It’s fantastic to be sharing with you all as we kick off this last month of 2021. It is the season of giving and I had the opportunity last Wednesday to share with 130 of our associates who were on our live monthly training call about how important this season of giving is in all areas of our life.
We had a solid November and welcomed our new associates and dealerships into CMA, supporting them in working through all of the challenges that come with transitioning the ownership of an automotive group. I couldn’t be more proud of the team in Winchester and Martinsburg for posting strong results, even with many, many bumps in the road. I won’t go into all of those challenges. Many of you have gone through something similar when we’ve brought in other dealerships to CMA, but never a group all at the same time!
As a group, we sold every new vehicle that we could. Our inbound sold orders continue to be strong. However, our used vehicle sales were disappointing and, for once, it was not due to lack of inventory. We started the month with 740 used vehicles on the ground, which is one of our highest numbers, yet we sold fewer than 500 used cars when we don’t include the new dealerships. Consistently adjusting our pricing to the market, shifting our focus on the sales floor and in our digital showroom to highlighting our used inventory, ensuring that our used vehicles are getting quickly through the shop (less than 5 days to front line), these and more are the activities that will affect our success in December.
In our Fixed Operations departments, we left some opportunity on the table with a lot of backed-up work in our shops. Our parts departments again stole the show and several of our parts departments had all time record months! And the body shop in Williamsburg had a fantastic month!
A few specific highlights for the month include:
- CMA’s Valley Honda was #1 in the nation in sales CSI with a 100%! CMA’s Honda of Winchester also finished with a 100% in their first month with CMA. CMA’s Williamsburg Ford finished #1 in the region in service CSI! CMA’s Valley Subaru finished with 100% Net promoter score for the second month in a row and Williamsburg Ford also finished with a 5 two months in a row. And finally Volvo of Cville finished with 100% in both sales and service.
- CMA’s Colonial Auto Center and Nissan finished #1 in CMA for total used vehicle volume!
- CMA’s Colonial Kia finished #1 in Richmond for new Kias!
- So many parts records this month in Staunton! CMA’s Valley Honda, CDJR, VW, and Subaru!
- The new dealerships in Martinsburg led the way in F&I – great job to the teams at Toyota/Chevy and CDJR. CMA’s Colonial Honda and CMA’s Colonial Kia also crushed it! And Tyler Warner deserves a special shoutout for setting a personal store record at CMA’s Subaru of Winchester!
- CMA’s Valley VW won the Champions award for their district for the 5th month in a row!
- CMA’s Toyota of Martinsburg finished #1 in the region for percent of objective in new car sales!
Our top sales associates for CMA in November were… drum roll, please… we have a new leader on the board!!
#1 David Boone, CMA’s Toyota/Chevy of Martinsburg, 26 lives moved forward!!!!
Keith Black, CMA’s Colonial Chevrolet, 25.5
Wendy Sparks, CMA’s Colonial Honda, 25.5
Devon Paxton, CMA’s Valley Honda, 25
Gus Alvear, CMA’s Valley Honda, 24
Brian McCaffity, CMA’s Colonial Hyundai, 23
Brett West, CMA’s Valley Honda, 23
Da’Shawn Herring, CMA’s Colonial Chevrolet, 22
Jerry Robinson, CMA’s Valley Honda, 22
Breanna Kesecker, CMA’s Toyota/Chevy of Mburg, 21
Tim Hansbrough, CMA’s Valley CDJR, 21
Mathew Peters, CMA’s Toyota/Chevy of Mburg, 20
Rod Boothes, CMA’s Colonial Kia, 19
Ryan Barrow, CMA’s Toyota/Chevy of Mburg, 19
I wanted to let you know how much I am looking forward to celebrating with our Myers’ Flyers at the end of this year. We have been a bit short-handed at CMA and have not been able to get out updated standings lately, but you know who you are. You know if you are tracking to be recognized this year so I encourage you to push for a strong finish in December. We will be celebrating with the winners from 2020 and 2021 all together in February for a night of fun, celebration, and recognition. We also have some exciting news coming with a new platform for Myers’ Flyers in 2022 that will allow you to always know where you stand and have small competitions throughout the year leading up to big year-end winners!
Now, for December, as I said in the beginning, it is the season of giving and there are three ways that I challenge our team to give this month.
First, let’s give to each other. The best way to give to each other is to take time every single day to thank, highlight or recognize one of your fellow team members, especially those who may not often get recognized or who quietly behind the scenes support the rest of us daily. If every CMA associate thanks or recognizes one fellow associate every day of December, the joy in the air will fill hearts and bring smiles to our team in a very important month of the year.
The second way that we can give this month is to our customers. Give them the gift of your full attention and then some. Truly listen and give an extra show of how much you care. A friend of mine who is on the vendor side of the business shared a story of how when he dropped off his car for service at a local dealership, the porter looked him in the eye and said “I’m going to take great care of your car for you today”. It was such a small moment but the eye contact and that extra comment made him have full confidence that he had selected the right dealership with which to do business with. I challenge you to find that extra moment with every customer every day this month.
And finally, the third way that I challenge us to give is to our families. This is a season when we all want to spend time with our families, those visiting us, the kids who are out of school, and those who live far away. We know that we still have a job to do during this season so the gift I ask you to give your families is to be completely focused and working intentionally when you are at work. Do not waste time here. Give it your all and make every work moment count so that you can best serve your family when you are away. Take stock in the activities that you need to do to have a successful month and put yourself to work.
Let’s give our all this month and finish out a great year with a lot of pride, joy and giving!
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