Archive for category: Training

We start in 3 hours

April 8, 2014/in Parts, Training/by learningwithoutscars

Time is passing by quickly now. It is time for the stragglers to register for our webinars.

The time is now.

24

April 7, 2014/in Parts, Training/by learningwithoutscars

That was a terrific television series over the years. And a lot happened in 24 hours.

Tomorrow – 24 hours from now – the start of the last four parts webinars happens. Does miss out.

The time is now.

Warning

April 4, 2014/in Parts, Training/by learningwithoutscars

Time is running out for you to register for the four webinars next week. Don’t miss out on these informative learning opportunities.

The time is now.

Wednesday April 9th, 2014

April 3, 2014/in Parts, Training/by learningwithoutscars

Don’t miss out on this important webinar. Noon Pacific time on Wednesday.

Standards of Performance – WP8

What does it looks like when it is right? Performance in a Parts Department must maximize productivity, manage assets and satisfy customers. The first step to understanding and accepting what needs to be done is to have meaningful, measureable and achievable standards. How to develop your own standards and yet continue to reach for excellence is the theme in this webinar.

Individual employees want to do a good job yet many do not know what doing a good job entails. This is a fundamental requirement of good management, communicating performance expectations and measures to the employees. In this webinar we will cover the fundamentals exposed by Patrick Lencioni in his important book “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job.” Anonymity, Irrelevance and Immeasureability are the three symptoms of this disease which leads to the “Sunday Blues.”

Each employee can also deliver more than they think they are can yet each is fundamentally lazy. Leadership methods to entice or motivate employees to deliver good performance for coworkers, customers and the Company will be discussed in this extremely important webinar.

Webinar April 9th, 2014

April 3, 2014/in Parts, Training/by learningwithoutscars

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn about some of the latest and greatest practices in the Parts Business. Register now for this webinar. It takes place at 9:00 AM Pacific

Best Practices – WP7

With standards of performance we dealt with what it looks like when it is right. With Best Practices we aim for performance excellence. What is it that the most successful dealers are doing to achieve excellence? This is discussed in detail in this webinar to allow dealers to see optional approaches to processes and systems. From using the telephone as a sales tool to inventory turnover; from customer retention to sales/employee everything is discussed.

We cover all aspects of the processes required in a parts business; from dealer business systems to telephone systems to warehousing storage systems. People and system productivity and effectiveness are critical in any business today but this is especially true within the equipment business where the gross margin on the prime products continue to erode. There are many aspects within a parts business that must be covered that can make a significant difference in either cost or market positioning and competitive.

Process manuals, electronic or paper, and procedures as well as training methods to employ become critical to the consistent delivery of excellent customer service. How to measure your success in the area of customer satisfaction as well as all operational processes becomes part of this webinar. Anyone interested in achieving the best possible level of performance within the parts business will gain insight from this webinar.

Tuesday April 8th Webinar

April 3, 2014/in Parts, Training/by learningwithoutscars

At noon Pacific join us for this comprehensive webinar. Register now.

Purchasing & Expediting – WP6

When you have the part in stock you are the same as everyone else. The only part that matters is the one you don’t have in stock. The equipment and parts suppliers have made the ordering process so simple we have lost sight of expediting and the purchasing function. If a machine is down the customer wants the part now.

The first rule for a successful parts business is that the employees will not go home until every part that every customer, or mechanic, ordered is either supplied or the location from which it can be shipped is located. That doesn’t mean leaving it with a supplier that does not have the part on hand. This is expediting with a purpose and we deal with what to do’s and how to do it to satisfy “Rule #1.”

Purchasing becomes the court of last resort as we will deal with the prospect that the part is not available in your supply chain. Finding alternate sources is not easy. Communicating with the customer on their options and penalties is even more challenging. All of the “in’s and out’s” of purchasing and the liabilities associated with supplying a part which is not from your original equipment manufacturer is discussed in detail.

Learn new methods to solve this age old problem of finding every part that every customer or mechanic wants to have – the same day they want it – and doing that before you go home EVERY night – that is what is at stake in this important webinar.

Webinar April 8th, 2014

April 3, 2014/in Parts, Training/by learningwithoutscars

Tuesday at 9:00 AM Pacific. Don’t miss the comprehensive webinar. Register today.

Instore Merchandising – WP5

The days of your customers walking into your business have long since passed. This is truly a shame. Some thirty to forty years ago we taught our customers that our inventory management meant that those parts that the customer wanted would not all be available when they came to our store. So they started to use the telephone and we didn’t see the customer on our store very much at all.

Yet it still continues to be true that you have an opportunity to create an interesting and successful retail store. This is the first step in becoming a retail operation. From Harley-Davidson to Ski-doo to Artic Cat there are specialty suppliers that have made merchandising an art form. We will look into the successes in other Industries and how we can learn from them. The layout of your merchandising area, the methods to keep it fresh and appealing, will go a long way to determining your success. All of this and much more will be covered in this fast paced webinar.

Others dealerships and other Industries have turned this into a customer convenience and money making proposition. This is much more than just setting up shelves and displays. They have made the store a pleasing environment for both employees and customers. Learn the ins and outs of successful Instore Merchandising with this comprehensive webinar.

Webinars next week

April 3, 2014/in Training/by learningwithoutscars

Don’t miss the upcoming webinars on the Parts Business. Next week on Tuesday April 8^th and Wednesday April 9^th the final two webinars for the winter period will be offered. Check out www.aednet.org or www.rjslee.com for more details.

Webinars Next Week

March 21, 2014/in Training/by learningwithoutscars

Don’t miss your opportunity for the upcoming four webinars on Parts Management.

Tuesday and Wednesday two each day; TeleSelling, Basic Inventory Control, Pricing and Warehousing. Productive high content instructional webinars.

The time is now

Finally March 26th at noon Pacific

March 18, 2014/in Training/by learningwithoutscars

Pricing – WP4

Your price is a marketing tool but most of you don’t use it that way. How often have we heard that “your price is too high” or “I can get it down the street for less”? How well customer contact personnel respond to these and other comments about your prices is critically important to your success. The price points you use should be a product of your need to make money and the competitive nature of your marketplace.

Over the years dealers have applied a methodology called “matrix pricing.” This approach started in the 1970’s and it still continues today, well beyond its useful life. We will explain how it works and we will also expose the “new” realities in price theory for the parts business. Looking into the new approach of applying a “array” of variables to develop a selling price; activity, price, competitiveness, and inventory risk. This four element array leads to several thousand mark ups designed to allow the dealer to attach a price that will be competitive while at the same time produce an overall gross profit that allows the Company to maintain the profit required to sustain itself.

Learning the impact of a discount on your business is a critical aspect of defending your price. See the impact on gross profit and net profit. Learning how to respond to price objections and overcome them is a principle that is important to understand and is discussed in this webinar. This webinar will be beneficial for anyone in the parts business that is touching customers with the responsibility for selling or customer service.

You can register at www.rjslee.com or www.aednet.org

TESTIMONIALS

The Subtle Power of a RASCI Chart

Guest writer Sara Hanks offers constructive wisdom for project success in, "The Subtle Power of a RASCI Chart."

During several recent project reviews, an unmistakable pattern emerged: projects consistently stumbled at the same exact step. The project leaders were quick to lay blame on the purchasing team, citing a lack of support. But a deeper dive revealed the issue wasn't about finger-pointing or blame.

After several meetings with several people, my team completed mapping out the process, uncovering a glaring gap. A significant process step, vital to the project's progress, lacked ownership. To engage the purchasing team, the planner needed to put demand in the system. In services, however, there is no planner function, so the process stopped until it was escalated. Several projects were delayed due to this issue.

This is where the transformative power of the RASCI chart came to our rescue. For those unfamiliar, RASCI stands for:

Responsible (R): The person who performs an activity. It's vital to have a single 'R' for every step, ensuring there's clear ownership and no overlap in duties.

Accountable (A): The person ultimately accountable for the correct and thorough completion of the task. This usually falls on a senior person who has the authority to sign off on the step. Some sources consider the (A) as Approver.

Supportive (S): Those who assist the 'R' in completing the task. They provide the resources or knowledge needed but don't take on the main responsibility.

Consulted (C): The people who must give input before the task is completed, providing necessary expertise or information.

Informed (I): Those who need to be kept in the loop regarding the outcome of the task, but don’t necessarily have input on its execution.

For each step of the process, identify who is responsible for completing the task. With the clarity provided by the RASCI chart, we meticulously documented each process step and assigned who was responsible. The planner step of the process was assigned to the warehouse manager. We also discovered that by informing the purchasing team sooner, they would have more awareness of the project and could respond more efficiently.

But the benefits of the RASCI chart extend beyond merely assigning roles. With a clearer understanding of responsibilities:

Streamlining Approval Steps: Organizations often have multiple approval layers, some of which may be redundant. With clarity on who is truly responsible and accountable, teams can challenge and eliminate unnecessary approval steps, making processes leaner and faster.

Enhanced Communication: Knowing exactly who needs to be consulted or informed means that communication is more targeted. This can reduce the back-and-forth and make decision-making swifter.

Conflict Resolution: When roles overlap or are unclear, conflicts can arise. Clearly defining who is responsible for what can prevent such overlaps and the ensuing misunderstandings.

Efficient Resource Allocation: With a better grasp on who supports each step, managers can allocate resources more efficiently, ensuring that each phase of a project gets the support it truly needs.

Training & Onboarding: When introducing new team members to a process, a RASCI chart acts as a guide, detailing what each team member's role is, ensuring faster integration into projects.

The RASCI chart's benefits, as we discovered, are multifaceted. Not only does it bring clarity to roles, but it also optimizes processes, enhances communication, and leads to better resource allocation. It's not just about finding out who does what; it's about understanding how everyone can do what they do, better.

In the end, our experience with the RASCI chart was enlightening. It taught us the significance of clearly defined roles and responsibilities. As organizations evolve and processes become more intricate, tools like the RASCI chart will be essential in navigating the complexity, ensuring efficiency, and fostering a culture of clarity and collaboration.

Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.

For our course lists, please click here.

August 22, 2023

Changes in Learning

Today, our Founder Ron Slee writes a blog post on the many changes in learning. He also makes a few grumbles about how his family gives him a hard time!

It has been some time since I wrote a blog on employee development. It is unusual for me not to be sharing my thinking with someone, in some cases anyone. I have been confronted on two fronts recently: My daughter Caroline who is a teacher in the desert in Southern California and my granddaughter who is pursuing her master’s degree in Hawaii.

Both love to provoke me. I can’t imagine why.

My granddaughter was excited to share a book they are using in one of her classes this semester - “The Narrative Gym.” It is about Communications. It is an amazing read and a more amazing subject to be teaching students in a master’s program. Of course, communication is one of the keys to life. We are social animals after all. COVID set us back somewhat in the communications area. Working from home is another example of how we reacted, or perhaps responding is a better way of saying it. Many businesses found that they could redesign their work. I know many people started to redesign their lives.

My daughter recently suggested another book – “Ruthless Equity: Disrupt the Status Quo and Ensure Learning for ALL students.” Talk about a powerful book. Many of us have become tired of the status quo when either protecting it or attacking it seems to be tearing apart everything that we have believed to be true. This book restores my soul. “All men are created equal” but then everything we do stresses the inequalities.

At Learning Without Scars we are aiming to help everyone identify their individual potential. That is an extremely difficult thing to do. People’s eyes glaze over when I talk about it. What I am trying to do though is provoke people to think. To think about everything and anything that they do. You know how envious I am of the Japanese societal approach to Kaizen. Make everything you do better every day. This is a view of work that in my mind allows people to become more engaged as people in what they do. They can CHOOSE how to do their job. They can CHOOSE to make their lives better by how they do their job. In the world that I grew up in, that was not the primary goal. Let me show you how this is done. Let me tell you what I just showed you. Then let me tell you again what I showed you. Now you try. I will be here to help so don’t worry. But just do it. Do it my way. Then practice it and get better at it. Make fewer mistakes and do it faster. Now you are doing the job. Just keep on doing it.

That is what I rejected in my early thirties when I started in the consulting world. I knew there were better ways to do things. 1980 when I opened R.J. Slee & Associates in Edmonton, Alberta was also when America was invaded by the Continuous Improvement Revolution. Total Quality Management arrived. Edward Deming and Joseph Duran brought their thinking back to America from Japan where they had been implementing it.

For a long time, I have used a tool I developed called “Five Things” that is aimed directly at the Continuous Improvement objectives. I ask people to list five things that they would like to change about their job that would make things easier for them personally. Then five things that they do that are a real pain to do. Finally, five things that they would like to change in their work to make things better for the company. Normally I do this in a group setting. We then take the individual items and put them on a flip chart, a blackboard or a screen so everyone can see them. You can imagine their surprise when many had the same thoughts. Not just that but their true shock at how many were on all three lists. So, something that would make their lives at work better, eliminate something that is a pain for them to do and at the same time is beneficial for the company. Of course, my questions are always the same. If that is true, then why haven’t we already addressed it?

I have a request please. Go get either of these books. Better still get both. Read them and think about the concepts and positions taken. Then send me an email with your thoughts. Let’s have a mini book club in the ether. Online.

In the meantime, for those of you who haven’t subscribed to our quarterly newsletter there is still time. The last one was published October 1st. You can subscribe at www.learningwithoutscars.com.

At Learning Without Scars we offer one hundred and thirty-eight Workforce Development classes. That is six hundred and eighty hours of learning. It provides sixty-nine academic credits.

At Learning Without Scars we offer twenty-eight Technical Schools classes. That is five hundred and sixty hours of learning. It provides fourteen academic credits.

At Learning Without Scars we offer two lecture series covering twenty hours of lectures which produces two academic credits.

That is one hundred and sixty-eight classes, which is one thousand two hundred and sixty hours of learning.

To say we have been busy with product development is a serious understatement. Not only are we interested in helping you identify your potential, but we also provide you with learning tools to help you achieve it. All the best in your pursuits.

The time is now.

Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.

For our course lists, please click here.

October 19, 2023