What Does a Bear Do in The Woods?

What does a bear do in the woods? Eats corn.

My business partner for most of my adult life has been Ashton Lewis, Sr. an amazing human and Automobile Dealer in the Hampton Roads area of VA.

Ashton grew up in both the automobile and farming business. One of Ashton’s farms was located adjacent to the Great Dismal Swamp in Chesapeake, VA where corn was a primary crop.

As Ashton tells the story, he would observe a bear come out of the woods, pick an armful of corn to take back into the woods to eat or share with his friends and family.

The bear would sometimes drop an ear of corn and rather than continue into the woods, the bear would put down the armful of corn and then re-gather them all up just to save one ear of corn.

That’s what it’s like when you keep hanging onto that aged unit that you’re never going to make any money on. You spend too much time trying to make money on an aged unit and not enough time figuring out how to make money on the fresher pieces.

Your window of opportunity to make money on a used car is about 40 days or less and that’s a stretch.

Had you been smart enough to identify units that have little or no profit potential on day 1 then you wouldn’t be looking at a stone-cold loser on day 61.

The Bear-Drops ear of corn. Throws down all the others. Wastes time and energy re-gathering the ears of corn.

You-Do not identify problematic units on day 1. You waste time and money struggling with aged units on day 61. Grosses go south because you’re selling too many units late in the life-cycle. You never reach your full potential because you’re thinking like a bear.

Had the bear paid closer attention to how many ears of corn he/she could actually carry then the bear would not have wasted time and energy dealing with one stupid ear of corn.

Had you paid closer attention to what you were dealing with on day 1 you wouldn’t been beating your head against the wall trying to figure out what to do with an aged unit on day 61.

My life-cycle management process makes you a much smarter bear. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs