Are You a Leader? A Motivational Video

Dawn Is breaking

I am sitting in one of the greatest settings in the world. My patio at 6 AM. Dawn is breaking, sky is blue, coffee is from Costa Rico. I am Healthy. I have a beautiful yet frustrating wife. I sip coffee and smell the honeysuckle. The hardest decision to make this early morning. Which book to listen to while I run, well walk really fast, ok while I walk.

As the day progresses, I will do what almost everyone else does. Forget how great my morning is and start to stress about the day. We tend to make life harder than it needs to be. We start to focus on the problems or issues. The more you believe you have problems, the bigger they become (perception) The more you believe something, the more you filter and ignore all information to the contrary.

My focus lately has been on goals. Goals as we know them are useless and detrimental. If you want to know more listen or watch my YouTube channel.

I digress into an area that will lose your interest.

For me this early morning routine brings relaxation and focus.

As the day goes on, we only listen to the noise that confirms our beliefs.

I consider myself a student of human behavior.

I am just like you. I look for what confirms my beliefs.

In 1995 I was part of a steering committee for Toyota Motor Sales. We met in San Francisco and charted a course for Toyota to progress into the internet age. This was where I heard, for the first time, our industry must change or die. We conducted surveys, had focus groups, attended seminars. Change or die was the mantra.

Was it true?

We all look for the reasons to prove it true because we believe it. Customers told us, we want transparency, we hate the process, we do not want to negotiate. JD Powers, NADA, Driving Sales, VAuto, they all told us its true. Here are the statistics to prove it. Now we are being told customers want to buy online then pick up the car without a salesperson. Carvana, Free. Its what customers want, dealers are going to die.

I seem to remember when Carmax was going to destroy our business. It was the model of the future.

Change or Die. It is a Mantra.

Is it true? We must believe it. Seminars are built around it. SEO, SEM, Website visits, Leads, closing percent on those leads. We have become statistically driven. Treating the sales person as a fool. Plug and play. Make 40 calls a day, respond to 10 emails, and more. Dealersocket has given us the power.

I have been to several conferences this past two years. Attended several presentations, listen to keynote speakers. If I take out the motivational hard life success speakers, everything else focused on statistics, getting more customers to click. We all drink from the Kool-aid, change or die.

We listen to experts in every field except ours. Your website must look like this, CTAs must be this way. We pay huge money for it. As we should.

I just find it disheartening that our industry is willing to pay so much money for the next Shiny Object.

Yet, we are not willing to listen or invest money and time in our people. As I said earlier. The corporate attitude is, salespeople are plug and play. It just is not true.