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Five First Tasks to Becoming the Digital Dealer

Five First Tasks to becoming the Digital Dealer

Guest writer Mets Kramer continues his series on the Digital Dealership with today’s post: Five First Tasks to Becoming the Digital Dealer.

When I started as a service supervisor, part of my job was closing invoices.  On average, I probably opened (and therefore should have closed) 2 work orders per day.  Yet my metric target was 9 days average invoicing cycle   That meant 9 days between the last day someone worked on the machine and when the invoice was sent.  At the time I thought that seemed quite reasonable.  There were always some outstanding items on the work order, or more commonly I was too busy to close them faster.  The metric was an average number of days, so some work orders were much slower to invoice.  Unfortunately, as we all know, invoices sent well after the end of work are more likely to be disputed and less likely to be paid.

Years later, now responsible for all service operations, I started to ask myself where the 9 days came from.  Why not 10 or 8 or 7 or any other number? There was always some reason to be found why an invoice couldn’t be sent yet.   Then I started wondering why, when I send my car in to get work done at the dealership, do I get an invoice right when I want my car back.  Why don’t they wait 9 days to send me my bill?   I came to realize the reason was because the car dealership had figured out how to make sure every part and charge was on the work order before the work was done.  They do this because they won’t get paid if they give your car back before they send a bill, and they can’t hold your car until the bill is ready.

The car dealership had done the work and created tasks to remove all the problems that delayed getting everything on the work order on time.  So, I started the same process at the branches.  Finding out what stopped invoicing the same day and found ways to remove the hurdle.  It included using purchase orders with confirmed values, real-time digital service reports and even just better vendors. We even changed the metric on invoicing cycle. 75% of work orders had to be closed within one day, 25% could average up to 5 days.  This new metric created tasks for people to figure out how to prevent delays and we showed it was possible to invoice same day in almost all cases.

It’s what Ron calls the Art of the Possible.

In 1993, I got my first dial up internet access, via my 14.4 modem, on my IBM ThinkPad 700.  That’s almost 30 years ago.  Clearly the internet has been around for a long time.  Now, in 2021, here we are talking about the digital dealership and still have open tasks and reasons why we aren’t as digital as most other industries.  The truth is, it is possible!  Possible to have our dealerships capable and positioned where we want them to be.

The Art of the Possible, is about completing the tasks you know exist, to achieve your goals.   It might be a matter of getting some additional help to complete the task.  Either because of manpower, knowledge, or technical limitations.  Sometimes it’s as simple as implementing what you already have in existing systems.   Many of you will agree, you have software systems in the dealership with capabilities you don’t use.  Even though it would make the dealership better.

We’d like to help. Make some time to send Ron Slee or myself a list of 3 – 5 tasks you want to complete. These tasks should be oriented toward a goal aligned with becoming a Digital Dealership and from any department. Examples can include “I’d like to allow customers more flexible ways to communicate with us” or “I’d like to store and use information properly to drive sales”.  Send us your open tasks and we will help you work through implementing them.

A few years ago, I went to see a dealer after my presentation at AED.  I presented on using customer fleet data to predict sales and drive sales activities.  This dealer had all the capacity to implement this concept, and even agreed they should be doing it, but it was still an open item on their list, for the last 20 years. Don’t let small hurdles get in the way of being a better dealership for your customers, don’t let a list of POSSIBLE tasks stop you from becoming a Digital Dealer.

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Why Do I Do What I Do, Part Two

Why Do I Do What I Do, Part Two

In tonight’s blog post, guest writer Ryszard Chciuk brings us a sequel post: Why Do I Do What I Do, Part Two.

It is a very sad fact; most people have no idea about the meaning of their lives. This is because it is really hard mental work to find it out, and people do not like to overload their brains. As Victor Frankl mentioned in Man’s Search for Meaning, those people are caught in the “existential vacuum”. “They do not even know what they wish to do. For such a man No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism)”. Those poor people are very close to you, maybe in the organization you are working for.

During the lectures in Vienna in 1946, Victor Frankl listed the four main reasons a man wants to kill himself. One of them is the lack of faith in the meaning of the rest of life. Such a person can be very near to you.

As I declared in the article Why I do what I do, I believe the person searching for the meaning of his life can be inspired by the mission of the team he is a part of and will adopt it as a kind of response to his problem of not knowing that. And those who already have a sense of meaning will realize that working for the team is helping them to fulfill their lives’ missions.

Following that concept, around twenty years ago, I decided to start the creation of a new after-sales department for Volvo CE in my country by presenting my own professional mission to my new colleagues. I told them:

We provide machine users with the highest machine availability at the lowest cost of operation, by delivering service works exceeding customers’ expectations, and keeping profitability on the level assuring steady development of the service department and securing financial liquidity of our dealership in a downturn in the economy.

When you read my department mission, you could say:

  • They are devoted to the well-being of their customers.
  • They think customers’ priority is the highest machine availability and the   lowest cost of operation.
  • They are going to satisfy those needs by lowering the cost of machines’   operation by providing customers with excellent services.
  • They are also devoted to the well-being of their dealership.
  • They want to earn enough money to develop their service potential and to   survive in the market turmoil.

You can ask: and what about employees of the aftersales department, what about colleagues working for other silos? What you are going to do for your suppliers and local society. Will you respect the environment?

I was also not very satisfied with that definition. It was already too long to memorize! We could remove part of the definition regarding earning money, but I wanted to be honest with our customers and also, I wanted to keep our owners as my friends.

It was not the best expression of the idea I lived myself with, expression of my WHY I do what I do. My life’s meaning, my mission was ­— and still is — to make the world a little bit better than it was when I was born. Despite our saying “with the good intentions the Hell is cobbled”, I immodestly or naively believe it is possible.

That’s why it was a must to develop our vision and the main principles (values). We also had to work intensively on the organizational culture.

As I mentioned in my post Principia for After-sales, Part Two, it was necessary to present the whole idea simultaneously. I used to do it myself in the course of the introductory training for all new employees.

Then, most importantly was to prove to all my direct and indirect subordinates that I would treat those fancy words seriously, despite my personal cost, all the time. Unfortunately, it was rather common within our corporation, that so-called shared missions were not very popular. Other departments did not define clearly their shared missions, visions, and values. As it appeared in the future, it was an overwhelming obstacle.

Let me close by asking you some serious questions please.

  • What is your life’s mission?
  • What is your purpose?
  • What is your WHY?
  • Have you already found the meaning for your life?
  • Do you intend to spend half of the rest of your life working for an organization without a mission you could share?
  • Do you know why some of your subordinates and coworkers do not work with passion and engagement? Will you help them?

As Ron says, the time for your answers is now.

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Friday Filosophy v.09.24.2021

FRIDAY FILOSOPHY

For tonight’s Friday Filosophy v.09.24.2021, we are sharing pearls of wisdom from Joseph Rudyard Kipling.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)[1] was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which inspired much of his work.

Kipling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was among the United Kingdom’s most popular writers.[3] Henry James said “Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known.” In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and at 41, its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and several times for a knighthood, but declined both. Following his death in 1936, his ashes were interred at Poets’ Corner, part of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey.

  • God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.
  • If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. The world will be yours and everything in it, what’s more, you’ll be a man, my son.
  • The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
  • Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
  • We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.
  • The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.
  • If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.
  • Heaven, grant us patience with a man in love.
  • And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves ‘It’s pretty, but is it Art?’
  • Often and often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told anyone how I was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established.
  • Asia is not going to be civilized after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old.
  • A man’s mind is wont to tell him more than seven watchmen sitting in a tower.

The Time is Now.

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Time Is a Problem

Time Is a Problem

 

Are We Simply Solving Problems All Day?

Over a year ago I wrote in a blog that Time Was Your Enemy. The other day Mets Kramer and I were recording a Podcast on the Digital Dealership and we spoke about two companies who we think do a good job at a lot of things; Amazon and Google.

Amazon has data. Lots and lots of data. They have made data analytics into an art form. They know what every customer looked at and what they did with it. They know every vendor and how they perform. They are constantly “tweaking” things to provide a better customer experience. They are constantly working on their business.

Google gets revenue from their customer search information. What were you looking at and where were you? And they are constantly improving their systems and process. It is reported that they spend 70% of their investments on their current operations. Making sure it runs in the best way possible across all platforms. They spend 20% of their investments on continuous improvements projects identified by their employees. The final 10% of their investment goes to what they call “Moonshots.” Ideas from their employees that might or might not be successful. They are constantly working on their business.

As we continued talking about them, we shifted to what we do in our businesses. We called it as we saw it. We are problem solvers. We put out fires. That led us to reviewing the firefighters and how they do their job. Statistically it is said that 5% of the firefighters’ time is spent fighting fires. The other 95% is doing things aimed at preventing fires. They are constantly working on their business.

Shifting back to our Industry we concluded that we were spending 95% of our time fighting fires and very little time on trying to eliminate problems. We are working “IN” the business not “ON” the business.

The other blog from me recently is about the workforce and what is happening in that aspect of our businesses. We have rarely any succession plan. We rarely do annual performance reviews. We rarely if ever do exit interviews to find out why employees are leaving and what ideas and thoughts, they have to make the job they are leaving better. We just continue what we have always done. Solve problems. In fact, Mets suggested that we self-correct as an Industry. There is a lot of pressure in problem solving all day long. We separate from people who cannot work under that kind of constant pressure. We also employ people who are used to repetitive work. Process orders, give quotations and availability checks. Give status reports on work in process. But who is there out there who is employed to identify continuous improvement ideas?

When Six Sigma was implemented, many dealerships created job functions outside of the normal day to day problem solving work to have their lives be dependent on finding ways to make things better. Who do you have doing that work today? What changes are you making to your processes and procedures and your methods? Who is analyzing your data to identify customer activity? Who is researching the changing buying habits of your customers?

That led me to this blog. I think we have a lot of work to do. Don’t get me wrong many of you have done a wonderful job in customer service. You make a fair amount of pretax income. You support your employees and they in turn support your customers and vendors. On the surface things look OK. But like a duck swimming in the river. It looks calm on top of the water but that duck is working hard at paddling away underwater.

Becoming a Digital Dealer is of critical importance if we want to stay abreast of the market and the trends in customer purchasing. It is said that 73% of the people charged with the responsibility of purchasing things in business today is done by millennials. Further 50% of the millennials do their purchasing online. How does that fit into your business model? Are your employee’s serving customers as they have always done? What percentage of your parts business is coming to you via the internet? What percentage of your customers have millennials doing their purchasing? Do you see the dilemma that I see?

Over the last fifty years from work that I have done over that period of time I have watched market share for parts drop by 50%, market share for labor drops of 30%. Have you noticed that yourself? Do you know your parts or labor market share? From my work in the industry there are very few, less than 10% of the dealers, that I have worked with, that know their market share. To make matters worse they don’t have current and accurate machine population lists by customer either. That is the most basic piece of data that we have in our industry and it is clearly the most important.

I will close with the truth that keeps me going. Everyone wants to do a good job. I believe that to my core. BUT. Everyone has to know what doing a good job looks like. Amazon and Google have shown us the way. Our job is constantly changing as is our market. Are our dealerships constantly changing, constantly improving the processes and systems for their customers? Sadly, I don’t think we are. Now is clearly the time to have the discipline and the personal character to work on the business not simply in the business. Now is the time to eliminate problems not simply solve them. It is clearly up to you.

The Time is Now.

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Friday Filosophy v.09.17.21

FRIDAY FILOSOPHY v.09.17.21

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was lauded as the “greatest humorist the United States has produced. He was raised in Hannibal, Missouri and left school after the fifth grade to become a printer’s apprentice. When he was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, joining the newly formed International Typographical Union, the printers trade union. He educated himself in public libraries in the evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional school. Twain studied the Mississippi, learning its landmarks, how to navigate its currents effectively, and how to read the river and its constantly shifting channels, reefs, submerged snags, and rocks that would “tear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated”. It was more than two years before he received his pilot’s license. Piloting also gave him his pen name from “mark twain“, the leadsman’s cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms (12 feet), which was safe water for a steamboat.

  • It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
  • The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
  • Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
  • If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
  • Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
  • Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
  • Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
  • Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
  • There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.
  • Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
  • The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
  • We have the best government that money can buy
  • I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.

The Time is Now.

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Have You Noticed What Is Happening?

Have you Noticed What is Happening?

For the last several months I haver been receiving phone calls and emails asking me how dealers should be navigating this current workforce problem. Have you noticed? Let me give you some facts to consider. As of this writing there were 10,934,000 job openings in the USA. That is the highest number ever. Unemployment stands at 5.2%. The long term unemployed (more than 26 weeks) stands at 3,200,000. Surveys tell us that 5,700,000 people who are unemployed want a job. The average work week stands at 34.7 hours and the private non-farm average hourly pay is at $30.72.

Those are the facts. Are you looking for an individual to fill an opening you have in your business? Well perhaps this might give you pause. Gallup research from earlier this year, 2021, found that 48% of the American Workforce was actively looking to change jobs. What do you think is motivating people to want to change jobs? That same survey found that the real problem is employee disengagement. Patrick Lencioni in his book “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job” called it Irrelevance. The employees don’t feel that they are relevant to their employer.

Some of you will use this as ammunition to get everyone back to work in the office. That working from home caused this problem. Don’t come to that conclusion too quickly. It is not correct. Some jobs are more effectively done away from the traditional workplace. Yes, it will take some time to work this out. But make no mistake it is happening now.

Let’s return to Gallup for the reasons for this feeling of “disengagement.” The three most common reasons were:

  • Not seeing opportunities for development
  • Not feeling connected to the company’s purpose
  • Not having strong relationships at work

This is causing a major change in the role of management. Jon Clifton, Global Managing Partner at Gallup notes that even though 64% of the survey respondents didn’t feel engaged at work, that the proportion of engaged workers is growing over time. “One reason is that management strategies are changing. Companies are no longer promoting people to management roles because they are good at their job. Rather, they’re looking at management as a skill in and of itself, and making sure people are good at managing others before giving them more direct reports. Good managers mean more engaged employees and less turnover.” And to me here is the kicker. Employees that are engaged at work are far less likely to leave. Gallup found they’d need to be offered a 20% pay increase to even consider leaving.

I hope you, like I, consider this to be rather sobering news. This news should also force you to do some serious thinking about how you operate. How you engage your employees. Of course, this is nothing new, is it? You should always have been engaging your employees in the business. Who doesn’t know that? But please think about it. How do you engage your employees in your business?

  • Do you have perfunctory state of the company meetings once a quarter where the “Management” tours the stores and shares results with everybody? How is that going for you? Perhaps the Pandemic stopped that mode of communications. No, that is not engagement. That is public relations. What about the day- to-day interaction between the employee and their team leader, their direct supervisor? What do they talk about? What is your employee turnover rate? What do the employees who are leaving, tell you in exit interviews? Do you even do exit interviews? If you don’t do exit interviews you should ask yourself why you don’t.
  • Do you have annual performance reviews with each employee at least once a year? Sonya Law, one of our talented bloggers, has been writing about this for some time. We did Part #1 of a Podcast a couple of weeks ago and Part #2 will be coming shortly. Not very many businesses provide these performance reviews. They are missing a huge opportunity. Continuous improvement opportunities. Don’t forget that the person doing the job knows more about that job than anyone else. They can tell you ways that things can be made better. For them and for the company. This also give the supervisor the opportunity to explore what it is that the employee would like to do next, what they would like to learn. This is another way that employee engagement can be improved.
  • Do you offer, and pay for, any learning that the employee does? Amazon just announced that they will pay for all University education for their employees. Do you do that? Do you offer training programs for all employees? What we at Learning Without Scars advocate, and strongly so, is that each employee should take a Job Function Skills Assessment each year. This should be one of the foundation blocks for the annual review. This is also the gateway to discussions on classes and learning that the employee wants or needs.

Those are three simple questions that need to be answered if you are seriously wanting to protect your business by having your employees truly feel and believe that they are engaged. The choice is yours. This time, however, the consequence for no action is serious.

The time is now.

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Friday Filosophy v.9.10.21

September 10, 2021

FRIDAY FILOSOPHY

Throughout history, women have been working hard to ensure that the female voice is heard. Whether that means working in politics, becoming an activist for social change, or breaking barriers in athletics, women have gone the extra mile to gain equality and advocate for a better world. Regardless of age, race, or nationality. By working with purpose and confidence, women demonstrate that having strength and tenacity doesn’t mean sacrificing your vulnerability. And all of these quoted women show that failure shouldn’t be an obstacle in meeting your goals. So, in honor of all the incredible women who have blazed a trail forward—both in the past and present—here are some inspirational quotes. The words of these wise women prove that through action, anything is possible.

  • Girls are capable of doing everything men are capable of doing. Sometimes they have more imagination than men. – Katherine Johnson, mathematician and one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist
  • I raise up my voice—not so I can shout but so that those without a voice can be heard… We cannot succeed when half of us are held back. – Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate
  • Tremendous amounts of talent are being lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.” – Shirley Chisholm, first African-American woman elected to U.S. Congress
  • Have no fear of perfection; you’ll never reach it. – Marie Curie, chemist who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
  • You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. – Indira Gandhi, first female Prime Minister of India
  • No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt, former U.S. First Lady and U.S. Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly
  • Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right. – Jane Goodall, world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees and environmental activist
  • We are here, not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers. –Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the UK suffragette movement
  • Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. – Frida Kahlo, was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits

The Time is Now.

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The Digital Dealership – Digital Data Triggers

The Digital Dealership – Digital Data Triggers

In tonight’s blog post, guest writer Mets Kramer brings us to the bright side of technology in the Digital Dealership – Digital Data Triggers.

One of the best things about computers is they do the boring tasks of wading through data.  It’s a concept that is generally well understood, yet too many dealers are not applying this capability.

For all the years I spent running departments at dealers, I was never a fan of reports.   Reports, to me, are long lists of printed out or on-screen data that I need to read through to determine if there are any actionable situations.  It’s time consuming, especially if done on a regular basis.  I’ve always preferred getting the reporting system to do the work for me.

I LOVE indicators, indicators are the action items you get from a long boring report.   Indicators are the result of analyzing the report data and determining what we should do.  A great example is a customer account balance statement, where we look for people over their credit limit or with aged invoices.   Rather than read the whole list, we often just print the over limit customers and hand them to a credit manager or sales rep to call the customer.

In the same way, the Digital Dealership uses its data, computers and an analyst to create actions from data.  These action items are pushed out through various methods to improve the business or support the customer.

There are 2 main types of actionable data.  First there are activity or event triggered actions and the second are analysis or derived actions.

Activity or event-based triggers are implemented often to follow up on past events.  Great examples are notification to the sales rep 30 days after a customer purchased a machine to schedule an initial service or follow up on performance. Similar triggers are post rental follow up, to find out how the customer’s rental experience was.    The Service department can do a similar follow up after a customer receives their maintenance inspection check list with quoted items found during the service.   If the customer declines them initially, the Digital Dealer follows up to make sure they got done, frequently gaining that work.

The second type of trigger is derived from data or rather the analysis of historic data.  These are often more complex and look for changes in the historic norm to determine if something has changed, which would require action.   This is something we all do in the parts business, for example.  As sales of a part drop off, we analyze the data and, if the part is used on an old model, we determine the need to stock less of them.

Triggers based on data trend analysis often let us get ahead of a problem.   Think of a customer who normally purchases every 6 weeks but has shown no activity in the past 8.   The Sales Rep should be able to connect with that customer and find out why.   What about a customer who was spending $100K per year on service labor, but in the past 6 months it’s been $25K?  In these cases, it’s likely important to understand what’s happening.

Triggers, from analyzing data history or events and put in front of the right person, lead to action.  These action triggers can be as simple as an email notification, or, preferably these triggers are listed as exceptions on a digital platform such as your CRM.  In a CRM the indicator can easily lead to a page listing the customer’s contact information or even instantly connect the call.  Once the call is done an activity is created capturing the story from the customer, and possibly generating a new sales lead.

One of my favorite indicators in Vizybility is “Customer that need follow up”.  Set a contact frequency for an existing or target customer, and the CRM reminds you to call on that interval.  These are great to avoid missing sales for a low volume customer.

In all of these scenario’s computers do what they do best, track and analyze data.   Analysts learn from the data and, in conjunction with a manager, create triggers when certain scenarios are seen.  These actionable decisions, or triggers, are fed to people in the operations through CRM or other systems to support customers, avoid problem.

Next time you’re reading through a long report list and deciding what to do, think about how you could create automatic triggers in your Digital Dealership.

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An Update Just For You – Our Quarterly Newsletter

An Update Just For You – Our Quarterly Newsletter

On July 1st 2021 we published our first Newsletter. We were very excited to get it completed. We put a button on our website for visitors to Sign Up for it and we received a modest, but significant, interest in the first Newsletter. Thank you for all of you who did Sign Up. For those of you who are interested and have not yet signed up for it you can access the Newsletter Library from the Resources tab on the website, www.learningwithoutscars.org. We are working on the upcoming Fall version on October 1, 2021 now. It features many inputs from the readers of our first one. Don’t miss out. Sign up to receive it automatically in your inbox by clicking on the Sign-Up button on our website.

Our goal with the Newsletter is clear – to continue to transfer information and knowledge to the operational people and leaders in the Capital Goods Industries. To accomplish this, we have split the Newsletter into a series of sections: –

  • Person of Interest
  • Aloha a Learning Without Scars Introduction
  • The Parts Business
  • The Service Business
  • Product Support Selling and Marketing
  • The Business of Business
  • Lifelong Learning.

The Fall Newsletter will be sent to you with a link for the Parts, Service, Product Support Selling and Marketing and the Business of Business sections Clicking on the links will enable you to receive a file of the Newsletter content in a .pdf format. This should make it easier for you to distribute to your co-workers. On a side note, you can get them to sign up for it themselves and you won’t need to have the .pdf link at all. It is these individual sections that we are creating for our readers so that they will be able to have easier access to the specific content thoughts and ideas for their consideration.

We hope that you will share the appropriate sections with other employees in your business. Have them read it and then set some time where you and the team can discuss it. This is part of the ongoing work of leading and enabling a team of people to continue their individual growth. Communications on matters of common interest. We have provided the content such that there are thought provoking ideas and suggestions in each section. Plus, don’t forget that everything we mention we have implemented around the world for the past forty years. Where you find items that might make a difference in your business. Select items you want to focus on and implement change. Talk with your team, assign a project leader, establish the what-how-when-with whom plan, and then set up a schedule for the implementation. That is one of our mail goals with the Newsletter – provide content which causes teams of people to think about any changes they could or should make to affect the work of the employees and make it more rewarding as they continue to satisfy the needs and wants of your customers.

In our Lifelong Learning Section, we provide you with suggestions for applicable and pertinent books to read. This has been a normal practice of mine, for many years, either as a leader in a dealership or in my consulting practice. Pick a book that you think will resonate most with your team. Buy the book for everyone in that team, that is a very inexpensive training cost. Give everyone a month to read the book. Set up a date where the group will meet, either face to face or via a Zoom/Teams type virtual meeting platform. Talk about the book. What did they learn? What did they find of interest? Talk about it. This is about encouraging every member on your team to try and become better both professionally and personally.

Our mission in Learning Without Scars is very straightforward: assist each individual, we touch, in the identification of their personal or professional potential. Once that potential has been identified then we want to be involved in the creation of a plan of action whereby each individual can get on a path to achieving that potential. This is not easy work. Growing as an individual is not easy work either. Believe me I work at it all the time.

If you look at the world around us and understand that change is a given and that the rate of change is accelerating then you will understand why we believe this is of critical importance to each and every one of us. Aim I aiming too high? No one has every accused me of thinking small. What do you think?

The time is now.

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It’s Lonely, and I’m My Worst Enemy!

It’s Lonely, and I’m My Worst Enemy!

In tonight’s blog, guest writer Bruce Baker shares with us about the destructive mindsets that can lead many small businesses to fail. We hope you find a valuable resource in “It’s Lonely, and I’m My Worst Enemy.”

We only start living when we stop defending ourselves.

There is never a day I don’t hear someone expressing the dire consequences they face if or when they fail.  In a previous article, I explored the unhealthy mode many of us business owners and leaders are in – the mode that almost anything these days is a catastrophe if it is not solved within a few minutes or, G-d forbid by the end of the day!

This destructive mindset is why most small businesses fail, not because of the lack of tools and resources but due to being trapped by their self-destructive thoughts. Never has there been a time I have either helped a business owner scale up, start up or fix up their business because of the tools and solutions I worked with them on. It was first because of a reshaping of their mindset that brought them sustainable success.

Although the above is just one of many destructive behaviours, what amplifies them is attempting to resolve their challenges in isolation. If an individual has a challenge to solve, the intellectual part of the solution is simple for the most part. Still, the emotional component is where complexity rears its ugly head.  We all can identify where we were trying to solve a problem, only to be paralyzed by decision fatigue or simply indecision. Some of the regular comments I hear from business owners are:

  • I know what needs to be done but have to think about it a bit more.
  • I know it’s the right thing to do, but I am worried about….
  • I need to look at a few more options before I make my decision.
  • Oh well, another day, just a different pile….

The last statement is of particular importance because this is the one, I hear when business owners have finally shut themselves down to those around them.  The challenges are not isolated to business concerns but a mix of business and personal/family-related issues. We are taught not to mix business with personal life or to ensure a “work-life balance.” Let’s not fool ourselves. As business owners, these two entities, for many if not most, are interlinked and to try and fully separate these two emotionally is almost impossible. The consequences are catastrophic, not only in terms of business failure but losing what is most dear to us personally. The challenge now becomes insurmountable, and everything seems to be crumbling around us until we change one thing.

Being open to identifying and engaging with a like-minded individual or group to rely upon is by far one of the most powerful solutions any business owner has in their arsenal. The need to be in control is a critical foundation of our success and to be in control means we need to be connected and being connected makes us comfortable. Being comfortable allows us to share the strong emotions and stories we must tell. The power is not just in what we tell but the realization that we are not alone and many if not all have experienced the same emotions and the challenges they bring to their businesses.  The big difference is that many have resolved these challenges and have become successful in all spectrums of their lives, including building outstanding companies!

Most challenged business owner I engage with initially resists this notion when I first suggest it. Some say it sounds like a therapy session, others say it sounds like they are attending an “Alcohol Anonymous’ group session.  “How on earth are you going to help me grow my business by fixing my emotions?” said one business owner to me.   His reaction was simply self-preservation, the need for self-reliance and ensuring others to know “we have it under control”. Plainly put, the resistance for many comes from the downright feeling of embarrassment. The embarrassment comes from thinking others may consider you incapable or questioning your ability to build and run a business or telling others that you are not someone to do business with.

All this false talk prevents us from taking advantage of this powerful opportunity that we all have available to us! The more we remain in this state the more we isolate and rely on the “emotional mess” that’s we’ve created for ourselves.

I have and continue to have the privilege of working with business owners individually and in groups where we work through their challenges, both professionally and personally.  This hybrid solution consistently creates business success because challenges are solved and built upon successfully, not just because of introducing new systems and solutions in their businesses but also overall life solutions that are the primary driver of success in building a business.

Consider how much hardship you cause yourself and the great need you may have in defending your actions and decisions. The amount of unnecessary energy you spend is exhausting, and you deserve better!

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