From the Desk of Terry Minor, CEO

It’s one thing to be able to rise to #1 in the ranks, which you guys have done. In 2018, we all witnessed the recognitions, walk around winners, dealership of the year, sustainable energy award, plus others from every discipline in the company. But, the question of the day is “how do we not only stay on top, but improve?”

Mark Zuckerberg has a famous quote, “If we don’t kill Facebook, someone else will.” This is an interesting approach as we think about our business. Is it realistic to think that if we stand still and try not to break anything that we can duplicate our results? I don’t think so. In fact, I think we are the best choice for our customers only until there is something better.

Our competition is actively trying to show they are better. So, what makes us different? Where will we need to change?

The illustration below is telling, and it is true in most organizations, according to a recent study. It says that only 30% of the organization is actively engaged in the business, 50% are indifferent to strategy and 20% are actively disengaged or better said, working against you from within.

If we had 100% of our people actively engaged in our strategy we would win all of the business out there and we would keep it! Everything we do on a daily basis should start with, “How does this affect the customer?”  If there is a better way to answer this question, use the suggestion boxes, that is what they are there for!

My second thought around what it will take for us to continue to be #1 is to CHANGE.

The biggest question in today’s business world is not are we changing to meet customer demands, but are we changing fast enough and does our rate of change increase with each change event. It must!

Think how fast things have changed already, I remember making sales calls with zero technology. (Not that long ago I would pull out the Rand McNally, (a map) plan a route, use a phone at my desk and schedule a call). Then!

• Got a fax,
• Got a Garmin,
• Got a Strata cell phone,
• Got rid of beeper,
• Got a Blackberry,
• Got a laptop,
• Got a smartphone,
• Got rid of Garmin,
• Stopped taking laptop… etc.

You see how fast it changed! Who stayed in business and went out of business because they didn’t change?  Garmin, Blackberry, definitely went backwards.

Think about our business, do you think it is going to look the same five years from today? Whatever it looks like, it requires everyone on our “tug-of-war” rope to be actively engaged and pulling in the same direction. Our customers expect this of us and the better we are, the more sustainable our business model will be.  One thing I can guarantee you in 2019, we will change some things and we will look to the whole team for active engagement and focus on how to improve the customer experience.