You got next

Graham Betchart a sports psychologist & mental toughness coach to professional athletes begins coaching his players w/ 3 plays. These 3 plays set the foundation toward continuous growth that you & I can use…the good news is we don’t even have to run sprints or stadiums to be one of the best!

• Play #1: W.I.N. stands for What’s important now? Simply controlling the controllables. You can’t control the ultimate outcome but you can heavily influence it. Outcomes can be influenced by the 3 things within your control: Attitude, Effort, & Focus. If your attitude is one where you’re walking around blowing your breath in big huffs- looking like a big ass eye roll emoji then you’re going to get back what you put out- negative results. But if your attitude is that of being open minded- in his book Principles, billionaire investor Ray Dalio calls it being radically open-minded, this mindset keeps the channels of your mind open and flexible. Look, things are going to ebb & flow- some things will bounce your way, other times, even when done perfect will not, but you’ve got to keep the attitude and keep plugging knowing things will swing to & fro. If you think about the times that you’re all pissed off, you usually have a rigid, closed mind, don’t you? You’re also in control of your effort- concentrate on giving full effort to each day, customer, & encounter. I find that when your attitude trails off you tend to be more me focused– worried more about what you’re getting & less of what you’re giving. You just give it all you got- you’ll get what you deserve. You also control your focus. Ask yourself, What time zone am I in right now? We live in 1 of 3 time zones: Past, Present, or Future.The only one that’s productively real is what’s happening right now. Stay local (not loco).
• Play #2: Be present. Graham says it’s reeeeel easy to play present when you’re winning and everything’s going right- but can you play when your in the shit spin cycle of Life…can you play present even when you’re in pain? Graham has a saying that I love & use that re-centers me back to the present when I feel like I’m starting to drift into the past or future, “Play where your feet are.” It’s an instant slap back to reality- where are your feet right now? Play there…
• Play #3 Next Play Speed: Athletes don’t have time to get hung up on a blocked or missed shot- Graham coaches his players to hurry up and get into the next play. This prevents them from getting stuck in an action that has already happened. Whenever I don’t do well with a previous customer, I try not to park & bitch about what I did or didn’t have/do- no, I quickly get back in the mix by looking for the next play- the next opportunity or activity that I can possibly capitalize on.

So that’s it! 3 plays is all you have to remember & run today. W.I.N. (What’s Important Now); Play Present, & Next Play Speed.

Blow the whistle- You’re in!

I’ll see you in the Sales Life!

⭐️⭐️Subscribe to my weekly podcast The Sales Life w/ Marsh Buice. You can find it on iTunes, Spotify, or Google Play

“I don’t coach lefties”

You may think that because Steve Young was a Super Bowl wining quarterback, Hall of Fame inductee, attorney, & successful sports analyst that he just had the “it” factor- like everything he touched turned to gold but that couldn’t be further from the truth. He went to BYU as a quarterback and realized quickly that he wasn’t going to be a starter anytime soon…if ever. The starting QB Jim McMahon (Future Super Bowl winner) had the lead position locked in- not only was Young behind McMahon, but he was behind 6 others vying for the coveted QB position. In other words, 7 others players would have to go down before Young would ever get his shot. Steve began to have second thoughts- he wished he would’ve gone to a different college so he called his dad (nicknamed Grit) telling him that he wanted to quit. Grit told his son that he could certainly quit, but he couldn’t come home, saying, “I don’t live with quitters.”

Steve stuck it out…

To make matters worse, Steve’s coach walks up to him one day informing him that Steve was no longer a QB, he’d been demoted to defense. “I don’t coach lefties,” his coach walked off saying. Sure enough, Steve found out that every BYU Hall of Fame QB had been right handed- Steve Young was a leftie.

Given Young’s already brittle state of mind, that statement alone could’ve broken him…instead it motivated him. Although his position was now on defense, Young was determined to play quarterback. He set out on his own by working on his footwork, technique, & threw over 10,000 spirals in 2 months time. His arm hurt- he was putting in extra work for a position he didn’t even play…

But he kept at it…

A new coach meandering across the field saw the accuracy of Young’s throws & began lobbying to get him switched over to offense. Steve’s hard worked paid off…sort of…although he was back to the 8th QB, at least he was back on offense. With new hope, he began outworking others and moved through the ranks to the #2 spot. As “luck” would have it, the starter went down, and Young went in.

Now I’d like to tell you the rest was history and it was all cupcakes and rainbows from there but it wasn’t. Steve played awful- in one half alone he threw 5 interceptions… in a short amount of time, Young had racked up more losses than McMahon had amassed in 2 years.

But he kept at it…

Drafted by the Tampa Bay Bucs, he played poorly for 2 seasons, but once again someone saw a diamond playing in the rough. Bill Walsh, Head Coach of the San Francisco 49ers, brought Steve Young on board to back up legendary quarterback Joe Montana.

Back on the bench again, the role and mission were all too familiar and Young used his secondary role to study & learn from one of the greatest quarterbacks ever. Montana & Young competed and jostled for the starting role-at one point, Young was relegated to a backup position when he was told he would be a starter.

But he kept at it…

Young got his shot, secured the starting position and went on to become Super Bowl MVP, Hall of Famer, attorney, & sports analyst for ESPN.

Nothing for Young came easy- even when he earned it, he found himself always having to prove himself…not so much to others, but to himself.

Steve Young kept at it…

…and so should you…..

Anything worth having will be hard. At times it’ll be thankless & humiliating… but it’ll all be worth it…some how, some way. While you may be deep on the depth chart in life-just because you’re not in the lead position…just because you’re not a starter doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think, study, & play like one. Don’t play up to the position you find yourself in today, play to your potential. Do the offline work- work that is meaningless to everyone but you…learn from those you back up-good or bad, don’t stand around hoping they fall, help them rise & in return you will too. Put in the work not knowing when “the day” will arrive- when is not your concern…what you do between now and when is. You put in the effort & the universe will supply the events and people to ensure it “just so” happens. And often it happens beyond your wildest imagination.

But first you’ve got to play to your potential, not your current position.

I’ll see you on the Blacktop.

They’re Matters, Not Meaning

Showing up today matters.

It matters that you show up on time for work.

It matters-even if it’s 2 words or 2 sentences- that you find something worth writing down today that will help shape you into becoming better than you  were before you captured it.

It matters how quick and how many customers you are willing to get in front of today.

It matters that you are brave enough to pick up the phone and risk hearing a customer reject you instead of hiding behind a text message.

It matters that you ask your customer optimistic building questions instead of pessimistic, narrowing ones.

It matters that your customers demo the vehicle.

It matters that you write your customers up.

It matters that you persistently press forward beyond the 1rst, third, and 4th No.

It matters that you turn your customers over to let a fresh face help you.

It matters that you follow through after the sale-you not only need your clients to make your month, you need them to make your career.

It matters that you remain walking with your customers during the frustrating moments-the moments when the warranty they paid $2500 for won’t cover the repair.

It matters that you follow up and stay in touch with your customers’ lives not their wallets.

It matters that you help others regardless of what’s in it for you.

It matters that you’re willing to be a student of your profession.

You showing up today matters because everything you do (or don’t do) is significant to the outcome of your day, month, year, career, and your life.

(Yes, your life.)

What you do matters, but the emphasis of those matters have the wrong meaning.

When a customer hangs up on you…

When a customer won’t get out of the car and give you a chance to help them…

When a customer gets annoyed because you can’t tell them a price or tell them what their trade is worth in the first 30 seconds of meeting them….

When a customer won’t demo…

When a customer refuses to come inside “for your business card”…

When a customer  jumps across the street and buys from your competitor because you didn’t turn them over…

When a customer goes off on you because you dropped the ball while their car was in service…

When a customer won’t return your phone calls…

When a customer gets cold feet after agreeing to buy…

Failing matters, but it doesn’t give a meaning to what you are worth.

The ill moments-the moments when you screwed up, blew up, got yelled at, or were left standing alone should be tied to matters of the day not meanings of your heart.  What you do has to matter-showing up today, facing the giants in your life, has to be worth it…if it’s not worth it, don’t show up. Pivot and find something worth showing up for. What you do today has got to be so significant- so important to you, that the implications of what you do is higher than the outcome that it may produce. 

 

The outcomes only define how well you did something- they don’t define who you are or what you’re worth.  

 

Rejection is a lesson in self-education not self-worth. Use the losses, defeats, setbacks, and almosts as education to move forward not excuses to fall back. While circumstances are the banality of most, you forge ahead, working and reworking today’s defeats into tomorrow’s victories.  Sure rejection hurts- we don’t like the sting of hearing NO and the stains that it internally leaves behind;  we don’t like the fact that we poured out two hours of our best efforts only to have our customer go down the road to save a few hundred bucks. Rejection hurts, but you must not let it kill you.

Rejection has matter not meaning- the significance of what you do and how you do it matters. How much you’re willing to give to that matter is what has meaning.

I’ll see you next time on the Blacktop.

Keep your balls under-inflated

As of late, the New England Patriots have been under fire for allegedly playing with under-inflated footballs. Playing with under-inflated footballs allows the quarterbacks, receivers, and running backs a better grip. When under-inflated, quarterbacks have more control when throwing and running backs and receivers are able to catch and carry the ball better. (Especially in inclement weather.)

Having an under-inflated ball definitely has its advantages. 

 
For those in the sales profession, I suggest that you always keep your balls under-inflated. From your triumphant highs to your darkest lows; from your string of runs of those who say yes to those who rollback, bought elsewhere, or the deals you have to split. 

You have to keep things in perspective because you’re never as good as you think you are nor as bad as they say. You will have good days and bad, but no matter how high you are sailing or how often you keep failing, keep your moments under-inflated and maintain your grip on life.

I’ll see you on the Blacktop.

Stop Receiving The T.O.

One of the hardest techniques to teach a salesperson is that of the turn-over (T.O.). Boiled down to simplicity, the rules for a T.O. can be summed up in 9 words, “Before your customer leaves, introduce them to a manager.” That’s it!! How hard can that be, right? As it turns out, it’s very hard because we allow our feelings to hijack our disciplines. We walk customers for all kinds of reasons. (Walk is slang for letting a customer leave before introducing them to a manager) One reason we walk a customer is because we feel that we’ve made such a positive impression with a customer that we know they have no choice but to come back so instead of asking them to buy now, we sprinkle Be-back Dust on them and bid them farewell. Other times we walk customers when we are in our valley moments-these moments are when we are emotionally low; maybe we are having a bad day, week, or worse, we’re halfway through the month and we haven’t sold a single car yet-whatever the reason, we’ll bounce the, “I’m not buying today,” customer so that we can eagerly wait for the perfect lay down customer who will hopefully get our month back on track. And then there are those times we walk a customer simply because we just don’t like their attitude (I’m sure the feeling’s mutual). The list can go on and on why we won’t give a T.O., but when it comes to receiving a T.O., we’re all too willing.

See if this sounds familiar. A customer shows up on your lot, hurriedly picks out a vehicle and refuses to go on a test drive- reasoning that they just looked at one down the street “exactly” like it. Complying, you 86 the test-drive, hurriedly write up the trade, call to get a payoff, present numbers, …and they leave vowing to continue to keep shoping. Your business card just got added to the stack of other salespeople who thought the same way as you. If you only remember one thing today, remember this:

Never take a T.O. from a salesperson at another dealership.

Picking up where another salesperson left off is like you giving your competitor the PIN to your ATM card and allowing him to play with your money. When a customer shows up, they’re yours. What you do next determines whether or not they will remain that way. Ask any customer if they like to shop for a vehicle and you will hear a resounding, “NO!” Think about it, if customers hate shopping for a vehicle so much, then why do they continue to shop? Customers continue to shop because no salesperson has taken the time to meet much less exceed their expectations. A doctor doesn’t assume to know why you are sitting in their office. They ask a bunch of questions in order to gain a better understanding. Once they know why you are there, then they can diagnose how they will heal you.

Sure, your customers may come in weary and frustrated from shopping all day, but that doesn’t mean that you have to continue to add to the frustration simply because you’re the last dealership they visit and weren’t the first. They’re still shopping because every salesperson is taking an assumptive T.O. from the previous salesperson.

Your customer may have seen many shows today, but they haven’t seen your show. Be unique, creative, fun, and positive when determining why your customer is in the market, then you can discover how to select, demonstrate, write-up, and deliver based on those expectations.

It’s more profitable to give a T.O. than to receive one.

I’ll see you next time on the blacktop.

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How To Be Debt Free In 7 Days

Have you ever noticed when you only have 7 days left in the month, everything seems to matter? As sands of the hourglass mark the passing of the remaining 168 hours, it is at that point you miraculously can account for every one of your Ups, Demos, Write-ups, Sales, and Deliveries. First here, last gone; fewer lunches; no more huddles-nothing matters more than your working feverishly to cover your draw. Mentally exhausted; not knowing whether to giggle or cry from exasperation, you live to see another month, but now face the daunting task of having to start it all over again in 8 short hours.

As the dry-erase boards are wiped clean and the dawn of optimism breaks through the horizon of rejection, your new month begins now. It wasn’t by accident you pulled out your month, it was your focus; instead of glaring at the remaining 7 days of your month, alternatively choose to focus on the 7 days beginning your new month.

The greatest debt owed on the blacktop is your draw and the faster you can pay it back, the more control you will have over your month. With the beginning of a new month, many of us vow to work Bell to Bell, working from sunup to sundown in order to maintain an edge, but that edge is short-lived because you are not in “sales shape” to maintain that kind of pace-it’s like going jogging for the first time by entering the Boston Marathon. No matter your intentions, you cannot keep with the grueling pace and quit within the first mile-markers of your month. With your pride battered and beaten, you being your biggest critic, you settle into what you know best, working the 2:00 offense in order to pull out another month.

You cannot maintain a sprinter’s pace the entire month, so instead focus intensely on the first 7 days because doing so, will chart the course of the rest of your month. In the first 3 days, you need to be “on the board” with your first sale and by the 7^th day, you need to have your draw covered. After that, the month is all yours- you are debt free! When you are released of an obligation, you can afford to take risks-every Up is not a Do or Die situation determining the outcome of your month. When you are released of an obligation, you now can focus on being more creative with your presentations-allowing your true personality to shine through, becoming other’s centered in lieu of being ME-focused.

An impoverished month begins with an indebted mindset. Seven days owed, 18 left to live freely.

I’ll see you next time on the blacktop.

You can say the message, yet convey the wrong meaning using poor body language. Actions speak louder than words- bring your words to life by body-building your way to a sale. Here’s how..

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

Train With A Funnel Not A Hose

A 3 year old has around 900 words in his vocabulary; over the next 15+ years a child’s word bank will explode to an average capacity of 20,000 words. As a parent, it would be impossible to teach your toddler everything you have learned in life in 7 short days, yet dealerships are guilty of cramming thousands of hours of experiential knowledge into a week long boot camp affectionately known as Sales Training. The one word that surmises why your hopeful hire went to lunch and never returned is because he was overwhelmed! The grandiose expectations of earning a 6-figure income in sales vaporized faster than witnessing Kim Kardashian in a wedding dress when he became overpowered by the amount of material, closes, and expectations that lay before him. The world may have been created in 7 days, but it is impossible for your new sales consultant to fully grasp the car business in one short week. Instead of overpowering a new sales consultant by dumping a wealth of information in one fatal sitting, try funneling your information into them. When a child is learning how to read and write, teachers are masters at funneling enough information to expand a child’s knowledge base but are careful not to pour too much and overwhelm and inhibit a child’s progress. In short, effective teachers train with a funnel and not a hose.

• ABC’s: The elementary fundamentals to a child’s ability to read and write begin with learning each letter of the alphabet.  To aid in a child’s learning, teachers link each letter of the alphabet with an image. Children then begin to associate a letter with a specific image (ex: A is for Apple). As a child progresses, letters are strung into one syllable words. The beginning building blocks to a new sales consultant is his approach to the business. Olympic huddlers are more concerned with how they start versus how they finish because they understand with the right approach the desired results will ensue. A new salesperson must approach the business much the same way; when you approach the business with the discipline to study your craft-giving no thought initially to time, a positive attitude, and professional attire-all matched with an inner toughness, you will be on the fast track toward building your pyramid of success. Much like your chemistry teacher, the car business is brutally tough- you cannot cram for success; what you sow you will reap.

• Sound off: Once a child is able to enunciate each letter of the alphabet and begins to construct letters into recognizable words, he then is able to construct words into simple sentences. In sales, your simple sentences are your processes. Every dealership has an 8 to 10 step Road to the Sale. A sales consultant, from novice to veteran, is taught a step- by- step process for outlining everything from how to properly approach a customer, to closing and following up after the sale. Just as a roadmap or navigation system can aid a driver in arriving at a specific destination, so too does a dealership’s step- by- step program lead a sales person through a sale on a consistent basis.  Maps are designed to be followed consistently in order to shorten the trip and make a sale. Make a wrong turn and the trip (sale) will take longer. The Road to the Sale is similar to inputting the right combination into a lock. When the right sequence of numbers is imputed, the lock is opened. Under times of duress, salespeople tend to deviate from their proven processes and are guilty of insanely trying different combinations out of desperation to make a sale. If there are 10,000 possibilities in a 4 place combination lock, how many variations of your Road to the Sale do you use? Athletes, chefs, pilots, as well as great salespeople are consistently devoted to proven processes.
• Mix it up: As a child’s vocabulary and sentence structure matures, he can then concentrate on developing more complex sentences marked with proper punctuation.  As a salesperson refines his skills and becomes more acclimated with customers, he then can begin to pepper the complexity of structuring his sales processes with 3^rd party reviews, factual knowledge of the distinct advantages his product has over his competitors’, as well as share real world success stories of clients who bought a similar product have had. No sentence is complete without proper punctuation. As the Iron Chef of the blacktop, a maturing salesperson begins to mix the right punctuation with the right circumstances. Periods close the sale by delivering a poignant delivery unworthy of a customer’s challenge; commas are instituted as a means of pausing and allowing the gravity of a thought to sink into a customer’s mind; exclamation points create the hype of excitement needed to stir up a customer’s emotions; semicolons are carefully placed to pause and introduce a new thought or idea-sometimes as a means to put a customer more at ease. In short, a salesperson’s techniques are infused with his personality and experience.

The Bible advises leaders to “train up a child in the way that he should go, and as he grows old, he will not depart from it.” Sadly, great potential is departing from the automotive industry not because of a lack of opportunity, but because of illiteracy. In an effort to fill a sales roster, salespeople are rushed onto the sales floor and left to copy and mimic bad habits and techniques of others, thereby receiving poor results and stunting their potential for growth. When the seed of a Chinese Bamboo Tree is planted, nothing can be seen for 4 years. On the 5^th year, the tree’s tiny shoot blossoms into an 80-foot tall tree. The tree didn’t suddenly decide to grow 5 years later, but instead, because of the caring and nurturing it was receiving, its foundation, its roots, was able to develop and provide a base strong enough to support its future magnificent stature. Your future depends on what you plant and nurture. I’ll see you next time on the blacktop.

Published in May’s edition of AutoSuccess Magazine

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AutoSuccess Magazine Podcast

http://traffic.libsyn.com/sellingsuccess/AutoSuccess_228_-_Marsh_Buice.mp3

In this week’s podcast, we discuss how you can set yourself up for success on the sales floor. Sadly, selling has become a lost art-form. Many sales people approach their profession with a “just enough” attitude, giving very little to their profession. With just a few disciplines-along with a different mindset, you can learn to become superior in a talent pool of mediocrity. See you next time on the blacktop!

(or you can find it on www.autosuccesspodcast.com, or on iTunes by searching “autosuccess”)

AutoSuccess Magazine Podcast