Sales Manager 101: How to Avoid Getting Fired?

Not that long ago, I promoted somebody into a management position, and they asked me a question I had never been asked before, and that question was, “How do I avoid getting fired like the last guy?”

For all of you who are new to sales management in the car business, I’m going to try to answer a question for you: “How do I avoid getting fired?”

In the car business, really there are two ways people typically lose their jobs.

In the car business, really there are two ways that people typically lose their job.

The first way is if they’re new to a position or new to the business and they’re just no freaking good at it. So, sometime in their probationary period, they’re gone. That happens all the time because it is difficult sometimes to find quality people.

The other reason people get terminated from positions really does boil down to something simple. You may look at it as a really complicated issue. Like, I mean, how many things can somebody literally do wrong in the car business? Well, you can continually piss off customers, you can continually piss off managers, you can commit fraud, you can steal, you can lie, you can be late all the time… There’s a bunch of things that you can do that ultimately will cost you your job, but they all boil down to basically one thing.

I’m gonna tell you what that is: it’s caring about the business.

What does that mean to care about the business? Well, what it doesn’t mean is just kind of throwing a temper tantrum or yelling and screaming every time something goes wrong. That doesn’t actually show you care about the business. That just shows you can’t control your temper.

Caring about the business means that the decisions you’re making in whatever capacity you are in that dealership are based on what’s right for the business. Showing up late or one minute before your shift every single day looking like you were up half the night…is that good for the business? Probably not. So that act shows you don’t care about the business.

Caring about the business means that the decisions you’re making are based on what’s right for the business.

How about taking your sales staff out for regular smoke breaks? Or maybe you’re taking them out for half the night drinking in the bars, bringing them into the store hungover. Now, is that good for the business? No, probably not good for the business, right? So, that act also demonstrates you don’t care about the business.

So, in your position, whether you’re a salesperson new to the business, a sales manager, or you’re getting promoted to a new management position, you’d better start by aligning your activities and your decision process with what’s best for the business. And then that will demonstrate that you actually care.

So, good luck in your new career, and make it happen!