Mike Townsend is the owner of Townsend Strategies, a sales and leadership training and marketing company that advises independent tire dealerships. To contact Townsend, email him at mike@townsendstrategies.com.
Now more than ever, you need to know if you and your salespeople are “order takers” or “sales makers.” This can be very difficult to tell based on sales and/or profit margin at your store - or virtually any store.
It can be simple to set goals. But there's strategy involved in setting goals that will generate positive results. Here's a hint: good goals aren't good enough.
How do you secure “buy-in” from your employees so you can work together to move your business forward? Modern Tire Dealer columnist Mike Townsend has three tips to secure commitment and prevent “sandbagging.”
Now that you’ve established the right kind of trust with your employees, let’s look at something that you, as a leader, will — at some point — contend with when dealing with subordinates: conflict.
Trust inspires your workers to do their best for your business. As a leader, your first step is to learn exactly what your employees are feeling. And the only way to know their feelings is to build the “right kind” of trust.
“What is the biggest challenge you are facing in 2019?” Most sum it up this way: “People.” We've got five tips to help you find, hire, train and retain employees.
It seems that change is in the air. Merger mania on both the retail and wholesale side continues and many tire retailers feel like they are being surrounded and vulnerable to how others may try to beat them with lower prices, rebates and sales gimmicks.
I met with a multi-store tire retail business owner recently who had no idea what “Customer Experience,” aka CE, meant. When I asked him about customer service, he knew immediately what to say: “Customer service is taking care of your customers,” he passionately proclaimed.