Managment Training for every level of Leader — from junior assistant manager to CEO — we all need leadership advice, direction and assistance.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Your Local Car Salesman Just Might Be Helping in the Fight Against Childhood Cancer September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and $10 from every copy of ‘Assumptive Selling’ sold this month goes straight to the PaulieStrong Foundation Given nearly 16,000 children are diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States, you would think […]
The SEM Thieves Aren’t Even Trying Anymore! A Google Analytics map hit my inbox today that can only be described as mind-numbingly incredible. Incredible, in that it is simply not credible. The map, displayed below, shows where this anonymous dealer’s website traffic originated from last month. No, this is not the board from the game […]
The Best Car Selling Book Ever! Whether you’re brand new to car sales or been around for a couple of decades, today’s prospects pose a unique challenge to those using traditional vehicle-selling methods. Specifically, the buyers have evolved… but, unfortunately, the average road-to-the-sale has not. Ten years ago, actual new car prices were near impossible […]
How to Handle an Employee’s Stupid Questions When There are No Stupid Questions I was recently asked how a manager should handle an employee who continues to ask the same question over and over; this, despite having been given the answer repeatedly in the past. The issue, as this manager saw it, was how to […]
Customer Service at the Counter – How to Manage the Unmanageable A reader asked a few questions that included coping with angry customers at a service counter recently that I thought made sense to share with all. When you are working at a busy place where there are constantly overcrowded lines, and impatient people, we […]
How to Solve 99% of Customer Service Issues: Empower your Front Lines If you’re in the service business, there’s a simple way to solve nearly every customer issue that you’ll ever create: Empower your front lines. Many of the issues, in fact, are created specifically because your front line is not (or does not feel) […]
In a recent CBT News interview (that aired this week), Joe Gumm asked me the following question: “We’re about two months from wrapping up 2017; and some dealers are already thinking about 2018. So, if you had a top five list of things dealerships need in order to be successful from this point on, what […]
Why Bosses are Proudly Serving Shit Sandwiches to Their Teams Recently, three different senior managers I respect asked me where they could buy extra copies of my book, Sh*t Sandwich: Quick & Practical Success Lessons for Practically Anyone. All three were looking for the same thing: a success book their respective teams would read, […]
The Best Gift for College Students Looking for the very best gift for that college student on your list? Want to make sure that your gift will be appreciated? Would you like to know that your gift made a difference? Today’s college student doesn’t need more electronics! Today’s college student doesn’t need another gift card! […]
Slowing Sales? The First Expense You Should Cut Is Your Phone Training! Wait… what? Did I just read what I think I read? Yep. If you’re a car dealer looking for ways to save money in the face of current market softness, I honestly recommend (for most of you) that you eliminate your phone […]
Got Millennials? Then you need Sh*t Sandwich. Bar none, Sh*t Sandwich is the must-have book if you’ve got people in your life (children, coworkers, employees) who think the world owes them everything and/or that life should be fair. I know, I wrote it. The advice in Sh*t Sandwich is simple to follow and easy […]
Did you know that some of the nation’s best dealers have been closing their appointments that show at better than 80% for years? It’s true. Moreover, it’s actually not that hard to do – provided those at the top of your organization are truly committed to implementing a simple, repeatable process that works. The […]
Quick… make a list of the top five issues that are negatively impacting your dealership’s profitability that also have little to do with sales team turnover. If you’re like many of the dealers I’ve spoken with over the last year, your list probably contains items like these: Mediocre Online Reputation/CSI Higher Discounting/Lower Grosses Flattening […]
Lots of you, whether you are a frequent flier or involved somehow in digital marketing and reputation management, are aware that United Breaks Guitars. That is, you’ve viewed the nearly 8-year old music video written, performed and produced by a band that claims they watched as United Airlines’ employees carelessly flung their guitars around the […]
Hey Car Dealer: Stop Letting Carvana (and Everyone Else) Define You! If you believe the corporate manifestos and marketing pitches of every automotive retail-related startup for the last twenty years, then you’d think America’s car dealerships are staffed by a bunch of puppy-kicking thieves providing zero value as they work overtime to deliver the absolute […]
Wait, what’s a CSR again? CSR stands for Customer Service Representative. For some of you this might mean anyone who answers your phones. It might also mean everyone on your sales team. You see, any employee or manager on your frontlines should be solving customer service issues; and anyone who should be solving customer […]
Okay, you’ve got an empowered customer service team, but their average call times are still too high! What the heck? Average call times? You’re measuring average call times for a customer service team that’s supposed to be solving issues? Is this 2017 or 1967? If you’re like a lot of the call centers that […]