Here is Part 2 of 2 of my interview with Ian Coburn.  He has a lot of wisdom and knowledge based on experience to share.

Enjoy!

6. There seems to be content for rookies and pros in the book. Who was the ideal avatar you had in mind when writing the book? Are these universal strategies for anyone in sales in any industry?

Typically, we all find both new and rehashed content in books we read. Mine is no different. It is virtually for anyone in sales, customer service or management. Sometimes newbies have an advantage in that they don’t have habits to break as part of developing new ones (think back to the ESC key). The strategies are universal. In fact, I developed them predominately in office supplies, proprietary education and healthcare. They’ve been effectively taught and utilized in numerous industries, including auto, truck, driver recruitment, software, telecommunication, media (magazine space, TV and radio airtime, web), PR, recruitment, bathroom renovation… even dating and relationships. I gear the content language and most examples to auto and truck, spanning sales, parts and service.

7. The Customer is NEVER Right could be considered controversial because it challenges a lot of the “old school” and “traditional” sales thinking. When did you realize that the old and traditional way of selling wasn’t as effective as it used to be and was there an “ah- ha” moment that triggered it for you?

Actually, I’d argue the book brings BACK traditional sales thinking. Until I was 7 or 8, back in the 70’s, there were still a few old-time door-to-door sales reps. We had one and he had the best sales chops I’ve ever seen. He knew his customers well, brought catalogs full of content, asked my mom a few questions, then steered her directly to the proper items, within her budget, in the catalogs. He even asked if she had extra money in the till for the month. If so, he got the figure and asked us kids about what toys we’d like. He then showed us the proper items, within my mom’s budget, in the catalog.

That was sales, man. Sitting in our kitchen or living room, waiting for my single mom to bring him a cup of tea while chatting with her 3 young kids, then navigating, quickly, through the conversation with my mom while her 3 kids ran around, screaming and shouting. The control of the conversation, focus, patience, objection-handling, and ability to keep it all from looking rushed in that crazy environment. Man, looking back at that, it was a thing of beauty. That was sales through and through.

Somehow, throughout the last 3-4 decades, sales and marketing have become blurred. The result? Instead of selling, we pitch; instead of listening, we talk. We don’t ask questions, presuming the customer somehow has the expertise they need to make the best buy. GPA simply returns us to those door-to-door sales rep techniques, only in today’s environment.

It’s not just me “bucking the system,” so to speak. One aspect I love about DrivingSales is the feeds and conversations, and there are plenty out there where top-producing members share tips, such as, “Ask questions to identify your customer’s needs,” which other members reply to with specific tips for doing so, and so forth. Great value!

8. What’s one of the biggest flaws dealers have when it comes to sales training and development? How can they improve?

Unfortunately, there are many, all tied to the pace of the industry and rigor of management roles. Eliminating them starts by addressing the primary one.

I’ve had the privilege of sitting in some key offices, such as Michael Cancelliere’s (Navistar’s President of Truck & Parts), Principals, and key OE personnel (both auto and truck). A common denominator is the number of books on their shelves—sales, leadership, management, success, and business books. Unlike you, whose shelves I suspect contain many such books, a fair number of these people seem to believe that all staff share their same drive for success, as well as knowing where to go for resources, such as books. They don’t always realize, as you do, that is simply not the case.

I’ve never seen books on learning and development, training a team, managing managers, or HR in any of the aforementioned offices. While I wouldn’t expect dealers to hire for those roles, they would be wise to expose themselves to such knowledge, in order to provide their teams with the soft skills training resources they need to succeed, much as you do.

You mentioned you like hitting lots of seminars. I’m a fan of speaking at such events, find them fun, collaborative, and always learn much, myself. Years ago, an owner of an outbound call center selling radio airtime made an interesting point about seminars to me, as we sat in his office:

“You know why you’re hear today, talking to me about training my team? I bought this company 6 months ago and the previous owner gave me a list of seminars he sent his people to. You know what sending staff to seminars tells me? It tells me that I’m sending them out for the training I should be providing here. It’s expensive, it’s inconsistent—I have no way of knowing that the seminar I send someone to today gets the same messaging as someone I send to that exact same seminar in two months—and my floor’s not operating at capacity. Seminars are great for exposure to new concepts and thinking outside the box. I’m a big believer in them as a reward for staff doing a good job. But they won’t provide the training I need and were never intended to. So, what are you going to do for my team that seminars can’t?”

I think more dealers and OE’s need to think like that owner.

9. If you could go back and add three items to the book, what would they be, if any?

I wouldn’t. You have to save something for the sequel…

10. Anything we haven’t discussed you’d like to discuss?

While I was at Navistar, I kept hearing, “We are behind in people development. We are behind auto, who is behind everyone else.” True? Don’t know; don’t care. I simply want a narrative for both industries of, “We are ahead in people development.” I’ve never met a more deserving group. Having created a number of sales bootcamps for software companies, who everyone seems to think Millennials and iGen (22 years and younger) are so eager to work for, I can tell you it isn’t true; more members from these generations than any other favor experience and good health as top priorities. They fully realize that sitting behind a computer screen isn’t conducive to either. IT, though, understands and utilizes the message of “career development” to hire these groups. We can frame a message of walking around, getting exercise, meeting people, and learning skills that can be utilized anywhere in North America—find a place on a map where there isn’t a dealer, shop, OE, or supplier within 30 miles. Yet, we continue to let IT kick our ass with messaging, even though most software companies don’t offer career development—they just use that messaging because they understand its value.

This is why my company, GPA Training, has created a soft skills development program for every customer-facing role in a dealership, up through management training. The curriculum is the entire 20-years worth of GPA content I’ve created for live trainings in eLearning, which can be viewed and tracked with or without an LMS, on computer or mobile device. There are even free apps to support the content, which can also be utilized in conjunction with the book. I encourage both dealers and OE’s to check it out at www.gpatrain.com, where 8 modules can be viewed as samples. Few, if any industries, can make that claim, and it handles a number of training challenges, while appealing to Millennials and iGen, who want such development, preferably available in said technology.

In fact, since building it, I’ve had 2 software companies, a publicly traded food corporation, an insurance company and a hardware chain connect with me about building similar programs for them.

Anyone who uses the curriculum can rightly claim, “We are ahead in people development.”

If you think selling is hard try being a professional stand up comedian!  When I first connected with Ian Coburn, I knew immediately that he was intelligent with a great sense of humour.  This isn’t uncommon since there is a strong link between the two traits.  My respect and admiration for the success that Ian has had in sales and comedy increased immensely after reading his book and going through this interview.

In his book “The Customer is NEVER Right: Sell More Trucks, Cars, Buses, Parts . . . Anything in One Month”, Ian shares strategies that led to an impressive career off the stage in areas such as Leadership, Sales, Speaking Internationally, and Training.

I’m not a fan of fluff and I find it frustrating when authors only give what I call “surface value” instead of going deep and providing the real value which is the How.  Ian’s book is the epitome of a how-to sales strategy book. There are real strategies that will generate real results based on personal experience.  To further drive this point home, Ian provides over 50 pages of real sales scenarios in table formats, so the reader can easily follow which techniques taught are being utilized at the given moment.

Ian’s been through the trenches with us and knows what it takes to succeed.  He’s found ways to speed up the sales process while still providing excellent value and customer service. A true win/win scenario. 

I was intrigued by the title of his book and had to find out more.  Here is an interview that we did together recently.

Enjoy!

Part 1 of 2:

1. You seem to write fast which I like because it indicates that you want to get straight to the point and add value to the reader. Are you the same in life as you are as an author? Is this the style you use in sales?

Like most of us these days, I seem to always be doing 16 things at once. As a comedian, no matter the situation, I learned to “flip the switch” when I walked onto stage. I was once told, as the emcee was literally bringing me up on stage, that a good comedian friend of mine had killed his father and committed suicide the previous day. I walked on stage, in shock, and had a great set, because that’s what the audience deserved… nothing less than 100% of me. Comedy ingrained that trait in me. So when I’m writing, speaking, training or selling, I’m 100% focused because the reader, audience, trainees and customer all deserve that 100%. I’m flattered for the opportunity they give me and I’m careful to respect that opportunity. At the same time, I’m cognizant that another customer is waiting, I have to wrap up the chapter because I have to rehearse a speech, etc, so I’ve learned to draw out the value, quickly, without making people feel like I’m rushing. In sales, it essentially amounts to controlling the conversation, which is why I share techniques for doing just that in the book. So I “flip that switch” numerous times, daily.

2. There was clearly a lot of work and experience needed to write your book. Can you tell us a bit about your career experience and what gives you the creditability to talk in detail about the strategies you provide?

Instead of talking about my success, which I do share and highlight at times in the book because that credibility is important, I’ll share success of a few people who implemented GPA:

1st Person: Brandon was hired by Navistar in 2017, as regional parts sales manager for a section of the Midwest that was greatly underperforming. For the fiscal year of 2018, his dealerships were 104% to target, 4th best in the company. He surpassed peers who had been in the same role for up to 23 years. He flattered me by crediting his success to “being able to create business plans and implementing GPA with all his dealers.” Brandon graciously provided one of the testimonials at the back of the book and on my site, www.gpatrain.com.

2nd Person: PJ was hired by an 87-location chiropractic organization to schedule appointments for prospects at their clinics. She was to do this by working a display in grocery stores, at banks, during 5K races, at the zoo; practically anywhere. After going through the GPA training I created for the company, as part of their one-week long sales training, she became a top producer in her 2nd month on the job. We had been waiting to see which sales rep would be the one to break the 100-patient barrier—i.e. schedule 100 patients who showed at clinics in one month. New hires had been coming out of the gate much stronger than predecessors who had not taken GPA, but no one anticipated a new hire would be the one to break the barrier. In her 3rd month, PJ scheduled 113 patients who showed (amounting to $11K+ in bonus for the month for her). When relaying how she did it to the team, she noted (which is word-for-word the credo of GPA), “Guys, I’ll I’m doing is having a conversation. That’s all I’m doing. Really.”

3rd Person: Fleet contracts are confidential, so names can’t be shared. As you know, in the book I introduce staple questions (questions we come up with that we want to ask every customer). The one we ask regardless of industry, as our last question, is “Is there anything we haven’t discussed that you think I should know?”

A sales rep asked this question to a fleet VP, who responded, “Yes, I’m going on vacation next Thursday for two weeks and I’d like to have this contract wrapped up by then so that I don’t have to think about this on my trip. It’s been a real pain in the butt.”

The rep fast tracked his $2 million proposal and sent it to the VP. It wasn’t the lowest-priced plan and he didn’t offer the best vehicles; however, it was the only proposal that got to the VP before his trip. He signed it and two months later, it grew into an annual, $90 million contract.

This story is great example of why it’s important to identify our customer’s “Why;” in this case, it wasn’t getting the best deal or product; it was getting the deal done before vacation. Personal “Why’s” almost always move someone to action over business “Why’s.”    

3. Your title is intriguing as it indicates the opposite of what has been engrained in our industry. What made you go with that title?

It’s simply true. Customer’s don’t know our product or have our knowledge; rather, they know what they want, why they want it, and what they intend to do with it. They need us to determine what product or service we offer to best achieve those goals. People don’t pay us for our products, parts or service; they pay us for our expertise. We offer that expertise by asking them questions then selling them what best provides the solution to what they tell us. It’s also somewhat catchy for marketing.

Ian’s Brief Bio: A bar-setting sales rep who has added nearly 20 years of sales and soft skills training, as well as learning and development acumen, to his experience. In 2016, he was hired by Navistar to oversee training for their 700+ dealerships. These dealers quickly found an advocate in Ian. He has since gone out to train and serve both auto and truck dealers on his own. GPA Training is the methodology he developed and shares in his book.

4. If a reader could only take away one piece of knowledge from your book, what do you want it to be?

You must turn the knowledge into habit for it, or anything else learned in life, to work. Generally, that means you must religiously practice any technique learned for one straight month. Typically, after one month, the habit is formed, and you implement it without having to think about doing so. That month is the hardest part. PUSH THROUGH THAT MONTH!

Think about a time when you changed your DMS. Did you find yourself cursing under your breath because you, say, kept hitting the ESC key, something you had to do in your last DMS, which serves only to cause your new DMS to beep at you? That’s because hitting the ESC key is habit; eventually, the new DMS creates new habit in you because hitting the ESC key is fruitless.

With soft skills, it is typically up to us to create the habit; customers won’t beep at us! So, again, PUSH THROUGH THAT MONTH!

5. Why did you write the book, was it as challenging as you expected, and what do you have to say that is different from what has already been written?

I had been looking for a niche industry in which to release a sales book and found auto and truck to be full of genuine, friendly, hardworking people. At the same time, I found auto and truck to be lacking soft skills training that many other industries require before you can even speak to a customer, so it was a good fit. I simply want to offer whatever help I can, and a book is a great vehicle for extending timely reach. Additionally, I formatted it to be an easy coaching tool. I have several clients who review content as part of their team meetings. Finally, I utilize learning and development techniques in framing the delivery of the content, which typically isn’t done in auto or truck.

While the process was fun, it was also grueling, mostly because every time you think you’re done, you think of one more thing to add or someone finds one more error to fix...