“Change”, the dreaded four-letter word of Automotive retail. Dealers, GMs, GSMs, Managers and (mostly) salespeople despise it, yet if nothing changed more than the entire business in the past one and a half to two years, everything did. So, congratufrickinlations, you learned how to change. Now, with all of the profit and other positive aspects of business, bury your collective heads again and ignore the fact that you made a significant set of changes – even though, while in reality, most dealers changed a little and some really changed a lot – and stop making more important changes today! STOP!!

To those still reading, it’s time to make more changes. Being as how we are likely in this vehicle/parts/microchip constraint era for 2-4+ more years, it’s still the best time to overturn every stone, every expense, every vendor, every product, every profit center, and find more opportunities. More gross. More net. More more!

Are you buying enough cars? Are you keeping your clients glued to your messaging, service offers, purchase opportunities and more? Are you analyzing your data? Are you making educated decisions? Or are you still using used car marketing cheese and lousy photography for your inventory? Are you still letting salespeople and BDRs contact less than 50% of your prospects, excusing their poor performance and allowing them to claim “the leads suck” or “we don’t have inventory”?!?!

Can we stay committed to effective, valuable change and accountability, or are we destined to repeat average in an age of upside? The average of all dealership Internet lead closing rate in 2000 was 8-11%. The average closing rate of all dealership Internet leads averages 9-12% in 2022. But we have AI!!! And we have  new tech!! And we have, and we have, and we have…lack of change.

The moral of the story is to embrace change. Embrace? Heck…make love to it!!!! Stop accepting “what we’ve always done” as your motto and start grabbing opportunity by the balls! Stop settling and start changing!

Your results depend on your willingness to change…

 

This post was inspired by visits to Ohio dealers this week. Thank you!

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results