Floyd Jerkins and I introduce the Advisors Activity

Well, we were just talking about. some university professors and what they teach. And, you know, to me, there's the difference between the philosophy and then the implementation that gets you what I call the trench attitude. And, you know, I do agree. I think there's, you know, just through all the material that your group is putting together, Ron, there is a tremendous amount of practical application that comes out of that. And I think in this next journey that you were talking about, I think that's going to bring some of the more elevated thoughts. Some organizations, you know, coming behind them and pushing them. And I think that has a lot to do with the leadership view, the management view, you know, what they see themselves, you know, and who are they in the organization. You know, we always, you know, I used to get labeled, oh, you're just a consultant with those fancy terms. You know, I said, well, but I've also been in the trench. You know, I drove my own companies before. And, you know, for me, it was just a stepping stone process of getting out and recognizing the vast amount of businesses. And they all have some degree of uniqueness to it. You know, when I first started the consulting company, you know, I come out of, you know, dealer development, I own store. Okay, now, nobody knows me. I mean, they know me in that degree of the market that I just came out of, but in the broad range of things, well, who the hell is this guy? So, you know, I created a couple products, you know, something to sell. One was a dealership assessment where I would go in for two or three days based upon the size of complex, and I would do an analysis. I'd collect all their financial information, all their data ahead of time, you know, spend some time going through it. And probably the first six, seven, eight, nine years, I probably looked at least 30,35 businesses a year because I did all the assessments. And it was always amazing to me how, you know, I could look at two different complexes, one doing 18 million, another one doing 21. And you'd think they're vastly different. But when you get inside and see there's so many commonalities, upon the operational flows, some of the systems that were being used or the systems that weren't being used, but they always had some uniqueness. And generally it was a driving force in the organization at that level or that size. You know, when you go to five stores,10 stores,21 stores, when you go from 30 to 50 to 100 to 200 employees, you know, other things start to drive the organization. And it was unique to see how the variances occur. And really, it was leadership. It was a functional difference that someone was the driving force behind why our margins were so high or why we have a good parts turn or why we have great service department or why are we looking at this short line when no one else was. And now we've had it for two years and made money with it. you know, I mean, there's all those variables. So there was a degree of that. And a lot of times I saw fathers were becoming good coaches to sons, you know, and father realized the market changed, but yet it was time for me to step aside, you know, and that was so nice to work with a, you know, a 50 year old dad that decided I got to start stepping out of the way. Because we can both tell those stories around the other side of the coin of that 80-year-old that still won't get out of the way. And the problems that creates within the organization. So for me, that assessment process has opened a window of education that I was going in to help, but yet I felt like I was getting an education.

surely. Today, when I look back at... You know, how am I coaching others today while I'm still drawing on those experiences, you know, and recognizing, well, they have some similar areas of what they can do, but how are they going to get it done? What is the implementation plan? You know, and that's where the, I think that's, you know, I think the whole concept of coaching, you know, I think it's got some distorted views today because coaching and training are really two different things.

much so. I often get asked, what training are you going to provide? Well, I mean, I can provide training, but it's really different. Training, I'm going to try to give you most of the answers and give you a pathway. Coaching is, I might know the answer, but I want to make sure you know the answer. Because sometimes that whole thought pattern of going through the exercise is to think differently. So that you can learn and apply. Oh, man, that's just. And sometimes it's hard for me because I know the answer. You know, I know what they need to say. Oh, I know.

You know, I just I have different experience than the individual I'm working with. So I have to really be cautious because I want to move them faster than what they're maybe ready to go because they're just not there yet. You know, they're coming. you know, but they're not there yet. And I'm sure you've seen that.

Right.

Well, it has been and it is tough. You know, I think as we go through this, you know, we're learning as we're running a business. We're running the dealership. I mean, every day we learn something new, you know, and we don't realize sometimes what we don't know. We realize what we know and we're trying to impart that every chance we get to our people, you know, fix this, do that, all those type of things. And that challenge is what do I not know, you know, and then how do I find that out? You know, I call it speeding up the learning curves. You know, so we see some dealers that, you know, know they need to reach out and they'll attend a 20 group meeting, you know, and those are, you know, we produced those for years. Ron, I know you guys did too. I mean, it was a great exercise, but, you know, I always ended up having a lot of one-to-one conversations, you know, off to the side after dinner. My wife started to travel with me the last several years,10 years. She would say, you know, what time are you going to be done with the meetings? You know,10,11,12. Well, the meeting's over at five. Yeah, babe. But that's now the real meeting starts, you know. And I think that's where, you know, sometimes classroom training, there's value in that. I mean, there's no doubt there's the online training that you're doing, Ron, perfectly suited for today's market. But I also think there's times where it really is just a one-to-one. You know, it's a one-to-one conversation that needs to occur because the individual might be a little embarrassed because, you know, I run an $80 million organization. You know, I'm supposed to, and it's okay that you don't know, even though you, I mean, I listened to Warren Buffett's interchange at his annual meeting. I mean, what a great example of humble leadership. You know, I mean, still after all these years, you know, the man still articulates what he believes and he doesn't waffle, you know, on that. So I think there's the, you know, there's the ability, I think, for us as coaches and trainers and business people ourselves, Ron, where, you know, you're doing pre-designed training. And I think that has tremendous amount of merit for. individuals that are in need of certain competencies, certain skill set improvement. And there'll come a time in there, you know, between picking age, you know,30 and 50 in which classroom training is absolutely essential. And they've got to become an active learner, you know, themselves. And that's sometimes hard to jumpstart people into, you know, in our classes, we require them to read a book. You know, and many, I haven't read a book since I got out of school. Well, I know, you know, that's, you know, I mean, you can't just attend this class and feel like you're getting everything you need. But it was also amazing on the homework assignment where they would write up something they learned out of the book. I mean, some of them, they're only supposed to write a couple hundred words around and sometimes they wrote, you know, five, six,700. And, you know, I still get people, Floyd the book, Who Moved My Cheese? You know, such a simple thing. you know, hit them, you know, we started off with easy stuff. So I think the pre-design core structures, I think are absolutely essential as part of a continuous education flow. But I think there's a time there where one to one, you know, becomes an extremely valuable, you know, in college, I professor Parrott, they used to take me to the side. And I didn't know this at the time, Ron, I mean, He was just telling me, get off my butt. You know, you're lazy, Jerkins. You know, I mean, I'm here every day. I'm first one to ask questions. But he pushed me further than what I was able to push myself. And it wasn't until some years later when I recognized that. I remember going back, oh, thank you, Professor. He said, well, you cussed me for how many years? Now you're singing my praise. You know, and that's part of a challenge that I think from us as You know, we try to coach and sometimes people, you know, do they really, you know, I try to ascertain what is the personality I'm dealing with, you know, because some people say they want to be pushed a little harder and challenge a little more. But when you do, you know, they get all girly, you know, if you will.

Right.

No, and that's, you know, we've talked before about these skill gaps that continually gets wider. And, you know, that's coming at our market like a freight train. And it's already here, it's already present, but yet it's not as adopted, you know, as it should be. So I think that's where the, you know, the ability to... help the leadership gain a new perspective on not just the roles, responsibilities, but the new vision about where the market is going and how the market's getting there. You know, Mets Kramer replied, you know, to my article that you posted, you know, on relationship selling on the metrics. And, you know, well, you know, for me, I've been preaching that, I don't know, around 15,20 years, you know. In the equipment space, it's just now becoming something that we're becoming aware of, but it's not brand new. But yet when we look at, well, again, the sales departments have traditionally, I went on this rant that one time with you, you know, but I mean, sales departments traditionally have been the sacred cow, you know, so we don't really address those. There's been so much emphasis in recent years on the service department, you know, well, that's not brand new. I mean, it's been talked about. And in the automotive side, it was the Jackie Cooper days. Younger people, who the hell? Remember the Ron Slee days, and now it's the Floyd Jerkins days. The consultants have came up and through. And here we are looking backwards, trying to help those that are still there in the trench move forward faster and better by sharing that wisdom.

Yeah. And that always bothered me when I worked with a dealer that, you know, I said, we need to install a CRM system. But I said, first, let's get the management's head around it first. Before you even start a tool, let's understand what its purpose is. Why do you want it? What will you do with it? What will you do with the information that comes from it? What information do you want to, you know, I mean, all the questions to try to wrap your heads around it. Because, you know, to me, when. And I've seen this happen before, Ron, when we get, you know, through coaching, you start to see a sales team and a sales manager understand the value of the metrics. You know, when they get it and they understand how to tweak those metrics, you know, then it's amazing how improving how the sales team presents the product, you know, by practicing a walk around. you know, and having the other salespeople critique it. When they get good at critiquing each other and learning from each other, man, that's a sign. That's a, you know, that's a stimulus, you know, and not all of a sudden you see the sales manager starting to recognize that in order to improve turns, you know, I can improve my sales flows by improving how many people they talk to and figure out how best can we improve that ratio. You know, if it's, Whatever number you start with, you know, it's about how do you get a little bit better?

In the first part, you know, of the coaching experience, I'm normally very, very patient. I have to ask a lot of questions, understand, because, you know, you don't know where that ego trip is going to occur, you know. And, you know, it's easy for me to say, listen, you can fire me. That's fine. But you're still going to have the same problem or you're not achieving the goal you want to achieve. So if I'm rubbing you the wrong way, figure out why that is. I mean, if you just don't like my tone, then we should have never engaged in the beginning. But if it's something I'm saying, and generally that's where the one-to-one is so important because it allows everybody to relax and truly try to figure out who you are and be yourself. And that's where the video is so helpful. Because if you didn't have, if it was just a phone run, man, that's hard, you know, to be able to read the rest of the body, you know, and understand psychologically what's going on with that individual. You know, if somebody squirms because they're uncomfortable, that's, you know, is it because the chair is uncomfortable? You know, you can't see that without having the audio, you know, combined with the video. And in person, you know, you're making all these sensory perceptions with smells and everything. So we narrow that down to this condensed version of audio and video. You know, it's an extremely, it can be extremely intense. You know, I had a gentleman that smart man, good business, struggling with his succession. You know, he's 64,65 now. I'm trying to figure out what is he going to do with this big business with his three sons, two sons in the business, one not. Wife's perceptions, you know, what she thinks, she's not in the business, but yet she has a voice, you know, and he's really challenged. His banker's telling him one thing, his OEM is telling him a whole nother thing. And, you know, so every time we'll be spoke, And I could just, you know, you just feel him over, you know, watching him, you know, he's just grinding through these emotions. And, you know, most of that at that stage was listening. Letting him.

And I said, why do you feel that way? What happened to make you feel that way? Tell me the last time you felt that way. Tell me the first time you felt that way. And he says, you're making notes. I said, yes, sir, I am. I'm just tracking the detail here. And it was amazing how after, I don't know, two, three, four sessions, I said, okay, I want to make a presentation to you. And I said, I'm going to tell you some of the things I've heard. And, well, he said, well, that's not what I said. I said, well, sir, that's what you said. That's not what you intended to mean behind what you said. So that's part of your friction that you're creating, you know, with your family is because what you think you're saying, you're not, you know. And then when we went through that a few times, Ron, it was amazing how he just, he said, Floyd, I've got to go. And I said, well, don't leave me in the middle of that conversation. But he had a recognition at that point. He became aware. You know, where he hadn't. Yeah. He wasn't aware. And when he was embarrassed, he said, thank God it was just you, you know. And I said, well, I guess that's a compliment. You know.

Right.

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Well, that's, you know, trying to identify the goals, the objectives. You know, what do you want to accomplish? I mean, that's we start there, you know, where, again, in a pre-designed class, the the objectives, the teaching objectives. And, you know, we certainly have learning objectives that are different. You know, here it's really just about where are they? You know, I'm trying to figure out. And then once I think I've got it figured out, then we have to make sure we have it figured out that we're all on the same page. We can communicate those goals, objectives very clear. You know, and then it's the, you know, the journey of what have you done to try to get there? You know, why aren't you there already? You know, and sometimes those questions, they bring up either bad experiences or poor judgment. And, you know, that's part of it. You know, I mean, that's where. Trying to make someone feel comfortable is really a key there, because your failures are your failures. You have to own them. But the challenge is we need to learn from them. And having it presented back in a constructive fashion is so important to help frame that particular behavior or that particular decision-making style. Or really, don't know. I try to figure out what is the knowledge. that's either they have or they don't have? What are the skills they have or they don't have? What's the attitude? You know, what is it, you know, that's that we need to do to help them achieve those objectives? You know, yeah.

And you got to be careful on some of that because that's where the ego. Oh. I've had a guy that had a 400 and something million dollar organization. And, you know, all he was after was just tell me what to do. You know, no, we've got to go through this journey together. And it was hard to slow him down.

It was slowing him down because he was running 100 miles an hour run, you know, and. You know, he could answer a question specifically just like that, you know, but where he wanted to go versus where he was at versus his organization, there were like three different things going on there.

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Yeah. Oh, man.

Over the years, especially when I was young, I developed a life formula. I was and still in today, I'm pretty big on I've got to have a roadmap. Yeah. You know, even in this journey of casual retirement, you know, I mean, I still have to have a roadmap. You know, that's just either part of my DNA or like my wife says, you just got to know, don't you? Well, yeah. You know, but, you know, I started this concept of dynamic living and I knew early on that, you know, I wanted to live a dynamic life. Well, I had to create a definition, you know, of what that meant. And then to achieve that, there are certain life principles that had to come along. You know, so I began every time I recognized one, I would write it out. and write two or three paragraphs that describe that particular principle. And one of those is focus. Yeah. And, you know, it's amazing how, you know, when I can focus on something, I am pretty damn good at getting it done at a very high level. But when I'm scattered, you know, and I used to love to juggle 17,18 things. But if it got to 22, oh, you know. I can't, you know, that gets to the frustration side. And so many times when these, and I think especially now, Ron, in the equipment space, you know, construction market is hot. You know, agricultural market's hot. Rural lifestyle. I mean, all these. So it's got these business. And then all of a sudden we threw pandemic in and then we threw workforce. shortages in. And then we threw, oh, shortage of product in. We can't get the product. Oh, my God. And now we've got customers that are smarter than my salespeople. Oh, my God. Well, all these things coming at you, you know, they lose focus, you know. And that's what's so, it's easy to see it on the outside in, but it's hard to see it on the inside out. And yet that's where. You know, a coach like myself, that's part of what we do is we try to get them off the merry-go-round once in a while and stop for just a second. You know, what's your purpose in that operation? What are you doing? You know, I had one guy tell him, he said, well, I walk the floor every day. I don't get to my office till noon. I said, why do you walk the floor? Well, I'm pointing stuff out, you know, all day long. Do you think that people would ever see those? Well, no, they haven't seen it by the time I got there. So from 7.30 to 8.30, you know, you walk. So I said, you know, maybe you just need to take your office and put it at home. Oh, hell, that never worked without me. And we were several conversations before he finally said, you keep asking those questions, Floyd. What's the deal? You know, because, again, I think he was intruding that, you know, a good leader sometimes anticipates and dreams and lays in bed and goes through all these different things. And they're usually further out ahead than what the organization is. We have to be patient with our people to let them come along, to come on the organizational speed.

The ability to achieve the goal that they set forth is sometimes a little easier to do. When they have that clarity, that focus. Because to me, I call it unfolding. You know, once I'm able to see it, then everything starts to unfold in front of me and I can start, oh, there's possibilities. And then I have to challenge them again. Now we have to clarify and focus one more time. Because there might be five different ways to do something where before you didn't see it. You didn't see anything. Now you see there's five. Well, now we've got to identify which of those five ways is what's the objective? Is it to improve a department, improve a division, improve a branch? Is it a whole organization? Is it one set of people? Is it one group? You know, what are your what are your core objectives here? You know, some of that, that's where the. You know, before, Ron, I was doing a little bit of life planning, but more business planning stuff. And today I get a chance to kind of do both with some clients. They like to go through the life planning and the business stuff. And that's that's to me, that's holistic coaching. You know, that's where I really enjoy it, because I always ask questions. What's your wife think about this? What's your husband think about this? What do your kids think about you going to be at home more? You know, do they want you at home more? No, they don't. OK, well, you know, all those variables, you know, if you died today, what would happen? You know, man, some people said, man, Floyd, that's pretty forward. But I mean, we're going to start with the end in mind. And the end in mind is, you know, we're at your funeral. Who's going to do the eulogy? You know, let's start there and back it up and say, how are we living life according to what we think we want to have happen, you know, at our funeral? And then business is just a piece of it. But yet, you know, and this is where sometimes, you know, even back in my days, Ron, there was sometimes dealer owners would get, geez, Floyd, you know, you're getting a little out there, aren't you?

life, you got business up here as the main purpose of your life. But yet you've got a family, you've got children, grandchildren, whatever that may be. You're sitting here telling me you don't have time to go be with them. But yet you run the company. Who gets to make that decision? You know, when you're saying you're too busy because you don't have. Well, how come? Why? You know, is it a time management issue? I mean, that's such a those words are thrown around so loosely, you know, but it's as simple as. Well, it's really complex because trying to help them learn either to delegate, to be patient with the growth of people. I mean, or, you know, if we've got. We're throwing off so much cash right now. You know, man, I, you know, I just got, it's working really well. And my challenge to that is, okay, you've been in business long enough to know when it wasn't. So in good times, you need to be as focused on day-to-day operations as what you were when you were not. Because that's when you get the laziest. And that's when you start approving capital. We buy stuff. You know, we buy more stuff than what we need because we've got the money. That's, you know, every dealership needs to have a hell of a war chest.

Ron, I had over the years, I always hired a consultant and always hired a mentor to help look at me. And I still remember a few of those stuck out. really above some of the others. And one was a long-term consultant trainer of mine with me for 20 years, but I had such an admiration and respect for him that just his words could shake me. And that just doesn't happen. I don't get shaken very easily. And nor would he offer that very often. But when he did, You know, when he gave me that wisdom, you know, if you will, man, some of it was, you know, you know, and I look back at those, those were turning points for me that I felt I became a better man, you know, because I wasn't seeing that. And most of those were constructive, positive movement things. Others were critiques of my own behaviors that, by hell, I didn't see that, you know. And I even had strong staff that would tell me those things. But even when they said it, it was like, uh-huh, okay, uh-huh. I didn't hear from them.

Oh, absolutely.

I was, the only way I could get better is to see myself as others see me and then make a decision, you know. Is that something I need to adjust or not? Maybe that's just the way it's going to be. Maybe I am who I am and all those things. But if what I'm doing is impeding on my ability to achieve the goals, objectives I set for my life or for my business, well, I can't be the albatross in that. I can't be the one that holds it back. My job is to release the organization and let it be the best it can be. You know, as an organization gets larger and larger and larger, we have more people that are struggling at these management and executive levels because they sometimes get thrust in these positions. And then we send them to classroom and classroom doesn't satisfy those issues. It doesn't allow that individual to maybe vent or share their thoughts in a constructive way and get that type of constructed, honest, either honest feedback or honest direction. that comes from that. Just agreeing with someone is nice, but agreement creates complacency many times. And, you know, like you, Ron, I love the debate. You know, I love the honest debate and having a different way to think about a specific issue or topic. And when that occurs, I feel like I've expanded my mind again. I've expanded my heart. And that's what, you know, I try to bring to the coaching is to bring that. sensibility to the table where, you know, it's sometimes it's not as difficult as what people make it out to be to improve their situation or move forward, you know, but sometimes they're the biggest albatross. They're in their own way. And if I can help them get out of their way, you know, and really everybody that achieves their goals, when they get there, they always look back and go, man, that wasn't as hard as, you know. But then what's that next layer? Where are you going from there? Yeah. And that's tough. And I got so much respect for these guys and girls that are still in the midst of this that, you know, I just feel privileged. You know, I got to know hundreds and hundreds and hundreds like you, Ron. You know, every time when I read something about the industry, I see names I know and people I know. You know, it's hard for me, you know, my, you know, I know I, to, to further build a prospect bucket, you know, I know how to sell. Wow. But, you know, I'm not going to start 10 calls a day, you know, and networking and all those connectivities, because I'm still turning stuff down because, you know, if, if an individual is really ready to move forward, you know, Ron, that's, that used to be an enjoyable path to be on. But and I'll debate with somebody why they need or why they could or how they could. But if at the end of the day, they're wanting someone to just agree with everything that they say, I'm probably not that guy. You know, I mean, that's that's not what you hire me for. You know, I'm not a devil's advocate all the time. But, you know, it's the same purpose. There's you know, I liked our conversation at the beginning before we started this run where this owner that, you know, I mean, he's. you know,80 years old, but it's all those employees. That's the people that are going to end up either having a struggle about what an owner's decisions are. And to me, as an owner of a business, it's our responsibility to protect our people, you know, and the more that we, and we do that through our own decisions by how we, you know, most business today, you've got to have some type of a health insurance plan. I mean, come on. You've got to have some type of retirement plan. You know, but those are the traditional pillars, you know, of success in a company. But that's not that's not it today. I mean, I can name you businesses that were succeeding and failed miserably in a short time period because of sexual harassment. Because, I mean, look at the woke society today. Some of the things that men would how they would treat women. In the past, I mean, you know, my good, well, I grew up with eight sisters. So, you know, either you respect the girl or you're going to get beat up by all of them, you know. You know, but I think there's these underpinnings of success today are shifting. And I think it's that, you know, I see that pretty clearly today. And, you know, we used to say always run for years. I mean, the. Personal development is the key to organizational development. The way the organization gets better is when your people get better. Well, that's not just lip service. You know, that has to be, you know, for I think some years you could fake that and be okay. Man, in today's market, man, I don't think so. You know, you've got employees that are leaving because they just don't want to work for someone they don't like anymore or work in an organization they don't like or. They think they can do better. You got people, I mean, just, you know, we can talk about those issues, you know, society's issues and the social norms are changing very rapidly. And that changes the way we have to conduct ourselves in business to be able to drive all the systems, all the processes that we need to do because the competencies for certain roles have changed, you know, and that's where you're right on the mark of that stuff. where, you know, he used to be, you know, a service manager, you know, if he had his toolbox in the shop, you know, that was a good service manager. Well, that's the far cry. You know, I mean, you know, I know some service managers today that really don't have a mechanical background. They've got more of a leadership and a management background. You know, it's nice to see women in ownership roles where, you know, for a while that was, you know, you just didn't see that. This was a male captive audience, you know, in this market. And now we see that, you know, and it's there, you know, it's not that I had a guy tell me, come, they're proving themselves Floyd. And I listened to that a few minutes and I finally said, hang on. I said, so women are just now proving themselves. That's why they get to become a dealer. I didn't say it that way. And I said, no, you didn't. Yeah. Right. You know, I'm just saying, you know, it's a person you're referring to. OK. But when you're saying the women, you know, I said, I don't know if that's quite correct today. So I think there's numerous opportunities, but the markets are shifting. I think our consumers are shifting. Certainly our economy is shifting.

Well, I appreciate the kind words, Ron. I think I'm just a... You know, I'm just a guy that's on a journey in life, you know, and my giving back and, you know, is not stopped. You know, that's still a big piece of what makes me happy, you know, is helping other people and seeing them improve their lives and improve their businesses. And, you know, that still is just I get I still just get excited about that. There's nothing better than seeing people take the ideas and run. And now I just. And I just felt pretty neat, you know. So I thought that would change as I got older. Maybe I'd lessen that a little bit, but it hasn't.

Yes.