Being a good Used Car Manager is more than just optimizing your performance. Your success in the used car industry and as a used car manager will depend on your employees. If you want your used car dealership to succeed, hire and train good employees. If you want well-trained employees, hire and train good managers. Having a good management team is the key to unlocking the hidden potential of your employees. This, however, is very challenging. Effectively managing other people is a difficult task, it requires a certain attitude and specific abilities. It requires its own unique skill set.
“I simply dislike the traits that have come to be associated with ‘managing’. Controlling, stifling people, keeping them in the dark, wasting their time on trivia and reports. Breathing down their necks. You can’t manage self confidence into people. You have to get out of their way and let it grow in them by allowing them to win, and then rewarding them when they do. The word manager has too often come to be synonymous with control-cold, uncaring, button-down, and passionless.” Jack Welch
Every manager and every used car manager has a particular set of tasks and a specific group of people they are responsible for overseeing. Accounting managers supervise the accounting function. Purchasing used cars is handled by buyers. Sales managers supervise the sales function. However, there are certain tasks that are shared by all managers.
• Managers must plan and organize.
• Managers must communicate.
• Managers must develop themselves and their employees.
• Managers must motivate.
• Managers must lead.
Being a Used Car Manager is an extremely challenging job.
In order to be an effective used car manager, you must be able to plan and organize.
Effective managers set the goals that others seek to achieve. They define the vision for their team or department. This requires the careful analysis of several factors. These factors include but are not limited to: past performance, available resources, the competitive environment, macro economic factors, and opportunity costs.
Once managers decide which goals are important, they devise plans to achieve these goals, divide that plan into attainable action steps, and assign different employees to the necessary tasks.
Managers must communicate.
Effective managers must be able to properly communicate with their team members. Great planning and organization will not matter if it cannot be communicated to the team members. Effective communication is achieved through clear and precise language. It is also important that the manager’s nonverbal communication is not giving any mixed signals. In other words, do the actions of the manager match their words, or do they tell their team to “work hard” and then leave the dealership early every day? They must inspire their team with their words and their actions.
Effective communicators can convey their thoughts and their desired values throughout the entire car dealership culture. If management’s goals and shared values are understood by everyone, it makes it easy for even the lowest-level employee to operate on a daily basis. They can make decisions that are consistent with the desires and wishes of the people at the top of the organization.
A used car manager must develop themselves and their employees.
Effective used car managers are good teachers, and good teachers train their employees properly. Training is essentially teaching. Teaching is a concept we are all familiar with, yet very few of us can do well. Teaching another person a new skill can be difficult and frustrating, but it can also be very rewarding.
Your ability to teach must be preceded by a willingness to teach. You must care enough about your team members to want them to do well. You must want them to succeed. The best managers are passionate about wanting their employees to achieve greatness. They also have the patience and the communication skills needed to help them achieve that greatness.
Teaching others is a unique skill that requires continuous work and dedication. Ask yourself these questions:
• How much time do you and your managers spend teaching?
• How much time do you spend teaching your employees basic sales skills?
• How much time do you spend teaching your employees about the products they sell?
• Do you have formal classroom training sessions?
• Do you teach your employees the importance and functions of the other departments within the dealership?
Teaching takes time and effort. There are no easy short cuts to having properly trained employees; however, if you want to develop your employee’s potential, you must make training a high priority.