I did. I opened my own Real Estate firm and became a licensed Michigan Real Estate Broker. Also started automotive consulting company. Became General Manager of dealership. Still haven't forgotten roots, delivered 3 new myself yesterday.

 

OK, that is fantastic on a personal level.

What does this do for the dealership? Nothing.

 

Brings a wealth of business experience to the enterprise. Visiting other stores exposes me to new ideas, I don't have them all. Ownong my own firm gives perspective toward return on investment and controlling expenses as well as managing people. The dealer is quite pleased so must be doing something right.

 

OK, that's great... I agree with you.

What's to say that a whole slew of executives at General Motors don't bring similar things to the table?

You're still not showing me anything that your dealership is doing to diversify itself from it's core business.... something you are blasting General Motors for getting away from.

 

We are an individually owned independent franchise as opposed to a global conglomerate with thousands of individual and institutional shareholders. One difficulty I see at GM is that MBAs with absolutely no car sales experience are making decisions without the knowledge or experience to properly understand the impact of their direction. They're not bad people, they just don't know the business. To my knowledge, there is no one at the top of GM who has ever sold a car in the retail dealer environment.

 

God help us if we had "Car Salesmen" running GM. That'd be one way to do it I guess...


I sense resentment towards "MBAs"???

 

Education is wonderful, experience is another. No a "car salesman" shouldn't be running GM, but perhaps trying ideas from the more successful ones would be beneficial.

 

I really think you have some decent ideas for the dealership level (and a lot of others say that too...)

BUT... what you just said works in reverse as well.

Some people at GM may not know the details about the sales end of the business, but it's really pretty clear that you, as someone from that sales end, doesn't have near the full picture of what it takes to run the Corporate side of things either.

 

If you owned a business that was in a state of decline and one of your top salesman came to you with a plan to turn it around without investment, wouldn't you at least give it a try?

 

 

Honest answer: no.

Let me qualify that, though.

I would without a doubt listen to him, take his ideas, and discuss them with others in managment, and then run with them if we felt they were viable.

To me, it sounds like you went through all those steps, but they chose not to run with your plan for whatever reason. (Probably the fact that most of this stuff, good or bad, is dealership level ideas)

I seriously doubt they have a personal vendeta against you (well, maybe until you made it personal, especially with your display at the shareholders meeting :blah: ) so they must feel that either parts of the plan, or the plan as whole is not the direction for them to go with.

I think you just need to accept that, and/or go back to the drawing board, and revise your plan, instead of blowing off every person who has valid counterpoints.

 

The first twenty are mostly dealer level, true. Many others go beyond. The shareholders meeting is exactly that. I was perfectly within my rights to express my opinion, disappointment, and call for resignation. Personally I don't feel I've "blown" anyone off. I've engaged hundreds of individuals in discussion as to The Plan, made refinements after considering the advice of others. Management is certainly entitled to their decision, it's their neck in the noose. If they turn it around, great. If GM had been rolling along, you'd never have heard from me. It's only after years of decline that I felt it necessary to "get involved".

 

It's hard to discuss or comment on points of a plan that we aren't able to see...

While you may be within your "rights", it's certainly not the classy thing to do. It's not illegal to use racial slurs either... doesn't make it the correct thing to do.... especially if you are trying to WORK WITH those people...

Frankly, you've sidesteps more counterpoints on this board than you have addressed.

While that may very well be true, it's hard to see that by the way you've conducted yourself here.

All very true.

 

No problem addressing any subject, please specify any item and I'll clarify. In truth, the disparities have occurred here. The agreements and earnest arguments have happened via email.

 

You've said this many times, and when anyone restates something, you just deflect it again.

Feel free to go back over the thread and address all the issues that have been ignored or deflected....