My Friend Max

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My Friend Max

My Friend Max

Sometimes wisdom and life changing opportunities come out of the blue. The challenge for us is to recognize them and take heed. In this second abstract from Ed Wallace’s book, Business Relationships That Last, that is exactly what Ed experiences… Please enjoy this guest blog, “My Friend Max.”

My Friend Max

A number of years ago, my sales efforts required that I travel a great deal. I didn’t like being away from my family any more than necessary, so I became king of the day-trippers. It got so that I could leave my home on the East Coast around 5:00 a.m. for a meeting in Minneapolis or Des Moines and still make it back home the same day for a late dinner and to see Brett, our first child, for a few precious minutes before tucking him into bed.

The night before one of these trips, my car developed an engine problem. I asked my wife, Laurie, to reserve a taxi to the airport for me. As usual, when she got involved in helping me solve one of my problems, remarkable events began to unfold. The next morning, I waited anxiously for the car to arrive. At precisely 5:00 a.m. I noticed an old-fashioned British taxi, with stately, rounded exterior lines, running boards, and a large passenger compartment pull up in the front of the house. Even in the faint light of dawn I could tell the car was spotlessly clean. In the short amount of time, it took me to exit the house and lock the door, the driver had already exited the taxi and was on his way up the walk toward the house. He was a tall, lanky fellow with glasses and the sort of calm, kind face you might see in a Norman Rockwell painting. I was about to learn that he was not your average taxi driver. He gave me a warm, “Good morning,” and we walked together toward his parked taxi. I climbed into the passenger area of the car, settled into a luxurious leather seat, stretched out my legs, and felt a deep sense of comfort and relief. When the driver started the car, I noticed there was no noise—no scratchy dispatcher’s voice barking instructions, no jangling music on the radio. A cooler within reach provided a supply of bottled water. It was amazing! As we pulled away, the driver turned around to introduce himself. “Hello, Ed, my name is Max,” he said with a smile. “Glad to meet you, Max,” I replied, wondering how he knew my name. As we drove, he asked me a couple of questions about myself. Since I’m pretty much my own favorite topic, I happily offered plenty of information. He was a terrific listener, and I found myself sharing a good deal about my life with this person that I hardly knew. He had a special calm, sincere demeanor that made me feel comfortable opening up to him. He took special note when I told him about our new young son and how he had just started sleeping through the night. When we arrived at the airport, I gave Max a more generous tip than I usually give drivers. I had so thoroughly enjoyed his company and the stress-free ride to the airport I asked him to schedule me for the following Tuesday. Max hesitated and then said, “I’m truly sorry, Ed, but I cannot pick you up next week.” “What’s wrong, Max, is it something I said?” I inquired, half-jokingly. “No, nothing like that, Ed. I just have a great deal of fares— friends, that is—and they usually need to book three to four weeks in advance with me.” “For a ride to the airport at five o’clock in the morning?” I asked incredulously. “Yes, I have a lot of friends,” Max responded. “I just happened to have a cancellation last night before I got your wife’s request for a ride.” “Okay, how about three weeks from today?” I tried again. “That works. I look forward to seeing you then,” Max answered, and he was off.

We will continue with the story of Max next week.

The Time is Now.

For more information on our classes and assessments, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Out on a Ledge

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Out on a Ledge

Out on a Ledge

In this week’s guest blog, Sonya Law takes us Out on a Ledge with a look at the end of the year performance review.

How to jumpstart the EOY Performance Review to drive high performance in 2021? Out on a ledge … is how it can feel like sometimes for employees walking into their end of year review… It’s a mixed bag of dread and discomfort which only serves to weigh you down.  These negative feelings brought about by fear from past experiences where managers have got it wrong by using it as an opportunity to dredge up past mistakes for the first time.  Or worse they gloss it over and this indifference only serves to strengthen a performance culture of mediocrity and completely devalues the review.

As a Human Resources Manager, I feel like this is a missed opportunity to re-connect and re-engage the effort and performance of your employees leading into 2021.  After all, aren’t we all striving to create High Performance Cultures?

As managers we are really good at ‘what went well’ but often fail in asking employees what are our biggest challenges and what needs fixing.   Instead, we wait to ask the employee who has resigned in the exit interview, when it’s too late.    Organizations that facilitate honest, open dialogue will solve problems faster and improve overall innovation and performance against rivals.  Our ability to reflect on the year, our performance and grow together as human being’s and as an organization is a comparative advantage in Business.

So how do we conduct a good EOY review and what is it worth to the organization?

The three key success factors of a good EOY review are approachability, attention, appreciation.

Approachability: your manager is open and communicative in the review, in his or her language both verbal and non-verbal, this congruency builds integrity in the relationship and review.

Attention: the greatest gift, they give their employee their 100% attention.  That is, they don’t answer phone calls or send emails, they have committed to this time, they don’t re-schedule or put it off.  This is a big no-no rescheduling an EOY performance review! Where practical always commit to this meeting, it sends a bad message to the employee if you shift it, they feel deprioritised.

‘People want to feel heard, listened to’

Simon Sinek – virtual event – 24th November, 2020 – The Infinite Game.

When you do this well morale goes up, trust goes up they feel you have their back and it reduces fear and if you show care and exercise your empathetic listening skills your people will even be willing to suffer stress for you.

Encourage your employees to come to the meeting with what they see are the challenges and what needs fixing.  Resist the temptation as a manager to fix it for them, by giving them the responsibility it activates thinking.  Ask them what do you think? How would you solve it? Managers tell people what to do; but true leaders help people feel safe, promote thinking and drive a culture of Empowerment, where employees are empowered to make decisions impacting their work. You can take this a step further and if you here the language of blame, for example they ordered the wrong part, simply replace they with we ordered the wrong part. It’s a subtle way to encourage teamwork and accountability. To read more about this see Book titled: “Turn the Ship Around” by David Marquet, former nuclear submarine commander.

Appreciation – As the manager it is your role to show appreciation to your employee for their valuable contribution over the year.  You would be surprised how many managers fail to do this, and only tick the box – did they achieve goal – yes or no.  My top tip to get into the role of an appreciative manager, is to imagine that your star performer is walking out of their EOY review into a call with a ‘headhunter’ following your meeting!  What do you want your star performer to say when the headhunter dangles the carrot and tries to poach your star performer? You want them to walk out of the EOY review feeling inflated like a balloon filled with all the warm and fuzzy feelings that make us feel giddy when we are in love! Think about it like your most important relationship, reconnect, reengage them in the cause, vision, purpose, mission and the important role they have in that, we all want to feel connected and sense of belonging.

How do you prepare for this EOY review with your employee?

  1. Create an Appreciation folder in your Outlook for your employee.
  2. Collect things – throughout the year – note all the good things they do.
  3. Drop any emails into that folder – things you write yourself to remind you of the good things or emails you get from customers, suppliers or colleagues about how fantastic your star performer is, achievements etc.

Top 3 things to remember:

  1. All your employees are star performers
  2. You hired them or someone else in your organization did so and its up to you to make sure they fulfill their potential
  3. If they are a poor performer why did they make it to the EOY performance review – that’s a bigger organizational culture question, which would require some deep work.

So, what’s it worth to you?

If you don’t get this right – Instead of putting a STAR on top of the Christmas Tree this year you will be putting a job vacancy up online to look for a new STAR performer.

An EOY review is a great opportunity to unite your people in the cause so they are bursting with new energy heading into 2021, ready to face new challenges, refreshed and reinvigorated.

For more information on our classes and assessments, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Call Reporting

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Call Reporting

Call Reporting

Virtual Selling Tips related to Vital Selling Regimens, by Don Buttrey, President of Sales Professional Training, Inc. Today, Don shares with us the importance of Call Reporting in Customer Relationship Management.

Let me discuss some items requiring more discipline and attention in this “Virtual” world we are living in today.

Call Reporting

  • If working remotely, it is even more critical to include to define your commitment to some specific start/stop times and aggressive guidelines on how many calls you will make each day. Own it. Be accountable. Do the grunge work. It will pay off in the long run! If you coast or get distracted it will bite you. Get fired with enthusiasm! . . .or . . . be ‘fired up’ with enthusiasm!
  • Set target ‘guidelines’ to make more calls/touches in this current market! And that is now feasible due to elimination of travel time. Use that to your advantage and be tenacious with the discipline of proactive calls! The slower the market, the harder we must work as salespeople! No excuses.
  • Mix up your touch points such as phone, email, video etc. Try multiple approaches until you connect. Do not give up.
  • Monitor and document communication preferences in your CRM for each contact (such as email, text, call, video –Zoom, Meet, TEAMS, FaceTime, etc.)
For more information on our classes and assessments, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

It’s the Little Things

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It’s the Little Things

It's the Little Things

I met Ed Wallace a number of years ago and developed a wonderful relationship with him that continues to this day. Ed wrote a very meaningful book in 2010 titled “Business Relationships that Last.” He has kindly allowed us to use excerpts from this book in our blog. We start the first of a three-part series today with “It’s the Little Things.” You will see the follow-on blogs in the coming weeks. I have found there to be terrific value in this book and feel honored that Ed would allow us share his wisdom with you. I hope you enjoy and it gives you serious food for thought. Ron   

It’s the Little Extras!

Little things make big things happen. —John Wooden

Imagine that today is the last day of your sales cycle and you still have not made your monthly quota. This scenario was all too often a reality for me during my early years in sales. Now imagine that you have built such outstanding business relationships that you could contact any number of your clients and ask for their help with your quota shortfall. Imagine a level of mutual trust and commitment so deep that this request will be as easy for you to make as it will be for your clients to understand. And, finally, imagine they not only understand your need but also offer to fulfill it by signing a contract or placing an order earlier than they had planned. My passionate belief after a twenty-five-year career in sales, executive leadership, and now business ownership is that creating business relationships that last is the secret to success. As I reflect on all of the amazing technological advances that have evolved during my career, I find one remarkable, simple constant: business is still driven by people and relationships. Eventually, human beings need to interact with one another in order to work through all of the details associated with their organizations doing business together. Whether it be the use of a product or service or the acquisition of a new business, humans— with all of our knowledge, skills, goals, emotions, biases, and fears—need to collaborate to get things accomplished. Developing business relationships that last with your clients sometimes seems like a lot of extra work, especially if you cannot ensure a predictable return on the investment from all of your efforts. But even though lasting business relationships can seem as elusive as holding on to sand, learning and applying a process to help you “cup them in your hands” makes it much less challenging than you might think.

We will share with you next time the story about Ed’s friend Max.

The Time is Now.

For more information on our programs and assessments, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

From My Perspective

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From My Perspective

From My Perspective

From My Perspective is the latest guest blog by Don Buttrey, President of Sales Professional Training.

We have covered the headlines and some thinking on Customer Relationship Management. Let me wrap it up with these final thoughts.

HELP! I’m in CRM hell!

My position is that the “software” is not a solution per se.  The solution is getting the entire organization to embrace the power and value of knowledge with effective team selling.  Call documentation, account strategic planning, pre-call planning, post call documentation, customer profile completion, account tiering and prioritization, calendar management, and whole team communication must be taught and expected first and foremost. Then, CRM can and will be embraced by all as a powerful technological tool that makes doing all these things easier—and actually possible! As an analogy, this is similar to learning the concepts and discipline of mathematics first – then seeing the time savings and exponential power that a calculator or computer can provide.

Every dealer I have trained in the last 20+ years has seen the need – and is at some stage of CRM initiation or operation. Like cell phones or any other technology it has become a part of being a sales organization. I do not sell or promote any particular CRM.  However, due to the inevitability of dealers needing and using it, my training addresses it throughout my curriculum. As a sales trainer, my service to dealers is to support and promote buy-in and implementation of all the selling and service activities that CRM documents, tracks, and manages. I teach the “why” of CRM and make sure that leaders do not dictate it – but that all levels of the dealership accept the duties of data entry, maximize it’s use, and are involved in continuous improvement and ongoing customization of the tool.

For more information on our programs and assessments, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Apprenticeship Holds an Important Key to Workforce Solutions

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Apprenticeship Holds an Important Key to Workforce Solutions

Don Shilling

Today’s blog post, “Apprenticeship Holds an Important Key to Workforce Solutions,” is a new contribution from Don Shilling.

Brandeis Machinery Inc was recently recognized by the Associated Equipment Distributors trade association for their Industry Recognized Apprenticeship Program (IRAP’s) a program which they initiated in 2015. They are “Growing Their Own” as I have mentioned in my previous blogs. Apprenticeship Programs may be an important key for your organization to participate also in “Growing Your Own”.

Our company developed two Department of Labor Certified Apprenticeship Program a few years back and I must say when you throw around words like “Certification” or “Department of Labor” into the discussion it may sound a bit scary, or cumbersome or onerous. Not True. Let me explain by describing our experience, hopefully after this exercise your organization might be comfortable in developing your own Apprenticeship Program and start solving your own workforce shortages.

The Department of Labor has literally scores of certified apprenticeship programs reviewed and approved each with standards to follow and give guidance. If you go to their website you probably identify an apprenticeship program that exists and fits your needs. Great if that works. If you call your local Department of Labor Apprenticeship Office, they can help you in setting up your own program that follows those existing standards.

In our case, it was not so simple. The two programs we developed were not on the existing DOL list of apprenticeships. We decided to develop our own and not to jump to far ahead in this story but with the help of the Apprenticeship Director at our local DOL Office he approved the elements of our program that were different and married them with an existing program, to catalog a new unique program which is what we have.

A typical Apprenticeship Program is three years in duration and 6,000 man hours of mentoring and on the job training. Your supervisors are the ones monitoring and mentoring the Apprentice and they sign off on completion of each phase of this training.

In our case, we identified skill areas that we felt were more important than others and those areas needed additional skills training for an apprentice in our industry. We also identified Technical college classes we required the apprentice to enroll in, whether On Line or in the Classroom. Our goal was to fit some classroom work into a schedule the apprentice can handle and the On the Job skills training in most cases paralleled the classroom work.

When you break down our Apprenticeship Program it is more like 4,000 to 5,000 man hours of On the Job Skills training and about 1,500 man hours of classroom and on-line learning. On line learning does not have to be limited to Technical College credits but Certified Programs with measured results are important. Besides technical classes we also selected important classes like Safety, First Aid, Forklift Operation, Customer Service, Marketing and Inventory Analysis.

Once reviewed by the DOL Apprenticeship Director our program was signed off on and approved for Certification. As the Apprentice completes each phase of this program, we report to the DOL and at the end a Certification will be awarded to the Apprentice. The Apprentice owns that and takes it with him/her just like a diploma from a Technical College.

What is wonderful about the program is these individuals working through our apprenticeship program have exactly the skill sets we want and we needed. Very positive for us. The real winner however is the apprentice. An apprentice that has worked for you for three years and has achieved his certification is not only proud and loyal to your company but is on a career track with the skills to advance within your system.

Finally, the Department of Labor currently has a major push in place to expand on Industry Recognized Apprenticeship Programs (IRAP’s) thus many local State Agencies have access to funding from the DOL to develop and support these new Apprenticeships. It would be well worth your time to identify where an apprenticeship might work in your business and how that apprenticeship position needs to be configured to best fit your needs. Seek out help from the DOL and local agencies to bring this initiative into your organization. Today the skilled workforce will no longer be just “delivered to your door step”, instead you must develop a pathway for careers in the industry and ways for our youth to access those pathways. Good luck on your Workforce Development journey.

 

The Law of the Carrot

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The Law of the Carrot

Today’s post, The Law of the Carrot, is written by guest blogger is Ryszard Chciuk. In his own words:

For the first half of my professional life I worked for Hydrobudowa-6 SA. At that time, it was one of the biggest construction companies in Poland. There, I was responsible for technical availability of all kinds of heavy construction machines and equipment, mobile cranes and trucks. We needed them on projects like constructing long distance pipelines, subway stations, expressways, airfields, industrial buildings or pumped storage power plants. I was in charge of up to 440 people, including mechanics and field technicians, machine operators, truck drivers, procurement, warehouses, and administration.

In the period of 22 years, I learned how my colleagues, project managers, utilized machines and equipment and what they needed to complete their projects on time and within the budget. It gave me a solid foundation to undertake a commitment to create the best after-sales organization in Poland for my new employer, Volvo CE.

The core of my service management team comprised of several highly motivated people who shared my idea of service excellence. Together, we built a very successful service organization. Within 10 years, we multiplied the number of employees ten times, up to almost 150 people in 2013. We generated average service and parts sales growth 22% yearly. My team established new standards on the demanding, after-sales market.

The Law of the Carrot

Seven years ago, I decided to retire, though I have not fully accomplished my goal to create the best construction equipment service organization in my country. Since then, I have posted over one hundred articles on my blog (in the Polish language) to support all the people focused on service excellence. My blog is directed to the construction equipment users and service managers, because I see both groups as complementary parts of every construction activity. They should know their expectations, which are very often completely opposite. They should also understand their daily limitations.

When my guru Ron Slee asked me to write a short article for this blog, I decided to follow Steve Day, a guest blogger for Learning Without Scars: “I thought that I might write about something important that I did not focus on enough until way too late in my career”. In my case this is about motivation. Truly speaking, I hate that word. This is because my superiors used to do their best to demotivate me during almost all of my professional life.

As a deadly enemy of negative motivation, I always tried to motivate my people in a positive way. I spent a lot of time and energy designing and implementing motivational systems for many teams I was in charge of. Those systems were mostly based on financial incentives, though fortunately not all of them.

Since I got retired, I have had enough time to look back. I learned about the Law of the Carrot on the seminar of Andrzej Blikle (Professor in mathematics and computer science at the Institute of Computer Science of the Polish Academy of Science and in the years 1990-2010 the president and CEO of A. Blikle Ltd, a family firm established in 1869 in Warsaw, known for its luxury pastry shops). His Law of the Carrot says: “The sole purpose of each carrot is to make a stick out of it”.

When you are rewarded with a carrot, you seem satisfied (please pay attention that it works only for a very limited time). Your superior gave you a tasty carrot but now it’s already been eaten.

If you were not rewarded with a carrot you looked very unhappy. Almost imperceptibly a carrot transformed itself into a stick.

What about your improper behavior (according to your superior)? You are punished. It’s a stick motivation. Next time, you will do your best to avoid the stick on your back. It does not matter if the way you avoid punishment has a positive impact on your company. You feel as comfortable as when you are awarded with a carrot. So, this time a stick has transformed itself into a carrot.

Too many managers still believe people must be awarded or punished to work well. They say it is human nature to be lazy and dishonest. Of course, the manager himself is not lazy and dishonest. Conclusion: a manager is not a human being. Am I wrong?

I am ashamed I did not notice that my very fast-growing service team was the most effective and happy, during at least the first three years of building our countrywide organization (we began in 2002). Those times, almost all of us used to spend five days a week in service cars and hotels, solving problems of customers with their heavy machines, in the field, despite the weather, lack of parts stock and no administrative procedures. It was the time all of my team members including field technicians, service supervisors, and parts personnel were paid only monthly salary – no bonuses, no financial incentives, and no paid overtime. We did not register work hours. Field technicians decided on the spot, how many hours they were to work to solve customers’ problems, before going asleep. You do not believe it worked? Nobody quit during the first three years, though the core people could easily find better paid jobs. Then and later on, many new people were hired and almost all of them were brought on board by our team members. The only visible incentives for field technicians were mobile workshops, equipped with all indispensable tools, so that nobody in the market could compete with us – we were proud of our service vans.

How was it possible? We were pioneers and we felt like ones because we had a common goal to build something much better than anything we could observe around. That was power of internal motivation, neither a carrot nor a stick incentive.

For more information on our programs, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

It’s Time for Implementation

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It’s Time for Implementation

It's Time for Implementation

As with everything we do implementation is the critical element to our success. As it’s time for implementation, here are some thoughts for you to consider.

HELP! I’m in CRM hell!

From my extensive work in training equipment dealers, I have observed the challenges that most of them confront. If a dealer is in the early stages of selecting or initiating a CRM, here are some important concerns to anticipate:

  • Connectivity problems – especially in rural territories.
  • Integration and compatibility with operating systems and existing databases
  • Customization flexibility and speed of requested changes or revisions of the structure or fields.
  • Technology comfort barriers of the users
  • Data entry time requirements and user-friendliness
  • Ownership of the importance by sales and support (facilitated by training)
  • Adoption and utilization of all functions (calendar, quoting, opportunities, machine population, service history, account prioritization and call frequency)
  • Integration and compatibility with all segments or functions of the dealership (service, parts, other divisions-such as power generation/GPS technology/allied products/etc., rental)

If you want to add more to our list please let us know by email. Good luck in your journey to implementing this important sales and sales management tool.

Don Buttrey is the president of Sales Professional Training Inc., a company that offers in-depth skill development for sales professionals and sales support. He has trained thousands of salespeople over 25 years and clearly understands the selling environment of equipment dealers and manufacturers. His curriculum is comprehensive and proven! Don is also the author of “The SELL Process”, a foundational how-to book on effective sales interactions.

Don can be reached at (937) 427-1717 or email donbuttrey@salesprofessionaltraining.com. 

Check out this website link salesprofessionaltraining.com  for more information – or to purchase online sales training.

Underneath the rock: How to inspire resilience in a pandemic

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Underneath the rock: How to inspire resilience in a pandemic

Underneath the rock

This week, Sonya Law returns with another guest blog for us. Who better than a Human Resources Manager to help us to uncover what is buried underneath the rock, and how we can inspire resilience in a pandemic.

“Developing resilience helps us to overcome obstacles, deal with change and learn from experiences to thrive in the future…”

Gemma Leigh Roberts, Chartered Psychologist, Founder of the Resilience Edge. 

The Pandemic in 2020 will go down in history as a year like no other and we are yet to uncover what is underneath the rock, when it comes to employee’s wellbeing.  The iceberg theory helps us to understand there will be some signs on the surface, that we can observe but it won’t be until we go deeper that we will uncover the real human impact.  How do we inspire resilience in a Pandemic where employees can thrive, not just survive? And why is it valuable to understand the wellbeing of our employees in order to develop a resilient and innovative culture into the future?

As a Human Resources Manager my approach during the Pandemic was to promote positive mental health in our workplace and inspire a culture of resilience and innovation.

We already had a health and wellbeing committee with cross functional representation of employees across the organization and a charter that directed our wellness program.  What we introduced that was new was to educate our managers on how to identify signs and symptoms of mental health in employees, who may be impacted by feelings of isolation, anxiety and fear during the Pandemic. With the knowledge that 1 in 5 employees globally in the workplace will experience a mental health issue at any given time.

Firstly, our frontline managers participated in a facilitated session led by Human Resources on how to have a wellbeing conversation with their employees about their mental health.

Managers were equipped as the first responders, on how to recognize the signs and symptoms of mental health in their employees during the Pandemic and have a respectful conversation about their wellbeing or refer to an employee assistance provider.  In a poll of managers 80% found it easy and essential to have a wellbeing conversation, 15% awkward and 5% almost impossible.  Managers who found it easy and essential understood it takes time to build trust with employees and for employees to open up.  As a manager it’s about respecting that these conversations are personal, private, sensitive and confidential.

For those managers who found it awkward to have these conversations, they were encouraged to express their discomfort about having a wellbeing conversation and to say – I am not the expert in these conversations but your wellbeing is important to me, and I just want to check in to see if you are okay? This approach was very well received because it showed that they too were human.

We learnt that by managers holding a space for employees to be listened to discuss their wellbeing as well as their daily work priorities helped employees to feel supported.  Leading with compassion, showing genuine authentic care and concern towards another human being promotes feelings of safety a fundamental human need, (Maslow’s Hierarchy) without this need being met we can’t achieve higher order needs.  Managers who led with compassion during the Pandemic inspired co-operation amongst their employees.

Secondly, we engaged Melo Calarco a Mindfulness and High-Performance Coach to present to all employees in a lunch and learn Zoom session (60 minutes) on how to develop resilience through a daily self-care practice:

  • Manage stress and anxiety and burnout (exercise program)
  • Better quality sleep
  • Be more engaged and productive
  • Thrive in challenging conditions (resilience)
  • Have more mental clarity and focus
  • Stay positive and motivated
  • Connect as a team
  • Cultivate Gratitude.

We get a hit of serotonin ‘the feel-good hormone’ when we engage in activities, we enjoy which we get from a daily self-care practice.  Serotonin also regulates the gut so we get the added benefit of improving our digestion and gut health improves our mood and protects us against digestive disorders linked to depression.  You can research more into how what you eat can affect your mood – Grain Brain, New York #1 Best Seller – Author Dr. David Perlmutter and Kristin Loberg.

The Pandemic showed us that a successful organization who adapts well to change, is agile and can keep pace in a rapidly changing environment.  Even when there is no blueprint for employees to work off, employees are empowered to think on their feet and solve new problems. It’s essential that leaders develop organizations into the future where people can perform well beyond its boundaries where surprising events occur, where plans and procedures no longer apply.  Described as graceful extensibility, is a positive capability to stretch near and beyond boundaries, when surprise occurs the organization continues to perform during periods of disruption i.e. Pandemic, the behaviors that organizations must exhibit are both resilience and innovation.

For more information on our assessments and classes, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

 

 

CRM and Dealer Executives

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CRM and Dealer Executives

A new guest blog by Don Buttrey, President of Sales Professional Training. Today, Don shares with us the importance of CRM for Dealer Executives.

Customer Relationship Management is a long way from a salesman having his little black book. This concept causes concern in the executive leadership of the business and the sales teams.

HELP! I’m in CRM hell!

Here are a few of the reasons that dealer principals and leaders are constrained to have a functional CRM solution:

  • Coverage, market share growth, awareness/participation and better service
  • Real time selling information
  • Team selling and strategic growth of key accounts
  • Marketing campaigns (focused mailers, promotions etc)
  • Dealership possession of market and customer information (not out in a salespersons trunk or private laptop)
  • Benchmarking and accountability of activities

Do these points look familiar? How you overcome them and move forward is a critical decision and implementation.

For more information on our assessments and classes, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.