Don't Get Your Dabber Down

My son-in-law, Tom Dillian, and his family have a winery in the rolling Sierra foothills of Northern California. Great family, great wine. (Visit them at http://www.dillianwines.com/) A couple of weeks ago they participated in a wine event that involved all the local vineyards. When I entered their tasting room on a bright Sunday afternoon the place was packed with people enjoying themselves, tasting wine, and most important of all, spending money.

This all made me feel good. It was nice to be in an environment where the public seemed to be spending so freely. As all Car Men know this has been sorely missing from our business lately. Seeing the Dillian winery’s success gave me a little boost in confidence in the future. At least someone is making some money!

Years ago I worked for a sales manager named Pete McKissick. Pete, who has since gone to that great used car lot in the sky, was a great guy. When Pete sensed your attitude was down, maybe you were in a slump or something like that, he would say, “Don’t get your dabber down”. Now I never did figure out exactly what a dabber is, but I understood his meaning: don’t get crapped out.

Getting crapped out is a common Car Man malady. As I have mentioned here in the past, when the buyers go away the idiots still come in. They’re not going to buy a car anyway so the state of the economy means nothing to them. This makes our job harder because people we would blow off in good times are sometimes the only people out there to talk to!

Now the common sales trainer response to this problem is that to remind you that had you been keeping up with your customers both present and past, getting a fresh up is not necessary. If you’ve been doing your job correctly you should be able to prosper even when sales are in the dumps. This, of course, is true. But what’s truer is that most car salesmen don’t do much follow up. That’s the reality, like it or not, amen.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t have the answer to our situation, and I suspect that those who would be tempted to capitalize on the financial crisis and try to sell you a sure-fire plan they claim will work are full of shit. “It is what it is, as they say.”

So what is a guy to do when sales are down? Well, don’t get your dabber down would be my advice. When you approach a customer, take a deep breath and say to yourself, “It’s show time!” and go out there and give them your best shot. Another salesmen saying, “Don’t burn them, turn them.” is a must here. Don’t turn crap, but make sure that if there’s any sign of life at all in that up have someone else talk to them before they leave the lot. And always remember this: “If you don’t go to bat, you’ll never hit a home run.” That doesn’t need any explanation at all.

Pete McKissick had a couple of other sayings. Whenever you checked out for lunch he would say, “Bring me back a six-pack of Cutty”. My favorite saying was one that used to piss me off at the time, but I used it many times as a manager. Whenever you’d ask Pete a question he didn’t want to answer, like how much a trade was worth, he’d say, “How long is a piece of string?”

I for one have a solution. I’m going to open a bottle of Dillian Zinfandel, sit on my front porch and dream of a time when all this is over.


Talk to you later,


David