Ever wonder how you should handle a particular business situation? Everything in Business Situations is indexed to help you find the assistance you need quickly and conveniently. Leadership Development, Management Training and Business Ethics (among other topics) are covered in this category.
Wait? Life’s Not Fair? (One of the 83 quick and practical life & work lessons from Sh*t Sandwich: Quick & Practical Success Lessons for Practically Anyone.) Life, My Little Buttercup, Is Simply Not Fair Life’s not fair… Wait a damn minute! Didn’t we already learn this lesson… twice? Apparently not; or I wouldn’t have to […]
Being a Victim is Easy… It Doesn’t Require Any Work (One of the 83 quick and practical life & work lessons from Sh*t Sandwich: Quick & Practical Success Lessons for Practically Anyone.) You’re a Victim Because of Shit Sandwiches Let’s level set for a moment: If you avoid shit sandwiches you will just grow up […]
Life Definitely Ain’t Fair (One of the 83 quick and practical life & work lessons from Sh*t Sandwich: Quick & Practical Success Lessons for Practically Anyone.) Shit Sandwich Lessons for You Did you really think the last lesson was for you to share with 1st graders? What are you trying to do, scar them […]
Life Isn’t Fair (One of the 83 quick and practical life & work lessons from Sh*t Sandwich: Quick & Practical Success Lessons for Practically Anyone.) Shit Sandwich Lessons for 1st Graders Public schools have abdicated any responsibility in what I believe should be their primary function: Molding children into adults who can function well in […]
Really? Everyone? (One of the 83 quick and practical life & work lessons from Sh*t Sandwich: Quick & Practical Success Lessons for Practically Anyone.) Win or Lose; Everyone Eats a Shit Sandwich In what must be some odd (and successful in reaching its dubious goals) experiment intended to create ultra-fragile adults, America has been keeping […]
What’s a Shit Sandwich? (One of the 83 quick and practical life & work lessons from Sh*t Sandwich: Quick & Practical Success Lessons for Practically Anyone.) Shit Sandwich? Is That Served With Or Without Mayo? When you want something worth having, it’s not usually just sitting there for you to grab, right? More often than […]
Duh Customer Service – How Thinking Improves the Customer Experience I’ve been there… you’ve been there. You enter the restaurant. You spy as many as 50 empty table and 6 tables with guests. They have two servers working. Where do they seat the guests? In clusters right next to each other. No spacing. No private […]
Why Southern California Salespeople Should Be Killing It I’ve been working with dealer-clients in Southern California this year and I am absolutely shocked at how many 8-Car Alans and 10-Car Tinas they have on their teams. While nearly every dealer in America has a couple of 8-Car Alans, there’s no excuse for this in Southern […]
You Don’t Have to Hire Asshole Employees: Your Culture Will Create Them There’s a disconnect among those sitting in top leadership positions in some organizations. They want to create a Disney-Like Culture or become the Chick-fil-A of their industry. They’ve read about the terrific returns a great customer experience creates, so they mandate a great […]
Why Are My Sales Down This Month? Many of my clients reported a record March. Some even reported their March sales were their highest single month ever. All were happy, some were even giddy. Fast forward a few weeks… Why are my sales down this month? Yikes! I write “yikes” because, of course, they should […]
For the Love of all Things Holy! Keep Your Frickin’ Word! A great customer experience – the kind that Chick-fil-A or Ritz-Carlton provides – involves just four things: Make “it” easy Manage expectations Keep customers informed Keep your word This simply means: Make whatever the customer wants (a chicken sandwich; a room for the night) […]
The Benefits of Social Selling for Car Dealers Despite the results many dealers enjoy by encouraging social selling among their sales teams, many others are still unsure if they want to empower salespeople to leverage Facebook as a true sales driver. Some, shockingly, still aren’t sure they want this kind of “behavior” on their dealership’s […]
Delta Boarding Zones, Gate Crowding, and How the New, New, New Boarding Zones Might Be the Dumbest Alternative Yet Delta knew they had a problem. Their Delta Boarding Zone System (DBZS) was confusing and caused massive gate crowding. Inferior rivals, faced with the same issue (think United), didn’t wrack their brains solving it, they just […]
Gate Crowding: The Zombie Apocalypse – How Delta’s Passengers Are Blocking Even More Gates Since I first wrote about Delta’s Boarding Zones and the Ubiquitous Gate Crowders, I’ve left Delta for Southwest and returned. In my absence, Delta took an already confusing zone boarding system (one that caused most of the gate crowding) and made […]
Stop Rewarding Your 8-Car Alans Every dealership has an 8-Car Alan (perhaps yours is a 10-Car Ted or even a 14-Car Phoebe). You know, that veteran salesperson who delivers an unspectacular, yet steady volume of units each month. Their sales primarily come from the owner base, though they do take a few Ups when they […]
Carvana is not “The Amazon of Car Dealers” When Carvana (NYSE: CVNA) announced their initial public offering in 2017, Fortune.com heralded the event with the headline The ‘Amazon of Cars’ Has Filed for an IPO. Certainly, Fortune chose this inaccurate description because the company was then describing itself as the “Amazon of cars” – believing […]
Let’s Do This How Three Simple Words Can Move Your Buyer Through to the Sale The very essence of Assumptive Selling is knowing that everyone is a buyer… and that they want to buy from you… and that they want to do this today. Once you grasp this concept, internalize it and practice it with […]
Why “Wait & See” Wins with Shiny Objects Ten years ago, the consummate car-guy Charles Oglesby (then CEO of Asbury Automotive Group) told me, “In automotive retail, you cannot hold a creative competitive advantage for very long.” His point was clear: In the rare case that someone truly discovered some purchasable competitive advantage that actually […]
The Customer Experience: Southwest Airlines Didn’t Even Try For context, I gave up Delta Diamond Medallion status a few years ago because I was tired of being treated like a king when I was lucky enough to receive an upgrade, while being treated worse than baggage when I was not. This was (and likely is) […]
The Dreaded “Just Looking” – How to Overcome Objections on the Lot The number one objection car salespeople heard 30 years ago is the same objection they’re hearing today: “No thanks, we’re just looking.” Ugh, the dreaded “just looking” objection! It seems every prospect you approach is just looking! (Here’s a quick hint: If you’re […]