Many years ago my office at my dealership was located on the second floor in the service building directly behind the showroom. The good news and bad news is it looked out over the entire inventory and showroom so I could see when a salesman was walking out to help a customer or going from one building to another. If you know my personality, then I’m sure you can imagine how many times a day I called the sales managers about customers not being helped. (Amazing, that by going to an “up system” how fast that problem got solved, but that’s another story for another day.)
What I always found interesting was the speed by which people moved. I could tell you if a person was going to be successful based on their movement. Nine times out of ten a person who moved very quickly had a pretty good chance of doing well. The ones that just sort of poked and plodded along never had a chance.
I’ve always been a fast walker and a fast talker. I know where the fast walking comes from. As a little kid I hung around with the older, bigger guys, thus had to take two steps for every one they took. As for the fast talker, I’d like to think it’s just plain enthusiasm, because I’m from VA and it’s not exactly a state with a fast talking dialect.
How fast are you walking? How much of a hurry are you in? Unless you have some physical reason you can’t walk fast then the odds are pretty good that your brain is moving at the speed of your feet. If you’re not a fast mover maybe you’re just tired and worn out from so many years in the business. Maybe you’re just burned out. (Someone once said, “How can you be burned out, if you’ve never been on fire.” Gotta love that one!)
If that’s the case you’re only hurting yourself and those around you by not turning the reins over to someone who can give it some punch. It could be that you’re hanging on to the “hoping and praying” theory. If you’re hoping and praying the market is going to come back to you, it just isn’t gonna happen. You’ve got to go get it and you need to do it fast.
To be successful in any business you have to have a sense of urgency about you that drills down to each and every team member on your staff. If you look at your staff the odds are pretty good that they are more than likely following your lead. There’s an old saying “speed of the boss, speed of the crew.” If you’re not “with it” then you can bet the rest of the team isn’t either.
Tips to pick up the tempo:
- Act enthusiastic, fake it till you make it.
- Get off your butt and get moving.
- Shake things up a bit.
- Aggravate some people by stirring things up.
- Get some spring in your step.
- Stop procrastinating; make some decisions even if they are wrong.
“There is no speed limit on the road to success. You can go as fast as you want to go.” That’s all I’m gonna say. Tommy Gibbs