For a long time, I have always remembered those words from my Junior High School Track Coach in Trenton, NJ, Lawrence Dunn. From the years of 1950 to 1974 our urban school never lost a track meet. City, County or State, we would have to drive the bus for hours to find a High School in Pennsylvania, Delaware or NY to practice with us because the High Schools in New Jersey knew of our repetition. Coach Dunn was a former U.S. Marine Drill Instructor and he ran our track team the same way. It prepared many of us for the next level of track which was the Nationally feared TCHS (Trenton Central High School/ Trenton Track Club) track program coached by the great – Hall of Fame Coach Alfonzo Jennings who had and still has teams that are not just state champs but National Champs, Penn Relay Champs in the (HOF) after all these years he still has a female 800 meter runner who is # 2 in the world as a Junior in High School and would have been one of the favorites for the 2020 Olympic Summer Games.
I am telling you this because that is the way I approached automotive selling and I was blessed to do very well but my gift was in leadership and training getting others to achieve their vision of success. A good coach knows how to get the person to “DO” not try but have the courage of their conviction to engage a guest and Implement what you coached them to do and become so consistent with any situation that the guest sees VALUE and moves forward with the process. If you think about successful employees and analyze why they are so successful, you’ll come up with some traits. They work hard. They follow the process. I would argue that they are successful because they have mastered the habits that lead to success.
The word habit seems to have a negative connotation. That person has a drug habit or a gambling habit. We don’t talk enough about the good habits people can develop. Think about the power of these positive habits. Better yet, think about how you can develop positive habits in your employees and yourself.
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In previous posts, we discussed that processes solve all operational issues. Your goal is to make these successful, proven processes to be second nature. How can you do this?
Begin by making a list of the habits you feel makes someone successful in a specific job role. This could include CRM usage and daily follow up. Try to identify anything that you preach to your people will make them successful.
Once you have this list, determine if these are daily, weekly, or monthly habits. How frequently do successful employees complete an activity? The more you can make daily, the better. But you may find some are not feasible to do daily. Break your list of habits down by daily, weekly, and monthly.
You also need a way to hold them accountable for completing the activity you want to become a habit. I guess you could say that you, as a leader, need to develop the habit of checking in on the habit development of your team. You can assign daily tasks (that will develop habits) to each of your employees.
At the end of the day, good management is about activities, not results. Manage the activities that lead to success and you will achieve the results you want. For example, rather than managing monthly car sales, focus on the activities that lead to car sales. Setting appointments, daily follow up, process consistency, etc.
Success isn’t rocket science. It’s about consistency in the daily activities that separate your rock stars from everyone else. The more you can make those daily activities become habits, the more success your team will achieve.
Make It A Champion Day!
Brandon K. Hardison – Champion Strategies
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