Stop your hand wringing about the swine flu. Set aside your concern about ebola. Worry not about anthrax. Malaria? Don't lose one minute of sleep thinking about it. NADA? Well, that's entirely another matter, a grave development meriting the attention of automotive dealer principals nationwide and perhaps even internationally from Andorra to Zambia.

I know exactly what you're thinking. NADA is the glue that holds us all together. NADA watches out for us in the halls of Congress. NADA is our industry's NFL and we are coaches and players on thousands of teams scattered all across the country. The NADA annual convention is a must attend affair. NADA is the fabric of automotive commerce in our great nation. NADA is our collective strength in the midst of the storm. NADA is our past, our present and our future.

Well, I have news for you. NADA is a cancer. NADA is a plague. NADA is a virus. NADA creeps stealthily into the air of automotive dealerships worldwide and takes an enormous toll on gross profit. (No, not the NADA that you know so well and appreciate so much. Not that supportive NADA.) Let me explain.

The beautiful, elegant and simple Spanish language, a gift to all mankind, employs the four letter pronoun NADA to mean "nothing." As in not anything. Zero. Zilch. Zippo. The big goose egg. Emptiness. Lack of content. Lack of motion. Lack of progress. Lack of happening. Lack of occurrence. Lack of results. You get the picture.

Interestingly, NADA (the Spanish pronoun) is known, recognized and spoken frequently throughout the English speaking world. It's noteworthy that persons who do not speak one word of the Spanish language often use the Spanish pronoun NADA in their daily conversations. Yet, what begins as a perfectly innocent habit can morph into a destructive disease.

One does not have to be a degreed disease tracker at the CDC to see how the insidious NADA virus wreaks havoc on showroom floors and at service and parts counters in automotive dealerships everywhere. Infected employees will attempt to disguise their symptoms by using the English word "nothing" to mask the reality that the NADA virus has penetrated deep into their brains and central nervous systems.

CDC specialists assigned to monitor the status of the NADA virus outbreak in the automotive industry have advised dealer principals, general managers, general sales managers, Internet sales managers and service managers to listen for spreading use of the following verbal expressions. Such verbalizations usually indicate a palpable degree of NADA virus infection.

- I've got nothing going on today.

- There's nothing happening right now.

- My customer is doing nothing.

- I have nothing on the board.

- The current incentives mean nothing.

- This month is a big bunch of nothing.

- This is a nothing job.

- Selling cars is a nothing career.

- I show up for work. I get nothing.

- Nothing ever happens during my shift.

You won't notice feverish brows, nausea, shaking extremities or transient vertigo when the NADA virus strikes your dealerships' employees. What you will hear is frequent conversational use of the pronouns "nothing" (English) or "nada" (Spanish) in all departments. What to do?

Alert your managers muy pronto. Hold off for now on calling in the local Fire Department's Hazmat Team in their biohazard suits. LBWA. Lead by walking around. Be silent. Listen. Carefully. The NADA virus is there. Right next to you. The degree of infection depends on the competence and persistence of your management team. Application of bleach won't help kill the NADA virus. Nor will frequent use of anti-viral sprays.

The only known NADA virus killer also comes to us from the Spanish language. It's the pronoun ALGO, (the opposite of NADA), meaning "something." Because there's always SOMETHING happening. All the time. 24 x7. The Spanish pronoun A-L-G-O could also stand for (in English), "Always Look (for) Golden Opportunities."

Encourage your team to embrace an ALGO attitude today, and the dreaded NADA virus will soon be a totally eradicated threat to gross profit. Months from now, you may even enjoy laughing about the NADA virus when you attend the (other) vitally important NADA annual convention in early 2010!

Christopher Ferris   c 603.233.8759   ferriscc@comcast.net

www.drivingsales.com/blog/chrisferris

Heads up, dealer principals, general managers, general sales managers, Internet sales managers and sales consultants! Double check your battle rattle. Be sure you are good to go. An operations order will be issued before sunset. Tomorrow morning? Raid time.

Here's the good news: it's not a suicide mission. Here's the bad news: Chuck Norris has sent his regrets and will be unable to participate. That's unfortunate. Mr. Norris would be a great guy to have by one's side when confronting the enemy. All one would have to do is point at Chuck, turn to the approaching enemy, and say, "I'm with him!" It is likely that the enemy would either surrender on the spot or flee in terror. Reputation can indeed be a fearsome weapon.

You will get detailed information on the planning and conduct of the raid during the review of the operations order, but here's the gist of it, and it isn't pretty.

Reliable intelligence assets report that you have various personnel in your organization who are "missing in slacktion" or who are being held as prisoners of war.

I know what you're thinking, "Gee, I didn't know that any members of my team had traveled lately to the forests of Cuba or to the mountains of North Korea." Don't sweat it. During this particular raid mission, if you are captured, you won't be smoking cigars with Fidel Castro or watching adult rated films with Kim Jong Il before you get shipped off to prisons that will not be rated as five star resorts in travel guides.

You see, this particular raid requires you only to penetrate deep into your own brain, to analyze what you find when you reach your objective, and to liberate any imprisoned, forward-thinking, future-focused attitude that has been "missing in slacktion" since last year's Wall Street debacle.

Seriously, during the past six months, have you or your valued team members been "missing in slacktion" psychologically at any time?

Similarly, have you or your valued team members been held as prisoners of war (in your own minds) by your own views of and reactions to the unwinding of the economy around you?

Have either strategic or tactical stressors caused you or your fellow automotive industry professionals to say or think, on a frequent basis, "Hey, just cut me some slack!", because negative external events are not your fault and are well beyond your control?

Have you ever noticed that some of your beaten-down team members' body language has often sent an unintended message: "Chuck Norris, where are you when we need you to rescue us?"

What to do? How to react? Where now?

Go. Go for it. Go in deep. Go in fast. Go in hard. Open up the cages inside your mind. Free the "missing in slacktion" part of your brain. Liberate your positive attitude from its prison cell. Permanently. Ask your peers, colleagues, team members and twenty group participants to do the same. On a daily basis.

Cut yourself zero slack. Defy defeat. Endure stoically the pain of temporary economic wounds. Fight failure. Laugh at adversity. Relish hardship. Seize success. Never surrender. No matter what happens. Be relentless. The worse it gets, the better you must get. Shoot, move and communicate. And do it with courage, precision and speed. Because there's no second place winner.

Consider this. You're proud to be an automotive industry retail "raider", and there's no government-appointed "car czar in a zoot suit" who knows more about running your business than you do. Nobody can take your accomplishments and your unique skill set away from you. Not ever.

So, what about you, then? Missing in slacktion? I am betting that your confident answer will be, "Not a chance!" You will be rocking the house big time after you return from this raid. Enjoy the round trip helicopter ride. But, try to conserve ammo, por favor. Brass is outrageously expensive these days.

Christopher Ferris   c 603.233.8759   ferriscc@comcast.net

www.drivingsales.com/blog/chrisferris

Last Easter Sunday, three AK-47 wielding Somali pirates were threatening the life of U.S. Merchant Marine Captain and Vermonter Richard Phillips, whom they were holding at gunpoint in a lifeboat. That reckless decision on the pirates' part turned out to be an extremely bad career move.

Let's just say that staffing managers at Blackhawk Down Employment Services in downtown Mogadishu need not be looking for any more inbound e-mails or resumes from those three job-hunting pirates, thanks to the outstanding marksmanship skills of three intrepid U.S. Navy SEALs who got the green light to drop the hammer on the modern day Blackbeards. The U.S. armed forces sent an unambiguous message to Captain Phillips (who was "in extremis"): "We've got your back." As for the pirates, the message was, "AMF", and that doesn't stand for American Military Forces.

Tight 360 is a term used in the military to denote a formation in which a small group of armed combatants forms a "back to back" perimeter to afford a 360 degree view of the surrounding area ... and approaching enemy forces or otherwise unknown individuals.

Please understand that Tight 360 is not just a formation, it's an attitude, it's a philosophy, it's a way of life. You've either got it ... or not. There's no "sort of" or "half baked" or "a little bit" or "maybe" in Tight 360 land. It's yea or nay. It's yes or no. It's a black and white issue, a thumbs up or thumbs down answer, without equivocation or hand wringing or political wind testing. How remarkable and refreshing in today's world of moral relativism and constantly moving goal posts.

When the sierra hits the fan, Tight 360ers take it in stride and smile. When audacity is required in the execution of a risky business operation, Tight 360ers step forward to say, "We're in!" When average Joes and Janes stampede headlong for the company's exit ramp in an emergency, Tight 360ers remain behind to coordinate and implement a contingency plan that assures continuity and maximizes stability under the daunting circumstances of the moment.

What's the Tight 360 factor in your company, in your dealership, in your family, in your group of closest friends? It's a question well worth asking and answering before the (next) Perfect Storm, whatever it may be, comes out of nowhere and threatens to sink your own "Andrea Gail" with the loss of all hands. Don't let that happen. Live the Tight 360 life. Starting today.

Christopher Ferris   c 603.233.8759   ferriscc@comcast.net

 www.drivingsales.com/blog/chrisferris

 "The Gauntlet"

During the 18th century, visitors to Abenaki Motors’ showrooms in the northeastern USA often encountered stressful shopping experiences. The reins of each customer’s equine trade were routinely tossed onto the roof of a village lodging hut after the used horse manager had taken Sea Biscuit for a quick spin around the forest. Before each customer could state the current status of his search for new transportation, he was most often forced to run the “gauntlet”, which race entailed jogging between two long lines of Abenaki braves armed with war clubs.

As the anxious customer reflexively raised his arms to protect himself during this dealership-mandated run, he was whacked in sequence by “Meet and Greet” (the chief’s favorite son), “Trade Appraisal”, “Early T.O.” (the chief’s wife’s second cousin), “Demo Drive”, “Write Up”, “After Seller” and “Closing Champ”, just to name a few of the gauntlet’s key participants. Most customers who survived this type of gauntlet run signed a P & S and took delivery, just to escape with their lives. They were often too exhausted to care that the Abenaki Motors’ back office, working in harmony with “Closing Champ”, routinely diverted factory CSI surveys to a post office box owned by Early T.O.’s brother-in-law. (What a system! What the heck, it put horses on the board, right?)

Fast forward to Clint Eastwood’s classic 1977 film “The Gauntlet”, in which he starred as a police officer tasked with shepherding a star witness (actress Sondra Locke) from Las Vegas to Phoenix. Attacked along the way by mobsters, bad cops, good cops, a biker gang and a corrupt police commissioner, Eastwood and Locke ran a 20th century gauntlet and got shot to pieces in the process. Of course, the thousands of rounds of ammunition expended by good and bad guys failed to knock down the heroic Eastwood and his female witness. In the end, Eastwood and Locke prevailed. However, one wonders how Eastwood and Locke would fare in a modern day auto dealership’s showroom.

Consider for a moment that the current, well established “road to the sale” process makes excellent business sense from an internal industry perspective, but that many customers regard this process as something both mysterious and nausea-inducing at the same time.

How many times has one of your dealership’s well meaning modern day gauntleteers, probably either “New Bee” or “Burned Out”, said to a fresh showroom customer, “Hey, we got this system here, so I gotta put you into a computer first, or my boss is gonna make me recon canoes for auction, understand?” or “Hey, what’s your e-mail address? My boss makes us ask everybody, but you don’t have to give it to me right now, you can give it to me later along with your cell phone number after we have tortured you for a while. Speaking of torture, we offer complimentary water boarding as part of our elite VIP package, and the after effects are fully covered under warranty for four years!”

Don’t laugh. Well, you may chuckle softly if you so desire. But as you do so, admit that there are many customers who consider entering a dealer’s showroom to be a fate almost worse than death. These customers sense that they are going to be compelled to endure pain in order to effect the purchase and delivery of a new or pre-owned vehicle of their choice. Yes, the perception out there is that a gauntlet of some form, shape or type still exists in every dealer’s showroom.

Why? Because some “modern” dealers, closet fans of the cool 1987 science-fiction film “The Running Man” (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger), may prefer to load their stunned showroom customers into bobsleds (see photo below) and rocket them at neck-snapping speed into the clutches of Buzzsaw, Fireball and Subzero, all of whom are well trained deal writers who know the exact sequence of steps that must be taken on the infamous road to the sale.

"Do you know who I am, Schwarzenegger? I starred on Hogan's Heroes!
Who do you think you are, the future Governor of California? Now, sit
still, shut up and follow our sales process! A demo drive is the next step!"

Such “modern” dealers will state, unequivocally, “Hey, we’re new school, not old school, everything is automated, our CRM tool is the best, we’re fast, we’re motivated, we’re movers, we don’t waste our customers’ time. We get it done.” (Too often, “all done”, as in “you know who won’t be coming back again” done.)

I can hear howls of (legitimate) protest from certain intelligent, savvy dealers who may rightfully maintain, “We don’t have gauntlets in our showrooms. We are modern. We are future focused. We are forward thinkers.” Fortunately, more and more progressive dealers out there truly understand the need to acknowledge customers’ real fears about our industry’s selling processes. Such reflective dealers render their internal “road to the sale” processes flexible (within reason) to meet each customer’s unique needs and thereby to exceed his expectations.

What’s the fear factor in your customers’ eyes? What’s the fear factor in your customers’ body language? What’s the fear factor in your customers’ words? Evaluate the existing “gauntlet factor” in your showroom. Be brutally honest. Check with care for the presence of hidden war clubs, Running Man bobsleds and employee attitudes that reveal enjoyment of the presence of a gauntlet of sorts. Retrain your sales team as necessary to instill a sense of clear, deep understanding about the need for consistent, inherent flexibility as customers move with either alacrity or hesitancy along the path to a new or pre-owned vehicle purchase. Get gauntlet-free. Do it today. You will be glad you did. More importantly, so will your growing, relieved customer base. The good word will spread about you. Fast.

(Special historical note to readers: this specific satirical interpretation of an Abenaki "gauntlet" does not represent a true depiction of Abenaki culture in any way. The great Abenaki nation (still existing today) pre-dated the arrival of settlers by thousands of years. Google "Abenaki" to learn more about these proud Native Americans.)

 Christopher Ferris   c 603.233.8759   ferriscc@comcast.net

 www.drivingsales.com/blog/chrisferris

I was visiting a domestic and import brand dealership located in a large metropolitan area with a diverse, changing and growing population of first, second and third generation immigrants from all over the world.

One of the youngest members of the sales team had a light skinned brown complexion, angular cheekbones and was very slim and tall. I walked up to him, introduced myself and asked him where he was from on the Horn of Africa. He beamed, shook my right hand firmly and replied proudly, “Eritrea! I will bet that you have never heard of it.” I laughed as I answered, “Well, I was going to guess that you were either Ethiopian or Somali, so I was darn close to being correct!” I told him that I was really impressed that his country had successfully fought a difficult, lengthy war of liberation against neighboring Ethiopia after having endured decades of Italian and British colonial rule. He kept smiling and invited me to sit down at his desk and to share a pot of hot tea.

As we sipped tea, he told me that he was struggling to sell low cost Korean-manufactured imports to local customers who did not seem to trust him. I asked, “Do these customers look like me in terms of my skin color?” He sheepishly replied, “Yes, one of them actually told me that I looked as if I had starred as a bad guy in the film ‘Blackhawk Down’, I was so surprised.” He expressed real anxiety that his appearance and customers’ reaction to it were limiting his ability to sell cars and support his young family.

I advised him not to worry. I put together a “google maps” war plan to help him build rapport with customers whose ancestors came to the northeastern USA from areas of the world located outside the Horn of Africa. Here were my instructions as relayed to him:

• Save “google maps” in your favorites and as a shortcut on your desktop. Keep it open and minimized at all times.

• Go on amazon.com and order a hardcover copy of Philip Caputo’s classic book, “Horn of Africa.” Keep it closed on your desk, facing your customers. (Watch how many customers pick up the book and ask you about it. Almost all of them!)

• Talk to your customers briefly about Eritrea and your heritage. Mention casually that Eritrea was an Italian colony and a British colony prior to achieving independence. Show your customers your Eritrean place of birth on “google maps” and then show them examples of Italian and British architecture in Eritrean cities on “google images.”

• Flip over to your customers. Ask open ended polite questions about their heritage and their ancestry. Ask them to sit by your side as you bring up “google maps” searches of their ancestors’ places of birth in China, England, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, etc. Bring up examples of appropriate architecture in any European or Asian cities or any countries of specific interest to them on “google images” and compare the architecture to the Italian and British architecture found in Eritrean cities.

The Eritrean salesperson took my advice and implemented this “google maps” war plan. When I followed up with him by telephone a few weeks later, he told me that he had been using “google maps” with success to break down cultural barriers that had separated his customers from him. He expressed delight that “google maps” did much of the work for him and made transitioning to talking about vehicle selection and pricing that much easier!

Yes, his closing manager, sales manager and GSM looked at him as if he had three heads and no brain, but he began to roll units with regularity (with solid CSI) to customers who, weeks before, would have been reluctant to trust him. In fact, he began to actively seek out Italian-American immigrants as customers because of the deep past Italian colonial presence in Eritrea, which fact was of interest to such customers who had no previous knowledge of it.

So, when in doubt about how to build real rapport instead of just building (mandated) fake rapport and checking a box on a GSM’s “road to the sale” checklist, just “google map” your way to gross! What you learn about your customers and vice versa during the mapping process will make you more knowledgeable about the exciting world in which we are privileged to live and you will sell and deliver more cars to customers who will tell all of their family members and friends about “google maps” … and about you!

Christopher Ferris   c 603.233.8759   ferriscc@comcast.net

www.drivingsales.com/blog/chrisferris

When the black powder cartridge smoke and plains dust had cleared and the last arrow had been launched at the Battle of the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer of the 7th Cavalry Regiment was dead, along with five companies of his command. Prominent military historians and professional students of the American West have analyzed and dissected Custer’s Last Stand ad nauseam. Bottom line: Cheyenne and Sioux American Indians had inflicted on a respected regiment of the United States Army the worst defeat in the history of the Indian Wars.

George Armstrong Custer was certainly a complex character. He was described by some correspondents of the time as arrogant, brave, egotistical, opinionated, self-centered and self-promoting. Everything was usually “all about Custer” to an extreme extent. Custer did not spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on or worrying about the opinions of his own command or about the skills of his adversaries. Having been extremely aggressive and successful as a cavalry officer in the Union Army during the Civil War, Custer carried over this same modus operandi to his campaign to subdue selected American Indian tribes living in the western United States.

Imagine for a moment if Custer had been a horse dealer and if Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull had been his customers. Custer would likely have maintained a War Department-mandated cookie cutter website subsidized entirely by the government. The website would probably have had minimal “edit by dealer” capability and would have presented to its American Indian visitors only stock information about Custer’s product line of four legged ponies. However, the site would also likely have honked the horn excessively on its home page about “the wonder of Custer” and would have let the American Indian world know how lucky it was to have had an opportunity to do business with such a super human dealer whose horse-shoeing department stayed open regularly until 4:00 p.m. every Saturday. Wow.

Fast forward to the end of the aforementioned Little Big Horn showroom battle. Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull would have logged onto regimentrater.com and would have started typing. From the botched meet and greet on June 25, 1876 all the way to the ultimate crashed deal, “Two Live Crew” Indian Chiefs (no, not the rappers) would have described how Custer’s focus on himself, his capabilities and his talents led him to ignore and consequently to show disrespect to Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and their circling horde of Internet-sourced customers. End result, to steal and tweak a title of Tag Team's smash hit rap song, “Whoomp, There It Is”: upset American Indians, subsequent deals going sideways, not to mention many troopers down for the count and bad CSI for the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry Regiment. Of course, the customers (American Indians) got blamed for the whole debacle. (Hey, that’s always the way in the car, oops, I mean the horse business!)

O.K. now, putting aside for a moment the aforementioned satirical view of an important historical event, let’s get 100% serious. What is the “Custer factor” at your dealership? Is there so much focus on how fantastic your dealership, your “process” and you are that your customers may view such love of self as over the top hype? Are you spending too much time telling your customers that you are better than other dealers instead of telling your customers that you are just like them (the customers?) Think about it.

Don’t underestimate the desire of your customer to want to deal with a mirror image of himself or herself when purchasing or servicing a motor vehicle. Today’s customer, rattled by a battered economy, really does not care about dealer X comparing himself to dealer Y on line or in any type of print media or TV advertisement. The customer seeks respect and perhaps a bit of empathy from a professional sales consultant or service advisor who can say, with complete honesty: “I understand. I am just like you.”

“Just like you.” These are three simple, yet power-packed words that, if used judiciously and sincerely, are calculated to soothe anxious customers and to reassure them so that they will not soon be circling your dealership and shooting arrows at your sales consultants’ and service advisors’ rear ends during a modern day re-enactment of Custer’s Last Stand.

Got “Custer bluster” in your dealership’s presentation on line, on the phone and in person? Lose it, muy pronto, and you will be well on your way to cementing long term relationships. Most customers yearn only to be respected, not to be forced to act as judges in “dancing with the cars” samba competitions involving frenzied dealers who need to simmer down a bit and project continuous themes of balance, calm and certainty to stabilize and even grow their businesses during these times of unparalleled economic challenges.

Christopher Ferris   c 603.233.8759   ferriscc@comcast.net

www.drivingsales.com/blog/chrisferris

During Motown's heyday, Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions recorded a soulful hit, "People, Get Ready", a knock out of a chart climber that has surely stood the test of time. Noted recording artist Alicia Keys re-recorded this beautiful song recently as part of the soundtrack of the inspirational film "Glory Road", the moving story of the 1966 NCAA college championship basketball team from Texas Western that featured an all African-American starting five in a turbulent era when overt bigotry and racism were still much in evidence across much of the USA.

The lyrics of this memorable song's first verse are: "People, get ready, there's a train a comin', you don't need no baggage, you just get on board, all you need is faith to hear the diesels humming, don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord." Overt religious meaning of the song's words and our own personal religious preferences aside, reflecting on the lyrics of "People, Get Ready" provides each of us an opportunity to consider the nature of trains that pass our way daily and how ready we are to make the most of such passages.

You see, each and every day, trains pass by us in the form of e-mail messages, telephone calls and personal face to face encounters with other individuals. Do we give thanks quietly for these wonderful opportunities to engage with trains' passengers (all or whom are either current customers or potential customers) and do we enthusiastically "get on board" when communicating with them? Or do we watch trains pass by with casual apathy? Or do we board them grudgingly and take our seats while ignoring the other passengers, even animated people who may have waved at us from trains' windows as passenger cars ground to momentary halts in our e-mail inboxes, on our telephone extensions or in front of our desks?

Just the other day, I placed an outbound call to a vendor's level 1 technical support center to report a problem with e-lead streaming. When my phone call was answered, a train stopped at my desk when the support representative introduced himself as "Sonder." It took a few minutes of conversation, but the reason for the e-lead streaming problem was determined and the problem was rectified. Immediately, I circled back to "get on board" the train: I asked the support representative to repeat his name, slowly. He said that his name was actually "Sandro." I remarked, "Wow, what a cool name, may I ask your family's heritage?" Sandro was delighted to reveal that he was Brazilian-American and that his family hailed from Sao Paulo.

Without hesitating for two seconds, I asked Sandro if he had ever traveled to Brazil's version of our "Wild West" up north in Belem, if he had ever gone swimming off the shark-infested beaches of Recife, or if he had ever hiked through the remote jungles of the Mato Grosso. Sandro's immediate, excited reaction was that I was the first client who had ever cared enough to talk to him about his background. He was thrilled to take a few minutes to discuss the culture and geography of his beloved homeland. We also chatted about the differences between the Portuguese and Spanish languages, during which conversation he revealed that his spouse was a Mexican-American woman who teased him incessantly about his bogus Spanish accent. My sixth sense and Sandro's upbeat tone of voice told me that he was smiling, ear to ear.

Soon, the whistle sounded, indicating that Sandro's train was about to depart. Before our telephone conversation ended, I advised him, "Sandro, give my best wishes to Sam, Tasha, Laura and the rest of your level 1 support team. You guys and gals are the best. And rest assured that when I travel down to Carnival in Rio and end up in the wrong place at the wrong time with Mrs. Ferris by my side, I am going to use your name to make all of my problems go away." Sandro laughed so loudly that the phone receiver almost shook as he indicated that he would "hook me up" with the right people from his extended family. I added, "Just so you know, if you should ever have any kind of question regarding purchasing or servicing a car, please call me or send me an e-mail message. I will be delighted to assist you. I will send you my contact information for your personal file."

Sandro thanked me for calling him about the e-lead streaming problem and closed by expressing sincere delight that I had taken a few minutes to discover who he was as a person. As the train pulled away, I remarked, "Sandro, always know that when it's Chris Ferris calling you with a 911 issue to fix, you can relax. It's going to be a good day. Because there's really no such thing as a bad day. It's all in our attitudes." Sandro replied, "You got it! I can't wait for the next call!" And with that, the train pulled away from the station as our phone conversation ended.

So, car people, get ready. Watch with excitement for the headlights of inbound trains. On each train there will undoubtedly be at least one passenger who is hoping that you are going to "get on board" and make his or her day a memorable one. Ready or not, trains are coming. 24 x 7. Without fail. To your e-mail inboxes. To your telephone extensions. In front of your desks. Who ever said that the age of rail was over? Train travel does indeed still "rock" in an oh so interesting way that has nothing whatsoever to do with AMTRAK. So, get on board. Today. Every day. Every week. Every month. All year long. Forever. You will be so glad you did.

Christopher Ferris   c 603.233.8759   ferriscc@comcast.net

www.drivingsales.com/blog/chrisferris