Doomsday predictions

In the last year, I have been to several conferences centered on how to increase business and become more profitable. Hundreds of classes and seminars offered. Amazing, inspiring speakers. There are tons of people out there willing to show us, give us, teach us the best practices.

Doomsday prediction started about 1990. I was part of an internet steering committee for Toyota in 1996, 1997. Fast forward to 2017, its déjà vu all over again. The keywords have changed, but the doomsday prediction has not.

I will probably lose some interest here but will summarize anyway. The majority of classes and seminars are focused on how to drive more customers to your business. All are singing the same tune. Change or die. If you do not make it fast and easy, you must be transparent, must give the customer all they are looking for up front. If you do not change, you will die. Your business will falter.

SEO, SEM, face book lookalike, google, google my business, keywords, ad clicks,70% of your marketing must be the internet. If you do not respond in 15 minutes to an internet lead, they will go elsewhere. Stop with the tricks; customers will not put up with it. Wait, you must have tricks on your website to get the consumer to click thru. Clicks are key; customers hate dealerships, give everyone the option to buy online, click to buy, if you do not cater to millennials its over.

We continually look for the answer in data, look for the best practice, others tell us how to do it.

I listen to them, then check their websites. Trick payments, trick prices, no disclosure.

Sounds like a parent, do as I say but not as I do because it does not work. We continually look for the golden egg. Listen to others, look for the next best practice, copy others, living on hope and a prayer that it will work. Many of us give lip service to what sounds good then do it the way we know works anyway. If we are successful, it was our new process. If it does not happen, we find an excuse.

Recently out of 50 speakers at a seminar I went to, two mentioned what is most important. What would that be? Read Richard Branson's quote below.

Advertising from 1995 Price and low payment plus free stuff, advertising from 2018 price and low payment plus free stuff. Wait, change or die?

Recent surveys from Driving Sales,

What customers say they want

1-     Like the salesperson

2-     Transparency

3-     The process serves the customer.

What their actions say they want

1-     A deal

2-     Overcome my fear

3-     Must negotiate to feel like I got a deal

4-     A deal

Nothing in the seminars about overcoming the fear a customer feels. Give them all the information and they still want to feel like they got a deal.

What best practices work?

Take the top 20 dealers in the country? What are their processes, similar but different? The majority do not live by the three things a customer says they want.

Do all of these best practices work? No, they do not.

Good advice, stop looking for best practices. Finding the best practice should not be our goal. Finding what works best for us should.

Our first focus is on the wrong demographic. Richard Branson said it well.

Branson recently revealed that Virgin does not put the customer first. In fact, Virgin employees are the company's top priority. It should go without saying if the person who works at your company is 100 percent proud of the brand and you give them the tools to do a good job, and they are treated well, they're going to be happy.

We need to find what works best for us. How? We need to ask better questions. Find our best practice.

Take care of employees first.

People don’t just work for a paycheck — they want a purpose.

People are not just pursuing job satisfaction — they are pursuing

development.

People don’t want bosses — they want coaches.

People don’t want annual reviews — they want ongoing

conversations.

People don’t want to fix their weaknesses — they want to

develop their strengths.

It’s not just my job — it’s my life. One of Gallup’s most important

discoveries is that everyone in the world wants a good job.

More so than ever in the history of corporate culture, employees are

asking, “Does this organization value my strengths and my contribution?

Does this organization give me the chance to do what I do best every day?”

Because for most people, a job is no longer just a job — it’s their life as well.

To be cont.

Lose more, Win more

You decide what is amazing.

Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat

It’s your life and your business. Do you have one more degree? One more stroke? One last turn?

Two hundred and eleven degrees is hot—hot enough to burn you and to melt butter. Put 211-degree water in a locomotive, and nothing happens. Heat that water one degree, and a several-ton locomotive begins to move. What power comes from just one degree.

In the last 25 years, in all the major golf tournaments, the average margin of victory has been less than three strokes. Three strokes out of 288 is one small difference. Number one in the world on the PGA Tour earnings stand at over $8,000,000 for the year and number one hundred at $1,200,060. The average-per-round difference is less than two strokes—$7,000,000 for less than two strokes per round.

In 2016, the margin of victory for the men’s 100 meter was .08 seconds—less than one/tenth of a second between gold and immortality or silver, obscurity, and an answer to a trivia question.

At the Indy 500 over the last 10 years, the average margin of victory has been 1.54 seconds. The first-place prize money has averaged $2.578,813, and second place is $921,321, which is a difference of over $1,600,000 for 1.54 seconds in a 500-mile race.

One extra degree will run a locomotive across America; one less degree, and it will just keep you warm.

One extra degree can make all the difference.

To get what we have never had, we must do what we have never done. Belief fuels enthusiasm and explodes into passion. It ignites our minds and hearts and makes us act. It fires our hearts and souls. It helps us to achieve that one extra degree in business and life. It separates the good from the great.

It’s your life and your business. Do you have one more degree? One more stroke? One last turn?

“The only thing that stands in the way of a person and what they want is the will to try it and the faith to believe it possible.”

Believe it, try it, put your heart into it, and let your mind believe it is you. Your subconscious will make it happen.

- Partial credit to the 212th degree.