The question that most of you thought of when during the afternoon discussion between the supervisor and the technician the technician says he is not going to finish all the work that you gave him to do today is “why not.” That is not the right question. You are all thinking like production managers from the old school.
The question that I believe is right is “how much longer will it take to complete the work?”
Once we have the length of time required we can ask the next most important question “can you stay.”
We have established that the technician will miss the standard time for the job – that might be #1 (remember) now if they can’t or won’t stay to make it right – that might be #2 all in one event.
If they can’t stay then the labor efficiency will drop precipitously as the following morning when he starts up on that job again he will have to take between thirty minutes and an hour to get to the point where he was when he left last night. That is either a 6.25% drop in labor efficiency or a 12.5% drop. Neither one is good.
If the technician can stay you will eat a little overtime but your schedule is intact and the completion date for the work is still in line. The time is now.
Selling Skills Part Two
Presentations in the world of parts and service sales are truly a lost art. Rarely does a Parts and Service Salesman go to a customer and make a presentation on a product or service that they are offering. Yet this is a skill and call type that needs to be developed if we are to obtain the proper capture rate for the authorized equipment dealers.
The first problem that I encounter is that there is a serious deficiency in features and benefits knowledge on what we are selling. How did this happen? I submit to you it is because we are in the order processing business more than we are in the sales business. We will deal with this matter in more depth later.
The second is that we don’t know how to deal with objections. An objection is a huge signal indicating what it is that you as a salesman have to overcome in this discussion with your customer. They are telling you that there is something here that they don’t understand very well. You need to become adept at communications and show all your feature and benefits knowledge. One thing to remember is that the features are for you. It is the benefits that are for the customer so don’t spend a lot of time bamboozling them on fancy mumbo jumbo on fantastic features.
Finally is closing the sale. This reminds me of the high school dance at the gym. The guys lined up on one wall and the girls on the opposite wall. A boy walks across the floor to ask a girl to dance and returns in front of everyone having been turned down. Many salesmen have that image imprinted on their brain and they are afraid to ask for the order. Imagine.
Selling is pretty simple it is people that screw it up. The time is now…..
Education Version 3.1
Last week I met a wonderful enlightened man. (I don’t mean to sound arrogant with that start but he was a breath of fresh air) He is running a store for a construction equipment dealership. We were talking about books and learning and he gave me two wonderful gifts.
The first was TED.com. Please check out this site. It is a terrific blend of thinkers and topics put together in a way that should stimulate some introspection and thinking.
The second was the Kahn Academy. Now please understand I am not promoting this group or product just bringing it to your attention. Have a look you will understand my excitement. Thanks Tim.
The time is now.
The answer to the question is….
The question that most of you thought of when during the afternoon discussion between the supervisor and the technician the technician says he is not going to finish all the work that you gave him to do today is “why not.” That is not the right question. You are all thinking like production managers from the old school.
The question that I believe is right is “how much longer will it take to complete the work?”
Once we have the length of time required we can ask the next most important question “can you stay.”
We have established that the technician will miss the standard time for the job – that might be #1 (remember) now if they can’t or won’t stay to make it right – that might be #2 all in one event.
If they can’t stay then the labor efficiency will drop precipitously as the following morning when he starts up on that job again he will have to take between thirty minutes and an hour to get to the point where he was when he left last night. That is either a 6.25% drop in labor efficiency or a 12.5% drop. Neither one is good.
If the technician can stay you will eat a little overtime but your schedule is intact and the completion date for the work is still in line. The time is now.
Labor Efficiency Anew
Many ask the question “how can I get technicians to be more efficient with their labor hours”. I suggest that having proper supervision is the best way to get each and every technician to be more efficient. Imagine if you will that you had one good supervisor for every eight shop technicians. (I know that many of you don’t have that many – in which case you are in what I call no man’s land. You are too small to have the proper levels of supervision and that leaves you with too little time to increase the labor sales revenues.) I want to have a supervisor in the middle of the eight technicians. I want the workstation for the supervision on the floor with the technicians. They can see the supervisor all day long as the supervisor can see them all day long.
Let me ask a simple question. Will the men be more efficient with the boss in their midst? Will they be more efficient with the boss watching them all day long? I also want the supervisor to spend at least fifteen minutes with each technician every morning and again every afternoon another fifteen minutes.
Will labor be more efficient? You bet.
The afternoon discussion will have another question. Will you finish the eight hours of labor I gave you to do today before you go home? If they say “yes” everything is good.
If they say “no” what is the first question that you ask? I thought you would say that. That is not the right answer. More on that later. The time is now.
Words of Wisdom #6
Sleeism #6
What would you do when no one is looking? That is morals and that is character.
All of us have a darker side. Variable shades of grey perhaps. The true test of character is what you do when no one is looking. How do you stack up? The time is now.
Friday Filosophy #5
A fall into a ditch makes you wise.
Chinese Proverb
Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It is about learning to dance in the rain
I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.
Michael Jordan
The 1st weekend in April.
April fool’s day has long been a fun day for me. I suppose that shows – what kind of fool I am (sic).
Over the years I have had several penguins in the backyard when we lived in Montreal. Flamingo’s in the front yard in Edmonton. You get the drift. I am not at home this year and I have asked my daughter to continue the shenanigans without me. She got my grandson with the Flamingo rerun and he tried to get his sister with the same and was met with a yawn. Oh well.
The time is now.
Words of Wisdom #5
Sleeism # 5
Man is like the turtle…. You have to stick your neck out in order to get ahead
This is similar to some of the quotes in our Friday Filosophy today. No guts no glory. If you don’t try who can you blame but yourself. The course starts with the first step. There are many other pithy sayings that mean the same thing. The time is now.
Friday Filosophy #4
I always prefer to believe the best of everybody – it saves so much trouble.
Rudyard Kipling
All glory comes from daring to begin.
Alexander Graham Bell
When the world around you is changing at a rate faster than you the end is near.
Jack Welsh
Market Capture Rates
Some of you have equated the labor efficiency blog with the actual market capture rate of labor. They are two very different elements in the business. One measures the performance of the supervision of the labor pool and the efficiency of a particular technician on a specific job or group of work orders. The other measures how much of the available market the dealer in question has actually obtained and maintained.
The market capture rate is dependent on maintaining an accurate and up to date machine population and the hours of work for each of the machines in the dealer territory. With the arrival of GPS on most current production machines this is becoming easier to maintain and to track. Older machines, however, still outnumber new machines in most geographical jurisdictions and as such this remains an elusive goal.
If we have an accurate machine population as well as the hours of work for each machine then we can calculate the market potential for both parts and service. This is an important step in the maturation of the parts and service management as we will be able to determine the successes of each of the store locations in a territory. We will then need to become much more professional and effective in our processes, systems and skills when we deliver customer service. The Manufacturers and your bosses will be able to measure objectively how well we do our jobs. I think that will bring a lot more attention to the skills and execution of the management and supervision in parts and service. The time is now.