10 Fun and Effective Dealership Team Building Activities

Running a successful car dealership relies heavily on the strength of your team. A cohesive, motivated, collaborative staff can enhance productivity, improve customer satisfaction, and create a positive workplace culture. Dealership team-building activities can be excellent ways to foster these qualities.

Here are 10 fun and effective dealership team building activities that will help your staff connect, communicate, and thrive together.

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1. Holiday Season Celebrations

As this year ends, it’s important to spread good cheer and enhance team member connections. One way to do this is to hold a potluck lunch, where participants sign up to bring different dishes to share. This will get employees talking about recipes and enjoying a change from the usual lunchtime fare.

This is also a great time to host an annual dealership party. It can be as simple or extravagant as you like. It’s nice to have it off-campus at a venue with catered food and drinks. An award program highlighting individual accomplishments and a year-in-review report is customary to celebrate the “wins” from the past year and provide encouragement and goals for the next.

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2. Silly Clothing and Costume Contests

Mark the seasons with light-hearted and creative contests that give your employees things to talk about the whole day through. There’s something so fun and hilarious about going to work in an outfit you would normally never be caught dead in, aka Halloween costumes and ugly Christmas sweaters. You can even involve your pets and have a separate contest for the cutest and funniest outfits for furry friends. These are done virtually, in which photos can be shared, and votes tallied through an online forum. Voting for the human variety can also be done virtually or with tally forms in person. And don’t forget the prizes and social media posts!

Hosting these contests adds novelty to the dealership environment and displays your sense of humor and playfulness to visiting customers. They add an exclamation point to the year and fill a couple of days with conversation and silliness, breaking up the monotony and showing a side of your coworkers you may not have known about.

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3. Chili Cookoff (or Other Friendly Cooking Competitions)

Chili is a fan favorite, especially in the colder months and the kickoff of the NFL (Go Chiefs!!), and everyone seems to have a special recipe or secret ingredient that they believe sets theirs apart. Showcase these talents with a chili cookoff and let your team members prove their skills.

Set aside a space for multiple crockpots, provide small cups and spoons for each station, and include a voting sheet to be turned in and counted. The winner could receive a cash prize and/or a trophy. You can display your fun dealership culture by posting a photo of the winner on the dealership wall and social media pages.

This could easily be another type of food, such as pies, dips, chicken wings, or cocktails/mocktails. These friendly competitions will engage your staff, get them talking, share recipes, and have fun!

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4. Family Picnic and Play Day

Getting families together and some fresh air and activity brings a new level to team bonding. A great way to do this is by hosting a cookout at a local park that offers grills, picnic tables, and a softball field for a lighthearted kickball game. Sand volleyball courts are also popular where colleagues and their family members can kick off their shoes and bump, set, spike! Offer fun stuff for the kids to do, like a craft table or a giant parachute, to provide hours of entertainment. Don’t forget the beach ball!

You can make it a potluck or provide hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, cookies, and drinks and call it a day! A planned and paid-for visit from the ice cream man or sno-cone truck is always a crowd-pleaser.

Socializing, being active, sharing meals, and meeting family and significant others add dimensions to the people you work with and can have a surprisingly big effect on how you understand and respect them at the dealership.

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5. Start a League

Not everyone will be interested in athletic pursuits, but most likely, more than a few in a dealership like to participate in physically competitive activities. Sports leagues foster teamwork using different skills and provide an enjoyable way to bond outside work while promoting a motivated dealership team. Get moving and socialize with popular sports like softball, volleyball, basketball, bowling, and kickball.

Organize weekly or biweekly games and encourage friendly competition. Include a celebratory event at the end of the season, such as a barbecue or awards ceremony, to recognize participation and standout performances.

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6. Volunteer Day

Volunteering is a way to give back to the community and ignite positive feelings. The shared experience of conducting volunteerism alongside coworkers, creates bonds that last well beyond that day.

When organizing a team volunteer day, consider choosing a cause aligned with your dealership’s values. For example, you could support a local food bank, host a car wash fundraiser, or help a nonprofit with transportation needs. You could beautify a neighborhood by planting trees or distribute toys and clothes to those in need around Christmas time.

Of course, the dealership can’t close to accommodate everyone’s participation, so consider offering multiple days for different staff to attend. This also brings departments together that wouldn’t usually get to engage.

Volunteering builds team spirit, improves morale, and provides a well-rounded cultural experience – strengthening your dealership’s connection to the community and each other.

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7. Team Trivia Night

Organize a trivia night! This can combine fun with learning, breaks down departmental silos, and strengthens team relationships in an engaging, low-pressure environment.

Categories could be related to automotive knowledge, pop culture, dealership-specific facts, or another theme like music or movies. Try forming mixed teams with members from different dealership departments so they can get to know each other in a collaborative setting.

Set up the event in a fun, relaxed atmosphere, such as a break room or local venue, and provide snacks or light refreshments. To boost excitement and participation, consider awarding prizes to the winning team. Each team could have a theme and name, adding to a united effort. Encourage table décor and costumes to amp up the vibe and get folks even more into the event.

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8. Fantasy Football or March Madness Leagues

Organizing a dealership-wide fantasy football league or March Madness bracket challenge is an excellent way to unite employees. It can build camaraderie through shared interests, foster friendly competition, and allow employees to bond over non-work-related activities.

Staff can have fun with friendly competition, tracking weekly updates or standings, and engaging with one another. To add excitement, consider offering incentives like free lunches, dealership swag, or small prizes for winners.

It’s a fun way for employees to connect about their favorite college and professional sports teams, giving staff an opportunity for conversation and maybe a little ribbing 😉

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9. Create a Milestone Dealership-Wide Goal

Make a dealership-wide goal to increase the number of cars sold monthly with encouragement, enthusiasm, incentives, and celebration! Make it transparent to everyone on staff what the average or latest number of cars sold in a month is and choose an achievable but aspirational number to which it can be raised.

For example, if a store sells 45 vehicles per month, try setting a goal of 100 units sold in a single month. This goal would require 100% buy-in from the entire team, from the receptionist to the master technicians to the detail team. Everyone must be on board to do their part and offer enthusiasm.

Place a “100 banner” (or whatever the number is) in the middle of the showroom as you set to start working on achieving the goal. Perhaps construct a balloon drop on the showroom’s ceiling, just waiting for the day the number is hit. Once the team reaches the goal, the balloons will drop, everyone signs the banner at a celebratory lunch marking their participation, and every employee receives a $100 bill! Continue the momentum with a new goal and a new banner.

There’s nothing that can create a high performance team like achieving goals together!

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10. Off-Lot Night Out

A great way to build fellowship among your team members is to invite everyone to a night out after the workday. Something about getting together outside the dealership walls allows people to let loose and show another side of themselves. You might learn something about co-workers you wouldn’t otherwise, find more in common, or make fun memories.

Choose a fun group activity like an escape room for smaller teams, a comedy or improv show, karaoke night, a live music venue, pickleball locals, or someplace that offers yard games, or get out to a favorite spot near the dealership.

Not everyone will join every time, but if evenings out are offered semi-regularly, your team will get to know one another better and form connections. These experiences and bonding opportunities will transfer to more success at work.

This importance of investing in team building is an investment in the success of your dealership. Dealership team building activities can help your staff communicate better, work more effectively as a team, and enjoy their time at the dealership. Try incorporating some of these ideas into your calendar to create a more connected and motivated team that will drive your dealership to greater successes with better support and more joy.

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