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Appeared August 2010 - Volume 7 - Issue 8 - page 14
One of life’s great things is to be the smartest person in the room, but as my wife likes to remind me, that really isn’t the case as often as I would like to think. She does it kindly, but the truth is the truth. Our business has a lot of moving parts and like herding bees, it requires your full and complete attention.
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Appeared July 2010 - Volume 7 - Issue 7 - page 14
The Leedom Group is having its annual Buy Here-Pay Here National Convention in Las Vegas Sept. 20-22, 2010. That’s the fact, but the question is why should you attend?
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Appeared June 2010 - Volume 7 - Issue 6 - page 14
One of the great things about writing this column is that you get to ponder a lot of different things, and this month really opens the door on that whole pondering thing. Technology. Technology, technology, technology. When I was kid, lying in my backyard, gazing up at the stars, I remember my sister saying, “You know, they say it will be someone our age that will someday walk on the Moon—technology is moving that fast.”
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Appeared May 2010 - Volume 7 - Issue 5 - page 14
Collections is a piece of our industry that is the poor stepchild, but the reality is, collections happen to be the Cinderella of our business kingdoms. We pay a lot of attention to the ugly stepsister, that is, sales, but the bottom line is, you can sell your butt (I think I can say that) off, but if you can’t collect it, you just wasted a whole of time and a lot of money.
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Appeared April 2010 - Volume 7 - Issue 4 - page 14
Benchmarks are odd things. On one hand they help us put targets out there, goals, objectives that we think are important to reach. On the other hand, benchmarks tend to be extensions of our historical past – because this happened last year, this is what will happen this year. Our tendency is to gravitate towards known comfort levels, stay very much inside boxes and boundaries we’re familiar with and not to get too far from the shore.
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Appeared March 2010 - Volume 7 - Issue 3 - page 14
Having written a number of columns over these last few months, there has been some general back and forth about comments I’ve made that have been deemed political in nature. The real difficulty is that financially, as business people, dealers and suppliers, we are living in a politically charged financial environment. In the push to blame banks, Wall Street, Tonto and the Lone Ranger, there are swirling mounds of legislation that have the capacity to sweep us all up, forging regulations and putting parameters on us that will only make our collective jobs more difficult.
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Appeared February 2010 - Volume 7 - Issue 2 - page 6
Somewhere out there a small bud is trying to break through the permafrost and seek out the warming rays of the sun, all in hope that spring will come. That, my friends, is a picture of the capital markets at this time. Tiny things are beginning to happen. Nothing you can point your finger at and say it is the beginning of a movement, a change, but there are these just starting, peaking over the horizon, rays of hope.
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Appeared January 2010 - Volume 7 - Issue 1 - page 6
Well, folks, welcome to 2010! A lot of questions are still hanging out there about what this year holds, for the economy in general and for our industry in particular. Truthfully, if I knew all the answers, I’d be on Oprah. Since she hasn’t called, you will have to live with my best perceptions and the results of my private crystal ball gazing.
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Appeared December 2009 - Volume 6 - Issue 12 - page 6
“Please, please dear God in heaven, what this country could use right now is some leadership.”
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Appeared November 2009 - Volume 6 - Issue 11 - page 6
While I was at the Leedom Group 15th Annual BHPH National Convention, a question I heard in my workshop sessions as well as meeting one-on-one with dealers, was “What is going to happen to interest rates?’ That question was followed by, “When is money going to be available for dealers again?”
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Appeared October 2009 - Volume 6 - Issue 10 - page 6
I was attending a lecture one time and the topic had to do with education. After the speaker was done, he asked for questions from the audience. This rather kind looking, mature lady rose and began to inform him on what an absolute dunce he was—she had been teaching for 30 years and had never heard anything as foolish as he was spouting. He asked her if she had ever gone back to school, ever done any refresher work, ever inquired as to what other teachers might be doing. She looked him sternly in the eye and said, no, it wasn’t necessary, she had learned everything she needed to know in her classroom.
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Appeared September 2009 - Volume 6 - Issue 9 - page 6
Look, can we talk? Everybody wants to be a better dealer. Everybody wants to make more money. Everybody wants to find a way to work smarter, not just work harder. Everybody! Everybody is a lot of people.
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Appeared August 2009 - Volume 6 - Issue 8 - page 6
Well, the last presidential election was all about change, and change is certainly what we have seen. General Motors in bankruptcy. Chrysler went bankrupt and then became a Fiat portal. The U.S. government will now pay up to $4,500 cash for clunkers. The impact of all this is that there are hundreds upon hundreds of franchise dealerships no longer with us. Jobs are gone and various supply chains for parts, used cars and related services have been disrupted. So much for change!
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Appeared July 2009 - Volume 6 - Issue 7 - page 6
This edition of Dealer Business Journal is a great reminder of the adage that buy here-pay here dealers think we’re in the car business, but we’re really in the finance business. One of the amazing things about our business is how easy it is to sell our product. In the vast majority of cases, if you have a good advertising campaign, good promotions, you will get customers on the lot and the rest pretty much takes care of itself – sort of.
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Appeared June 2009 - Volume 6 - Issue 6 - page 6
Okay, we’re through tax season, past Easter, and the Memorial Day Weekend has come and gone, so now what? Well, we are getting ready to head into the summer season, which is traditionally a slower time in our industry. However, we may want to start re-thinking that perspective. The wrenching convulsions of the economic upheaval appear to be settling, and outside of the franchise dealers getting solidly kicked in the side, most of the ugly economic news, and fallout, has sort of settled in and been absorbed. Brief note here, that doesn’t mean other bad news isn’t out there, but the biggest glut of it has come and gone.
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Appeared May 2009 - Volume 6 - Issue 5 - page 6
Well, what to say in this edition of Dealer Business Journal and the issue of wholesale as the focal point? So, the thought from this desk is to discuss wholesale from a slightly different perspective. There has been a lot of discussion about the whole prices of units at the auctions, what is causing this or not causing this, and where wholesale prices might be in the near future.
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Appeared April 2009 - Volume 6 - Issue 4 - page 6
Benchmarks are odd things. On one hand they help us put targets out there: goals, objectives that we think are important to reach. On the other hand, benchmarks tend to be extensions of our historical past – because this happened last year, this is what will happen this year. Our tendency is to gravitate towards known comfort levels, stay very much inside boxes and boundaries we’re familiar with and not to get too far from the shore.
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