Floyd Jerkins goes on a Rant

That's right.

That's right. That's right.

One of the things that I've always, I guess, looked at, Ron, is the patterns. My formal education. you know, organizational psychology. I remember sitting in Professor Parrott's class and, you know, he was talking about how do you identify large trends across, you know, a business? He said, now, before you answer that, how do you identify large trends across a southern part of a state? How do you look at it by state? How do you look at that by multiple states? And of course, being young, we were all just like, okay, the first question was easy. You know, that second, third one got a little harder. But yet, when you understand the methodologies, I mean, it's pretty easy. Now, when you look at the equipment industry, you know, we know that there's still patterns there that are evolving and changing. Part of that's based upon technology. Part of that's based upon age. Part of that's consumers. Part of that, I mean, there's just a variety of inputs. But there's no doubt about it that if we learn how to manage these businesses and increase the effectiveness for our people, then our bottom line improves and it improves easier than going out trying to start another location or whatever that particular thing, you know, even accepting another line, Ron, I mean, from the farm equipment side, I mean, accepting a short line was always a function of the sales department can sell it, but there was never a holistic approach to getting all management involved in that discussion. You know, and sometimes even the accounting people didn't know we were accepting a new shoreline. I mean, but that pattern has changed where now we know that, you know, most dealerships nearly all don't do that. Well, the same thing I think happens here is when we have, you know, if we have 10 salespeople and we know that 25% of who they've talked to over a period of a month is new customers. OK, then at least we have the first statistic to say, at least we've got 25 percent of who we're talking to are brand new to us. OK, well, you know, so, you know,10 percent,20 percent is referral customers. OK, so we got that ratio. Well, but when we know that we're closing 10 percent of those new customers, you know, well, that that would scare the daylights out of me, you know, because we're talking about 10 customers. that we're closing. My gosh, what are we doing with the rest of them? And that goes back to your point, Ron, the follow-up campaign and the follow-up strategies are knowing what we have on the front end is equally important to knowing what we have to do with it in order to improve it. And when we know that if a salesperson prices something today and the customer says, call me back in a week, You know, eight out of 10 salespeople will call that customer back in a week. And when that customer and when they call them, you're going to see 30,40 percent of those people say, well, I bought somewhere else. And the salesperson gets ticked off. What the hell? You told me to call you. Well, you know, think like a salespeople, you know, come back. We're 24 hours after that customer. And you talked about that. You need to call the customer. You know, I get emails important. But email is still a tool for a non-conversation. They're going to be braver to you over email and certainly over the phone and what they are in person. But we've got to have that physical contact. And then it's just a conversation. But yet, you know, managers say, well, they don't have time. Go out and get the next one. Go out and get the next one. But if we're not being effective with what we have and thinking that we have a 10%,15% closing ratio, and that, again, from a From an organizational standpoint, that would scare the daylights out of me because we're walking around $100 bills all day long while we're chasing the nickels, you know, because it's about how do we do that better?

He doesn't even buy from us. They always buy from someone.

Right.

What? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know, I think it still starts at the ownership level. You know, they have to create a mandate. about how do we go to market? What's our go-to-market strategy and what does that include? We always have market share numbers, machine population. We always have file of birth to grave, all of that. But maybe we could start adding in NDOC management, next data contact. For every person that comes into our operation, calls in or emails, we're going to follow up, period. We're going to follow up at least three different times. Not every other one. but everyone. And we're going to try that for a period of time. And we're going to measure our results because when we know that we can have a next day to contact and we start that, that thinking, you know, and then we get the management people decide, did you do your NDOC? Have you logged? Then we can start looking at NDOC reports, right? In the systems. How many people did we can run charts and graphs and say, all right, it looks like there were 20% of the people logged. you know, had contacts. What, you know, what happened? One of the challenges, and it comes back to some of this we talked about, you know, in other podcasts, Ron, I think it's the, it's a dynamics of the culture. You know, if, if I come out and I say, listen, get off your ass, let's get to work. Come on. You know, then I'm creating a, a very tedious, you know, environment, but I say, Hey, come on, let's go. You know, let's take the hill. And we motivate through education, through personal approaches. It's amazing. You know, I've had more times where a business owner tells me, Floyd, that guy, you're wrong. That guy, he's not got a head full of sense. But I said, have you ever asked you to listen to them? Because it's amazing. I've seen ordinary people do extraordinary things more times than I can imagine. It's when they've got the right motivation and the right tools, Ron. starting the organization with thinking, how do I follow up? You know, when do I follow up and getting that started in a mindset so that, you know, but we might see that in management. I mean, this is obviously we're talking about the sales side, but if we talk about management, we can see numerous false promises made from one man. Hey, I'll get back to you with that information and they never do. You know, I'll call so-and-so and they never do. You know, then those are, you know, my grandma used to say that, you know, a white lie is still a lie. Floyd, I don't care what color it is. You know, it's still a lie, you know, and to build that trust and that integrity, you know, within the organization, we have to live and die by our words and our deeds. And that means we have to, when I say, Ron, I'm going to call you. That means I need to call you. That doesn't mean I need to make an excuse. You know, those people, that's effectiveness. So it comes down to the sales side also is that when that customer says, oh, don't call me for a week, we know we should call them anyway. But we can't have that reason being my boss said to call you or, hey, listen, we got a lot of pressure to sell. These units are coming up on, you know, you can't do that. The reason has to be geared to the customer's benefit. Now, if we can get an organization starting to say, okay, I understand NDOC is important. We're going to start doing that. But now, man, how do I do this better? That's the questions we want to hear from our staff. Because then that's when training, coaching, you know, they've got people with, I worked with a large, large cattle organization for about a year and a half. Just finished up. And, you know, when I was going through this, we got to get your people to think how. Not should I, why. I mean, we got we want them to start thinking how they had some people within the organization where we created a training team that around those guys and girls were just rocking, man. You know, and it ended up being that we had to get more of a budget to put more people into the team because the need grew so big. You know, now, once you identify that need, you know, the money's there. It's not in the competencies are there. They don't. You know, I used to tell dealer owners all the time, you know, you can't depend on us for all of your training needs. We're not that company. We have a wide bandwidth, but we can't do all these things. You've got to do that internally. And we'll even help you train the trainer, you know, if that's what's needed. Because as you grow in size, you know, an outsourced company can play a role, but they're not the dominant tool in the toolbox. And the same thing today is that there's people that want you to get this, what I consider to be common sense. If I told my grandma and grandpa I'm coming out to see you on Friday, but I don't show up, well, they're worried about me. Well, here if I talk to a customer and spend two hours with them and we get along pretty good, we end up pricing, but they have their typical You know, I got to go home and think about it or I've got to talk to my banker. I've got, you know, all the objections that come around because we know objections are predominantly artificial. You know, part of what they're saying is you haven't convinced me well enough today. I've got to go home and or I've got to compare, you know, because I've got four different salespeople talking to me. Well, just imagine, right? You know, I used to say that's on a lost sale. If I can show you how to make more money on a lost sale than the salesperson that sold it, would you be interested in learning what that technique is? Well, yeah, sure. Same thing in parts and service. It doesn't matter. When that customer buys somewhere else, your first objective when you know about that, generally it's over the phone. That's mostly where that's found out at. If you're the selling salesperson and you get mad about that, shame on you. because it's your fault. Don't blame the customer. I mean, accept responsibility. But then ask them if they've taken delivery of that run, the deal's done. You know, oh, I wish you would have called me back. I could have made that deal better by 10 grand or I could have. All that's negative selling. You know, that does not work. Look at what the customer psychology is of that. Oh, geez, I don't want to have to call Ron back, you know, because I know he's not going to be happy, you know, that. So when you call him, And they go, Ron's on the phone. He's going, oh, shit. I got to answer that call. Yeah, hey, Ron, just want to let you know that because we got along, you know, we had a relationship, you know, but I ended up buying somewhere else. It's just as simple to say, listen, congratulations on making a good decision for yourself, Ron. I really appreciate the opportunity. Now, you as a customer, seven out of 10, six out of 10, maybe eight out of 10 of those customers go, wow. That was different. You know, I mean, Ron said, good decision. I mean, wow, that was, that was strange. Listen, Ron, listen, if there's anything else I can help with in the future, just let me know. But then you go back and ask for a referral. Ron, I hope that the reason you purchased somewhere else wasn't nothing against me personally. Now, if he says, well, yeah, Floyd, you did, you upset my wife. You know, you kept looking at her knees or, you know, whatever the issues are, you know, most of the time you've had a good relationship. And you ask for a referral. And if the referral doesn't come about you, stop. Now, the second thing there, Ron, is calling that customer back in three to five days. We know statistically that the salesperson that sold the unit probably has not called back. You know, that's just the statistics. And I hate the numbers. I hate it. And I kept thinking Evolutionary, that would be one of those organizational changes, Ron. That would get better. Well, it's not. I mean, that same thing is occurring. But imagine the salesperson that didn't sell it calling you back five days later and saying, hey, I just want to check in. How are you doing with that new piece of equipment? Hope everything's working. And they're going, you're the guy that didn't even sell it to me and you're calling me back. And if you'll do that in 30 days and then another 30 days and about every four or five months based on need, it's amazing how you can outsell the salesperson that sold it and make more money when you're doing it. But it's the lack of next day contact. It's a lack of having that. They have the tools, you know, the phone's there, the computer's there. You know, it's a management psychology that has to change. And it's an ownership psychology to put this as an important factor. You know, and if we can make our sales team 10% more productive and close more deals in less time, we're going to make more money. You know, bottom line, we make more money, but money isn't money is the secondary aspect because Ron, I agree totally with you that managing the financials is end result management. Everything goes into that bucket and ends up on the financial statement. You know, well, I want to affect change before it gets to the end result sale, you know, and if everything we can do as coaches, as trainers is to help them think and to really begin to take that. and use it before a sale happens, we're going to make happier customers. We're going to make happier employees. You know, we've talked about this last time. ESI equals CSI. You know, the employee satisfaction, you know, we can increase that, you know. And this whole deal about resignation, I mean, you know, that's another discussion that we've had a couple of times. So that's, you know, my rant is, like I said, I get a little fired up when I hear how, We can't do these things. And they're as simple as tying your shoe. Now, they're hard to implement, right? I mean, we could talk about this conceptually, you know, and I can drill it down and say, here are the behaviors you're looking for out of your people. But to take that to a practical application, to actually start seeing it and doing it, you can't give lip service to it. You know, if I told you I could do 50 pushups, Ron, I might be able to sell the concept to you. But then you're going to sit back and say, ah, Floyd, jump down, give me 50. You know, if I can't physically do it, then, you know, it's lip service. And we never make more money. We never improve our customers that way.

That's right.

I think that even as my last company, the consulting company, I started it on a whim. I mean, I started it in my basement. And no staff, nothing. And my wife, I just got out of the dealership. So I said, you need to get an office in town and get some staff. And I said, no, babe, the company has to, you know, has to make money. Well, just put some money in the damn company, get out of my basement. You know, she wasn't happy about, you know, I was always gone. You know, now I'm home, you know. And as the company grew, you know, I was able to, because my psychology, I just, the company has to pay for itself. And that was where I was at. And I see the same thing as these companies have gotten larger. They can afford to do different things. So as a business owner, and I don't want to say that all business owners are not attending. I don't believe that to be true, Ron. I mean, one of the things that I feel like I have learned from my fellow dealers and the clients that I've had over the years, I mean, I've learned more from them than I think what I've ever taught. because I think they're the ones in the trench every day. So I think as a business owner running these things, I think it's, we have to identify, we need someone to champion this message. You know, me as an owner, or if I have multiple owners, we have to, you know, as a board, we have to set that trend. We have to set that pace. Now we have to have a good discussion about that. If it's just me, you know, and I'm the sole owner, well, I've got to make sure I understand the throughput. of all this. And if it does happen, is that really what I want? Because if I'm asking for it and it starts to happen and I want to undo it, ooh, I've made the wrong decision. You know, when you're small, you can pull all your team together in an afternoon. When you're 500 employees across eight states, that's not happening. But I think you can identify champions within the organization and they can become the people that go around to locations and champions. in a certain message. They're the people that can help identify other champions. And I think that that champion mindset is so critical because the business owner is juggling strategic pieces to the business. So sometimes that can take all day, all week, all month, all quarter of my time and energy. And I don't have time to think about inventory issues or that. But I know that I got my job as an owner, as a business leader. is to keep setting the pace that runs us one year, three year, five year,10 years. So if I don't have that vision set for that five year,10 year, you know, I can get consumed in what I have to do for the company today. But yet my organization is clunky. You know, the structure is clunky. The processes are clunky because they're mishap. They don't understand what their total mission is. So we have to set that. That's why. The old statement of mission, vision, you know, so important to set, you know, well, it is, but then we have to have these champions that can go out and do these things within the organization so that we can see implementation happen. Because I don't think in a small organization, yeah, the owner is it. The larger it gets, the owner should not be the one that's doing the owner. In this large organization that I was talking about, they were asking about hiring. The owner used to do all the hiring when they were small, and now he doesn't. And he is as personable, Ron. He's just a neat guy. I mean, I enjoy talking to him. He's passionate. He's got rants and raves. You know, I mean, he's got that too. He's just a super neat fellow. And, you know, I said, well, you need to set the culture based upon who you are. You know, he responded to something I wrote about having fun. You know, and he said, nobody talks about us business owners having fun. Floyd, I said, you kind of hit. And that's what I keep trying to tell my people. We need to have fun doing this. You know, if we're not having any fun, why aren't we? Well, it was amazing how, you know, I challenged him to put a video together so that every new employee gets to see you. You know, simple tool. It doesn't have to be a CBS quality. It could be done at home, sitting, you know, just simple. And he did like two or three of them. He stumbled. He stammered. You know, and I said, I'll tell you what, let's just let's just get on here one time. Let's talk through it a little bit. Well, I was recording him and he didn't know it. And he did such a good job. You know, and I said, if I'm a new employee coming in and thinking this is the guy that's running it. Wow. He's cool. You know, I mean, he understands who he is. He understands who he's not. He's willing to talk about that. He's willing to talk about. where he wants the company to go, and some of the struggles that we have. He didn't hide from it. How much better can you get? I think these owners, it's back to empowering the next layer of management people. I think this whole thing about the sales department is it's about unleashing the sales department to become the best they can be. Eliminate these constraints that people believe a certain way, but yet It's contrary to what's happening. And if we look at where we're heading, Ron, all this technology talked about, I mean, what I just spoke about in terms of how the management, this isn't brand new. I mean, we did it years ago and got really, really good at it. And I did it in the consulting company and we got really, really good at it. And you're right. I mean, if someone went to my website, I could tell you who they were, when they were, why they were. you know but we never called them on that first contact but if they if they looked at four or five six times over a period of a couple weeks or they had other people within their organization that's a good sign you know i mean it was a lot of people today say floyd we don't find a lot of marketing on your company you know from 15 years on us because we didn't do it we just didn't do traditional marketing you know we only did it the last four or five years yeah and that's because we got to a point you know

Yeah. You know, I think it's the ability to have a kiosk at the parts area. It's a no-brainer. You know, customers are already sourcing their own parts. I'd rather them source out of my showroom floor than the source at home. What brings them into the dealership? You know, well, what contains them in the dealership? You know, the larger customers send somebody in, you know, they're not doing it themselves. So it's that, you know, does every, do we have a Spanish speaking person on our front line in the dealerships? Should we have, you know, well, yeah. I mean, there's a trend there. Let's say, well, hell, I don't understand what the, you know, that's, that's old hat. You know, we shouldn't. We don't have to think that way. The old methods of how we even did the layout of the dealership. Oh, that's a little archaic today. In the 20 groups, Ron, you know, we say, well, we want to talk about marketing and merchandising. And it's our float. Who do you have for that? I said, well, I think I've got the best resource that we have. So they said, well, who is it? Well, you'll see. So at the next meeting, I'd have everybody line up to get in the bus. Where are we going? We're going to Walmart. What the hell do you mean we're going to Walmart? Well, I mean, when you look at marketing and merchandising, I mean, they spend millions and millions of dollars. Now, before they go in, I give them a checklist. So here's what I want you to look at. I want you to look at colors. I want you to look at font sizes. And some of you had to explain what a font was. But font sizes, colors. labels, signage, height. You know, when you look at all these things, they have purposely positioned labels and brands at a certain height. They've purposely done that. Now, how do we go back to your dealership? Let's look at what it looks like. You know, are we stepping over things to get through the aisles? You know, are there shelves that are empty? You know, are there shelves? You know, I thought Deere, John Deere did just a great job. They put such a big push and Caterpillar on that. I mean, they just, they led the brands for a number of years and point of sale merchandising that just, just made a huge swing, you know, in the operations. Then when you go to some of the other brands.

Well, I appreciate it. I hope anybody listens to this. I mean, I guess I want to go back and listen to it myself again, but you know, I don't think it's all the dealerships all the time. I still think it's a lot of the dealerships, a lot of the time. And it's just about improving the effectiveness and unleashing that creativity with our people that I believe your people on the front line have more answers. Yeah. How to improve and what to do. And we just have to find ways to unleash them and let that happen.

You got to want to. You got to want to.

Thank you, Alan. Have a good day. Appreciate