My good friend Sam Milton with the Sonic Auto Group sent me the following quote by Woody Hayes, "Paralyze resistance with persistence."

Change, continuous improvement, and daily disciplines are often met with resistance. Resistance is not a generational thing, it’s just a thing. It’s a thing that’s always been present. It’s been around since the caveman.

There are always strange forces of nature at work. Resistance is the force of nature against persistence. We’ve all seen very talented people fall flat on their faces because of a lack of persistence. Talented people will often resist having to be accountable. They like doing their own thing. The lack of discipline is a close cousin of resistance.

Persistence can be a two edged sword. We’ve all known sales people who drove us nuts. They bugged you to death. They worked you till your nerves were on edge. But, the bottom line is they were persistent. Persistence wins over time and persistence will sell lots of cars.

If you allow the average sales person to analyze their own results they will easily justify why they are doing so well or not. If a sales person has a high closing ratio then they would tend to think they are doing a great job. If a sales person has a low closing ratio they will blame it on getting bad ups.

You as a leader must be persistent in how you frame a sales person’s production and direction for improvement. If they have a high closing ratio then you should be encouraging them to talk to more customers. If they have a low closing ratio then you need to show them the way to better closing techniques. You have to have the discipline not to let them sell you why this or why that.

There is always room for improvement and you should never be satisfied…and you should never let them be satisfied. Becoming satisfied leads to complacency. To keep the "boogie man of complacency" away, you as a leader have to be persistent in all things that have been deemed to be important to the success of the organization. It is so easy to lose persistence. Being persistent is not something you do once in a while. It is something that has to be done every minute of every day.

Discipline is the twin brother of persistence. Discipline is what carries you through the down moments; those moments when you want to throw your hands in the air and say the heck with it.

I like to think of persistence as always staying after it regardless of your current state of mind. Being highly motivated can come and go. Even when you are not feeling all that motivated you can still remain persistent.

Being persistent means have intestinal fortitude and a willingness to grind it out regardless of the obstacles that keep coming your way. Think of obstacles as just bugs on a windshield. Persistence is the windshield wiper. Wipe ’em off and keep digging.

Being persistent means never giving up. Have you seen the video on Caine’s Arcade? Caine is a 9 year old kid whose dad owns a used parts store in east LA. Remaining persistent pays off big time for Caine. Go ahead check it out, that’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs