Continuous Learning – Learning Without Scars’ Centers of Excellence

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Continuous Learning – Learning Without Scars’ Centers of Excellence

In this week’s installment of our blog on Lifelong Learning, our guest writer Steve Johnson gives us this cutting-edge blog post of the way our education programs are taking shape: Continuous Learning – Learning Without Scars’ Centers of Excellence.

Why continuous learning should matter to you…

The Learning Without Scars website makes the statement that, “we know that ‘better’ is the enemy of ‘best,'” and “that everyone needs the knowledge, skills, and tools to continually elevate their own personal and professional development while contributing to the success of their companies and careers.” Learning Without Scars’ business is all about continuous learning: lifelong learning.

Continuous learning is essential for those employees who want to remain valuable to their employers, and advance both personally and professionally. That’s true whether you are climbing the corporate ladder, developing in-depth expertise in your chosen career field, or just want to be a better-informed human being. There are many reasons for you to invest your time and money in yourself through continuous learning. 

Keeping your skills and knowledge current strengthens your value to your employer. If you are not always learning, you’re not even treading water: you’re actually falling behind. In any work environment, development of new information and technology is rapid, and that pace keeps accelerating. At some point in the future, you could find out that management no longer feels you are relevant to attaining the company’s goals. You could find out that the job market feels the same about your resume. 

Continuous learning provides you with more professional resilience both at your company and in the broader business environment and marketplace. It ensures that you have or obtain not only the knowledge and skills requirements for your current job, but also lays the foundation for the next steps in your career path. It can help you stand out among your peers as an important part of the future of your company. It’s not a bad thing to be one of the “go to” people. Sometimes it can be easy to get caught up in the day-to-day operations of your company and lose the big picture of the environment and markets within which you work. Continuous learning can ensure that you exit that cocoon and keep informed of current trends as well as what may be impacting you in the future.  

Your company may be an excellent source for continuous learning, especially in such areas as company culture, products, IT systems, and best practices. They may have both formal and informal opportunities to develop your interpersonal and management skills. It makes good sense to pay attention in your day-to-day work for learning moments, and also for occasions where you can get out of your comfort zone and learn. Networking in your company will allow you to track the pulse of important activities, events and company direction. Networking through professional and industry organizations will give you a feel for the pulse of your industry and the economic environment.  

Take advantage of it when companies offer to enroll you in formal training, within or from outside the company. Alternatively, you can seek out specific education that aligns with your individual needs and goals. For example, I’ve read that many consider one’s personal oral and written communication skills to be critical to career success, and the importance of those skills increases as people pursue their career paths. Maybe “Toastmasters” is in your future. 

Learning Without Scars’ Centers of Excellence

Our efforts to encourage greater continuous learning in the industries we serve continue. A recent focus for Learning Without Scars is developing relationships with public higher learning institutions where these schools will also function as our Centers of Excellence (COE). 

Online, you will find a number of definitions for a COE. Wikipedia says it is a “team, a shared facility or an entity that provides leadership, best practices, research and support or training for a focus area.” It also can be a “network of institutions collaborating with each other to pursue excellence in a particular area.” The Cambridge Dictionary defines a COE as “a place or an organization that is known for doing a particular activity very well, and that is involved in new developments, new ways of working, etc.” We can add to the above, but I think you get the idea. Learning Without Scars is working to develop a network of schools to achieve the above goals and offer excellence in delivering education where it is needed.  

Our plan is to have ten of these Centers in the U.S. and Canada. Courses include new online certification programs offering comprehensive content in equipment dealer parts management and service management. The courses are applicable for heavy equipment dealers, including construction, heavy truck, mining, forestry, light industrial, and agriculture. We are working to soon provide automotive aligned versions of the programs. In the near future, we will also be able to provide dealer sales and marketing programs. Benefits of the new programs include: 

  1. High quality comprehensive curricula from a well-known industry expert; accredited by the International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training (IACET); and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant.
  2. Content that is current and reviewed annually with IACET.
  3. Assessments are delivered throughout the learning process to measure learning progress.
  4. A Learning Management System available to dealer employees/students that allows both self-paced progress and 24/7 access to courses.
  5. Programs that result in industry credentials to employees and students upon successful completion.

As a final note, make continuous learning intentional and give it high priority. Continuous learning is your responsibility, not the responsibility of your company, your supervisor or anyone else. To be able to effectively manage your career, you need to plan your future, that is, identify your goals and chart your path for reaching those goals. An important part of that path is going to be continuous learning. Plan your educational future now. In doing that, we encourage you to explore educational opportunities at Learning Without Scars for high quality industry- and position-specific education. 

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For our course lists, please click here.

 

Coaches Corner v.11.17.2022

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Coaches Corner v.11.17.2022

Guest writer Floyd Jerkins shares how leadership is like playing the guitar in Coaches Corner v.11.17.2022.

I started playing the guitar when I was about 12. It was easy to fall in love with it and played nearly every day. In those days, Ted Nugent, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and the Beatles were among the day’s rock musicians. One of my favorites was the Beatles. Even then, I loved playing the songs and found it pretty easy, so I thought I was pretty good. I knew I was going to be a rock star.

An older friend of mine, who I always admired, created a “paradigm” shift about my perceptions of music one day. At that time, I had no idea what a paradigm was. One day, we got into a lengthy discussion/debate about music. I thought I made a convincing argument.

He started me listening to Buddy Guy, Larry Coryell, George Benson, Jim Hall, Chet Atkins, Glen Campbell, and a host of other guitarists that I had never heard of before. I heard chord progressions, riffs, and sounds coming from a guitar I hadn’t even imagined. I couldn’t even figure out how to move my fingers to play such sounds. The new information rattled my cage for sure.

All I know is after those few days, my whole world opened up to listening to and finding value in all kinds of music. I also found my friend to be even more interesting than I ever thought. Every time we got together, I started to listen first to see what I could learn.

Leadership and Playing a Guitar

In all the hype today about leadership, I found myself thinking – “OK, Floyd, you’ve been a student, and a teacher, and practitioner on this subject for decades. What’s new around the topic of leadership? What are the paradigm shifts? Are there any?” I guess it all depends on what you listen to.

Oprah Style of Leadership- You get a class, and you get a class!

Part of what’s new is that thousands of people are offering information on the subject of leadership. There are books, podcasts, online and live classes you can attend to teach you how to lead. Numerous materials on the subject can be found by your old or new favorite host. There are thousands of old and new ideas and practical solutions offered. What an exciting time to have instant access to more information at your fingertips than you can digest in a lifetime!

Separating Fact from Fiction

Because of so much available information, I work to narrow down the volume of who influences me. Some seem to have hollow words or not near enough depth on the subject. A good sound bite without the substance to back it up is relatively common today. Sometimes I have to read deeper or check out the credentials to know more about where this information is coming from.

What is not new, is that there is still no shortcut to becoming an effective leader or developing an enduring organization. Sorry, there isn’t any silver-bullet to learn how to become an influential person. Never let anyone tell you there is. It takes a lot of hard work, self-analysis, and honesty. Yes, you have to be a useful person to become an effective leader. And that doesn’t mean you’ll ever be perfect. You will make a ton of mistakes and have scars and flaws, just like everyone else.

The Principles of Life and Business are Like Chords on a Guitar

When you learn to play chords, then playing a song becomes easier. You can actually hear the music as it’s played and visualize what chords are used and how it’s strummed. You can then play any kind of music as long as you can hear it. With practice, you can start to create your own music.

When you learn the principles of living a dynamic life or building a company, it’s like learning the guitar’s chords. The principles are tried and true and will never let you down once you master them. You have to practice because you just can’t become a master of them until you do. You will fail occasionally. There will be people who say it can’t be done.

You can learn the principles of leadership and model them to find what works for you. As I tell my grandkids, just be you and don’t try to be someone else. Embrace and love yourself.

Principles are like gravity. You can try to defy, change, or ignore them, but they are always there doing what they do. Learn them, and allow them to be a guiding resource in your life and business journey to reach your fullest potential.

Today, I listen to all kinds of music. My taste is wide and deep. Oh, I can play some on my “64 Fender Jazzmaster,” but my listening skills are much better. I still debate with people I don’t agree with, to learn. Mostly, I enjoy listening to a lot of people because I know I can learn something from them that I didn’t know before. You know, I never want to be that person who thinks the Beatles are the only music there is.

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Work Sucks. But, Why?

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Work Sucks. But, Why?

Our new guest writer, Christopher Kiely, is taking us straight into the vernacular with “Work Sucks. But, Why?” Christopher Kiely has over 30 years experience in the transportation and heavy equipment maintenance industries with most of those years spent training technicians and maintenance practitioners. He has written for various online outlets in the past and after some time away from writing has returned to share his thoughts on equipment maintenance, training and employee development. Currently self-employed and loving it, he spends most of his worktime travelling the world supporting the mining industry and building relationships with his fellow maintenance professionals.

We have all heard the cliché, “Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life”, similar quotes have been attributed to everyone from Confucius and Mark Twain to Tony Robins and Oprah Winfrey. All these people seem to have a different definition of work than I do. Perhaps as a mechanic, mine is more based in the mechanical principal that energy is the capacity to do work and not the notion of work being some sort of automatic drudgery. If I want to accomplish things I enjoy: make a tasty meal, write a song, fix something that is broken, I need to do work. That isn’t a bad thing. In those cases, work provides a sense of accomplishment.

Yet the notion that “work sucks” persists, despite what I may contend. So why is that? Why do so many people view something that can provide a sense of accomplishment as mere drudgery? The answer is perhaps right in the question. There is no sense of accomplishment. 

Not every job is one of achieving things. A mechanic or welder or craftsperson sees the fruit of their labour, what their work produces, on an almost daily basis. The part was broken, now it is fixed. Where once there were just pieces of wood, now there is a cabinet. Other jobs are not so lucky. Finishing piles of “paperwork” (not that we work with actual paper much anymore) or getting through all those unanswered emails, never seems to have the same sense of accomplishment. Often it is more a sense of relief when it is all done, and “relief” implies some sort of stress or pain has ended.

So, what is the source of this stress or pain in many jobs? The work itself? I suppose for some, but if the type of work you chose to do causes stress and pain you might want to ponder the masochistic underpinnings of that. Most people do not live their lives in pursuit of work and professions that cause them pain. Yes, some jobs are physically demanding and cause aches and strains, that is not what I am discussing here. Some of the most difficult, dirty, labour intensive, mentally challenging and hard-work demanding jobs are greatly enjoyed by the people that do them. What I am talking about is the mental and spiritual pain caused by what some perceive as the soul-sucking drudgery of work. Where does this soul-sucking drudgery come from? I contend it comes from leadership, or more accurately, a lack there of. The stress and pain of most jobs comes from poor unqualified “leaders” in name only. 

I work in a risk filled, physically demanding, labour intensive industry with high demands. Mining is one of the most dangerous industries in the world, working on giant-sized machines with giant-sized parts and giant-sized tools is labour intensive, and mining equipment maintenance is always under the constant pressure of mining production. They demand things be fixed “Now!” and fixing those things is often dirty and difficult. My roll within this industry has often been an autonomous roll that has taken me all over the world, through different countries and cultures, different mine sites, different companies and corporate cultures. I travel to these mine sites to support the companies that develop and maintain them, but I do not work directly for those companies. Often there are two companies on the one site, the customer and an OEM dealer. On large mine sites there will be multiple companies and often the spirit and attitude of the workers for these companies doing nearly identical work can be very disparate. 

If the work is the same, the environment the same and the demands the same, why the difference? Simple, people and attitudes. 

What people have the most effect on the culture and attitude of a company? The leaders.

Poor leaders suck the accomplishment out of everything, they make you feel like your best is never good enough, they do not properly acknowledge the fruits of their employees’ labour and even as a mechanic or craftsperson if what you produce is not recognized as having any value, then the sense of accomplishment is diminished. I wish I could say these types of leaders were rare, but they are not. And as I contend here, if they were rare, “work” wouldn’t have such a bad rap. Sad to say, but in my now 30+ years of working in maintenance and service, I have witnessed many more maintenance managers and supervisors unfit to lead people than I have great leadership from these rolls.

Great leaders create teams and cultures that feed a sense of purpose, accomplishment and belonging and when people are filled with a sense of purpose, accomplishment and belonging, they enjoy what they do, and they thrive. In my industry this should be easy for leaders, the sense of accomplishment is right in the work. Typically, the supervisor or manager simply must get out of the way of his employees while actively training, mentoring and supporting them. In other industries and jobs where perhaps there is a lack of daily accomplishment in the work itself, data entry for example where there is always more data to enter, and the database is never finished, the sense of accomplishment is the positive culture itself. Working as a team, supporting one another, establishing and maintaining positive relationships between team members and enjoying the fruits of those accomplishments. Then low and behold, the drudgery disappears into the sense of belonging.

It is shocking how many supposed “leaders” can’t do this. Managing instead with narcissism and an attitude that employees are there to serve them, pitting staff against one another and creating divisions and silos within organizations. And it is shameful how many companies promote such people and reward such attitudes. It is one of the reasons I work for myself these days and I believe one of the reasons many companies complain about not being able to find “good people”. Good people don’t want to work with your terrible leaders.

I would say it is not a matter of loving what you do to avoid feeling like you are working, but a case of feeling like you belong and are appreciated and avoiding the soul-sucking drudgery caused by weak leaders that diminishes or negates a sense of accomplishment and gives “work” a bad name.

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Upturn or Recession?

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Upturn or Recession?

Guest writers Steve Clegg and Debbie Frakes are writing for us this week about the ways in which our accurate forecasts can help us plan for real growth in “Upturn or Recession?”

The equipment industry is cyclical and seasonal. Many dealerships react to events by looking backward at accounting financial statements, explaining why they are victims of current market conditions. But the most successful dealerships always look forward by forecasting and planning for the future. As a result, they can take advantage of both upturns and downturns.

There are effective Artificial Intelligence (AI) models that can be used to forecast and create a business plan, based on these forecasts. During an upturn, you can expect shortages of parts, equipment, and employees, as we have recently experienced. The best approach to maximizing profits is to focus on the customers and industries with the highest retention rates where the best service can be provided to generate a healthy gross margin and a high return on capital. This process builds cash and liquidity and strengthens the balance sheet in anticipation of opportunities during a downturn.

It is important not to chase the upturn, although OEMs and banks are often eager to encourage that approach to accelerate their own growth. A sustainable growth rate for your own facilities, employees, balance sheet, and customer retention, however, places limits on rapid growth. Most dealers cannot sustain a growth rate in customers and transactions greater than 10% to 15% per year, regardless of the opportunities. The requirements for new customers, employees, systems, facilities, training, and capital are beyond their internal capacity to grow and keep their existing customers happy. Using AI Analytics, you can see forecasts with >95% accuracy for the next 12 months for your business, by branch and department, providing the number of customers, transactions, and revenue that can be expected. With AI forecasts you can anticipate exactly what to expect for your customer retention, customer engagement, and even ROI on your sales and marketing programs. This approach allows better accuracy in planning the future and anticipating the best ways to identify opportunities.

During a downturn, successful dealers forecast, then use their strong balance sheets and cash flow to purchase parts and equipment at steep discounts from their suppliers and competition. They also hire the best employees, pick up additional equipment lines and territories, and acquire assets from competitors that have failed. With this approach they create the foundation for real growth during the next upturn. A 1% improvement in customer retention usually generates a 12% annual transaction growth rate. There is less vulnerability to economic downturns when customer retention is strong. Historically, there is only a 7% to 15% reduction in transactions over a 12-18 month period during a downturn, so the improved retention easily offsets this reduction. 

There are five steps management you can take now to ensure your company can weather any type of economic cycle. 

  • Create a forecast the next 12 months, based on your current performance, and continue to forecast by updating your results with the prior month’s revenue. With this approach your organization will have a clear picture of what will happen for the next 12 months, if you continue to operate as you have been. 

A platform that is easy to use to produce accurate forecasts is Zintoro.com. Its AI Analytics program provides automated forecasts for customers and transactions, including the resulting gross margin and revenue, by company, branch, and department with a >95% confidence level.

  •  Use the 12-month forecast to create a plan that will maximize revenue and profits

Actions for improvements are steps that you plan to begin during the next 12 months to assure you will meet or exceed the forecast, which is your benchmark. 

An action plan for an upturn provides the steps to take to overcome hurdles that are typical during an upturn, such as available working capital, delayed parts and equipment deliveries, dissatisfied customers, increased costs, and accommodating increased order frequency for parts and service with a backup plan to prevent overwhelming your employees and facilities. 

An action plan for a downturn provides the steps necessary to take advantage of the next downturn. 

  • Identify the customers that are not profitable and take steps to reduce interactions with them.
  • Determine opportunities to automate wherever possible, from equipment and customer communications to operating systems. 
  • Build cash and set up processes to generate a high return on capital employed.

A recession presents a set of severe financial hurdles that typically include: reduction in available capital, delayed customer payments, drop in equipment sales, decrease in rental utilization, and reduced frequency for parts and service orders. 

Rank the ways to cut costs, using the improvement of employee support for your customers as the primary driver. This ranking should answer these questions: 

  • What is essential to keep the doors open and assure that stable customers are engaged? 
  • Where to invest to acquire and retain stable customers, by market and industry?
  • Where to invest to hire and retain the best employees?
  • Where to invest in equipment, technology, and facilities at favorable prices?
  • How to keep all other costs as lean as possible? 
  • Where to automate and outsource? 

 Keep shareholders, lenders, suppliers, and employees informed.

Zintoro.com provides reports for actual results and forecasts to manage expectations and keep these groups focused on the key drivers for customer retention, customer engagement, and opportunities for improvement. Revenues and profits result from customer retention and engagement.  

  • Maximize cash and profits.

Implement the following actions quickly to maximize cash on hand and focus on generating additional cash to build and maintain your cash cushion. 

  • Monitor the cash flow weekly with a system to show actual receipts and disbursements tracked at least weekly and continually update the cash forecast for 12 months to anticipates any problem periods.

Obtain debt at favorable fixed rates and establish credit lines to ensure cash availability with reasonable lender covenants. Be aware of their liquidity options. Businesses that line up capital sources before they need funding often receive more favorable terms. Funding sources may include revolving credit lines, owner infusions, alternative financing, and private equity. 

In a downturn, revenue and cash availability always fall faster than expenses. Sources of capital dry up and as inflation accelerates, costs climb faster than you can raise prices, reducing your available cash.   

  • Put together a list of expenses you can reduce to minimize your cash burn rate and identify sources of additional cash and when they may be required. The longest recession in the past fifty years was 18 months; most recessions last less than 12 months. Your goal is to have enough cash, including capital reserves, available to make up the difference between the potential gap in cash flow, so that you can maintain operations for twelve to eighteen months and take advantage of the opportunities that will be presented during such times to build your business. 
  • Manage your supply chain proactively by keeping your suppliers informed with your forecasts and requirements. Anticipate how your customers and suppliers will react when you are projecting your cash requirements. 

In a recession, understanding the financial situation of your customers and suppliers is critical. It’s important to be realistic, not optimistic. Assess customers to identify which ones might slow down their payments or become unable to pay. These customers can double your working capital requirement during a downturn. Meet with your key customers and suppliers to review your forecasts and anticipate their problems by understanding their challenges, too. Negotiate payment plans with suppliers while offering incentives to customers for early payments or bulk orders. 

  1. Evaluate your parts and equipment inventory to reduce capital employed       and increase turns.
  2. Develop a program for recruiting and training employees. Plus, expand ways to retain your employees proactively. 
  3. Track all sales and marketing programs with a return on investment. Cut programs that are not generating a return that you can document.
  4. Forecast and plan, don’t wait and react. Without planning you are put in a position of reacting by quickly cutting spending, firing employees, and putting your equipment inventory and assets out for auction at steep discounts. Reacting rather than plan can destroy your ability to recover during upturn that will follow at some point. 
  5. Track and invest in marketing programs with the highest ROI. Compare spend for customers who were exposed to a marketing activity versus those who were not. For example, if you have an email program in place to alert your customers of specials and services you offer, compare the spend for customers with an email to those who aren’t receiving your emails. Are you calling customers regularly? Compare the spend to those you’re calling to those you haven’t called. What about contacting customer for follow-up surveys? Are the ones you talk to spending more than the ones you haven’t contacted? Below are some comparisons for a dealer over a 12-month period, as an example.

 

Marketing Transactions Revenue Cost ROI times
Program /Customer /Customer /Customer Active Customers
Telephone
    Called         24 $128,440 $28 1231X
    Not called     37 $93,965 $0     – 
Emails
  Emailed               30 $134,270 $35 2378X
  No email                 4 $51,0443 $0     –
Surveys
  Surveyed               16 $82,423 $35 966X
  No survey                 7 $48,616 $0     –

 

Next Steps

Zintoro.com has developed a forecasting program that is updated monthly with your results. Just download the last two years of your invoices, plus invoices from the current year to date, and send them to Zintoro to upload into their password protected portal. They will schedule a call to review where the forecast shows you are headed and what steps you can take to change those numbers. Contact Steve Clegg at csclegg@zintoro.com for additional information.

To get started with marketing programs that you can count on to increase sales and deliver an impressive ROI, contact Debbie Frakes at dfrakes@winsbyinc.com. 

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Coaches Corner v.11.10.2022

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Coaches Corner v.11.10.2022

In Coaches Corner v.11.10.2022, guest writer Floyd Jerkins is writing about leading from the front line.

I often get calls from clients about various leadership-related scenarios they face. Sometimes they already know the answers but want to hear alternative ideas. One thing is for sure; there isn’t just one way to handle leadership questions on the front line. 

Questions from the Front Line

Here is a sample of a client’s recent call and the highlights of the suggestions I provided: “Some of our senior managers struggle with the younger staff on our team. A few believe they want too much too quickly. Our managers don’t delegate to them very well, and as a result, we often stumble in delivering our services. I wish there were a way to help both of these groups. We need to be building this next layer of management in our organization. I also don’t want to lose any more young people to our competitors.”

Job Descriptions are Crucial

Make sure the individual job descriptions are in sync with the role and responsibilities. I’ve seen several issues arise when job descriptions aren’t current and relevant. This is needed to have accountability focused on certain job functions. 

The description should contain examples of specific behaviors that highlight success in the role. You want to talk about these to highlight the expectations and address any questions. You want confirmation and understanding. The description should also evolve because someone in a starting role should perform differently than someone in the position for five years. Also, show a career path in this description. 

A personal development program is needed to outline the learning path clearly, so the individual keeps pace with social and organizational needs. By illustrating the core skill sets needed to be successful, you are laying the foundation for performance. 

Real Life Performance Evaluations

I could write for hours about the do’s and don’ts of conducting performance reviews. Teaching senior staff to become coaches isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Evaluating senior managers and your young talent using formal and informal methods is an essential part of growing people in the organization. Consistent coaching and counseling are necessary to speed up the learning curves. 

Senior managers can be teachers and mentors but frequently are still doing the work themselves. You have to remove the “threat” that they will be put out to pasture when teaching others their job functions. 

Don’t be fooled by the term. A senior person could be 24, 41 or 77 years old. It is more about the individual’s knowledge level vs. how long you’ve been with the company. 

Young people with talent also need to be taught that certain behaviors are necessary to succeed. Explain what it means to succeed and to underperform. Formal and informal reviews need to be frequent if the behaviors do not align with the goals and objectives. 

Rationale & Solutions That Work

Senior managers can create unnecessary risks when challenged by young people with different energy and talent. If they are close-minded to new ideas or feel threatened, this isn’t healthy for growing talent in a company. Changes need to be made to how they view their roles and how performance is measured. 

Make sure senior staff know it’s their responsibility to grow the younger talent while also showing them their path to more success in the company. When they share and grow this talent, they need rewarded and recognized. You don’t want to hold a young talented person back from being more successful. You can help them achieve their goals by teaching them certain methods and subjects.

Implementing solutions requires an understanding of your company culture and how your staff perceives they are treated. Yes, their perception is their reality. Check out these other articles on these and other subjects that should help you along. There are also several others on my website that are great resources. 

There are ways to help these managers become teachers and mentors to another generation of leaders. There are also ways for the younger generation to learn from senior people. Give me a call, and let’s explore your options.

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Show Me Your Spreadsheets

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Show Me Your Spreadsheets

Tonight, guest writer Mets Kramer resumes his blog posts on digitizing your dealership with “Show Me Your Spreadsheets.”

Show Me Your Spreadsheets

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spoken often about the Digital Dealership, a dealership with equal digital presence to the it’s physical (bricks and mortar) presence.  The idea of the Digital Dealership is not to remove the need or option for a physical interaction with customers, but to support the growing demand for a more digital interaction.  

While the transition to or addition of more digital customer facing channels is growing, many dealers still struggle to digitize their internal operations.   Working more digital or electronic is a natural desire for many dealers and their team members.   Most of us spend our whole day staring at a computer screen, or 2, to transact the business in an efficient way.  

The most common digitization of the dealership starts with their accounting.  This standard activity for all companies seems the easiest and, often, most justified area to bring in software to support the business.  Yet, after this common function most dealers struggle to take the next step.  I believe many dealers struggle with this step because the right approach and the value and importance of the transition to a digital dealership platform is not clear.  

Going forward I’m going to use the word “platform” to refer to all the information systems, software tools, data and IT infrastructure used by a dealer to execute the daily transaction of the dealership.   A platform doesn’t have to be a specific or singular software tool. 

There are a few main aspects to a dealership platform that I’d like to layout in this blog to help dealers determine an approach to improving the digital landscape in their dealership.    These aspects include the obvious, software, but also include Information in general, identity management and finally integration. 

First, let’s take a step back and think about what happens naturally in a dealership.   It’s important to recognize that everyone in your team is trying to get their portion of the work done.  Given just a PC/laptop they tend to find methods to accomplish their tasks.   The most common answer is Excel.  I love and hate excel personally, it’s a great program, intuitive and useful for lots of things.  When I work with new dealers, my first question is often, “Show me your Excel sheets”.  

Excel, despite the fact it shouldn’t be used as a business system, highlights one really important aspect of the business, INFORMATION.  People use Excel to save, store, look up and update information.  We all know how much chaos is caused when an excel sheet gets deleted.  All that information is LOST.    This proves that INFORMATION is the foundation and the most important aspect of your dealership platform.  It supports all your transactions, information typically needs to flow from one area of the dealership to another and, intrinsically, everyone knows it’s the one thing they don’t want to lose.  

With the idea of INFORMATION’s importance in mind, let’s look at the most common focus of the digitization of the dealership, SOFTWARE TOOLS.    I call software products “tools” because I want to distinguish the tool portion of the software from the Data or INFORMATION that’s stored in the Software.  

The most common approach to going digital in a dealership is to go looking for a SOFTWARE TOOLS.  It’s like we’re all technicians when the Snap-On truck shows up.  We admire the software interface (UI), we listen to the promises of problems solved and we see the SOFTWARE TOOL as the solution and often don’t know what questions to ask during a demo. 

SOFTWARE TOOLS are just that, they are a tool for interacting with your INFORMATION.  Throughout the time you use a tool, you are creating that component we agreed is the most important, INFORMATION.  As time goes on what we want to do with the INFORMATION may change and this is where the Software Tool often fails.   For Dealers looking to improve their internal digitization it’s important to approach Software evaluation by separating the software tool from the information.  Just like we don’t hire technicians based on the size of their toolbox, we should keep a similar approach in mind to Software.   A Software Tool is disposable.   Yes, you heard right, the tool should be considered disposable.  It will serve its purpose for a while, but then will need to be replaced.  Many dealers have experienced this, but hit a major problem caused because the tool contains the thing they value, INFORMATION.  If your information can’t be transferred you might find yourself locked in, this can be especially pronounced when that tool is a Dealer Management System. 

So, what should dealers do when faced with a need in the business to improve efficiency of process and visibility to information?   Ask the following types of questions 

  1. Ask Questions during the demo about YOUR process needs and how the SOFTWARE will handle these situations.  Ask the person giving the Demo to illustrate.
  2. Ask how and where the data is stored and how it can be accessed aside from using the tool 
  3. Ask how the INFORMATION can be extracted/exported/dumped from the Software
  4. Ask questions about the Next thing you’ll want the software to do after you solve the first problem.

So, in summary, INFORMATION is the most valuable part of your dealership platform.  SOFTWARE TOOLS help you create, view and interact with the INFORMATION.   This brings up the next aspect that is often not understood by dealers without dedicated Information Systems people; INTEGRATION.  

INTEGRATION allows one tool to talk to another tool and access the data.  It can either query the data and use it, or it can even update and add data.   This can be done in the following ways

  1. Direct Database access – if your software tool stores data in a common, accessible database like SQL, MySQL or similar then other tools can read the data. 
  2. APIs – Application Program Interfaces – These are basically hidden pages or screens in your Software that allow other programs to mimic the actions people make.  

If you’re looking at a platform solution that doesn’t have methods for direct access to your INFORMATION, an API or some way to move data to your own database you’ll likely end up finding this a roadblock or hurdle to INTEGRATION of other platform components.   It will in time cause you to be locked in potentially or lose valuable data when you switch.   The truth is, all of these options are possible in modern digital platforms.   

In my next blog I’ll continue to look at important things to consider when looking at SOFTWARE TOOLS, how good choices enable removing silos and duplication.  I’ll also introduce the final piece IDENTITY Management and how this can simplify and improve the flow of your Digital Dealership Platform.

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Are You Unleashed?

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Are You Unleashed?

Learning Without Scars is pleased to introduce our new guest writer, Isaac Rollor. For his first post, he is asking, “are you unleashed?” 

Isaac Rollor is a lifelong gearhead, mechanic, and training content creator/instructor. Isaac got started in the heavy equipment business as a mechanic maintaining and repairing his father’s equipment fleet and eventually received formal training in the Diesel Equipment Technology Program at Chattahoochee Technical College in Acworth Georgia. Isaac’s enthusiasm for lifelong learning led him to complete his MBA at Reinhardt University in Waleska Georgia. 

Isaac has enjoyed many technical roles over the course of his career, most notably as the Automotive Program Technical Instructor at Chattahoochee Technical College, Corporate Technical Trainer with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and Technical Instructor/Developer (Dozers) while working with Komatsu America.

Isaac also has extensive experience in sales, holding the title of Sales Instructor/Developer, District Manager and National Account Manager with Komatsu America. Today Isaac works with Forrest Performance Group and specializes in sales training and sales recruiting. 

Isaac enjoys writing articles, developing training course content, and appearing at public speaking events. Isaac is actively involved in educating and recruiting high school and college age students to pursue careers with OEM’s and heavy equipment dealers. 

You can contact Isaac directly by connecting with him on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaac-rollor-335b6876/

If you would like to learn more about sales training and sales recruiting, please visit: https://www.fpg.com/ 

Early in my career I realized that some inexperienced salespeople with entry-level subject matter knowledge were having more success than other highly experienced and highly knowledgeable salespeople in the industry. What I was witnessing is a phenomenon that is often flatly overlooked or described as “beginners’ luck” without any further investigation or question. Maybe you have noticed something like this?  This phenomenon is most visible in sales but exists in all professions to some extent. We have all seen salespeople who have worked in the industry for decades and they are not closing sales. We have also watched brand new salespeople who are in the president’s club 3 months after they start selling. This new salesperson didn’t make the presidents club because of their huge knowledge base, meanwhile the veteran is struggling to meet sales targets despite having a deep knowledge of the industry and an intimate knowledge the product they are supposed to be selling. 

In education we are told to believe that someone’s performance should be equal to their knowledge base. I started to question this paradigm while I was developing product sales training content for North American sales teams. At this time my mission was to develop cutting edge product sales training content and deliver this content to salespeople through web based and instructor led training. This is exactly what I did. The training content was excellent by all standards, and I successfully delivered hundreds of training offerings that received excellent reviews. I focused all my attention towards ensuring that the North American sales team had access to all the knowledge required to educate customers and help them make a purchasing decision. My efforts were successful, and salespeople soon had all the knowledge they could possibly desire at their fingertips. I felt that our training group had finally evened the playing field for all salespeople within the organization, and I was certain that massive increases in sales market share would be the result of these efforts. 

I soon witnessed something very interesting. Some sales teams flourished with access to this increased knowledge and some sales teams saw no noticeable difference. This was concerning to me. How can two groups be exposed to the exact same resources but have completely different results? This question caused me to read many books and download many podcasts related to developing successful training programs. I soon learned that even the so called “experts” in sales training were slow to guarantee any results from the training experiences they provided.  It was at this time that I stumbled across a book written by Jason Forrest called WTF: Why Training Fails. This book acknowledged something profound “164.2 billion is spent annually on training in North America, yet 70% of this training fails to produce ROI. “

I was shocked by this. Even more shocking was that the WTF book even promoted a trademarked performance formula: Performance=Knowledge-Leashes. 

 As described in WTF, a “leash” is the limiting beliefs that prevent us from acting on our knowledge. Basically a “leash” is an arbitrary rule or reluctance that salespeople have created because of past experiences and programming. Here are some examples of rules that you may hear salespeople verbalize: “You must make a friend before you make a sale” or “you must always ask for the sale in person” or even, “you can’t sell our products over a zoom video call it just won’t work”.

These are all examples of rules that will limit the success of a salesperson. The more rules a salesperson creates the harder it is to overcome those rules and make a sale. I came to the difficult realization that the training I had developed was based completely on knowledge and did not in any way remove the leashes or previous programming of the salespeople who consumed the content. 

This realization prompted me to start researching how salespeople can overcome and sell through leashes. I discovered that everyone has leashes to some extent and to overcome a leash requires continued training and coaching. A salespersons leash must first be identified then a coaching program must be created that allows the salesperson to overcome and sell through the leash, essentially reprogramming the salespersons brain to think differently.

If you want your child to excel in sports, do you just drop them off at the sports complex, let them participate without any formal instruction and then pick them up a few hours later? Or do you hire the best coach and get involved? The answer is obvious, but our industry rarely applies this same thinking to professional selling. It is common to see sales reps with multi-million-dollar territories who have never received a selling script, and never been trained or coached on a selling process. A common practice is to condense sales training into a short period. This allows the salesperson to rapidly complete sales training, frame a nice certificate, and get right to work. This scenario sounds great to most sales managers and has become the industry norm. 

Would you board an airplane if you knew the pilot skipped flight school and only attended a two-day seminar? I suspect not. Your customers feel the same way when they are making purchasing decisions. 

I would urge you to think about your company’s existing sales training. Is this training focused solely on knowledge? What leashes might the sales team have adopted that currently limits their success? How often is the sales team receiving coaching that will help them overcome existing leashes? Is the sales team being continually coached and held accountable to a script or a proven process pattern or strategy?

When salespeople are trained and coached, they will perform at the top of their game, win market share, impress your buyer, and provide a massive ROI. 

If you would like to learn more about the WTF book please visit: https://shopfpg.com/product/wtf-why-training-fails Forrest, J. (2017). Why Training Fails. MJS Press. 

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Coaches Corner v.11.03.2022

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Coaches Corner v.11.03.2022

Guest writer Floyd Jerkins brings us our latest installment of our Coaches Corner, v.11.03.2022.

Can You Improve Your Employees Psychological Income?

One of the most profound human characteristics centers around our need to be appreciated. When we are in a relationship where we feel appreciated and valued, our self-esteem rises, and we are much more open to making changes and being part of a team. Leaders know this and work to create an environment for people to be recognized.

Employees need economic income and psychological income. To reach peak performance, both are needed to have balance in life while the business pursues high profits. When employees enjoy the economic portion, a question is how much more commitment could they make if they had the psychological income to match?

Managers Becoming Experts in Finding the Things That Go Wrong

More often than not, managers are on the job to find the things going wrong and fix them. Many become experts at this. One of the most serious challenges in motivating people is that over time if all they hear are the negatives, it breeds a less than average mindset or one that goes all out to protect themselves from ridicule. It’s hard to build a team of high-performing champions if all they hear is what they are doing wrong all the time.

The “emotional bank account” is a theory and a practical application. The theory suggests that the more deposits you make into someone’s emotional bank account, their self-esteem increases, trust builds and makes them more open to changes. You are overdrawn in the account if you don’t make purposeful deposits. The person then closes down and isn’t up for much of anything because they are always suspicious of your motives. The practical application is to be well invested in the emotional bank account with your teams through your leadership and communications style and the consideration you show.

Catching Team Members Doing Something Right

Many times, all a leader hears in a day are the negatives. Some staff will bombard you with every negative there is. As a leader, you are often the center of communications, and this can become draining if you don’t frame these issues correctly.

This is one of the biggest keys to making happy employees. As a leader, we often forget to praise someone when they do a great job. Our heads are into other business-related issues. I don’t bet but only on sure things. And I’ll bet your business has all kinds of positive service points of contacts every day. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t last long in the business. Do you see them? Can you make it a daily practice to praise your staff when they perform the correct customer service behaviors you want to see?

A client of mine owns a few McDonalds. They installed the “thank you” process. Each employee was to say thank you when another employee did something for them, or they witnessed a fellow employee performing an uncommon act of service. All the managers started the process weeks before they rolled it out with all the staff. My friend said it was amazing how quickly this caught on and the improvement it made to the attitudes of the staff. It became contagious.

An example from another client. If an employee goes over and beyond to help a customer or assist a teammate, they will get a “good job card” with their name on it at their monthly manager’s meeting. These cards can come from managers, other employees or from customers telling management. They then would get to put their cards into a box. The manager would draw a card out of the box with a name on it. That person would then win a gift of $100 in value. A few of their people didn’t care about getting a card until they saw the same people winning. Then they joined in by trying to go over and beyond at customer service or helping another teammate to win. It became contagious.

Strategy to Make Emotional Deposits: The Magic of Dimes

Business owners go to great lengths and expense to recruit and hire the right people. I’ve always wanted people who worked for me to come to work and enjoy what they are doing.

As I mentioned in this article’s opening lines, we all have basic human tendencies. As a leader, we can nurture people through our leadership style and grow the talent we need to continue to achieve the goals and mission of the company.

Try putting ten dimes in one pocket and moving them to the other pocket one at a time with each positive message you give to someone throughout the day. The idea is to try and break old habits, and I am sure that is what many of us have. How many dimes do you have at the end of the day? Track this for a couple of weeks; you’ll be surprised. If you do well, you will also notice a change in the people around you. It is magical.

You can’t be fake about this, nor be insincere. Remember, in the absence of leadership; people will follow the strangest things. With leadership, ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

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Observations from Rural New Mexico

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Observations from Rural New Mexico

Guest writer David Jensen shares this week’s blog post with his “Observations from Rural New Mexico.”

“Work, really? 

Again?

Didn’t I just do that yesterday?”

I recently observed a t-shirt with the above phrase. It seems to sum up the current attitude among many regarding work.  Clearly the individual is in disbelief that we are to return to work the next day.  If you Google the statement, “My Work is ……”  some of the top responses are as follows:  boring, makes me ill, is killing me, is stressful. At the risk of sounding as old as I am, I do not understand how the current generation views employment. From my teen years working in my father’s store to the present, I have found work to be the source of many important life lessons. So, what is up with this generation? Is it a generation that been “bubble wrapped” to the point that the slightest disappointment is too much? In a current TikTok, an individual was denied requested PTO (paid time off) so he hijacked the phrase PTO to mean “Prepare The Others I am quitting!”  Is this a generation of quitters? Is this idea of work life balance gone too far? Recently, an associate of mine was preparing to offer an applicant a job when this would be employee spoke up and offered a list of demands: no nights, weekends off, two weeks’ vacation and all federal holidays off. The applicant did not get the job! 

Living in rural New Mexico in an agricultural community, nights off and no weekends sounds very foreign. Our livestock operates on their schedule not ours. Although, since only 6% to 8% of the population works in agriculture, maybe “weekends off” is a thing. That said, what is really going on with this generation? Perhaps the researchers who survey worker attitudes and then mark the trends can help provide the answers.

The Gallup Survey

Jon Clifton, CEO of Gallup, in a recent book entitled Blindspot suggests that world leaders have missed the level of employee unhappiness (subjective wellbeing). The belief that an improving GDP benefits all is false. The “misery index” which includes among several indicators a measure of employee dissatisfaction over the last ten plus years is trending higher. Regarding worker dissatisfaction, the Gallup researchers found, based on survey questions that workers can be sorted into three categories. 

  1. Employees who were thriving at work (engaged), who felt they had meaningful employment, equaled 20 % of the population. 
  2. Employees who were indifferent at work (disengaged), who were “quietly quitting” just enough effort not to be fired equaled 62% of the population. 
  3. The remaining 18% were miserable and were actively disengaged to the point of working against the goals of the organization. 

If you have 100 employees, on average 62 are slow walking the effort and not significantly contributing to the success of the enterprise!  Worse yet, you have on average, 18 who are actively working against the goals of the organization. 

Lessons learned! Or relearned! …The Engagement Check List

So, this current generation is not a lost generation after all. The workers are simply disengaged. Lesson learned by leaders are sometimes forgotten. You may recall what the General Electric classic research into experimenter bias taught us. Simply paying attention to the workers improved productivity and the lights had little to do with the outcome. In a time where competition for skilled a worker is ever increasing, the challenge and opportunity that organizations face is to move some of those 62 employees into thriving category (engaged). 

Below is a short check list for getting started:

  • Item 1. Company culture needs to promote positive assumption regarding their employees. People come to work to succeed not to fail. That assumption allows the company to design programs and processes that work to ensure that success is guaranteed. 
  • Item 2.  Employees who come to work to be successful deserve quality supervision.  Training supervisors in best practices for engagement is essential. Engagement should become the center of the plate for the “employer brand”.
  • Item 3. Work rules that are designed to protect the company from the 18 employees that are seeking to undermine company success should be reconsidered.  Any HR policy that communicates a negative value or lack of trust to the 62 we seek to engage, should be eliminated when possible.  Fair employee treatment and equal employee treatment are not same.  It is important to provide fair and valued treatment to the 62 that we seek to engage.
  • Item 4. Connect and engage the employee’s family to the “employer brand”.  Extracurricular company activities for the family. Company logo shirts and caps for the family. Anything that supports a work/life balance can lead to engagement.
  • Item 5. Encourage employees to volunteer in the community. A community volunteer is less likely to be indifferent and disengaged at work.
  • Item 6. Provide opportunities for employees to contribute and learn in their jobs. Skill building and career development is another essential part of “employer brand”
  • Item 7. Encourage employees to recruit a close friend, shared experience between friends can enhance the work environment,

Conclusion: Organizations should develop their own list of actions to enhance engagement. To succeed in a competitive job market with fewer workers, engagement strategy is an essential part of the employer brand.  Otherwise; “Prepare the Others” (PTO) I am leaving!

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Another Look at Success

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Another Look at Success

Learning Without Scars is pleased to introduce our new guest writer, John Andersen. As one of the original owners of PFW Systems, John Andersen was the first person in the industry to be labeled an Evangelist.  Over his 30 years with the company, he visited thousands of dealers in North America sharing a unique vision of the heavy equipment industry from a dealers and customer perspective.  With over $150 million dollars in sales credited to his commercial teaching skills he later aided in the transition to CDK Global where he continued as Director of Sales before “retiring” in 2016.  John now operates as a freelance consultant bringing vastly diverse experience bridging technology, consumerism and sales to several industries. We invite readers to join us as we take another look at success.

Another Look at Success

I read a recent blog from Learning without Scars about success and its various definitions.  Insightful as all of Ron’s blogs are, this one really sat with me for a long time.  The definition of your own personal success and measurements of it can really shift over time.  The most important takeaway for me was that long term success seldom happens by accident and recurring themes like hard work, dedication and sacrifice always bubble to the top.   You don’t often hear someone talk about a myriad of miscues, wrong turns, or potholes along the way, but I believe they are the catalyst to continued success.

I have been known to bring a box of mistakes with me to a presentation just to illustrate.   It’s filled with items like a RIM Blackberry, a Hughes Satellite terminal, my Grandmother’s pressure cooker, and a treasured Dick Tracy watch from my childhood.    The reactions are always the same when I present these items one by one.  Nods of approval or, “I remember that”.   Each has been replaced with a more successful or refined success like a Google phone, a Starlink system, an Instant Pot, or even my trusty Apple Watch.  This kind of evolutionary success doesn’t happen on its own. 

For each success someone has taken the time to look at the result and ask what could be better.  On rare occasions the answer jumps out, in most cases it requires a hard look followed by harder work and even greater investment.  This begs the question, what would happen if you looked at your own success with that same intention.   What would you look like if you went from a 1960’s pressure cooker to a Ninja Foodie?

The first step is the toughest.   It takes an incredibly difficult look in the mirror. A stripped down, honest, humbling introspection is the hardest thing to do when looking for a model of success. Let me share a story.

 I always viewed the peak of my success was in 2010.   I was 46 years old with a thriving lifestyle.  I traveled the country as the evangelist for a growing software company.  I was married to the love of my life and together we had a 10-year-old princess.  I collected interesting cars; we celebrated birthdays in Disney, and we cruised the islands a few times a year.  We had completed our dream house and were just settling into the most “successful” part of our lives.   In July of 2010 I walked up the stairs and dropped from a heart attack called the Widow Maker.   Lies, I’m still here.   Shortly after that my beautiful wife was given a terminal diagnosis of stage 4 cancer.  I left my career to take care of my family, my heart, and those who shared my heart.  That was my sole mission for the next 5 years.

As rewarding as that was, I felt like there was more left to do.  The measure of success hadn’t been met in my eyes.  I worked for a few folks, took on some side gigs, even tried my hand at some new industries but nothing gave me that feeling.  I was forever looking for that opportunity.  Fast forward through Covid when like everyone else I had the time to finally take that hard look over the wall.   If my new role was that of caretaker to my family, then I better be able to do it both mentally and physically.

I started with a lifestyle coach.  That meant a huge change in what I was eating followed by what felt like ridiculous amounts of exercise.  I had a group that helped with the physical and mental side of getting healthy.  I know now that’s the the trinity of well-being: mental health, physical fitness, and sustainable healthy fuel.    What’s the worst that could happen?  I lose a few pounds make a few friends.   Perhaps it would help me sleep better, snore less, walk easier and smile more. 

I could not have predicted the result.  I was evolving into my own success model.  I found myself changing from a Blackberry to an iPhone, or a Hughes satellite to an Elon Musk powered Starlink.   The transition was slow at first but like most good ideas it started picking up steam.  Pounds fell off, energy levels went through the roof, sleep came peacefully, and most of all…. I felt great!

So, what does success look like a year after the hard conversation with me?  For starters I’m 70 lbs lighter.  I go to spin classes at 6am twice a week, I go to the gym three times a week, and on Saturdays I RUN!  I mean 5k, 7k, even 10k and nobody is chasing me.  I run in the heat.  I run in the cold.  I run and listen to Ron Slee podcasts.  I smile when I run, and I think deep thoughts when I run. 

I would have to say my most successful time is now.  The love of my life is still here and still fighting, my daughter met all of her goals so far (she even runs with me sometimes) and I have found my version of the fountain of youth.  I think clearer, everything is a half-step ahead, and most importantly opportunity now seeks me.  

Seeking success requires a first step.  Take a hard look at you, your goals, your dreams and most importantly your “why”.  Everything you are already good at will remain, but the add on skills will put you in a new stratosphere.  Measure yourself honestly, painfully, and accurately then just do something.  You don’t have to be a 1960’s pressure cooker.  You literally own your success. It just takes a difficult conversation with yourself and then, like every success: hard work, dedication and investment.

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