Floyd Jerkins on Training

You know, I think a big turning point for me was attending Dale Carnegie classes. I attended as a student. And I'd been through school, you know, I'm at the dealership, you know, as you were saying, where I'm training people every day, but I didn't understand what I was doing. I was just helping. And I remember attending the Dale Carnegie class and that was really an eye opener. And then I became a graduate assistant and actually taught the classes. And that really was an eye opener because it brought in the human relations side, you know, into the training methods. versus just training on a systems or process. Because sometimes at the dealership, I knew the process that needed to be done, but this person just can't do it, won't do it. Or I have to keep checking on it every other day and it's not being implemented all the way through. It just literally drove me crazy.

So as I learned more about the interaction of the human side and then started to really study in depth, how do adults learn? It's kind of funny, Ron, we were just talking about grandchildren. My granddaughter, she's in college now. She says, I think you're absolutely right, Paps. They just don't really care if I'm here or not. And I said, no, babe, because in grade school, you have to be there. When you get to high school, there's a probation officer, and they're going to inspect and make sure you're in college. It's up to you. You know, it's up to you to get yourself up in the morning, go to the class. You have to become a self-learner. And one of the challenges that I think in a lot of organizations today, Ron, are still back to what is that commitment to professional development, you know, at the dealership level, certainly at an owner's level. You know, we talked about that, the evolution of a business owner.

I mean, how serious are they about evolving the competencies? of all their people or all the people that primarily need it, you know, and then how do you measure it? How do you look at it? You know, why does somebody even need training? You know, training sometimes isn't always the answer, you know, and that's an assessment all by itself that, you know, training doesn't fix some behavioral problems. You know, it doesn't fix all those issues, but, you know. I wrote an article some years ago called Teach Me, I Dare You. And I came out of a session and it was a brand new class,28 people. And I bet I had four or five that were ready to be there. But we had about a dozen that were, you know, whatever, you know, and they were there because their dealer made them come. And I went back and got on this rampage. They said, listen, we're not going to enroll anybody else unless they want to be there.

And we started coaching the management and the HR and the owners saying, listen, if you're thinking you want to fire this guy and you want to put him in a class, don't do that. I mean, you probably should have fired him a year ago, you know, if you didn't already. So I think it's trying to, you know, when you look at adult learning and see how many people are really eager to learn, you know, those people are fun, easy to work with. It's the ones that are skeptical or the ones that doubt themselves, or maybe they have a low self-image, low self-esteem. You know, that in itself can breed problems. And it's amazing how when they do acquire that knowledge and they feel like they've got it, it builds them. You know, the whole self-esteem rises, the self-image changes, and they become hungry. They become eager, you know, to learn.

Well, I agree. Because it's really, most of the time, it's technicians training. We know we have to have certain competencies there to work on our machinery, and especially as machinery advances. But if we have a... 400 employees and we realize that we have a mid management level issue where they don't know how to delegate. What do we do? We have 38 managers, but only 12 of them do a good job, but the rest don't. Well, why? I mean, do we send them all to training? Do we send everybody to the same training? You know, that that's where your on demand training, Ron, I think is so important today is because it allows that, that dealer owner to really pre-select and really identify the right. with the right training for the right message, instead of just sending everybody to everything, because that just, that never worked before, you know? I mean, it certainly doesn't work today.

Yep, that's right. They were thrown into the position. And when they get thrown in, they're expected to figure it out. We pay you for it to figure it out. But, you know, if they come from your industry, if they come from a similar style operation, there's some similarities. But, you know, Ron, I looked at literally hundreds and hundreds of financial statements over the years. And you could always see, you know, there was certain operation and maybe there were 15 of them all doing about the same volume. But man, how they got to the bottom line. You know, it's always, they're always uniqueness and things that differently. So that means the, how the systems, the processes work, how the people interact, all that makes a huge difference. So there has to be some type of internal focus to provide that training and that development. Because, you know, my beginning question, who decides who needs trained? You know, I mean, who decides that?

For the fast learner, the person that comes to, hey, I need to learn this. Where do I go to find it? That's easy. But for the guy that is hiding, you know, maybe a little uncomfortable to share their, they don't know, but they just kind of go through the motions. Those are harder.

Well, I think that's the real key, Ron, is that... You know, if your kid goes to school and they come home and they're in the eighth grade and they attend the first semester and they come home and they say, listen, you know, I've attended the first semester. I've got this. You know, don't worry about me. I don't need to go back to school at that age. And what's going on here? Get your butt back to school. You know, when we become adults, we get better at convincing another adult that we know what we know. But when you're tested, when it's put to paper. And, you know, whether it's multiple choice, true, false, you know, there's still easy ways to identify. Do they really know what they know? Yeah. You know, I used to have a lot of kickback on some of the pre-testing that we did because I'd get phone calls from parts managers, listen, Floyd, one of your questions, it's a trick question. I said, well, there's really no trick questions on there.

Was there a difference in markup and margin? And they kept saying, well, no, there's not. Well, yeah, there is. You know, and then the other question, does your dealer ever tell you that your parts margins are off? Yes, he does. Okay, well, if you don't know how to figure the difference, then that's probably a telling sign. So I think that the testing of the pre allows you to put that benchmark in place. Yeah. It allows you to validate did the learning take place, you know, and the nice thing about the on demand is. they can rewind and go back through it again. Much different than live classroom training, you know, so they can go back and rehear it again and go, do I really understand it?

One of the unique things I think that happens as an adult, we begin to get all these compounded experiences in our brains and they layer. They just continue to layer, layer, layer. You know, here my education was way down here, but now I'm up here. So how do I go back into that mindset of opening my mind, opening my... My ability to learn again. I mean, that's a tough challenge because even as adults today, some learn something very quickly. Some are slower to learn. And some, it's not that they're dumb or illiterate. They're just a slower learner. Well, if you got a class of accelerants, you know, where everybody's a fast learner and you got a couple of slow ones, if they don't have a good enough self-image, they'll struggle speaking up, speaking out. You know, so that's where the on-demand ability. allows that ability to be able to have someone learn at their own pace.

And I think that particular is one of the real opportunities, I think, of the online learning segments today. Something we tried to look at years ago and push hard, but everybody was in this, I don't have time, you know, we can't do it. We never had money become the issue. It was always time. You know, and then everybody wants that, you know, they want that silver bullet, Ron. You know, tell me the one thing that I, you know, well, there's like a, there's a dozen BBs, but there's not one silver bullet. You know, as an adult, you know, we all, we learn today and it's best that if we go back and apply what we've learned, so it becomes behavior. You know, I don't want to just think it, I want to be able to do it. So once we're able to apply the knowledge and turn it into behavior, Then we can come back and learn some more. And that's called spaced accountability, spaced recognition.

It's the ability to learn, have some space in between there of time, come back and learn again, and you'll build on those competencies over a period of time. But if you don't keep using it, these layers of memories begin to grow again and they end up dissipating. You can recall that. It's kind of like riding a bike. You may not have ridden a bike for 30 years, but your muscle mass says, Hey, I think I can do this. Now, the first couple of times you get on it, I mean, you're pretty rocky. But then you start to pick it up and you figure it out and your brain starts to pull it again and again when you really know it. But you can't just have a, you know, a sound bite and think that that's learning. That's just not, you know, that's not really it.

That's right.

Right. You know, one of the things that I think impacts this at the dealership level is, you know, it's the culture. You know, I always labeled it as four stages of culture. There's a stagnant culture, which is, you know, we're still in business. We can still be profitable, but we're not really. making changes or evolving. We're just letting the customers come through the door. The doors are swinging, the phone's ringing, everything's clicking. We've got to be doing well. And then there's a growing stage, which generally requires management to begin to say, well, we've got to start addressing things this way. And then there's the learning stage. And then there's a teaching stage.

When we can get a business to a learning and a teaching stage, Ron, they become evolutionary they're able to withstand market changes uh you know price point changes because they can they're very agile you know in the organization but if they're you know growing if they're stagnant and trying to jump start that man there's a big big gap of operational performance when you go from stagnant to teaching and sometimes you'll have departments go through various stages sometimes you'll have branch stores go through various stages and for various reasons. But the art of growing the enterprise is organizational development is the key because it starts with personal development. And when you look at line items on budgets, if you don't see that above the fold, then it's just an expense. It's something they look at as an expense to control, not an investment to be made.

And I think the operations that are truly looking at training and development as an investment and they're measuring it differently than just the old expense line item. I think those operations are setting themselves apart, you know, I mean, by far. I mean, that's where a lot of times, you know, when this whole cycle of learning, you know, my particular services today, you know, it used to be we fit a very wide niche, you know, of where we could fit to help an operation. Today, I'm a very narrow niche. in terms of that cycle of learning. And a lot of times, you know, in online classes, they're not involved with a lot of others. So there's not that peer pressure, the other dynamic that comes from classroom settings. And for business owners that are setting in 20 groups that maybe don't want to speak up, speak out, or they have more information, that's where I'm fitting a niche, fitting that hole today.

So this whole concept of the culture of the business, the ability to, define where their educational value comes from, you know, somebody has to decide that. Somebody has to set that pace, you know, in the operation. And Ron, what's unique today, and there's just, you don't really have any competition. You know, I mean, you're so far out ahead of them, you know, with what you're doing here.

Yeah.

And so there's got to be done in pieces, Ron. It's got to be done in pieces at the deal. No question. The concept to me is if we could just stop the business and say, all right, for 90 days, we're not going to, we're going to shut off customers. We're just going to become contained with just my people. And we could train and educate and get everybody walking and talking on the same page and open the door again and business start. Well, that's a great fallacy. It just, you know, doesn't work that way. So we have to train while we're still running business. We have to train while we're still conducting service to customers and, you know, all the selling, all the stuff we have to do. But it's critical that. It's done and it's done well. The old idea of we're too busy, you know, that, you know, it became an excuse because it's when you're the busiest is when you need to be at your best.

Yeah. I used to teach. in a segment of this called the delegation strategies and those three questions. You know, you never answer the question when someone asks you, you know, what are, what's the problem? You know, if they can't describe the problem, you send them back. If they can come up and describe the problem, then what are some potential solutions that are good for you, good for the company, good for the department? It can't be just good for the department because it might not be good for the customer. So you ask them these series of questions and it's amazing how you can turn people. around and getting them to think for themselves and starting to make decisions on the front line versus having to ask permission to make decisions. Because I think most of the time, Ron, any assessment I ever did on an operation, I don't care what it was. I started in the back and worked my way up to the front.

And the owner said, well, I'll meet you in the morning. I said, no, sir, I won't be around to you until probably maybe close to 11. Maybe we'll go to lunch. I'm coming in through the shop. I'm going to talk to the guys in the back first. If somebody's busy, I'll leave them alone. I'll make my rounds from another. But it's amazing how you can sit with an owner and a management group. And they said, man, how did you learn that? Well, your people will tell you, but they sometimes won't tell their management because there's either fear or there's some obstacle there. It could be real or not. But your people have the answers to how to improve the operations. I mean, I really think there's power in that, you know, that the front line generally knows what to do. You know, they just have to have the right support mechanisms to do it.

Which is the best one? Why? Why do you feel that way? That's right.

That's right. That's right. And I think there's just so much, especially in our world today, Ron, they're running helter skelter. They're busy. They're making money. I mean, it's profitable. It's just, you know, the problem is sometimes that profitability hides the sins. Sometimes there's frustration in the organization at a high level. And we're making money, our bottom line strong, but yet we're burning our people out. And see, that always bothered me because, you know, I was looking, every client, it was like, where are they going to be at in 40 years from today? And some would say, well, listen, I'm only 35. Well, let's plan out where's your organization going to be in 15,20,25 years. And if you can't see that far out, we need to start thinking that way because that's how you evolve your systems towards a long run. You don't just solve problems today. You're trying to solve it for the future and make that business.

You know, it was kind of unique. There's two local restaurants here, both of them high end, white tablecloth. I mean, just, I mean, $45 steaks. I mean, it's just, it's the high end stuff. When you go in one, They're struggling finding people. And you go in and you can just, you know, for me, I can feel that tension, you know, in the air. You know, I can feel that. You go to the other restaurant and people are bobbing around, laughing, you know, staff's moving and shaking. And when you ask them, are you guys having problems getting people? Well, no, not really. You know, we don't have that problem. We have a few people waiting to come on board with us. Now, the difference is two things. One is that the second business pays an extremely high wage. But out of that extreme high wage, he expects high performance and he's able to get it. The first operation, the restaurant, I mean, it's a beautiful setting. It's great.

But there's always negative tension in there and nobody's having any fun. You know, they're short staff. They're running ragged. You know, they tried it. They put the smile on. But as soon as they turn away, you can tell their face drops. And that to me is, while we're really busy, we got to remember to stop, pause, have a little fun, make sure that our people are doing good with that too.

When you talk to that owner, you know, he's just a neat guy. He walks around. He's very unassuming. And, of course, I'm, you know, my wife said, just leave him alone. And I said, oh, come on. One more time I go in this, oh, there's the retired consultant, you know, and they'll come over and chat with me. And, you know, I asked him one time, I said, so you're net to the bottom line. How much different is it compared to others in your industry? And he said, oh, I'm the highest. Yeah. But he said, I reserve that because, you know, I don't want to be here every day. You know, he said, sometimes the worst problems happen is when I get in the middle of things. He said, I just get out of their way.

He said, you know, we've got this mandate. We have once a month meetings. And he said, if I see something going haywire in the operation, I just wait until my monthly meeting. You know, and then once I tell these people that they're able to get it done, they fix it. He said, I don't have to beat them up. He said, I've been through that before where we had to do that. But I decided that I want to pay more money and not let money become an obstacle to, you know, we made good money as an owner, but I'm willing to share more of that. So I have a life. And that, you know, that's just music in my ears, right?

That's right. You know, I've got three grandkids in college now, so it's just a perfect time on the educational discussions. And I really so enjoy hearing them, you know, talk about their experiences and ask about their experiences and different things. And, you know, you just I think in the equipment dealership today, Ron, I think we have to turn those into universities. And I think our dealerships need to become so pronounced that, you know, we're seeking out educational opportunities. We want all of our people to have an MBA in parts management, an MBA in sales management. You know, we want to have that because we've got to have the best, you know, to have not just the longevity, but to get peak performance, you know, out of the operation. And certainly to keep these customers that are. changing fast and the expectations are changing fast and we've got to have our frontline able to do that.

And I don't think you can, you know, you just can't fake that. I mean, you can't get a college degree by attending a one or two day class. You know, there's multiple classes, there's multiple disciplines, there's pre-testing, there's post-testing. I mean, that's how you get an education, you know, and I think that's so. You know, and I think we're starting to see that become recognized, you know, and I'm starting to see that it's not as widespread, maybe, you know, part of that, I think, was the opportunities that were available. When the manufacturer offers training, they're not combining operational training, soft skill training into one thing. It's usually technical related. So I think what you're offering and certainly even in the niche of what I'm offering is really unique. today to provide an accelerant, you know, the ability for those operations to speed up.

Well, I think it's a natural occurrence for them to learn. Every time a new app comes out, they've got to learn it. Every time a new platform, they've got to learn it.

I've got a CPA for years. Why? Like he said, Floyd, you're pretty sharp on that stuff. I said, yeah, but you're sharper. You do this every day. You and your team really work at it. I've got an investment group, and that's what they do. I don't do that every day. It doesn't mean that I can't, but they're experts in their field and allows that knowledge base to be so much faster and more precise. And I think that's a lot about what you've done. inside the on-demand learning run is that you've created content that allows that accelerant. You know, I mean, people can really speed up the learning curves and that's part of what I'm doing is taking all my background experience. I don't have employees today. I don't have anything other than I'm servicing a client or I'm not playing on the beach. You know, I mean, that's one or the other. And in that service to the client, I'm able to give that real pointed one-to-one.

relationship that I always strive to do before, but it's hard to do when you're growing a company and you've got, you know,25 miles to feed and, you know, everybody's pulling at you, you know, and that's, that's just part of it. So, you know, I think that's a very unique thing today and there's a lot of coaches out there, but, you know, I don't know, I'm not taking the, how to be a coach class. You know, I just haven't done that run. I'm, I'm probably not going to, you know, I've done this for a long time. Like your work, I mean, you're coming from practical experience. And I think that's where I think we have such an edge is because we have that practical experience. And, you know, you just can't get a college degree in a day or two class. I don't think you can get what I know by reading a book. I mean, you've got to read a lot of books. I mean, you've got to do a lot of work to get.

And sometimes I don't remember what I know until the opportunity arises. And there I am. You know, if I have experience in that, I'm able to draw on it. If I don't have, then, you know, I can't. I mean, that's just all there is to it.

Right.

You know, Ron, I think we covered... you know, quite a bit here. You know, I think that for me, it's back to does this information help somebody that listens to it? Does it help them to understand how to look at their situation a little better? Does it make them learn how to ask better questions? You know, is there something about that? We could certainly drill down into how the tests are designed and why they're designed a certain way and why how curriculum is built. You know, your customers and mine, they're not curriculum builders. That's not what they do to generate revenue. You know, they depend upon us, you know, other people for that. So hopefully something we've said today allows them to gain some insight to maybe think a little bit differently about their situation. You know, I would just encourage the owners that listen to this and maybe management and certainly HR is to, you know, broaden that.

thinking about how to provide education to your people. And, you know, look at your people holistically, not just through the one department or one division, is because that the ability to grow your people, you know, is there's opportunities today. And it's, I know there's cost of labor when they're gone, or they're taking time away from doing that. But, you know, what you want is you want not just a happy employee, but you want a highly competent one. And the more competencies you can help that individual bring, I think the happier they are on the job because they're, you know, all these, the great resignation, we talked about this last time, Ron, on the hiring thing, this whole deal about, you know, how do we retain people? I think we have to have them involved, you know, not something we do to them, but something they do with us. And when they know you're spending money on education.

It's okay to show them how much you're spending, not just in the cost of the education, but the cost of the time away from the job. I think that there's nothing wrong with that.

Ron, do they have a lot of interdepartmental friction? Of

Yes, sir. I agree.