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Posts with failure tag.
Accountability. Denial. Cover Up. A Losing Game.

We all come to proverbial "forks in the road" when it comes to performance, to delivering, to being reliable, to following up and ultimately to understanding what it takes to be better. There are mainly two types of being in business, away from the actual retail transaction if you look at things in very simple terms. Partnership and vendorship. They are both a state of being. Partnership is one thing: a cooperation. Vending is one thing: a delivery mechanism.

Over time all businesses play roles in one or both, likely both. While no person or no entity is perfect, it is in our best interest to actually perform to the best of our ability. It is also in our best interest to acknowledge what is done and undone. In a world where it is standard business to over-promise and under-deliver, when marketing trumps products and services, and reps and salespeople are most concerned with commissions or kickbacks, it is rare for someone to raise their hands and accept responsibility.

Recently I've had to experience both sides of the coin. One as a vendor and one as a partner of the client with another vendor. Watching, as we always do, from the outside, it is interesting to witness companies deal with requests (or demands) for products and/or services. We live it every day. Being first to accept responsibility no matter what. It's a fundamental approach to delivery and client satisfaction. Many argue with that philosophy. In the end, you end up reaping what you sow.

Nobody is wrong in arguing. It is natural to disagree. It is, however, wrong to stay in a position or unbending stance. No matter how comfortable we can become in believing what we vend is completely ideal, there is no such thing. And no company can profess, at least honestly, to no issues of dissatisfaction. This is another thing I've recently had to experience. It is a hopeful thing, just not achievable.

It is in all of our best interest to be teachable, flexible, to listen, ask and confirm as well as validate. In a partnership, these are musts. When these critically important things start to disappear and position is asserted, it is no longer a partnership. Companies need to understand that shouting in order to position or defending their position is detrimental. And not simply because it is being said here, but because most will say and acknowledge the simple fact.

So what do you want to provide? Many businesses seem to want to provide with the opportunity to partner. Some businesses seem to want to partner with the opportunity to provide. No cart or horse here. Not which came first. All of us want to prosper and profit. It is required to continue to provide services. But at what cost? It is true that you can't make everyone happy all of the time. But no business that has more than two customers has never had a squeaky wheel.

Over the next five months, when so much comes down to the pitch, the sell, the flash, the sizzle and the gorilla on the roof, it might just make a few vendors become partners if we all stop and recognize what we're doing this for. Customer service starts with a customer and ends with service. We must be accountable. If your service is operating at 60% efficiency, you might just find that your customer is 40% out the door. If you're paying attention. You can point at anything else that touches what you make, but it's still your responsibility.

Lack of accountability, denial or service, sweeping things under the rug and the like are just a losing game. Oh, it may take time. But it will happen. Businesses today want real. They need honest. They expect more. They deserve what they expect and definitely what they pay for.

Don't you? Act that way.

*No clients were harmed in the making of this post. But many are simply fed up.

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight. Powerful Results.

The Dealership Environment: Inspired By Everything, Motivated By Nothing

Face it: You’re whipped. Which way is up? Which way is down? Is flat the new growth? Is the shiny object the new thing keeping you from the golf course of from your sales course? Fact: the dealership environment is as fragile and unsteady as it’s ever been. Yet there are more opportunities than ever.

Look around for a little while at any dealership and on the surface it looks functionally no different than it did just a few years ago. Dig a little bit and everything changes. But you already know this. You’re obviously more progressive or being informed by someone who is because you won’t find the sports score ticker or a reality show recap here. It’s all business. But is it new business?

With more advice than ever, including a massive dose of simply republished (or regurgitated) articles and data, and more tools than ever, including predominantly recreated, re-skinned and relicensed  products, it easy to get inspired by everything while ultimately motivated by nothing. So how do you stop the regression and inevitable redirection?

Have a plan. Plan your work. Work your plan.

More than ever, and especially with the speed of all things “new”, it is critical to write everything down, have a plan (including accountability for yourself), build support and see things through. Anything less is simply “blocking and tackling”, which is crap. Is this advice sage? Not at all!

In order to succeed you’re likely doing a number of the things listed above anyway. But are you doing it for everything, every day and do you have a plan of action? Can you get uncomfortable long enough to become perpetually motivated? Can you create the buy-in needed for at least a year? Two?

With the level of community support available, on DrivingSales for example, it’s easier than ever to get the motivation necessary. Remember, the platforms are for sharing and doing. DrivingSales and the other networks are some of the most underused resources! They are not supposed to be selling platforms. Simply reading and not sharing is akin to watching an accident unfold in front of you and not helping. Considering most dealerships are not the most positive environments around why, aside from the ego and time excuses, would you not go to where you can participate, learn, ask and excel?

While there are some great people sharing and answering questions, the purpose of the forums is to engage. The challenge ahead of us is not the economy (national or fuel) or the products. Our collective Achilles heel is not process or response times or the OEMs enforcing programs they don’t understand. Our greatest faults are relaxing, waiting for things to automatically happen for us and not participating. Not asking more questions and letting go of our egos. Not taking more responsibility for our staffs, interactions and brands. Being in the store but not being aware or active. Like most dealers in social media, we might be inspired but by not listening, involving and really trying, we are limiting our success. All of us.

1,000 people at the largest events for dealers, vendors and the OEMs? If those in attendance were just dealer staff, that would represent only 0.0005% of the retail industry. 50 people involved in a community with 50,000+ that touch the content? That’s a slightly better 0.001% involvement.

How can we motivate an industry? It’s not a CRM. It’s not going to happen with a DMS. And it’s surely not going to be spurred by a dealership website (have you actually looked at yours? Really?!) We must be motivated by what can move or change things for the better. We must be motivated by those things that last longer than 30 days. We must be motivated by how much more we can do. We must be motivated and then validate those that did the motivating, then motivate others.

Our industry does have more leaders than are presently obvious. It’s just not obvious. Not for now.

Businesses, already challenged, are going to be challenged more in the foreseeable future. Do you want to go into that future armed with only a pea shooter? Why not an arsenal? Why not a team? We are better than that. An industry that represents the largest part of our (shrinking) GDP deserves to be better, not lethargic!

Take the challenge and get a plan together with solid fundamentals and a road map. Let your inspiration without action turn into something greater.  What would happen if 2,000 people were active on communities? What if 3,000 showed up at the best events? We don’t know.

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

 

Making A Laughing Stock Out Of Social “Media”

Being involved in helping build awareness via social networks for dealers over the past three plus years, there has been a lot to see. And wonder about. From using APIs, feeds, republishing other content without attribution, ghost writing, "social" content farms, 50 plus network claims and more, it's a real "Wild Wild West" in what can loosely be called social media.

More often than not, the authentic part of brand building and gaining a following of targeted prospects, customers and partners is overshadowed by the "numbers game". Having not participated in the rat race, a few companies have catered to dealers from a more genuine and pervasive angle. In our case, even in working with some of the most reputable dealers in the US and Canada, our focus hasn't changed.

Just like with traditional or measured media, you can always pull an extra customer or two from outside your PMA/AOI because they saw your ad, lost leader, teaser, direct mail from a purchased list and the like. But the effort usually takes a financial investment, as well as a dedicated staff to take a couple hundred extra shopper calls from 50-200+ miles outside your selling market, that exceeds not only the return but takes un-calculated hours of effort. Again, you can likely sell one, two or even three. But at what cost?

Shiny object syndrome. Your choice: make it part of your business, or do like most dealers do with anything besides a warm body walking into the dealership. Isn't it so much easier when you can just throw hundreds to thousands of dollars at it to have it "done" by someone else, software, a new staff person, an existing staff person not doing their current job effectively or outsource it. Welcome to cardealerville, where more often than not (because there are some dealers and stores that simply kick a**), it's easier to just make it by rather than listen, learn, commit, apply, measure, adjust, remeasure, ask questions and do it forever.

Social networks. Facebook. It's a numbers game. Right? Yes, but only to a degree. While there are ways to grow a true, engaged following from email blasts to events, promotions to ads, signage to signature lines, an overnight success is as close to real and authentic as Simon Cowell keepng his opinion to himself or Donald Trump's hair staying in place without adhesive.

If you can add 2,100 fans in 48 hours and 1,100 of them in 11 hours, during the last few days of the month, claiming to do it with two salespeople walking around a (popular) mall armed only with iPads and their charm, there's a brand new Lexus LFA for sale at my house for $3.95 tax included.

Not to say that it can't be done. For Coca Cola. For United Airlines. For Zappos. For Lady Gaga. For a car dealer? Here's a reality check. The average percentage of people that you can stop, in a mall, during their shopping, fully engage, a get to do something you've asked them to do (as in "Like" a Facebook page) which requires about 2-4 minutes per person considering logging in, going to the page, liking it and logging out, is about 20%. If you're great. So, if you've added over 2,000 Likes, you would need over 10,000 people "walking by" you. Asking to Like a car dealership's Facebook page. At month end. Of a Holiday weekend. In a down economy. Need we go on?

Dealers. Heck, any business that reads our posts. This blog has been, is now, and will always be driven by the passon that our company has to education, improvement, information and moving the industry forward. Not hearsay. Not ego. Not reputation. Not prominence. Not sales (unless you're talking about a sales increase for the businesses reading our blog).

With less than 1% of franchise dealership employees getting a digital education at events, less than 5% participating in any level of OEM or third-party endorsed education, the attraction of paying $100 for 1,000 Facebook Likes can be too easy. Using automation and $50 a month to get thousands of Twitter followers can also be the same kind of aphrodisiac. Zero to hero is usually filled with as much satisfaction as a no-calorie candy bar. It may sound great, but selling high-line cars to a growing "Fan" base from South East Asia or South America is……………..well, let's not go there. Some of the OEMs actually read this. Wouldn't want anyone to get in hot water.

So just enjoy the teeming hordes of Likes you Real Ameican Genius of the Facebook Page. You deserve a nice cold one. Shower, that is.

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results.

When The Cover Comes Off The Onion

Let's face it, we still live in a marketing-based world. And nearly all of it still screaming for attention, sales, mass following, validation, acceptance and more while typically ignoring what matters most. Yes, it's morphed and transitioned and (partially) gone to the place called online but it is created and delivered in the same way it nearly always has. And for automotive, in both B-to-B and B-to-C arenas, the deliverables suck (we'll try to not use any more technical terms in this post).

It's not that the market, the public, the customers, the industry or even the actual providers don't expect any different, it's just that it's what's done. Is it that when you stop screaming "we're #1" it allows another company to scream the same thing, making it true? In the experience garnered by partnering with dealers all over North America, the most dissatisfaction expressed comes from dealing with companies screaming about top results while not backing it up.

Have we become so skewed that we'll actually do what we don't want to take part in ourselves? Or have we become so numb to the barrage of messaging that we don't notice? So let's take a layer off!

1. Old school. We practice what we preach, right? There is a lot of talk, once again, about "back to basics" and "blocking and tackling". Are you practicing what you preach, or is it time to get real? For starters, look at how salespeople are being "taught" typically, if at all. Motivational speakers? In-your-face, Glengarry Glen Ross "coffee is for closers" stuff (even though it may be true)? "Seasoned veterans that can do everything" sessions in your store? So…do you actually do that to customers? Do you talk to them that way? If not, why do you need it?

Salespeople are motivated by, wait for it, MONEY! If a salesperson is not on the ball, they may need a pep talk from an outsider for $5,000-$30,000. Right? More likely they need a couple days off, fresh air, a good book, some exercise and to get away from the naysayers at the dealership (which can also include management!). The first layer of the onion feel like the first burn of summer vacation…

2. Hyped 20 Group sales. For good and for bad, dealers talk to dealers that talk with other dealers. They recommend things. They invite speakers and presenters (don't forget the pitch masters) to their groups, associations and getaways. And then it happens: after providing a dealer/group with some great info, recommending appropriate partners, showing them how to best get the true answers as they consider the next move…you walk into the store that has been desperately needing a real kick in the behind treatment to get going, and alas…they had a round of golf with their buddy 86 states away and bought the same (fill-in-the-blank solution/vendor) because "they're selling cars like water".

No real research, no real competitive bids, no idea what they're doing. And, being as how it's automotive retail, after the install and training, the 30 days of excitement wears off and it's just another check. Until the next company comes in and…"nope, we don't need any new fill-in-the-blanks…we're all over it!". Yeah Bill (if you're a Microsoft fan or Steve if you like Apple more), you're all over it. That layer of the onion just put a divot in your business way bigger than the one you did on the 14th hole with your buddy.

3. Media. While that should be enough said, it still needs clarification. You are what you eat right? So, it is worth venturing a guess that you are what you read as well. Did you ever like a newscaster so much that the news was somewhat not as believable when someone else was on camera? That sure explains a lot in the automotive industry. A change of scenery is becoming more and more what the doctor ordered. Social media has surely facilitated the fact that a handful of sources is not as good as many good sources. Considering, at the same time, that there is definitely garbage out there called news, the world would just not be the same place anymore without the streams of great, timely and absolutely valuable information.

Or do you still get it from the same 10 people over and over and over? Better yet, do you get it from a place that sells what you end up seeing? Trust is absolutely required and good data is needed. So is a great line of questioning that deserves an honest, unbiased answer. Have you got your answer yet? The pain from that layer of the onion comes with a tear, a grimace and a cost.

 

Change is necessary, more than ever. And more than ever, things are remaining the same: The OEMs' ads. The Tier II ads. The vendors' pitches. The automotive media. The balloons. The gorillas on roofs. The radio spots. The newspaper. What are you trying to tell a public that is wide awake and ignoring it all?

Look outside, there's a new day. It's called opportunity. And it's not wearing yesterday's clothes. It's not driving a….oh boy. Better not go there. That onion might end up being really sour….

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Parting Shots, Starting Shots. They’re Not Too Different. So Get Real!

Chances are you've been on one of the many sides of this lately: Just moments ago I sent a Facebook message to a dealer, responding to my initial message after receiving a "friend" request from them on Facebook. The message in the middle, the one from them, essentially asked me to show them any Facebook language indicating that setting up a personal page for a business was a violation of their terms of use. That was in addition to their indicating that, after reading into it, a business page might be a "good option as they are more tailored to businesses".

Folks, for better or worse it's 2011. Being in business is not about turning the open sign to "open". Being in business means you are serious about it. That every part of your business is on the radar. That being as how nearly everything that you do away from the dealership is digital you should be doing it at your dealership. You can't be serious about it being half-assed.

If you communicate with your Internet leads 50% of the time in your ILM/CRM and 50% of the time in Outlook, you WILL get 50% of the results, not 100%.

If you make a serious effort to contact leads, customers, be-backs and more 50% of the time and spend 50% of the time shooting the s&*t at the water cooler, the point, the desk, the lot and on the web, you WILL get 50% of the results, not 100%.

If you do a relatively good job at scheduling appointments 50% of the time, great job 50% of the time, you WILL get 50% of the results, not 100%.

And if you pay attention to half of the new, relevant, digital information available to you and pay attention to half of the old school, down and dirty, blocking and tackling, back to basics, you WILL get 50% of the results, not 100%. If you are lucky….

You see, as we close one year and start another what you do, and not what you talk about doing, will dictate what you get. This is not rocket science. Stop ignoring what is right in front of you… What we're hoping for is that you get the message. And there's no cost or strings attached! Ignore the messengers all you want. Don't ignore the message here!!!!! Heck, there are plenty in our industry getting (and paying for) a much larger audience and covers of magazines just to tell you what you should be well past.

Yes, it is our job to do the job right the first time. Especially if you have the information and resources! Dealers making sure the coffee and pastry service is just right while ignoring their sales process? Nothing in the world is more akin to stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime. Yes, the customer feel good is important. But calls filled with a bunch of ahs, ers and ums with a bunch of I's to boot or sending someone an email blast 120 days after they bought with a payment $50 less per month for the same car will never take the place of a great donut and a latte.

And it will never take the place of having the best new-owner orientation in the city or even the state or region. Oh yeah, those went away when things got tough and have now been replaced by $5,000 a day "trainers" and $4,000 a month social media services. Man, someone has your number and they've been sharing it!

Our parting shots for 2010 are absolutely no different at all from the starting ones for 2011. A number of dead-on predictions for the last year were ignored by at least 95% of the industry. Will an increase in sales for the majority of dealers in 2010, and hopefully again in 2011, have people ignoring really solid insight and strategies again? Let's hope not.

Aside from the factory banging on you to punch cars so they can reach new sales levels (or try to save their year), January 1 is not the start of a new month or new year. It's the next day after December 31, when you'll likely be doing the same exact thing you were doing on June 16.

So get real…

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Crunch Time: Are Your Vendors out To Lunch? Or Are You?

It's very telling, especially today, when a supplier doesn't deliver.
Over-commit, under-deliver. While there is no such thing as 100%
delivery, 100% of the time when there are variables like creative,
interpretation, third parties and even technology changing at a
breakneck, daily pace. However the fundamentals should never change:
communication, expectation, examination and verification.

Being
around the automotive online space for over 10 years, it has been
common to be around or even directly involved with what you might call
"sales coups without production capabilities" or "sell it and then we'll
build it". Most of the time letting clients know you're building
something as they buy it is completely fine. Selling something as
complete or pitching services you provide when you really don't is
something else.

Over the past few years, it's been website and SEO services. Lately it's social media and reputation management. Two sayings to remember: if it sounds too good to be true, it likely is; stupid is as stupid does. In all fairness, the impetus is always on the buyer. While that's not completely fair, everything deserves a second look or opinion. For one example, recently we've been in meetings hearing about services for a few hundred dollars a month promising positive reviews on hundreds of sites.

Even without prejudice, it is difficult to understand the reach, impact or importance of a positive dealership review on some obscure website. About florists. Being read eight states away from you. By someone who has no interest in buying a car.

Numbers are great. Especially transparent ones via Google Analytics or something similar. It's also great to have a string following in the social online around your business. Having 40,000 on Twitter and 10,000 fans on Facebook, most of whom never have or never will buy from you, refer people to you or possibly even realize what your business does. That's irrelevant. People moving into your PMA that own a car from your franchise? Great. Likely a potential customer. Someone on your social network that lives 8,459 miles away from you because you're giving away something for free? Worthless.

What's of less value than that? The people and companies that are selling the services because you don't have the time to know and understand better, let alone put resources against it. And the fact that you can do it for $300 less a month than another company that can do it for you? And you call yourself a business person? Please. The other day at an OEM meeting, we heard about dealers paying $2,000 dollars a month for social media services. There are real companies doing a better job for half the price. Dealers paying $8,000 a month for that?!?!?! Let's not even go there.

This is not about the struggles with real ROI in the digital space. Or people not understanding services. It's not even about pushing companies out of the industry that will intentionally pull the wool over dealers' eyes (that would take years anyway). It is about taking charge of what you want to do in your business, having goals, comparing apples to apples and making sense out of the insane amount of pitches car dealers face.

Many times it's your vendors that are out to lunch. Sometimes, it's absolutely you. Question reps and consultants. Question proposals and marketing materials. Question your staff on what to do. Heaven forbid, question your customers and find out what they want and expect first. And stop buying for the sake of it, because someone in your 20 group did or because a golf buddy (that operates their store completely different than you do) told you they found the magic bullet.

Get back to business. It's crunch time…

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Trying To Move Your Business Forward Alone? You’ll Get Tired…And More Lonely!

There you were, grand opening day. Glistening bright showroom, gleaming inventory, balloons, refreshments and customers. Fast forward however many years and maybe a few of those items have faded. But the one thing that can't go away: customers! More businesses are waking up to the fact that it's about the customer and some even realize more specifically that it's what they can and will do for your business.

Whether you're involved with social media or not, crowd sourcing (and all its forms and descriptions) is one of the best and most efficient ways to move your business. There is no question that your business must move from the inside but it moves more quickly if your second greatest asset (yes, your greatest asset still is your people) helps from the outside. It may be the greatest step in avoiding greater amounts of failure than necessary (read: failure is necessary, just not to much).

Now if you believe that means you need to have a ground-moving meetup or tweetup, stop there. If you have plans to crush your competition with a Facebook page or more Twitter followers because someone says you're great, put away your soap box now. What you simply need is your customers to help move your business forward with direct interaction. You know, real conversation! Have you collected an opt-in email database? Have you surveyed random sales and service customers within one hour of their visit using free online services? Ask and you'll be told.

That being said, if your engagement online is mature and you get compelling responses, all the better. Remember that your customers having a say in your business is not an "in a silo" activity. Your greatest opportunities are in the great areas of volume and you should likely reward your most helpful clients as well (in legal ways).

Businesses must move forward to keep up with their customers today. Keep the conversation to your management team, and you'll likely keep your results as they are today. The suggestions from a 47 year-old mother of two or a 22 year-old fresh-out-of-college-with-a-first-job kid are likely more in-line with what will make you successful. Go on, do it…surprise yourself!

Or you can be like too many businesses today that are getting hammered in reviews, CSI rankings, word-of-mouth and other media only to decide how to move forward alone. When you try to do that alone, you'll get tired…and more lonely! Ever heard of the customer that got into a great conversation with the GSM or GM, came back for another chat during their first service, ended up working for the dealership and is not only killing it now, they've brought everyone with them?

Oh yeah, that would never happen to you! You're not looking outside for help anyway….

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Don’t Look Down…I Said Don’t Look Down!

It's absolutely amazing…we humans. Creatures of habit, intrigue and fear-based reactivity. Right now is no exception, obviously! However, it is also possibly one of the most defining times as well. True leaders will come out of these challenges and leave those that just waited behind.

Survival of the fittest? Nope. Natural selection? Not in the least. Those that listen, learn and lead will become the only true survivors in the new environment, whatever that is. A constant vegetative state leaves you…in a vegetative state. A mind set for challenges, diversity and no's, armed with direction and goals is in a complete different state. One of success!

When you were a kid, you had a challenge: brick wall, log over a wash or stream, even a tightrope (you must have interesting family stories to tell!) and someone yelled "don't look down!". Did you? Of course. It's not if you look, but what you do afterward that matters most. If you persevered, you were rewarded with confidence, self-worth, maybe even status… If you succumbed to the "look" and ran back, hobbled off or fell, you likely received a completely different result.

Fast forward 20-40 years. There are challenges up the wazoo right now. Whatever you do: Don't Look Down! OK, what to do now? The sand already is full of heads, the job boards are stuffed with resumes, your industry friends and associates are doing a little CYA (fine, a lot) while they forgot about you and the water cooler has been repossessed. What now?

How ever imposing the view into the chasm, do what you know how to do best. That is if what you do best is do. Don't take my advice, you already know what you need to do. Quit blaming the person that yelled and warned you, they're the messenger. What is the message that you will hear?

This can't be said enough: get your plan down on paper, figure out what you are committed to doing, figure out how to get there (yes, with outside help period!), measure, qualify, watch, gage and review but absolutely positively do it! The difference most times between failing and failing forward to success is simply a matter of inches: the six between your ears!

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

You Might Drop The Ball, But Don’t Let It Become An Anchor

When you're in sales, management or any position dealing with customers, you're likely to do it: drop the ball. It's part of the continual education process. Even today with unbelievably well-working software, applications, technology and our electronic leashes, it's inevitable that you'll not do what you were supposed to do.

So why do some people drop the ball only occasionally and recover while others seem to live in the mire of their undone tasks? Perspective, ambition and goals as well as an undying commitment to the customer. If you find that you consistently leave the 'little things' undone, get help. It's most likely that you have the ability to, but lack some of the keys to break through to success.

Lately I've had the pleasure of reading articles in ADM and Selling Iron (Brain Food) that deal with the "if we had done this, we wouldn't have had to do that" mentality. And they're totally right! Car dealerships are notorious when it comes to taking care of customers. So why not go the extra mile and make sure that you've followed up, called, delivered, asked, surveyed, invited, confirmed, qualified and more?

Many salespeople I talk to or witness after they've dropped the ball have the same issues:

1. Lack of ownership (ie. blame someone else at the dealership or the customer!)
2. Didn't set a reminder or some other tool to support accomplishing the task
3. Didn't adequately pass off the task to another responsible party (when needed)
4. Didn't ensure that the customer was completely taken care of/satisfied
5. Didn't care (which is just plain pitiful so go sell flowers or oranges on the street corner PLEASE)

If you make a commitment to handle something, do it. It doesn't matter if it's part of the sales process (which has its own ramifications), or simply sending the spare key to the customer after it was dropped in the showroom. In today's environment, it's more important than ever to dot your i's and cross your t's. The stuff that would be swept under the rug just a couple years ago will have you looking for a new job now.

We're all likely to make mistakes. Do everything you can to avoid those mistakes but following a process and following up. If you can't handle something simply don't make the comitment that you will. The difference in learning from salesmanship mistakes and not repeating them versus dropping the ball repeatedly and refusing to improve is dramatic. It's also what's separating many dealerships today.

Don't be an anchor, pick up the ball and run Forrest, run!

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

OK, It’s Time To Get It…Follow Up Is The Key!

It doesn't matter who you are, what you sell or where you sell. Further, it doesn't matter if you're actively selling or making sales happen away from the front lines. There are a number of things that make business tick:

  1. Passion about what you're doing and/or representing
  2. Solid fundamentals; especially process
  3. Understanding and belief in your business' mission and/or goals

Some still count on their manufacturer's brand or their 'book of business' to bring in customers.  If you can still enjoy that luxury today, count yourself as extremely fortunate. For most businesses, that's not the case. But, it's not as difficult as many make it.

A few things are paramount and undeniable:

  1. People want to know what's in it for them
  2. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care
  3. People want to understand value, advantage or benefit

Simply put, consumers want a reason to connect. The number one active failure is follow up, bar none. When you tell someone that you'll call them back in 30 minutes, keep your word. When you say that a customer will be taken care of, it's your job to ensure that (and be careful because their understanding of what that means may be dramatically different than yours!). If a person understands that something will be replaced, delivered or set aside, do it!

More and more, I find that follow up is atrocious. You'd figure with fewer sales, dramatically less people visiting businesses and more time to do the proper things, we'd be getting it right. It comes down to driving effective results, which comes from setting expectations and delivering! If you don't have good follow up you're dead. And not just an alert in your CRM…really do it!

Many time, follow up is the job of a customer service department or a BDC. No matter what, whoever handles follow up represents the whole company. I've heard it many times that a salesperson will excuse a customer's opinion or experience because "customer service did the follow up, not me". News flash: you're deaf, dumb and blind if you believe that.

Yes, first impressions are lasting ones. But the last impressions may be all for many consumers today and that could severely impact your business. If you don't leverage software or other technology, have reminders and build a plan (and cushion) into your day every day, you are in for a rude awakening.

Think about these things:

  • Time effectiveness = results / time
  • The principal of stewardship is taking responsibility over what you have
  • Success is the progressive realization of a worthwhile dream or goal
  • Change is made when you:
    1. Decide to make business happen
    2. Make a commitment to follow up
    3. Put action into decision and commitment

Make follow up a critical part of your business plan and do it right. It's not someone else's responsibility, it's yours. Or else it's someone else's business! And have a purpose to succeed.

No purpose –> No goals        Know purpose –> Know goals

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results