“This is the way we’ve always done it and it’s worked” – Does this mean there is no room for improvement?

“He’s an 8 car guy” – Does this mean he doesn’t have room to grow?

“I’ll never be able to sell 15 units in a month” – If you convince yourself of this, you are most certainly correct

“We have top, middle, and bottom salespeople” – Why can’t they all be top Salespeople?  Can you honestly say you’ve invested fairly in your bottom and middle-performing Salespeople to give them the appropriate opportunity to develop into top Salespeople?

“We already have good salespeople that are reaching their potential” – Do you invest in the same amount of training and development in your bottom, middle (good), and top salespeople, or just a select few?

Have you heard or been guilty of saying any of the aforementioned statements?  I know I have both said and heard them at various dealerships.  The italicized statements come from a fixed mindset.  The bolded answers come from a growth mindset.

The worst trap for Sales Consultants and Managers is a fixed mindset rather than being in a growth mindset.  Fixed mindsets accept things for what they are.  They believe that the 8 car guy will always be an 8 car guy.  They have a fair balance between the bottom (6-8 cars), middle (9-13) and top (14+) performing sales consultants rather than looking at it as an opportunity to grow each consultant into a top-performing one.

“Success is 80% psychological and 20% skill” – Tony Robbins. 

We are guilty and easily influenced by investing in the 20% because that’s what is being offered to us on a regular basis.  It’s rare to find an Automotive Sales Training program that focuses on the 80% of your success. 

Maybe it’s time we shifted our focus from the 20% traditional sales training and development to the 80% and begin investing in personal development, mental strength, and healthy habits.

I wonder what would happen to our Sales performance if we actually invested 80% of our training and development budget into personal development versus sales strategies. 

​​​​​​​

Are there any dealers out there currently taking this approach?

And how much are you investing in training relative to your advertising and marketing budget?

Hello all, here is my latest full-page article in the Canadian AutoWorld Magazine on Page 16, hope you enjoy! 

Make it a great day!

Brandin

If you wanted to reach out to mentors and start communicating with them online, there are 2 resources I’ll recommend you use.  One is from an online course called “Experts Academy” by Brendon Burchard – https://brendon.mykajabi.com/p/expertsacademy and the other is from James Altucher -https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ultimate-guide-finding-mentor-james-altucher.  Both of which will give you the starting point needed to open up a relationship with someone you admire. 

Here is an email excerpt from Brendon Burchard’s course that will help you reach out to potential mentors;

“Dear _________, I'm writing to thank you for all you do to help people and to ask if I could help promote your message and business to my circle of influence.  Is there anything specific you're doing now that you're trying to promote?  I'm a big fan of your _______ (book, course, message, work, sales style, etc.) I particularly like your message about ______.  I thought I'd share your message to my audience even if it's not as big as yours.  I help people _______.  Thank you again for all you do.  Please let me know what you'd like me to tell my audience about and how I can help.”

I used this template as a guide, tweaked it a bit, and received responses from people I admire such as Duane Marino, Jay Samit, and Paul Cummings.  All of whom replied and I continue to support and communicate with to this day.  Have the confidence to put yourself out there, we all have value we can provide to others.

Here is a summary of James Alutcher’s article on finding Mentors;

• Try to learn from everyone
• James has mentors from age 20 to 80
• Learning never stops
• Do heavy research on Biographies and Articles on your potential mentors
• Provide them value through advice
• Quantity matters
• Make yourself available to them
• Have diversity in your mentorship portfolio
• If you can’t get mentored, read their books, watch their interviews
• Drive business their way
• Over-deliver on everything
• It’s ok to have a mentor for a day, one meeting can be enough to set you on the right path
• The best mentorships take a lot of time to cement
• Your legacy is not what you do, it’s what the people you teach do

Implementing new habits and behavior takes time, be patient with the results.  If you’re starting to emulate and put into practice the advice you receive from your mentors but don’t see results in the first month, don’t panic or quit on them, or on you.  Remember that this is a perpetual investment in yourself.  A pursuit to self-mastery requires patience and understanding that you may never actually accomplish mastering yourself.  But that’s ok, because when you’re time comes, you’ll know you didn’t leave anything on the table and lived to your fullest purpose.

One of the biggest mistakes I made was not taking mentorship seriously and leveraging the opportunity that we have now with the amount of free content that’s available to us.  For example, on my commute to work, which was 30 minutes one way, I would listen to music instead of podcasts and audiobooks.  I’m not saying you have to dedicate 100% of your time in the vehicle to listening education, but having said that, “you might as well be doing something while you’re doing nothing.” – Uncle Rico, Napoleon Dynamite.

 I took on the challenge of listening to the mammoth of a book “Money: Master the Game” by Tony Robbins which is a 21 hour listen on detailed financing and investment strategies.  It took even longer because anytime I would hear something of value or wanted to take note of, I would pause the audio book, listen to what Tony was saying again, and put that information into my Evernote.  But I wouldn’t suggest going this hardcore right away.  And if you’re not an avid book reader, but are open to listening to audiobooks, I’d recommend starting off with fun and easy non-fiction story-telling books like “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki and “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight which is the Nike story and one of my personal favorites.

• 3 Broken Collarbones

• 2 Concussions

• 1 Broken Jaw

• 1 Broken Wrist

• Multiple torn ligaments and muscles

From the age of 13 to 17, you could say I had a bit of a rough go with hockey injuries. In my first year of full body contact at 13 years old, I broke my left collarbone at the start of the year and my right one at the end of the year. Part of the reason was lack of strength, but the main reason was that I was scared of getting hit, which, as any hockey player can relate, makes you more susceptible to injury.

What’s interesting is when I turned 18, I started playing hockey against men, and for 13 years, never had another hockey injury. I got hurt but never injured. My mindset changed. I knew that in order to keep up and earn my spot on the team, I would have to prove I could play with the big boys. I went from being an offensive-defenceman to a defensive-defenceman. I started to embrace going into the corners, and in fact, looked forward to going into battle.

While on the bench waiting for my next shift, I would run this thought through my head;

“What’s the worst things that could happen? Will I die? No. Will I get injured? Unlikely. Will I get hurt? Possibly. Is this something I have to do for my team? No question.”

This self-talk is the strategy I would use to take hits and start dishing out hits. I started coming out of the corners with the puck and making that all-important first pass out of the zone to relieve our goaltender and help give our forwards the best opportunity to succeed up front.

Once I saw success on the ice with this type of self-talk, I started to translate it into business. Taking on challenges and intentionally putting myself into uncomfortable situations because I knew the benefits that could come of it.

“What’s the worst that can happen if I ask for the sale? They say no. Big deal, learn from it and improve your questions that will lead to getting more yes’.”

“What’s the worst that can happen when I cold-call this person? They hang up. What’s the best thing that can happen? They come in for an appointment and it leads to a sale.”

“What’s the worst that can happen if I ask for a referral? They say no. That means I didn’t do my job effectively and it opens an opportunity to ask how I could improve. What’s the best that can happen? They are more than happy to share their experience and send their friends and family my way.”

The higher quality questions you ask yourself, the better answers you will get. Don’t be afraid of getting outside of your comfort zone and “going into the corners”. Although it may seem intimidating at first, you’ll come out a stronger player and further be able to help your team succeed.

I’m assuming you don’t have the time to devote 80% of your day to reading the way Warren Buffett does.

So how do you make the most of the limited time you have to read?

Here’s the system I’ve been using and have found to be extremely effective;

Read 1 book every 2 weeks:

o Average book I read is 300 pages

o Reading speed is 1 page per minute

o Read 22 pages per day

o Take notes and highlight key points

Review 1 hour every other Sunday:

o Review the notes and key points you highlighted

o Transfer those notes into Evernote for future reference

o Take 1 day during Christmas / New Years Break to Review your favorite books from the year

Repeat:

o Repeat and stay committed

o Read 26 Books / Year

o Review is crucial

The key is to make reading 20 – 25 minutes per day a habit. From there, reviewing the information you took in is essential to implementation. We forget 80% of the information we take in within a 48 hour time period. Take notes, highlight key points, review, and implement!

I feel like as Dealers, we can sometimes be our own worst enemy. We’re hardly even trying anymore with the human connection. 

I’m sent an automated email saying “I’m important” and “only I will receive exclusive offers.”  And they said “you are receiving this email because you either inquired about or purchased a vehicle.” If I’m important, shouldn’t you know the answer to that? 

Since I own a Chrysler dealership, I likely wasn’t inquiring about a vehicle or bought one there. What I did do was inquire about winter tires a few months back, and never did get a reply... until now. Still waiting on that quote! I did try calling the dealership but after the 3rd prompt to talk with a human I gave up. 

Once I clicked the unsubscribe link, they will graciously remove me from their mailing list within 10 days from now. 

Is there not a better alternative? How can you say you care about your clients with an automated email and prompts to go through when clients call your dealership? 

In my opinion, sending automated messages like this means you’re in the finite game, not the infinite game. And infinite game players always win. 

Ok, I know this will be controversial.  What are your thoughts on the following;

At 22 years old, with no cell phone, sales experience, or connections in the industry, I started a journey that continues today.  When I gave my 2-week notice building 400 barrel oil tanks at Ranchers Welding, I actually asked my boss if things didn’t work out in the first month of sales, could I have my job back.  After he finished laughing, he said: “yes of course, but I think you’ll do fine.”  With an obligation to the Managers who hired me, great mentorship from Troy, whom I’ll forever be grateful for, and a work ethic that separated me from others, I was able to find success in Sales and my passion.

The work ethic is what rapidly sped up my success in Sales.  Because I viewed Sales as my own business and seeing first-hand from my family what it takes to operate and sustain a successful business, I knew that work ethic was going to be crucial to have a lasting career.  The bonus was I truly enjoyed what I was doing and who I was working with, which made the long hours feel less like work and more like being at my home away from home.  Getting up at 6:00am and getting home from work at 7:00pm, 6 days a week was normal.  There were nights when I was home at 10:30pm and times when I went in on Sundays.  It’s absolutely necessary, in my opinion, that in order to build a successful business for the long-term, you must be willing to put the work in during the early years.

What I found was after the 2-year mark, I was starting to spend less time at the dealership but making more sales.  The referrals and repeat business started coming in and only then did I realize the power of personal branding and relationship based selling.  It’s imperative to have a supportive team around you while going through this journey.  Without my “Silent Partners”, there is no way I would have had the level of success I did.  Building a business is stressful, hard, exhausting, yet exhilarating, fun, and fulfilling, sometimes all of this on a daily basis!

The ReThink Selling Value Model I put together with my Business Development Coach shows the commitment it takes to build a long-term, successful business.  The value is in trading time at the beginning of your sales career with lower sales for higher sales volume over the long-term, eventually being able to work fewer hours while increasing your sales. 

Would you agree or disagree with this concept?

Are you a Newbie, Pro, Rockstar?

What level is each of your Sales Consultants at?

Where do you want to be and how quick do you want to get there?

Are you disciplined enough to commit to reaching your potential?

To me, we all have the ability to be Rockstars.  If someone else can do it, why can't you?

Looking forward to feedback on this, make it a great day!

We all know the value of personal branding, but sometimes it's hard to know where to start or what all is involved with personal branding. 

Here is an article I came across on Entrepreneur.com that list the Top 10 Personal Branding Experts to follow in 2018.  A great article to use yourself and to share with your fellow Entrepreneurs (Sales Consultants).

Make it a great day!

I've updated "The Perennial Sales Starter Kit" on my new website. Here, you'll learn from the best in multiple industries, the brilliant Jay Samit, humorously effective development coach Brendon Burchard, the best Sales Trainer in Canada Duane EN Marino, insanely hard-working Tom Bilyeu, influential entrepreneur Marie Forleo International, financial guru Ray Dalio, plus links to other high achievers and resources that will help you with marketing, sales, health & fitness, entrepreneurship, and personal branding.  

And I've included 7 Apps that you must download today if you're in business! This information is all in a simple blog post for you to use and share. Leverage the invaluable free content that's available to us!

  Intrinsic motivation gives you the power to remove intimidation, help you discover your purpose, be an inspiration to others, and become fulfilled amongst many other benefits.

Here is a 10-Step Guide to Discovering Your Intrinsic Motivation;

1. Have a Higher Purpose – “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” – Mark Twain. There are 4 events in my life that led to having a higher purpose and creating a perpetual drive to leave a legacy. They were the day I got married, the day our son was born, the day our daughter was born, and the Tony Robbins UPW Event that I attended. What’s your higher purpose?

2. Perception – “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau. The way you view situations has a massive impact on motivation. This is why it’s so important to have a growth mindset. If you perceive a failure as a stepping stone, you’re going to be able to launch yourself further down your journey as opposed to viewing it as a permanent setback. How are you learning not only from your situation but those around you as well?

3. Wolf-Pack – “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with” – Jim Rohn. Who you spend time with matters. This doesn’t necessarily mean who you spend time with in person, it means who you spend time with in general. I hang out with Tony Robbins, Jay Abraham, Brendon Burchard, Stephanie Wilkinson, and Tom Bilyeu every day. These are my influencers and people I want to model myself after. Surround yourself with people that will lift your spirits, encourage development, celebrate your successes, and help you learn from your failures. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Are they helping you grow or holding you back?

4. Begin with the end in mind – “To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.” – Stephen R. Covey. Seeing your goals laid out through vision boards, phone reminders, and journaling will help you stay motivated. Work your goals starting with the end in mind. Where do you see yourself at retirement? What impacts will you have made? How will people view your legacy?

5. Progress Daily – “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” – Benjamin Franklin. Success comes down to having an obsession with everlasting self-development. Small progression is all it takes to sustain momentum. Think 1% daily improvements. Read 25 pages of a book, watch an interview on YouTube (Impact Theory), listen to informative Podcasts, be observant and learn from your mistakes and others mistakes. What are you doing today that allowed you to develop and progress? What are you going to do tomorrow?

6. Be Inspirational – “Make your life a masterpiece; imagine no limitations on what you can be, have or do.” – Brian Tracy. You have the power to influence and inspire others through your actions. It’s an empowering feeling to know that the improvements you’ve made in your life on a continuous basis have a direct impact on those closest to you. They feed off your energy! Be an inspiration through your actions, not your words. How are you holding yourself accountable for daily improvements?

7. Self-Competition – “I’m not in competition with anybody but myself. My goal is to beat my last performance.” – Celine Dion. Be better than you were yesterday in some area of your life. This could be at closing the sale, asking qualifying questions, your attitude when things didn’t go your way, how you leave others feeling after a conversation, etc. If you sold 3 vehicles yesterday, or 20 units this month, take note of what contributed to a successful day or month. Having the mindset that you’re coming in today to compete against who you were yesterday or what you did last month gives you an added boost coming into the office. How are you going to beat yesterday’s and last month’s performance?

8. Prioritize Education – “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela. Books, videos, articles, online courses, seminars, mentors, are all educational tools you have at your disposal. The amount of free education you have at your fingertips is truly mind-boggling, yet we use our phones more for addictive games or social media than we do education. Start making education a priority. Were your appointment numbers low last month? Focus on “Setting Appointments” educational content this month and make it a priority. Did you struggle to close the sale? Read up on “closing techniques” or “SPIN selling”. Were you low on energy most days? Study “Natural energy boosters” and research strategies online.

9. Be Passionately Curious – “I have no talents. I am only passionately curious.” – Albert Einstein. No one would argue that Albert Einstein wasn’t in it for the money. He had a deeper sense of purpose. The reason why curiosity is so powerful is because you’re constantly asking questions to yourself and others. When you ask questions, you get answers and gain knowledge. We tell our employees and children to never be afraid to ask questions, my recommendation is to have enough humility to incorporate this habit yourself. Begin to ask why a lot more! Don’t let someone give you a surface answer, have them dive deeper by asking more Why questions.

10. Fulfillment – “If you want to feel happy, do something for yourself. If you want to feel fulfilled, do something for others.” – Simon Sinek. The message Simon is sending is to not confuse happiness with fulfillment because happiness is short-term and only a surface feeling, where fulfillment runs deeper and is everlasting. Happiness comes from what we do where fulfillment comes from why we do it. Can you answer this question with a true sense of fulfillment…. Why are you in Sales?

To be clear, having the ability to stay in a peak state of mind 24/7 is near impossible. The goal here is to be realistic and provide actionable steps to help you control the emotional roller coaster that is sales and way of life of an entrepreneur, which you are. When first impressions and relationship building are pivotal to your success, it’s in your best interest to love who you are or at the very least, love who you’re becoming.