Expectations and Attitude

     I returned a call to a family friend that had gotten into automotive sales, he had left me a message the previous day.  He is struggling to fit into a situation.  I listened for 45 minutes to his story and began to wonder to myself, what went wrong?
     I always find it amazing that we as managers hire an employee and within days or weeks we begin to wonder what in the world we were thinking.  So what happened?  How did a promising employee become someone that we were documenting on a write up sheet.  In most cases we all know what that  means.
     So where was the disconnect?  How did expectations get sideways?  A lot of managers won't like this, be we need to look at our selves most of the time.  There has been talk for years of the best way to staff a showroom with salespeople. Are we looking at the wrong issue?  At some point we need to ask what it is that we as managers are doing wrong.
     First, do we set proper expectations while interviewing?  Do we tell them it is going to be a grind.  And that the hours suck, and that the other managers may have even higher expectations and desire for results and they may not be the nicest guys/gals to work with?
     Next do we train the new hire prior to expecting them to be able to meet our expectations?
     And finally, how do we ensure that we are doing our part to coach and cultivate these employees for long term growth?
     To me, and most importantly what does it do to the Attitudes of the Dealership?
     The manager is ready to fire an employee, (never a fun task in most situations).  The employee is now scared, not knowing exactly what to do.  And the other employees are quietly walking around waiting for the shoe to drop.
     So what is the right answer?  How do you hire the right people, with the right expectations?  Do you use the trainer that comes out and does a mass hire, and since he used your facility to do the class in you get first dibs on the class?  Do we run the massive ads and hit the job fairs with the promises of grand opportunity and advancement?
     I know what most of us are doing is not working, let's see we need 5 people for the spring, so lets hire 20 and they will weed themselves out...
     What works for you?