Guides

Plain-English guides for dealer principals, general managers and the people who chair 20-groups. No gated downloads, no forms. Written by a dealer who reads these statements every month.

• How to benchmark your dealership when you are not in a 20-group

  What your own history can and cannot tell you, and two ways into peer data without joining a traditional group.

• Fixed absorption, explained properly

  The formula worked through, why the trend beats the level, and the four things that quietly distort it.

• How to run a 20-group meeting the room actually values

  The two-day shape that works, agendas built from the group's own numbers, and commitments that survive to the next meeting.

• Every benchmark target should tell you where it came from

  Six ways a target gets set, why they are not equally trustworthy, and why every one should carry its own provenance.

• Starting a 20-group: a practical guide

  Picking non-competing members, agreeing on the statement, setting the calendar, and the honest workload involved.

• To the dollar: what it means, and why most tools cannot say it

  How a composite is built from statements, where numbers stop tying out, and why reconciliation is the whole game.

• Effective labour rate: what it is, and what it is hiding

  Why the effective rate sits below the door rate, the four biggest drags, and what to look at first.

• The dealer's guide to reading your own financial statement

  The structure, the dozen lines that carry most of the story, the monthly ratios, and the usual traps.