Digital Dealer - January 2019 - 40

D E A L E R OP S & M ANAGEM ENT: L e a d e r shi p ( Continued from pg. 39)

so high. Get that guy or gal
some help to encourage
their team or get someone
else who can build people
up through integrity and
21st century leadership
skills.
In order for that to occur,
you need to consider a few
of the following elements
that have to go into a topdown dealership strategy:

DEALERSHIP
RELATIONSHIP
DEVELOPMENT (DRD):

If you want to change
the landscape of your store
into a synergistic total team
approach, an all-inclusive
disciplined departmental
dealership campaign must
be developed and adhered
to. The entire management
team must work together
as a single leadership team
committed to accepting and
selling the positive new
approaches, processes,
and culture to come. The
team must instill a positive
atmosphere of 'great processes are coming to help
you grow individually and
grow the business' and 'wait
until you see the new and
exciting ideas coming to
help you become your personal best.' Show people
that they will be successful
by following the forthcoming
all-in principles.
PLANNING FOR
PROCESS CHANGE:

Yes, it will definitely require a change of attitudes.
If you want to fall away from
being average and begin to
improve, you must change
something you do daily,
weekly, and monthly. New
enhanced sound business
processes will take you
40

JANUARY 2019

there. Break out of those
old paradigms and habits
and accept new and improved ways to do business
in your store. The correct
changes we make today
will make a better tomorrow. Starting is the great
inhibitor to your pathway for
improved success. So, start
now developing the cultural
and process changes
needed.

DISCIPLINED
DECISION-MAKING:

Here today, gone tomorrow decision-making will
guarantee failure. Decision
making with consistency

SKILLS:

It comes down to this,
if you have it or develop it you will be able to
withstand a sustained
growth path to overcome
the adversities, which will
arise along the journey.
If you do not, I wish you
well because you will be
joining the 'wishing and
hoping' average club; "I
wish traffic would pick up"
and "I hope we hit our
numbers." That is no way
to run a business.
Management leadership is the cornerstone for
success of any business

THE FUTURE BECOMES
CLEARER, AND OUT OF
THAT CLARITY COMES
CONFIDENCE."
and discipline will point
you toward a successful
rock-solid venture. When
you and your management
team adopt certain new processes in your store, stick
to them. Sure, we must be
flexible to change for the
better when we identify improvements to our processes, but we never retreat
on our process adoption
principles. Remember, we
do not change a process
because no one wants to do
them, we change a process
only to make improvements
in the way we are now
conducting our business. It
must be fruitful. Make good
decisions and be consistent
in doing so because you
are making a new way of
life in your store forever. Do
it right.
NEW LEADERSHIP

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

and the associated rich
growth elements we will
derive from it, if we have
it in place. One thing that
continues to trouble me
is witnessing a lack of
leadership (not to be confused with management)
in dealerships, which is
preventing the people
and consequently the
store from ever growing.
A compelling reason why
you have to anchor leadership in your store for
successful cultural change
implementation is that real
leaders are driven by the
future. Not creativity or
courage makes a leader.
You can have those attributes and still fail to be a
great leader. A leader's job
is to rally people toward
a better future. leaders
cannot help but change

the present, because
the present is not good
enough. They succeed
only when they find a way
to make people excited
by and confident in what
comes next. This includes
new processes and new
positive store cultural
changes, which have to
occur in order to maximize
the business.
Leaders must turn
anxiety into confidence because people do fear the
unknowns of the future.
The future is unstable, different, new, and therefore
potentially dangerous. In
order to succeed, leaders
must engage the fear of
the unknown and turn it
into confidence. By far the
most effective way to turn
fear into confidence is to
be clear and to define the
future in such vivid terms
that we can see where we
are headed. Clarity is the
antidote to anxiety, and
therefore clarity is the preoccupation of the effective
leader. If you do nothing
else as a leader, be clear.
So, when you deliver the
good news that your new
cultural development
changes are coming into
your store, have courage
and know what you are
talking about. Moreover,
if you do not understand
what it is going to take, do
not remain drunk on your
own opinions; get someone who knows how to
show you the way.
What would life be if we
had no courage to attempt
anything?
VINCENT VAN GOGH

Top-down strategy
http://www.DIGITALDEALER.COM
Digital Dealer - January 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Digital Dealer - January 2019
