I was on an online chat with several friends and fellow trainers from the United Kingdom the other night. We were discussing Time Management, a subject that most of us provided training on. As we were chatting, the subject got around to the biggest time wasters we had each seen with ourselves and our clients. We decided to compile a list. I have included that list below. Some are very similar but I added everybody’s contribution. 

  • Spending time on things that don’t matter (80%) instead of those that matter (20%)
  • Not knowing what the priorities should be
  • Ending up in conflicts with others, draining energy and loosing focus
  • Getting interrupted and not having a systematic way to handle it
  • Procrastination and leaving tasks to be done at a later date
  • Having many unfinished projects while still getting excited about new things without committing to finish them off in due course
  • Too much socializing and spending time talking with others rather than doing any useful work
  • Forever been lost examining what it could have been and what should have been done, rather than focusing on what can be done and what should be done 
  • Mixing up personal and professional areas of life and ending up in a situation where mishandling of one affects the other 
  • Lack of self-discipline and inability to push forward towards a clear goal 
  • Spending time envying others rather than asking the right questions to get there 
  • Not analyzing where the time is lost and hence focusing on optimizing areas that are efficient and ignoring those that need the most attention 
  • Doing too many things at once and ending up wasting a lot of time in overhead when switching from one task to another 
  • Doing everything on your own and not learning how to delegate to others, especially areas that other people can be more efficient than you 
  • Not setting time limits for task. This means that you end up doing a lot when you could have spent only half the time. 
  • Waiting, waiting and more waiting. Cut the time you spend waiting or have something to do. 
  • Always managing crisis after crisis rather than spending time planning and preparing to prevent the crisis happening in the first place 
  • Being untidy and disorganized
  • Not spending enough time for yourself so you can have enough time to do some personal reflection 
  • Inability to say 'NO' when you cannot do something. 
  • Not knowing who you are, your strengths and weaknesses, and how to use them to your advantage in being effective. 
  • Lost or bogged down in juggling too much technology - email , phone, internet
  • Not focusing on what matters the most. 
  • Wanting to do everything yourself, because no one can do it as well as you 
  • Not trusting anyone with the work you give them, which prevent you from delegating 
  • Not using technological solutions to tackle demand and your time 
  • Not using a calendar system that you can fully rely on where ever you are.

That’s a pretty comprehensive list if I do say so myself. Now that you have read through the list, go back through it one more time. Focus on each one and ask yourself, “Does this apply to me?” Once you have picked out the ones where you need improvement, figure out how you can adjust what you do to eliminate those issues and make better use of your time.

Remember, we all have the same 8760 hours to use every year. Make the best use of each and every one of those hours and you will be more successful in whatever you do.

Views: 465

Comment

You need to be a member of DealerELITE.net to add comments!

Join DealerELITE.net

Comment by Jane Howard on September 23, 2013 at 9:28am

Great article!  Thanks for posting, Alan.

Comment by David Ruggles on September 21, 2013 at 3:58pm

I should clarify my comments on "Retail Recon."  I do NOT advocate doing internal work at zero markup.  Before the craziness it was typical for internal work to be done at 2/3rds of retail door rate and parts plus 15%.  Sublets were not marked up.  There were some jobs which could be done better by sublet vendors. 

Comment by David Ruggles on September 21, 2013 at 3:32pm

A great way to reduce waiting time is to establish a rotation system.  Those sales people who are designated to watch the lot and show room do so.  Those who are not can work on prospecting projects and follow up. 

At some point we need to wake up to the fact that the very best time to do follow up as between 5:00PM and 8:00PM.  Ironically, that is the time we see the most showroom traffic.  So who is going to do follow up instead of waiting on live customers?  What manager would allow that anyway?

A BIG time waster is using technology for the sake or technology.  All technology is NOT productive and an improvement.  An example would be to think there is any substitute for time spent attending auto auctions.  Another example would be a CRM sales process where the sales person is put in the position of grilling the customer for contact information prematurely.  One needs to have the time to establish a relationship before pushing for contact information.

If you want to waste time and money, entertain wholesalers on your lot, putting together packages where you try to group good retail stuff along with mistakes to try to make your appraising look better than it actually does.  Send everything to the auction and let them all stand on their own.  Exercises in self bullshit is for the weak.  If you have a boss that falls for that crap, you need a new boss.

Speaking of exercises in self bullshit:  Retail recon was a joke before the Internet.  Now it is even more so.  The idea was based on the idea that sales people and managers all sold from cost so that marking up cost would produce the same gross as before while penciling some money to the fixed op side where the commission is generally lower.  The Web has changed all of that.  Now retail recon dealerships have to stand down from trades, wholesale vehicles to competitors that can't be reconned at the dealership, as well as showing artificially low gross profit.

http://autosandeconomics.blogspot.com/2010/03/internet-and-dealersh...

© 2024   Created by DealerELITE.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service