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The Automotive Software                                                                             Jan 7th Article

3 Reasons
You Feel Like
Your Career 
In The Car Business
Sucks. 

And What To Do About It...

By Philip Cheatham 
jan 7th, 2020

"Most of us are just comfortable with the monotony of something we are really freaking good at."
  • Laziness The biggest reason people don't do more with their skills is just pure laziness. Learn how to overcome this and more self-defeating habits that lead to procrastination.
  • Lack of Creativity Finding creative ways to go outside of normal results is how you rise to the top quickly. Most of us think if the sales record is 32 units that makes 60 units impossible, it's never impossible, learn how to apply this thinking.
  • Afraid to Change Anything This is a biggie. There are so many ways to increase your income with tricks even if you must recite your dealerships pitches verbatim. Above and beyond that, no matter what department you are in, you have tools that are invisible, learn how to use these tools.
Laziness: Laziness is not unique to us, laziness is a human condition. We have the ability to choose. We can choose to do what we know we should be doing and then we have the choice to choose what we want to do. These 2 are rarely the same thing until we start enjoying the struggle. When we enjoy the fight, we are always at our best. We forget that everyday that comes and goes is a part of our time on this planet so easily within the daily monotony of looking at the same walls everyday. "This is my life" -All of us at some point or another. This hole we can quickly fall in makes us forget about how much we have to learn about our craft. If we are honest with ourselves, how much we actually could improve ourselves. 
           You're probably thinking "Great Phil! You own a successful software company now and train people in different dealerships, you aren't even doing it anymore!" You are right, I don't work inside the same dealership everyday, day-in, day-out, month end etc. anymore. I also had the worst attitude for years. There was a 3 year stretch in my career where I was making all the money and thought I knew it all. When I moved to a new market and started at a new dealership where nobody knew anything about me but my resume, I of course got a wake-up call to how arrogant and sad I was being. You may be the biggest shark in your pond. Can you go to any dealership selling bikes, cars, RV's or boats where nobody knows a thing about you, step in the Business Office or get on the Sales Desk and do anything that hasn't been done yet? Thats my bar, I'm still not there, though I'm almost there, there are some dealerships few and far between these days who's operations I have very little to say about. That's because this was my bar. 
            You're bar doesn't have to be this high. Maybe you are a world class Used Car Manager and you know you can go to upwards of 95% of Car Dealerships and do this exactly. Maybe you don't care about the Finance Office. For you I ask, how are you helping others in our business learn from you? Are you doing anything to make sure others have the skill? Have you thought about how you could make extra income to you and to your dealership by sharing what you do? We need to start thinking about sharing our secrets. Not only may they be invaluable to you financially, if you decide to share them, but it just makes our business better over all. It makes it better for the people come to work for us and with us. And if anything makes anything better for our Front Line Teams, then it makes it infinitely better for all of us. 

Lack of Creativity: Addressing the elephant in the room where you may think that your hands are tied and you can't change anything or do anything outside of your designated duties. Just stop reading. Your GM is not paying you what they are to never have a good idea. You can get training outside, you can read and you can utilize all these skills no matter how restrictive your dealerships processes are. Also if this is a huge problem and you think you have great ideas that nobody is listening to, then work somewhere else! Take your skills elsewhere, seriously. Use them or lose them. Be great, you don't have time not to be!
           Now that we settled that, well whatever. For those of us with an imagination, let's get into how to open your mind to change things and do things everybody around you thinks can't be done in your dealership. First of all, don't ever ask your GM if you can buy a billboard or do something crazy. If you are serious, just go do it. You have to have the willingness to be fired to do anything totally outside of the box, which is where you want to actually live! Now, I'm not recommending you go buy a billboard, I heard a guy kicking it around at a dealership and he said "they told me I couldn't do it." I'm like "you asked them? that was stupid as hell! Of course they said no!" This is literally our biggest resistance we must break. I told him "I know the owners, you know that right?" He said "yes." I said "Well I know that if you actually did that without asking, yes they'd probably flip out for a day and then you'd probably get promoted, that would be some wild stuff to just do man! if they fired you, you'd surely get hired somewhere else by somebody that saw your vision." And that's it. right there. Did you miss it? Vision. If you got it, then use it, don't be afraid and for goodness sake please don't create your own resistance and ask! Just do it and ask for forgiveness. Get fired a couple times, it builds your character. 
          Thinking this way alone should have you thinking of a lot of cool things you could do in your store. Automatically comes the doubt.. "What if it didn't work, people would think I was dumb." or "I can't get fired." If it doesn't work, try something else, thats how life works. You can get fired. Who really cares? I will tell you who. Nobody. Nobody cares.
           Have fun with this! I would love to hear responses to this one in the comments.

Afraid to Change Anything: Or maybe afraid you aren't allowed or can't or must ask? I know I went over this already so I'll keep it short. There do need to be direct points made about this. 
           You NEVER get hired to be like the last guy. You may think you did. You didn't. If you think they want you to be like the last guy, they just like the last guy better than you. Trying to be like the last guy as a GM or Sm or any role won't ever make anybody like you. Therefore, you are expected to change things when you are hired. You are a different person altogether and should be than the last guy. Is there a manager above you that makes all the rules? If you think the rules are bad, tell them the rules are bad. Do it nicely. Do it in private. I promise you that you were not hired and never will be hired to never bring anything new to the table. Look for things, push them, be patient, don't take no for an answer when you know you are right! Be creative.

Listen to Philip & his Co~Hosts Discuss this in more detail soon on...

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