Big Sales for Small Cars in February!

 

 

DETROIT (AP) — Many automakers reported strong sales for February as Americans snapped up smaller cars to offset high gas prices. Companies from Ford to Volkswagen reported double-digit increases in U.S. sales last month. Even General Motors, which pulled back on big discounts, eked out a slight gain.

 

The results show that industry is on pace for a third straight year of improving sales after bottoming in 2009 during the financial crisis. Carmakers see several encouraging trends. The average car on U.S. roads is now a record 10.8 years, so there is an increasing need to replace older vehicles.

Credit availability is improving, bringing more people back into the market. Japanese automakers have largely recovered from last year's earthquake and now have more cars to sell. And consumer confidence rose dramatically in February, making people more likely to consider a big-ticket purchase.

Sales were strong in January, and February is looking equally good. After all major car companies report their results Thursday, analysts expect sales of 1.1 million cars and trucks for the month.

Based on those strong results, the consulting firm LMC Automotive predicts sales of 14 million this year, up from an earlier forecast of 13.8 million. Last year's sales reached 12.8 million.

Chrysler's February sales rose 40 percent from a year earlier as it sold nearly 134,000 new cars and trucks. All of its brands showed at least double-digit increases. Chrysler was helped by an easy comparison with last February, when sales were relatively low because many of its revamped models were just arriving in showrooms.

Chrysler's tiny Fiat 500 had its best sales month ever, thanks in part to rising demand for more fuel-efficient cars. But the Ram pickup also saw sales climb 21 percent. Sales of the Chrysler 200 midsize sedan more than quadrupled from a year earlier, while sales of its 300 full-size sedans rose more than five times.

Ford sales rose 14 percent, mostly on demand for the Focus compact car. Focus sales more than doubled to 23,350, making it the best February for the Focus in 12 years. Most of Ford's other cars saw sales declines, in part because the newer Focus pulled sales from them. Ford also saw a 26-percent increase in sales of the F-Series pickup, helped by cash-back deals and other incentives.

Volkswagen sales rose 42 percent, led by the redesigned Passat midsize sedan. And Nissan sales were up 15.5 percent.

Gas prices — which are up 45 cents since Jan. 1 and now average $3.73 per gallon — are causing a pronounced shift to smaller cars.

At GM, sales of the Chevrolet Cruze compact rose 10 percent to top 20,000 for the month, while the new Chevy Sonic subcompact saw its best sales month ever at almost 8,000. The strength of those sales helped General Motors, which was expected to see sales drop, report a 1 percent increase.

Erich Merkle, Ford's top U.S. sales analyst, says small cars made up around 19 percent of industry sales in December. That rose to 21 percent in January and could go as high as 24 percent in February, he said.
Consumers continued to pay higher prices for cars in February, mainly because they're buying well-equipped small cars, according to the TrueCar.com automotive website.

Vehicles sold for an average of $30,605 last month, up almost 7 percent from a year earlier, TrueCar said

Seven Practical Applications of Ethics

According to Timothy Bednarz, an organization and each of its employees, wherever they may be located, must conduct their affairs with uncompromising honesty and integrity. Business ethics are no different than personal ethics, and the same high standard applies to both. As a representative of their company all employees are required to adhere to the highest standard, regardless of local custom.

Everyone is responsible for their own behavior. We live in a culture where responsibility and accountability are minimized, with individuals hiding behind the label of "victim" as an excuse for their actions. There is right and wrong, black and white, but many would prefer to operate in shades of gray. As long as they do not cross the line, they feel that they are fine. As long as no one catches them, their behavior is acceptable.

Individuals operating in shades of gray feel ethics are not as important as the legality of their actions and think the ends justify the means. After all, they work in a results-driven environment and it is the results that matter.

While certain actions might be legal, they may also be unethical and reflect poorly on an organization as well as the individuals responsible for them. If these actions are tolerated and allowed, an organizational culture is created that undermines the customer's confidence in the company, as well as its products and services and ultimately destroys its reputation in the marketplace.

Allowing even a single unethical activity can pull a thread that ultimately unravels the cloth of an organization. Actions have consequences and unethical actions and their consequences can have a rippling effect within a company. If all employees understand this and apply it to their actions and the actions of their colleagues, it will result in a stronger company. Both the company and an employees' ongoing employment within it require compliance to this philosophy.

Ethical behavior cannot be legislated. It is a combination of strong values and the impact of the example set by peers and superiors. To better appreciate ethics, individuals must understand how the following factors interact with each other to impact their actions, behaviors and decisions:

Values
Values are the principles or standards of personal behavior. Most values are shaped early in life by parents, families, friends, teachers and spiritual leaders. As individuals mature, their values can be changed or biased by their experiences and the choices they make in life. Specific examples of sound values include honesty, integrity, trustworthiness, fairness and a sense of justice.

A primary value possessed by most individuals is acknowledging the difference between what is right and what is wrong. How one acts on this knowledge is the core of both value-based and ethical behaviors.

Norms
Norms are the guidelines or guiding values that define behavior in specific situations. Norms governing employee behavior can be formed by organizations, informally created by groups, or established by individual values. Some examples of organizational norms include:

        ·  Every employee is 100% responsible for their behavior.
        ·  Ethics are ethics.
        ·  There is no difference between business and personal ethics.
        ·  Ethics are critically important in both business and in life.
        ·  Employees are expected to act ethically 100% of the time.
        ·  Whether they will be discovered or not, employees must always do the right thing.
        ·  Leadership obligations, which include giving clear direction and teaching fellow employees by example.
        · It is an employee's obligation to keep those they supervise acting ethically.
        · Employees are expected to stop unethical acts, even if they think it will jeopardize their job.
       
Convictions
A conviction is a firmly held belief or opinion and can include one's values, beliefs, corporate values and norms. A company's strong ethical program relies upon employees' uncompromising belief or conviction in "always doing the right thing." This underlying conviction is the foundation for success.

Integrity
Integrity means acting unbiased by self-interest and within the framework of one's values and norms. One of the most generally accepted norms of organizational behavior is that an individual's private interests or desire to benefit personally should not influence how they carry out their responsibilities. An employee is corrupt when he or she damages the company by deriving personal benefits and gains from their decisions and actions.

Choices
Ethics is the collection of values, norms, standards and principles that provides a framework for action. Action requires individuals to make choices. Ethical choices often create personal dilemmas, where decisions may conflict with one's personal values and beliefs. The bottom line in ethical behavior is determined by the individual choices one makes in both their business dealings and in their personal lives.

Ethical choices and decisions are unquestionably difficult to make. Some may impact profitability, employment or even personal relationships. The dilemma often lies in defining "the right thing," which is not always obvious. This often involves determining and weighing the various consequences specific decisions will have on the problem or situation. Ethical decision making is further complicated by all involved parties emotionally arguing their positions. Emotional arguments are subjective and tend to charge the decision making environment. The right choice or "the right thing" will be an objective choice free of emotionalism. Once identified, the decision should be straightforward.

Courage
It takes courage to be ethical in the current cultural environment. Ethical decisions can be unpopular because of their impact on both the company and other employees. They can be stressful because of a fear of retribution or reprisals within the company and from others.

Courage must come from the uncompromising convictions, values and beliefs supported by an organization's ethical philosophies and reinforced by the belief in "always doing the right thing."

Behaviors
Integrity or ethical behavior is guided by each of the factors discussed within this lesson including values, norms, convictions, integrity, choices and courage. None is independent of the others and each supports the others. They are what define your behaviors as either ethical or unethical. Together they provide you with the guidelines that define your behavior.

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Productivity: How Much is Too Much?

Are more productive companies less likely to hire? Is their efficiency a hindrance to job creation?
 
According to the Manufacturing & Distribution Monitor Summer 2011 Report, released by McGladrey, the answer to both those questions is "no." More than half of the respondents to the survey – 58 percent – said they were planning on adding employees to their workforce in the next 12 months.
 

For companies who reported increased productivity over the last 12 months, that percentage was even higher, with 64 percent saying they were planning on hiring.
 
"Backlogs are starting to go up, and companies are reaching the point where they need to start adding bodies," says Karen Kurek, head of McGladrey's National Manufacturing & Distribution practice and author of the report.
 
That said, some companies remain hesitant to hire in the face of resurging economic uncertainty, she says. "For some respondents, hiring is generally seen as a last resort, when production levels can no longer be maintained through overtime and increased workloads on existing employees," Kurek writes.
 
Being aware of the workload limits of your employees is important to maintaining loyalty and worker satisfaction – and according to a MetLife survey earlier this year, employees may be reaching that point. MDM Editor Lindsay Konzak, reporting on that survey, wrote: "While employers may be happy that they were able to do more with less, employees may feel strained. As the economy improves, those employees may be looking for new employment opportunities."
 
Read more about the McGladrey report in the Sept. 10 issue of Modern Distribution Management

Autonomy Enables The Helpful to Perform

Brett Simmons says that if everyone in your organization only did what was written in their formal job descriptions, your business would be mediocre at best. For your business to excel, your workforce from top to bottom needs to be full of good organizational citizens. Good citizens at work go above and beyond their assigned duties to try to help fellow employees and the organization.

Employees help each other by offering advice, lending a hand, resolving conflicts, and celebrating each other’s achievements. Employees that receive trustworthy help from others feel an obligation to reciprocate, which strengthens work relationships. Good citizens in thriving work relationships will be motivated to find ways to perform their tasks more effectively and efficiently. Employees that help each other strengthen the bonds of trust with team members and supervisors, and we know trust has a strong effect on performance.


Unfortunately, good team relationships won’t matter much if employees aren’t given the latitude to improve their jobs. And good team relationships will struggle to develop when employees can’t help each other because they are constrained to “just worry about getting your job done.”

A study by Muammer Ozer recently published in the Journal of Applied Psychology (full citation below) showed how autonomy affected the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and job performance. This study of 266 employees, coworkers, and supervisors showed that citizenship behavior improved work team relationships, and work team relationships had a significant effect on job performance.

Those relationships between citizenship behavior, teamwork, and performance are expected. What’s new here is the importance of autonomy in enabling this virtuous chain of behaviors. The study found that the links to performance were enhanced for those with the most job autonomy. Highly autonomous workers were better citizens, had better team relationships, and were better at translating those team relationships into improved performance.

Because autonomy matters so much to most workers, it matters to your business. Constrain your employees’ ability to help each other and work together to improve their jobs and you will likely also constrain the growth of your business. Help yourself by helping your employees help each other.

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Seven Personality Traits of Top Salespeople

If you ask an extremely successful salesperson, "What makes you different from the average sales rep?" you will most likely get a less-than-accurate answer, if any answer at all. Frankly, the person may not even know the real answer because most successful salespeople are simply doing what comes naturally.

Over the past decade, I have had the privilege of interviewing thousands of top business-to-business salespeople who sell for some of the world's leading companies. I've also administered personality tests to 1,000 of them. My goal was to measure their five main personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and negative emotionality) to better understand the characteristics that separate them their peers.

The personality tests were given to high technology and business services salespeople as part of sales strategy workshops I was conducting. In addition, tests were administered at Presidents Club meetings (the incentive trip that top salespeople are awarded by their company for their outstanding performance). The responses were then categorized by percentage of annual quota attainment and classified into top performers, average performers, and below average performers categories.

The test results from top performers were then compared against average and below average performers. The findings indicate that key personality traits directly influence top performers' selling style and ultimately their success. Below, you will find the main key personality attributes of top salespeople and the impact of the trait on their selling style.

1. Modesty. Contrary to conventional stereotypes that successful salespeople are pushy and egotistical, 91 percent of top salespeople had medium to high scores of modesty and humility. Furthermore, the results suggest that ostentatious salespeople who are full of bravado alienate far more customers than they win over.
Selling Style Impact: Team Orientation. As opposed to establishing themselves as the focal point of the purchase decision, top salespeople position the team (presales technical engineers, consulting, and management) that will help them win the account as the centerpiece.

2. Conscientiousness. Eighty-five percent of top salespeople had high levels of conscientiousness, whereby they could be described as having a strong sense of duty and being responsible and reliable. These salespeople take their jobs very seriously and feel deeply responsible for the results.
Selling Style Impact: Account Control. The worst position for salespeople to be in is to have relinquished account control and to be operating at the direction of the customer, or worse yet, a competitor. Conversely, top salespeople take command of the sales cycle process in order to control their own destiny.

3. Achievement Orientation. Eighty-four percent of the top performers tested scored very high in achievement orientation. They are fixated on achieving goals and continuously measure their performance in comparison to their goals.

Selling Style Impact: Political Orientation. During sales cycles, top sales, performers seek to understand the politics of customer decision-making. Their goal orientation instinctively drives them to meet with key decision-makers. Therefore, they strategize about the people they are selling to and how the products they're selling fit into the organization instead of focusing on the functionality of the products themselves.

4. Curiosity. Curiosity can be described as a person's hunger for knowledge and information. Eighty-two percent of top salespeople scored extremely high curiosity levels. Top salespeople are naturally more curious than their lesser performing counterparts.

Selling Style Impact: Inquisitiveness. A high level of inquisitiveness correlates to an active presence during sales calls. An active presence drives the salesperson to ask customers difficult and uncomfortable questions in order to close gaps in information. Top salespeople want to know if they can win the business, and they want to know the truth as soon as possible.

5. Lack of Gregariousness. One of the most surprising differences between top salespeople and those ranking in the bottom one-third of performance is their level of gregariousness (preference for being with people and friendliness). Overall, top performers averaged 30 percent lower gregariousness than below average performers.

Selling Style Impact: Dominance. Dominance is the ability to gain the willing obedience of customers such that the salesperson's recommendations and advice are followed. The results indicate that overly friendly salespeople are too close to their customers and have difficulty establishing dominance.

6. Lack of Discouragement. Less than 10 percent of top salespeople were classified as having high levels of discouragement and being frequently overwhelmed with sadness. Conversely, 90 percent were categorized as experiencing infrequent or only occasional sadness.

Selling Style Impact: Competitiveness. In casual surveys I have conducted throughout the years, I have found that a very high percentage of top performers played organized sports in high school. There seems to be a correlation between sports and sales success as top performers are able to handle emotional disappointments, bounce back from losses, and mentally prepare themselves for the next opportunity to compete.

7. Lack of Self-Consciousness. Self-consciousness is the measurement of how easily someone is embarrassed. The byproduct of a high level of self-consciousness is bashfulness and inhibition. Less than five percent of top performers had high levels of self-consciousness.

Selling Style Impact: Aggressiveness. Top salespeople are comfortable fighting for their cause and are not afraid of rankling customers in the process. They are action-oriented and unafraid to call high in their accounts or courageously cold call new prospects.

Not all salespeople are successful. Given the same sales tools, level of education, and propensity to work, why do some salespeople succeed where others fail? Is one better suited to sell the product because of his or her background? Is one more charming or just luckier? The evidence suggests that the personalities of these truly great salespeople play a critical role in determining their success.

Author:  Steve W. Martin, Harvard Business Review