It’s the end of February. Are you happy with the results you achieved this month? Is your year on track to be better than last year? Are you concerned or content? Lets review 3 possible answers and see which one fits you.

For you the month of February in the Service Department was Great! You hit the Goals you set for HPRO, EFL and Profit Margins! Your CSI has never been better! Overall, you could not have done any more. Congrats! And, March looks like it is going to take off as well! Your overall strategy is to keep that ball rollin’ baby!

Ok, maybe your February was not as good. Maybe you got close to your Goals, HPRO was near the bar you set, and EFL was just a few dollars under what you felt you needed to get to and maybe your Margins were just under standards. Basically, you are not overly concerned, you felt you got everything you could and March is just around the corner and hey, you couldn’t possibly have two so so months in a row, right? It’s got to get better, doesn’t it?

Perhaps you are the Dealer with the worst month ever. Your HPRO is barely above the minimum you need to keep the doors open, your EFL and Profit Margins are just north of “this really sucks”, and your CSI is about as good as the last Customer who said “I wouldn’t come back here if this was the last place on earth.”

3 completely different results requiring 3 completely different Action Plans.

If you are Dealer number 1, your biggest challenge is finding a new set of Goals that are just out of reach for your Team to go after. Maybe you want to focus in HPRO and set a .2 increase as a new benchmark. Or, you want to increase CSI and are doing it by installing a new write-up process in the service drive. Whatever it is, you will need to make it hard to reach, but not impossible. “Maintaining Success is more difficult than achieving Success.”

If you are Dealer number 3, it’s all upside for you! Hey, you know you already need a change, Right! Personnel, attitude, training, processes…everything! It’s got to be changed because you cannot hit Profitability Goals and achieve any level of Success with what you have in place right now! Congratulations, this is an exciting and fantastic time to be in your Dealership!

But, if you are number 2, you are in a lot of trouble my friend. Why? Because I left one little “C” word out in the very beginning.

Complacency.

It’s the evil that all Leaders fear more than anything. When you become complacent, you start to die!

If your Management and Leadership strategy sounds like this “Oh, it was just a slow month, and the weather was terrible, and we had some people sick, and the Customers…oh man…the Customers were just mean, nobody wanted to buy anything. They just wanted oil changes. Yep, next month will be better. Don’t worry, because we are not changing anything! All we need to do is just hang on until things get better” then I want you to immediately take out a sheet of paper and write down 3 NEW GOALS for March.

Whatever your HPRO was for February, add .5 to it, whatever your EFL was for February, add $5.00 to it, whatever your Profit Margins for February add 5%.

YOU NEED A JOLT! AN ELECTRIC SHOCK STRAIGHT TO THE HEART OF YOUR DEALERSHIP!

As soon as you have them written down, make a copy for everyone in the Fixed Operations Department, hold a meeting, TODAY!, pass them out and tell them “Failure is not an option!”

Because if you don’t, at the end of March, you will be saying ““Oh, it was just a slow month, and the weather was terrible, and we had some people sick, and the Customers…oh man…the Customers were just mean, nobody wanted to buy anything. They just wanted oil changes. Yep, next month will be better. Don’t worry, because we are not changing anything! All we need to do is just hang on until things get better” and you will be on the road to an entire year of wasted opportunity!

If you are in need of  a "shock treatment" give us a call.