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Is Underachieving A Disease?

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(Originally published on Dealer magazine)




A friend of mine shared via Facebook an organization that has completely blown my mind.


Underearners Anonymous


I absolutely had to read more about this organization. What exactly are they about?


Well, this is what they define as an “underearner”:


“UA is a Twelve Step Fellowship of men and women who have come together to help themselves and one another recover from underearning.
Underearning is many things, not all of which are about money. While the most visible consequence is the inability to provide for one’s needs, including future needs, underearning is also about the inability to fully acknowledge and express our capabilities and competencies. It is about underachieving, or under-being, no matter how much money we make.”


The “symptoms” of underearning are (copied from their website):


1.    Time Indifference – We put off what must be done and do not use our time to support our own vision and further our own goals.


2.    Idea Deflection –We compulsively reject ideas that could expand our lives or careers, and increase our profitability.


3.    Compulsive Need to Prove – Although we have demonstrated competence in our jobs or business, we are driven by a need to re-prove our worth and value.


4.    Clinging to Useless Possessions – We hold onto possessions that no longer serve our needs, such as threadbare clothing or broken appliances.


5.    Exertion/Exhaustion – We habitually overwork, become exhausted, then under-work or cease work completely.


6.    Giving Away Our Time – We compulsively volunteer for various causes, or give away our services without charge, when there is no clear benefit.


7.    Undervaluing and Under-pricing – We undervalue our abilities and services and fear asking for increases in compensation or for what the market will bear.


8.    Isolation – We choose to work alone when it might serve us much better to have co-workers, associates, or employees.


9.    Physical Ailments – Sometimes, out of fear of being larger or exposed, we experience physical ailments.


10.  Misplaced Guilt or Shame – We feel uneasy when asking for or being given what we need or what we are owed.


11.  Not Following Up – We do not follow up on opportunities, leads, or jobs that could be profitable. We begin many projects and tasks but often do not complete them.


12.  Stability Boredom – We create unnecessary conflict with co-workers, supervisors and clients, generating problems that result in financial distress.


I was completely blown away by the fact that this organization existed at all. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to improve yourself and/or turn your professional life around as the multi-million dollar self-help and motivational industry can attest to.


However, are we really in need of a 12-step program that likens underachieving to a disease?


I would argue that professional success originates from how you run your life. If you strive to live a good life, be a good person and do the things needed to succeed – you will. In the past, these ideals were instilled in us through our social interactions – whether through school, church, or work. My guess is that there aren’t many 18 year olds in this group and that the demographic consists of working age adults well within their careers. Sitting in a group consisting of other underachievers is not, in my opinion, a best practice.


In fact, many would argue that the best way to turn yourself around in business success would be to distance yourself from these people.


How many sales managers advise new salespeople not to hang out with the negative slackers on the Salesforce (not that they should be there in the first place)?


There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to better yourself whether that’s professionally or personally, but don’t fall into the trap believing that your failure to succeed has anything whatsoever to do with anything other than being anybody’s fault but your own. Don’t blame society. Don’t blame your teachers. Don’t blame your parents. Blame yourself. Most importantly, if you have this “problem,”,please don’t go hang out and collectively whine to a roomful of other people who share it.


Being unsuccessful is not a disease. It’s a culmination of poor decisions. If you want to change and don’t know how, there’s an unlimited amount of material and programs you can use to do so. If you need some personal help, find someone who is successful and ask them to help you. Don’t ask other unsuccessful people for their help.


If you’re in the middle of your career and you’re still a procrastinator, afraid of change with the need to prove yourself, are unwilling to let go, overwork yourself to the point of burnout, who volunteers their time rather than gets paid for it (and I’m not talking about charitable volunteering), who undervalues yourself, isn’t a team player, is not assertive, doesn’t follow up and creates conflict then you are probably, and rightfully so, unemployed. 


Stop blaming the world, take ownership of your situation and change your life.

How To Be (And Make Others) Successful Selling Cars

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The other day, I started thinking about all the friends I’ve made that I met because they bought a car from me. I’m not talking about acquaintance-type friends, I’m talking about people that are involved in my life, and have been for a long time.

I’ve been out of retail for about 2 years now. When I was in retail, I made a lot of money. As a commissioned salesperson, to make a lot of money you have to make profit on cars. Many people think that “making a profit” and “giving a good deal” can’t co-exist. There were times that I even felt guilty getting a hefty commission voucher. I was averaging 30 cars per month while maintaining a CSI score of 98% (and I had a high return rate on surveys).

So what was I doing right?

I always treated everyone like they had 800 credit scores. I made sure that all of my customers were happy and, if they weren’t, did everything within my power to make them so. I helped solve problems for any customer at my dealership, whether they were mine or not. I made sure that I respected all the parties involved and thanked them for their business sincerely. I followed up with them religiously to insure that they were satisfied and to recognize important occasions in their lives. I made sure my customers got not only the car they needed, but one they wanted, not necessarily the one I wanted to sell them. I truly cared about my customers and treated them all like they were my personal friends… and, guess what, many of them became just that.

While I enjoy money as much as the next person, I was never really “money-motivated.” A “good job” and recognition went farther for me. It wasn’t until I went to work for a particular manager that many of these ideals were instilled in me. He truly cares about his employees and took me under his wing. His leadership and personal attention truly made me want to work harder, sell more, and make the dealership successful. By doing that, not only did I care more about my job, the dealership and its customers, but I made more money. He inspired me to want to do a good job for him, not just for the money. Don’t get me wrong, he held you accountable. He just didn’t do it through fear as I see many retail managers do. He empowered his employees and trusted them to do their jobs. His favorite saying is “I’ll give you all the rope you need and you can either hang yourself with it or make a basket to carry all of your money.” I attribute my success in this industry to him. Without the culture and leadership he provided, I wouldn’t have achieved what I have.

Leaders can motivate in many ways. Sadly, many think the only way to motivate is through either fear, money or a combination of the two. By choosing the leadership style that he did and helping mentor me into the sales style and ideals that I adopted as a salesperson, I became successful, not only professionally, but personally. Too many salespeople (and managers) are looking for the next big voucher and not paying attention to their customers’ needs. Take care of your customers and do business right and the money will come.

So, thinking back on my retail career, as I recognized how many people I have in my life that are my friends simply because fate brought them into my dealership and I happened to assist them with their vehicle purchase, I realized that this provided me far more of an indication that I did things right than any “good job” could have and it was all possible because I had a great leader.

Can You Be A Packer Fan in Bear-Town at Work?

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Yesterday, a good friend of mine, Joe Webb, President of DealerKnows Consulting, posted a news article on his Facebook wall that got all sorts of comments from his friends.

In summary, the article involved a car dealership in Chicago who, on the day after their loss to the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship game, fired a salesperson for wearing to work, and refusing to remove, a Green Bay Packers tie.

Article: Packer Backer fired for wearing Green Bay Tie

Most of the discussion centered around whether it was legal to fire this employee for refusing to remove the tie. Some of it questioned this salesperson’s right to wear it.

Was the employer justified in firing him?

Did the employee have the right to wear it at work?

What do you think?

Originally published on DrivingSales.com

Your Virtual Lot Needs Attention, Too!

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[This post is also a reprint of an article written for an industry publication in May 2008 saved here for future reference. That doesn’t make it any less true. In fact, I would say it is even more important now than it was 2 years ago.]

In this digital marketing age with more and more consumers choosing to utilize the Internet to assist in making their automobile purchasing decisions, it is increasingly important to monitor the activity within your Internet departments.

Judging the effectiveness of your Internet traffic cannot be done solely by valuating its production. Whether you are using third-party lead providers or driving traffic to your own website or a combination of the two, you need to be aware of what’s going on with the leads. Just like you look at how your ups are being worked by your salespeople, closers, or sales managers; you should know what’s going on with your Internet ups.

What most dealers forget to include in evaluating their Internet departments and/or where the budget is being spent to provide leads are the most basic factors imaginable:

1. Are my Internet managers working the leads properly?

2. Do I have a process in place that I can use to hold them accountable?

It’s important to have processes just like any sales force has. Would you expect your salespeople to take a customer on a test drive before writing them up? Of course you would.

Internet leads are ups in the same way as someone that walked onto your lot. In fact, you may get more ups through your virtual lot than you do on your physical one. There are many dealerships that have Internet departments that account for 30-40 percent (or more) of their business but this is the department that is typically the most neglected and least monitored of all departments by sales managers. Dealers pay a lot of money for these ups yet fail to work them as hard as they would any customer that had walked on the lot because they don’t see the potential of turning these ups into sales today. The mentality that exists, and has existed, is that this is a today business.

While we would all prefer to sell a car today (anybody waiting for the be-back bus?),I think everyone would agree that selling a car eventually is better than  never.

Through my experience and observations, I’ve noticed that unsuccessful Internet departments tend to have Internet Managers that don’t continually work a lead. Maybe they call a few times over a week or so but then they just give up and restart the process on fresh leads. This circular pattern neglects the customer that’s not ready to buy today, but is a buyer. With most Internet customers being seven weeks out from initial contact to sale, no wonder you are losing business. I understand how frustrating it is for an Internet manager to call someone 18 times and never get a hold of anyone and never have any calls returned. That doesn’t mean these aren’t buyers, only that they’re not ready to buy or not enough of an impression has been made to earn their response. Just like any salesperson knows, you can give a customer every way to contact you imaginable: the dealership’s phone number, your home and cell phone numbers,your work and personal e-mails, etc., build great rapport and ask the customer in every way possible to call you when they want to come in and that you will be there to assist them and, despite all of this, the customer will still show up when they are ready to purchase without calling the salespeople. Knowing this, why is it hard to believe that a customer who nobody at your dealership has ever even met in person would do the same thing?

I’m a firm advocate of utilizing a business development center (BDC) to followup with your customers whether they are prospects or previous customers rather than entrusting your customers to salespeople who may or may not follow up with them. At least with a BDC, you can create a consistent process with dedicated people that follow up with your customers and prospect for your dealership.This simple addition to your business will increase your sales immediately and create greater customer satisfaction and a great first impression. Have you ever heard a customer say that nobody ever contacted after requesting information? How about feedback from a customer saying a salesperson never called them back after promising to?

By paying more attention to your Internet departments, Internet Managers and leads, you will be able to increase your sales within that department immediately, without any additional expense to you.

If your salesperson were burning ups, you’d stop the behavior. Why allow your Internet managers to do the same thing?

If you don’t pay attention, you only have yourself to blame.

The Right Stuff (Identifying Great Internet Sales Managers)

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What skill set makes a great Internet Sales Manager?

It’s not as easy of a question to answer as you may think regardless of where in your organization’s hierarchy you have this position. I’ve seen so many types of people in the Internet Sales Manager position and many that have failed. I’ve seen excellent salespeople “promoted” to the ISM position just to see them fall on their face and have that confidence and cockiness they had shattered and I’ve seen that person who couldn’t“close” a door, succeed beyond everyone’s expectations.

So, how exactly do you decide who the “right” person is to make your department successful?

Some dealerships choose their top salesperson with the thought that he/she can pump out even more units given more people.Some will actually put the person who’s NOT selling cars in there with the hopes of a turn-around. Some go the “experienced fleet manager”route. Some put their new (or green-pea) salesperson in there. For the most part, NONE of these are the “right” person for the job.

Am I a mystical guru that can foresee the future? No, of course not and my forthcoming opinions will certainly have exceptions. (Keep in mind that the ability to communicate and use a computer is assumed.)

The top five personality traits of successful Internet Sales Managers are as follows:

  • Excellent phone skills
  • Persistent
  • Customer-Service Oriented
  • Aggressive
  • Organized

You notice I didn’t include “good sales talent”. There’s a reason for that. In this industry, everyone’s used to looking for that person who has sales talent – whether it’s as a liner or a closer. When looking for a good Internet Sales Manager, sales talent is certainly important but it’s not in my top 5.

Why?

What qualities does it take to get a person from an e-mail or phone call into your store?

Phone skills are a MUST. If they cannot talk on the phone, they should not be in your Internet Department. I would consider this to be THE most important attribute that an excellent ISM can have. If you have any call-monitoring services, you know who those people are. They’re the ones you are consistently letting your OTHER salespeople listen to as examples of how to properly make/receive a phone call.

You need someone who’s persistent and doesn’t give up on that lead that they’ve called 6 times and emailed 4 times who’s never responded. This happens way too much. Persistent is definitely a key to success. Do you have someone who always makes their phone calls and follow-up to the point that customers are calling you asking you to please have “Joe”stop calling me? That would be someone to start looking at.

You need a customer-service oriented person. You can’t stick your closer in there and label it as a promotion because they inevitably try to“close” the person over the phone and that will only alienate the customer. Remember,many customers have chosen to shop for a vehicle and/or gather information via the internet because they are intimidated by the retail sales process. By mimicking the retail sales process within your internet sales department, you will reinforce the experience that the customer is trying to avoid in the first place. You need someone with a pleasant phone voice that can transmit through phone lines sincerity and genuineness.

Of course you need an aggressive person. One of my “strategies” if you will (and I’m sure many salespeople also do this)is that I start making calls until I get that person whom I get a feeling I can sell a car to“soon”. I liken this to the fish nibbling at the bait. Once I get that nibble, I’ll work all day to “reel” in the fish,focusing on that one nibble to create a sense of urgency (“Hey fish, I have more worms in the boat.”). The “aggressiveness” that I am talking about here is the ability to know when there is genuine interest and being able to identify and cultivate a sense of urgency within a particular customer, not the ability to be pushy.

You definitely need someone organized, as they need to keep up with every lead and know what’s going on as they juggle replies and phone calls. It doesn’t matter how good your CRM is (assuming you have one), if your Internet Sales Manager cannot sound like they know that EXACT customer’s needs and wants when they do make contact, it will be that much harder to build rapport.

Sales skills are secondary to all of this because getting the customer into your store is their primary job.

Once the customer is in your store, you have a whole sales staff that can make sure they leave in a vehicle if your Internet Sales Manager cannot accomplish that. 

Sales skills and processes can be trained, personality traits cannot.

Find that “eagle” with the above abilities and you have the makings of an excellent Internet Sales Manager.

Sometimes, The Solution Isn’t Change

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Many dealerships attempt to solve poor sales by either replacing people or by replacing services. It’s my opinion that, in most cases, neither of these will necessarily solve your problems. People may just need training and/or supervision. Services may only need to be properly utilized.

Case in point: Internet Departments.

An Internet Manager sits down with a GSM or GM to look at why the department didn’t sell as many cars as management (or the owner) would have liked. They look at the cost per sale and the ROI of their internet services (sometimes). From this they determine that X service isn’t working for them and decide to cancel and replace it with this magical new service that will fix everything.

Here’s what they usually don’t look at:

  1. Are we implementing the service (and its processes) as they were designed to be?
  2. Are we properly working the program?
  3. Is there accountability for it’s implementation and use?
  4. Are we doing the work?

Say we’re talking about internet leads. You can’t solely base decisions on whether you’re selling cars from them if you haven’t determined that whatever process you have in place to work those leads… works.

If your employees aren’t calling the leads, I guarantee that you won’t sell any cars from them. Does that make them bad leads? Of course not!

There are two parts to any service… the tool and the work. If you haven’t analyzed both, you could be canceling the best service you have and the one which would provide you with the most ROI… if it were being used properly.

The internet departments of dealerships are the least monitored departments in most dealerships with the highest income potential.

You see, any service you subscribe to takes work. I have yet to run across any service that will magically sell cars for you without any work on your part. If it’s an internet lead, you have to make the phone calls. If it’s a video product, you have to take the videos. If it’s a consultant, you have to listen to them.

You get the idea.

Do you replace the driver if the car isn’t working properly?

Do you replace the car if the driver doesn’t know how to drive?

In the first scenario, fixing the car is the solution. In the second, you teach the driver how to drive. It could also be both.

You have to know what the problem is before you can solve it.

The next time you consider canceling a service (or replacing an employee), make sure to know what the problem is before you try to fix it.

If you don’t, you could be trading in a Ferrari.

Avoid Making Dealership Turnover A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

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We’ve all heard the importance of a dealership providing the proper tools for a new sales employee to be successful. Some are very basic like a desk to work at with a computer (hopefully) and some are more involved like training.

Almost every dealership experiences high employee turnover in the sales department. Some dealerships don’t, however, and my hat is off to them because, while every dealership will tell you they value their employees, not many actually show you they do.

I read a book titled “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job” by Patrick Lencioni . In brief, it discusses the importance of management truly getting to know their employees on a personal level and showing interest in them as people. Done properly, this increases a person’s job satisfaction because they feel like they matter and that what they do makes a difference. (I absolutely recommend this book!)

If your new employees don’t really feel part of your organization, they will not have the internal commitment to your business. Just as employers impose 90-day probation periods to scrutinize employees and see if they will conform, fit-in, and produce, employees have a probation period for employers also, whether conscious or unconscious, where they are evaluating you as an employer and making a decision on whether they want to continue working for you and, in cases of green-pea car salespeople, whether they want to remain working in this industry.

Personally, I never understood the whole “probation period” thing anyways. Most dealerships have migrated to an “at-will employment” model anyways so what does it matter if you terminate an employee pre-90 or post-90 days? With such an agreement in place, you can terminate an employee at any time and for any reason.*

The point  is, in my opinion, by having a “probation period”, you are telling your new employee that you like them enough to hire them but you don’t like them enough to commit to them – yet.

One thing that bothers me and I still see in practice today – the procrastination on purchasing your new sales employees business cards. This is probably one of the smallest expenses you could (and probably will) make in a new employee. Business cards nowadays cost less than the pre-employment drug screen and the training you’ll (hopefully) provide for them.

This small expense does something that nothing else you can do at the start of their employment will accomplish – tell them that they are part of your team and that you have made a commitment to them. You don’t know how many times I’ve heard (and experienced personally) from salespeople that, once they got their business cards, they felt like they really had a job and were accepted.

I understand that it is because of the high turnover in sales that makes an employer wait to order them. The justification is, of course, monetary and justified with some phrase similar to – “If we ordered business cards for every new salesperson, we’d have a bunch of business cards for people that don’t work here anymore.”

My point is that the simple act of providing business cards to a new employee shows them that you want them there, not that you are still trying to make up your mind. By not “walking the walk” and making a commitment to a new hire, you allow them to do the same.

I know of dealerships who do not provide business cards to any salespeople…. ever.

In addition to this, it looks really unprofessional to a customer when a salesperson either cannot provide a business card and/or they have to write their name on a blank one or on top of an ex-employee’s crossed-out name.  Customers don’t expect your salespeople to be around long anyways. This just reinforces that feeling and detracts from your dealerships’ message of stability and trust.

This is just one way with which you can show an employee that they matter …. not just that they may matter later.

By making this small expense and showing your commitment to them, you may just get them to commit more to you.

* (Disclaimer: If your state does not allow “At-Will” employmentagreements and/or there are some other employment laws that mandate sucha policy, then, of course, protect your business. I am not anemployment attorney.)

Don’t Get Mad, Get Even. (Internet Security and Terminated Employees)

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In another incident of employee “road rage”, a Texas dealership’s former employee disabled 100 sold car ignitions and/or set off their car horns. He also went into their accounting system and changed the names of buyers (ie. Tupac Shakur), and he ordered $130,000 worth of parts from a vendor. Apparently, the dealership installs GPS systems with ignition kills on sold cars to ease repossession if the customer defaults on payment. (Link)

What is your dealership’s policies and procedures for managing a terminated employee’s access to your company’s online services?

With dealership vendors increasingly moving online, and dealerships increasingly adding web-based services, how do you insure that a terminated employee would not be able to access your valuable data and/or sabotage your dealership in any way?

It’s not just enough anymore to just cancel their accounts and remove their access. Many of your employees know the user names and passwords of co-workers and, in some cases, managers despite any policy you may have in place that restricts that.

So what do you do?

  1. Keep track of which employees have access to which systems.
  2. Only give employees access to systems they need to do their job.
  3. Have one person who manages all your DMS, CRM, ILM, IMS and any online service’s access (and “all managers” does not count as one person).
  4. If you can avoid it, do not allow remote access to your systems.
  5. Do a regular audit of your system and user access.
  6. Don’t allow people to keep their passwords taped to their computer monitors, written in a notebook, or in a file on their computer. This is a recipe for disaster and happens way too often.

In the event of a termination:

  1. Cancel all of the employee’s user names and passwords before informing them they’ve been terminated.
  2. Require that all employees change their passwords upon a termination of any employee to all the systems/services which they have access to.
  3. Monitor access frequently immediately after an employee termination. Typically, if there is revenge or sabotage brewing, it will occur fairly quickly after the termination.

While some of this may seem like overkill and is inconvenient, you could be held liable for any misuse of customer data or consequences of a disgruntled employee’s actions.

Do you think the 100 people who had their ignitions killed on their cars are going to blame the disgruntled employee?

As dealerships become more virtual in their operations, security of your data and services becomes more and more important. Implement policies and procedures to minimize any backlash that could occur from a disgruntled employee.

It is not only your duty to protect your information, but also your customers.

                                  

I Do Not Like Them, Spam I Am

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I just finished reading “Linchpin” by Seth Godin and I must admit that some of the things he says in the book were very thought-provoking.

One concept stood out immediately.

From Page 192:

“Just because his boss demands that he act like human spam doesn’t mean he has an obligation to listen. In fact, he has an obligation to do just the opposite. To stand out, not fit in. To make connections, not to be an invisible cog. To do otherwise is a loss.”

The concept that stood out to me within that paragraph was “human spam”.

We all deal with spam. In fact, some of us in the automotive industry create a lot of it.

We have pop-up ads on our websites, GoogleAds, email marketing campaigns, direct mail marketing campaigns, print ads, billboards, fliers and social media marketing campaigns. We send out our message in every way possible in the hopes that some of those broadcasts will bring us some business.

The definition of spam is “the abuse of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately.” (Link)

So what would the definition of “human spam” be?

I put forth that human spam could be defined as follows: the abuse of social interactions (including via phone, or in person) to send messages indiscriminately.”

Examples:

The salesperson who has so irritated a customer with the quantity of his follow-up calls that they have called in to complain.

The BDC employee reading a script to your customers whether on an incoming call or an outgoing call to anybody.

The salesperson burning ups on your lot because he’s pre-qualifying customers, judging them, or determining that they aren’t “now” buyers then lot-dropping them.

I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t seek out our customers. I’m not arguing that a BDC is a bad idea. I’m not necessarily arguing that scripts aren’t a bad teaching tool. I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t follow-up with customers.

What I’m saying is that all of your employees should have proper training and be empowered to handle customers as it seems appropriate and per the customers wishes. We are in a service business, you need employees that have good people skills.

If that means that they need to deviate from the script with this particular customer, let them. If that means that the salesperson can make a judgment call as to how often (if at all) this particular customer should be called or followed up with, let them.

If you don’t have the confidence in the people you hired to make these basic decisions… why did you hire them in the first place?

If you answered, “because they were cheap” or “because they were a warm body”, then you’re wrong. That person acting as “human spam” on your behalf and at your direction is costing you more money in lost business than they are in captured business.

“Good people skills” is a hard trait to quantify but I guarantee you that you know it when you see it. That coffeehouse clerk who always has a smile for you. The customer service rep that you’re talking to on the phone ready to scream at about some issue they didn’t even create who magically calms you down. They have good people skills.

When you first meet someone, how do they make you feel? Chances are that’s also how they’ll make your customers feel.

If the human interactions your employees are having with your customers are only transactional and not genuine, emotional and tailored specifically to that particular customer, then they are human spam.

It’s not about the quantity of the message, but the quality. The better quality your message, the more successful it will be.

Interact with people how they want to be interacted with. Be respectful of their feelings and wishes. Treat them all with respect (not just the ones with good credit).

I had a unique experience when I first started with my current company. I’m a remote employee so there isn’t much interaction with the the other remote employees or the employees at our corporate offices. After about a month (or so) of working, I got an e-mail from a fellow employee that said this:

“Arnold,

 I think I know you.  I think I bought my Infiniti G35 from you. “

I sold 378 cars the year this person bought a car from me. Who knows how many actual interactions it took me to accomplish that. That year was a windstorm of 18 hour days and 28 day months. That was also seven years ago. To have this person remember me after that much time, only by name, was a great compliment in my eyes. It means that the interaction I had with him was genuine and emotional, not merely transactional.

Make every interaction count.

Be human. Not spam.


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