Good morning,

Like most of you, training is a large part of what I do everyday. Maybe more than most of you since I work with dealers and training is part of my job. Either way in order to manage people, improve what your team does or in order to spend less time micromanaging your team training is critical.

As you may know there are three stages to learning anything in life. The first step is to have an understanding of what the training is about or the Why?…

MANAGING VS. SUPERVISING (“FARMERS” VS. “RANCHERS”)

Management=Participation vs. Supervisor=Observation…

Sometimes it is not the skills of your people that cause your store’s numbers to flatline.  Sometimes your BDC is fledgling, not because their phone scripts are poor or that the technology is weak, but for the fact that they just don’t see the full impact  their role plays in the organization.

When I train a dealership on-site, the first thing I do is impress upon their BDC and Internet Managers that their daily duties are greater than the tasks built out for them in the…

IIt is not my job, it is my duty to be inspired and inspire others.  Since my early twenties, I have said final farewells to nineteen brave patriots, heroes and friends.  Each paid the price for freedom before the rigors of life made them old and gray.  These are nineteen friends that I had planned to grow old with, but instead I honor their sacrifice to trade in their future as an investment in my…

Of all the things present in our society that might have a negative effect on our future generations and their ability to relate to one another; social networking (I don’t have to ask you, “How was your day?” I can just look at your facebook page), texting (I don’t have to live with the consequences of what I say because you can’t respond immediately), etc… one of the things that is more disconcerting than any of these is that this ability to relate without relationship is creating a…

Life inside the dealership is an experience only those who have been there can appreciate. Whether you are in sales or service, each department carries its own unique challenges. Let’s face it, the job is monotonous. And, after every successful month, you get the pleasure of starting from zero once again. So, what can you do to be successful?

Most would agree that the answer lies in your people skills, technique and ability to adopt a mindset that stops you from falling into a “move…

I am a vertically enhanced female which I normally see as a benefit, except when I am trying to buy clothing.  Most of the clothing options for women do not come with a choice for inseam or length.  This often leaves me in the dressing room wondering if I can pull of this dress being too short or do these jeans look like capris or a fashion faux pas.  I am stuck in a world in which one-height-fits-all…

Dreams are often the seeds in which goals are grown from, but it takes acting on a dream to achieve a goal.  Sometimes big goals can be as overwhelming as a football field to a five year old.  Like that scared five year old, we can let a daunting task get in the way of our success because of a fear of failure. When engaging in…

Following in the footsteps of three generations of outstanding educators, I took on the career of a high school teacher in my early twenties.  Being the new kid on the block, I was given two classes out of five that were "at risk" students.  High school students don't usually relish in the idea of math class and most "at risk" kids seem to see math as a total…

Let’s explore a simple 3-step approach that will help improve any dealership department.

1. What am I doing now?

Do you clearly understand the road to revenue or process flow from origination to transacting business?

For example, are customers handled the same way every time by every salesperson? How detailed is that instruction? Is every phone call answered the same way? Are the sales techniques the same for everyone interacting with customers? (Note, I’m not…

Google continues to amaze me with a tsunami of changes to search and new products this summer.  The team at Google is not taking any vacation time this year.



Google announced today Google Related, a free toolbar that is available for Google Chrome and…

Mark Tewart's “High Performance Management Workshop”

When:   Monday, September 19^th and Tuesday, September 20th

Where:   Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza (35 West Fifth St.)  Cincinnati OH

Times:      8:30 - 4:30 Wednesday…

Everyone has worked with Negative Nellie and Cantankerous Craig and seen how they can poison the waters of progress with their hater-aide.  Their less than inspiring attitude spread like a cancer through what was once an optimistic and forward moving team.  To managers and fellow peers, it is easy to identify the Nellies and Craigs and see the impact they have on team success.

There is…

Price cutting is a self-inflicted wound. Nobody holds a gun to your head and makes you cut your price. I know that many of you are thinking right now: "There is so much competition today that you can't maintain profits," "Everybody is giving everything away," "The salespeople can't negotiate," and "Everybody knows our pricing from the Internet..." Blah, Blah, Blah. Stop whining about price!

Only about ten percent of buyers buy on price alone. For that ten percent, you can…

We have been working with salespeople, managers, service staff, and business development representatives for many years now. All of the people we work with including sales and service managers at dealerships understand the importance of multiple phone numbers.



If you had multiple phone numbers for every customer, could you reach more customers in a day?



Would you sell more cars and set more service appointments?



Then why is it that when you get a customer on the…

As I reported yesterday, Google has stopped including 3rd Party Review counts into their yellow stars.  There was some disagreement if this change was permanent, and today we see that it is.

The product manager for Google Local had this to say in an article posted on…