One of my favorite dealer clients once said to me, “All I get is ‘What,’ stuff all day; I’d like to see some ‘Why’!”  He went on to explain that he only gets reports of what is wrong: expenses are high, we’re out of cash, we’re los

In most organizations today, staff levels have been reduced and the fewer remaining managers and employees are taking on more responsibilities and becoming stretched thin in the process. While most organizations have outsourced key staff functions fo

He started out wanting to be an attorney with no intention of being in the car business. Now, Stephen Wade is this year’s incoming chairman of NADA after almost 40 years of being a dealer. He shares with Dealer magazine the numerous challenges the

 Organizations will spend millions of dollars this year and next for the purchase of supplies and services to support their organization. These “indirect purchases” are typically delegated to staff within the organization to source, negotiate, i

Recently, I went Sporting Simo Clay Shooting with my sons. The trapper sends out a pair of clays simultaneously. It first appears easy but actually is quite difficult because they fly fast and your senses become so magnified in making sure you hit bo

Remember that time when you were driving down the freeway? On auto pilot, not paying particular attention to the satellite radio, no text messages to respond to, no one in the passenger seat blabbering away. Your mind meanders through a thousand diff

As I wrote last month, we all something we’re good at. Perhaps by now, you’ve figured out after all these years I’m not a very good writer (blame the editor) but I’m pretty good at taking the questions I hear most from dealers and helping the

I was consulting in a mid-sized GM dealership one evening. The service manager and I were looking through carefully prepared pre-write packets (menu, history, pre-write, recalls, MPI, and notes), to determine how well the service advisors had pre-loa

The past two years have been the roughest time in the history of the automotive business. The number of car dealerships in the United States has been declining for decades. Roughly 200 dealers close their doors every year. Last year, however, 2,000 d