Commit From the Top: Fostering Effective Change Management

For modern equipment dealerships, change is a baked-in prerequisite for success. Whether it’s driven by evolving customer expectations, new technology, market volatility, or shifting OEM requirements, the only certainty is that the status quo won’t cut it. And according to veteran dealership consultant George Keen, what truly determines whether change takes root or withers on the vine isn’t merely your strategy – it’s whether leadership is willing to truly commit to the plan.

In a recent episode of Beyond the Hood with Tractor Zoom, Keen shares his deep perspective on why change management fails at many dealerships – and what leaders can do to lead more effectively.

Keen has spent decades working with dealerships across North America, and he has found a common pattern: A new idea is introduced to improve the business (whether a CRM system, a change in sales process, or an inventory reduction strategy), and yet it fizzles out within weeks. Why is that? Because employees can sense when their leaders aren’t truly bought in.

“Employees know when a dealer principal or manager isn’t serious,” Keen explains. “They say, ‘Give him a couple of weeks – he’ll calm down and forget about it.’ That’s the perception when leadership doesn’t follow through.”

The short- and long-term costs of this perception can be high, shown in loss of momentum, wasted resources, and missed opportunities for growth. To make real change stick, commitment must be visible to all stakeholders and reinforced daily.

According to Keen, commitment must be demonstrated through three core investments:

It’s not practical to expect change to happen on top of the current workload. Managers and leaders must make the necessary room to prioritize the new initiative. This can mean shifting responsibilities and/or easing other expectations for both themselves and their team during the expected period of implementation and training.

Whether it’s new technology, training, or external support, implementing a major change requires carving out a budget. “You don’t roll out a new process without backing it with the tools it needs,” Keen says. The more leadership can learn about required costs up front, the fewer the financial surprises down the road.

Policies, reporting lines, and incentives must evolve to support the behavior you want to encourage. That might mean adjusting compensation, adding new roles, or removing bottlenecks that have become institutional.

One example of a major change Keen returns to frequently is the adoption of a CRM (customer relationship management) system. Too often, salespeople resist CRM systems because they don’t immediately see the value – clicking buttons without context and logging activities that no one seems to read doesn’t intuitively translate to higher conversion rates or improve efficiency.

To bridge this disconnect, Keen calls on leadership to lead by example. “Sales managers must actively use the CRM in team meetings, quote reviews, and forecasting,” he says. “Show them the data matters. Otherwise, they’ll just go back to their day timers and spreadsheets.”

This principle applies beyond sales. When leadership uses the system to make decisions, reward performance, and improve efficiency, staff begin to trust the process.

Keen lays out some key ingredients needed to make any big change a success. As he clearly puts it, “We need commitment, a target, feedback, and a process.”

Therefore, any successful change initiative must include a definition of what success looks like before it begins. That could be something akin like the following goals (for example):

You then need to track it. Dashboards, weekly meetings, and ongoing audits are not just helpful but essential in fostering change. If the process isn’t measured, the value gets lost. Ask your CRM customer success manager to provide you with industry best practice reports if you don’t already have them in place. And if these measurements and successes are not shared among stakeholders (end users), they tend to lose relevance.

Finally, all this data must inform feedback and steps toward adaptation. If the strategy isn’t working, leaders need to ask, What’s preventing our progress, and how do we quickly adjust?

One of Keen’s most direct recommendations for dealerships implementing change involving technology is to run ongoing system audits. “Most dealerships only use 50% of the software they already have,” he said. “Vendors should come back six months or a year later to show what’s underutilized.” 

That’s where an integrated dealer intelligence platform like Anvil Pro is making a real difference. By unifying dealer CRM, inventory management, quoting, sales performance, reporting, and the purchase order process, a fully integrated platform helps dealership leadership demonstrate value early and often – keeping everyone aligned and eliminating silos. And by reducing the need for multiple logins and software tools, they support adoption at every level.

The goal of implementing new dealership software isn’t just to add tools. It’s to use tools to create clarity and accountability – two cornerstones of successful change management. And monitoring the performance of your dealership software is yet another key element to ensure long-term success.

Although change is possible within any organization, the challenge lies in avoiding stasis and in maintaining your efforts. “We get comfortable with what we’ve been doing,” Keen says. “And if we don’t see enough value in the change, we don’t make the effort.”

But the alternative to making a change is worse. Dealerships that fail to adapt risk stagnation or even absorption into competitors who are willing and able to adapt.

The most effective dealership leaders treat change as a core competency. They invest in it, measure it, and model it. They recognize that systems, culture, and people are all part of the equation. And they build organizations capable not only of weathering change—but leading it. And with the right tools and technology, undergoing this change can actually lighten your workload, not increase it. 

As Keen reminds dealers, “Change doesn’t work unless it’s demonstrated, reinforced, and measured.”