If you haven’t already done so, it’s that time to review your 2012 performance in detail. In what areas did you fall short of your goals and why? Where could you have generated greater gains and how? Don’t allow January to slip by without these facts in writing and a discussion of how you can best move forward in 2013.
A common F&I pay plan in the automotive industry is known as the grid. It compensates managers based on their per vehicle retail performance and products sold…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on February 1, 2013 at 3:30pm — 1 Comment
Today's Up To Speed article is contributed by Dave Anderson, president of Dave Anderson's Learn to Lead, an international sales and leadership training and consulting company. Prior to beginning Learn To Lead, Dave enjoyed an extensive and successful career in the automotive retail industry
Self-esteem is defined by the dictionary as: a realistic respect for or…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on January 30, 2013 at 11:30am — No Comments
Rarely do we come across a dealer today who claims to have a sufficient number of vehicle sales personnel. When adding the word “quality” to “vehicle sales personnel,” the dealers’ claims of staffing success turn pretty ugly. Why is it so difficult to attract quality people for automotive sales positions?
Several years ago, I was working with a client in Southern California and conducting one of my rare sales training meetings. The subject of the meeting was "Developing and Engaging…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on January 27, 2013 at 8:30am — 17 Comments
Today's Up To Speed article is contributed by Dave Anderson, president of Dave Anderson's Learn to Lead, an international sales and leadership training and consulting company. Prior to beginning Learn To Lead, Dave enjoyed an extensive and successful career in the… |
Added by Garry House on January 15, 2013 at 9:49am — No Comments
One of the questions on the NCM Institute post-class surveys is, “Which of the trainings presentations or topics were the most useful to you?” One of the most prevalent answers we see is “Time Management.” This is interesting because the subject seems to be of a lot greater importance to dealership managers than those of us involved in retail automotive thought leadership have always believed. The quandary I’m…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on January 8, 2013 at 2:38pm — No Comments
I have the honor and privilege of traveling this great country of ours and working with all types of BHPH dealers on a consulting, training, and 20 Group basis. I am a firm believer that we learn more from our mistakes than our successes. When I first started to put this article together, I made a list of the most prominent mistakes I see BHPH dealers make. Problem was, the list was about 1,001 mistakes long. Most if not all of which I had made as a dealer myself.
After looking over…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on December 19, 2012 at 9:30am — 4 Comments
In the second quarter of 2012, the NCM Institute (NCMi®) formed a training partnership with Automotive Internet Management (AIM). After personally auditing two of these sessions and receiving client-dealer feedback from all of the sessions, I’ve become convinced that dealers and their sales management teams need to “raise the bar” on their expectations for Internet closing ratios.
At NCMi, we have always believed and…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on November 27, 2012 at 3:00pm — No Comments
Today I'm pleased to introduce Rebecca Chernek of Chernek Consulting (CCI) as NCMi’s newest Up To Speed Guest Expert. Rebecca specializes in Finance & Insurance training to Automotive, RV, Powersport and Marine dealers nationwide. With an impressive automotive retail background spanning over 25+ years, Rebecca has hands-on, proven experience in automotive retail including sales, director of finance and general management. She… |
Added by Garry House on November 6, 2012 at 9:29am — 1 Comment
Here’s your dilemma: One of your top performers--maybe a vehicle sales consultant, maybe a service advisor, maybe a technician, maybe an F&I producer--just advised you that he really wants to become a manager. Although you don’t really want to lose his production, you know that if you don’t appropriately address his request and desire, he might quit and leave, or maybe worse, he might quit and stay.
Here is what else probably bothers you about this situation;…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on October 16, 2012 at 10:30am — 10 Comments
In my 25+ years in the automotive dealership training and consulting arena, I have been exposed to numerous dealership executives, department managers, and sales and service personnel who felt the need to be “on the job” 60, 70, and, yes, even 80 hours per week. And no matter how much you love the retail business and its diversity, excitement and challenges, that level of time investment in your business career will never allow you to achieve any type of reasonable balance between your…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on October 4, 2012 at 2:37pm — 1 Comment
A sound Internet/BDC operation is a key component of every successful automotive dealership. The question is, what makes a sound Internet/BDC operation? When the NCM Institute decided to sponsor a dealership Internet/BDC training program earlier this year, we decided upon one of the recognized e-Commerce experts in the retail automotive industry,…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on October 2, 2012 at 1:45pm — No Comments
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.…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on September 27, 2012 at 12:30pm — No Comments
I’m sure you’ve heard this theme over and over: the automotive retail world we work in today is in continual flux, requiring continual adaptation and an unprecedented acceptance of change. At the beginning of each of our NCM Instituteclasses, we ask the attending dealership executives and department managers, “What is your biggest single challenge?” Although it may not quite come out of their mouths this way, the answer we…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on September 20, 2012 at 1:03pm — 3 Comments
Whenever I ask this question, I’m usually very disappointed with the answers that I receive. This past week, when I queried a group enrolled in the NCM Institute's regional Service Management training class in Charlotte, NC, only 20% responded with a “Yes.” My disappointment continues, and…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on September 18, 2012 at 12:48pm — No Comments
Everyone I talk to seems to have their own conception of what the 80/20 Rule is all about, but very few people in the retail automotive business fully understand its dominant principles and how they should be applied to our business. Nonetheless, I’m a believer that the 80/20 Rule can and should be used by every sensible person in their daily life. The successful utilization of this principle can multiply the profitability of auto dealerships and the effectiveness of any…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on September 12, 2012 at 8:58am — No Comments
Normally I don’t receive my copy of Automotive News in south Florida from the U.S. Postal Service until Thursday or Friday. This week I was pleasantly surprised to find it in my mailbox on Tuesday. A couple of articles in the current issue (authored by Lindsay Chappell and Christina Rogers) inspired me to revisit the vehicle personalization… |
Added by Garry House on September 4, 2012 at 12:42pm — No Comments
It’s time for a continuation of the mini case study focused on the objectives established and challenges faced in building processes to develop, measure and manage OTDBs in the operating departments of an NCM client automotive dealership group. In our article titled OTDB Measurement and Management – Part Two, published on March 20, 2012, I discussed the structure of the vehicle sales department and the general expectations that we defined and communicated to the members of the sales…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on August 30, 2012 at 12:31pm — No Comments
That probably sounds like a funny question, but it’s a very important one to those of us on the NCMi faculty. Many times our instructors have had managers show up for a class, some unwilling, who think they have been around the block enough times to be able to teach it themselves. However, low and behold, those same managers will leave the class with knowledge and understanding they didn’t realize they needed. The concept behind the question is that we all learn to master skills in…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on August 17, 2012 at 9:30am — 1 Comment
It’s probably because of my college training in industrial engineering, but I’ve always been fascinated and challenged by trying to define any meaningful relationships between “opportunities to do business” (OTDBs) and sales results. After a half-century of experience in the retail automotive business, I’ve concluded that there truly are consequential metrics associated with selling both vehicles and service at an auto dealership.
For instance, do you know how many good vehicle sales…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on August 14, 2012 at 6:15pm — No Comments
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…
ContinueAdded by Garry House on July 31, 2012 at 1:23pm — 5 Comments
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