Digital Dealer - April 2018 - 34

By Charlie Polston
Automotive Customer
Retention &
Profitability Consultant,
BG Products, Inc.

// Fixed Operations

Are You a Student,
a Disciple, or a
Disciple-Maker?
This article is for
leaders-dealers,
general managers, and
service managers-the
men and women who
have been given a sacred
trust to shepherd their
employees and the
dealership to success.
Once you, as a leader,
have embraced the message, then I think it would
be a good idea to pass
this article on to your
employees.
Shakespeare wrote in
"Hamlet" Act III Scene
I "To be or not to be." A
motivational speaker and
personal trainer that I
know says, "What you be,
they are becoming." One
of my favorite authors
says it like this, "Your employees pay more attention to what you do than
what you say." Behavior
is caught, not taught.
The Draconian parenting philosophy of "Do
what I say not what I do"
has never worked and it
never will. Yet I see this
happening every day
in the business world;
managers have one set
of standards for their
employees and a different
set of standards for them34

APRIL 2018

selves. (Good heavens,
I'm starting to sound like
Dave Anderson!)
So, are you a student,
a disciple, or a disciple-maker? Let's start by
defining each:
 Student: A learner (a
person who is trained but
never produces)
 Disciple: A learner

and manager ought to
be to become a disciple-maker-and to have
teammates that share
the passion. What you
be, they are becoming.
It starts at the top. Let's
look at some examples
that better explain each
category:
Student example:

ONE OF MY FAVORITE
AUTHORS SAYS IT LIKE
THIS, 'YOUR EMPLOYEES
PAY MORE ATTENTION
TO WHAT YOU DO
THAN WHAT YOU SAY.'
BEHAVIOR IS CAUGHT,
NOT TAUGHT."
and a doer (a person who
applies what they have
learned; result: increased
revenue via addition.)
 Disciple-Maker: A
learner, a doer, a believer,
and a teacher (a person
who is held accountable
by their superiors to
continue applying what
they have learned; result:
increased revenue and
exponential growth via
multiplication.
Rather obviously, the
goal of every owner

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

Management sends a
service advisor to a sales
training seminar. However, the manager does not
attend. When the service
advisor returns from the
training, he immediately
goes back to doing what
he has always done. He
never applies anything
he has learned. The
manager doesn't know
what the advisor learned,
therefore he does not
have the ability to hold
the advisor accountable.

Nothing changes. It was
a total waste of time and
money. Unfortunately,
this is the pattern that
happens most often in
the automotive business.
Management is under the
mistaken belief that the
key to success is having
trained service advisors. It's not. The key to
success is having trained
service advisors who are
held accountable to sell
maintenance service-
who are held accountable
to apply what they have
learned.
Disciple example: In
this scenario, again, the
manager does not attend
the training. However,
the service advisor has
enough drive, energy, and desire that he
does apply what he has
learned. However, after
a few days or weeks,
because there was no
accountability and the
manager doesn't really
know or understand
what he's doing or why it
doesn't take long for him
to return to his old ways.
And even though he
applied it for a short time,
it didn't become part of
his DNA.
This is so tragic because the advisor is all
fired up-ready, willing,
and able to produce-yet
due to a lack of support from the manager,
everything fades away.
This is one reason there
is such a high turnover in
the automotive industry.

Continued on pg. 36
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Digital Dealer - April 2018
