In last week’s article, we took a look at one of the reasons you may not be hitting your goals: yourself. Although it may be hard to admit, sometimes you are the problem. Assuming that you're not the issue, then we must focus on what is really going on. As previously stated, the reason could be one or more of these factors: environment, people, materials, equipment, methods or measurements. This week, we will look at environmental reasons why you may be struggling to hit your goals.
Environment is defined as: the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates. Here are a few examples of how your environment may be keeping you from reaching your goals. Don’t forget, our primary goal is to sell cars. As we look at some reasons, we may also look at solutions for both the employee (e) and the owner (o).
- Office space: do you work in a cubicle and the noise is distracting?
- Solution: As an employee you may no control over this. Try wearing headphones, so you are not distracted by office noises.
- Your work space is messy
- Solution: This issue is both environment and you getting in your own way. Clean your space up, set reminders to clean up your work space daily. Don’t be a slob.
- The car dealership is located on the “bad” side of town
- Solution: (e) As an employee, there is nothing you can do about the location of the dealership. You can accept this fact and work harder to sell cars or you can leave this job and go to another one that is in a better neighborhood.
- Solution: (o) As the owner, you may be okay with location. There are a lot of factors to think about when opening up a dealership and location is one of them. Maybe, the primary reason for that location was the cost of the property or maybe your target market lives in that area. Perhaps, over time the neighborhood has worsened. Then it may make sense to move locations.
- The temperature in the office is too cold or too hot
- Solution: Wear different clothes. You are using this as an excuse for not being successful. Get over it.
- It is always raining, making it hard to sell cars
- Solution: (e) People buy cars in the rain, you just may have to be more creative. Maybe focus more efforts in the area of online sales.
- Solution: As an owner, maybe you build a larger showroom so that customers can shop inside and only have to go for the test drive.
- The city has decided to widen the road in front of the dealership
- Solution: (e) This is another good time to focus on internet sales and word of mouth. Or, call your past customers to see if they are ready to buy again. Get creative, this construction won’t always be there.
- Solution: (o) This will no doubt slow down sales and make it more challenging for customers to get to you. Depending on how long this construction lasts, you may have to look at other ways to get customers into your facility. Perhaps an increase in the advertising budget will let people know you are still open and still there to make them the best deal. As the owner, you may also have to reevaluate the goals set for the salesmen.
- There is a new mega dealership that just moved in down the road from your dealership.
- Solution: (e) This is another great time to get creative. Go check out the competition and identify areas you can distinguish yourself from the "big dealership."
- Solution: (o) As the owner, increased completion in the area could spell disaster. It will be important to focus on what makes your dealership better than the mega lot.
It is important to keep in mind, some of these factors cannot be changed. As an employee, you will have to work harder to overcome. Sometimes things happen that are out of your control. When this happens, you have to look for other ways to get the job done. Meet with your boss to see if the goal needs to be reworked, increased, decreased or eliminated. It may no longer make sense to try and reach the original outcome. As we go through this series, you see that some of the reasons you are not hitting your goals are related to environment; however, people can be a challenge as well. The noise being created in your cubicle is caused by people and we will look at that issue next.