Game Plan Chapter 1
When our process goes in, financial performance doesn’t just improve — it transforms.
The shift in net profit is clear and measurable, and I have the financial statements to prove it.
Monthly Net Profit — Before Implementation
- JUN: $ −10,268
- JUL: $ 33,002
- AUG: $ 32,809
- SEP: $ 34,049
- OCT: $ 24,734
Monthly Net Profit — After Implementation
- NOV: $ 227,437
- DEC: $ 276,547
- JAN: $ 250,942
- FEB: $ 311,016
- MAR: $ 239,204
- APR: $ 221,572
- MAY: $ 235,795
Average Monthly Net Profit jumped from $ 22,865 before the process to $ 251,788 after — an 11× increase.
Peak months rose from $ 34,049 to $ 311,016 — more than 9× higher.
What’s Behind the Numbers
The surge in net profit didn’t happen by accident — it’s the direct result of disciplined execution and a unified process. Here’s what drives it:
Process Discipline → On-time standards, daily huddles, and one-on-one sales associate and manager engagement throughout the day.
We train, guide, and lead from the front — everyone gets better every day.
Relentless Phone Execution → Every opportunity is pursued without stopping — from kickoff until the game is over.
Manager Leadership → Sales and finance operate as one unit, driving set manager-confirmed appointments, shows, and deals with total alignment.
PVR Optimization → Both front- and back-end gross are consistently maximized through structure and accountability.
And together, that’s when they get more aggressive — driving growth that compounds month after month.
FROM 30K TO 300K: TURNING OPPORTUNITIES INTO PROFIT
We get these types of dramatic, fast turnarounds in net profitability because we go after every opportunity — not just the obvious ones.
STEP 1: RECOGNIZE THE TRUE SCOPE OF OPPORTUNITY
Opportunities come in all forms. Some raise their hands and tell us directly they’re ready to do business — the internet lead, the phone-up, the walk-in. Those are the easy ones.
But there’s another kind of opportunity most stores overlook — the customer already in your ecosystem who isn’t signaling intent. The service guest who’s spending money today, driving your product, trusting your brand. They may not say they want to buy a vehicle, but they’re halfway there. They just need to be engaged.
Those are “hand-raisers,” just higher in the funnel.
However, the biggest opportunities — the ones that create the real breakthroughs — come from going after the people who aren’t raising their hands. That’s where the growth lives.
The first level of opportunity is farming — taking care of what’s coming in. The second level is hunting — going after what’s still out there.
And I’m a hunter.
If you want to take your store from a $30,000-a-month net to a $300,000-a-month net, or from $100,000 to $1,000,000, you can’t just farm. You’ve got to hunt — aggressively, consistently, and with precision.
THE NUMBERS BEHIND THE HUNT
To make that transformation, we have to aggressively market our CRM and DMS on a daily basis. That means every associate in the variable department — sales associates, finance managers, sales managers, GSMs, everyone — needs to have a specific set of data they’ll pursue every day.
If your team only farms, you’ll maintain and get your fair share.
If your team hunts, you’ll get your unfair share — you’ll dominate.
MORNING: PREPARATION & TARGETING (BEFORE THE DOORS OPEN)
Be early. Champions don’t clock in at open; they’re already in position.
Review yesterday’s metrics — appointments set, shows, sold, missed.
Pull your lists. Every associate should start the day with:
- Unsold showroom visits
- Internet leads older than 48 hours
- Service customers with trades three years or older
- Orphan owners (no assigned salesperson)
Set daily targets: how many contacts, how many appointments, how many confirmations.
LEADERSHIP’S ROLE
It starts with the leadership team. Every morning, every associate must have a plan for the day and enough opportunities to keep them working 55 minutes of every hour.
If you watched your team for a 10-hour day with a stopwatch, how many would you actually catch working? Maybe one in ten. Most of the time, you’d find them staring at screens, debating why someone won’t buy, or talking about what they had for dinner instead of calling the next lead.
The fix? Structure. Accountability. Leadership from the top down.
Each associate should have 150 opportunities to pursue daily.
Let’s do the math:
- 12 sales associates
- 3 sales managers
- 2 finance managers
- 1 GSM and 1 GM
That’s 19 variable ops associates total.
At 150 targets each, that’s 2,700 opportunities per day.
Even if we only connect with 10% (270 people), that’s 270 conversations that didn’t exist yesterday — and every one of them is a chance to generate appointments, shows, and gross.
That’s how you start to move the needle from 30K to 300K.
MANAGER ENGAGEMENT: LEADERSHIP FROM THE FRONT
To ensure every associate executes at 100%, managers have to be in the trenches — literally.
Sit with your salespeople at their workstations during call sessions.
The associate makes a call, then the manager makes a call.
Repeat.
That rhythm builds confidence and resilience. Associates learn that rejection is normal — five or ten voicemails in a row isn’t failure; it’s part of the grind that produces success.
Managers should spend nine of their ten hours on the floor, not hiding behind an office door.
They should only step away to desk a deal or handle something mission-critical. Administrative work? Hire it out or batch it at open and close.
Managers are your best converters. Their job isn’t paperwork — it’s production.
When an associate gets a customer on the phone, a manager should take a live T.O. — 100% of the time.
Because every customer deserves a Manager T.O.
Your multi-million-dollar operation deserves a live Manager T.O. on every opportunity.
Whether it’s a phone-up, internet lead, or service guest, they’re all opportunities in motion — and all of them require leadership engagement.
CRM EXECUTION: EVERYBODY LEAVES FINGERPRINTS
The CRM is your playbook, your scoreboard, and your accountability system — but only if everyone uses it correctly.
Every associate should leave a note — a fingerprint — for every contact attempt or customer conversation.
Managers must do the same.
When you review daily activity, you should see manager fingerprints on inbound calls, internet leads, and follow-up records.
If there’s no fingerprint, there’s no accountability.
Managers must also track:
- Total dials made
- Average call length
- Recordings for spot-checking
As a GM, you should be listening to those calls.
Verify your people are actually talking to customers — not just dialing and hanging up.
Accountability isn’t micromanagement. It’s protecting your profit.
EVERYBODY WATCHES EVERYBODY
There’s a great line from Casino, when Robert De Niro’s character, Ace Rothstein, says:
“In Vegas, everybody’s gotta watch everybody else.
The players watch the dealers.
The dealers watch the players.
The box men watch the dealers.
The floor men watch the box men.
The pit bosses watch the floor men.
The shift bosses watch the pit bosses.
The casino manager watches the shift bosses.
I’m watching the casino manager.
And the eye in the sky is watching us all.”
That’s accountability — real-time, top-down, no excuses.
In a casino, dollars vanish if no one’s watching.
In a dealership, it’s no different — except the money doesn’t vanish quietly; it explodes through the fingertips of anyone not paying attention.
High-performance stores run the same way — everybody watches everybody.
But it’s not just about watching people; it’s about watching the process — verifying that it’s being executed exactly as designed, every single time.
Sales associates lead the clients.
Sales managers lead the associates.
The GSM leads the managers.
The GM leads it all.
When the process isn’t inspected, it isn’t followed — and when it isn’t followed, profit leaks.
Every missed step, skipped call, or un-TO’d customer is your money — and your customer — going across the street forever.
ACCOUNTABILITY = EXECUTION
In a high-performing dealership, everyone knows their role, everyone’s accountable, and every part of the process is tracked and verified — not out of distrust, but out of discipline.
Accountability isn’t about catching mistakes.
It’s about verifying execution, owning the process, and keeping the money in the building.
Accountability leads to execution. Execution leads to profit.
WHY IT’S HARDCORE
If this sounds hardcore — that’s because it is.
The road to domination isn’t smooth.
Doubling your variable gross or 10×-ing your net takes discipline, sacrifice, and an obsession with execution.
But I’m just scratching the surface here.
Call me when you’re ready to talk about how to get these kinds of results for your store.
