Paying silent attention to detail is an undervalued tool in business and in life.  Over the years, it’s what I’ve learned what not to do that has had the most impact on my career versus learning what to do.  When I first started in the industry, I had good mentors and bad mentors.  It took me a while to separate the two and how to learn effectively from each of them.  Once I started paying closer attention to their habits, I started to see success build up quicker and gain momentum because I incorporated the good habits and avoided the bad ones.  They were my greatest teachers without even knowing about it.

I’ve been known as the young successful Sales Consultant, young Sales Manager, young General Manager and as of 4 years ago, young Owner.  What’s overlooked however, is the tedious attention to detail that I was picking up on from over 135 years of experience from the Sales Managers, General Managers and Owners that I worked with side by side for 10 years.  My learning curve was amplified because I wasn’t only learning from my success and failures, but I would pick the brains of others and see what worked for them that could also work for me.  And I would pay close attention to how certain situations were handled and if they weren’t handled in a manner that I would personally like, I would take mental notes and store them so I would avoid making the same mistakes.

“It will be difficult to have success with Rethink Selling because you’re too young and not many managers will want to bring on a young Sales Trainer to train their team.  They’ll want someone with experience.” – This was said to me a few months ago by a Sales Consultant from another dealership in the area.

“I understand how it looks on the surface but how many Sales Trainers are current (still selling cars), were Sales Consultants, Sales Managers, General Managers, Owners, learned from over 135 years of combined experience, incorporate Life/Business Coaching into their Training and make it the majority of what we teach, and how many Sales Trainers have a Business Development Coach hired to help them as we speak and have attended the top Personal Development Seminars in the world, all by the age of 32?” – My answer to him.  The conversation ended quickly after that.

There is no credit or awareness for observation mostly because it’s an intangible asset which are the most difficult assets to build value in it seems. But in my opinion, arguably the most valuable piece to my personal success has been having the ability to be observant.

• Watching the body language of clients around other Sales Consultants

• The tone of voice and physiology of my Manager when I brought a shit deal to him

• How my Manager would handle an irate client in the showroom

• Listening to the top performers in all departments in our dealership to hear how they spoke to clients.  One of my favorite things to do when I first started was go out in the showroom when our top Sales Consultant was speaking with clients and take mental notes of his humor, types of questions, tone of voice, inflection, body language, everything he would do I would note and test on my own until I figured out exactly what worked for my own style

• Who showed up early and who showed up late

• When you start modeling those you admire and respect, and avoid modeling the ones you don’t admire or respect, you start having the same or more success than the one you began modeling

Experience is overrated as many of you know.  It’s the quality of the experience that’s important.  What are your top 3 personal goals right now?  What is your life’s mission?  Why are you in the auto industry? What are your daily habits that lead you to progression, both personally and professionally?  If your soon to be or current Manager can’t answer these types of questions, then they have no right leading commissioned Sales Consultants or any team for that matter, in my opinion because if they don’t have control and direction for themselves, then how are they supposed to Manage and/or Lead others to reaching their full potential?

It’s often said that you’re the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.  Surround yourself with people who will make you better but don’t forget to pay attention on what not to do for it has the power to be more impactful at a quicker rate than learning what to do from others.