Three Steps to Creating a New Culture

“A dealership’s culture,” says JM&A Group senior trainer Jeff Knittel, “defines the experience a dealer expects an employee or customer to have when they interact with the store. For customers, this interaction could be taking delivery of the car, visiting the website for the store, or getting a car serviced or repaired. For employees, the dealership’s culture could come through in what’s covered in a new hire orientation, how performance is recognized, or how departments communicate with each other.”

Best Practice #1: Revisit Your Mission Statement
“A dealership’s culture should come from its mission statement,” Knittel says. “Your store’s mission statement may have been created during a very different time in our economy. To adjust to the new economy, you may need to revisit your mission statement.”

Looking at your current mission statement, ask yourself if it’s applicable to the current size of the dealership, franchises, the number of employees and its customer base. In the past few years, many dealers have had to reduce headcount, lost franchises or moved their location. They may have changed their focus from new cars to used cars and fixed operation. A “C” tier franchise may have become an “A” tier franchise, changing their customer base.

Ask yourself the right questions. What helped you get through the past few years? What do you want for you and your customers today that may have been different when you first established your mission statement and dealership culture?

Decide what makes you different. Has that changed for your dealership? Never forget that you are pursuing the same customer as your competitors. How do you stand out from other dealerships? Ask yourself if it’s because you do something better, cheaper, or faster than the other guy. Identify any underlying philosophies or values that guide your store.

Revise as needed. Your mission statement, as wonderful as it might sound now, should not be set in stone. As your business grows and changes, so too might your company’s mission. Revisit your mission statement on a regular basis. If you’ve hit the nail on the head the first time around, you probably shouldn’t need to alter it significantly as time goes by.

Best Practice #2: Hang On to That Hunger
Remember what you did over the past few years to stay in business. The successful dealers in the downturn worked harder with less. This mentality should not be forgotten. Be proactive by looking for opportunities, not waiting for an opportunity to come to you. For example, when car sales went down, the dealers that worked their customer database found a way to sell cars. The dealers that didn’t depend on media buys to drive traffic found a way to sell cars. The dealers that rolled up their sleeves and spent time on the floor with their salespeople and time on the service lane with their service advisors found a way to sell and service more cars. As owner/operators, not only did that help financially, but it earned a lot of respect and commitment from people that work with you everyday. Don’t let that time be forgotten. People can learn a lot from you when you spend time with them in front of customers.

Best Practice #3: Demand Accountability
Hold yourself and your people accountable every day for every interaction and provide them with the tools and training to be successful. Accountability isn’t a new tool for success, but a necessary tool to be successful every day. Accountability touches on so many elements of the automobile business. What measurements do your managers use to make a hiring decision? Once employees are hired, how are they developed? Many dealers have seen an uptick in business and are hiring again. That hiring needs to be based on the current mission statement.

You also need to develop sales processes to adjust to the differences in the economy and how people make buying decisions. Do your salespeople and sales manager still assume 20 percent down payments on car deals that became customary when most banks tightened their loan approvals? This shift made it easier to get deals approved, and the down payment increased the gross opportunity on the front end and made it more likely to close the deal. Or have you gone back to the old way of presenting a monthly car payment with no money down from the customer?

The years of economic hard times have taught dealers some important lessons about lean operations. You’ve lost some competitors, and can really pick up incremental sales. The real potential for growth, however, is in your existing customer lists—people who may have been out of the market for a while because they were uncertain about the economy but are ready to start looking for a car again. Those customers have bought from you before and know what you have to offer.

“If you have the right culture for today’s economy,” Knittel says, “it’s easy to go back and get those customers.”

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