I was talking to one of my colleagues a couple of days ago (on 10th of the Month) and he sounded frustrated. I asked him what was up and he said to me “well, End of the Month starts today and my controllers haven’t fixed anything…” Of course, my first reaction was “End of Month STARTS today????” I’m thinking at the 10th, you’re already late submitting…OMG!!! As the terror set in, I began think how many times I’ve seen financial statements not ready until the 15th of the month. I mean, how can any very well educated businessman make any valid financial decisions half way into the next month? That’s like trying to pick the College Football playoff teams without knowing the outcome of their last two games? How can anybody who is on a performance based payplan in the dealership be paid correctly? How can you know if you’re advertising was effective? Likewise, no wonder nothing is getting fixed because, if you’re starting month end on the 10th, best case is you have the statements ready by 15th. Which only gives you 12 business days left (take out weekends staff isn’t there) to fix anything before the month end of this month and the whole process starts all over again. Wow, talk about the classic death spiral huh?
I’ve been there done that. Closed 28 Franchises each month adhering to GAAP standards, for Sonic and a private group – Month End/Month Out in 3 business days. Was I superman? Heck no! what I did do was:
- Communicate well with my staff
- Install a Month End Template/Process we stuck to (adjusted as needed, but stuck to)
- begin the process of next month end on day 5 of the month
- Delegate properly
- Communicate well with my staff
- Became proactive during month to compensate for areas of weakness
- Anticipate the questions that different GMs would be asking me about their statements
- Communicate well with my staff
- Have fun! Working long nights over tedious numbers can bring morale down quick
- Cross trained my people to level out workload (i.e. the Title Clerk stripped deals for the Biller during month end and after Month End, the Biller helped the Title Clerk)
- Did I mention that I communicated well with my staff…?
Now, did all of this happen magically over night? Again, HECK NO! Did we have to do a lot of heavy lifting to get efficient? Yes. Did it take several months, upgrading our staff in certain areas? Yes. Was it worth it? HECK YES! Ok, so yes I’ve been on a rant here, but what’s the point? Start fixing it! Pick an area of concern in your office and fix it THIS month! Get a win in your column. Don’t pick the biggest concern in your office that will take a couple of months to fix, but fix something you can get fixed in a month and keep it fixed. Then, next month, fix another. Then, tackle that big problem and get it fixed once and for all.
April 12, 2017 