Content may be King online, but Accountability still rules the Showroom...

These days it seems like every vender that sits in front of me has the same catch phrase; “content is king”. Now I’m sure this is a valid point but this is not about venders or even anything online, I wanted to talk about the other king today. Here at the dealership I have a similar saying that I have spoken many thousands of times over the years; “accountability is king” which is a para phrase of a saying I'm sure you have heard many times yourself, “inspect what you expect”. There's a difference though between repeating it and doing it! Many times we look only at the results of an employee and mistakenly assume the activities that led to them, both positively and negatively. Sometimes we may assume that our 20 car a month salesperson does a fairly good job of his daily work-plan, or that he in fact does have one! Conversely looking at a low performing staff member and making the assumption that he isn't working his daily plan. The real problem is an overwhelming lack of accountability that prevails in the car business. Now if your dealership has it figured out to a tee then forgive the implication however after 25 plus years in showrooms I do speak from real experience! We all get busy, believe me I know and I get busy too! Its all to easy to lose track of the day and simply nod as my sales people check out at the end of their shift with a casual, ‘good night boss’…. If this type of check out is left unchecked it suddenly is the last weekend of the month and the scramble is on to find those precious few more deals that we hope will make up for a slow month. The reality is simple. There are no slow months, there is only the lack or preparation followed up with implementation and inspected by management so as to hold our people accountable for their own production. Lets face it our people rely on us to keep them on track and earning their living so its our responsibility to make sure they; have clear and easily understood goals, they have reviewed their goals with us as managers and are being inspected daily to ensure they are working toward those goals. Before the end of a month the following months activities should be clearly planned out. For a retail person on the floor they should be able to project how many up, demos and write ups they will need to reach their goal and most importantly what they need to do to acquire those opportunities. Internet people have similar steps to manage with how many leads, phone call, appointments , demos, write ups etc. Its imperative to look through our CRM daily to see what our people are, and aren't doing and then consult with them to offer praise or guidance when needed. If wee look up at the sales board and see someone selling a bunch don’t assume he or she is doing a bang up job of follow up and leave it at that, look into it and if they are well then praise them however, if they aren't ask them how amazing their numbers would be if they were! If you have a low performer drill down and find out where the breakdown is, if a guy has taken a ton of ups but can't get to the demo work on that. If hes had a great demo ratio but isn't asking for the business there is your next training session etc. I’m not breaking any revolutionary new ground here, but it is advise that needs to be repeated often! Fire up your computer, log into that CRM and find more deals by holding your team to a higher level of accountability! Until next time, Sell Something!

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