There is no doubt that to achieve results you need to know "what you are trying to achieve" and then you need to know "how you are going to get there." For the sake of this article let’s refer to them as the "What" and "How."

Once you’ve established the "What" then the "How" becomes what’s important. The problem often occurs that as you start to go down the road of the "How" frustration starts to build when the "How" isn’t getting it done. The "How" begins to create doubt about whether the "What" is doable. Not long thereafter the whole thing begins to unravel.

So let’s talk first about the "What." The "What" comes about because of a need or desire to implement positive change and improvement. The "What" is the ultimate goal. Goals can certainly change, but you must stay focused on the "What" even though the "How" may change.

The "What" might be that you need to generate $500,000 in gross profit a month in order to pay the expenses and make a tidy profit. "How" you get there is not all that important. You just have to get there. 

It may be that you rely mostly on your fixed operations to generate the greatest portion of the gross and that’s fine. Certainly you need sales to carry its share, but with fixed being so strong you can make it happen with a clear focus on an area you do well in.

Here’s another example of the "What" and the "How." The "What" is you need $200,000 a month in used car gross. It may be that you can sell 100 cars at $2,000 a car or you can sell 200 cars at $1000 a car.

Different sets of circumstances and market conditions may cause you to focus more one way than the other. The "What" has not changed. You need $200,000 in gross. What changes is the "How" you get there. 

There are so many factors that go into play; staffing, inventory availability, lending conditions, competition and the market you live in.

If you are having great success today in your dealership with a certain type of "How" that doesn’t mean if you buy another dealership 200 miles away that your "How" is going to remain the same. It’s pretty easy to establish the "What"; the hard part is figuring out the "How."

There is no 10 step process and/or concept that’s going to work all the time. You must stay flexible and keep scrambling to figure out the "How." 

The "How" is always changing. If you get a certain "How" implanted in your mind and it’s not working then you end up having great doubts as to whether or not the "What" can be done.

I often remind dealers and managers that you never get this business right. There is always something to fix and whether you want to admit it or not that’s one of the intrigues of being in the business in the first place. If you weren’t being challenged it wouldn’t be half as much fun.

If the "What" was worth identifying then it’s worth chasing the "How" to get it done. Far too often we don’t want to identify the "What" because of the bad experience of the failure of the previous "Hows." The "Hows" are nothing but little bumps in the road on the way to achieving the "What."

When a realistic "What" is decided upon don’t let the changing of the "How" get you off track. You just have to keep digging.

My "What" is to keep stirring your thinking up as to the "How." That’s all I’m gonna say. Tommy Gibbs 

Two months gone and I’m thinking you’re either not happy with your volume or your average gross profit. It’s always one or the other. Trying to find the happy middle ground remains the question. I wanna see you be happy.

It’s a fact that you can make $3,000 a copy. It’s also a fact that if you do, the odds are pretty much against you when it comes to volume. Another fact is that in most cases your overall bottom line is impacted a lot more by doing high volume than high gross per unit.

Dealers by and large have figured out that if they use technology to price their used cars then customers will show up, especially when they price the cars in the top five in the market. Some dealers are starting to push back on the "turn the inventory as fast you can" concept and are moving to "let’s hold ’em longer" and make more money per car.

I understand it. I get it. Those dealers have become convinced that they can’t replace their inventory so why worry about turning it? If that becomes your long term strategy there’s a good chance you will wake up one day with lots of old stuff on your lot that you are stuck in.

Do I need to remind you about how fast the market can turn? Gas prices go up or gas prices go down and the market goes sideways. If you keep hanging onto inventory, there could be a very sad day at the "OK Corral."

Here are some tips to improving both average gross profit and volume which will ultimately make you a lot happier.

1. Do a better job of training the sales people (and sales managers) to sell the value of your company and the value of the vehicle, and your grosses would be a lot better. You begin to sell from strength not weakness when your team is educated.

2. Provide more information. The more information your sales people have about your inventory and how it’s priced to market the more likely they are to do a better job of convincing the customers you’ve got the best car at the best price. You have to sell the sales staff before you sell the customer.

3. Do more and better research. The more research you do on what’s hot and what’s not in your market the better off you will be. Grosses go up when you are selling a product that’s high in demand and low in supply. Key components for you to utilize are vAuto Stocking Tool, Auto Trader Data and data from Auto Count USA (Experian.)  If you’re still making decisions on what to buy based on gut instinct you may want to rethink that. Research will also help you stock those units that are the most in demand, so you sell more and sell them faster.

4. Rethink "Buckets." Many dealers have become sold on buckets. Buckets are a solid discipline process, but you can’t take a position that all cars in the first 20 days are priced a certain way and at day 21 another and so on. There are some that need to be over market and some under market regardless of age. All cars have to be evaluated on their own merits and must be done daily, not in 15 or 20 day windows.

5. Track GAP and ROI. Dealers who are tracking GAP and ROI are seeing a big difference in their average grosses.  If you’ve not bought into this process then maybe it’s something you should take a hard look at. 

6. Fix your reconditioning timeline. If your most profitable car is a 20-day car (and it really is) how can you allow the service department to bog you down with it spending 7 to 10 days in the shop? This is one of those things that’s fixable, but it has to be done by the dealer. If the dealer wants to fix it then it gets fixed. Speed wins; the lack of speed kills. It’s as simple as that.

7. Re-do your website. How does your website look? Your website is the "New Showroom." Do your pictures tell a good story? Do you have 12 to 20 photos? If that’s all you have then you are not in the game. You need at least 40 and they need to be done in a photo booth. If you don’t have a photo booth you need to make a commitment to get one. Saying you don’t have the space is a poor excuse. You can make it happen if you want to. Kind of like the issue in service. You can fix it. You just need to do it.

8. Drive your average cost per unit down. The biggest no brainer since the invention of the wheel. If you want more volume, drive your cost down. If you want a better ROI, drive your cost down. If you really want to be in the used car business, drive your cost down. What is it you don’t understand about driving your cost down?

9. Install EWR into your "Trade Walk." Utilizing Early Warning Radar is essential if you are going to improve both gross profit and volume.

The used car department takes a lot of energy and effort to achieve the volume and gross you need to make big money. There is no one simple answer that will fix it for you. The key is to keep digging until you figure it out.

You can probably pinpoint some obvious issues that you know are holding you back. The faster you attack them the better. Spring is almost here. Summer is not far behind. The longer you wait to make some important decisions the more money you are leaving on the table and the less likely you are to be happy and clapping your hands.

I’m happy and I’m clapping because I’ve given you some more free information to help you improve your business. That’s all I’m gonna say. Tommy Gibbs

If you checked into a Ritz Carlton today I would suspect you would have high expectations of what your experience is going to be like. I would also suspect that if you checked into a Holiday Inn Express that immediately your expectations would be lower.

Let’s pretend you decided to get out of the business you are in today and go to work at a Ritz Carlton or a Holiday Inn Express. The expectations you would have going to work at the Ritz are going to be a lot higher than at the Express.

Even though you’re the same person and you would like to think you are always going to perform at your top capacity it is very likely that in short order your performance at Express is going to a be lot lower than at the Ritz.

I heard a great quote recently and it goes like this, "You should go to work for a company that has high expectations." I like that, I like that a lot. So, let’s turn it around. You should hire people who you have high expectations of and you should reinforce your expectations on a daily basis.

Most of my readers are in the business of selling something, be it cars, real estate, insurance, software, advertising or whatever. Tangible or intangible, everybody’s selling something. If nothing else, you are always selling yourself and/or your ideas to someone.

As a leader in your organization you are responsible for helping to raise the expectations of yourself and those around you. 

If you accept a sales person selling 6 cars a month I’m thinking you’re gonna get a lot of 6 car sales people. What you are willing to accept has now become the standard expectation.

If you accept the used car department selling 75 cars a month then that’s what you’re gonna get. You might be wishing for 100 but everyone in the store knows your real expectation is 75 so you hover around 72 to 77 and that’s it. Everyone goes away happy. Sorta.

There is a direct relationship between expectations and the way people are treated. If they are treated well they generally will perform well. Why do the workers at Chick-fil-A perform better than those at Burger King? Because management treats them better. They go to work at Chick-fil-A knowing full well what the expectations are. 

The same at the Ritz, the same at Apple, the same at Starbucks, and as I often say, the list goes on and on.
Management’s fault is that it often takes an approach of "It is what it is; we are a victim of the market so let’s just do the best we can." Never let doing the best you can be your rev limiter.

People will stretch themselves to achieve the level of expectations that have been set. Every leader should seek to create and build high expectations to improve the performance of everyone in an organization.

People will respond when challenged in a positive way and rewarded with positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement includes training, praise, celebrating results and acknowledging individual and company successes. 

Raising expectations starts with "Walking the walk, not talking the talk." That’s all I’m gonna say. Tommy Gibbs

I want to talk to you about pricing and how dealers post prices on their used cars.

Some dealers do not post any prices on the cars sitting on their lot. A few don’t even post a price on the Internet. Some have an Internet price, but they don’t have an actual price on the cars. A few have the price coded on the car for the sales person. Some dealers require the sales person to get a price from the sales manager or they may have a price sheet in their pocket from which they will quote. About 1/3 of all dealers have a price on the vehicles on the lot that is different than the price on the Internet.

Dealers who follow any part of these procedures have an array of excuses for doing so. Some dealers will say they don’t want to post prices on their cars because they don’t want customers coming on the lot when they are closed, getting a price and being able to shop them. Really? Look Einstein, they’re gonna get a price one way or the other. Can you say Internet? (If you’re big in the Subprime business that’s a whole other subject.)

They will also say it’s because they want to give the sales person a chance to hit a homerun on the drunk that staggers into the dealership who doesn’t own a computer. Ok, they don’t actually say it that way, but that’s my real world way of putting it into language we all understand.

Let’s all raise our hands and agree that more than 80% of the people shopping a used car shop on the Internet. Now that I’ve gotten you to agree to that then let me give you another number that you might not want to agree with but it’s absolutely true. Here you go: 65% of the people who show up on your lot to look at a used car have been online, looked at your prices and don’t tell you so.

No doubt, a skilled sales person will attempt to find out such a critical piece of information, but you need to know going in that when you play the pricing game with your customers you are going to lose the game more times than you win.

Your credibility goes down the tubes as oftentimes the customer won’t say anything to you and just leaves because you quoted them something different than the internet price.

I’m going to share with you what I believe is the best way to achieve the maximum gross and sell the most cars with the minimum loss of deals.

Without a doubt your Internet price and the price of the cars on your lot need to match. You should consider a window sticker on the side of the car with all the equipment and a "Retail Price." Use whatever source you want to determine the retail price. Just make it a real big price.

Use an attractive hang tag (CLICK HERE FOR HANGTAG) to show the Internet price. The hangtag makes it very easy for you to make price adjustments whenever you make an Internet pricing change.

In today’s market there is no logical reason to approach the pricing of your used cars in any other manner. You must continue to do a better job of training your sales staff so they can justify that the Internet price you have posted is fair market value and your dealership is the place the customer needs to do business.

When the sales staff stops selling the price and starts selling the value you will sell more cars, make more money and have happier customers.

So, have I changed your mind about your pricing? Just remember "only canned sardines can’t change their minds." That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

When I was in college we used to mix an alcoholic drink called purple passion. The way I remember it the formula was 190 proof grain alcohol mixed with grape juice. Not that I was ever a heavy drinker but I probably lost some serious brain cells drinking that stuff.

The appeal of that drink wasn’t just the alcohol content; it was the name "Purple Passion." More the word passion than purple! There’s something about the word passion that brings out excitement and enthusiasm in most people.

Organization like Zappos Shoes, Starbucks, and Apple will point to the passion of their employees as a driving force in the culture, which contributes greatly to their success.

People and organizations don’t necessarily fail because they are stupid or don’t know what to do. They fail because of the lack of passion. Passion is not something that can actually be taught. I’d love to hold a workshop on passion, but I doubt it can be done. Besides, most people wouldn’t feel they need a workshop on passion. They think they already have it, but the reality is most don’t.

I can show you what passion looks like. I do my workshop with great passion. You won’t agree with everything I teach, but you will agree that I do it with passion.

Passion is created when you’re doing something you love to do. That’s the problem, for many people are doing whatever they do for a check.

The number one reason companies like Apple succeed is because they hire people who are passionate about the business they are in. The greatest challenge for most businesses is to take the time to find people who are passionate about their work or at least have a slight flame burning that can be set on fire when shown the way.

Passion is multiplied in any organization by finding "like-minded" people. Passionate leadership will establish standards that are of the Ritz Carlton/Disney type. These standards have to be fed to the masses everyday by the passionate ones to the extent that people either eat it or move on. If passion scares non-believers away, how can that be such a bad thing? You should expect people to become believers and if they can’t, then it’s time to make a change.

There’s a massive connection between passion and goals. If you don’t have goals then it’s pretty unlikely you will ever have a passion for anything. Your goals have to be constantly changing. Passionate people are not successful because they achieve their goals. They are successful because they keep changing their goals. Setting goals too low or too high doesn’t work. Setting goals just a tick out of reach is the key. You hit that just out of reach goal, set another and the passion burns on.

I’ve often said that one of the worst things to happen is when people get in a comfort zone somewhere between two and three years in a given job. The lack of passion is easy to spot. It’s that person who says "Oh, I’m very happy being an F&I manager and I look forward to retiring doing this job."

I’m not saying that’s totally a bad thing, but if this is the person that’s going to fire up the passion in your business you would be as well off drinking purple passion. Having people around you who think like this will cause you as much brain damage as a gallon of purple passion made with 190 proof grain alcohol. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

You may have heard these numbers by now, but just in case you didn’t I will share them with you. Last year there were 12.7 million new cars and trucks sold in this country. That’s a number you have probably read a lot about. A number that you’ve not heard much about is the 38.7 million used that were sold.

Both numbers are up from 2010. Roughly one million more new and two million more used were sold in 2011 than in 2010. Here’s the breakdown of the 38.7 M used.
New Car Dealers: 13.8 M
Independent Dealers: 13.7 M
Private Sales: 11.2 M

New car dealers and used car dealers were almost a split coming in around 36% each of the total market and private sales at about 28%.

Did you sell more used in 2011 than you did in 2010? If you didn’t, shame on you. With 2 million more used sold last year, your used car sales should have also increased.

Let’s assume you did sell more used in 2011 than 2010, the next question is did you get more than your fair share. I can’t define "more than your fair share." Only you can do that by taking a look at your total used car market.

There are a lot fewer new car dealers chasing the used car numbers than there were back in 2008, 2009. There are also fewer used car dealers competing for the used segment. In the big picture there are fewer dealers and more used cars being sold. If you’re not kicking butt in used you really need to have a chat with yourself.

I’m amazed at the 13.7 million used that the independent dealers sold. Can we agree that in one way or another most of their inventory comes from a new car dealer? They get most of their inventory from a new car dealer who sells them as a perceived wholesale piece either directly (I say perceived because a lot of them could have been a retail piece) or at an auction. So one way or another a large percentage of their inventory comes from a new car dealer. Talk about insanity!

Why do you let that happen? Oh, sure some of it is junk and you don’t want to deal with it. True story. But more often than not you have become prejudiced against certain vehicles you don’t want to mess with.

It’s not unusual for you to trade a car in and it might be the number one seller in the market. You keep it for 60 days, don’t retail it, dump it in the wholesale market, and lose $2000. So the next time that car comes to the front door you immediately have an attitude about it. You either don’t step up or if you do trade for it you wholesale it because you don’t want anymore of that "action." The truth of the matter is that the reason you didn’t retail it the first time was because you didn’t market it right. Had you priced it right on day one you wouldn’t have it on day 61.

Another very important piece of the equation is that you keep trading in those $5,000 to $10,000 cars and every time you take them into the shop they try to knock your head off with the repairs. You get tired of having your head knocked off, so you wholesale them.

But, wait, wait…you still need inventory so you go to the auction or ring up the Enterprise guy and you buy some late, late model stuff that you don’t have to spend a lot of money on. That’s what I call being in the NEWSCAR business. That’s when the average cost of your used cars keeps creeping up and up and gets real close to your new. Then you wake up one day with an average cost per unit in stock around $18,000 and you wonder why you’re not selling any used cars.

If you’re going to get more than your fair share of the used car market then you have to play unfair. Playing unfair means taking advantage of the massive amount of information available to you from vAuto, Auto Trader and Auto Count USA. You will not win the game unless you become a student of the game. That’s all I’m gonna say. Tommy Gibbs

Are you heading to or at the NADA Convention? I hope so. If you’re not going I’m wondering why? Why would you not go? Short on staff? I guess that’s a maybe. You went last year? Ugh, I guess that might be a maybe also. Can’t afford the expense? Another maybe goes up on the board. Those excuses and most others are not great reasons for not going.

Some of you live in a little box and wonder why things never change for you. If you’re like most dealers you spend the largest majority of your time in your dealership pushing yourself and encouraging your staff to do the things we all know are important.

The problem with being in the store every day is you end up in a "mental box." Your brain needs a shot of WD 40 once in a while to loosen things up and make the wheels turn faster.  It’s winter, it’s cold and if you’re not careful your brain will freeze up and not thaw until sometime in August.
It’s easy to say "the Convention is always the same, so why bother?" Not true. The only reason the Convention is the same is because you’re the same.

If you’ve gone to the Convention in the past to rub shoulders with the factory guys and attend the parties then I guess it would be the same for you. You get out of something what you put into it. If you go to the Convention and are determined to take real ideas back to your dealership and make things happen the odds will be in your favor of doing so.

It’s hard for your vision to change when you sit there and stare at those same walls and same people day after day. It’s a cancer that eats away at your soul. That’s why you need to go. You need inspiration. You need to see the possibilities. You need to go and learn something.

So, if you’ve not already made plans to go, it might be too late and that’s a shame. If you do go, you can stop by the vAuto booth #1558 and get a free copy of my "Little Used Car Book, Volume 3." My little book is not a cure all for your used car business but it’s guaranteed to give you some ideas and wisdom to help your bottom line.

Finally, I’d like to encourage you to attend your state or local association meeting and by all means consider joining a Twenty Group. You cannot expand your knowledge and your business by sitting in your office daydreaming about the possibilities. That’s all I’m gonna say. Tommy Gibbs

This past Sunday the NFC and AFC championship games were played. Oddly enough they were both decided on a winning and missed field goal at the end of the game. In the NFC Championship game Lawrence Tynes kicked a winning 31-yard field goal in overtime to help the Giants beat the 49ers and advance to a second Super Bowl in five seasons.

In the AFC Championship game New England escaped defeat when Billy Cundiff hooked a 32-yard field-goal attempt wide left with 11 seconds remaining that would have forced an overtime.

One team wins because of a successful kick, the other loses because of an unsuccessful kick. Lawrence Tynes is a hero, Billy Cundiff is a goat. Really? I hardly think so.

As many of you know I refereed college basketball for 17 years. There were games I refereed when either I or another referee were accused of losing the game with a tough call toward the end. As a referee you hate to have an impact on the game that way. The reality is a referee has never won or lost a game any more than those two kickers won and lost on Sunday.

How many mistakes do you think were made during the course of the game that could have prevented it from getting down to one kick? How many fumbles? How many blown plays? How many missed assignments? How many bad reads by the quarterback? How many botched covers by the defensive backs? How many wrong routes run by the receivers? How many poor defensive schemes set up by the coaches that put players in the wrong place at the wrong time? How many bad calls by the offensive coordinator? How poor was the overall game plan? How many times did the discipline break down?

Can you relate to any of this in your business? It’s not any one mistake during the course of a month that causes you to have a bad month. It’s a multitude of them over a period of time.

If you miss a trade in, or put too much money in a car does it matter? No, it only matters if you keep doing it.

If you buy the wrong car at the auction, does it matter? No, it only matters if you keep doing it.

If you don’t log a customer does it matter? No, it only matters if you keep doing it.

If you have a breakdown in your culture or core values does it matter? No, it only matters if you keep doing it.

If you don’t demo a car does it matter? No, it only matters if you keep doing it.

If you let one unit go over 60 days does it matter? No, it only matters if you keep doing it.

If you have an unhappy customer, does it matter? No, it only matters if you keep doing it.

If you don’t do a trade walk today, does it matter? No, it only matters if you keep doing it.

If you don’t execute your sales processes, does it matter? No, it only matters if you keep doing it.

Obviously I can go on and on, but the take-away for you on this should be that if you have a bad month or you’re not selling the number of cars you would like to be selling it’s not because you make a mistake here or there, it’s because you continue to make the same mistakes over and over.

Consistency is very important. If you’re consistently not getting results it’s because you’re consistently doing so many things wrong.

So, it wasn’t the kicker who won or lost the game on Sunday. It was a multitude of good and bad decisions by the players and coaches that created the final results. 

You will win or lose depending on the consistency of you and your team’s good and bad decisions. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

Someone told me something recently that makes really good sense and it goes like this, "Anything you say before the word but is a bunch of bull poo poo." I made up the part about bull poo poo, he actually said meaningless. Meaningless or bull poo poo, it’s a bunch of crap.

So let’s chat a bit. You might say something like "I have a great used car manager, but I can’t get him to understand why ROI is important." Everything you said before the word but is bull poo poo.

That’s fun, let’s do some more:

"Sam is a really smart guy, but he just won’t get with the program."

Oh, gosh this is awesome, let’s keep going.

"Ralph has been a loyal and dedicated employee, but he just can’t seem to show up on time."

"I have a great used car manager, he really knows cars, but we have a lot of stuff over 60 days old."

"We have a great website, but we just can’t seem to get our pictures online in a timely manner."

"We have prices posted on our used cars, but they don’t match the prices we have on the Internet."

"My used car manager is a great closer, but he doesn’t understand how to price used cars."

"Curtis is a nice guy, but makes poor buying decisions by buying too many high dollar cars."

"Bob is a hard worker, but he’s an idiot." 

"My used car manager is one of the best in the business, but we’re only getting 5 turns a year."

"We have great sales people, but we can’t get them to sell used cars."

"We have a great service department, but we can’t get them to get used cars through the system in a timely manner."

"My general manager is awesome, but his people skills are terrible."

"We spend a ton of money in advertising, but we haven’t figured out what role digital plays in our business."

"My used car manager is really tight with all the wholesalers, but we always lose money when we sell them a car."

"Joe is a great manager, but his paper work is a disaster."

"Steve is one of our best managers, but he doesn’t want to change from old school thinking."

Ok, I’m having way too much fun. How many of these can you come up with yourself about things in your organization? This whole "but thing" is simply an excuse and/or a weakness as to why you are not willing to deal with the problem or issue at hand.

I recently was reading a book review in the Wall Street Journal titled "Marshall and His Generals." It’s a biography of General George C. Marshall and how he shaped the U.S. Army Generals during World War II. 

To quote from the article and book: Marshall could be pitiless in relieving generals, especially those who were too old or too slow to adapt to the war’s brutal pace. His ruthlessness spawned enemies at the Officers’ Club, in Congress and in the hierarchy conscious world of military wives, but Marshall prided himself on remaining objective. As he told a gathering of governors in 1943: "The man has to have it or he doesn’t stay. And we listen to no excuses of any kind."

There comes a point in your life or business career when you need to show some real spine. You need to jump up on your desk, rear up on your hind legs and be counted.

You’re running a business. You’re not running a democracy. You can keep on "but"-ing all you want. At some point your "buts" are gonna bite you in the butt. 

Remember I said at the beginning everything before the word but is meaningless.

Ok, one last but…"Tommy Gibbs is really expensive, but he’s made me so much money I feel brilliant that I hired him." That’s all I’m gonna say. Tommy Gibbs

It was recently pointed out to me that not everyone understands the term "did you get up with…" For me I’ve always thought it made perfectly good sense. In my little world it means did you make contact with so and so.

We often fail to realize that everyone does not live in our world and speak our language. Just because we know what we mean doesn’t mean everyone else does. Our ability to communicate with others is critical to our success and even more so when you think of it in terms of an organization.

It’s not unusual for the owners or top management to have a vision for where they want to go, but they communicate that vision so poorly that it breaks apart before it ever had a chance to succeed.

I’ve written in other articles about my business partner for some 30 years, Ashton Lewis from Chesapeake, VA. Ashton is a second-generation dealer. He, his cousin, Lewis Wood, and George Pelton are the principal owners of the First Team Auto group located in Chesapeake, Roanoke, and Hampton, VA. Ashton’s son, Ashton Lewis, Jr. is the third generation and successor to the operations. The baton is gradually being handed over to Ashton, Jr. The future is very bright. These are four of the finest people I have ever met in my life.

Back in November Ashton and his team attended a Dave Anderson’s Strategy Summit held in Dallas, TX. Dave’s summit was an awesome experience for the team and has served as the catalyst to create a new and exciting vision and direction.

I had the distinct honor last week of serving as the Emcee for their kickoff meeting announcing the new vision to all their associates. Weeks and weeks went into the planning of the meeting. It was a mandatory meeting with several hundred team members attending at a local convention center. All the dealerships involved were closed down until 9:30 that morning so everyone could be present. There’s a very powerful message when you close an entire dealership down during one of the busiest times of the day.

The meeting was extremely well done. Prizes galore. Color TV sets, IPods, Kindles, and a grand prize of an all-expense paid trip to the Daytona 500 for two. But the most important part was the energy and effort put together to communicate the vision and road map to achieve the goals at hand. A full video presentation with cool lights and awesome music. (And of course me dancing around.)

Their theme is 1/10/25. 1 meaning to win all the manufacturer’s awards, 10 meaning 10% growth, and 25, meaning for the three stores located in the Hampton Roads area to sell 2500 used cars this year. No doubt that one was my favorite.

At the end of the meeting every employee received a 1 dollar bill, a 10 dollar bill and an American Express gift card for 25 dollars to cement the commitment to the 1/10/25 theme.

So, you’re sitting there thinking, what’s the point of all this chatter? The point is, if you’re going to attack something, be it a new vision or whatever, you have to "get after it." Oops, maybe that’s more slang too.

There needs to be a total all out commitment to make it happen. In order to make it happen you have to be willing to spend time and money to do so. There are no short cuts, easy or cheap ways when you are trying to achieve excellence.

This past Monday the University of Alabama played LSU for the national championship in New Orleans. Alabama won 21-0 with an amazing defensive display. In an interview on Tuesday morning the Alabama coach Nick Saban said the following when discussing his defensive team. "I sometimes get upset with my guys in practice when I don’t think they are going all out or make a mistake. But, when they toss the ball out there on game day, they come to play." When you turn the key every day to enter your business, are you "coming to play?"

The team isn’t going to commit unless they see that you are committed. They know you are committed based on your actions, words and follow through. You cannot just talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. (Yikes, more slang.)

It doesn’t matter if you have a new vision or an old one that needs a kick in the butt due to evaporation or whatever. If you don’t communicate it to the masses in terms they can understand, it’s not going to happen. They have to buy into it and then live and breathe it every day.

If you want to be better in 2012 than you were in 2011 it’s not going to happen by sitting around thinking about it. It will only happen when you are committed to communicating the message in a way that all can understand.

Have you "gotten up with Dave yet?" That’s all I’m gonna ask. Tommy Gibbs