My team’s motto for years now has been, “We rise and fall together.” It helped build trust between the four of us and let us achieve what I feel are pretty rock-solid numbers.
When I was first getting used to managing a team, I searched for a lot of advice. How to motivate my staff. How to get the staff to follow my workflow. How to get them to sell more each year. Frankly, I really didn’t find a bunch of good advice out there. Most of it were snippets that had a tiny nugget of advice that I could use, but it did not help me paint the big picture.
I was tired of waiting for someone to help me, so I did it without them. I actively ignored what was the “industry” standard and instead built a model of only the best experiences I had as a customer.
But how was that going to translate to my team? Part of this is the culture of training I’ve talked about in the past here. But then it came time to actually get this knowledge into my team’s brain. I could only drone on about something for so long before even I was bored of the topic, so I focused on creating interactive ways to learn.
I created bingo sheets, sales department package guides and Christmas shopping idea guides. I created themed sales and constantly figured out how to stay fresh and get products out there. It all came back to how I can make it easy. Easy to sell. Easy to be a customer and buy from us. Easy to scale our sales and grow our department. Easy for our team to be consistent.
None of these selling tools existed. I begged vendors, reps and brands for years for help. I would get kind words and promises that I would get support to sell someone else’s product, but it never happened. I created them myself. I spent the time learning how to create things on Canva that looked professional.
When it comes to rewards, I love creating different incentives for my team each month. Sometimes it’s based on their bingo sheets, while other times, it’s just a clean dollar stretch goal to hit. Regardless, the mindset is that each month, each year we grow. We are not a one-hit wonder that only hit that $1 million mark once (without the help of sales and service). While I love the other two departments, I don’t believe we should rely on them to hit our numbers or boost our paychecks. Instead, we should act like our own “store” and serve customers directly.
A note for brands and manufacturers if you are reading this: I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Not everyone is getting the rewards you’re giving out. That gift card that was sent to the dealership? That trip the salesperson won? Most of them are not making it to the people who are actually doing the work. They get taken by other people in the dealership instead of the person who did the hard work. We would much rather have the reward put into our names than the dealership’s name. I have heard too many stories over the years of trips and rewards getting taken by shady managers and owners.
The worst part, if that happens over and over again, is they doesn’t want to work that hard anymore. They don’t want to hit that sales goal or sell that many units. Why would they? Their hard work keeps getting taken advantage of. I believe that Dunlop’s Pro Dealer program is one of the best at making sure the people who are selling are getting the rewards.
If you’re trying to motivate your department or company, first make sure you have clean goals with a deadline. I love tying a goal to that month. It’s easier to keep the momentum going with that timeframe than, say, a year-long goal. The year-long goal is more of a vision than a true goal.
Plan on spending the rest of that time asking how you can help. I ask my team daily what it needs help with. Sometimes it’s looking up a part number or finding a dealer that we can trade with to close the sale. Other times, it’s advice on what to say when doing a follow-up call.
It helps that I’m always willing to model the action before I ask my team to do the task. Most of us learn by mimicking anyway, and it’s also nice to know you are not asking your team to do something you can’t do. I deeply believe that if you run a department, it should be because you are the expert and not just a hire that had a good resume.
