Otis on "Self-Discipline"

I just read a Targeted Journal from one of the Sales Managers we work with and wanted to get this out of my head. I don’t expect this to make perfect sense, but please, bear with me. I sensed a few things, none that I could put a finger on, that both the manager and his team might be “getting smarter than the process” when it comes to asking for the money.

The best running backs in football “trust” the play that is called. Each play is designed to achieve a certain result; to reach a particular spot on the field. The best running backs trust that it will produce the results that it’s designed to produce, and they execute the play with that belief. When they improvise on their assignment, or trust their instincts instead of the play, they reduce the possibility of the play’s success.

Not that improvisation necessarily nullifies the play, but the greatest of athletes will always trust the play FIRST… and then improvise only if the play breaks down or if it reaches the designed spot on the field with the runner still standing.

We can’t let our sales team get used to improvisation as a way of life. Let’s make sure that we discipline ourselves to trust the system first; before we allow ourselves to improvise.

Remember that we ask for the money “so we can take the bike off the market” so we can take the bike off the market. We need a method to confirm his buying decision, and to let the customer know that we believe he has indeed made a buying decision. If at that point he has NOT made that decision, the act of asking for the money will either a) compel him think about whether or not he is indeed ready, possibly resulting in a buying decision, or b) he’ll let us know that he is not ready to buy.

Either result is a good one for the salesperson who is focused on helping the customer to buy. Asking for the money is NOT designed as a slick trick to force somebody into a buying decision. Often the fear of that is what causes guys to improvise and not ask for the money. Once the salespeople understand, believe and operate with the right understanding of process, asking for the money at the right point in the process becomes the best next right thing to do for the customer.

In reality, this may get us an increase in “today” buying decisions over the course of a year, but more importantly, it is consistent with the environment of customer service that we’re trying to educate our customer about. All of our language, our policies, and our actions are congruent in that they are all designed with the intention of rendering it easier to buy from us than it is from the other guys.

So have I written a column here, or did I just produce an unintelligible rant?

Projections, Predictions, and Prognostications

This is a collection of ramblings about measuring and monitoring the right things that will help you maintian your process. Thoughts, please...

There was a radio personality in the town where I grew up that would read the weather at the top of every hour. When he finished reading, he’d play a little drum roll and fanfare thing and then scream, “And now for Kenny’s ‘lookin’ out the window’ forecast!” It never failed to crack me up because it put such perspective on the entire idea of forecasting anything. I remember listening to him one afternoon predicting rain with the report and then make a big deal yelling and fussing that the weather guys were crazy because his ‘lookin’ out the window’ report saw nothing but blue sky and little white puffy clouds.

I took the time to actually look out my window that day… and he was right. It was a perfect “Chamber of Commerce” kind of day. It was indeed blue sky with little white puffy clouds. I realized then that there was a huge difference between projections and reality, no matter how “scientific” or sophisticated the projection mechanism was.

When the weather report predicts a 40% chance of rain they base their prediction on history. The actual formula goes something like this. In all of recorded weather history, when conditions were exactly as we think they’ll be tomorrow at a given time, it rained 40% of the time. They’re basically measuring the past to predict future conditions that they’ll base their prediction on. (You might wanna read that twice)

And for some reason we let these weather predictor guys off the hook when they get it wrong. And they get it wrong a lot! Why on earth do we continue to believe what they tell us? How can we trust anything that predicts what will happen next by measuring what happened yesterday?

A rain gauge can only tell you how much rain you got, not how much rain you’re gonna get!

The best bookies don’t make their bets based on the scores from the previous week’s games. They watch the teams practice if at all possible and they hold off on placing the bet until the last possible moment. That’s the closest they can get to make a real-time projection. What if the star running back got injured in an accident on the way to the game? That won’t show up in the stat sheets.

What if you sold 20 bikes last week and nineteen the week before? Did you do better in week two? Not if your showroom floor was three times as busy in week two than in week one. In fact, you did worse. But your stat sheet (your financials) won’t tell you that. The only thing that’ll tell you that is a real-time look at what’s happening now.

Farmers measure what’s happening now to tell them the weather. Are the cows facing the same direction – right now – right at this very moment? That means it’s gonna rain. Just west of Corvallis, Oregon in the coast mountain range, you’ll see Mary’s Peak. The locals say that if you can see Mary’s Peak, it’s gonna rain. If you can’t see it, well then it’s raining. As silly as it is, it’s at least a real-time look at things.

And that’s where I run out of examples. I need feedback, people. Someone please tell me the message that this brain dump is trying to get across so I can see if I've captured what I wanted to. Thanks for your help.

Three Roles of an Effective Leader

I need your opinion on the following. Is the following subject a column in MPN? Is it worth and entire chapter in the book? Is it the theme of my next book? As usual, some of these thoughts are random. (Those of you who write will recognize that, of course.) Please leave me your input, folks. Thanks.


I have found that there are three common "hats" interchangeably worn by all of the great leaders I've ever been around; three specific areas of focus they have in common. To further make my point, the great companies I've been around (bands, churches, sales teams/departments, etc.) also have a similar balance of those three components.

I've borrowed the following terms from a popular vernacular to make the discussion easier. The three "titles" of great leaders are:

Evangelist – The Evangelist “converts” thinking. He is the guy that gets the team to think a certain way – to change their paradigm. This guy speaks in terms like, “Do something FOR your customer not TO your customer.” Once that mental conversion has been accomplished, it’s time to bring in the…

Teacher – The Teacher delivers practical skills to the team once they believe the system. He’ll help them to understand and memorize WordTracks; teach them when to talk and when to listen. This guy gives the team a greater degree of ownership and succeeds in small and measurable increments.

Preacher – The Preacher is mostly a motivator and cheerleader. He keeps all the conversion work done by the Evangelist locked in place. He’s the “Stick Factor Guy” if you will. The team must often be made to remember what they believe in order for it to remain fresh in their minds. Often when the Preacher is speaking, you’ll get more of the, “Oh yeah… I used to do it that way” than you’ll get “A-Ha”.

I've also come to believe that when you create and environment that has all three of those elements, you're more able to not only attract good people, but to grow them into great people.

And the rules shall set you free...

Until Mozart subordinated himself to the absolute unalterable rules of music – Do, Re, Mi, etc., – he could never have released to the world, the amazing compositions trapped within him. Once he mastered the piano by having learned how to do what it forced him to do with it's rigid structure, he was then (and only then) free to make the piano do what he wanted it to do.

Until you understand and subordinate yourself to the rules of buying, you cannot create a selling procedure which facilitates a purchase. You must first submit to what MUST take place prior to a purchasing decision before you can summon the creative energy needed to facilitate that buying decision; not just on a global level, but with each individual customer encounter.

Shrinking the Waiting List in Service

Can it be done?

(This is a column I'm preparing for March release in MPN Magazine and I need your help.)

We’re working with a dealership where we’ve been able to improve their efficiency from 16% to 82% in a matter of a few months. Much of the improvement was actually achieved within the first month. The most immediate and obvious manifestation was that one of their techs who had never billed more than 80 hours in a month. He shot up to 125 hours in the first month, and he’s sustained that level for four months as of this writing. The not so immediate albeit much more important, their Service Department is profitable for the first time in the five years under the current ownership.

I can hear you asking, “How?” …which is exactly what I asked Bob Fitzpatrick, our Service Department Trainer. After all, you can’t just magically create more work… can you?

Here’s his reply. “Well, Otis” in a rather c’mon-Otis-try-and-keep-up tone, “you know that 2 week waiting list most Service Departments have in the heart of the season? And you know how it never seems to grow much past 2 weeks? And you know how it never seems to shrink much smaller than 2 weeks either, until of course, the season starts winding down? Well did yuh ever wonder why?” (Bob actually talks to me that way. But then so do most Service Managers.)

The reason that it never gets any longer than 2 weeks, is because most people just won’t wait any longer than that. Likewise it never gets any shorter than 2 weeks, because people will wait that long… but no longer! Most high end restaurants have a similar dilemma trying to reach their capacity on a busy Friday night. People will only wait so long for a table, no matter how much they wanna impress their date. The only way for restaurants to improve their “turns” is to get more people in and out. It’s the same thing with Service.

So what I need from the pool of genius on this blog is the "how". How do you shrink that waiting list?

Competition or Collaboration?

How are you approaching your customers? More precisely, do you know how your employees are approaching your customers? Are they approaching them with a spirit of competition or collaboration?

Here’s a very accurate way to define the difference. If you and I are gonna compete, I’m gonna win. If we’re gonna collaborate, we’re BOTH gonna win.

You’ve gotta make an accurate assessment of how your customer is approaching you as well. Sometimes when we simply wanna take care of him, he’s trying to beat the snot out of us. Not exactly collaboration there either.

One place to illustrate my point is how we approach price: Are we trying to beat the customer at the negotiating game or are we trying to help the customer make sense of the financial aspects of his purchase decision?

It's such a habit that sometimes we push our customer into trying to beat us up when he showed up in the spirit of collaboration. He often walks in to make some choices and we leave him only one by arguing about or discounting the price before the customer ca pick out or decided on a bike. That’ll push him into defense mode at a minimum, but often we start a big drawn out messy negotiation which ends up with nothing but two pissed off parties and no sale because there was never a commitment to buy. Then we’ve rendered ourselves enemies instead of friends. That is the antithesis of collaboration. Now we’ve only got competition left as a way to communicate.

Not many customers are willing to endure that just to buy a bike from you. Some will but most won’t. I wonder how often that’s what’s actually happening. We end up believing that the customer is a knuckle-head and he's convinced that we are; all just because we didn’t take the time to meet him on his terms. He did his part. He showed up at the place where he believed the professionals were. We didn’t do our part by asking the kinds of questions needed to determine how we could meet his agenda. Nope, we just told him what he couldn’t do when all he wanted to learn from us was what he could do.