Dealer Leadership

Jason Rigby

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Dealer Leadership — sales training, dealership operations, and margin discipline for franchised dealers, general managers, GSMs, and internet directors. Short episodes covering CRM truth, vendor accountability, lead leakage, appointment process, BDC follow-up, and how dealerships get lean without losing sales. Hosted by Jason Rigby, a dealership operator with decades inside sales, internet, and store leadership.

Oct 24

When Does a Tool Stop Being a Tool?

A customer can buy elsewhere because you don't have the vehicle they need. They can also buy elsewhere because they asked for a price three times and never got one. Both deals get the same CRM entry: "Bought elsewhere." Accurate — and almost useless. This episode walks through the free one-sheet check that finds out whether a tool is still helping you run the dealership, or quietly running it. In this episode of Dealer Leadership, Jason Rigby walks through Is This Tool Helping Us Do the Job?, a free worksheet for GMs. Use one sheet per tool: ask the people who use it, watch one task all the way through the handoff, sort what you found, and leave the vendor call with a written commitment and a recheck date. What's on the sheet: Ask the people using it — what it makes easier, where they get stuck, what they keep in Excel or on paper and why, what they don't trust, where they enter the same information twice Watch one task from start to finish — a staff member does the job while you watch, including the handoff to the next person or department Review the answers, then book the vendor call — training, wrong or missing info, systems not talking, or can it do the job? Leave the call with a commitment — agreed fix, owner, due date, included in the price or extra, and the date you repeat the task In this episode: Why "bought elsewhere" can be accurate and still hide the whole story The Excel sheet your salespeople keep next to the CRM you're paying for — and the one question that turns it into something you can fix Why splitting information between spreadsheets and the CRM makes the CRM less trustworthy, which gives people another reason to work outside it What it costs when employees become the connection between ten tools that don't talk to each other Why another training session won't make missing information appear The vendor call done right: your staff does the real task while the vendor watches — no feature tour Why AI on top of a broken tool just produces confident follow-up from incomplete history DOWNLOAD THE FREE WORKSHEET (2-page PDF): https://dealerleadership.com/worksheets/gm-tool-check.pdf Print one sheet per tool. Run it with the people who use the tool every day, and repeat the same task with staff before calling anything fixed. More free worksheets for dealership leaders: https://dealerleadership.com/resources/worksheets Bring one tool, process, or number that's stuck to a free 30-minute Leak Finder Session: https://dealerleadership.com Jason Rigby — Dealer Leadership jason@dealerleadership.com
Oct 17

Why Your Salespeople Stay Stuck (It's Not the Advice)

You've told them what to do three times. They can recite it back to you. And in the moment, they do the same thing they've always done. They're not lazy — they're protected. This episode walks through the free worksheet that finds out what's actually holding them in place. In this episode of Dealer Leadership, Jason Rigby walks through Why You Stay Stuck, a free worksheet for salespeople who know what to do and keep not doing it. Run it in a one-on-one: the salesperson names the moment they keep mishandling, figures out what their usual response is protecting them from, picks one small replacement, rehearses it, and tracks three real tries. What's on the sheet: Start with what's working — what they already do well with customers Pick the moment — one recent customer moment they keep handling the same way What the old way does for them — the no they avoid, the pride they protect, the hope they keep down Which one is it, really? — they avoided it, the words weren't there, they never learned how, or they tried and it went badly The different response — one sentence, one question, one call, small enough to survive Practice it before they need it — out loud, with a partner, the awkward part twice Three tries — track what happened and what they learned The support that would actually help — and a review date with their coach In this episode: Why repeating the same advice louder is not coaching The four things a stuck habit protects a salesperson from — including the one nobody talks about: hope Four kinds of stuck, four different fixes — and why treating all of them as attitude loses three out of four Why a veteran resists practicing a basic question, and how to make the step small enough that their pride survives it The question to ask before you give the same advice again: "What makes your usual response easier in that moment — and what would help you try something different?" DOWNLOAD THE FREE WORKSHEET (3-page PDF): https://dealerleadership.com/worksheets/why-you-stay-stuck.pdf Print pages 1–2 for the salesperson. Page 3 is the coaching page — directions for the manager running it. Keep that one. Nothing on the sheet gets scored or filed. More free worksheets for dealership leaders: https://dealerleadership.com/resources/worksheets THE BOOK BEHIND THIS EPISODE: The thinking under this worksheet comes from How We Change by Ross Ellenhorn — why people stay the same even when staying the same is hurting them. Not a car book. It'll change how you coach anyway. Get it here: https://amzn.to/47myrcv (As an Amazon Associate, Dealer Leadership earns from qualifying purchases — no extra cost to you.) Bring one stuck person, process, or number to a free 30-minute Leak Finder Session: https://dealerleadership.com Jason Rigby — Dealer Leadership jason@dealerleadership.com
Oct 15

Is Your Manager Coaching — or Just Managing? A 10-Point Self-Check for GMs and Owners

Your managers are either coaching your floor up or managing it into a ceiling. This 10-point self-check tells you which — before your next 1:1. In this episode of Dealer Leadership, Jason Rigby walks through the Manager Self-Check, a free worksheet for dealership owners and GMs. Your manager rates himself on ten practices — Strong, Getting There, or Needs Work — and then you talk about the ones he marked Needs Work. No scores get posted. Nothing goes in a file. It's a coaching conversation, not a ranking. The ten practices: Coaches people, not just manages them Gives the team clear direction every week Lets people make decisions Communicates so people actually hear it Owns the numbers that matter Talks about how people are doing and where they can go Stays open to better ways Works with the other departments Improves the process Recognizes good work in front of the team In this episode: li]:relative [&>li]:ps-1 [&>li]:before:content-[''] [&>li]:before:absolute [&>li]:before:-start-2 [&>li]:before:top-[0.65em] [&>li]:before:size-[3px] [&>li]:before:rounded-full [&>li]:before:bg-current"> Why "sell more cars" is not direction — and what real weekly direction sounds like The difference between a manager who owns the result and a manager who explains the result Why "that's how we've always done it" kills more deals than a bad CSI score How one manager touching every decision turns himself into the bottleneck The 20-second huddle habit that gets good work repeated DOWNLOAD THE FREE MANAGER SELF-CHECK (3-page PDF): https://dealerleadership.com/worksheets/manager-self-check.pdf Print it, keep page 3 — that's your directions page, the manager never sees it — and hand pages 1–2 to your manager before your next 1:1. Have him rate himself, talk through the Needs Work items, and ask what support would actually help. Revisit in 30 days. More free worksheets for dealership leaders: https://dealerleadership.com/resources/worksheets Bring one stuck person, process, or number to a free 30-minute Leak Finder Session: https://dealerleadership.com Jason Rigby — Dealer Leadership jason@dealerleadership.com
Oct 1

How to Be a Proactive Dealership Sales Manager

Your dealership can keep you busy all day while overdue follow-up, missed coaching, and unfinished promises pile up. In this episode of Dealer Leadership, Jason Rigby explains how dealership sales managers can get ahead of the day: review what's behind, choose three priorities, assign owners and deadlines, and schedule one useful coaching conversation. Learn how to catch appointment and delivery problems early, identify what a salesperson actually needs help with, and adjust your plan when the showroom gets busy. Download the free Sales Manager's Daily Game Plan: Get the printable worksheet This one-page, black-and-white daily planner includes review checkboxes, space for priorities and coaching, a midday reset, and an end-of-day handoff. No signup required. Print a fresh copy for your next shift.
Sep 24

Why Dealerships Buy Software Their Teams Don't Use

Dealerships invest in CRM software, automated follow-up, equity-mining tools, and reporting—then the team slips back into the old process. Before replacing a platform, find out whether the software failed or the store never built a process around it. Jason Rigby explains why dealership software goes unused, how unclear ownership and inconsistent manager follow-through undermine adoption, and five questions to answer before buying another tool. He also lays out a practical 30-day test: define the behavior, name the owner, inspect real execution, and connect it to the customer or business result. If the same problem survives multiple vendors, the next fix may be clearer workflow, training, or accountability—not another login. Bring one stuck process to a free 30-minute Leak Finder Session: https://dealerleadership.com
Jul 25

How to Coach Your Sales Staff — Most Managers Are Just Announcing Numbers

Pick anybody on your sales floor and ask them what one thing they're working on this month. If they can't answer it, that's not their grade. It's yours. Most stores think they coach. What they actually do is announce numbers — the Monday meeting where somebody reads last week's units out loud, the walk across the floor, the end-of-month sit-down where a guy finds out he's behind on a number he already knew he was behind on. That's supervision with a friendly tone. Nobody got better. This is the how-to. What coaching actually looks like on a sales floor and in a service drive, and how to run it every week without buying a program. In this episode: The one-sentence standard for coaching you can hold your managers to The five-step sales funnel to coach on, and why each step breaks for a different reason The four numbers to coach a service advisor on — including the declined-work follow-up almost nobody touches Six reasons somebody underperforms, and why only one of them is a character problem The four questions that do more work than any advice you have Where to go learn coaching yourself without signing a training contract The weekly, monthly and daily rhythm — and the three-hour math that decides whether it happens Why the GM has to coach the coaches, and what happens when you take the session over The Monday Morning Test: Name your weakest performer's single biggest funnel gap. Not "he needs more cars" — the actual step where it breaks. What did you ask somebody on your team last week that you didn't already know the answer to? Pick any salesperson or advisor. Can they tell you the one thing they're working on this month? Go ask them. The book I mentioned in this episode: https://amzn.to/3RSWjjG FREE 30 MINUTES Bring me one person — one salesperson or one advisor who isn't producing. We'll find the gap and build the coaching plan for that one person together, and you can go run it Monday. No pitch, no deck. Email me: jason@dealerleadership.com Jason Call or text: 505-551-9832 jason@dealerleadership.com dealerleadership.com
May 24

Why Your Close Rate Is Stuck (It's Not Your Skills)

Most car salespeople blame a lost deal on the manager, the desk, the lead, or the customer. This episode is about the one place nobody looks — themselves. Jason breaks down the single biggest reason salespeople don't make the money they should: a subconscious ceiling built long before they ever walked onto a sales floor. Studies show salespeople with high emotional self-awareness close at rates 50% higher than everyone else. This episode explains why — and what to do about it. In this episode: Why silence feels like rejection to some salespeople — and what that costs them at the desk How childhood patterns show up as close rate on the floor today The real income ceiling you set — not your manager, not your goal sheet Three self-awareness questions to run before your next shift This is the piece no OEM training covers. No word track fixes it. The work is internal. For dealers and GMs: if you're watching this play out on your floor, visit dealerleadership.com for a free 20-minute dealer bloat audit.

7 Episodes

Dealer Leadership — sales training, dealership operations, and margin discipline for franchised dealers, general managers, GSMs, and internet directors. Short episodes covering CRM truth, vendor accountability, lead leakage, appointment process, BDC follow-up, and how dealerships get lean without losing sales. Hosted by Jason Rigby, a dealership operator with decades inside sales, internet, and store leadership.

Creator

Jason Rigby
Years Active

2026
Episodes

7
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© 2026
Show Website

Dealer Leadership