What a great day it is today. Happy Monday to all of you.
There is a great new world out there. In the period following the economic disruptions of 2008, caused in part by government overreach and a lot of greed in the banking Industry, I followed behind the financial management company PIMCO with their “New Normal” program with our “New Reality.” This new reality was a rebirth of the operational aspects of the parts and service businesses within the Capital Goods Industries.
We have made some good progress on many fronts.
In the late 1990’s business guru Peter Drucker mused that adult education was going to become one of the larger needs for business. He further suggested that there would be extremely large growth in the education workforce. We see this with activities such as Khan Academy, with a stated objective of providing world class education to anyone anywhere, and all of their content is free. Then there are other efforts such as EdX, a free education site provided by MIT, and Harvard, Berkeley, and University of Texas, as well as others and CorpU, which aims to unlock the collective genius of an enterprise.
This is where we are making our modest entry with Learning Without Scars.
There is a huge opportunity.
Today, the jobs report gave further evidence of the effects of the recent government regulatory efforts to reduce the burden that has been eating away at businesses everywhere.
Unemployment in the US is 4.4%, which on the face is a good number. But the participation rate, the percentage of the working age population that is in fact working, sits at 62.8%. Stated another way means that 37.1% of the working age population is NOT working. (Note: the participation rate in 2007 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics was 66.4%) The REAL problem here is that there are currently in excess of 6,000,000 jobs that are open in America that have not been filled. According to a recent CNBC survey 46% of Company Presidents and CFO’s believe that “the workforce is not receiving the proper skills training businesses require.” Further, 63% reported having had difficulty in filling skilled positions in the past 12 months.
That is the backdrop against we have created Learning Without Scars, and our new training. We’ve all experienced great disruption to our “normal,” and in this New Reality we have our greatest opportunity: to learn and provide opportunities for learning to our employees. You’ve heard me say it time and again – your employees are your “heroes.” They’ve invested themselves into your business, and they deserve to have your business invest in their knowledge and expertise.
We can create a healthier economic and professional reality together. It all begins with education.
The time is now.
Principles of Leadership #MondayBlogs
There’s often a miscommunication when it comes to management and leadership. In our classes, I teach that we manage processes and lead people.
You do not “manage” people.
But leadership is not a linear process. It is, like sales, a series of relationships. Leadership has to be flexible enough to match the people following that leader. In order to become effective leaders, we must ask ourselves a series of questions:
These questions provide only a part of the picture of leadership, of course. But they are a starting point.
When you lead people, you have to spend time on self-reflection. You have to study your methods and your relationships.
How do you lead?
The time is now.
Let’s Get Serious About Our Employees #MarketingMonday
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:
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
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
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.
Differentiate Your Market #MondayBlogs
There’s always some crossover between our industry, and the automotive industry, the aviation industry, trucks, trailers, and so on.
When we think about marketing, we automatically think of the end result of all of our marketing endeavors: a sale.
But in order to make a sale, we have to know our market. This means more than having a script or having general knowledge. Who are your customers? What, exactly, is it that they need from you? What relationship do you share with them currently?
Remember, people sell. It is a relationship.
The time is now.
Who Is That (Not Masked) Man?! A #MondayBlogs Guest Post
For this week’s contribution to #MondayBlogs and our very own #SocratesSays, it seemed appropriate for someone other than Ron to write the post. So, you are stuck with me, Caroline A. Slee, for this blog post this week.
At this point, I’m certain that you all know that I am Ron’s daughter. I am also a part of Learning Without Scars, as the Director of Sales and Marketing. Dad likes to say that I dragged him, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century. Part of that dragging process is getting his message out.
Our industry has new faces, and even some people who have never worked with Dad before. So, we figured we should show the “softer side” of Ron with the video I am sharing this week. Not only will you learn more about why we do what we do, you will see all of us from “behind the scenes”: my Mom, my spouse, my children, and I.
I hope you enjoy this more personal video this week.
Remember, the time is now, as Dad would say.
A Good Start #MondayBlogs
What a great day it is today. Happy Monday to all of you.
There is a great new world out there. In the period following the economic disruptions of 2008, caused in part by government overreach and a lot of greed in the banking Industry, I followed behind the financial management company PIMCO with their “New Normal” program with our “New Reality.” This new reality was a rebirth of the operational aspects of the parts and service businesses within the Capital Goods Industries.
We have made some good progress on many fronts.
In the late 1990’s business guru Peter Drucker mused that adult education was going to become one of the larger needs for business. He further suggested that there would be extremely large growth in the education workforce. We see this with activities such as Khan Academy, with a stated objective of providing world class education to anyone anywhere, and all of their content is free. Then there are other efforts such as EdX, a free education site provided by MIT, and Harvard, Berkeley, and University of Texas, as well as others and CorpU, which aims to unlock the collective genius of an enterprise.
This is where we are making our modest entry with Learning Without Scars.
There is a huge opportunity.
Today, the jobs report gave further evidence of the effects of the recent government regulatory efforts to reduce the burden that has been eating away at businesses everywhere.
Unemployment in the US is 4.4%, which on the face is a good number. But the participation rate, the percentage of the working age population that is in fact working, sits at 62.8%. Stated another way means that 37.1% of the working age population is NOT working. (Note: the participation rate in 2007 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics was 66.4%) The REAL problem here is that there are currently in excess of 6,000,000 jobs that are open in America that have not been filled. According to a recent CNBC survey 46% of Company Presidents and CFO’s believe that “the workforce is not receiving the proper skills training businesses require.” Further, 63% reported having had difficulty in filling skilled positions in the past 12 months.
That is the backdrop against we have created Learning Without Scars, and our new training. We’ve all experienced great disruption to our “normal,” and in this New Reality we have our greatest opportunity: to learn and provide opportunities for learning to our employees. You’ve heard me say it time and again – your employees are your “heroes.” They’ve invested themselves into your business, and they deserve to have your business invest in their knowledge and expertise.
We can create a healthier economic and professional reality together. It all begins with education.
The time is now.
The Big Reveal!
Most of you know that we have created a wonderful image of “Socrates” as our Company Logo. A special thanks goes to Joanna Slee-Poulos, who created this image. She is a huge talent. We chose to use Socrates deliberately.
Socrates, who lived between 469 BC and 399BC, is credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. He also introduced a form of teaching that involves a commonly used tool in teaching in which a series of questions is asked, not only to draw individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight to the issue at hand. our learning business. This is a bedrock principle of our learning platforms.
Today I want to introduce our latest entry into the blogosphere, “Socrates Says.”
I would like to thank Jason Brown for his skills in producing this animation. I hope you enjoy it in which case you can “like” this post. Comments are always welcome as well.
Be on the Lookout! #MondayBlogs
For those of you who follow this blog, you know we have been hard at work with xFinigen Media Productions to create our learning videos. These videos serve to complement the existing online courses found on our website.
This week, I want to invite you to subscribe to our Vimeo channel at vimeo.com/learningwithoutscars. You’ll see each video release as it happens, and be the first to know what’s new in our world of 21st Century employee training.
The time is now.
The Unveiling! #MondayBlogs
Last week, I mentioned that we have been working with Xfinigen Media Productions here, and filming numerous videos to add into our classes.
Today, I’m thrilled to present to you our very first video: the Learning Without Scars Promo Trailer.
The video below will tell you a little more about who we are and what we do, along with my own background.
Please enjoy the following trailer, and feel free to contact me with any feedback.
The time is now.
LWS Promo Trailer
Multi-Media #MondayBlogs #marketing
For the past eight days, we have been in front of the camera. That is a scary thought, isn’t it?
Let’s go back to some history. When we offered webinars to the market we did things quite differently. We followed the usual format of a slide and discussion about the slide. Where we were different is that we projected the slide onto an eight by eight screen and used an HD camera to project the image used for the webinar. This meant we had the opportunity to stop the projection and have me walk into the image. I would do that six to seven times per hour so that there was some dynamism in the webinar. It got rave reviews.
With our Internet Based programs, we are now doing the same thing – with the exception that we are using film clips to create the dynamism.
I am really excited about this. We worked with a company called XFinigen. The company founder is Paul Baumann and along with his production crew led by Leanna Crumpler we have been recording film clips for the past seven days. It is quite a chore. We have created nearly fifteen minutes of film clips for each of our fifty-five Learning On Demand Programs. Caroline will be selecting the clips to use and where to insert them so that there is some excitement injected into the online learning.
So each of the Learning Programs we have currently available will be updated over the next few months. We will also include Socrates on each of the slides.
We have also added to the learning offerings.
You are aware that several clients asked that we create specific programs for specific jobs. We call these programs PSP’s. That stands for Planned Special Programs and we are setting these programs up to offer four course segments which will run for about eight hours each. We now have three such offerings and are expanding this all the time. The offerings now are for the Parts Telephone and Counter personnel, the Service Foremen and the Service Writers. We are working on a program for Product Support Sales which will be the Fundamentals of Selling.
Finally, with all of the films we will have available we will be creating a Vimeo channel and offer a wide array of easily accessible information for you to be able to see more of the Learning Without Scars programs.
Of course, we don’t want to leave out Socrates so we will be starting a “Socrates Says” blog so keep your eyes open as that will start soon.
That’s it from here for now. Aloha.
Now it is your turn. What have you folks been up to? Drop us a line and keep us posted on your needs and wants in the world of parts and service training. Remember we are here for you. Our goal is to provide the most content rich, cost-effective learning offerings in the Industry. It requires your input and help. Thanks for all you have done to date and we look forward to hearing from you more.
The time is now.