I’m often asked by managers and others what it takes to be successful in business and how to move to the next level.

They will often imply that they do a good job, but feel frustrated by the lack of forward progress.

Doing a good job doesn’t ensure you of anything except you get to keep doing a good job…until someone else comes along who can do it better and then you may be looking for another job that you can do a good job at. It takes more than doing a good job to get you noticed and to the next level.

21 Tips For Getting Noticed

1. Come early.
2. Stay late.
3. Come to work to work.
4. Stay busy.
5. Seek information and education.
6. Understand you are owed nothing.
7. Do more than you are asked.
8. Be tenacious.
9. Steal someone’s ball and run with it.
10. Force the passion. You may not be in the perfect job or perfect place. It’s up to you to make it the perfect job at the perfect place.
11. If you do these things, someone will notice.
12. If you get noticed, you have a ladder to the top.
13. If you don’t get noticed or this isn’t the place for you, then you are developing some skills that will eventually get you noticed.
14. Do it at the next place and the next place until you get noticed.
15. Be so good that you can’t be denied.
16. Pull others up and up you go with them.
17. Set an example for others.
18. Get up, walk around, be nice.
19. Be enthusiastic, even on your worst day.
20. Dress up to the next level. Don’t dress like the rest.
21. Your answer to the question, “How are you doing?” should be “I’m living an amazing life.”

Thanks for noticing. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

One of the issues management often struggles with is doing the right thing vs. doing the right thing based on the rules of what’s fair to the bottom line.

Most dealerships have written or unwritten rules primarily to protect the company and at the same time keep peace with the troops.

Though well intended it doesn’t always work out so well.

One issue that often comes up is a split deal. A split deal can create as much hate and discontent as almost anything that goes on in a dealership. Its short-term and long-term effect will often cost you money and additional sales, and can destroy morale.

Every split deal has to be determined on its own merits, but I’ve often paid the full commission to both sales people. I’m not suggesting you do it on every deal. You’d go broke doing that, but on those deals where it’s obvious that we would not have sold the car if not for the efforts of both sales people then it might just be the right thing to do. Especially if you know it’s going to create a burr in both saddles.

The alternative is to pay half deals and now you have two sales people sideways. When sales people get sideways they can’t perform. When sales people get sideways they stir the rest of the team up. When the team gets stirred up by a negative issue we all lose.

Doing the right thing can even be fun. I went to Office Depot the other day to return an item and to pay for an item that they forgot to charge me for on Monday.

When I got to the counter I said, “I have two issues to discuss with you. I’d like a refund on this item I purchased sometime back.”

The cashier said you can’t get a refund because too much time has passed. I said, “There’s a time limit?” He said, “It’s an electronic item and you have to bring it back in 3 weeks.” (It was a USB port extension, $10)

I said, “OK, I don’t think it’s a good rule, it’s still in the box, but no problem.”

He had a bit of an attitude and said, “Let me check on it” or something like that…very grumpy about the deal…he then agreed to give me my money back. I was very gracious and thanked him.

Then I said, “My second issue is I was in yesterday, purchased several items, you waited on me and you didn’t charge me for the printer cartridge I purchased. I want to pay you for it.”(It was a $70 item) His expression. PRICELESS!

It’s also PRICELESS when you do the right thing that in the end helps you sell another unit. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

Below are 40 fundamental traits of a good leader. These are traits that everyone should seek to emulate regardless of their position on the totem pole.

There are 3 ways you can use them:

1. Evaluate yourself. How’d you do?

2. Evaluate the person above you. Your supervisor, department head, team leader, dealer, GM, person in charge, etc. (You don’t have to tell them, just tell me.)

3. Have someone you work closely with or someone you supervise evaluate you.

If you do all three you’ll become a better leader.

My Top 40 Leadership Traits:

1. Leaders have pep in their step
2. Leaders are disciplined
3. Leaders arrive early, stay late
4. Leaders have a sense of humor
5. Leaders are consistent
6. Leaders follow the golden rule
7. Leaders don’t put themselves above others
8. Leaders don’t show favoritism by hanging out with subordinates
9. Leaders can be counted on
10. Leaders answer their own phone
11. Leaders return phone and email messages promptly
12. Leaders dress the part
13. Leaders show respect for others regardless of position or social status
14. Leaders say thank you…a lot
15. Leaders cut to the chase and get to the point
16. Leaders listen because they know others have great ideas too
17. Leaders use the word “We” vs. the word “I”
18. Leaders pull others up not put them down
19. Leaders don’t work in fear of their job; they coach people “up” to take their job
20. Leaders do what they say they are going to do when they say they are going to do it
21. Leaders pick up after themselves…and others
22. Leaders know what they know and they know what they don’t know
23. Leaders take the blame when something fails and they give others credit when it works
24. Leaders communicate then communicate some more
25. Leaders help establish vision and direction
26. Leaders remove obstacles to production, not create them
27. Leaders attack a problem now, rather than letting grow it into a cancer
28. Leaders seek ways to simplify not complicate
29. Leaders seek knowledge; they learn, then they coach others
30. Leaders make the tough decisions now, not later
31. Leaders don’t tolerate a fearful workplace
32. Leaders are enthusiastic
33. Leaders set the accountability standard
34. Leaders have controllable passion
35. Leader detest the statement “We’ve always done it that way”
36. Leaders accept mistakes as a part of progress
37. Leaders see a problem as an opportunity to “fix it”
38. Leaders guard the processes but recognize when they are not working
39. Leaders are optimistic realists
40. Leaders lead from the front and they push from the rear

The review is over, that’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

There’s a big difference between complaints and whining. I can’t stand whining. But, I love complaints. Complaints are an opportunity to fix something. I love fixing stuff.

When dealing with customer complaints I like to ask the customers, “What is it you want us to do to make you happy?” I try not to tell them what I’m going to do unless I already know exactly what they want.

Regardless of what they say they want, a good leadership technique is either to give them all of what they want or nothing at all.

Let’s say you have a dispute about a service bill. If they say they don’t think they should be charged anything and you offer up 50/50 you have just wasted your 50%.

They may very well take it but they are still mad, they hate you and they are going to say ugly things about you and your dealership to their friends and relatives.

I have another leadership tip I want to share with you along these same lines and it goes like this: If you get a complaint, you own the complaint. Seems easy enough, doesn’t it?

What I mean by that is, you will often get a complaint but it’s not necessarily your responsibility to handle it, so you hand it off to the person or department whose responsibility it might be.

A good leadership technique for you, and for you to teach your staff, is that whoever first got the complaint “owns it.” Meaning they should take the responsibility to follow up on it to ensure that the person you or they handed it off to has handled it.

These are two very simple leadership disciplines:

1. When it’s your responsibility to fix it, give the
customer everything they want or nothing at all.

2. You own the complaint. Follow up and make sure it is taken care of.

That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs