Catch the BUZZ!

SHARPEN YOUR FOCUS

If any of you read my letter last month and I hope you did, I wrote about focus, deciding where you want to be and making a plan to get there. By now I am sure you are all heading down a path to greatness, and if not being just a little better than you already were. If this month finds you still doing things the same way you always have and you are sick of getting exactly the same result, it is time to sharpen your focus, stop looking for ways to fail and look for ways to succeed. Do it.

We are all pretty good at what we do, or we would all be without anything to do. If you happen to be one of the few that is just scraping by, maybe it's not the economy maybe it is you. I realize that is harsh, but why is it so easy to look around and place blame and so hard to look at ourselves to see the problem and make a change. The hardest thing you will ever change is you, but lets be honest, it is truly the only thing you can change. We all want to do a good job, we all want to be appreciated for that good job, and in the end we all want to get paid for that good job.

The goal here is to communicate to our employees and our customers what we see in ourselves and get them to share in that vision. If you are not communicating what you want or expect of those around you, exactly where do you think you will end up? Exactly where you are maybe? I tell customers all the time that I guarantee they will never sell anything they do not tell a customer about and as silly as that sounds how often are we guilty of doing exactly that? I will say right now and keep on saying, that it is not so much that people aren't buying as it is that you are not telling them what to buy. It is truly just that simple.

Ever wonder how the high-end shops and dealerships get customers to spend so much money? We all deal with wealthy people from time to time and from what I have dealt with they usually resist spending money, which is probably why they stay wealthy. The difference is the high-end places train the customer to expect to spend money. Why aren't we doing the same thing for our customers? If you expect them to spend money and don't tell them what do you think they will do? My guess is to not spend money. We just get to politely wait on them and let them do exactly that, and be mad at them for not buying when we should be mad at ourselves for letting them do exactly what we are training them to do.

I have seen some pretty impressive things in my travels, shops that thought they were at max capacity double their revenue just by sharpening their focus and getting everyone involved to make it happen. We need to remember that everyone working for and with us is involved in the success and failure of our business. If we are not taking time to meet with everyone involved to let them know what is expected how will we ever be a success? I hate meetings, let me say that again, I hate meetings, but, if we don't have them regularly, we cannot be successful. When a meeting is held it has to be constructive, everyone has to feel involved and that their opinions matter. We are all on the same team and cannot win alone, everyone's opinion matters and to dismiss ideas because they are not your own will keep you being the one that just complains about the economy and being exactly the same as you always were.

So, here it is, it is truly time to look around and ask some hard questions, are we being part of the solution or part of the problem? I myself want to be part of the solution, maybe even the solution. But if I go out everyday and don't let anyone know how I feel where do you think I will end up? Get busy, sharpen your focus, decide where you want to be, let everyone around you know it and go there. It is never going to be easy, but the reward is great. You take the time to change a little bit of you and trust me everyone that comes in contact with you will see it and start the same process.

Get busy.

Talk to you next month-Gordon

Posted on: June 2, 2010