…continued from Part 1
Jim: Well, it’s a pretty exciting story about the Oakley Organization. I received permission to share their information because their philosophy is: We’ll gladly share the information, but it’s up to you to apply it. They don’t even care if I share it with people across the street – each person and company still has to apply the information, make it work and make a difference. Oak Motors (out of Indiana) had an amazing, amazing year in 2011. I was hired in 2010 to come in and work with some very specific challenges or problems that were going on.
I did some coaching that turned into larger-scaled coaching and they decided it would be great if we entered into a long-term contract. So, I visited their dealership every month on a regular basis and I coached their top 11 managers. We did workshops on team-building, we did workshops on building a vision and goals, how to achieve results in each department and, probably the most important, we helped implement a set of core values. The dealership agreed to adhere to the new set of core values, and they did!
It may sound easy, but this was very difficult. I have been down this road with other dealerships or businesses in the past, and I always tell the management right up front: there will be some of your people who will opt out. Don’t be surprised if maybe some of your top performers don’t want to adhere to the new core values. The core values are about honesty, integrity, you know, accountability; part of the goal is to create a culture where it is safe to challenge people on their accountability or on their performance or on their integrity. There will be some who just can’t (or won’t) get on board with the new culture, and some who will show up with an attitude of simply doing whatever they’re told – no more, no less.
So, we implemented the new core values and continued with the coaching. This went on for six months. In June, Bob Oakley called a meeting with the leadership; they were only at 77 percent of the vision/goal for the quarter.
Bob told everyone they were not going to reach their quarterly projections and, if they didn’t reach the goal for the quarter, there would be no quarterly bonuses. I don’t need to tell you that everyone loves a bonus. By the way, this dealership has had good quarters before and has handed out bonuses before; but they never have had a year where they hit all four quarters. The promise was an even bigger bonus if they hit all four quarters. This meeting took place during the second week of June. For the rest of the month of June, they needed to hit a 111 percent of their plan to reach their quarterly goal. Think about that for a moment. This company had never sold that many cars in just two weeks before; that’s like several hundred cars!
Here’s what happened. That day they did some brainstorming, a lot of brainstorming. To his credit, Bob wrote on a huge whiteboard every single idea they came up with. He never knocked down an idea or said something was undoable. With each offered idea, all he said was: that’s an interesting idea. Bob did a great job of leading his people; he actually facilitated a transformation that day. He went from telling people what to do to enrolling people into the process. That was a huge change in their culture. So even if somebody offered a seemingly wild idea such as cutting the car’s price in half, he would simply respond, “Well, that’s an idea,” and then he wrote it down. He never once said it was a good idea or a bad idea. He did that with everybody in the room. In the end they came out with a plan, they came out with ways to get everybody on board, and they came up with a sales strategy. That sales strategy, by the way, actually ended up at 121 percent of the original plan for the month of June. They set all kinds of records.
They had people staying until midnight selling cars and keeping people in cars. They had HR delivering soda pops and drinks to different parts of the dealerships. The detail people were detailing cars faster than they have ever done it before; they figured if you needed five, they’d give you ten. Pretty soon the detailing department was up to 50 cars in a single day. Ya, they were working extraordinary hours, but this time it was different – it was a high, fun energy. There was enthusiasm, there was excitement. Emails of encouragement or with status updates were going all over the place. The level of energy was just out of this world. They had not only made their quarter, they had made and surpassed the entire year!
With that goal met, Bob and the rest of the leadership team wondered how to sustain this level of enthusiasm and momentum for the rest of the year. I told them they weren’t asking the right question. The better question would be: What’s next?
These guys did something I have only seen done maybe four times in my 25-plus years in this business as a coach and performance consultant. They actually had all 152 employees playing to win. They went as hard as they could, with all that they could as far as they could. There wasn’t one person that said it’s not my job. They created a high level of trust, a high level of accountability, a high level of respect.
Remember the 2011 NBA playoffs between the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat? The Miami Heat was the team everyone predicted to win. They were supposed to win. After all, they had three really big superstars: D-Wade, Bosh, and LeBron James. These guys weren’t just slated to win, it was understood they dominate the Mavericks. It was a given that they had the better talent. But, the Mavericks had something the Heat was obviously missing – they had a play-to-win attitude. The Mavericks played as a team, they covered each other’s backs, and they cared for each other. They went as hard as they could with all that they could and they did the unthinkable: they won the NBA title!
Oak Motors did the same thing as the Dallas Mavericks. And, once they had tasted this slice of success, and everybody believed that they could do it, they went ahead and did it again – every month! They now have the winning strategies in place and they now have the right (positive) people to implement the strategies. It’s true they did let a few people go during this year; some people felt it was just a one-time thing and they didn’t believe they could perform at that level all the time. On the other hand, the people who were part of that winning team who decided not only to stay at Oak Motors, they decided they could do even better than the previous goal. Everyone on the floor and in the various departments all said: We’re better than that. The whole team at Oak Motors took on a genuine sense of purpose and a real sense of belief that they could accomplish anything.
By the way, I did the same thing with Horizon Irrigation. They went from $15 million in five years to $250 million with that same winning attitude. They had 100 percent involvement, they had a clear vision. Everybody had a clear vision of what they were trying to accomplish. The next step was to break down the vision to very specific goals of what they wanted to accomplish. In other words, what they needed to do every single day to make the vision happen. If they didn’t hit their goal, they didn’t beat themselves up. All they did was come in the next day and asked themselves: What do we need to do today? They didn’t add the number of sales or number of ROs or any prior number; they just started fresh every day.
One of the challenges everyone invariably snags on when setting a goal for the year or even for the month, is missing a day or stumbling along the way. No one is perfect. So you miss a day on your diet. You don’t need to starve yourself the next day and you don’t need to run an extra five miles. You also don’t need to give up. Just start fresh the next day and when you do, say to yourself: This is like me, I go as hard as I can with all that I can. That permission to start fresh and the statement of encouragement takes a tremendous amount of pressure off of people. It really focuses them back on the objectives and accomplishments to drive the vision.
Another dealership I worked with, the 38th Street Dealership, had major road construction going on right in front of the dealership. I mean they had workers tearing up the road with loud jackhammers, large dump trucks lined up to haul away the debris, and a range of tractors and other loud road machinery destroying the road in front of the dealership in order to improve the road. The torn up road was muddy, it was full of potholes and trenches covered by those huge metal plates, and it was generally horrible. Most people would have closed the dealership during the construction believing no buyers could get through the muddy obstacle course. No customers means no sales – game over. So, how did the dealership handle it?
They needed a different way of looking at the situation, a different way to do things in order to get different results. It’s simple, really. They believed that any car turning into their dealership had to be a buyer because no one else would work that hard to get in! The salespeople ran out to greet them figuring they had an absolute slam-dunk buyer. They developed energy in the dealership and the word got out. People were coming in because it was fun, it was exciting. They managed to continue practicing their values, they continued toward their goal and vision, and they made their sales because they didn’t give up and they found another way to get things done. Leadership helped the team members by finding ways to do things differently in order to get different results.
You know right here in our county, there’s a company called Zappos Shoes. For those who don’t live in or near Las Vegas, if you come here for a visit you have got to go see this place. This place is like Red Bull on steroids because the energy level is out of this world. Everybody who works at Zappos Shoes starts and ends their day at a 100 percent. They practice the play-to-win attitude, they have a clear vision, everybody knows what their purpose is, and everybody is committed to it. They also have a belief that if you don’t want to be a part of the Zappos Shoes, they encourage you to move on.
You know, the tendency in most businesses is to keep some of their people around just to fill the place with warm bodies! Even if a worker is a sourpuss or a stick-in-the-mud, well, at least it’s a warm body answering the phones or counting the beans. Are you kidding me? If your people aren’t the best in class, if they don’t have excitement, or if you don’t need to pull them down off the ceiling every day, well then I’ve got to tell you, you’ve got the wrong people. That’s the big message you know, when you saw me up on the stage, I was really trying to drive home that message.
For my part of that convention in Dallas, I had invited two people to be my guests on stage. These two gals were the two supervisors in the Collection Department at Oak Motors Indiana Finance. Neither of them had ever been on a stage before and one of the two had never been on an airplane in her life. This was a big deal for both of these two ladies. But they were so excited to tell their story. I asked them how they wanted to be introduced, what I should call them. You’ll never guess what they decided on for a title: Financial Freedom Fighters. You know, instead of being bill collectors they help people fight for freedom, financial freedom. That has become their mission and, by the way, their collection success-rate has gone through the roof. It’s such an extraordinary experience because it’s more to them than just a job; they’re Financial Freedom Fighters, not just warm bodies!
When I was at Oakley in December just before Christmas, Bob told me that the company was going to hit their annual goal. It was the first time in the history of the company they would hit all four quarters. Bob had a great big smile when he told me that, and that made me smile.
You know, I get paid pretty well for what I do, but when I get that smile of satisfaction, pride, and the joy of success, that’s when I realize what the real payment is. That’s why I do what I do. That sense of accomplishment is huge, and they actually did it. I didn’t do it, they did it. I just gave them some tools and they put them into action.
Whoever is reading and/or listening to this, I am telling you it’s just that easy. I am telling you, it’s easy and it can be done. All you need is 100 percent of your people to make the choice and commit to playing to win. They will be asked to show up each and every day ready to go as hard as they can and with all that they can. If, and when, a person decides they don’t want to do that, it’s okay to encourage them to move on. Now you are attracting a certain class of people, the best in class. It is a wonderful thing that’s going on. It is a lot of fun.
Kenny: There’s a whole bunch of things in play there that sound exciting, with such a large group all being on-board. That’s great for you. It takes a good coach to do that. I’m sure they are appreciative of you.
Jim: That’s an interesting point because there were a few times when my coaching actually involved calling the ownership or the leaders out. I’ll give you a great example. A number of dealerships I go to have a CRM, including Oakley. So, I asked them: How many ups have you had today? What’s the percentage you closed? What’s the cost to sale? And they just sort of looked at me. They didn’t know if anyone was using this; I’m not even sure the General Sales Manager even understood how it worked!
I took him to task. I told him that if he couldn’t model the way, he certainly couldn’t expect his team to do it. He either needed to be the expert at the CRM or get rid of the CRM. Absent that, he ought to quit and leave the company because he was clearly not helping the company to achieve its goals. I was nice about it, but my message was brutally clear. When I came back 30 days later, he was absolutely the expert in the CRM. He actually thanked me because now he understood why and how it worked and that he could use it as a tool to measure his own progress.
Kenny, you and I have both called people before and asked then: How many ups did you get? And maybe they know and maybe they don’t. They almost always say, “a few”. Ok, what does that mean and where did the data come from? I mean did you get them from the internet or did you get them from the Yellow Pages? If you want to know if the Yellow Pages are working for you, you’ve got to try the CRM and track them and use them. It’s amazing, a tool that is as valuable as that, that the number of people that don’t use it boggles the mind. Even Google, one of the largest companies in the world, they teach their people how to analyze their leads, their websites, and the traffic at Google Analytics.
It’s a proven fact that you need to know where your leads are coming from. Most people are concerned about how many sales they had in one day. That’s not the most important concern for your business. You need to know your close ratio. Okay, what that means? How many cars do you want to sell? How many cars do you need to see? How many people need to show up every day? You need to know your numbers – if you don’t, the success of your dealership is then left to chance.
Kenny: Tracking is another training course in itself. It’s so critically important and I am sure you can explain it over the course of probably a couple of hours. I’m not sure why people don’t do the tracking. You know that they need to do it. They are told they need to do it and yet, they don’t.
That brings me to the topic I want you to talk about next and it’s based on something you said a moment ago. You indicated that Oak Motors said that it was okay to share their name and their numbers. Oak Motors was even okay sharing with the company across the street because they still have to act on it, they still have to take action. So my final question to you is important and I know you think it’s critically important too because I have read your books and listened to your CDs. I thoroughly enjoyed the books and CDs, by the way. The question is about the important step of taking action. I mean you have given us some great information today and somebody is writing down at least two or three ideas. So, people reading this or listing to the recordings take your ideas and 60 days later: nothing. What’s the problem, Jim? What keeps people from taking action?