sales and increased gross is to Train Your Sales Staff.  With a trained sales staff you will…

First, I’ll preface by saying I have great admiration for managers, upper management and dealers.  They are usually very intelligent, courageous, and have worked hard all of their lives.  They are usually great stewards of the money and got where they are making a lot more good decisions than bad.  Read further…

Don't allow your Finance Department to become average and never take the department to the next level..We often times say, It's as good as it  will get with the staff we have....your staff may have the potential but simply may need the correct coaching!! We consistently send the Finance Department to every Training Seminar and spend money for hiring the best trainers in the business....9 out 10 times..your staff hears the same exact material that they heard at the previous…

Here is an excerpt from my new book:

"I’m always amused when I get around a bunch of car guys and they start talking about “gross average”. Most of the time, they are omitting pack from this discussion. The reason is that it’s assumed that a dealers pack only affects gross when it’s too low. Who is making more money, Tom Turner or Gary Grossman?

Tom has a $500 pack and a $1500 front end gross

Gary has a…

Millions of years ago dinosaurs became extinct. They became extinct for one reason only, a failure to adapt to a changing environment. Not all dinosaurs became extinct. Many, according to scientists evolved and became the birds that soar in our skies today.

The theory is a massive meteorite struck the planet, changing the environment dramatically. This new environment made it difficult, no impossible to survive without adapting.

Metaphorically…

Written By: Steve Hall

When we ask service managers how important technician efficiency is to profitability, they most often say that “it goes hand-in-hand” or “if they aren’t efficient, you won’t make money.” I agree with their comments, but am constantly amazed with how they quantify “efficient.”

It seems that we have become accustomed to thinking a technician is efficient if they hit our flagged-hours goal for the week. At times this is true. Everyone can have a bad day, or…

Written by: Steve Hall

When we ask service managers how important technician efficiency is to profitability, they most often say that “it goes hand-in-hand” or “if they aren’t efficient, you won’t make money.” I agree with their comments, but am constantly amazed with how they quantify “efficient.”

It seems that we have become accustomed to thinking a technician is efficient if they hit our flagged-hours goal for the week. At times this is true. Everyone can…

 Is Front Gross $PVR Still a Relevant Metric?

One of our “poster” clients—with super market penetration, great customer retention, strong gross profit production, and excellent net-to-gross retention—doesn’t believe in focusing on front $PVR, at least in his new vehicle department. In fact, his business model is based on $-0- new vehicle “total front gross profit.” But please also understand the following:

• The New…

At last week’s semi-annual meeting of NCM’s divisional directors, 20 Group moderators, Retail Operations consultants, and NCM Institute faculty members a good discussion developed around the topic of Service Advisor Compensation. The common questions that several on our staff were seeking answers for were as follows:

1. Has there been any significant change in advisor compensation…

Last week I attended NCM’s semi-annual meeting of all its divisional directors, 20 Group moderators, Retail Operations consultants, and NCM Institute faculty members, who, along with our CEO set aside two and a half days to dialogue about what’s happening around the industry and within the company, and how best to address the needs of our clients.  As usual, it was a great encounter, with far too much agenda content and discussion for the overall time allotted.

One of the topics that…

At the conclusion of the NCMi webinar on “Finding the Missing Pieces to Improve Service and Parts Gross Profit,” one of the attendees questioned our recommendation as to the necessity for sub-accounting for automotive dealerships. Robin Cunningham, the NCM Institute faculty member who presented the webinar, suggested that our next Up To Speedarticle attempt to clarify this recommendation. So, here we go!

A meaningful sub-accounting process is a primary ingredient of…

Wow, that’s a lot of acronyms, but you know what they all mean, right? Following are four recommendations from John Gilbert, the Fixed Operations specialist with NCM’s Retail Operations division. To increase your effective labor rate (ELR), reduce your cost of sale (COS), and improve your gross profit margin (GPM) on customer-paid repair order (R.O.) sales:

1. Check…

When I was teaching the Sonic Dealer Academy from 2001 through 2008, my co-instructor, Steve Hallock, became famous for asking each class why they thought we spend so much time talking about the service department. He would explain that it’s because, at a 75% gross profit margin on labor sales, the service department offers, by far, the greatest incentive to increase sales. "So why bother?" Steve would ask. "Because it’s only75…

We need a sales mentality revival.

The focus of the salesperson, the sales management staff, finance and the general manager should all be focused on different pieces of our dealerships performance.…