Speed & Leadership

There’s a lot of discussions these days about the number of days it’s reasonable to hold a used unit before retailing it.

In the past, 60 days was the timeline most successful dealers worked with. Dale Pollak wrote recently about the new normal being 30 days.

Every piece of data I’ve looked at over the past 17 years validates that Dale is spot on.

If nothing else, dealers have come to understand the necessity of the Velocity concept and turning inventory. Of course, today dealers are working a tick harder to ensure they make the most money possible on units that they have a favorable cost to market and day’s supply in their favor.

That being said, any way you want to slice and dice it, speed to the front-line has never been more important than it is today.

If you’re not using a recon tool to track and zero in on where you’re not efficient and where you need to make some improvements, then it’s doubtful you will ever get close to the new normal of 30 days and gone. 30 days and gone doesn’t mean dumping units in the wholesale market. It means finding a retail buyer within that 30-day time frame.

There’s an underlying problem when it comes to 30, 60 or whatever. It’s the failure of upper management to communicate to service management the importance of the relationship and impact the entire recon operation has on the success of the used car department.

The reality is that lack of understanding also impacts the new car department. The used car department will miss trades and lose new car deals when they have a lack of confidence in the support of service management.

Issues will come and go in your recon operation. Lifts break down, technician shortages, a slug of used cars hit the ground, and an overload of retail customers are things that are going to occur.

The strategy of upper management should be to keep everyone informed and educated about what’s going on and what the expectations happen to be.

Everything that happens in your dealership, good and bad, is a result of great leadership.

Great leadership understands the need for speed, daily communication and keeping the team on the same page.

Great leadership doesn’t just talk the talk.

Great leadership walks the walk.

Be Great. Start walking or in the case of recon, you need to start running. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs