Why is this so crucial? Stores are selling more motorcycles with fewer people than ever before. The more you can do, the more you can contribute. The more you can contribute, the more your worth. The more you’re worth, the more you can earn and the more secure your position on the team.
® THE SALE! Becoming A Triple Threat: How To Be More, Sell More & Make Yourself Invaluable By Mark Rodgers
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ould you like to be invaluable to your dealership? Become a triple threat! And I mean both literally and metaphorically.
In entertainment, a triple threat is an artist who excels at singing, dancing and acting. Think Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake or Jennifer Lopez. In football, a triple threat might be a quarterback who can pass from the pocket, throw on the move and run the ball. Think Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen or Carson Wentz. In sales, that literally might mean being able to sell the bike, handle the financing and be able to fulfill managerial duties. In service, it might mean being able to perform a service check, file warranty claims and process incoming work. Metaphorically, in any position, it means being able to fulfill multiple roles in the dealership.
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Here are ideas to develop your triple threat-ness: Relentless Work To Reduce Your Labor Intensity At first blush, this might sound like someone who’s trying to get out of work. It isn’t. It’s giving you the ability to focus on the important work. Mental and physical energy in any given day is finite. Now, some people have more energy than others, and there are techniques you can use to both maximize and expertly use these reserves. But much like the battery charge on Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire there is a limit. You’ll often see sales managers burn an incredible amount of time and energy working on nonsense stuff like split deals. “But I talked to him first!” Or you’ll get division of labor complaints. “It’s not fair! I cleaned two more bikes than he did!” Petty energy sucking situations. The Roman Senate had a great philosophy for this kind of situation: de minimus non curat praetor (Yeah, I can’t pronounce it either). Loosely translated it means: “the Senate does not consider trifles.” This should be your position. My mid-western approach would be: “I can either work to secure you more leads and get us more motorcycles to sell, or I can spend time on this who cleaned more bikes. You two are adults, go work it out.” (My east-coast language would be: “Get out!”) If you want to become a triple threat save your battery for what’s important. Reverse engineer any task. Start with the end result and identify the most efficacious road to get there. Create Check Lists You can darn near run any dealership on high quality check lists. Taking a motorcycle on trade? Checklist. Putting together funding package? Checklist. Receiving an insurance estimate accident bike? Checklist. The art of creating functional checklists is the detail. You don’t want to be so detailed as to have a 37-point check list for answering an email inquiry. Most functions in the dealership can be described in four or five, or perhaps seven steps. Less than that probably isn’t worth it. More than that is too complicated. My rule of thumb is a one-page bullet pointed check list. I create the task, the objective, and then a handful of the most important steps to get it done.
