The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but the road to success is paved with a good plan. Many people wrongly confuse intentions with a plan. Both are needed for success, but on different planes. It takes intentions to form the mental attitude, but it takes a plan to bring your intentions to reality. An intention without a plan is like having a Lamborghini…

Office Management is compiling all of the numbers to generate Service Management commissions over the next couple of days.  There are factors that you control as an ongoing basis...there are others that you do not address until after the fact.  Did your Warranty Administrator submit for the maximum allowable dollars (100%) vs. their peer indexes this month?  How much is being applied to your policy adjustment account because of claim non-payment or claim debit? 

In Fixed Operations,…

In 1982 I had the biggest blessing ever in the car business.  "Bruce" hired me as a sales person.  Bruce was the GM of a small Ford store in NJ and I was still finding my way around the business.  All I knew for sure was that I wanted to be a sales manager.  At that time, I couldn't tell a good one from a bad one but I still wanted to be one. …

For me, training camp is everday 365 days a year, always was, always will be. You cannot  afford to miss the oppurtunity for self development. In Life it means getting yourself ready for what you want to do to find the success you're looking for Find and Focus, Identify your goals and then create the plan.When my day ends the first thing I do is review and then make a plan for the next day . Everyday I train I tell my class , that having the ability to precisely defone the goals  and create…

Within the past year, Maryland has been hit by an earthquake and a hurricane (in the same week!), as well as a huge snowstorm, all fairly uncommon occurrences in our state.  While DealerOn, both the office and our employees, were lucky enough to dodge any real damage, it definitely made us all think about how prepared we are for these kinds of emergencies.

DealerOn had enough warning before Hurricane Irene (and dodged…

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…

In the Wizard of OZ, when Dorothy and the gang get to the gates of the Emerald City, they don’t have an easy time of getting down to business – the gatekeeper saw his job as keeping people out – not welcoming them in.  Personally, when I take my vehicles in for service, I appreciate being greeted right away, in the parking lot, at…

Manufacturers can debit a warranty claim if it is determined that the technician recorded excessive efficiency during the repair (typically +125%) - excessive efficiency is an indicator of cutting corners or fraudulent repair practices.  When a manufacturer reviews/audits repair orders, one of the things that they look for on the accounting copy of the invoice is the actual time worked vs the time flagged/submitted for payment.  When they see a repair order with…

When I was a teenager, I had to have some extensive surgery that landed me in a wheel chair for a few months.  Recently, one of my physical therapist from that adventure found me on Facebook and was compelled to share his story of that short part of my life.  He was a new therapist when he took on my case and had heard how hard teenagers can be in cases like mine.  He braced himself for a healthy dose…

Isn't life funny?  Things happen all around us.  Sometimes you pay attention and somethings should be ignored.  But, as the old saying goes, life isn't about what happens to us, it's about what we do when something happens.  As a member of this planet for over 55 years, I've come to the conclusion that there are just 3 choices to everything in life.  While some of you may think I'm over simplifying, take a few minutes to finish this article and see what I mean.

To keep things…

I've gone through tons of resumes for different positions that I've had.

At one point I was hiring someone to replace me. Others, I was looking for quality candidates to work in our BizDev Department. I'd have to say that about 90% of the applications/resumes had "Multitasking" under skills. 

While some hiring managers look at this as a real…

A lot of people will tell you that there is no way to track the ROI of social media, I'm here to tell you that they're wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong! But why are they wrong? I have a few ideas on that, the biggest of which is that they don't know what they're doing. Another reason could be that they think it's too hard and instead of…

To Be

Focus less on what you need to do and more on what you need to be.

How many times have we talked about all the things we believe or want,

but deep down we were unwilling to integrate the…

It’s no secret that auto dealerships have frequently been forced to defend themselves against discrimination claims by employees and agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. As a result, many dealers have instituted comprehensive human resources programs to avoid potential problems. However, new technology brings new challenges.

As the use of social media grows, more and more dealerships are using the internet to screen potential employees. Many managers…

I am posting some parts of a course I teach to beginning salespeople in the hopes some members will find it useful. I meant to put up this post last week, but the launch of my novel, Old Scores distracted me. For any of you who might wish to read my novel, you can find it on Amazon as an eBook here or through my blog here.

The Steps…

Balancing work and life…..

This is a hard equation for some people to handle…

There are some that believe… you need to work 80 hours a week to advance your career…

And while working hard… is a trait that we all want to be associated with…you have to maintain a work - life balance…

Here are some startling…

WINNING ATTITUDES

"The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, learn about them, or even seriously consider them as believable or achievable.…