he car business is a game of high stakes. The highest stake is and has always been the used car department.

It doesn’t matter if your trading at the front door or buying at the auction it’s always a gamble.

You’re gambling that you paid the right money for the unit.

It’s true you make money when you buy the unit. It’s even truer that you make the money when you sell the unit. You never know what a unit is worth until you sell it. It’s always a gamble.

Used cars are not an exact science. It’s more often than not a wild-ass guess. Some guess better than others, but it’s always a gamble.

Solid leadership and a savvy understanding of the business will mitigate your gamble and give you better odds of winning the game and improving your bottom line.

If you’re the Owner, Dealer or General Manager you should never turn the riskiest part of your business over to a single individual. Your leadership and experience are critical to your thriving and surviving the risky part of your business.

There’s an old Chinese proverb that says: If you must play, decide upon three things at the start:

1. The rules of the game-Upper management set the rules of the game and decide if they are going to demand accountability. Rules without accountability are just stupid. Don’t be stupid.

2. The stakes-The stakes are very high. How much money do you have invested in your used car operation? Most of the time we think about that in terms of the amount of used car inventory we’re carrying.

Often in the millions of dollars. Yes, that’s the biggest chunk of the investment, but there’s also a huge investment in time, management development and resources that go into the equation. Don’t be stupid with your investment.

3. The quitting time-At what point do we find a retail buyer at some number? Our first inclination when reading “the time to quit,” is when do we dump the unit in the wholesale market.

Dumping in the wholesale market is always a bad idea. If you want to think about it as dumping, you should be thinking about it as dumping in the retail market.

At some point, the unit should be priced at a price point that makes someone come in and take it off your hands.

All units don’t deserve the same shelf-life. To assign all units the same quitting time is a bad business strategy. Not having a solid strategy and flying by the seat of your pants is just stupid.

I’m being repetitive, but it’s worth repeating that the used car business is a gamble and you need to do everything in your power to increase the odds in your favor.

That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

If I learned anything from being an athlete, a coach, an NCAA college basketball referee, and my time in the United States Marine Corps, it is that you have to be a well-disciplined team to win.

I, like many of you, can look back and review my career and unequivocally conclude that the success I’ve had is directly tied to discipline.

The common denominator that I observe in my dealership travels for the most successful operations is discipline. It’s there. It’s visible. It’s consistent.

You can have:

A lot of great ideas.

A lot of great concepts.

A lot of great tools and training at your disposal.

A lot of talented people.

A lot of great software.

None of it is worth the ink to write it down if you don’t have discipline.

As many of you know my team and I have developed some amazing software rightly named UpYourGross. What’s obvious is that the dealers who have the discipline to allocate 10 minutes a day to the software are getting results that far exceed their expectations and their investments.

Those that don’t are wasting their money.

This isn’t about my software. It’s about the value of discipline.

Leadership must have a clear understanding of discipline and what it means to the success of the organization.

If you’re going to develop a winning team you must be committed to the now, not later. If you’re not a person of action, not much else will matter.

When a leader is consistent in everything he/she does, then others will follow. When others follow the lead of discipline, momentum and growth are inevitable.

Never forget the enemy of discipline is procrastinating. Be disciplined. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

I want to speak to those of you that are in charge of the hiring and struggle to find that superstar used car manager.

The used car manager you need may very well be right under your own roof, and you’re walking right by him or her a dozen times a day.

For whatever misconceived reason, when you need a used car manager, the first thing you want to do is find a used car guru that works someplace else and lure them away.

I don’t have to tell you the challenges of hiring from the outside. I don’t have to, but I will.

1. The person you hire isn’t going to have the same culture that you’ve been working so hard to develop.

2. Their thinking about the used car business isn’t going to necessarily align with yours. That doesn’t mean either of you has it right or wrong. It just means it’s going to be frustrating and more than likely expensive.

3. If you’re running an ad in Automotive News, most of the respondents are going to be from outside your area. I’m not even going to attempt to list all the issues tied to bringing someone in from afar. If you don’t understand those issues then you’ve got a lot more problems than I can help you with.

4. When you hire from the outside you are looking for a miracle worker to fix the mess left from the last miracle worker. Most likely the mess will get bigger. All you’re doing is rinse and repeat.

5. You’re doing nothing to encourage people to want to grow and develop within your organization when you keep going to the outside. You need to promote from within.

The real answer is that you don’t need someone from the outside with a bunch of experience. What you need is to commit to giving someone from within a chance and a whole bunch of your personal time and energy.

What you need is:

1. Someone that’s a young “thinker.”

2. Someone that has high energy.

3. Someone that believes in your culture and store.

4. Someone that’s coachable.

5. Someone that has common sense.

6. Someone that understands technology.

7. Someone that has integrity.

8. Someone that has a strong work ethic.

9. Someone that has good communication skills.

10. Someone that’s hungry.

If you don’t have someone or multiple someones like this in your organization then you need to rethink your organization. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

I’m done playing nice.

I’m done soft-speaking. I’m done sugarcoating. I’m done hearing you say, “Everything’s fine — we drank the Kool-aid.”

Unless you drank my super Kool-aid, it’s not fine.

Some of you have. Most haven’t. If you haven’t, do yourself a favor — drink it.

Here’s the plain truth: you need a life-cycle management process. Not because it’s trendy. Not because I sell software. Because it makes sense. Smart, measurable, practical sense.

You can argue with me if you want — you’ll be wrong.

Some of you will say, “We don’t have the discipline to use it.” That’s an excuse. Discipline can be built. Systems can be taught. Saying it “doesn’t make sense” is the only claim you can’t defend.

For years you’ve preached, “Every unit must stand on its own.” But you treat every unit the same. What are you thinking? How’s that working out?

Life-cycle management demands a unique strategy for every unit on Day One. If you actually set a strategy on Day One, you won’t be watching the same car on Day Sixty-One wondering why it hasn’t moved.

Yes, my software helps manage this. But I don’t care if you buy my software. What I care about is this simple fact:

Not every unit deserves the same shelf life.

On Day One be honest: did you price this to sell, to hold, or to hope? Stop treating purchase units and trades as twins when they’re not. Start triaging them like the business you want to be.

Do this and your gross goes up. That’s not hype — it’s math.

Are you done playing nice? You should be. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

1. Redundant Training- It ain’t redundant until you’re perfect. You ain’t perfect. If your sales staff isn’t polished enough to be able to justify the price then you are not going to get the desired gross. It’s just that simple. Get busy training and you’ll get more gross. (If you have a bunch of knuckleheads working with you then all the training in the world isn’t going to make a difference.) At the very least, you should have a lot walk once a week with all managers and all salespeople. The more your people know about your inventory, the more your gross goes up. (Training Proposal.)

2. Ask For More On The Right Units- There are some that you need to start way high. Some very low. vAuto’s Profit Time and my UpYourGross are great software tools to help you know which units are which.

Once in a while you gotta “ask for it all.” Since the beginning of this business, high average gross profit has been achieved by hitting a home run once in a while. You can’t hit it if you don’t take a full swing. If it’s a low mileage, really nice car you deserve more money for it. You don’t deserve more money for an edgy one and you have to be smart enough to know which is which. And without a doubt, you have every right to ask more money for a certified car. But that doesn’t mean you sit on the “more money” pricing forever. Change the pricing daily.

3. Not selling in Today’s Market-Your most profitable car is a 20-day car. If you are retailing a lot of cars at the 30, 45, 60 plus day mark, you don’t have a chance. Speed wins; the lack of speed kills. Why don’t you try charting those units that you sell at 45 days and beyond to see what they are doing to your average gross profit? In the movie “A Few Good Men,” Jack Nicholson might have been talking about you. You can’t handle the truth.

4. Does Your Website Suck?–stop reading this and go look at your website. Is it easy to surf through and/or do you have a bunch of crap popping up?

5. No Early Warning Radar-You’re asleep at the wheel. You have to be able to spot a problem child on day one, not day 44 or day 59. Every one of your aged units has a story to go with it. That story started back on day one.

You have to be smart enough to have an “Early Warning Radar” system in your arsenal. Fix your Radar system and your grosses will improve. I invented “Early Warning Radar.” You should steal it and use it.

Five Simple things to pay attention to. That’s all I’m gonna say,Tommy Gibbs