Your Company Legacy and the Digital Dealership

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Your Company Legacy and the Digital Dealership

Tonight, guest blogger Mets Kramer continues to educate us on all the digital aspects of our business with a look at your company legacy and how it fits in with the Digital Dealership.

“In the past, the model for an organized business was a phone and a Rolodex (younger readers can Google what that is). The new digital platforms like your Website, CRM and marketing tools are now the modern Rolodex”

When my team started our marketing efforts, I was stunned to learn there were over 15,000 equipment dealers of all sizes, in North America.  A huge number of these dealers were small organizations, of 1 to 5 team members, who do great business buying, selling, or renting equipment.  In this blog, I want to address the value of Digital Dealerships and brand development for small organizations. This is especially important for those of you who started your dealership and are trying to find ways for your business to support you into your future.

Over the past few years, I have been lucky enough to work with many small dealers. I admire their tenacity; it takes a lot for these dealers to take their own fate into their hands. Often these dealers are smart and entrepreneurial; most come from larger dealers.  They saw a gap in the market, a niche, they could exploit and make a good living. Now their future depends on how well they execute.   For most of these dealers, their eventual legacy will be what sustains them into retirement and their future generations.

So how does this relate to the Digital Dealership?

One of the great things about the digital revolution in our industry is the potential to become, with a little investment, more than a person with a Rolodex. The Digital Dealership, or your digital presence, can help you extend your legacy well into the future in several ways.

  • First, your digital presence is like having an extra team member or sales rep. You’re existing and new customers can learn about you, answer questions they have for themselves and initiate communication with you all by going through your digital profile. I have seen lots of small dealers work hard to keep up with quotes, rentals and inventory information in a very laborious way. Each time sending emails with additional information like pricing. A well created digital presence can take some of this burden off you. Now, even if you are a team of one, you are actually a team of two, or even three. Creating and investing in a Digital Dealership establishes an effective sales path that’s open 24 hours per day. Now, you can focus on getting out to see customers instead of being stuck behind the desk.
  • Second, for a small growing dealership with big aspirations, a digital presence and platform helps you standardize. In many cases over the years, I have come across great dealers who are heavily dependent on one or two key salespeople. Usually, these key players are the owners, or a highly effective salesperson. The problem with this situation is repeatability. If one key person exits the business, it’s hard to recover. Creating a digital presence and a standard process, including CRM, makes your business repeatable. It lets you add new team members, set a standard operating practice so you can repeat what’s working, with new people. Your Digital platform can help to transition your customers and maintain the goodwill you’ve built over the years.

By creating a digital presence and developing a consistent brand, you become more than just a one-on-one relationship. Your hard work over the years, and that of your team, creates a legacy which can be easily understood by new people joining the team. This lets your customers feel like they are still dealing with the original creator of the business, who they first trusted to serve them.

More and more, we see new business relationships initiated from digital platforms. Buyers are looking for solid information, in addition to knowledge and great service.  In the past, the model for an organized business was a phone and a Rolodex. The new digital platforms like your Website, CRM and marketing tools are now the modern Rolodex. They help you organize and maximize the efforts you have put into the business for many years. Now you have the tools to have your business support you into the future.

To build is to have something that lasts; to create a legacy.

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Job Shock: Part Six – The First Half

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Job Shock: Part Six – The First Half

Job Shock: Part Six – The First Half

Edward E. Gordon, the founder and president of Imperial Consulting Corporation in Chicago, has consulted with leaders in business, education, government, and non-profits for over 50 years. As a writer, researcher, speaker, and consultant he has helped shape policy and programs that advance talent development and regional economic growth. This week, he continues his blog series with Job Shock, Part Six – The First Half.

Gordon is the author or co-author of 20 books. His book, Future Jobs: Solving the Employment and Skills Crisis, is the culmination of his work as a visionary who applies a multi-disciplinary approach to today’s complex workforce needs and economic development issues. It won a 2015 Independent Publishers Award. An updated paperback edition was published in 2018.

Solving the Pandemic & 2030 Employment Meltdown

RETAIN Case Studies: Partnerships Rebuilding Local Employment Pipelines

The June Gordon Report provided an introduction to the general characteristics of regional public-private partnerships focusing on economic and workforce development or RETAINs. Across the United States RETAINs have many local brand names.  RETAINs bring together enlightened community leaders from many industry sectors. They cooperate in developing initiatives that provide career education and information to students and retrain incumbent workers to meet the skill demands of workplace technology changes. The goals of RETAINs are to strengthen local institutions and competitive companies while providing local residents with better job opportunities.

There are many paths to pursuing these objectives. Here are examples of RETAINs that are continuing to develop programs that address the talent challenges in their communities.

Manufacturing Renaissance, Chicago, Illinois
For the past 38 years Manufacturing Renaissance (MR) has been recognized as a leading expert, advocate and practitioner of policies and programs that support the manufacturing sector as a primary strategy for reducing poverty, expanding inclusion, and sustaining middle-class communities. MR has currently developed programs in three areas: Career Pathway Services, Policy and Advocacy, and Economic Development. Here is a snapshot of MR’s Career Pathway Services:

Manufacturing Connect. MC is a program designed to expose, inspire, prepare, and support youth and young adults to pursue career pathways in manufacturing.  MC is a community-based program serving in-school youth, ages 14-18, to provide high quality, career pathway programming including career exposure, technical training and work experiences to help young people start and keep good paying jobs in manufacturing.

Young Manufacturers Association. The YMA serves as both a network and a program for young adults, aged 18-29, who are pursuing careers in manufacturing, in-between jobs, in training or interested in starting a career in manufacturing. Through regular meetings and social events, they support one another as peers through training, transition into permanent employment, professional and life skills development, and balancing personal and work life dynamics. The YMA as a program provides services on an as-needed basis, including career coaching, wrap-around supports, employer liaison to help troubleshoot issues that come up at work, and technical training. Together, the YMA network and program are serving the untapped talent and potential that young adults specifically represent to their communities and their current or future employers.

Instructors Apprenticeship for Advanced Manufacturing. IAAM was developed in partnership with the Chicago Teachers Union Foundation and the National Institute for Metalworking Skills to train the next generation of great machining instructors to be technologically, culturally, and pedagogically competent in the machine shop classroom.

Career Pathway Services is not a traditional workforce development program. MR draws heavily from a youth development and social services orientation to engage youth and young adults who typically may not identify or seek out manufacturing as a pathway that can assist them in achieving their life goals. MR introduces young people to the sector, finds a variety of ways for them to relate to peers already in the sector to help illuminate what could be possible for their future. No matter what they ultimately choose, young people benefit from having a network of professional and social support, work experiences, technical and professionalism skills. For those who enroll in our training program and choose to pursue a career-track job in manufacturing we support them as much as possible through training, job placement and beyond to help ensure their success.

MR is expanding its reach in Cook County and showing the way for other RETAINs to begin similar efforts. It illustrates that for a RETAIN to be successful there must be strong cooperation among educational entities, the business community, unions. government agencies, and non-profit partners.

High School Inc., Santa Ana, California

The initial impetus for the creation of the High School Inc. Academies Foundation came from local business leaders in the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce. Starting in 2003, members of the Chamber of Commerce held discussions with school districts officials on how to raise student achievement. The result was a partnership involving the Chamber, the Foundation and the Santa Ana Unified School District. An official “Memorandum of Understanding was signed by all three partners in May of 2006. This agreement outlined the responsibilities of each partner for the development and operation of the High School Inc. program.

The first six High School Inc. Academies began in 2007 on the campus of Santa Ana Valley High School in the Santa Ana Unified School District. The district’s Career Technical Education (CTE) department conducts monthly meetings with High School Inc.’s staff to maintain the continuity and effectiveness of the academies.

At Valley High School the High School Inc. Academies merge both academic and technical skills through Project Based Learning (PBL), competitions, mentorships, and business internships. Because of the success of the High School Inc. academies, there has been considerable growth in the school district’s creation of career pathways in business and industry sectors. These pathways start as early as sixth grade in the school district’s intermediate schools and send students into the waiting High School Inc. Academies.

The number of Valley high school students categorized as “socioeconomically disadvantaged” in 2008 was 80 percent. However, with the help of talented teachers and staff members, and the existence of High School Inc., Valley High School has raised the level of achievement for all Valley high school students.

Mary Tran, Executive Director of High School Inc. reports that the six High School Inc. Academies have grown from an enrollment of 96 students at its start in 2007 to over 1,572 students in 2019. The Academies boast a 98% high school graduation rate. In the past year there have been 160 professional internships for seniors. The number of students receiving “Industry Certifications” after a minimum of two years in the program was 511, with over 319 students participating in business/industry themed competitions. Students in the 2018-2019 received over 950 hours of volunteer time from business and industry representatives. The program has received numerous awards and recognitions including the prestigious “Golden Bell Award” given to High School Inc. in 2014 by the California School Board Association.

Jack E. Oakes, an officer on the Board of Directors for High School Inc., says “High School Inc.’s development has produced the realization that, before students can be College and Career Ready, they must be ‘Achievement Ready.’ Students reach this new level of preparedness by being motivated to strive at or beyond their potential. The High School Inc. model ensures that students are Achievement Ready before they graduate and pursue higher education and careers. The reforms at Valley High School embrace the mission of High School Inc. ‘to empower youth and strengthen communities through education and business partnerships.’”

Summing Up
Each organization profiled here has continued to evolve to meet the challenges posed by technological, economic, and workforce shifts. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted American life at many levels. It opens up new opportunities for many communities to use the RETAIN model as their first step toward a more knowledgeable workforce and the better paying jobs of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The last segment of “Job Shock” will focus on why the 2020s will be a crucial decade for building a skilled workforce. As the nation emerges from COVID-19 shutdowns, the disconnect between needed skills and available jobs is gaining increasing attention. The time has arrived for RETAINs to take the lead in rebuilding education-to-employment pipelines in communities across the United States.

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Potential Employees

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How Do Potential Employees Find Careers in Today’s World?

Through the past month or so Ed Gordon has been exposing his Job Shock series. A very sobering critique of the labor market and the potential employees out there today. Most of the dealers that I talk with these days are extremely concerned with their inability of being able to find and hire qualified people for their job openings. In fact, job openings are growing and the ability to find anyone is getting very difficult.

There are elaborate, and in some cases rather exotic, “packages” being created to induce people to join a dealership. Signing bonuses and retention bonuses have almost become ordinary for technicians anymore. And what about management and succession planning? It appears that the leaders in our Industry between the ages of 55 and 75 have paid more attention to their own compensation packages than to the ability of their companies to smoothly transition to the next generation. There was, generally speaking, no succession in place.

If we go backwards to a period in the twentieth century between 1920 and 1940, we have a serious economic depression which was preceded by the “roaring” economy. From the 1950’s through the 1960’s we had a slow growth and stabilization after the world war. The “greatest generation” was frugal and family oriented. Then the 1960’s and the beginning of “laissez faire” attitudes and the slogan of “if it feels good do it.” Coincidentally, they saw the arrival of a credit card and the decoupling of monetary policy from the gold standard. The rate of change was rather gentle but a foundation was being laid for the coming years.

In those previous generations there were typically five different stages in the career of an employee. It was predictable and iterative.

  • Exploration
  • Establishment
  • Middle Career
  • Late Career

Those terms are all rather self-explanatory and the transitions from one to another were also quite simple to see and obtain. It was a matter of increasing skills and knowledge, through schooling and training and experience. If you get that done then you will have opportunities for progress in your career.

There is another change, or transition going on now. Today more and more businesses think they hire talent and that is all that is required. If there needs change the employee is let go and a new one is hired. There is no need to train their employees or send them off to schools and classes. Similarly, today’s employees think that once they get a job, they are done with the need to continue learning or improving their skills.

Think about both of those positions in the world we live in today. Consider the rate of change, which is on a very steep exponential curve. It is actually amazing to contemplate that people think that they can stay in place with your skills and knowledge and not need to be continuously learning. Similarly, for a business not to be investing in their key contributors is just as amazing. What are they both thinking about?

There is a quotation from Goethe that I appreciate. “Things that matter most should never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.”

A Skilled Workforce – the thing that matters most. Is being held hostage to Investing in Employee Development – the thing that matters least.

A Skilled Workforce, the employees I call your heroes, is required to serve your customers and satisfy your vendors. Without these heroes the dealership is in jeopardy. We have seen in the last thirty of so years a stunning level of consolidation. In part due to the need for vast amounts of capital to support the businesses. This is due, in large part, to the rapid run up prices for the equipment and products sold. There was also a need to invest in “systems” that were necessary to operate the business properly. Imagine, if you will, managing a parts inventory using a manual card system, the Kardex.

Now we are in our current market. There is a shortage of skilled people required to operate the businesses. The Universities and other education institutions are not delivering job ready skilled people as they once did. Capital Goods Dealerships are required to establish apprentice programs and mentoring or coaching new employees. Employees are having to adapt to the fact that their skills and knowledge will be measured with more precision and regularity. There is no easy path to more money or opportunity anymore. A true meritocracy is in its infancy. But make no mistake it is coming and more quickly than we can imagine today.

Learning Without Scars has responded to these changes and transitions due to the fact that we have listened to our customers. They have told us that they wanted to be able to measure the skills of their employees to determine what training is required to have the employee become more effective in their work. We have created the Job Function Skill Assessments as a result. These objective assessments have a score which determines the functional capabilities of each employee. Objectively. No opinions or favoritism or nepotism. These scores categorize the skills into four different levels; Developing, Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced. We have processed several thousand of these assessments to date, and have less than 2% of the employees in the Advanced skill level. We have found slightly more than 50% of the employees have a Beginning Skill Level. The employees were able to do the job they were taught to do. Process Orders but they didn’t know how to sell. Employees could do the repairs they were told to do but had few if any Diagnostic Skills. They could place Stock Orders that the system created but they didn’t know how to expedite for shortages, like the supply chain issues we have today. And there are as many more examples as there are tasks to perform. At Learning Without Scars we have also created Subject Specific Classes to allow each employee to overcome the “gaps” in their skills. This is the appropriate tool for skills and knowledge development for the needs of today.

Go to our Podcasts and listen to the audio explanation of the Job Specific Assessments (https://learningwithoutscars.buzzsprout.com/1721145/8055798-job-function-skills-assessments) as well as the Subject Specific Classes  (https://learningwithoutscars.buzzsprout.com/1721145/8139328-subject-specific-classes). That will provide you with all you need to know to be able to take advantage of these “up-to-date” business tools designed to help in the development of your employees skills and knowledge.

It is more than important for your success, that you have a skilled and trained workforce, it is critical. As they say you have to “have the right people on the bus” to get to your destination.

The time is now.

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The Digital Dealership: Getting Practical

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Digital Dealership: Getting Practical

Tonight, guest blogger Mets Kramer continues to educate us on all the digital aspects of our business with The Digital Dealership: Getting Practical.

For the past few weeks, we’ve looked at creating a digital dealership and what defines going fully digital.  One of the main areas of focus, was changing our understanding of how providing information was a key aspect.   Being fully digital, requires being able to provide all the information customers require, about your inventory, in a digital, and typically self-serve way.

Working from current research on purchasing, we know customers are doing 85% of their research, about their purchase, digitally prior to calling a dealer.   This means customers want to find the information they need, to make a purchase decision, in your online platform.   As a digital dealer you need to provide this information.

To put it into perspective, you cannot call Amazon to ask a question about the product you are looking at, so Amazon provides lots of space for product descriptions, so you can make a decision.

For equipment it’s no different.  To provide adequate information to buyers, a digital dealer needs more than a short summary of a couple features and a few pictures.   Consider the following as important.

  1. Specifications, of the machine and model
  2. Service History
  3. 10+ images
  4. 1 or more videos – Operating, walk around, engine running, etc.
  5. Oil Sample history
  6. Repair and condition report
  7. Market and operating cost info
  8. Attachments and features

In a traditional approach, of digital billboard advertising, providing all this information and making it available on the website, takes a huge separate effort loading data into the site, or an outside system.  Furthermore, in all “out of the box” or “off the shelf” platforms, the presentation is standard and doesn’t present the equipment in a way that reflects your dealership.

So, I’m going to put my money with my mouth is;

I would like to show any of you, how manageable taking charge of your own digital presence is.  Modern software and website technology makes building a website easy and representative of your dealership.  It allows information to flow from your inventory management to your website and back to your CRM.  This will allow you to serve up video, images, documents, and detailed descriptions, and even recognize visiting customers.

If you have been following this series and want to see it in action, I’ll provide for you a CRM and a blank website template, linked to your inventory in the CRM.  The Site will be a cutting edge Litespeed server with an Oxygen website template connected to the Vizybility CRM and your inventory, using our WordPress plugin.  Our team will show you how manageable it is, how you can present your inventory and products exactly how you want.  We will work with your team for two months to show you how it will change your digital presence and your customers engagement.  We will even connect your customer data from CRM to Mailchimp so you can run standard and drip campaigns to keep your customers engaged.  If after 2 months you are not convinced, it’s on me.

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Principia for After-Sales, Part Four

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Principia for After-sales, Part Four

Today, Ryszard Chciuk continues his blogs on Principia for after-sales with part four of the series.

In Principia for After-sales part 3, I presented the main values of my after-sales team. Today, let’s discuss some examples from the real life of any organization. How would we practice my team’s main values?

Example 1

Your very experienced employee is suffering from cancer. It causes his absence from time to time. This negatively affects some customers’ satisfaction and may influence the company’s profitability. Would you get rid of – dismiss lawfully – that employee? What is your answer? In my opinion, despite the negative impact on profitability, the principle No 2 is more important than No 3. Not convinced? Think about it from a wider perspective. Are you sure all your customers and employees will accept your lack of empathy without any cost for you? What about your profitability if they recognize your behavior as inhuman? Will you be seen as a man of integrity?

Example 2

Your service vans are not equipped with the tools needed to drain used oil into special tanks instead of polluting the ground. Will you accept the spoiling of millions of liters of underground water by your field technicians? Of course, the cost of necessary tools will decrease your profitability. Is your answer: the principle No 2 is more important than No 3?

Example 3

Your key customer demands the immediate arrival of your field technician to the faulty machine. The customer will be very unsatisfied if he does not see your van within an hour. Will you force your employee to drive his van as it was the formula 1 vehicle? I understand your intentions, but man, the excellent service supervisor does not promise to fix the faulty machine in an hour. Otherwise, you will break principles No 4, 3, 2, and 1 due to: consequences and the cost of a potential accident, and the cost of not keeping commitments. You have to explain kindly to the impatient customer that he will be supported several hours later than he was overpromised in just signed service agreement. You are a man of integrity, so you will explain to your customer why you do what you do. By the way: which principle was broken by the signing of the service agreement containing a not feasible promise?

Example 4

Almost every second backhoe loader within the warranty period needs at least one warranty job due to the leaking main control valve. The manufacturer accepts customer claims but only as long as the warranty is valid. Later on, the cost of new seals, travel, and labor has to be covered by customers. It boosts your profit, but you realize that one drop of oil spoils millions of liters of clean water. Will you follow your value No 3 “Profitability”? And what about “Care of people and environment” (value No 2)? Will you be recognized as the man of integrity (it is your value No 1)? Obviously, the manufacturer is breaking his promise regarding quality and environmental care. What would you do then?

***

Some situations in the real life are more difficult to be analyzed from the main values point of view. Fortunately, the real-life circumstances are usually not so demanding as the examples given in the description of the trolley problem. Are you prepared for this kind of challenge at your work? Will your values be helpful?

Nobody is perfect. We have faced breaking our main principles by managers and employees. But when everybody is aware of the common main principles, he knows when, and what he is doing wrong.  I believe the most merciless judge is our conscience.

Are you ready to discuss your values on the examples taken from the real life of your organization? Let’s do it together. And, how would you use them in the situations described in my four examples?

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Job Shock, Part Five and a Talent RX

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Job Shock, Part Five: Solving the Pandemic & 2030 Employment Meltdown with a Talent RX: RETAIN Partnerships

Edward E. Gordon, the founder and president of Imperial Consulting Corporation in Chicago, has consulted with leaders in business, education, government, and non-profits for over 50 years. As a writer, researcher, speaker, and consultant he has helped shape policy and programs that advance talent development and regional economic growth. This week, he continues his blog series with Job Shock, Part Five and a Talent RX.

Gordon is the author or co-author of 20 books. His book, Future Jobs: Solving the Employment and Skills Crisis, is the culmination of his work as a visionary who applies a multi-disciplinary approach to today’s complex workforce needs and economic development issues. It won a 2015 Independent Publishers Award. An updated paperback edition was published in 2018.

The COVID-10 pandemic has triggered widespread doubts about the future. The U.S. job market is in chaos. At the end of April 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported an unprecedented 9.3 million job openings across many business sectors. Might this finally be the right time to start anew and find fresh solutions to the skills-jobs shock now underway?

Today’s unprecedented economic upheaval presents an unprecedented opportunity. There are millions of unemployed on the one hand, and rapidly evolving job-skill needs on the other – providing a way for the former to solve the latter’s problem. Communities across the United States have a diversity of underdeveloped talent. They badly need local pathways that promote equity by offering high-quality educational opportunities that are accessible to everyone. This means providing more students and workers with enhanced talent development programs aligned with personal aptitudes and interests and the needs of local businesses and organizations.

The current U.S. labor market is in desperate need of more people who have developed their cognitive, interpersonal, and leadership skills. People who can problem-solve. These people aren’t going to drop from the skies. You can’t click for brains. How can we successfully prepare more people for the skilled jobs of today and tomorrow?

RETAINs

Across the United States at least 1,000 non-profit groups have organized to reinvent local talent-delivery systems. These public-private partnerships bring together a broad cross-section of community groups, such as parent organizations; chambers-of-commerce; elementary, secondary, and higher educational institutions; workforce boards, regional economic development commissions; local government units; unions; service clubs; foundations and other non-profit social welfare agencies. (See Figure 1.)

To provide a descriptive term for such organizations, we coined the term Regional Talent Innovation Network (RETAIN). They have many local brand names, such as The New North, High School Inc., the Vermillion Advantage, ConxusNEO, and Manufacturing Renaissance.

RETAINs began in the 1990s to respond to the economic erosion of their communities. Instead of seeing their young people move elsewhere for employment, they sought to retain them in their communities. Keeping the population stable also enabled communities to retain local businesses and thus stop the erosion of the tax base. Once these communities built a skilled workforce, they could attract new businesses to locate there.

In the short term, RETAINs build a network in which local businesses collaborate with training organizations, educational institutions, and in-house training departments to provide training for vacant jobs and to upskill current employees. This both enables employees to move into higher-skill/higher-paying jobs and enhances the profitability of local businesses through the more efficient use of new technologies. Access to pooled resources make these training collaboratives particularly beneficial to smaller businesses that cannot afford to provide their own in-house training.

In the long-term RETAINs update educational programs at all levels starting in elementary schools and extending to a wide variety of post-secondary options including certificate and apprenticeships programs. They work to harmonize existing educational programs and devise new ways to fill in skill gaps. RETAINs help reconcile funding streams and secure new revenue to integrate K-12, career education, higher education, and adult training. (See Figure 2.)

We agree with a Wall Street Journal editorial (June 9, 2021) that failing public K-12 schools are the “root cause of America’s skilled-worker shortage.” K-12 schools are locally controlled. The purpose of a RETAIN is to foster communication and cooperation among diverse community sectors. Many students today lack motivation as they find schooling too abstract and unrelated to the “real world.” K-12 students and teachers need active connections to local employers in order to learn about the education and skills required for careers in today’s workplaces. Local businesses need to interact with public and private high school students through sponsoring career education programs, internships, and other activities that allow students to explore career areas that align with their aptitudes and interests.

RETAINs see themselves as joint partners in community building and in the renewal of the U.S. free enterprise system. They are rebuilding the pipeline that connect their community members to the job market. The keywords here are “bottom-up collaboration” – defined as a joint authority, joint responsibility, and joint accountability among all the partners.

RETAINs Can Make a Difference

The good news is what we can expect if RETAINs are instituted across America to rebuild the U.S. workforce. (See Figure 3.) In 2030 the U.S. economy will support about 170 million jobs; 128 million of them will be high-skill or mid-skill jobs. RETAINs can increase the expected 56 million high/mid-skill workers by retraining 30 million additional workers and preparing 10 million more students for skilled employment.

Combining these job-ready workers with additional automation will reduce the number of vacant jobs across the economy. There still will be a substantial, but not an overwhelming number of surplus workers. However as more communities use the RETAIN model to sustain job-ready workforces, the number will fall. The American middle class will grow again as high-wage employment rises.

Moving Forward

The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened Job Shock in the United States and around the globe. It has disrupted schooling leaving the economically disadvantaged even further behind. Millions of workers have either changed jobs or faced unemployment. Education and training solutions are more vital than ever before. RETAINs can be an important force in preparing students and workers for positions in America’s fast-paced, technologically driven, knowledge economy. Regional development can better support broad economic expansion and ensure that the United States remains a highly competitive global economy.

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Some Personal Post-Pandemic Thoughts

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Some Personal Post Pandemic Thoughts

 

Tonight, Managing Member Ron Slee shares with us some of his personal thoughts about the post-pandemic world.

For some time now I have been wondering about what happens to the workforce once we come out of the pandemic fears and returned to normal. Of course, I don’t truly believe we will return to the old normal. I think there is a new normal. I am a baby boomer born in the 1940’s so I have seen a few economic disruptions. I am also one who has been shouting out about the fact that we spend trillions of dollars on Technology but near nothing on Sociology. In the same vein, I have long been concerned about how we as a society in the United States seem obsessed with work and succeeding (even though we cannot properly state what success means).

There was a wonderful Cadillac ELR Coupe commercial in 2014 with the actor Neal McDonough. Watch it on YouTube. The reason I want you to watch this ad is that it reflects how we “used to think” about work and our lives. We worked. Long hours and sometimes six days, we traveled a lot, we didn’t see our families enough. We were a driven society with success being measured in Status and Money. I have never really been driven that way. When I was working as an employee I was always asking “why do we do things that way or this way?” Then when we started on our business, I was just trying to make enough money to live. Starting your own business when you are 33 years old is not the easiest of tasks. I never really was working for success, rather it was survival. I don’t think I was alone.

Today, we have a much smarter and less tolerant workforce. They won’t put up with as much as my generation did by a long stretch. And I think they are right. I moved my family from Montreal to Vancouver, from Vancouver to Edmonton, from Edmonton to Denver, from Denver to Palm Springs and more recently we moved to Honolulu to get ready to retire, I think. During my years in the consulting world, I averaged over 150,000 air miles a year. If you think that is fun, think again. 8,000,000 miles later the pandemic hit and I returned to living with my family 24/7. It was wonderful. The up-and-coming generations will not put up with that kind of life. They shouldn’t. There is a lot more to life than the treadmill many of us put ourselves on to make a living.

From some recent reports, I have read between 25% and 50% of the workforce does not want to go back to the office. They want to continue to work remotely. Further, they have seen that working remotely costs them a lot less money, some $5,000/year in lower expenses. Some companies are adjusting the compensation so that employees work remotely, they pay less. On top of that, many in “my generation” want to see the employee in the office so that they know they are working. Yes, that is true. Some teachers are sitting in classrooms teaching virtually but they have to do this at the school for whatever reason. It doesn’t make sense to me. There is a major shift going on. Strip malls have lost a lot of tenants. Empty stores are everywhere in America. I am not sure they will ever come back to the “old normal.”

I have long said “life is simple, it is people that mess it up.” I don’t believe that any employee will leave their current employer if they feel that they are valued and a valuable team member contributing to the success of the company and driven to serve people: customers, vendors and coworkers. I honestly do believe that the leadership of anything is the major cause in the employee satisfaction world. Bullies are still out there but their time is quickly coming to an end. Charismatic, caring people that are committed to the success of their employees will, hopefully, become the “new normal.” It is time to step away from micromanaging our teams.

The issue of compensation will come up. I don’t believe that people will leave a job because of their pay, IF, the pay is commensurate with the skills and the market. Don’t try to take advantage of your employees by not paying them properly. One small example. I left a job and gave my employer 60 days’ notice. I was not leaving for money; in fact, I was going to make exactly the same amount of money. However, during those sixty days I was offered to have my salary doubled, to be given a company vehicle and to have a membership in a golf club. As my wife said, “they are trying to buy you.” I didn’t stay. Many employees are in the same situation. They DO NOT get the proper level of pay. That needs to change. It needs to be fixed. There are many sources to get comparable job descriptions and salary and compensation studies. The US Department of Labor has all of those facts. You can typically find them in your local library.

This is a time of significant change, and the rate of change is accelerating. Don’t pay attention to your leadership alone, it is ALL of the employees who make your company successful. It really is quite simple. Treat everyone with respect and it will come back to you. I only ask that you think about it a bit more than you do at the moment.

The time is now.

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The Digital Dealership

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The Digital Dealership

Tonight, guest blogger Mets Kramer continues to educate us on all the digital aspects of our business with The Digital Dealership.

Over the past months I’ve covered various digital aspects of sales and marketing.  We talked about shifting our mindset from Digital Billboarding to Engagement Marketing.  We looked at how your website is more than just a confirmation of your existence, but a key part of your growing digital presence.   Research shows your customers are now completing up to 85% of their new purchase research before calling your dealership.

Let’s face it, we live in a digital world!  Almost everything we do is digitally enabled, even our most hands-on team members, technicians, open laptops and connect to machines prior to most repairs, and they certainly open them to execute their work at some point.  Our sales teams do digital quotes, get digital contracts signed and transact a sale in a digital system.

In our last conversation, on Ron’s podcast, Ron and I started to look at the general idea of a Digital Dealership.  A dealership not bound by the analog world, but one that recognizes our perpetual digital interactions. It shifts its thinking by starting from a digital perspective.  Imagine a green field dealership – a virtual one.

So, what would a digital dealer look like?  Here are some thoughts

A digital dealership starts by recognizing information is the driving force behind the digital change in how we live and work. The internet is often called the information superhighway and we are all connected.  Access to information is what drives each of us to “Google” something each day, just out of curiosity.  Information is what brings value to an interaction, it connects us with the knowledge we need to execute our work and businesses.

The digital dealership looks at how information flows through the business, from marketing and sales to service and support programs.  It looks at how the information of a customer’s engagement or transactions flow into the business, and then, it does one very important thing.  It looks at where that flow gets broken or disconnected.  Discontinuity, in our digital information flow, kills transactions, so the digital dealership makes sure it doesn’t happen.

In a practical sense, this means the digital dealership looks at how marketing efforts lead to sales, then to initiating and even closing a sale.  Customers have the option to change medium, but the flow doesn’t stop them if they know what they want, it uses information to enable.   On the parts and service side information powers a digital transaction in the same way.  The digital dealership no longer asks its customers for the machine serial number when they call for parts.  The Digital dealer recognizes incoming calls, remembers the customer’s equipment, offers them a digital purchasing options or creates automatic parts carts for common jobs.

In service, the digital dealer has analyzed what is the likely problem via telematics and service history to determine a possible cause, and solution, prior to driving to see the machine.  This is a scenario we have all talked about, but how many of you are working out how to make it happen?

Customer Portals provide customers with 24/7 access to fleet information.  Equipment is linked to product data so customers can determine if it fits their next project.  It provides historical information on service, links to past financial transactions, provides service recommendations for the future and a replacement unit when the hours get too high.   It offers online chat or a button to get a call back immediately so they know someone will be on the line to help them.

In the end, the digital dealer connects all the information about a customer, and their business, together in a seamless process which captures the customer needs and makes it easy.  The dealership’s customers appreciate it, because they get the same treatment in so many other interactions in their personal lives.

The digital dealer uses bricks and mortar, where needed, to deliver a real product to their customers in a digital way, removing many of the traditional limits of territory, and possibly capital requirement limitations too.

Taking your dealership into the digital future may seem like a lot of work, it may seem too futuristic and technical, but each of the items I’ve listed is already available and being done in our industry to some degree.  The difference is the digital dealership combines them into a single experience.

Finally, it is also important to remember that the digital information doesn’t replace the knowledge and experience your team has.   The digital connections merely enable your existing relationships and empower them, making the knowledge gained by your team available to support your customer.   At the same time, the digital connection also enables you to reach more people and expand your presence.

Our industry is on the verge of these transformations.  Closely related markets are already seeing this change.  Will you be one of the first digital dealers in our industry?

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Your Interpretation of Time

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Your Interpretation of Time

In tonight’s post, guest blogger Bruce Baker walks you through your own interpretation of time, and what that interpretation can do to you.

Your Interpretation of Your Reality Is Taking You Down!

Human behaviour has always been based on our primary instinct of avoiding loss at any expense.  If we can acquire equal gain, we tend to be satisfied and move on with our merry lives.  When people feel that they are about to lose something or have lost something, our primary drive kicks in, and we try to compensate for this loss.

There is, however, a difference between loss aversion and risk aversion. As a business owner, this is where I encourage you to pay very close attention. Risk aversion is your perception of the utility value of a monetary payoff that depends on what you have previously experienced or what you expected to happen. For example, the last time you decided to pay for Bookkeeping services (your previous experience), you paid a lot of money, but the Bookkeeper made a bigger mess. (Your perception of the utility value of this service and the level of monetary payoff). Moving forward, you would rather do it yourself.

As our instant gratification mindset gains more traction, so does our interpretation of time change – suddenly, time is interpreted as being a lot shorter!   With shorter perceived periods to prevent loss and reduce risk, our reaction to fear also increases not only in the sheer number of times we react to fear but the intensity of how we react. This intensity destroys what comes naturally to us and our ability to be creative and build tremendous value for ourselves and the others we serve.

This has profound implications for a business owner scaling up, starting up or fixing up a business.  I continuously find myself working with CEOs that are constantly on edge, struggling to grow their business or, in many cases today, trying to prevent their companies from going down the proverbial tubes. What is even more profound is what got them to this state: short-term and reactive thinking based on their interpretation of risk and potential failure.  Being in this perpetual state of loss or risk is not something new but being in this state continuously and over short bursts is what we need to be concerned with.  Business leaders are always convincing themselves that “if I get this fixed now, all will be good” or “I’ll get back to the customer before the end of the day” or “I’ll pay some of this now and hopefully pay the rest at the end of the month.” The list goes on and on.

One of the primary reasons we end up “multi-tasking” or “switch-tasking” is the need for an instant fix based on an inaccurate interpretation of time.  All this has achieved are businesses that are built with short-term solutions or quick fixes.

To take this a step further, business owners are not just confronted with one or two competing priorities but many at the same time.  Franklin Covey’s Important vs. Urgent model is outstanding and always a tool I reference with my clients. Although a great tool, I continuously find that it is only useful if we understand our interpretation of time and how we behave as a result, as described above.

If we live in a world requiring instant gratification and quick fixes and respond to this as a business by operating this way, we are only preparing for one thing, failure.  We run our businesses based on this behaviour based on our interpretation of time and the risk of loss as a result. If our expectations are short-term and superficial based on who we serve, then the nature of our decisions and our state of mind will respond accordingly.

Returning to Franklin Covey’s Important vs. Urgent model, trying to distinguish the importance and the urgency of the task just doesn’t cut it. When we are in the classroom or with our business coach or consultant, it seems logical and rational to think this way (i.e., tasks classified into their level of importance and urgency). As soon as we return to “the field,” we return to solving problems and making decisions based on instant gratification and quick fixes. Our natural need to want to be accepted and not rejected forces us into the same old vicious routine – reacting to every single demand that needs to be resolved.  The business owner, in turn, responds to this as a risk that needs to be managed and if not “now” or “very soon,” the overwhelming reaction of loss aversion kicks in again.

Society has only been successful in times when we have been able to cooperate and align our expectations.  We are a society today and subsequently a business community that has evolved into the “me” culture that works on their individual needs and expectations, which are now governed by the need for instant gratification and instant resolution. As such, we respond to each other this way which requires any small business that either wants to scale, start-up or fix-up to respond the same way, failing, not only the business failing but the business owner failing, which in most cases causes a breakdown in their lives in general.

It’s time that business owners realize that this elusion of time and their response to their interpretation of risk and fear of loss is not a sustainable reality. If we think that this short-term reactive and superficial culture is the “modern way,” I hate to see the state of business and the value of service to each other over the next decade or so.

I can tell you without a doubt that business owners that I have and continue to work with that have finally realized the extent of this problem for themselves and are now thriving. You may ask what I define thriving as? Their levels of stress have drastically decreased, their creativity has drastically increased, and the value they deliver to their market has improved significantly.

Take a leap of faith, and I can guarantee you that you and your business will thrive as well!

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The Skilled Employee Challenge

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The Skilled Employee Challenge

This week, Ron Slee takes readers through the skilled employee challenge, after a particularly illumination conversation with a fellow industry professional.

Recently I had an online chat with a talented executive in this industry in which I have spent most of my career. After reading through the Job Shock series from Ed Gordon he posed an interesting and critically important question. How do we keep skilled employees? It has been reported from knowledgeable people that between 40% to 50% of the current workforce will be changing their employers over the coming decade for one reason or another. He wondered how he could avoid that kind of talent and experience loss in his group of businesses.

That is a tough question, isn’t it? Most of the exit interviews I have conducted over the years and research papers I have read indicate that the separations were caused primarily by the direct boss. Something was off with the relationship. Any separation should be respected and we should learn from it. What could we have done differently for you to stay?

My feeling personally as an employee in two dealerships was that I wanted to be given the opportunity to grow within the business. I wanted the company to provide me the chance to grow my skills and knowledge. Most of you know by now that I never had a performance review. I asked for one every year from every boss I ever had. I never got one. I strongly urge everyone reading this to reconsider the annual performance review. Sonya Law from Australia wrote about it last month and I have pounded on the desk with everyone one of my clients regularly to get them done. Please remember to conduct the performance review at a completely different time than the wage and salary discussions.

Asking the employee what they would like to see happen with their jobs, how they could be made better, what processes need to change, and that kind of discussion, needs to take place, in my mind, very frequently. We used to have weekly toolbox meetings on the shop floor. We have huddles in the warehouse. One of my clients had a morning session before work, before they opened the doors, that involved some exercises and stretching and then a group discussion of anything that anyone wanted to talk about at the time. Every morning.

Now we have a problem with this whole thing. It might be why the performance review doesn’t happen. Most of the people who have a team of workers reporting to them do not know how to conduct a performance review. They don’t want to allow the employees to ask for something that they are not aware is coming. They don’t want to have to allow for changes. They are to some degree comfortable with the status quo. Think about that for a moment. The employee is causing the boss to want to improve something and the boss doesn’t know how to deal with that. Imagine. I had an interesting exchange with a man who I had worked with for more than twenty years. I worked with him in Montreal, Quebec. I worked at attracting him to come work with me in Edmonton, Alberta and then to come to Denver, Colorado both moves which he made to my great appreciation. He was a very talented man. We were in a personal setting with our wives and I suggested to him that I wasn’t hard to work with anywhere that we had worked together. He started uproarious laughter. He completely disagreed with me. He said I was a very difficult person to work with and that completely surprised me. If that was true, I asked him why he stayed with me then. He responded simply because I was constantly searching for better ways to do things and that he loved that about me and the work we did together. I had to do some serious thinking about that one.

I still hold to some basic truths in life. Everyone wants to do a good job, BUT rarely does an employee get told what doing a good job looks like. Even more rarely does an employee get the opportunity to be able to evaluate their own performance on a daily basis because there are no objective metrics or measurements that are shared with each employee about their particular job. That is a truth that has always bothered me. I must have been a challenge. I was fired about six times by one of my bosses. He had a very short fuse. One time I even made it home. The phone was ringing when I got in the house and it was him wondering why I was at home. I told him he had fired me. He said emphatically “get back here right now.” I should tell you that if he were still alive and the phone rang and he said he needed me I would just ask where he was and I would be on my way there. I loved that man. He allowed me to be who I believe I was meant to be.

I don’t know that with the current leadership in business we have sufficient people skills to lead our teams of employees. Too many “bosses” – TELL people what to do. Too often the boss does not know how to do the job. They have never done it. They don’t ask for the employee to participate in making their work lives better.

I used to ask three questions about every six months of everyone I ever worked with:

  1. What do I do that you like that I do and you want me to continue to do?
  2. What do I do that you don’t like that I do and want me to stop doing it?
  3. What do I do that doesn’t really matter to you?

I would also ask each employee regularly, at least once each year what I called the Five Things. Put down on a piece of paper five answers to each of the following questions:

  1. What would you like to do to make your job more effective?
  2. What is it that you do that is a real pain to do?
  3. What would you like to change about your job to make your life easier?

There are two other pillars to my beliefs in people and their work:

  1. Everyone can do more than what they think they can.
  2. Everyone is fundamentally lazy

So that is the start of the answer to the question posed to me above. That is my immediate reaction without a lot of thought behind it. I want to think about it more and provide something more insightful in the coming weeks. But this is a start and I believe it is an important start. It starts with the “leaders.”

The time is now.

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