Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tom Wiegand on August 20, 2010 at 10:10am

When you look at businesses and look at our country, don’t they kind of match up? We’ve been sucked up into a WIIFM culture, where God, community, others are all irrelevant to the “me” wants and needs. The first law of leadership I look for in hiring and retaining the best people is ‘Character’. I’ll be clear here: “good moral, virtuous, honorable character.” Unfortunately, when we look at the examples of our country’s leaders can we find any, if but a few, with “good moral, virtuous, honorable character”, standing up for and protecting our 1st Amendment rights? This mirrors why we must be steadfast in not hiring what we recognize as ‘vice character traits’. As a certified professional coach, I find it irresponsible for managers and trainers to make inaccurate accusations and hiring and firing assumptions about people that can’t and shouldn’t be hired or retained, such as those with ‘attitude’ issues, or ‘lacking confidence’, or ‘self-worth’. Did you know that a study recently completed by the ‘California Task Force for Personal and Social Responsibility’ stated: “80% of people are hurt by words. Research shows that only 20% of children and adults are able to handle put downs without emotional pain and psychological damage.” So, let’s be clear here. What you are all trying to do here is find needles in haystacks, with only 20% of us wearing bullet-proof vests protecting (or disguising) our hurt from within the quote: “…but words will never hurt me!” Horse....! Words hurt and this study is alarmingly telling! You give me someone of virtuous character and low self-esteem and I’ll coach the leader in them to be all they can become. You give me someone of virtuous character and a down-attitude (even an attitude of glass half-empty), and I’ll coach the leader in them to convert their glass to half-full. When you hire someone with virtuous character you are already assured you hired a winner, yet like all, these people need love and positive coaching to bring out and lift up the best in them. Throughout history, people of virtuous character are always the ones that make positive differences in others lives and in the world. Can you name one with vice character flaws that ever made a positive difference in the world? I’ll take everyone with virtuous character over any egotistical WIIFM world-view person any day. Doing what we’ve always done, expecting different results is insane, right? Well, “80% of people hurt by words” in our U.S.A. tells me it is time to stop this culture of death negativity and reverse course! That 80/20 statistic should scare any of you. It needs reversing. And it starts with me and you making absolutely certain we are making a positive difference in every life we encounter, in our every word, in our every deed; in the virtuous character example we set and build up in others. Hire people of virtuous character, "train to coach" them with all the love, dignity, respect and professionalism they deserve (and more) and help develop the leader in each of them, and we'll look back someday and say: "we made a positive difference in bettering our world within our virtuous character leadership." I know businesses out there practicing virtuous character hiring and retaining. They tend not to be hiring for the sake of hiring, but for fitting in to virtuous character traits of a virtuous team. You see, vice character traits are always the negatives that divide and pull down, put down and disrupt, that causes the chaos circle to expand that causes hiring and firing to never cease. Are we part of the problem or part of the solution? Hire and retain people with virtuous character!

Permalink Reply by Craig Lockerd on August 20, 2010 at 10:33am

Amen Brother!

Thomas John Wiegand said:

When you look at businesses and look at our country, don’t they kind of match up? We’ve been sucked up into a WIIFM culture, where God, community, others are all irrelevant to the “me” wants and needs. The first law of leadership I look for in hiring and retaining the best people is ‘Character’. I’ll be clear here: “good moral, virtuous, honorable character.” Unfortunately, when we look at the examples of our country’s leaders can we find any, if but a few, with “good moral, virtuous, honorable character”, standing up for and protecting our 1st Amendment rights? This mirrors why we must be steadfast in not hiring what we recognize as ‘vice character traits’. As a certified professional coach, I find it irresponsible for managers and trainers to make inaccurate accusations and hiring and firing assumptions about people that can’t and shouldn’t be hired or retained, such as those with ‘attitude’ issues, or ‘lacking confidence’, or ‘self-worth’. Did you know that a study recently completed by the ‘California Task Force for Personal and Social Responsibility’ stated: “80% of people are hurt by words. Research shows that only 20% of children and adults are able to handle put downs without emotional pain and psychological damage.” So, let’s be clear here. What you are all trying to do here is find needles in haystacks, with only 20% of us wearing bullet-proof vests protecting (or disguising) our hurt from within the quote: “…but words will never hurt me!” Horse....! Words hurt and this study is alarmingly telling! You give me someone of virtuous character and low self-esteem and I’ll coach the leader in them to be all they can become. You give me someone of virtuous character and a down-attitude (even an attitude of glass half-empty), and I’ll coach the leader in them to convert their glass to half-full. When you hire someone with virtuous character you are already assured you hired a winner, yet like all, these people need love and positive coaching to bring out and lift up the best in them. Throughout history, people of virtuous character are always the ones that make positive differences in others lives and in the world. Can you name one with vice character flaws that ever made a positive difference in the world? I’ll take everyone with virtuous character over any egotistical WIIFM world-view person any day. Doing what we’ve always done, expecting different results is insane, right? Well, “80% of people hurt by words” in our U.S.A. tells me it is time to stop this culture of death negativity and reverse course! That 80/20 statistic should scare any of you. It needs reversing. And it starts with me and you making absolutely certain we are making a positive difference in every life we encounter, in our every word, in our every deed; in the virtuous character example we set and build up in others. Hire people of virtuous character, "train to coach" them with all the love, dignity, respect and professionalism they deserve (and more) and help develop the leader in each of them, and we'll look back someday and say: "we made a positive difference in bettering our world within our virtuous character leadership." I know businesses out there practicing virtuous character hiring and retaining. They tend not to be hiring for the sake of hiring, but for fitting in to virtuous character traits of a virtuous team. You see, vice character traits are always the negatives that divide and pull down, put down and disrupt, that causes the chaos circle to expand that causes hiring and firing to never cease. Are we part of the problem or part of the solution? Hire and retain people with virtuous character!

Permalink Reply by aaron kominsky on August 20, 2010 at 4:09pm

The way to measure is making the salesperson accountable for his tasks daily one on ones are a necessity, what'a acceptable is according to the store's capapbilities , the salesperson's responsibilities must be spelled out prior to hiring and actual daily work schedule. Asfar as how long well again that's up to mgmt and how they developtheir people if no training is provided then failure is inevitable. To turn someond wround you must have a full committment to train, listen learn and be 100 accountable , ATTITUDE is key, Drive is the other there are so many different tasks tat must be performed properlty to become a professional salesperson from prospecting , meet and greet and all the way past the final handshakes delivering a vehicle and follow up! If you hire slow and terminate quick most problems are alleviated befor any bad habits sets in. lastly either the 3 T'S TRAIN EM,TRANSFER EM, OR TERMINATE EM

Permalink Reply by Craig Lockerd on August 20, 2010 at 4:14pm

Daily one on ones....so right....makes so much sense...WHY isnt every dealer doing them?????...No Time?...come on

aaron kominsky said:

The way to measure is making the salesperson accountable for his tasks daily one on ones are a necessity, what'a acceptable is according to the store's capapbilities , the salesperson's responsibilities must be spelled out prior to hiring and actual daily work schedule. Asfar as how long well again that's up to mgmt and how they developtheir people if no training is provided then failure is inevitable. To turn someond wround you must have a full committment to train, listen learn and be 100 accountable , ATTITUDE is key, Drive is the other there are so many different tasks tat must be performed properlty to become a professional salesperson from prospecting , meet and greet and all the way past the final handshakes delivering a vehicle and follow up! If you hire slow and terminate quick most problems are alleviated befor any bad habits sets in. lastly either the 3 T'S TRAIN EM,TRANSFER EM, OR TERMINATE EM

Permalink Reply by gene diehm on August 22, 2010 at 8:54pm

Dude it starts with manager. A manager thats a 5 or 6 can never handle a salesman thats a 7 or 8 let a lone a 9 or10. manager lacks credibility, and will never succeed with salespeople that have no respect for him in that position. Under performing salespeople?
Ususally stars with underperforming manager. Dont get me started......

Permalink Reply by Craig Lockerd on August 22, 2010 at 11:14pm

Well there is no question about that Gene...so what's the answer then?....What can WE do?

gene diehm said:

Dude it starts with manager. A manager thats a 5 or 6 can never handle a salesman thats a 7 or 8 let a lone a 9 or10. manager lacks credibility, and will never succeed with salespeople that have no respect for him in that position. Under performing salespeople?
Ususally stars with underperforming manager. Dont get me started......

Permalink Reply by Craig Lockerd on August 23, 2010 at 10:17pm

agreed....now the challenge is....how do you get the "check signer" to make that investment? I mean how much pain do they need to go through till they understand?

Bill Harrell said:

A salesperson is a mirror of his mentor or managing partner. I have said this time and time again, If you have average in house managers you get below average salespeople. I think instead of training the sales staff, you as trainers start with training the managers. This has been a snowball effect for the last few years. Good people move up, but in order to move up they have to find a replacement. They look for a 10 to 12 a month salesperson instead of an 18 to 25 a month salesperson because they do not want to lose his or her volume. So we end up with average or below managers. Which intell leads to below average salespeople. The easy thing to do is blow the below average out, the right thing to do is look in the mirror and ask yourself how did I fell with this salesperson.

Permalink Reply by Jeff Johnson on August 24, 2010 at 8:06am

Outstanding Tom. Thank you. I believe that turnover is directly related to the desk managers. You don't see alot of one on one anymore.

Thomas (Tom) Wiegand said:

When you look at businesses and look at our country, don’t they kind of match up? We’ve been sucked up into a WIIFM culture, where God, community, others are all irrelevant to the “me” wants and needs. The first law of leadership I look for in hiring and retaining the best people is ‘Character’. I’ll be clear here: “good moral, virtuous, honorable character.” Unfortunately, when we look at the examples of our country’s leaders can we find any, if but a few, with “good moral, virtuous, honorable character”, standing up for and protecting our 1st Amendment rights? This mirrors why we must be steadfast in not hiring what we recognize as ‘vice character traits’. As a certified professional coach, I find it irresponsible for managers and trainers to make inaccurate accusations and hiring and firing assumptions about people that can’t and shouldn’t be hired or retained, such as those with ‘attitude’ issues, or ‘lacking confidence’, or ‘self-worth’. Did you know that a study recently completed by the ‘California Task Force for Personal and Social Responsibility’ stated: “80% of people are hurt by words. Research shows that only 20% of children and adults are able to handle put downs without emotional pain and psychological damage.” So, let’s be clear here. What you are all trying to do here is find needles in haystacks, with only 20% of us wearing bullet-proof vests protecting (or disguising) our hurt from within the quote: “…but words will never hurt me!” Horse....! Words hurt and this study is alarmingly telling! You give me someone of virtuous character and low self-esteem and I’ll coach the leader in them to be all they can become. You give me someone of virtuous character and a down-attitude (even an attitude of glass half-empty), and I’ll coach the leader in them to convert their glass to half-full. When you hire someone with virtuous character you are already assured you hired a winner, yet like all, these people need love and positive coaching to bring out and lift up the best in them. Throughout history, people of virtuous character are always the ones that make positive differences in others lives and in the world. Can you name one with vice character flaws that ever made a positive difference in the world? I’ll take everyone with virtuous character over any egotistical WIIFM world-view person any day. Doing what we’ve always done, expecting different results is insane, right? Well, “80% of people hurt by words” in our U.S.A. tells me it is time to stop this culture of death negativity and reverse course! That 80/20 statistic should scare any of you. It needs reversing. And it starts with me and you making absolutely certain we are making a positive difference in every life we encounter, in our every word, in our every deed; in the virtuous character example we set and build up in others. Hire people of virtuous character, "train to coach" them with all the love, dignity, respect and professionalism they deserve (and more) and help develop the leader in each of them, and we'll look back someday and say: "we made a positive difference in bettering our world within our virtuous character leadership." I know businesses out there practicing virtuous character hiring and retaining. They tend not to be hiring for the sake of hiring, but for fitting in to virtuous character traits of a virtuous team. You see, vice character traits are always the negatives that divide and pull down, put down and disrupt, that causes the chaos circle to expand that causes hiring and firing to never cease. Are we part of the problem or part of the solution? Hire and retain people with virtuous character!

Permalink Reply by aaron kominsky on August 24, 2010 at 11:03am

Craig Lockerd said:

agreed....now the challenge is....how do you get the "check signer" to make that investment? I mean how much pain do they need to go through till they understand?

Bill Harrell said:

A salesperson is a mirror of his mentor or managing partner. I have said this time and time again, If you have average in house managers you get below average salespeople. I think instead of training the sales staff, you as trainers start with training the managers. This has been a snowball effect for the last few years. Good people move up, but in order to move up they have to find a replacement. They look for a 10 to 12 a month salesperson instead of an 18 to 25 a month salesperson because they do not want to lose his or her volume. So we end up with average or below managers. Which intell leads to below average salespeople. The easy thing to do is blow the below average out, the right thing to do is look in the mirror and ask yourself how did I fell with this salesperson.

Permalink Reply by aaron kominsky on August 24, 2010 at 11:03am

aaron kominsky said:

Craig Lockerd said:

agreed....now the challenge is....how do you get the "check signer" to make that investment? I mean how much pain do they need to go through till they understand?

Bill Harrell said:

A salesperson is a mirror of his mentor or managing partner. I have said this time and time again, If you have average in house managers you get below average salespeople. I think instead of training the sales staff, you as trainers start with training the managers. This has been a snowball effect for the last few years. Good people move up, but in order to move up they have to find a replacement. They look for a 10 to 12 a month salesperson instead of an 18 to 25 a month salesperson because they do not want to lose his or her volume. So we end up with average or below managers. Which intell leads to below average salespeople. The easy thing to do is blow the below average out, the right thing to do is look in the mirror and ask yourself how did I fell with this salesperson.

Permalink Reply by Tim Pendergast on August 24, 2010 at 12:56pm

I give all of my salespeople a printed list of their responsibility's to start with! Every morning I am here waiting for them to show up. We go over the day before, and what they have planned for the day. We discuss deals that we made and deals we lost. It is an open discussion so everyone can chime in. We also do save a deal, If a salesperson has a deal for more than three days we pass them around to another salesperson. This helps them see how someone else works the same customer. Our sales meeting so to speak is every Friday morning an hour before we open No distractions this way! We supply breakfast and do all different types of training. Role playing, walk arounds, negotiation, collecting down money, pretty much anything that can come up in a deal, We end meeting with 15 minutes of open discussion, this can be on problems, attitudes any topic is open. I believe this helps our people feel like they have mental ownership in the store. I rarely have to ask them to move lot or park cars. They just do it. One last thing, When I interview a new salesperson I also have them talk with the other salespeople in the store, this way for the most part all our people work as a team. We are a small lease her pay her store. But we have been running 60 to 70 a month since we installed these systems. We are now looking for a 4th salesperson to get help us get to that magic 90 to 100 number. Interviewed 8 people so far, not one has made it to second interview. one more week and then I guess i will have to call Craig Lockerd! The days of going from store to store to store are pretty much over.

aaron kominsky said:

aaron kominsky said:

Craig Lockerd said:

agreed....now the challenge is....how do you get the "check signer" to make that investment? I mean how much pain do they need to go through till they understand?

Bill Harrell said:

A salesperson is a mirror of his mentor or managing partner. I have said this time and time again, If you have average in house managers you get below average salespeople. I think instead of training the sales staff, you as trainers start with training the managers. This has been a snowball effect for the last few years. Good people move up, but in order to move up they have to find a replacement. They look for a 10 to 12 a month salesperson instead of an 18 to 25 a month salesperson because they do not want to lose his or her volume. So we end up with average or below managers. Which intell leads to below average salespeople. The easy thing to do is blow the below average out, the right thing to do is look in the mirror and ask yourself how did I fell with this salesperson.

Permalink Reply by Craig Lockerd on August 24, 2010 at 6:13pm

Good job Tim and thanks for the "props" on needing AutoMax perhaps in the future...keep your people engaged,working as a team,"save a deal"...I love it!

Tim Pendergast said:

I give all of my salespeople a printed list of their responsibility's to start with! Every morning I am here waiting for them to show up. We go over the day before, and what they have planned for the day. We discuss deals that we made and deals we lost. It is an open discussion so everyone can chime in. We also do save a deal, If a salesperson has a deal for more than three days we pass them around to another salesperson. This helps them see how someone else works the same customer. Our sales meeting so to speak is every Friday morning an hour before we open No distractions this way! We supply breakfast and do all different types of training. Role playing, walk arounds, negotiation, collecting down money, pretty much anything that can come up in a deal, We end meeting with 15 minutes of open discussion, this can be on problems, attitudes any topic is open. I believe this helps our people feel like they have mental ownership in the store. I rarely have to ask them to move lot or park cars. They just do it. One last thing, When I interview a new salesperson I also have them talk with the other salespeople in the store, this way for the most part all our people work as a team. We are a small lease her pay her store. But we have been running 60 to 70 a month since we installed these systems. We are now looking for a 4th salesperson to get help us get to that magic 90 to 100 number. Interviewed 8 people so far, not one has made it to second interview. one more week and then I guess i will have to call Craig Lockerd! The days of going from store to store to store are pretty much over.

aaron kominsky said:

aaron kominsky said:

Craig Lockerd said:

agreed....now the challenge is....how do you get the "check signer" to make that investment? I mean how much pain do they need to go through till they understand?

Bill Harrell said:

A salesperson is a mirror of his mentor or managing partner. I have said this time and time again, If you have average in house managers you get below average salespeople. I think instead of training the sales staff, you as trainers start with training the managers. This has been a snowball effect for the last few years. Good people move up, but in order to move up they have to find a replacement. They look for a 10 to 12 a month salesperson instead of an 18 to 25 a month salesperson because they do not want to lose his or her volume. So we end up with average or below managers. Which intell leads to below average salespeople. The easy thing to do is blow the below average out, the right thing to do is look in the mirror and ask yourself how did I fell with this salesperson.

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