The dealership culture wars

[kcatdeejay]

Don't expect your employees to have the dedication of an owner and the vulnerability of an "at-will' employee-IT DON'T WORK THAT WAY !! (excuse the grammar for effect)

[pjpeery]

kcatdeejay
Member posted 08-27-2007 08:19 AM
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Don't expect your employees to have the dedication of an owner and the vulnerability of an "at-will' employee-IT DON'T WORK THAT WAY !! (excuse the grammar for effect)
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very very very well said 100%

paul

[Richard]

Maybe that's why I stay mad so often at the other managers in our store; because I DO Assume ownership of this store. I will probably never actually OWN it, but I try to act in the best interest of the ENTIRE store as often as possible. I want to keep profit in the store! A lot of the us versus them here is the fixed operations trying to keep the sales department from sending out work. Work which can be done in our store, albeit sometimes at a slighty higher price. I've tried my best to explain fixed overhead, and how to keep the money in the same 'pants' just in different pockets, instead of giving it away, but they (sales) just see us being 5~10% higher than Vendor X.

In the interest of fairness, I am a parts manager, and I do get paid ONLY on the bottom line of my dept, before anyone asks.

[kcatdeejay]

Richard, those who are successful do indeed keep it in-house and don't fill the pockets of outside vendors when at all possible. We won't get into those driven by alterior motives.

[newbie]

Richard, I'm in the same boat although I usually don't waste my energy getting mad. More often than not, the front end staff will change over in a year or two and all you can do is hope the new staff will see the light.

I've been very fortunate at both of my stores that the GM's see the big picture and tell the new/used sales managers deal with the 5-10% more in cost. From the GM standpoint, if he's getting paid off of the store's net profit, it only makes sense to keep the cars in house to get fixed because 99% of the time, they sell from cost anyways. They're going for their 2-3k a copy so in the end whats another 5-10% of a couple hunderd?

I've been in the other boat with the previous GM's where they always considered Fixed an enemy thats out to steal gross from sales. Not a very fun time.

[gmcgrew]

Communication and trust. The main problem is that some managers don't trust other managers. Usually this is seen more from sales to fixed. That is why they take the car down the street to vendor X for example. They don't care that 70% of what fixed charges is kept in house. We have had this discussion many times and sales always feels that we are trying to take advantage of them instead of realizing that we can spread that money out to a tech and parts in house and also that a chunk of it will go back to the owner along with the gross from the car sale.

[This message has been edited by gmcgrew (edited 08-31-2007).]

[cantfind122]

Whether positive or negative the focus of the majority of almost all threads on this site have a common denominator which in psychology is called cognitive disonance. Most folks call it a double standard. It is a vision of one idea and an action of another. Without getting too deep most people react this way because we are conditioned in paradoxical values which are absolutely neccesary yet very confusing. I joke with a particular co-worker who is very adapt at "hustling" that he needs to become more spiritual. His reply is making money is spiritual. There you go. It is your call. I will say however that regarless of certain paradigms people react to truth and respect and all succesful programs revolve around those two core values. Just a thought

[DealerProfit]

WOW! You people are amazingly good at exactly what you are discussing! Lets point fingers at everyone else.

My opinion and experience is that the inter-department battles are merely a symptom of a much more insidious problem. The problem is lack of vision. I have had great success over the years fixing stores, and the common thread with departments fighting is they lack an ouward vision that focuses all the departments on the same mission. When this mission is lacking they like relatives focus and pick at each other.

I have found it most helpful to speed along the process of pulling the managers into line on the mission by naming a common enemy to smackdown, namely one of the competitors to the store.

If you are still relying on pay plans to fix this problem I would be willing to bet you were facing this problem ten years ago and will be ten years from now. Time to choose a new strategy, or get used to what you have.....

Strong opinions plus strong action gets strong results

[calgm988]

DealerProfit

Perfect statement. It obvious you know what your talking about. As I stated multiple times its about leadership.


"If you are still relying on pay plans to fix this problem I would be willing to bet you were facing this problem ten years ago and will be ten years from now. Time to choose a new strategy, or get used to what you have....."

Very, very well said. Right on the mark. Maybe the leadership at some of these dealership should read this posting. It sounds like they could use a wake-up call.



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"focus on the purpose, not the outcome."

[cantfind122]

I think we should all pay heed to this adage...Do not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness. The age old arguement regarding material vs spiritual will go on forever and the shift in balance will always be dependent on the social values of the time and/or the culture. However, history consistently regurgitates the final outcome. Money is merely a tool, how one goes about obtaining that medium is the problem.