The Contrarian Case Against Your Follow-Up Cadence
Back in the 1950s, car dealers would literally knock on customers' doors. No phone call first, no appointment scheduling. A salesman would show up Saturday morn...
The Dealership Security Camera Trap: Why Surveillance Doesn't Fix Your Real Problems
You've got security cameras on every inch of your lot, showroom, and service bays. Your GM installed them five years ago. The coverage is comprehensive. And yet...
Why Your Month-End Checklist Is Making Things Worse (And What to Do Instead)
According to a 2023 Cox Automotive report, 67% of dealership managers admit they're running month-end close on spreadsheets and manual checklists. That number s...
Stop Following Your Dealership Compliance Calendar Like It's Gospel
Stop Following Your Compliance Calendar Like It's Gospel You're staring at your dealership compliance calendar right now. The one from your association, your l...
Insurance and Bonding Reviews Aren't Compliance—They're Operational Strategy
Most dealership GMs and dealer principals spend roughly 15 minutes a year thinking about insurance and bonding reviews. They dutifully renew the policies, maybe...
Stop Optimizing IT Triage. Fix Your Technology Stack Instead.
Most dealerships treat IT ticket triage like a hospital emergency room: urgent tickets get bumped to the front, everything else stacks up, and whoever yells the...
Why Most Dealerships Should Ditch Quarterly Inventory Counts
About 73% of dealership groups still conduct full physical inventory counts at least once a quarter. If you're one of them, you're probably burning hours of lab...
Why Most Dealership Vendor Contract Audits Are a Waste of Time
Most dealership principals and GMs spend weeks—sometimes months—auditing vendor contracts to save a few thousand dollars a year. They'll hire consultants, conve...
Stop Using Call Scoring to Measure Your Sales Team's Performance
Your dealership is probably measuring the wrong things about your sales team's phone calls. The entire industry has convinced itself that call tracking and cal...
Stop Treating Monthly Financial Statements Like Gospel
Stop Treating Monthly Financial Statements Like Gospel How many dealer principals do you know who spend their entire Monday morning locked in an office with a ...
The Weekly Save-a-Deal Meeting Is Killing Your Dealership (And You Don't Know It)
Imagine it's Monday morning at 8 a.m. Your GM walks into the conference room with a stack of deal jackets. The service director is already there, coffee in hand...
Your Service Advisor Pay Plan Is Probably Backwards (Here's How to Fix It)
Most dealerships are designing service advisor pay plans backwards. You're starting with gross profit splits and commission caps, when you should be starting wi...