I have been teaching an ongoing management training workshop for my team and this past week we  focused on a second aspect of communication. As we discussed in previous sessions, communication has to be clear, specific and actionable. This week, we focused on finding out how your audience was receiving the information. New managers often overlook this second aspect of communication. They focus on a one-size-fits all way of communicating and then get frustrated when some of their team does not understand what was asked of them. The group took a multiple-choice test to see what category each fell into. With the test we used, communication styles were broken out into four different groups. The groups are based on two things that help you learn how to manage each member of your team: how people receive information and how they receive communication. The four groupings were: D: The Driver or Dominators I: The Expressive or Influencers S: The Amiable or Steady C...

I love teaching and coaching people.  Seeing people begin to learn and apply the education is one of the things that gives me great pleasure. The bonus for me is that every time I teach, I learn as well. I have been leading a management training workshop for my employees and what has been a great lesson for me is to take the time to reflect on if I am following my own advice. Do I "walk the talk" as one of my employees loves to say. Too often we fall into the "Do as I say, not what I do" philosophy of management. I participated in the exercises I asked the team to do and realized I had to adjust a few of my behaviors back to what I had set out for myself. I had drifted a bit over time without realizing it. The point is, when was the last time you took a step back to make sure you are practicing what you preach or expect from your employees. Do you execute the same level of customer service you expect from your team? Do you follow all the steps of the...

  So you may be wondering why I am wishing all of you a Happy 4th of July. I can hear the comments..."We are just finishing up April". "Doesn't he mean Memorial Day"   No I do not. I mean are you planning for the cars you are selling only 9 weeks from now?    Dealers are so focused on the 30 day cycle that they forget that the things they are putting in place right now will affect sales at the end of the summer. In many of my workshops, I quotes statistics showing the buying cycle for autos has compressed to about 3 months. That includes all of the customer's research time online. So those people who today begin their search fall into the timeslot of purchasing mid July so possibly what you are offering around the 4th may lock them in.   Now I understand you don't know exactly what discounts you may offer but all of you will be having a "BIG 4th of July SALE". Are you putting out content telling peopl...

  I was calling the other day to set up some travel and when I dialed I got a real voice versus an IVR. The funny thing was, I checked to make sure I dialed the right number.   Now how funny is that. We are so accustomed to getting a recording (you have reached...) or a support line, (please enter your account #) that when we actually get someone it makes us feel like we did something wrong.   The reason I bring this up is if we who are in the business of sales or delivering a service are accustomed to this, so are our customers. My question is, is your business focused on the customers or your convenience?   Do you let all calls go into a loop, or support line or IVR so people are already frustrated by the time they speak to someone? If they ever really do? Or if I called you during business hours would I get someone to help me right away?   I have heard all the arguments for IVR and call routing and the economies of scale, but if your...

  Instituting change in your company is not an easy thing. It takes time, strategy and a commitment from all involved. It especially takes discipline from the top leaders to keep everyone focused. In many cases, changes happen quickly. Owners or department heads read a new book, or attends a seminar or conference and they come back loaded down with new ideas. All of a sudden, change is thrust upon everyone without any thought as to how it will affect what is currently in place. New ideas or business processes are forced on top of existing ones. There is no formal rollout of communication, but expectations are glorious that this will have a great impact. Even if all of the thought was put in ahead of time, the main culprit that causes failure to keep change is a methodical approach and focus on the change daily. How many of us have started new programs and stopped? How many of us have organized ourselves in a new way only to fall back into our old...

  I was checking in online the other day for my trip to DMSC conference and Continental had placed the following set of tabs at the bottom of my boarding pass. Here were their suggestions for restaurants, nightlife and things to do. I am not sure how these got loaded in but the fact that these businesses have a review gathering process helps. I would think your business could benefit from this type of exposure. But if you don’t have reviews you will not make the list. (I wrote about this in a previous article) One other place I have recently seen how video reviews will impact business. I was shopping on Amazon and at the bottom of my searches was a request for people to submit their “product review” videos. The more that customers see companies wanting feedback people will give it. Why not be in front of the surge of reviews and ask your customers to send in a video with them using your product or commenting. What a great viral way to show that you...

As we continue our conversation about Zero Moment of Truth, where customers research you and your products online, let’s not forget what the First Moment of Truth is: When people contact your dealership. I want to focus on what happens when customers get on site and how what happens can affect the sale. To explain my point, at a recent workshop I posed this question to readers: “ What are some things that customers saw upon coming to a dealership that negatively affected their willingness to buy?” Each dealer had multiple stories, from customers having to walk through a messy smoking area to salespeople grouped together right by the door on a Monday morning, sizing up the arriving customers, to messy coffee areas, to – the worst situation in my mind – an incoming customer receiving no greeting for minutes at a time even while the customer can see salespeople standing there looking back at him yet not moving at all. How unsettling. So, when they ...

Sitting here after Driving Sales Executive Summit, reviewing my notes and thoughts about this event. First, all who did not take the time to come, you missed out. Not just on a great location, not just on the networking but on the incredibly high level of education.  What Jared and his team accomplished was to set the bar very high for other conferences to come in the automotive space. He not only got great educators and speakers from the industry, he reached out and got speakers who talk about marketing overall. This allowed myself and others to work our brains on how their input could be applied to our industry. My highlights were: Jared's speech opening up the conference. I have been lucky to see Jared speak a few times and I thought this was one of his best presentations yet. Clear, energetic (yes, even for a NJ guy you speak fast) and challenging.    The CEO Panel. What a great idea. Having the ability to hear CEOs discuss ideas, differ on approach b...

About a year ago, PCG Digital Marketing coined a term PODScore to help businesses understand how much “brand leakage” happened in a simple search for their name online. (you can find more about PODscore at www.podscore.org) We had a business type their company name into search and then count the number of listings they controlled. The result, through the PODscore formula, gave you a very simple numerical value of how well they dominated page one in search.   Our goal was two fold. First, get businesses to see what is online when they type in their name. Secondly, help businesses see that the more content they put out online, the more customer reviews they received, the more they were putting information out for their customers to see the more of the page they controlled and the better their PODscore would be.   Why I bring this up is I have been very inspired by reading Jim Lecinski, Winning The Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) and it made me think of ho...

  I just held a follow up webinar to my workshop at the Automotive Marketing Boot Camp on Reputation Management. I waited for a few weeks to see what dealers who attended would implement and how their progress was going. I wanted to share results from three people because it covers a lot of situations you may run into.   First person to offer up comments said that it was going slowly because they had a “Digitally Challenged boss”. They were doing it all themselves. They wanted to implement new ideas but their boss did not want to hear about changes. My Suggestion: work on getting one salesperson and one service advisor who are advocates of his and ask them to get people to post. Once you had some positive reviews posted and feedback from these “helpers” in the dealership was how easy it was to get customers to post and how they feel it is important, your boss may see things differently. Remember without specific details, your boss will t...

Change is not easy. Not for individuals, groups or businesses. There I said it. Anyone who speaks to the contrary is wrong. I was sitting up the other night flipping the channels and just was amazed at the amount of infomercials I have seen on how we can change quickly or how we can revolutionize our life with a certain product, I just laugh and then it made me mad. Now I have been one of those people who are fascinated by these claims, but I have also been in the coaching and training field for over 20 years and been in a position of managing others for close to 30. (No my photo is not retouched, just good genes) So why is everyone claiming they can change you in a few minutes or weeks? Because it sells or as my wife says, “It is good TV”. People have such a  “fast food” mentality that if we have to wait for anything it can’t be good. Trust me you did not gain those 20 extra pounds in a week nor will you lose them in a week and keep them off....

In this very competitive marketplace a successful business needs not only a great company vision but great managers to see it through. Examine any successful dealership’s business module and you will find a great manager there turning each goal into reality. A great manager understands how to take hold of a company’s vision and translate it into processes and procedures that will accelerate their staff to the top. How these managers communicate their message to their teams is one of the keys to their success. Without exceptional people skills, managers will never be able to help coach their team through their learning curve, through their successes and more importantly, helping them through their struggles. We are all here today and in our current positions because many people took the time to teach us how to succeed. From our parents to our teachers, our friends, to coaches in sports to business people, if you took the time to think about ...

Hi my name is Glenn and I am a recovering “glass half empty-aholic.”  I have worked diligently over time to change my outlook. I have been very successful, but at times I still fall back to focus on what did not work versus what did work. I bring this up because lately I have been confronted with management continuing to find only fault without applauding any success. Business leaders, who live in the 30-day cycle, quickly forget what someone did for the last three months as soon as they have a bad month. We are all guilty at one time or another of not praising our employees. There are studies stating that successful companies praise their employees four times as much as they deliver negative feedback. What would your ratio be? Mine is three and climbing. It is not easy but you have to remind yourself to compliment people when you can. If I tasked everyone who reads this to find something positive to say to each of your employees this week, I bet you could...

In the third post of the series on Online Reputation: You now have created a culture on-site that promotes excellent customer service. You have the tracking to know where you would like people to post, you have optimized your Google Places and now you think, “this all sounds great, I understand the importance, I am ready to go….How do I get people to post?” My response is simple: Ask Everyone! If I said to you that by the end of the year I would like to see over 200 people posting reviews, and right now you have 20, you are looking at me as if I have 2 heads. Before you run screaming or think I am crazy, ask yourself these questions first 1.     How many new and used cars do you sell a month? 2.     How many people come through service? Let’s say you sell 50 cars and 200 people a month come through service. That means during the course of a year, you have 3000 people who pay you for service. Even if you go...

Last week I discovered some very interesting responses to a survey I had asked about 60 dealership employees to fill out regarding their business’s online reputation. Although I had suspected that many of them had a lot to improve, these responses were lower than I expected. I asked them to rate their dealership on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the best) on the following questions. Your dealership’s internal process regarding your online reputation The execution of this process. Upper Management’s understanding of reviews and the current amount of review online. The customer service training that goes on in the dealership. I averaged out the scores and here are the results. Business’s process:                           2.3 Execution of Process:                        1.6 Knowledge of Reviews:     &n...

Ok it’s end of January, many of us continue to dig out of snow and when we put the shovel down for a moment, we wonder how quickly time flew by and I have not really kept up with my goals for the new year. I call this time of year the “quick/slow time to Spring”. What I mean is that now that holidays are over, we are so focused on just getting by that before we know it, March and April are here and we have lost sight of what we wanted to achieve. Some of the complaints I hear from my executive coaching clients and Dealers as well are (some of these used to be mine): 1.     I have so many other things going on, I just have to get them done. 2.     I have been doing making changes (if you really look..no you haven’t) 3.     Maybe I overpromised myself. (and you stop everything) All of these are real feelings so don’t judge them. What you need is a simple plan to get you back on track. ...

While preparing for my upcoming workshop for the 2011 Digital Marketing Strategies Conference, I continued to run across a common reluctance amongst dealerships to change their focus from a defensive position to an offensive position when dealing with their online reputation.   Here are some of the things I ran across as to why dealers hesitate to ask customers for reviews of their services:  Asking their customers to post a review will INCREASE negative reviews. Employees will feel uncomfortable asking for a review What if a negative review gets published? If I start posting too many reviews, my competition will sabotage me and post false reviews   This type of attitude towards customer feedback will ultimately lose businesses market share. This past October, Google changed search to prominently display customer reviews for local businesses that come up in search. Businesses with few and/or poor reviews will now stand out and ultimately will ...

Here we are, heading into the holidays and after 2 weeks of enjoying ourselves, come the morning of January 2nd, everyone will utter the same phrase “I have to cut back” From drinking, to eating, sleeping, (or not) and of course, exercising, everyone is reviewing his or her budgets and time allocations and making changes This affects businesses as well. Tis the season where CFOs and GMs look over the end of year numbers and it is very easy to feel the pressure and begin cutting back on items. In my many years of being involved in the field of performance improvement the worst thing you can do at a slow time of your business cycle is to cut back on the training of your staff. Cutting back on training hampers your team’s ability to be ready when things pick up. I was fortunate enough to meet and speak with Brian Benstock, VP and GM of Paragon Honda in NY. I heard him speak at the Driving Sales Executive Summit and his speech focused on how Paragon went from th...

As we approach this time of year, many of us tend to get our pads and paper out to create those dreaded lists. Food for holidays lists, Gifts for family, gifts for co-workers and the biggest list for most people, the New Year’s resolution list.   What many individuals or businesses will labor over are the 10 things that they would like to change this next year. I applaud the effort. Performance Management change is good BUT when you create this list, you need to remember a few things:   1.     Be honest with yourself. Look at what you did or did not accomplish. 2.     Don’t play the blame game.  It is not about why it did not happen. 3.     Be specific with what you want to happen. And lastly: 4.     You will never change everything on your list.   It won’t happen. It sounds great to have these things to talk about, or show others in staff meetin...

I want to share something that happened the other day to demonstrate how even the most simple activity can be delivered in a very impressive way and in turn help your Online Reputation Management   I needed to get my oil changed and having moved to a new area I was not sure where to go. So I did what most people would do, go to Google, type in “Oil Change” and my zip code and looked at the search results. A few locations came up so I looked for the one with reviews and proceeded to head out the following Saturday.   I have been to many quick oil change businesses and in most cases you drive in, they do the job, and off you go. Well let me tell you, the experience I received was totally unexpected. When I drove up, a man came to the car door, welcomed me with a big smile and after we discussed my needs, he told me that there was a waiting room inside, coffee and magazines were available if I wanted and they would be right with me.   As I approach...

My last post discussed how your reputation online, begins onsite. I mentioned that I would discuss things that your could focus on that would immediately impact your customer’s experience. Here is one of the most overlooked employees in most businesses today. The receptionist.       There are many customer contact points we could discuss but to me one of the most important ones and the most overlooked one is who is answering your phone. This is the first impression someone gets of your staff and how they will be treated when they arrive. In some instances, companies put the lowest paid person in this position. They feel that this is not an important job and anyone can do it. WRONG! If you only care that the phone gets answered then please just by an IVR. Customers want to speak to someone and this someone had better be pleasant, polite, efficient and knowledgeable. I can already hear it, “How knowledgeable do they need to be?” ...

I had a discussion the other day with a potential client and it made me realize that many customers think that Internet Reputation Management (IRM) is just about getting negative reviews off Google Page One.   This comment reinforced my belief that unless a company is committed to having a good internet reputation and willing to work on-site to improve, there will always be something to push off Google Page One. A GM at a dealership where I was delivering a customer service seminar, stated that sales people will never ask for people to post a review. My response was, “Are you afraid of feedback from customers? Why would you not want to hear what they say so that you can make adjustments?” I brought this up during the training session to the sales team and asked, “Why would you NOT want to get you name out there? If I as a customer read review of your dealership and saw that John was mentioned in 8 reviews as giving great service, I would go in and as...

Have you ever been in a situation where you have to explain to someone what he or she needs to do? They look at you and you see them nodding, but you are not sure they “get” what you mean. From their perspective, the commentary in their head is saying,” I hope he does not ask me what they just said. I have no idea what he means and I don’t want to look stupid or lose my job. Go away, go away, go away”. As a management coach, I am always asked, “How do we make sure that when we train our employees they perform at the level we expect?” My answer is to build a bridge of understanding between your brain and theirs. Before we begin we need to realize that many training sessions fail because: The trainer did not make sure the person understood what they said. (Either they are rushing on to something else or took the person’s nodding as a signal for understanding) The trainee did not make sure they understood what was said. (See a...

Have you ever joined a project or group and you got the feeling it was gong to be special? Today I sat through orientation for a new Automotive SEO study program given by PCG Digital Marketing. The study will give 100 automotive dealers free access to learn SEO strategies to leverage their brand on the internet. The amazing thing is that PCG Digital is going to demonstrate and teach these dealers to do SEO for FREE. When was the last time you heard of a business offering to teach others what they do, even competitors, for free? It can be called historical, or crazy, but I think it demonstrates an openness to educate others in a new and exciting way.   The results will be compiled and presented at the 2011 NADA convention in February next year. Now full disclosure, PCG was a client of mine and have since offered me a full time position as their COO which I have accepted. This just reinforces that this company is a leader in their industry and I am excited to be working th...

I ran across a post on Facebook from a friend of mine, VJ Voelker and he was posing the question of why car dealers are looking backwards versus forwards in regards to their marketing. He was curious as to why dealers were hesitant to embrace Digital Marketing as a viable addition to their current media. Bottom line he was asking, why is it so hard to change? It got me thinking that many of us, as individuals and as companies really do resist change. Why are you not looking down the road at where you will be going versus where you have been? I guess it is safer, you know where you have been, I understand how to look at results, it has always worked in the past, etc. You may be finding comfort in these thoughts but the reality is that in this day and age, if you are not moving forward, you are getting left behind. If you asked my wife if I embrace change, her first reaction is to say, “not so much”. But once she thought about it, she would say, “If he has o...

One of my first jobs was working with my father at a company that supplied stone, concrete and asphalt for construction sites.  I worked in the labs breaking everything down to make sure the ingredients were correct. Imagine taking a cake and breaking it down to see if the right amounts of sugar, flour and butter were put in. It was kind of like that.   Back then, one of the things I enjoyed doing was walking around and looking at the enormous excavations and also the size of the sand piles. As a kid, nothing would have been more fun than to run up those sand piles. So I decided to give it a try one day and almost killed myself. Not that I was out of shape, I was only 20, but the amount of sand that came down as I tried to climb made it impossible to gain traction.   I was speaking with a client the other day, coaching him through a new transition at work and it reminded me of trying to climb sand piles. He kept listing everything on his “To do list.&rdqu...

We have all heard coaches tell golfers to "follow through" with their swing, or pitchers to "follow through" when pitching. But how many managers say to themselves to watch their "follow through?" According to Webster's Dictionary the meaning of "follow-through" can be: 1. the completion of a motion, as in the stroke of a tennis racket. 2. the portion of such a motion after the ball has been hit and 3. the act of continuing a plan, project, scheme, or the like to its completion. We all battle to make sure we "follow through." Our days are filled with endless lists of things we want to accomplish plus new ideas we want to pursue, but then we get distracted. There are many different types of "follow through" we all struggle with, but the one I believe managers need to focus on the most is "FOLLOWING THROUGH ON WHAT YOU SAY!" In the crazy pace of our daily lives, following through on you...

This is a very common question amongst General Sales Managers. Dealerships give out commissions but you still need to do more each month for your employees. Running an effective contest is a very effective way to increase performance. There are a few rules I use as a guide when running contests. 1.    Make sure everyone feels he has a shot at winning. If employees feel they have no chance to win, they will give up on the contest. For example: If you always reward the salesperson who delivers the most sales after a few contests, most employees will know that only a few agents will be in the mix to win and they will not even worry about the contest. A better way is to give out tickets for each sale, collect those tickets in a jug, and then pick one out at the end of the time period to announce the winner. 2.    Use time to your advantage. Remember when we had all semester to write our term papers? Yet how many of us waited until the night ...

As a manager of a sales team or a team of supervisors, there will be a time when you need to bring a new member to the team.  You have cut the pile of candidates and resumes down to the final few. What criteria should you follow when you pick up the phone and call someone to offer the job? A lot is going to depend on the makeup of your team. BUT more importantly, it will also depend on how you RUN your team. Are you a hands-on and structured supervisor, do you deliver consistent employee training to groom your team members? Or do you just let people do it their way and only focus on the end result? Quick story. Company X is opening two new dealerships. The General Sales Managers (GSMs) are told they can speak to any existing managers in the company as well as any current employees to assemble teams for their new centers. GSM A, who is a top sales person on the floor, recruits people who are his friends and who are like himself. All top salespeople, high energy,...

Lately, I’ve been going to a lot of events. I just hit my 3rd in two weeks.  At each event there are breakout sessions and roundtables to discuss relevant issues to business. I’ve been in sessions about Social Media, Workforce Management, Inventory Control, Cloud Computing, Service Departments, CRM tools, Vendor Management and about 10 other topics.  But not one table dedicated to training.   Okay, so maybe one event skipping management training is okay, but all three?   Then I’ve been going over the list of topics and speakers for yet another event and when I asked if training would be considered, I got a polite “That’s a possibility” response.   I know, performance consulting is my thing, but still I wonder, why are so many dealers not addressing training as a valued process for employees?   Is it because training is not flashy? It’s not the shiny new object like “social media?” Is...