Five Leadership Habits for 2024

As the retail dealership focuses on finishing 2023 strong, there needs to be a concerted effort to start thinking about the leadership habits that should be in place for 2024. There are many companies serving dealerships, and an easy target is what sales managers in dealerships are not doing. At Quantum⁵, we believe sales managers are busy and well-intentioned but the focus on the immediate transaction has always caused managers to be more reactive than proactive. With that, let’s discuss the five proactive habits for 2024 that will not wait for leadership to adjust slowly: 

1. Assess the current team: Ask yourself the hard questions and be prepared to make decisions.

• How many A players do you have – these are defined as the top 20% of talent available for the position.
• How many B players do you have - these are defined as the middle of the organization that produce average results and may or may not be promotable.
• How many C players do you have – these are defined as your lower 25-30% in productivity that often drain your time.

Next look at their skills:

• How many are terrible on the phones, failing to keep the CRM up to date, or not willing to modernize their use of video?
• How many are making the digital to in-person process hard for customers or just not embracing the new realities of price competition?

2. Get clear on the risks ahead: Ask yourself what will be the significant risks to your sales objectives in 2024. Remember that Hyundai is not coming for your market share or customers with their Amazon partnership – BUT every dealer you compete with who will make buying easier is coming for your market share in 2024. Are you ready with a hybrid process that supports the best of digital for your customer and a smooth, non-repetitive process in your showroom? According to a new Cox Automotive study – 94% of customers are forced to repeat online steps again in the showroom which is significantly impacting customer and employee satisfaction. Which manager is resisting the changes the most and which salespeople are doing the same thing? How is the relationship with service and what will you do to build a connected value chain that separates your dealership from others? How will you adapt your used vehicle acquisition strategy – is it about losing fewer trades or just adding more of the right vehicles? What happens if you can’t get the right inventory for the right price?  

3. Adopt daily disciplines: This is the year, this is the shifting automotive market, and you are the leader who will benefit from incorporating personal daily disciplines. The story of the extra mile being a road that is not crowded has been shared with teams many times but don’t let the lesson be lost in 2024. The last 44 months have caused some of our habits to atrophy and next year is the year to repair that problem. Start simple and incremental – get up 30 minutes earlier, spend 15 minutes every morning reading followed by setting the three most important priorities at the dealership today that if you accomplished them would make a difference in the people and the business. When you start, remember that every day means every day – not just the days you feel like it – it means you read something to grow and improve you every day. If you don’t add personal disciplines in 2024 then you won’t be able to drive the growth in your team. 

4. Communicate with candor: Let’s start with a leadership reminder: it’s not what bad leaders do, its what good leaders are not doing. Yes, there are bad leaders in our industry who might use foul language with a salesperson or might manage a person out of the business. My experience helping dealerships since 1990 is there are a lot of good leaders but they sometimes lack candor. My good friend, John Malishenko the now retired COO for Steve Germain’s dealerships told me once, “candor is truth, timed appropriately and done with the intent to help.” It is my observation that delivering truth and timing it appropriately is very hard in a busy automotive retail environment. Another good friend told me once to just admit I was choosing the opposite when I am not candid – I am choosing to watch failure impact someone I care about. In 2024 there is going to need to be some truth, timed appropriately and delivered with the intent to help dealership teams. We will need to be candid about old skills that got atrophied and new skills that we are ignoring. We will need to be candid about the need for making customer processes easier or expect the competition to take our customers. We will need clear conversations about not refusing to talk to people about a payment or a trade value. We will need to be candid about our role as a leader and the impact we want to create in the coming year.  

5. Everyone is watching: I don’t remember exactly when I noticed it but early in my leadership journey, I realized my team was watching me. I remember a time when two of my team confronted me for not doing as I said they should do – it was a tough lesson to learn. With the advent of social media, I became even more aware that people were watching my leadership – and everything else that I shared. It is natural that your team, friends and even family will watch and compare your words, beliefs, values and your actions. In 2024, if you are going to work with your team to improve the quality of their outbound phone calls – go make some great calls with them and set some appointments for them. If you are working on inbound calls – do the same thing and win them some appointments. If you are going to talk about making the process better for the customer, then don’t refuse to give a trade value on a vehicle you think you might be able to pencil the value. Remind yourself that everyone is watching and what you do will speak volumes more than what you say in a sales meeting.

Leadership is something you live, not just something to think about or talk about – make that connection in 2024.

Dave O’Brien, CEO/Co-Founder 
Quantum⁵