Sean McLaughlin is the owner of Craig Taylor Equipment, a $100m revenue equipment dealer in Alaska for John Deere, Bobcat, Peterbilt, Develon and many other brands. He is also the founder and CEO of Flyntlok, a modern cloud-based dealer management system.
A recent article in AED Magazine titled “Investing in Technical Education: A Strategic Imperative for Equipment Dealers” by Chairman John Shearer pleaded with equipment dealers to focus on employee education as a “grow your own” strategy to improve dealer performance. In plain English, to run a great dealership you need great people and to keep great people, you need to invest in them via training.
This is great business advice germane to any business segment. But, in the case of our vertical, one key fact was left unmentioned; we want the best people to work for us and yet for the most part, we equip them with antiquated tech tools. In reading Shearer, I was left with the mind-picture of a young, bright employee entering the dealership world on their first day only to find dealer management systems built in an era before they were born.
“I signed up for this?”
“This is what my dealership thinks I need to excel at my work?”
It reminded me of a scary night a couple years ago on a remote stretch of Alaskan highway. Loaded down with my wife, the kids, a dog and provisions for a week, we were driving in my favorite car, a Ford Excursion, to our remote cabin. You feel like a boss driving an Excursion down the highway (mine was diesel with studded tires – roar! Click-click-click). It was lightly snowing as we entered a mountain pass with no cell service. The whole car was asleep as I listened to an audio book.
In the next instant, the road dipped and I was spinning 360’s down the highway finally coming to a stop, wedged into a five-foot snowbank on the opposite side. The passengers were now awake. I turned off the engine and we sat there in the dark and quiet, contemplating our next move. That was not the first time this car had done this to me. What if my wife or one of my kids had been driving this thing? What if there was more traffic on the road? I just kept thinking to myself, my Audi Q7, with its myriad sensors and onboard computer and traction control would not have done this.
Most dealerships run on a totally antiquated and, frankly, pathetic tech stack. Dealer principals have lulled themselves into false confidence by switching server box locations from under their desks to under somebody else’s and calling it cloud. Other dealerships have bolted on addon software for texting, rental, CRM or mobile capabilities in hopes of an inexpensive performance upgrade. But, let’s be honest, folks, the tech inside dealerships is light years behind the tech we experience in our daily lives. For young, intelligent employees, this gap is even more stark.
Addendum to chairman Shearer’s article: To attract and keep great employees, you also need to give them great tech tools. Employees need to feel like they are investing in skill sets that will be valuable in the future; learning esoteric keystroke combinations and arcane processes and work arounds won’t cut it; young employees will find greener tech pastures elsewhere.
Dealers that want to be around tomorrow need to upgrade their tech stack. This is difficult and painful, but it will help attract and retain great employees.
Old tech has few redeeming qualities and, as we have seen recently, could be dangerous. In the dealer world, it definitely does not make you look like a boss.
Since the driver door was wedged closed by snow, I climbed over my wife, got out the car, grabbed a shovel, and started to dig. Before long, a fellow Alaskan came along and helped me pull out the car.
The next week, I sold the Excursion. I don’t put my family in old cars anymore.
