🚒 “If you have an Expense problem, the first thing to look at is your Sales” – Bob Atwood – NADA Instructor. 🥸
🏫 When I was at NADA, Bob taught the first thing to look at when you have an expense problem, is to look at your revenue first.
This is something I’ve done with any dept, or store I’ve ever taken over. It’s easy to whack expenses. But those expenses were there for a reason, for the most part. Anyone can cut up expenses.
✂️ But there are a few things to note, when you just cut expenses; ✂️
📉 a. You can’t grow by shrinking.
🪓 b. You put more strain on the staff to do more with less (resources/staff). Everything starts to fall apart from here.
💣 c. You take the easy way out. Grow, don’t shrink.
🪃 d. The real opportunity is in growing your revenue, not by cutting expenses.
🔍 e. The expenses are/were there for a reason. But now your revenue doesn’t match it anymore (ie. revenue has shrunk).
🗡️ f. If you’re not the first manager to take over to fix a problematic dept, this isn’t the first time the expenses have been whacked. So, you might be over-tightening your expenses.
Now that I’ve become really good at finding revenue and growing a dept/dealer, expenses generally are the last thing I have to look at. Everyone, and many layers of management look at expenses, and can/do cut them. But it takes a skilled department manager to really dial up the revenue, and fast, to offset the current expenses and grow the department.
I’ve shared in many of my prior posts on how to grow your fixed operations departments quickly. For me, the last thing you need to do, is cut expenses, and change pay plans.
Find and optimize your revenue – and the expenses take care of themselves. Especially if you can really focus your energy on growth, and get good at executing.
📌 Sales cures all – that goes for expenses too. 📌
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