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The June statement lands sometime in the second week of July. It's the worst possible timing. The floor is full. The service bays are booked out two weeks. Every salesperson is working deals. You open the P&L on your phone between a customer conversation and a delivery problem, scan the revenue line, see you're a little ahead of plan — or a little behind — and put it away. That glance is the most expensive thirty seconds of your year. Here's what most owners get wrong about t

There is a specific kind of silence that happens when someone finally says the thing they actually came to say. It doesn't happen often. Most meetings — even good ones — never get there. People say versions of the truth. They describe symptoms. They present the problem they're comfortable presenting, not the one keeping them up at night. And everyone in the room nods along because the comfortable version is easier to engage with. I spent twelve years in a YPO forum learning h

There are more coaches now than there are problems to coach. Open LinkedIn and every third profile is an executive coach, a sales coach, a leadership coach, a performance coach. Some of them are excellent. A lot of them have never run anything. I had a conversation last week with someone selling exactly that — generic coaching, the kind that arrives with a framework and a worksheet — and about ten minutes in I knew it wasn't going to fit. Not because the person wasn't sharp.

The number lands the same way every year. Your manufacturer — or your leadership team, or just the version of yourself that sets the annual plan — hands you a target bigger than last year. You did $30 million. They want $36 million. Same locations. Same team, maybe plus a green salesperson or two who won't carry their own weight until the back half of the year. And almost every dealer I've watched reaches for the same lever first. More traffic. More leads. More advertising. S

Every year it's the same meeting. The manufacturer flies the dealer body into a hotel ballroom, runs through the new programs, and hands out the list. Carry this much inventory. Run this many demos. Send two techs to certification. Hit these scorecard targets. Keep the CRM clean. Co-op into the spring campaign. Adopt the new ordering portal. The slides are sharp, the goals are reasonable on their face, and the room nods along. Then almost nothing happens. The manufacturer not

Not long ago, a major equipment manufacturer announced it was redrawing its sales territories. More reps. Smaller regions. Fewer dealers per territory. The stated goal, right there in the announcement, was to strengthen communication with the dealer network and improve dealer satisfaction. It's a good move. I mean that. Putting more people closer to the dealers is almost always better than the alternative. But read the announcement again and you notice something. Every action

You walk the board on Monday morning. Units are okay. The activity looks fine — the CRM is full, everyone's busy, the calendar is packed with demos and follow-ups and manufacturer webinars. But the margin line is soft. The same two deals have been "almost closed" for three weeks. And if you're honest, you can't actually tell who on your team is working the right things and who's just working. That feeling — that your team is busy but you're not sure it's productive — is the o

Walk into almost any equipment dealership and ask a salesperson to describe their job. You'll get a list — a long one. Keep the CRM clean. Stage the showroom. Run demos. Chase down satisfaction surveys. Return calls. Learn the product. Sit through training. Quote. Prospect. Process paperwork. Follow up. It adds up to about twenty things, easily. Here's the problem. Most salespeople treat all twenty as if they carry equal weight. They don't. Not even close. After twenty years

A buyer walks into your showroom. You don't know it yet, but they spent an hour with ChatGPT this morning. They know what your machine costs in three states. They know what your closest competitor's machine costs. They know which features matter for their use case and which ones are marketing fluff. They've read three forum threads about your most common warranty complaints. High angle view of a modern equipment dealership showcasing various machinery Your salesperson opens w

In today's competitive landscape, multi-location businesses face unique challenges that can hinder their operational efficiency. With multiple sites to manage, ensuring consistency, communication, and productivity across all locations is crucial. This blog post will explore practical strategies to enhance operational efficiency in multi-location businesses, providing actionable insights and real-world examples. Understanding Operational Efficiency Operational efficiency refer

You think you do. You have your YOY revenue. You have your manufacturer scorecard. You have a feel for how the year is going. Your CFO sends you the financials every month. You know your numbers. But "knowing your numbers" and "knowing how your dealership is performing" are two different things. Eye-level view of a financial report with graphs and charts Here's the test. Right now, without looking anything up: What's a healthy fleet gross margin for a dealership your size in