From the NCM Institute Blog: Are You Ignoring Your Training Needs?

Early in my retail automotive management career (back in the late 1960’s), I was fortunate to meet a renowned sales and management trainer. His name was Clint McGhee, and his training disciplines and materials provided the foundation of sales success, not only for my dealership, but for many others as well. Following is one of Clint’s mantras, with which I may have taken a little editorial freedom:

“Avail yourself of every training opportunity. Training builds knowledge! Knowledge builds enthusiasm! Enthusiasm SELLS anything!”

Because of the nature of my work every day, I’m probably somewhat “over the edge” when I talk about the importance of training. That’s predominantly a result of my discussions with dealers and dealership managers, who all seem to agree that a well-structured, disciplined employee training initiative, entrenched within the dealership culture will:

Increase employee engagement and productivity and, hence, dealership profitability
Improve employee income levels
Reduce employee turnover
Enhance employee morale
Improve customer retention, because satisfied employees lead to satisfied customers

That being the case, why do so few dealership organizations make the commitment to a world class employee training program? Believe me, I’ve heard all the excuses, and none are acceptable. Many dealerships don’t require their employees to spend more than one hour per week in training. Think about this – one hour per week is barely enough to maintain people, and it surely is not enough to make them better! How much training is required? Obviously, it will vary by employee category. But first, let’s take a minute to list just some of the areas where training is critical in today’s retail automotive dealership.

Sales Chart

The table above certainly encompasses a lot of training areas. And with all the excellent training mediums available today…3^rd party classroom, in-house classroom, webinars, interactive online, videos, audio recordings, printed materials, etc…there should be no reason not to establish, enforce and measure the success of a structured daily training regimen for each employee category.

“We don’t have time,” or “It’s too expensive,” or “We can’t measure the results” can no longer be tolerable answers when you ask your managers, “Why don’t you provide adequate training?” Dealerships must create, and embed into their culture, a world-class learning environment where employees can learn, collaborate, and connect with one another, and offer resources so the employees can improve their performance on the job.

Developing and implementing employee training programs is a topic that we cover in most NCMi management training subjects.

From the NCM Institute Blog: Are You Ignoring Your Training Needs?

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