Can You Spare Any Change?

Many years ago I was a restaurant server putting myself through college. I decided to stop spending my change and to save it instead. A friend was graduating from college in another state the following year, and I wanted to visit. I used only the change I’d saved and was able to pay for everything: plane ticket, rental car, and all my food and beverages. 

We need to move and adapt away from our luddite old-school ways and adapt to today’s evolving technology, and we need to change our negative thinking.

Apparently, we’ve all realized that saving change is good and have been hoarding it. One of the many new quirks from COVID is that retail establishments have signs asking for change or asking people to pay in exact change because of the shortage. I visited a roadside veggie stand recently and misread their sign. It said “We Need Change” but I misread it as “We Need TO Change.” Misreading the sign was actually a good thing because it made me think the sign that I thought I saw would apply to some of us in our industry. 

A lot of people talk about “disruptors” in the industry, and they argue that either our industry needs to change or to continue the way it is. I’ll leave the big brains to that discussion. Instead, I think there are times we personally need to change. We need to move and adapt away from our luddite old-school ways and adapt to today’s evolving technology, and we need to change our negative thinking.

Luddites

Luddites were English workers in the early 1800s who thought the industrial age of textile machinery was threatening their jobs. Today, calling someone a “Luddite” simply means anyone who dislikes new technology. 

We have a lot of Luddites in our industry. What’s interesting to me is that the same people who refuse to properly use a CRM, desking software, electronic menus, or digital signature software are the same people who love to spend time on social media platforms. The difference is that someone telling us to use something is a lot more difficult than when we want to use something. We need to change our ways and embrace all the technology we can. Just like the original Luddites eventually realized, technology didn’t take away jobs, it made them better.

Negative Thinking

One of the biggest things in our lives we need to change is our negative thinking. There are studies that show our attitudes have direct impacts on our outcomes. This includes everything from our health to our relationships down to our PVR. Changing our PVR may seem daunting. We may think the salespeople can’t put a deal jacket together, that sales managers are stripping out everything or waiting to give a good deal to a colleague, that management has expectations too high, or that the PVR status quo is fine. None of those are good thoughts, and all of them need to be changed. 

If someone asks if we can spare some change, we should all say yes. 

Lori Church is an experienced F&I manager, a graduate of the University of Denver s Sturm College of Law, and director of compliance for Holman Automotive.

Read: Stand Tall, Stand Together