Addiction...
New Car Addiction is a serious problem. Many have beaten this addiction but it's on its way back into our business. New car addiction tends to take total control of the brain's actions and leaves the user in a state of confusion and more often than not broke. CNN reports that hundreds of dealers suffer from new car addiction and have been known to do almost anything to fuel the habit, including increasing their floor plan limits when the drug pushers (your new car franchise) offer them special deals to take more of the drug in order to support this addictive habit.
My concern is that some of you have done a good job with your drug rehab by getting off this "New Car Addiction," but the temptation will be so great to fall off the wagon and begin once again getting high on new cars. I know there are still traces of this drug in your system even though mentally and logically you are trying hard not to go back to your old ways. Your central nervous system still has a craving for the hard stuff that gives you the ego high that is experienced with new car sales.
Some of you have made it to the halfway house and are just about drug free. You are poised and ready to make the most money you have ever made, but it's going to be so hard to hang in there once you start sniffing that new car leather again. If you want to stay drug free then continue your focus on used cars. Used cars will definitely make you stronger when it comes to running those new car drug dealers out the door and down the street.
At the bottom of this article you will find a link to an article shared with me by my good friend John Malishenko, Director of Operations for the Germain Group headquartered in Columbus, OH. To summarize the article, it says that, for many reasons, there is a surge coming in new car sales. Although I'm a used car nut, I tend to believe that very thing. One has to conclude that not only is there some pent up demand out there, but as soon as the domestics figure out what their situation is and the fallout from some of the third tier import franchises takes place, the franchises left standing and/or the government are going to do something to spur new car sales.
I may have this all wrong, but my experience over the years with employees who fail a drug test is that very few of them can ever be rehabilitated. A few do, most don't. It's a day to day thing. So, if you have had the "New Car Drug" habit, it's going to be a day to day thing for you. The temptation will be there to fall back into that addictive "New Car Drug" mode. You've come a long way, you've seen the light and the light is used cars. Don't stumble back into the dark world of addictive "New Car Drug" abuse. That's all I'm gonna say.
Tommy Gibbs
