Big challenge this week- old thinking managers who haven't actually sold in over 20 years still wanting to do business the way it was "back then".

Remember the 'good ole days', "back then", when all the sales people (and managers) did everything?  Sold new cars, new trucks, and used cars from the same showroom as well as the managers did the financing.  Then, one day, someone said it would be better to separate the finance department and have actually finance managers (vs sales manager) sell & upsell finance products and that everyone would make more money.  At first, most dealers rejected the idea and did not want to change the old ways of doing business.  Of course, today, nearly every single dealership has a separate finance department.  Most dealerships have also separated their new & used car departments with separate sales people, as well as new car & new truck specialists, aftermarket departments, BDC's, Internet departments, etc etc.

In 2004, I did an NADA technology workshop in Las Vegas for about 5000 dealers and managers.  I asked them to show hands of everyone who was using the internet to sell cars.  About 10% of the room raised their hands.  One dealer actually said that the internet was like the "pet rock", just a fad, and that "no one would ever use the internet to buy anything, much less a car".  In 2007, I did another NADA workshop in Vegas and asked the same question and around 99.9% of the dealers raised their hand that they were now using the internet. You know the rest of the story as 110% of the dealers are on-line today.

It's a brave new world and changing daily and if you are willing to let go of the 'good ole days' you are doomed to the same "old" results.