Technology addictions and time management

I recently had the pleasure of doing a consulting job in a dealership.  The first 3 days was my usual sit back and observe who was doing what, the good things and the bad things. The first issue that I found was not all that unusual in any workplace today and that is that a lot of the people there had technology addictions. Let me give you an example, one manager could never get caught up with his work. This manager was a nice person and had a lot of knowledge about the position that they held, yet they had a technology addiction that they denied. It was so funny to be sitting right there in front of this person and telling them that they spent too much time texting and talking on their cell phone, and they sent three text messages in less than five minutes while we were talking and looked me straight in my eyes and said, I hardly ever use my cell phone when I am at work and this person was sincere as they could be. They really did not realize that they were addicted to sending text messages to their spouse and their children and their basketball coach of the local high school team and other people as well. Yes we were able to move forward and make progress on this issue, but most dealers seem to just allow this type behavior in the work place because we are sold on the idea that sales people and managers should be reaching out and or be available to the customers 24/7. That concept is good if you have disciplined people working for you. Dealers have to look at what it is really costing them to allow this kind of behavior by sales people and managers alike. This dealer was losing at least 3 to 5 sales a month because this manager made the sales people feel like getting a deal into the F&I office was a chore and that they could not promise their customers that when you get here you will be in and out in 30 to 45 minutes or less.

Dealers if you want to add a few more sales in your dealership, then start watching out for those technology addictions that affect the time management of your staff. You will be surprised once you do start to monitor this, what an negative effect it has on everyone in the dealership and on sales.