You’re right in the middle of the most important selling period of the year. Everyone at the dealership is working long hours; the service bays always seem to be full, and customers are impatient with the wait time for last-minute repairs. Your parts counter staff spend hours on the phone dealing with warranty issues, back orders, shipping snafus, and anxious technicians.
Welcome to the heart of the RV touring season in Canada. You may think it’s hardly the time to think about celebration; survival might be more appropriate!
In fact, we find that the most stressful time of your business year is the very best time to celebrate. Your chances to increase sales, satisfy your customers, and retain employees all improve when you celebrate the achievements of your staff. Here’s why.
Companies usually demonstrate their primary corporate culture while operating under greater than normal business activity. Increased activity reveals cracks in the system, and how your people react often determines how customers perceive your business culture. It is precisely at this time, when your staff is harried and dealership business is most brisk, that your platitudes and good intentions will have the greatest effect. During peak periods of business activity, your dealership showcases its culture to customers and prospective buyers more poignantly than at any other time of the year. Everything becomes magnified in an environment of greater activity and possible stress.
The busy season is also the best possible time for your management team to instill important values and practices. Active leadership while a dealership is experiencing strong business results can be far more powerful and enduring than the same actions taken at other times during he year. Celebrating achievements right now is of vital importance.
Just as a celebration of a team-mate’s goal in hockey often spurs on other players to do the same, celebration of individual, team and dealership achievements can encourage an entire organization to do better. A celebration is a form of recognition. By bringing attention to desired behavior, preferred actions, and attainment of goals, you are reinforcing positive attributes that everyone in an organization can understand and strive to emulate.
Here are a few ways that any dealership – small or large – can start celebrating success and nurturing a better dealer culture.
“Positive employees are usually more productive. They get more done. Motivated staff often generate much greater satisfaction levels with customers”
CELEBRATE DESIRED INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR:
The best way to encourage a behavior is to recognize, reward and celebrate it. Effective leaders know well-timed “atta boys” or “atta girls” can often be more motivating than financial rewards. People like recognition. We like to know that our efforts are appreciated – and there is no better time to give employees a positive “shout out” than during the busiest times of the season. Recognition usually encourages and motivates. Celebrations, using a combination of words and gestures during periods of peak activity, can pay big dividends for a dealership.
Positive employees are usually more productive. They get more done. Motivated staff often generate much greater satisfaction levels with customers. We all know that highly satisfied customers buy more and refer new prospects in the short, mid and long-term. In a nutshell, a celebration of positive individual behavior directly contributes to better profits.
CELEBRATE TEAM BEHAVIOR
Good teamwork generates more profits for a company. Errors reduce profitability. Communication improves your team’s efficiency in every phase of the operation. New ideas and innovation abound in an environment where teamwork is a key factor in the corporate culture. The team spirit strengthens when you celebrate positive team behavior. Progressive leaders constantly look for achievements that teams can celebrate. Desired goals and achievements can be established, measured and celebrated for every team within the dealership. These could include sales goals reached for new or pre-owned units; sales goals met in the parts and accessories department; customer satisfaction goals achieved in the service department; an increase in the percentage of clients buying finance or insurance products.
Effective management teams set clear, straightforward and reasonable goals.
They measure progress often, and they celebrate achievements at every opportunity.
Sales of accessories meet tar-gets for a month? Celebrate it! Tell associates that you appreciate their efforts. Order in pizza for the team. Print a large banner celebrating the achievement and hang it prominently in the accessories area. Let everyone – the team, other dealership employees, customers and prospective buyers – know you value their ‘win’. Celebrating success brings attention to the achievement, rewards team efforts, and encourages more of the same behavior and results.
CELEBRATE MILESTONES
Significant milestones occur frequently at dealerships, and they deserve celebration. In business for 10 years? Celebrate it! Working with a particular supplier for 5 years? Celebrate it! Has an employee been with you for 5 years? Celebrate it!
Milestones are an excellent opportunity to nurture your dealer-ship culture by demonstrating that you value relationships and longevity – important attributes to encourage employee and customer loyalty.
Effective leaders don’t just acknowledge achieving milestones, they find ways to celebrate and publicize them. Celebrating a number of years in business? Feature it in every ad throughout the year, with a banner in the showroom, on business cards and in other visual mate-rials. Celebrating a supplier relationship milestone? Point it out in advertising, with showroom and service department banners, on company bulletin boards and other ways. Celebrating an employee anniversary? Bring in lunch for the team. Let people in the dealership know you value their loyalty.
EMBED CELEBRATIONS IN YOUR CORPORATE CULTURE
Most people like to play on winning teams and associate with ‘winners’ in everything they do. Celebrations can become an inexpensive, easy-to-organize tool to nurture a winning culture in your business. A winning culture helps to achieve better operating results, leading to even more celebrations. And this positive process continues to repeat and grow with increasing momentum as your business success multiplies.
Just as successful sports teams continuously celebrate every small success on their route to champion-ships, management teams increasingly embrace the wisdom of finding ways to celebrate all aspects of their successful businesses.
There’s no better time to start the process at your dealership. Great sales activities, high demand for parts and accessories and a busy service department during this peak period of the year all provide excel-lent opportunities to celebrate the many positive things that are happening in your dealership. Find a reason to start celebrating today!
Co-Author of the book NEEDS Selling Solutions, Gary McGugan helps companies grow profitably, drawing on his experience with financial services, automotive and power sports industries across the globe. He publishes articles regularly at http://www.needssellingsolutions.com/needs-selling-solutions-news/
