Episode 48: Culture by Default or Culture by Design? | Dealership War Room Podcast

In a bustling dealership in Texas, there was two managers that faced exactly the same challenge. An underperforming sales team, Manager a Mike. He blamed his people. They just don't have the fiery mutter. Just shaking his head and just in disgust and frustration with him. Manager B was Lisa. And Lisa had a totally different approach. Her. Her thing was, man, if my people don't have the fire, I. It's me. I just haven't given them a reason to burn. One dealership stays stagnant. The other shattered sales records. What was the difference? Leadership. I want you to ask yourself if you've ever had a day like this. I call this the day that the store went silent. It's Monday morning, and the showroom should be buzzing, right? But instead, it was silent. Salespeople are scrolling on their phones, and a couple of advisors are chatting about the weekend. No urgency, no energy. Mike, that manager storms in. His first response is, why the hell aren't you selling cars? Do I have to do this for you, too? He barked. People nodded, you know, avoided eye contact, and went back to nothing. Across the town, totally different story. Lisa started her Monday differently. Instead of complaints, she gathered a team together and she said, listen, we're not in the car business. We're in the trust business. And today, every single one of you is going to prove why people should trust us. She gave her team one clear goal. Ten appointments on the board before noon. No excuses, no distractions, just action. By noon. That 14 appointments on the board. What was the difference? Lisa didn't wait for the culture to fix itself. She designed it. You see, here's the truth. In your business, you have a culture by default or by design. Everybody has a culture, but most of us, our family culture, our business culture, even our personal culture for our lives is generally a culture by default. It just kind of happened based on who was there, where we were at, who was my boss, what brand are we in, where was the showroom? Very few leaders have a culture by design. And what Lisa did was what great leaders do, which was she began to design her culture. I call this the leadership wake up call. Because you really have to ask yourself, are you running a dealership or you're running a daycare? And why does this matter? Because so many dealership managers are reactive, not proactive. They spend their days putting out fires, babysitting employees, and hoping things will work themselves out. But here's the reality check your dealership. Success or failure is a direct reflection of the culture you create. Either you're going to be A high performing machine or you're going to be a dumpster fire of excuses. But either way, it's going to happen and you own it. I know this is a hard truth, and I'm not trying to be arrogant, and I'm not trying to be mean. But it's important that we deal with reality the way it is. The best study of reality is the study of what actually is. And culture will always appear, will always happen by design or by default. But here's the challenge. If you do not proactively design your culture, you will default to whatever behaviors, habits and attitudes are tolerated. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite quotes about culture is this. Culture is what you create and what you allow. Think about it. If your sales team, like cuts corners, is always blaming the leads, skating each other, fighting over half deals, waiting for customers to come in instead of proactively setting appointments and getting people in, waits for the economy to get better. Instead of creating your own economy. Let me ask you, who allowed that? If your service team lacks urgency, avoids upselling, really low penetration, low ASRs, constantly blaming each other between the shop and the techs. Let me ask you a question. Who set that standard? This is a hard but really important truth. I wish we were here in person and you could see my face, see my eyes, and you could feel my passion. Because this isn't about being critical. This isn't about blaming, and this isn't about trying to make you feel bad. This is about asking you to really look in the mirror and see the truth. Your team is simply doing what they've been allowed to do. What you allow, you endorse. But more importantly, what you tolerate, you multiply. Let that sink in. I mean, burn that into your brain. What you tolerate, you multiply. See, the problem is not just low standards. It's not just a lack of accountability. It's not just inconsistent enforcement. It's that what you tolerate multiplies. Remember, culture is simply what you create and what you allow. Let me share with you my culture reality check, all right? And this is a simple little way. It's a little thing I want you to run through. It's a framework, it's a tool that I use with a lot of people that I coach. And I want you, please take a hard look at yourself. Take a hard look at your team and ask yourself, your team, are they proactive or are they reactive? Do they take ownership or do they make excuses? I love this phrase that every day you either fall in love with your results or fall in Love with your excuse. And so many people fall in love with this excuse so much, they dress it up, take it out, show it to their friends, tell them how awesome it is. But I got to tell you, you will fall in love. But are you going to fall in love with your results? Are you going to fall in love with your excuse? Next, ask yourself, your team, do they bring you solutions or do they just point out problems? Because I got to tell you, anybody can point out problems. We as managers do not get paid to identify problems. We as managers get paid to solve the problems. And then the last ask yourself this. Does your team consistently push for excellence, or do they settle for good enough? And then maybe more importantly, what is the resonance of your culture? How deep is it ingrained? Will they push for excellence when you're around, but when you're gone, they settle for good enough? What's the level of your culture and where is that? If you hesitated on any of these, it's time to take control and design your culture. And that's what I'd ask you to look at for today is where specifically do you need to raise standards? Where specifically do you need to tighten up process? Where specifically do you need to sit down and design your culture? And this is probably the best thing that I could share with you to start is how specifically can you design a culture? I remember I sat down with great GSM at Hansel Ryan Seaman, and he got promoted to be the GSM of a store. And he says, chris, I really want to work and turn around the store. And in my book, Unstoppable Culture, literally the introduction is Ryan's story. And one of the first things that we did was I said, tell me what you want this store to look like. And we just sat down for an hour and a half with a whiteboard and a sheet of paper, and we're just mapping out what are the behaviors that he wants, what is the mindset that he wants, what is the attitude that he wants? And we just looked at what would be an awesome ideal culture, and we designed it from the start. And as we put all of this together, we narrowed it down to. And he basically ended up with six key phrases, six key things that he wanted, that this was what was going to be his culture. And it all centered around this one idea. He wanted a team of elite performers. There's so many people in our business that their math equation was, listen, I want to sell 200 cars a month. Most salespeople are going to sell 10 cars a month. So if I Want to get to 200? How many salespeople do you need? 20. Ryan said, I refuse to do what everybody else is going to do. I want to design a culture of elite performance where I have 10 sales consultants selling 20 cars, and sometimes they come in on their days off and they cover for each other. And I'm going to deliberately run thinner because I'd love to have my showroom so busy that I literally have to say to a customer, yeah, I'm sorry. We'll be right with you if you can have a seat. We are the exclusive place to do business in Sonoma county, and we'd love to take care of you. Just give us a second. He said, I would much rather lose a customer or two because we're so busy than have a culture of mediocrity where we lose 10 or 20 customers every week because nobody's on point in going forward. Now, I'm not suggesting you adapt that as your culture. I want you to understand we need an army, but we also need Green Berets. We need a Navy, but we also need Navy SEALs. They're all good. I don't care what you are, but you got to get clear on who you are and what it is that you want to do. And one of the best things that I can ask you to do is how specifically can you design your culture and spend some time and sit down today and say, listen, I'm going to have a culture by default or design. I am no longer willing to live in the world of default and get clear and specific on how you want to design your culture and what it is that you can do. What are you going to no longer tolerate? Here's two great ways to design your culture. Number one, what do I want? Number two, what do I not want? And then keep narrowing it down till you can come down to the top 2, 3, 4, 5 things that you want and the top, 2, 3, 4, 5 Things that you don't want. And once you do, people will easily self select in or self select out. So this is your assignment. Spend some time and start working on designing the culture that you want, the culture that you need, getting very clear on what you want, very clear on what you don't want, and then implement it. Go out and pick one small airmen. Don't try to change your whole culture all at once. Pick one area where you're tolerating stuff that today we draw the line. It's like, remember in the Lord of the Rings is you should and you're gonna stand there, guard the gate of your dealership and do not let mediocrity pass. Pick one thing and say today, we will not tolerate this anymore. People massively overestimate what they can do in a day and massively underestimate what they can do in a year. If you came in every day for the next year, laser focused on one thing that you are no longer going to allow, and you started building and stacking those one things on each other, at the end of the year, you will have a radically different culture. But let me tell you one thing else. You'll also lose a few people. Because when you raise the standard, there are always people that are going to choose comfort over courage. And you are are looking for people that are willing to use courage, that are willing to dive in and do that. And with that go out. Let's create some leadership fire. And I'll see you tomorrow in the dealership war room.