Late last year I was reading the Sunday paper and came across a story that was a collection of quotes from Nelson Mandela, who had passed away the previous week.  Reading those quotes made me very reflective both personally and professionally. One of his quotes that really struck me was:

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Now I know that here at NCM, and the NCM Institute specifically, we think pretty broadly, but not so much that we believe our efforts for our clients are going to change the world. However, we very much play a proactive role in the ongoing transformation of the retail automobile industry. What NCM provides, in so many forms, is EDUCATION. We try to help our clients think more broadly than they would without us – whether it is in the form of numbers, metrics and our Benchmark® analytics in the financial composites we use in 20 Group meetings, in-dealership consulting and in the classroom; or the side-by-side work we do in management meetings, dealerships and classroom settings. Our newest automotive dealership support tool, axcessa®, is a Web-based software that puts more actionable dealership data into the hands of dealership personnel more quickly and efficiently than has ever been possible.

Many years ago, when I was a young sales manager at Bob Smith Volkswagen in Hollywood, California, I attended a Volkswagen Sales Manager seminar hosted by the Volkswagen L.A. region. The person conducting the seminar was Frank McGuire, who came from a car business background. At the time, he was doing some work with Volkswagen of America. He later became the Vice President of Volkswagen of America when I was a Volkswagen dealer in Kansas City. Mr. McGuire said something that day I have never forgotten:

“When mothers ask their children what they want to be when they grow up, they never say I want to be car salesmen!”

I grew up in a car dealership family that had an outstanding reputation, and I knew exactly what he meant. Most people’s first thoughts when it comes to deciding on a career is not selling cars, fixing cars, selling service or dispatching parts. Other than the specific training technicians get for their roles in the dealership, there has not been much formal training available for all the other positions outside of “on-the-job” training handed down from person to person.

I was fortunate to grow up in an environment where higher education was the norm and ongoing education in the workplace was the norm, as well. I got to attend the NADA Academy, be an NCM 20 Group member, and study leadership and business coaching. We worked with most of the best consultants at the time to help us with our growing business.

After selling our dealerships, I became an instructor at the NCM Institute. Now I get to see how many dealers are embracing all the educational opportunities that are out there today. I see students whose dealers are 20 Group members and have heard of the great results their peers have had when their managers have come back from our training.

Some clients avail themselves of every one of NCM’s dealership support services. But then, we also have some clients who do no business with NCM except for sending their managers to the class that matches their job titles: GM; GSM; Used Vehicle Manager; Internet Manager; Service Manager; Parts Manager; Body Shop Manager or Controller/CFO. In many cases the dealer or GM will accompany each of the department managers so there will be fewer communication issues when the manager returns to the dealership. We have one client not too far from Kansas City who has sent every one of his managers to every management class we have. Talk about cross-training!

It is so encouraging to see how many people come to our classes week after week to get this level of EDUCATION and TRAINING. What we do now has never existed quite like it does now. We start each class with a few hours of Accountability Management and then Leadership training. Then we begin to expose them to their numbers in the form of a proprietary 20 Group composite and Profit Trend Analysis.  We make sure they have a clear understanding of all the profit opportunities available to them in each department. Then we go step-by-step through all the best practice processes and key performance indicators in order make sure they understand the business math and metrics necessary to see where productivity and profitability increases will come from.  And of course, we cover expense control and asset management, especially in the used vehicle department.

So when I titled this article, “How Well Trained is Your Staff… Really?” That wasn’t meant to be a trick question. Every dealer would like to believe they are giving each one of their valuable employees every opportunity to succeed. We begin each class with the understanding that the number one reason the students are here is to learn to make their department or dealership MORE PROFITABLE because we firmly believe that EDUCATION is the most powerful tool to change the profitability picture in your dealership.

Written by Robin Cunningham. Originally published NCMi's Up to Spee....