The first lesson I ever learned in business was the following:
“There are 3 types of people in this world”
- Those who make things happen
- Those who watch things happen
- Those who stand around and wonder… What the hell just happened?
With the shape of the economy, car market, bailout, bad weather, lazy employees, holidays and every other excuse of why you are not selling cars in this month – my friend Mike Mynatt made a point today that shows why his stores are up in % of new vehicle sales this year, while the rest of his district is down 15%.
“There are 2 types of dealers in this market”
- Those who make up their mind to take over
- Those that you can easily overtake
You see before all the slick CRM tools, Traffic reports, website stats and phone listening and tracking services. Mike walked around the dealership that he now runs with a legal pad as the used car manager and told all the sales people about all the fresh trades that just hit the lot. He sold his salespeople on how much money they could make off the fresh pieces and what fools they were if they didn’t sell the vehicles first. Mike got “buy-in” not once a month or once a week, but he did so every day. Every time he saw a customer with a sales person then saw the sales person later without the customer he would ask – “what happened to the guy in the red hat”?
Mike is in a large metro market with a couple of great franchises, but his relentless style of management and follow-up is why he has climbed as far as he has and also why in this market his stores continue to surpass last years numbers.
