The new year is upon us already! What’s your plan, your guiding principle, your focus, and your emphasis going to be in 2024?

How about this for a New Year’s resolution: Let us live up to what we have already attained.

In other words, you don’t have to know everything before you do something. You have attained a lot in your automotive career; now it is your responsibility to live up to (or apply) what you know.

“Attaining” is knowing; “Living Up To” is doing! That’s all there is in life, knowing and doing.

What You’ve Attained

So what have you attained so far as a dealer?

You have attained lots of knowledge by hiring consultants, attending workshops, being part of a 20 Group, and reading Dealer Magazine.

You have attained a career in a dealership where your supervisor chose you over all the other applicants for the position.

You have attained an opportunity for unlimited income if your pay plan is based on production (produce more, make more).

If you are a service manager, you have attained a team of technicians who look to you to keep their “time bank” full of flat rate hours.

You have attained a service sales staff of advisors that are the face of the dealership and your brand.

Most importantly you have attained thousands of vehicle owners in your database. They look to you and your team to keep their vehicles safe, trouble free, and fun to drive.

Lastly, as an American, you have attained freedom to do what you want to do, go where you want to go, say what you want to say and grow up to be whatever you want to be! (I know several dealer owners who started their automotive career washing cars).

We have all attained so much my friend, now what are you going to do with it?

Living Up to the Plans You’ve Attained

Attaining, which is knowledge, won’t make you any money. Only living up to, which is doing, will make you money. No one ever made it big in the automotive industry because they knew so much, but rather because they did so much.

Warning: Don’t use attaining (gaining knowledge) as an excuse for inaction. I know people who have a passion and zeal for knowledge, but they’ve never done anything!

These folks have plans for elaborate seasonal promotions, plans for great marketing strategies, plans for motivational pay plans– but they never execute. They never live up to the plans they attained.

In a dealership, the only reason you gain knowledge is to turn it into money. If you can’t turn the knowledge into money, then you don’t need the knowledge!

Maybe some of you are saying, “Wait a minute Charlie, I don’t have much knowledge because I am new to the industry.”

I have good news for you: there is a wealth of information at your fingertips. The NADA convention is just around the corner. There will be numerous fixed ops workshops presented by the best and the brightest.

Surely, you have a couple of trusted vendor partners who are good trainers, mentors, and coaches. These strategic partners can teach you the business and guide you to success. For example, I work with a team of over 1,000 fixed ops professionals who are dedicated to helping you create a sales culture in your shop and on the service drive… and most importantly helping you execute the process.

Let me turn the table for just a minute. While it is a tragedy to not live up to what you have attained, it’s even worse to try and live up to something you have not attained. What I mean is trying to do something without taking the time to attain the knowledge and skills to do it.

If you are doing without knowing, then you don’t know what you are doing! You look foolish, and everyone knows you don’t know.

Knowledge is power. Knowledge is accountability. Knowledge is profit. IF you apply it.

I have been around hundreds of managers who think they know it all. These guys think they are God’s gift to their dealership. It would be beneath them to go to training. They send their advisors to sales training, but they are “too busy” to attend themselves.

But they are unable to hold their team accountable because they don’t have any idea what their team learned.

A Resolution for Success

In closing, I know that your business is complex with many moving parts. You have to deal with mechanical issues, personal issues, heat cases, parts shortages, and the public.

The more knowledge you attain, the more action you take, the more satisfied you will be, and the more money you will make.

Your 2024 New Year’s resolution: Let us live up to what we have already attained.