One of the things I encourage dealers and managers to do in my workshops is to sort their used vehicle inventory by cost or investment, with the most expensive units at the top.

Then I teach them 4 specific ways to attack their 10 most expensive units. (If you want the 4 specific ways, shoot me an email.)

If you want to be better, start attacking your 10 most expensive units every day. There’s only one definition for the word “every.” Go look it up.

One of the more interesting but not surprising things we’ve observed over the years is that if you lay your aged inventory side by side with your 10 most expensive, the two lists have a lot of the same units.

You would think the more money you have tied up in a unit, the more money you would make. If you think that, you would be wrong.

Adding to that problem is the longer the more expensive units sit, the worse the ROI is going to be. If you want to spot “brewing trouble,” start attacking your 10 most expensive units.

Of course, inside your head ROI doesn’t matter to you today because you have such a “sweet” bottom line.

That said, for the well-disciplined dealers everything matters.

A whole bunch of things will start to matter to you as this market changes.

So, go ahead and lay your two lists side by side and validate what you already know.

We often know things but look the other way.

When you look the other way, you’re just being stupid. Don’t be stupid.

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

Most of my messages are geared toward management, but today I want to talk to your sales staff. You should forward this to every salesperson on your team and suggest they sign up for my newsletters.

If you’re a salesperson, I want to help you re-frame what you do every day and what a great opportunity you might be missing. If you’re in management, this is a message you need to share with all.

Have you ever wanted to be in business for yourself?

Have you ever thought about going into business, to get someone else to invest the money and you reap the rewards?

Welcome to the amazing world of the automobile business:

You have free office space.

You get rewarded based on how hard you work.

You have opportunities for advancement.

You have healthcare, vacation and retirement opportunities and Christmas bonus programs.

You have a management team working to help you be productive.

You have a free computer system.

You have a CRM/DMS and other software provided free of charge.

You have staff and technicians available to handle customer problems.

You have free marketing, advertising, and a website developer.

You have an administrative staff to help process your deals, DMV work, etc.

You have millions of dollars of inventory to sell with zero personal investment.

You get special spiffs/incentives from the factory.

You get all the free training/coaching that you can stand.

You have a detail/clean-up department that gets your vehicles ready for delivery.

You don’t have to pay a penny for phone, electricity and other utilities.

You can demand an assistant when you become productive enough.

You have an Internet/BDC department begging you to take leads.

You have free janitorial service.

You have free coffee.

You have your own personal financial officer (F&I) working to put your deals together.

You work out of a multi-million dollar facility located on prime real estate.

You have an opportunity of a lifetime with no personal financial investment.

You need to “own” your own business.

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

Go to my website to “join list” tommygibbstraining.com

Without question, some people are luckier than others. It’s not always true, but some of the time it’s just a fact.

More often than not, luck is a by-product of being prepared.

The more you prepare, the luckier you get.

Being prepared means studying your craft.

Being prepared means making some mistakes and moving on.

Being prepared means willingness to change.

Being prepared means listening to other points of view.

Being prepared means getting outside of your comfort zone.

Being prepared is a constant thirst for knowledge.

Being prepared means having lots of residue on your hands.

Change is coming. Are you prepared?

Many have the will to win. Very few have the will to prepare to win.

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

How was your June?

How have your first six months been?

It’s been a crazy year and I know that most of you have set some all-time records.

I can understand why you might be beating your chest a little bit.

Your record-breaking pace may mean you’ve gotten lucky or it may mean you’ve got your act together.

Either way, you need to be cautious of becoming complacent.

Even though things have been going well, you would be very smart to review how you can make things better as you tackle the second half.

But let’s suppose you’ve not been setting records or maybe you recognize you’ve done well despite some flaws in your plan of attack.

Since we still have 6 more months to go, I have a couple of questions:

1. If you’re a record-breaker, what are you going to do to get better?

2.If you’ve not been breaking records or have broken some despite yourself, what are you going to do to get better?

Everything we do is about choices.

You can choose to let things be as they are, or you can choose to dial it up a notch or two.

Your other choice is to do nothing. Go sit in your office, stare at the wall and count your money.

If you do nothing, your pile of money will likely go down and the year will soon be over.

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