5 Productivity Hacks for Your Dealership
How new ways of thinking can boost sales and morale in your showroom.
For general sales managers, modern showrooms are fast-paced and full of distractions. In this environment, it can be challenging to be at your most productive while putting out fires, managing staff and finishing that deal that just… won’t… close.
So what’s the secret to maintaining your effectiveness amid chaos? Below are some productivity hacks from top behavioral economists and psychologists that can give GSMs and their staffs an edge.
1. Embrace Structures For Success
Bulging inboxes and blinking voicemail lights are tough to ignore. But Sue Ashford, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of Michigan, says a good day at work should be focused on four structures that support successful self-starters:
- Place: Find a space where you can be most productive.
- Routines: Form habits around a regular schedule.
- Ongoing Interaction: Have conversations with people who offer encouragement and direction.
- Purpose: Remind yourself why you’re doing this work in the first place.
When you arrive at your store, do you have a safe place where you can get organized and conduct your day? Are you seeking out positive people who can help encourage you to get to the next level? If not, think about how you can incorporate at least one of these structures into your day and then add others until they become second nature.
“The most important management in the future is going to be self-management,” Sue Ashford said in an interview with organizational psychologist Adam Grant. “Any work, even in organizations, if it’s work where you have some degree of autonomy, you can structure it how you want…”
2. Go To Bed
The single largest use of our time is sleep. So it’s not surprising that it has such a big impact on our productivity. In fact, economists found that increasing your sleep by just one hour per night will produce an average wage increase of 16 percent. And a 2011 study found that sleep deprivation is costing Americans an estimated $63 billion worth of production every year.
Obviously, it’s hard to find time for sleep when long hours are so common in the dealer world. As advice goes, that may sound a bit soft. But the results on your grosses won’t be if you’re arriving at work sharp and refreshed instead of tired and out of it.
One way to accomplish this, according to Harvard researchers, is by shutting off your screens well before bedtime. That’s because the blue light emitting from smartphones and high-definition TVs disrupts our circadian rhythms, increases health risks and ruins our chances for good sleep.
Business leaders are taking note. Arianna Huffington refuses to take screens into the bedroom, while Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg will check her inbox before bed, but powers off her smartphone entirely while she sleeps.
3. Go Analog Once In A While
We get it. You live in a world surrounded by cars filled with state-of-the art infotainment systems, Bluetooth stereos and in-dash interfaces right out of Star Trek. But that doesn’t mean you can’t save time, prioritize your work week and keep a sharper mind the old-fashioned way: with pen and paper.
As simple as it may sound, unplugging will help you slow down so you can focus and be more thoughtful. In fact, it’s Sandberg’s go-to productivity hack. Alongside answering email immediately, she uses a spiral notebook for every meeting and jots down her goals between the lines.
“She crosses them off one by one, and once every item on a page is checked, she rips the page off and moves to the next,” according to Fortune. “If every item is done 10 minutes into an hour-long meeting, the meeting is over.”
4. Think On Your Feet, Act On Your Gut
Okay, so it might seem counter-intuitive for we at Fair to ignore the cold, hard data and operate purely on instinct. But when no less than author and social science guru Malcolm Gladwell uses the concept as the cornerstone of his hugely successful book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, well, we’re inclined to listen.
According to Gladwell — who calls the phenomenon “thin slicing” — people possess the power to make unconscious choices almost instantaneously in a given situation on innate ability alone.
He contends this quality is part of human evolution, which has allowed us to survive over time by using our gut to make the right call when we’re under threat or harm.
In the book, Gladwell says this ability ties together groups as different as Wall Street traders and military generals, whose success depends on making hugely consequential choices amid rapidly unfolding situations.
5. Adopt A Sunny Outlook, But Stay Gritty
To be at the top of your game in sales, you have to be obsessed with the customer and high on morale. One life hack intended to help with this is the concept of “buoyancy,” or focusing on maintaining a baseline level of optimism and positivity.
According to author Dan Pink, a former speechwriter for Al Gore, selling has changed more in the last 10 years than in the previous 100. But he said it’s still a good old dose of positivity that ranks as one of the most important traits of a successful salesperson — as effective in getting you over the fear of rejection as it is in eliminating second-guessing and preparing you for your next customer interaction.
“Optimism . . . isn’t a hollow sentiment,” Pink said. “It’s a catalyst that can stir persistence, steady us during challenges, and stoke the confidence that we can influence our surroundings.”
