The Little Book of Broken Car Thoughts

This book is dedicated to all the family-owned dealerships that have the courage to continually move their dealership forward without selling out to the big box stores. My first Goal was tell you what you already know, there is a better way! A better way to help your management team succeed. A better way for your management team to help your sales people! And a better way for your management team to help your sales people help your customers. My Second goal was to give you an understanding of how important alignment among all of your departments is crucial for success. The proper alignment of your departments will change the entire working environment for the customers, employees, management team and ownership. My Third goal was to do all of the above in a book that was around 100 pages or less if possible. I wanted to share my true life experiences in developing management teams, sales people and your entire staff. I hope through my journey of small stories and situations I give you the courage to change. Tom Santospago / Dealership180 My name is Tom Santospago, and I have been in the car business for 30 years. There is no question that selling cars, running a dealership was what I was born to do. I can walk into any underperforming dealership and outline everything that needs to be done in order to turn the ship around 180 degrees, just like it was in plain sight for everyone to see. For some reason I can look into an employee’s eyes and read them like an old, high-school textbook, as well as motivate and lead them to the top of their game. I have a knack for finding ways to get customers through the door; service, parts and most of all, sales. All of this I can do while building a real brand that sets the dealership apart from the big boys. I truly believe the following: Never sell your soul for a deal. Your best employees are begging to be led and they are your best asset. Once you embrace change you can begin moving forward and have the ability to see things with a new set of eyes. Some dealers who I have turned around say, “It feels like a whole new dealership.” The new atmosphere was achieved with most of the same people, budget, and inventory. The Dealer would say; “This was in front of me the whole time and I never saw it.”   I’m writing this book to give dealership owners and other dealership employees an understanding on how to get the job done. Most underperforming dealerships are doing so not because of the car line they sell, the location they’re in, their employees, or even the advertising. In fact, there’s only one reason, and that reason is fear. The word fear may sound nonsensical to a dealer who has been in business for thirty years or more, but ask yourself a few questions. If your store is not performing, do you know why? If so, why haven’t you made important changes? Do you fear losing employees? A dealer from a premium franchise recently admitted to me he avoids changes to keep his staff intact who have been with him over 20 years. The following is what I call “broken thoughts”.   Sales:   A. We cannot compete with the big, mega dealers. B. I cannot afford to pay good people to work here. C. We can never generate the floor traffic in this market to have any kind of volume. D. Customers pay cash in this dealership, or use their own bank so we can’t make money in finance. Besides, our warranties cost too much, and they don’t have the time to wait for a finance manager. E. Our salespeople like to close their own deals. F. Our customers don’t want to see lease or finance figures, they just want the bottom line. G. The sales staff won’t like doing it that way, we will lose them if we try to change the sales process.    Parts & Service:   A. The Service Manager has been here for years and he cannot see us competing with the quick lubes. There's no way we can make any money completing quick service at the price quick lubes charge. B. We don’t have a true system for our Service Advisers but we really don’t need one, my guy knows what to do. C. We let our advisers make all of our service appointments; they know how to fill the schedule. D. We can’t find good techs that want to work here unless we over-pay them. E. We can’t teach our own techs from scratch, even if we did someone else would steal them once they got good.   The list goes on and on with all of these excuses and misconceptions of “why this will never work," instead of simply realizing fear of change is stopping us from the growth we so badly need.   Perfect example of fear of change is a small store that was operating for years at low-volume. The store owners made a moderate amount of money and watched every expense. No real decisions were made by anyone, including the owners who seemed to spend most of their time in front of an office computer. The dealership was eventually purchased and I was given the task to run it for the new owners. Although this dealership was on a fairly busy road, population of the town and surrounding area was much less in comparison to the large city dealers where I had worked before. The story is almost always the same in every dealership in need of an 180-degree flip. Good people, good owners, and a parts and service business that’s been plugging along for years. The thought process is also the same, “We are doing a great job for what’s in our market”.