Try Again

Try Again

Two of the most important words in our language are “try again”. If you consider every major accomplishment in the world today the individual responsible for it said those words often. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, and when he stated, he had over 10,000 failed attempts. He was quoted as saying “it wasn’t a failure he just found successfully 10,000 ways a lightbulb would not work”. What if he didn’t try again? Let’s look at how we can benefit using these words in our dealership and in our lives!

Say It Often

I encourage everyone to look at your life and evaluate ways you can improve. Some common things in the service department I hear are “I don’t have the time to have Advisors perform the walk around”. “I don’t have time for installing another process”. Generally, anything that starts with I can’t or I won’t ends up being an excuse.

Smoking is an example, I often use as illustrating a bad habit in our life. They quit for a while and start back up. What two better words to use in this example could be said? In my own life I struggle with keeping my weight in line. The same two words apply in this example. Everyone has an area of opportunity for improvement in their life or dealership. We may use examples where we have fallen short of the goal set. Let’s get in the habit of saying “try again” often.

Mean It

I think it’s important that you not expect failure when you use these two words. Make a strong commitment to achieving whatever process or goal you have determined important to achieve. This is a strong leadership quality, use it to develop your life. Set a goal and except nothing less than your best effort to achieve it. Mean it!

Determine What It Takes

Time spent determining what is best practice to achieve your desired result is critical to reach your goals. An example for our dealership might be; the customer intake process in the service Department. What is the best way to schedule appointments? How long does it take our service department to do an oil change?

Your entire team must develop standards for excellence with the understanding that the customer is the ultimate reason we are in business. These standards should also be in our lives individually. If you never reach for improvement what is your chance of achieving any? Try Again.

Sincerely,
Rob Gehring, President
Fixed Performance Inc.
rgehring@marginplus.net
1-888-205-8718
Fixed Performance complete fixed operations coaching consulting