Throughout my entire career, and even today, I’ve always been accused of “drinking the Kool-Aid” or “brown-nosing” the owner, etc. I’ve always been lucky enough to love where I work. Sure, I’ve left jobs but always to better myself and for greater opportunities. I don’t have one bad thing to say about anyplace I’ve ever worked. I’m still in regular contact with almost all of my former bosses/owners. As a green pea sales associate I remember paying for personalized license plates that advertised our company slogan. And today, my license plate says “iMagic” because I’m proud of where I work. For the last 8 years of my career I’ve worn a company shirt 80% of the time and that includes nights and weekends. Again, because I’m proud of where I work.
My owner and I were traveling for work one day and we went out to eat, both of us were in store shirts and the person we were talking with commented on it and without hesitation he responded that he wanted everybody to know that he was “a company man” and I did too. I can’t remember how many cars I’ve sold by somebody coming up to me because of my company shirt but I’d guess around 100. Some of them even started off as complaints and eventually turned into a sale. I card everybody, even today, if somebody is interested in a vehicle I card them and when they contact me I set them up with one of our partner dealers. This past weekend I sold 3 cars for a partner dealer in Cleveland and had only met the people in a restaurant and they were actually upset with my service department. They saw the shirt, came to complain and realized I was the General Manager and we joked about me being the right guy to complain to. 24 months later, a 3 car deal…
Being a company man pays me dividends and it’s done so my entire professional sales career. I simply won’t work for a company or an individual that I don’t respect. There’s nothing I hate more than the “doom and gloom” Chicken Little types that think the world is coming to an end every single day. They always find bad in everything. Here are the funnier ones I’ve personally made terminations over:
- We had a killer sales weekend and Monday morning the gas card hit its limit so it’s declined, Chicken Little spreads the rumor “we’re going bankrupt” in less than 45 seconds!
- We have a billing dispute with a vendor (their mistake as it turns out) so we hold off paying the bill until it’s settled which we’re diligently working on and Chicken Little asks in a sales meeting “why don’t we pay our bills?”
- I interview one candidate as a favor to another General Manager and Chicken Little immediately spreads “we’re all getting fired and being replaced!”
- I can’t get a signal on my cell phone inside the store so I take a call from my owner outside and Chicken Little announces “I’ve seen this before, when the GM starts looking for a job, we all better start looking!”
In closing, I suggest hiring as many company men (and women) as possible. They’re a positive catalyst, hardworking, hard charging and truly and deeply care about your customers. They also don’t pay attention to the store/office rumors and are never seen whispering around the coffee machine. As for the “Chicken Little’s” of the world… Eradicate them from your organization with extreme prejudice. Their negativity is deadly and contagious and will ultimately impact your clients. I recently asked somebody “if it’s so bad, why not quit?” the response: “I need a job.” Ah, yes… a job. DOOM AND GLOOM NEED NOT APPLY!
*Chris Vitale is Vice President of Sales atiMagicLab. He has over 15 years of in dealership experience and is quick to call it like he sees it. Follow Chris @thecrmgod on Twitter.
