Your Dealer Network

I really admire the automotive manufacturers’ practice of building dealer networks. They have local coverage of buyers just when those buyers are interested in purchasing. Car manufacturers know they couldn’t get that density of coverage at scale on their own.

Here’s a question. Have you ever considered building your dealer network?

Well first, we’re unique. We’re not selling cars.

Uh huh.

What we sell is much more complicated.

Only til you make it simple. That would probably improve your operation all by itself.

We would lose control of quality. Have you talked with people? They’re nuts!

Good observation. I think that has always been true.

Well, what do I look for in a dealer candidate?

An enthusiast. A real interest in what you do. Current delighted customers are a good place to start.

People who share. Ever met someone who isn’t successful? Not a candidate.

People who influence more than you do. You’re peddling as fast as you can.

How do I start a dealer relationship?

When I identify someone who fits the criteria, I do something for them. I’m not building them a dealership, so much as observing something I can do that they would really like. Then I make sure I do it. Quickly.

Doesn’t work every time, but I’m always surprised how many people find that unique, and want to reciprocate.

Here’s a question. How would your situation change if you had 20 enthusiasts taking action to help you?

The Sales Model – Quit working so hard!

Posthumous Goal

A commercial on TV: the young boy walked up to home plate on an empty ball field with his bat, a ball, and a smile as he was prattling on about the world's best hitter.

He settles in at the plate and, with one more verse of world's best hitter, tosses the ball into the air. After the swish of a haymaker swing and no thunk of the bat, he looks down to see the ball lying quietly at his feet.

Undaunted, still smiling, the boy again settles at the plate, recites world's best hitter again, tosses up the ball, takes his swing. When he looked down, there's the ball at his feet once again. His smile fading with each attempt, he tries several more times - unsuccessfully - to hit the ball, his world's best hitter becoming less enthusiastic with each miss.

With a 0 for many tries record, the boy's face is set in a frown, clearly disappointed, and his head is hung – then it snaps up, the smile is back, and he steps back up to the plate to take his stance. With a megawatt smile, he tosses the ball up while saying the world's greatest pitcher.

A posthumous goal offers some feel-good for the boy, but it creates a detrimental result in other situations.

A manager says just do your best for the project output but adds 10% more to 'goal' when critiquing the disappointing project results.

Or, a project is due by the end of the week, but at noon on Thursday, the supervisor says he wants it by the end of the day.

A goal communicates intent. What does a posthumous goal accomplish?

The Doer- A Key To Lasting Achievement

Leadership Driving Around

As a kid, I learned a lot about work driving around with my boss in his plumber’s truck. He was doing the work, sharing his timesaving, worksaving experience. I learned a perspective for thinking I’ve kept and added to for forty years.

I shared that with a woman who runs a large insurance brokerage. She thought about it and said she makes a point of having new interns follow her around as she is working for the same reason.

Leadership isn’t criticizing first attempts, it’s about demonstrating world class performance.

Sugarland’s Down In Mississippi (Up To No Good) lyric,

Hammer down, here we go
Runnin' for the riverboat
All you're gonna see is asses and elbows

is a portrait of a junior watching an effective leader.

Leadership is by example, not controlling others.

Support for a leader is natural, stomping it out is usual.

Joy’s Law - “No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else.”

Self Reliance

The trend toward self reliance is growing in velocity and scope. This post is highlights of the shift that is becoming increasingly clear.

As I recall, we were taught at a young age to rely on others instead of ourselves – back in the old days:

• parents set our limits and standards
• teachers enforced the rules – insisted that we color within the lines
• professors picked what we read, how we interpret it, and what to apply – to get our grade
• employers specify the 'one right way' – thank you Frederick Taylor
• community and peers guide how we conduct ourselves, even what we do for leisure activities.

We were indoctrinated to seek 'experts' for many things:

• web designers for our public face
• programmers to recreate the paper version in bits and bites
• mechanic to decode and fix the car
• doctors to 'fix' our health and ailments.

The paradox is while relying (depending?) on all these external elements, when doing leisure-time projects we benefited so much from hands-on learning and how to do it better from the mistakes.

Experience with my first soapbox derby racer showed me what to do differently next time (and next year's version was better and faster):

• grease the wheels
• boxy front is slower (air resistance), raked front cuts through the resistance better
• adding weight equals slower speed – a steering wheel is cool, but a couple of ropes does the job at a third of the weight.

The experience taught me a process I've relied on since then:

concept > design > build > test > refine > deliver. I also learned to think beyond the specific goal to see how the external elements affect the project.

Individuals have found that large organizations, private and public, are not the safe fortresses we once thought them to be – missions are outdated, size is costly, jobs are replaced by technology, short-term management vision cause long-term negative effects, and many are dying, a shadow of past greatness, or gone – e.g., General Motors and Hostess Brands (twinkies).

If we cannot rely on the stalwarts of the past, what now? Many people have a fragile hope that they can exist in this situation, or could locate a similar role in a different organization. Following this dream is like the watering hole on the plains of Africa during a drought – each day the opportunity shrinks and there's no rain in sight.

More and more individuals are changing their approach, investing greater reliance on themselves instead of external entities. Indicators of the trend and the growing availability of powerful creative tools for individuals to use include:

• greater involvement in DIY (do it yourself) activities
• an explosion of entrepreneurs and kitchen-table ventures
• more individuals working for themselves or collaborating with others
• greater participation in your healthcare and being responsible for own health
• chips became more powerful, so doing sophisticated things with your computer, tablet, smartphone became easier (not expert needed) – even 3D printing from your home computer
• access to knowledge is virtually unlimited from the internet – now we are mastering filtering of information (rather than where to find it) and reading multiple authors with varying viewpoints for validation
• blogging is personal publishing and has expanded into a living resume for professional individuals
• Google Plus is a powerful acquisition and communications tool to connect to the world

Not everyone will be a Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), or Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google), but a significant number of people have taken off on their own. The interesting thing is, these self reliant trailblazers have better odds of success than the buyer of a PowerBall ticket has of winning the jackpot.

Want more about the new trend? Read Wikipedia - To Tell The Truth

Bureaucracy, Tool Or Excuse?

Story One - A friend is going through a job change. She was working on getting out more, and walked in to an Arlington County job assistance center in Ballston. She wanted to leave invitations for a free job search techniques presentation by a nationally known outplacement consultant that was being given in DC.

A clerk took the handouts, then went into the back room to get a ruling: “You can’t leave them here. We compete with you and your group has been known to charge money.”

Story Two - I was walking in the alley behind my house. An angry man in a uniform came out and said I had to get out of the alley, it is private property. I had set up the alley while president of my condo association, and one key law was that those alleys are public way that we had to leave enough space for fire engines to get through. However, this guy, in addition to making up his own facts, was abusive and spoiling for a fight, so I walked on. Thank you, Allied Barton.

Story Three – I needed to renew my passport. I downloaded the forms and took the package over to the passport office on 19^th Street. I was told if I didn’t send my application to Philadelphia, there was a hefty convenience fee for dropping it off in the center of the DC business district. If it’s not a public service facility, why is my government paying that rent?

Who makes up these “rules?”

Starting with Bureaucracy in wikipedia, we get A Bureaucracy is "a body of nonelective government officials" and/or "an administrative policy-making group."[1] Historically, bureaucracy referred to government administration managed by departments staffed with nonelected officials.[2] In modern parlance, bureaucracy refers to the administrative system governing any large institution

Bureaucracy goes back past the Greeks, and the Greeks, Romans, French, and Americans have a uniformly low opinion of it. Turns out a bureaucracy is principally known as a pile of uncontrolled functionaries, issuing rules that benefit the rule makers. There is a German who thought bureaucracy was advanced, so there you go.

The chief benefit of maintaining a bureaucracy is that it is a bitch to dismantle. It’s a rice bowl issue.

What alternatives might be used?  After all, recently we’ve got an internet, social media, enlightened self interest, etc.

Sixty years ago, the management pyramid helped close WWII and has since been replaced by the management pentagon.

A couple of years ago I noted that effective management model was based on a a network, using appropriate resources as necessary. Sometimes I lead, sometimes I support, the key is focus on providing value.

Earlier this year, General Stanley McChrystal gave a presentations at FOSE when he shared that in order to beat al Qaeda, they had to organize more like al Qaeda...in a network structure.

So there are alternative structures, which can deliver improved performance. The key to creating more value is to decide to create value, wherever you can.

Trading intense focus on self and personal ricebowl for effectively dealing with the task at hand is a common underlying trait for better organization, esprit de corps, and results.

WordPictures – Phrases That Lit The Bulb!