What's Your Omaha Beach?

This article was penned by a colleague and good friend Christopher Ferris, about 10 years ago. It is fitting to publish and reflect today ...

Omaha Beach.

The next time you are tempted to feel sorry for yourself because your Manager teed-off on you, your skittish customer vanished into thin air (sans T.O.) after declining a service, or you had to split a monster gross commission with a know-nothing newbie, take a deep breath to regain your perspective ...

Repeat the words "Omaha Beach" a few times, and thank the Good Lord that you are not wading ashore (today) into a hail of fast-moving metal projectiles that felled many brave Americans on a bleak, late Spring day during June of 1944.?

The courageous men buried in a massive cemetery located above the beaches at Normandy, France, did not disembark from their landing craft years ago to buy Egg McMuffins for their sales teams at McDonald's because last month’s used car gross was way, way up.?

No, their mission on that fateful day was to make a voluntary ultimate sacrifice so that you and I could be free today to banter back and forth online about exciting trends and to face with optimism the numerous challenges of a rapidly changing car business and a turbulent world economy.

My late father did the Omaha Beach boogie, survived unscathed, and fought his way across Belgium and France into Germany until the enemy surrendered. As I look at Dad’s photos, many taken in the Ardennes Forest during the infamous Battle of the Bulge, I am amazed at his smiling countenance and at the smiles on the faces of his fellow soldiers. Under often horrific conditions, Dad and his resilient comrades knew what had to be done and they just did it.?

Defeat was not a word in my Dad’s vocabulary, and he always reminded me that attitude was the critical first step on the bumpy road to eventual victory. I watched and marveled through the years as my Dad, propelled by a relentlessly positive attitude and an infectious smile, shrugged off mistakes, missteps, and seemingly insurmountable problems. He just kept moving forward with dogged determination to achieve his dual objectives: taking superb care of his beloved family and making thousands of friends along the way.

Dad passed away before the epic film “Saving Private Ryan” was released. I wept unashamedly as I watched the harrowing, opening scenes of that movie. I kept repeating the phrase, “Oh, Dad!” quietly in my mind, as the carnage of the D-Day invasion was depicted on the screen in brutally realistic fashion.?

What my Dad and his fellow artillerymen must have seen probably defies description.

But the chaos and sadness encountered at Omaha Beach in June 1944 never framed my Dad’s view of the limitless possibilities of life. Dad’s greatness was in his ability to combine his upbeat attitude, his deep love of family, friends, neighbors, customers and complete strangers, and his intellectual acumen to form an unbeatable approach to life, and, in the end, to death.?

It should come as no surprise to readers of this essay that my Dad excelled during his 40-year-long sales career and received numerous accolades for outstanding performance in his chosen profession. His strong faith helped to mitigate the fear he must have felt at Omaha Beach in June of 1944, but the hard lessons he learned about fate on that same beach only served to make him dig that much deeper to love his fellow man even more. As an unintended consequence of how my Dad lived and loved, he always had his "game face" on. 24 x 7. Long before the age of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, Dad was what one might call a “pre-web 1.0” expert in social networking.

O.K. now, car guys and gals, one and all, ask yourselves, what’s your personal Omaha Beach??

Take stock of your lives, analyze your current “crisis of the moment” that has you wanting to start cursing and spouting negativity, and then whisper “Omaha Beach” and consider not only what happened at that now historic site during June of 1944, but reflect on an Omaha Beach event in your own life that you faced and survived to breathe and live another fantastic day.

Because all of your days in sales are indeed fantastic, regardless of the immediate outcome. (If you do not believe me, feel free to ask my Dad via a silent prayer.)

Think momentarily of your own Omaha Beach, smile at your current good fortune, gather your inner strength, and then move forward with confidence to embrace what will surely become a better day for you and everyone around you, including your valued customers.?

Who knows? One of those customers might even be Private Ryan’s grandson who has been waiting for years to be saved from a retail sales world full of cynics by a consummately courteous, ethical, and honorable automotive retail professional … you!