You Don't Have to Be Good at Everything

I have a PHD, but not the kind you hang on the wall.

Mine stands for Papa Had a Dealership.

I grew up in this business, and like most sons who grow up working for their dad, I got plenty of advice I didn’t fully appreciate at the time. Funny how that works. The older I get, the smarter my dad gets.

One thing he told me years ago has always stuck with me: “You don’t have to be good at everything. You just have to hire people who are.”

That sounds simple, but it isn’t.

One of the biggest things holding back independent dealers is our belief that because we own the place, we’re supposed to know how to do everything in it.

We’re not.

I’ve been in the car business full-time for 35 years, and I can promise you there are people at Frank Myers Auto Maxx who are much better at their jobs than I would ever be.

Thank God. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

I can sell a car. I can market. I understand branding.

I love creating promotions, studying the customer experience, and figuring out how to make people remember us.

But put me in the accounting office all day and everybody is going to have a bad time.

Hand me a wrench and tell me to diagnose an electrical problem? You’d better have a fire extinguisher nearby.

There are plenty of things I CAN do.

That doesn’t mean I SHOULD be doing them.

When Being Resourceful Becomes a Trap
Dealers are some of the most resourceful people I know. We’re problem solvers by nature.

Something breaks, we figure it out. Someone calls in sick, we cover their job. Sales are down, we start changing things.

That resourcefulness is one of our greatest strengths, but eventually we can start wearing the fact that we “do everything” like a badge of honor.

I’ve met dealers making millions a year who still approve every Facebook post.

Owners who personally desk every deal. Dealers spending hours trying to save $200 on something somebody else could handle while ignoring a problem that could cost them $20,000.

That isn’t always being hands-on.

Sometimes it is simply refusing to let go.

I understand why. Your name may be on the building. Your money is certainly on the line. Nobody will ever care about your business exactly the way you do.

But if your dealership can only function properly when you are involved in every decision, you haven’t built a business.

You’ve built yourself a job with a really big overhead.

That realization changed the way I looked at leadership.

My job isn’t to be the smartest person in every department at Frank Myers Auto Maxx. My job is to make sure we have smart people in those departments, give them the tools they need, make sure they understand where we’re going, and then get out of their way enough to let them do what we hired them to do.

That last part can be difficult for entrepreneurs because we like control. We also have a terrible habit of hiring somebody because they know something we don’t — and then telling them exactly how to do it.

Think about that for a minute.

If you hire an expert and then ignore their expertise, you didn’t hire an expert. You hired an expensive set of hands.

Ask a Better Question
Over the years, I’ve learned to ask myself a pretty simple question:

“Am I the best person to be doing this?”

Not, “Can I do it?”

Of course I can probably do it.

The real question is whether doing it is the best use of my time and whether somebody else can do it better.

Your dealership needs your highest-value contribution.

Maybe you’re phenomenal at buying cars. Great. Buy cars.

Maybe you’re a natural leader and your people perform better when you’re coaching them. Spend more time with your people.

Maybe you can sit across from a customer and save a deal nobody else can save. Stay close to the sales floor.

And maybe marketing isn’t your thing.

Accounting isn’t your thing.

Compliance definitely isn’t your thing.

Technology makes you want to throw your laptop through the window.

Fine.

Find somebody whose thing it IS.

That person may be an employee. It may be a vendor. It may be a consultant. It may even be another dealer who has already solved the problem you’re wrestling with.

You don’t get bonus points for struggling alone.

One of the most expensive sentences in business is: “I can just do it myself.”

Sure you can.

But what AREN’T you doing while you’re doing that?

Every hour you spend doing a $25-anhour task is an hour you’re not spending on the thing only you, as the dealer, can do. My dad calls it jumping over quarters to pick up nickels.

The goal isn’t to become unnecessary to your dealership.

The goal is to become unnecessary to the things that don’t need you.

There’s freedom in that.

More importantly, there’s growth in it.

My dad understood that long before I did.

You don’t have to be good at everything.

Figure out what you’re unusually good at. Get even better at it. Build your dealership around those strengths.

Then have enough humility to admit where you’re weak.

And enough wisdom to hire people who aren’t.

That may be the most valuable lesson my PHD ever taught me.