Let’s Get Serious About Our Employees #MarketingMonday

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Some thoughts for your consideration:

You have seen over the past two to three weeks a change in the approach to the blog. We have been exposing Vimeo based film clips. You have seen our promotional trailer, the animation of Socrates, an introduction to the company and a video clip on market segmentation. I want today to present a situation and then pose some questions in the Socratic Manner. Socratic teaching forces people to come to their own conclusions.

Employees transition through three or four stages in their career:

  • Enthusiastic Beginner
  • Disillusioned Learner
  • Capable but Cautious Performer
  • Self-Reliant Achiever

 

Unfortunately, it is their immediate supervisor that has a direct impact on this transition. Too often we get stuck at the Disillusioned Learner as a result of the style of the boss or the lack of any interest from the boss in the employee.

 

As individuals as we move from school to work we have to overcome a series of things that I will call “personal obstacles.” These things come from our families, our friends and peers and our schools. I have often said we are taught to be obedient in our developmental years and when we get to the workforce we are asked to think on our own.

 

These obstacles normally are

 

  • We are told everything we want to do is impossible
  • We are afraid of hurting those we love by pursuing our own dreams
  • We are afraid we will fail in pursuit of our dreams.
  • We are afraid to succeed.

 

One of the important questions we need to ask of ourselves is “what would I do if I wasn’t afraid?”

 

In our training approach, we are developing an employee development program that will take each employee in the parts and service groups from the enthusiastic beginner to a self-reliant achiever. My question is “how do you achieve that today?

 

The time is now.

Why Backorders Happen #MondayBlogs

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Sometimes, a part won’t be available within your store, or your chain of stores, or from your supplier, OEM.  When a backorder takes place, you can never forget to conduct an analysis of WHY this has happened.

If our customers tell us what they want, shouldn’t we give it to them?

This means providing them with parts and service beyond compare.  To do that, you have to know what is going on in your inventory management.

The time is now.

 

Parts Management: The Return of the Webinars

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It’s that time of year again.  Our Parts Management Webinars return next week, beginning on Tuesday, September 15.

What is Parts Management?  What are the key management areas in which we can increase our profitability?  How can we implement systems and training to make more money?

Be sure to join us for a refresher, or few new training, to get this unique, interactive, conference style training geared at profitability, productivity, and systems within the Parts Department at your Dealership.

For a complete description of each webinar, and to register, please visit our Parts Management Webinars page on our website.

Fall brings with it the return of our training offerings, and the opportunity to continue to develop in your pursuit of excellence.

The time is now.

Upcoming Events: All About Webinars

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It’s that time again, here at Learning Without Scars.  It is time for a new post on our upcoming events and this week it is all about webinars.

Next week, beginning on Monday, June 8, 2015, we are continuing our Product Support Selling and Parts & Service Marketing Program.

We will be hosting webinars on Monday through Thursday, at 9:00 a.m. PST and 11:00 a.m. PST.  All Product Support Selling webinars are at 9:00 a.m. PST, while the Parts & Service Marketing are at 11:00 a.m. PST.

In Product Support, we will have a one hour webinar on each of the following: Presentation, Overcoming Objections, Customer Retention, and Territory Potential.

In Parts & Service Marketing, we will offer a one hour webinar on each of the following: Market Coverage, Customer Retention, Compensation Programs, and Territory Management.

This will wrap up the spring webinar series in its entirety.  We will return in the fall of 2015.

Don’t miss your opportunity to finish your coursework with us!

The time is now.

Parts & Service Marketing – Market Segmentation

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Parts & Service Marketing – Market Segmentation

Marketing is the process of identifying and satisfying customer needs. That process becomes impossible with the thousands and thousands of customers that you have in your assigned area of responsibility (AOR). As a result of that truth, it becomes important to be able to find out what the customer needs and wants, and then to be able to find common elements of their business that will allow you to group them with other customers of common needs and wants.

That is the aim of market segmentation. Market segmentation is the process by which marketeers divide potential customers into smaller groups that are looking for similar benefits from a product or service. The goal is to isolate a group that prefers these features and benefits, and to develop a sustainable differential advantage that satisfies their needs. All of the methods and processes that are required to perform this are covered in the webinar.

We cover the industrial focus, the individual demographics, and the psychographics. We also have to assess the dealer strengths and weaknesses, as well as reviewing the same strengths and weaknesses in the competition. All of this and much more is covered in this comprehensive webinar.

The time is now.

Parts & Service Marketing – Basic Marketing

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Parts & Service Marketing – Basic Marketing

Our Parts & Service Marketing series of webinars begins this Thursday, May 14, 2015, with the introductory course: Basic Marketing.

Marketing is a broadly misunderstood sector of business. It is much more than mailings, promotions, and tradeshows. It is all of the aspects involved in influencing the customer to purchase your products or services.

Marketing is the science of choosing target markets through the use of market analysis and segmentation. This webinar exposes all aspects of marketing: Relationship Marketing, Business Marketing, Social Marketing and Internal Marketing. In Relationship Marketing, we focus on suppliers and customers, and the goal is to build loyalty. The Business Marketing is all aspects of the traditional marketing functions: advertising, promotion and communications. Social Marketing looks at everything that impacts society. For instance, the impact on the environment from the use of clean engine technology. Internal Marketing, is the broad communications to all employees of everything that we are doing in the business.

This webinar covers all the basics of marketing: from the four P’s to the more current addition of SIVA. We cover it all. Without creating the environment where your product or service is understood, you make the job of selling much more difficult. This webinar aims to provide you with the tools to use to make selling more successful.

Parts Management – Delivery Systems

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Parts Management – Delivery Systems

In the parts business we communicate with the marketplace in a variety of methods. With the telephone, with people walking into your store, some customers will send orders by mail, or via a fax, and some use the internet. But the variations of the work don’t stop there: we also have to contend with a variety of “delivery” systems as well. These are not transportation systems. This is a customer service delivery system.

We process sales orders for our customers and we all know that not all customers are created equal. Some customers spend a lot of money with you and deserve to get special treatment. Well, we also have some processes that are cost intensive but also some that are very efficient. These are the customer service delivery systems.

From the customer who does not know the part numbers that they need, to the customer that can order parts from an electronic catalogue on the internet, there are wide ranges of differences. Each of the delivery systems has a different cost component, and that can lead us to provide differentiated services dependent on the delivery system that is chosen by the customer. We explore all aspects of the delivery systems we offer to the market in this important webinar.

 

Parts Management – Basic Finance

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Parts Management – Basic Finance

Before we can be of any value to anyone else we have to be of value to ourselves. That is an old adage, but it still rings true. Ignorance is not knowing what to do. How can we know what to do if we don’t understand basic finance?

Here we will expose and explain all aspects of the operating statement, the balance sheet, and the cash flow forecast. These are the three major documents in the world of finance. We will define and describe all of the terms that accountants use. There will be no mystery to basic finance when we are finished. We will explain cost of sales and what it consists of, as well as all of the various expense elements. Personnel Expenses, Operating Expenses, and Fixed Expenses are discussed so that everyone will be able to understand and accept how and why money is spent and how we make it.

The fundamentals of basic finance have been a mystery for too many people for far too long. This webinar gets past that so that the employees in a parts business will understand the effect of each of their decisions.

Learn How To Make It Matter!

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On Tuesday, 5/12/2015, we are presenting our two “Make It Matter” webinars.

At 9:00 a.m. PST we have PTS-WE-U13: our Parts Management – Make It Matter program.

At 11:00 a.m. PST we have SER-WE-U13: our Service Management – Make It Matter program.

These webinars address the two most important questions we must answer in our Capital Goods Business: What do you provide?  What do you do?  The answers are not as simple as they appear to be.  Everything we do has a profound impact on our customers, suppliers, coworkers, and other stakeholders.  This webinar will present information on how to differentiate yourself within your business, and for your customers.

In other news, we have just released our second Self-Study program, this time for Service Management.  Please learn more about these programs under the Self-Study tab on our website.  The Foundation is now available for both Parts Management and Service Management.

The time is now.

 

Buyer’s Needs – PTS-WE-U12

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Buyer’s Needs – PTS-WE-U12 

A new reality continues in its approach.  By now everyone has been affected by “telemarketing,” your tele-selling future has gotten off to a successful start, and you have also learned how to handle the objections from the customers. You know all of the mechanics of selling. Now we need to make it easier for you by exposing the “buyer’s needs.”

The needs that the customer has in this transaction can stem from “ego satisfaction,” in other words knowing that they are making the right choice, to feeling that they are treated with respect. The sales person has to be sensitive to all of these various attributes and reasons which can underlie the buyer’s needs. But your customers also need your expertise and knowledge and experience. You are in a difficult position. In order to be able to satisfy the needs of the customer, you have to continue to keep yourself current on the product and Industry trends and competition. There is a lot to do.

This webinar deals with survey information obtained from the customers. If they are given a chance, customers will tell us what they need and want, and we then have to be in a position to deliver it.

Don’t miss out on this learning opportunity.

The time is now.