Welcome to day two. We'll get started in just a minute. If you've got some song requests, throw them in the chat. We'll see if we can get to them today. Born to Run. Love it. While we're waiting to get started, don't forget to look us up on social media. We're putting things out constantly. Send us your song requests in the chat and let us know where you're from. Would you like to see a different topic at next year's Small Dealers Conference? We'd love to hear from you. Thanks for watching. And the eyes of a ranger, the unsuspecting stranger, had better know the truth of wrong from right. Cause the eyes of a ranger are upon for you, if any wrong you do he's gonna see, when you're in Texas left behind you, cause that's where the ranger's gonna be. AED has been working very closely with the Mirage to ensure the safety of our guests at the upcoming AED Summit. What you'll notice here on the property are several hand sanitizing stations throughout. You'll also notice signage directing the flow of traffic to ensure that social distancing measures are taken into consideration and practiced by all attendees. This includes completing daily health screenings, temperature checks, contactless badge pickup, and of course wearing your mask. Our staff is committed to providing you a safe environment to conducting business, networking with your peers, uncovering new best practices in these challenging times, and offering you an experience as close as we can that you're used to. We're very excited to have you join us for the Summit that you all know and love, taking place March 29th through the 31st. Hi AED members. Chuck Norris here, and I know that 2020 has been tough, but you all overcame challenges. There are big things to come in 2021. Keep up all the hard work. I hope to meet you all one day. Just know you are Chuck Norris approved. Stay safe and all the best. Your friend, Chuck Norris. Good morning, everyone. It's 8 a.m. in Vancouver and 11 in Tampa, and you are officially Chuck Norris approved. Welcome to day two of the AED Small Dealer Conference. We have a great lineup today for you all, and you are not going to want to miss a minute of it. Before we get started, as usual, we are going to bust out those cell phones, open those internet browsers up, or from your phone, text the word AEDEVENT444 to the number 22333, or go to PollEV.com backslash AEDEVENT444. The instructions for doing that are on your screen, so unlock those phones and get ready for a couple of great questions to get us warmed up and focused. The last time we did this, Chuck Norris showed up, so it's really anyone's guess as to what happens next. If you haven't already, get those phones out because we are going to go to our first poll. What we want to know today is how many years of industry experience do our conference attendees have? How long have you been in the industry? Text that in to 22333. I guess I've been in the industry for about six years by extension of AED, but who else do we have here? 22 years. 16 years. Again, instructions for texting in are at the top of the screen. Six. All right, 45. I hope to see you in the power break. Whoever that 45-year number was would love to see your perspective on how the industry has changed over the four and a half decades. All right. So one last question to get us warmed up here. By the way, our speakers are so eager to take your questions today. If you have one, use the Q&A tab below. And if Zoom's stalling for you, it is resource-heavy on your computer, try closing some other apps and check your internet speed. Let's pop this question off. Which historical figure would you want to meet? If you were to meet any historical figure, who would it be? Text it in to 22333 or submit your answer at pollev.com backslash AED event 444. Churchill. All right. Love it. Got some Churchill fans with us today. Chuck Norris, obviously. All right. Love it. I personally would love to meet Teddy Roosevelt. Hear about his war stories of fighting bears. Lincoln. Absolutely. All right. Teddy Roosevelt. Somebody stole my answer. The bully pulpit. Okay. So now that we're warmed up, I'm so happy to introduce our first sponsor for today, Mark Turner. Mark, welcome. Thank you for sponsoring our keynote session this morning. Just curious, who would you like to meet if you could meet one historical figure? Hi, Phil. I definitely, that definitely has to be Winston Churchill. Churchill once famously said one of his many, many quotes was KBO, which means keep buggering on. So we need some of that right now, I think, all of us. All right. So welcome Mark, and tell us a little bit about Crank. Okay. So first of all, thank you, Phil, again, and to AED for the opportunity to sponsor this event. It's really, really important opportunity for small startups like ourselves to get in front of your dealers and your members. And also to Todd for letting us sponsor his talk. Really looking forward to hearing that, Todd. So Crank, what are we? First and foremost, we are a new type of platform for the global equipment industry. And we're different in the way that we, first and foremost, we're a networking platform. So we allow, we enable companies, construction equipment dealers, contractors, rental fleet owners to actually create multiple private networks with each of their trading partners, whether it's their customers or their suppliers. And also the platform works in the way that it allows, it gives you the opportunity to use it as an intranet within your own company, because we have live chat and messaging. We have blog functionality, posts, all these sort of things that you're used to seeing on regular social media platforms. But interlaced with our social media element on Crank is a marketplace where you can advertise your equipment for sale or for rent. And just recently, we just launched our new equipment auction module, which the auction module is very, very different because where it's more of a managed retail type facility. What it allows you to do is you host your own auction. Crank doesn't get involved in the deal flow whatsoever. So that means straight away, there are no commissions, sale commissions to pay, no buyer fees or anything like that. But the most important thing, it's not the fact that there are no fees in our business model. For me, the most important thing is when you create an auction, every bidder must first network and connect with your company. So what that means is if you have, if you imagine if you have 10 bidders bidding on a machine and bidder number one buys the machine is the successful bidder. You've now got nine other bidders that in a traditional auction environment would walk away empty handed. However, in Crank's module, what happens is those nine other bidders are now privately networked with you. They don't know who each other are, so they're not networked with each other. So when you sell to bidder number one, we also give you the bidder data. And so if bidder number one has bought a machine, let's say, or a part or attachment at ten thousand dollars, then what you'll be able to see is that bidder number two, who perhaps stopped bidding at nine and a half thousand dollars, you have that data, you're networked with him. So now you're priming your sales funnel and you can actually get your sales teams to pick up the phone and say, you know, hey, Bob, you missed out there. We saw you stop bidding at nine thousand five hundred. We have another machine in our yard. Why didn't you come over and have a look? So we look at Crank auction module as a very, very positive lead generating tool. And just really what I'd like to do is just quickly take this opportunity to say that we're also launching a new enterprise version of our product, which is a white label version, which allows companies big or small to customize their version of Crank. There's no public marketplace in your enterprise version. It's just your marketplace. And that's somewhere where you can invite your customers really safely. They're only going to see your stuff there. And to your members, we'll be we'll be charging that that version of Crank will be charged at five hundred dollars a month. And I'd like to extend an offer to to all of your members of a 90 day free trial free period when we launch that, which will we're trialing it at the moment with some companies, but that'll be launched in probably December, something like that. But regular Crank is is is live now. So if you'd like to hear more about it, please reach out. So, again, Phil, thanks for the opportunity and looking forward to your talk. Absolutely. Thank you, Mark. Sounds like a very intriguing platform for a lot of our members. So we're going to get right into it. I'd like now like to introduce today's keynote speaker, Todd Cohen. Todd is the nation's leading voice on building sales culture, a dynamic, engaging and motivational speaker. Todd brings a message that is relevant to any organization striving to increase revenue, strengthen relationships and improve customer satisfaction. Today, Todd will share mission critical imperatives with us that will help shape and determine the future of the dealership, longevity and profitability. Todd, good morning. It's great to see you. How are you doing? Just curious, which historical figure would you like to meet? Man, I'll tell you what, first of all, that was the best intro today, so thank you for that, Phil. So historical character, you know, I thought about this when I listened to Mark and I think the person that comes to mind first for me is good old Abe Lincoln. You know, 1865, it was a different time in the country. I think he would have a lot to say. So on that note, I'm yeah, I got I got I got a whole list more, but he's the one who comes to mind. Maybe you, me, Abraham Lincoln and Kennedy Roosevelt can get together. Well, yeah, listen, I mean, I'm loving the idea of Winston Churchill as well. So everybody, good morning or yeah, I think it's good morning. So I'm here in Philadelphia, cold city of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. And to most of my colleagues in AED, when I tell them I'm from Philadelphia, they say Philadelphia, they say, which cheesesteak place do you like? Well, that's not what we're here to talk about today. So before I actually kick off on the new PPP post pandemic preparedness, thank you to Mark Turner and Crank for sponsoring me. It is always good to see new faces, new members, new ideas, new technology, new everything, because I think that goes hand in hand with my message of this morning, which is we're going to do the new, right? So a very dear friend of mine wrote a book. She's a former investigative reporter. It's called Do the New. And, you know, I was thinking about her book yesterday. So today is about what's happening after the PPP, after the pandemic, the new PPP. So, you know, it's interesting, I've been doing a lot of work with AED members, keynoting or workshops or some coaching. And I've really been paying close attention and asking a lot of questions of them. What do you think 21 is going to look like? What and I don't love this cliched question, but what's keeping you up at night? What is going through your mind right now? And you know what? What we do know is that no matter how good things are right now, no matter how good things aren't right now, whatever they may be, whatever your own particular situation looks like, what goes up comes down and what goes down comes up. And we know that to be true. So in my world right now, I'm thinking about what would I be doing if I'm sitting in your shoes and really the or sitting in your seat, standing in your shoes? I can't really sit in your shoes. That would be a little uncomfortable. And so a lot of what I'm going to share with you this morning, ladies and gentlemen, is what I'm learning from you, from your colleagues, your fellow members, other AED members that I'm working with day in and day out. You know, 2021 presents, I think, an amazing opportunity for us to hit the reset button. In fact, it shouldn't be that now we're doing the reset really at the beginning of every year. I think everybody on this call, because you're all smart, savvy business people, you're entrepreneurs, you've got awesome, awesome enterprises that you manage and run. I think we're always, always thinking about the reset. But, you know, this time, this year is a little bit different because I believe that we're going to be on the other side of this soon. I'm a glass half full kind of guy. I got to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel. You know, the small dealer, this isn't going to surprise anybody. The small dealer, you might hear some sirens outside my window, because in addition to being in downtown Philly, I'm also on a main street. That's where the home office is. So if you hear the sirens, just ignore them. It's just big city stuff happening. Listen, the small dealer has a unique set of things going on. Now, listen, large dealers are the same way, because I have some of those in my customer base as well. And I'm seeing a lot of similarities. You know, the small dealer, you know this as well as I do. If you're the CEO or you're somewhere in the organization, you feel like you're juggling a lot every day. Your organization may not be that big. You may not have that many people there. You may have a lot of people doing a lot of things or a few people doing a lot of things. Or you, in fact, may be thinking as the CEO, I'm doing it all. And you know, a lot of this is mindset. A lot of this is historical. But we're juggling a lot of balls right now. And that's what I'm hearing from the field. And there's a lot going on. And oh, by the way, if you want to add into what you're juggling, it's what is next year even going to look like. And I got to tell you, for all of us, I think it's fair to say it's the great unknown. We've just had an election. We're just, I think, you know, looking hopefully at some light at the end of the tunnel. But we're also seeing a surge again in COVID. Everything is up in the air, which means you've got more balls to juggle. And you know what? It seems like with smaller companies, what I see, and by the way, I'm a small company as well. I'm a company of one. So, you know, what I see from an entrepreneurial perspective is when we don't take the time to step back and breathe and give ourselves an opportunity to plan and think and hit that reset button. And we've got to find that time to do that. So I'm going to ask you to write some things down. And this is the first thing I'd like you to ask you to write down is we need to find some time so that we can stop putting Band-Aids on things or things that we feel like, you know what? We'll get to this, throw a Band-Aid on it. Or yeah, I know this is an issue or because of what's going on today, that's an unknown or this is an unknown today. We need more information. That's the way it feels to me, like for everything that we're dealing with on a daily basis. So as much as we know, there's as much that we is unknown as well. So it feels like it might feel like and it probably does feel like to a certain extent we're slapping Band-Aids on a lot of things. In fact, one of your colleagues said to me, said to me not too recently, he actually held up a box of Band-Aids and he said, it's empty. And I just looked at him and I said, ah, I get it. And he started laughing and I laughed and I knew what he was feeling in that moment. I knew the anxiety and the stress that he's now feeling. And oh, by the way, by extension, his organization is feeling as well. You know, it's tough. Look, folks, we know that. Now, so what are some of the dangers to the small dealer? And again, arguably we could say any of our AED brothers and sisters, our colleagues in AED, anybody in this industry. And I noticed that somebody is there for 45 years. I wish I could see you because I would love to talk to you as well, whoever you are out there. And I've met so many of you over the years. Look, there's a lot of dangers to the small dealer right now. There's client dependence. You know, one of the things that I've always taught in my workshops to sales and sales leadership and really culturally is something I believe we know, which is we can't put our eggs in one basket. And several of my clients across a lot of the industries that I serve are now in this position. Why? Well, you know what? When things are a little tough and we're in the unknown, we tend to look obviously to the customers that we have and do what we should be doing, which is growing them. And we need to be growing the business beyond them as well. We have departmental silos. And this is something that is near and dear to my heart because the first reason, the first question I always get or the first question and then I ask is, tell me the relationship between parts, service and sales. Tell me about the relationship between operations and sales and sales and service and so forth and so on. You know, silos kill companies. I've been saying this as part of my keynotes on sales culture, everyone's in sales. Silos kill companies. The next thing is founder dependence. Many organizations, especially in the small dealer space, we're still being managed and run and led day to day by the people who founded the organization. And while that's not inherently a bad thing, we also want to make sure that we're developing people. We're talking about succession and people planning. Now, the other thing, the next concern is out and out fatigue right now. You know, one of the things that I'm seeing across the industry is people are tired. We've been locked up. We've been Zooming. And candidly in this industry, this was probably one where people got out and back into the offices and out into the field a little bit sooner than most industries. I mean, look around, you can see that most people are still, we're kind of locked up in our homes. And by the way, it's probably not going to get any better in the short term. And we're tired of Zoom meetings, and it's just tiring. And then as a result of fatigue, we become myopic, you know, we start to zero in on one thing or two things, and we forget to breathe and think about the bigger picture. None of this means that any of us are bad or incompetent leaders. It means we're adapting and putting those Band-Aids on every day to deal with what we've got to deal with. And then of course, there's the forever, hey, by the way, on top of all this stuff, I've got to balance quality and growth. I've got to find the right clients for the right profit margins that I can actually grow over time, and I can grow the business as well. And we're going to talk about that a little bit later. And finally, also one near, this is all near and dear to my heart, and this one is a little more near and dear to my heart. I'm seeing a lack of scalable sales process. You know, your sales processes, in fact, all of your cultural processes must be set today, must be ready to grow or shrink as the company grows or shrinks. Now, shrinking is not necessarily a bad thing. It's also means getting more focus. So I've been asking my clients, your colleagues, your peers, what are you thinking about right now? What do you think about next year? What do you think are some of the dangers post-pandemic? What again, cliche alert, is keeping you up at night? And these were five that represented what I thought were a common theme of what I've been hearing, both anecdotally, excuse me, seeing anecdotally and hearing both formally and informally through conversations I'm having. The biggest danger in 2021 is not to operate with a new set of rules and make knee-jerk reactions. Companies need to remember that their mission statement says something and we need to hold true to those behaviors. So I would ask you to write this down. Do you have a mission statement, right? Have you ever taken the time to put one together? Most companies do. And here's the question. Do most people know what it says and do we live day to day? Does our culture actually imbue and live that mission statement? Upper management needs to lead by example. There's too many silos, right? That's how I interpret this one. And company's agenda needs to be focused. This is one we all know, the downturn in the economy, whatever the economy is going to look like next year, it could potentially be slowing construction, which means a slowdown in our businesses. And oh, by the way, here's the next great unknown. What is infrastructure spending going to be looking like? So I continue to do my sort of informal surveys, both anecdotally and through asking people. And I said, well, how are you feeling right now about the organization itself? Not so much the environment. The first question was about the environment, the world, what's coming, things that are beyond our walls. Now, how are you feeling about your business as well? What's causing you anxiety? What are you thinking about? Again, these are all common themes. I mean, I got a whole bunch of answers, right? And oh, by the way, you have your own set of answers as well. I believe, I'm confident that these are fairly representative of what small dealers are truly thinking about right now. Many let's face it, many are doing well. One of my customers just had the best year in their history. And they also know that that's not guaranteed for next year. The technicians are flat out busy. I get it. And that's great news because technicians being busy means new revenue, additional revenue, growth of revenue, organic revenue, you name it. There's certainly on top of all of that, that slathering of uncertainty. There's the danger of making sure that we're not reacting right to everything. There's the question mark around hiring. Some of my clients are hiring big time right now. Some are not. Some have frozen it, right? We're all in slightly different position. The point here is when we talk about hiring, it's really about what does our people plan look like post pandemic? Because as you're going to hear me say in a moment, while I'm setting the table here, at the end of the day, our companies live or die, not by being better, cheaper, faster, quicker. Nobody can say that. It's about the people. Because everything that you say separates you as a small dealer. And in a time when you must be differentiated far more than ever before, the people who make that happen are your people. So and then we want, there's a danger of always reacting to the market as opposed to being proactive. That's putting those Band-Aids on. There's general exhaustion, as I said, maintaining public funding. Look, that's the lifeblood of a lot of what we do. What's coming? I love it. One owner said to me, one VP of sales said to me, what's coming is the great unknown. And then he smiled and then he sort of frowned. And I remember that conversation. And then of course, everybody's going to be squeezed or you might be being squeezed for those public dollars. And you know, there's more to add to this list. I'm sure you have your own list. And if you do have your own list, ladies and gentlemen, congratulations, because that means you're doing what I know that smart entrepreneurs like you are doing. You're thinking and not resting on your laurels. And that is what I really, really, really want to make sure that is part of this message this morning. Now, what's out? What's out for 2021? Well, assumptions of what the future holds, because assumptions are worth the paper they're written on. We know that we have to start having fact based planning. We need to start looking at things candidly and objectively. And then finally, what I call the old world of BAU, you know what that means business as usual, whatever works for you this year may or may not work for you next year. And the pandemic has thrown a brand new curve to all of us. What's in? This is how I interpret what I'm seeing in the world in this world right now, especially for people just like you, the small dealer, where, frankly, you're going to be faced with a new challenge of differentiation and visibility. We have to be ensuring that visibility. People have to see you and know you and make sure they're turning to you. Top of mind is money in the bank, clarity, clarity about what you do, what you do right, what you don't do, what's the good customer, what's the ideal customer, what's a customer you do, etc. The list goes on humility. Right now, we have all been through the mill. You know it. And I believe passionately that the dealers who demonstrate the humility of I get where you're at. We're there, too. We're all in this together. Pardon the cliche. Those are the people that remain top of mind differentiation. What sets you as a case dealer, a deer dealer, Kubota dealer, whatever it might be, apart from the people that, to the customer's perspective, may look just like you? What's your standing in your community? Community is everything right now. I'm working with some franchise clients and the thing that I cannot stress enough because it is a point of passion. Community is everything. Are you part of your community? What does that look like? Are you out and about? Are you visible beyond your yard? And then, of course, none of this happens, ladies and gentlemen. We can't get past and into the new PPP, post-pandemic preparedness, if we're not doing this with a sense of intentionality. None of this happens by mistake. None of this happens by chance and none of it happens because we're wishing. So, am I stating things you already know? Well, intellectually, yeah, we do think about these things. And guess what? While we're busy putting those Band-Aids on, while we're busy reacting, and while some of us are having phenomenal years, we often put this stuff aside and we say, when is that moment or I'm going to get to that moment to step back and hit that reset button. So here it is, friends, the new PPP. This is a non-linear road. You know what? There is no necessary, excuse me, order to all of this stuff. This is a non-linear road to what this is all going to look like in post-pandemic preparedness. That's a lot of Ps, folks. I know I keep saying it and sometimes I'm stumbling over that because I dare any of you to say the new PPP, post-pandemic preparedness, 10 times fast. I've been practicing. So what does this really look like? I have to crack myself up sometimes. What does this really, really look like? This road that I'm going to ask you all to consider, I'm going to ask you to maybe even suspend a little bit of disbelief because it's real easy to look at what I'm about to share with you and say, oh man, that's going to take too much time or that's too theoretical or that. And you know what? It really isn't. I think I'm confident that a lot of you are already thinking about some of these things. So perhaps this will be validating. You know what? My passion, the area that gets me charged and going the most is not teaching people to sell. It's teaching that we all sell. You know what? People and culture is your differentiator. Remember what I said a moment ago, people and culture is your, are your differentiator. That's what sets you apart. That's what gives you that visibility. That's what gives you that humility. That's what makes and creates your principle differentiator. I've talked to dealers who say, you know what, I'm wondering how to compete, or you know what, I'm getting squeezed on price, or you know what, I'm worried about the big companies, the bigger organizations squeezing me out, legitimate concerns. And guess what? What can make the difference is not you cutting your price more. That's just basic, right? Nobody wakes up and says, I want to lose money. What makes the difference are your people because they are your currency. Ladies and gentlemen, write this down, take a deep breath, go back into your business, look around at people and ask yourself this question. Do they represent us? Not me, meaning you, the owner or a senior leader. Do they represent us in a way where people say, yeah, I'm in the right place. You know, if you've got dysfunction internally in your organization, and by the way, everybody does. Everybody's got some dysfunction and usually where I see it are the classic areas between parts and service and sales. And there's those walls up, those silos up that keep us in a siloed culture and that dysfunction internally, whether we realize it or not, is felt loud and clear by customers and your colleagues. They sense it. They know if something isn't right internally. That's why people and culture is so critical and silos, silos and more silos. This is what keeps us apart. You know, your common denominator of everything you want to achieve, your common denominator of everything, of every bit of dollar of growth, of every future sales plan, of everything you want to do. The common denominator has always been and always will be your people because your people execute on your objectives, on your KPIs, if you have them on your mission statement, if you have it, they're the ones who execute. Now we're going to talk about a little bit more about people and succession planning in a moment. So I want you to either take a picture of this screenshot or write it down, however you want to make memory or codify this particular statement that I want to say. And I got to tell you, I'm going to ask you to consider the focus, the focus on how people, your customers experience your people, because that impacts the experience with your company as a whole. Every single person who touches, impacts, influences a customer, influences their perception, their belief, their feeling about the company. I work with clients that I will tell you, I talked to one person and I think to myself, if I were a client, I would never want to do business with that company. They have no idea how their mindset, their behavior is impacting everybody else around them. People are your competitive currency. Please, please write that down, print it out, put it somewhere where you cannot forget it and you're reminded of it every single day. And by the way, as long as we're talking about people being your competitive differentiator, your currency, your principal differentiator, the common denominator, let's not forget to keep investing in them. So part of post-pandemic preparedness is what are we doing today to make our people more competitive? And that begins with giving them the skills, up-skilling, top-skilling, whatever term you like, what are we doing today to invest in them? Because you know what? One of the reasons why people stay with companies is because companies invest in them. Their connection to the company is driven by your investment and that drives retention. And we all know retention equals sales. You can't afford to have key positions open. I'm going to suggest four things right now for you to consider. Financial literacy at the branch manager level. I have one client where the branch sales manager is a financial guru and it informs and helps and supports all of his decision and all of his leadership at the branch level. In fact, his colleagues come to him and say, can you help me? Can you show me? Can you make the connection? Number two, coaching skills development. You know what? If we want to make sure that people remain our competitive currency, we have to be developing them means formal and informal, formal learning programs, training workshops. It also means coaching them to do more, to do better and encouraging them along the road. Coaching matters. And I want you to write this down because I teach this in my sales leadership course. Coaching and telling are two different things. If you ever hear anybody say, let me just tell you what to do. What you're doing is you're saying to that person, I don't think that you can think on your own. You need to be told. Nobody likes to be told. So there's a big tip for you right now. Coaching and telling are two key different approaches. Presentation skills. I'm getting ready in a couple of weeks to do a presentation skills training to a small dealer. And I got to tell you, we have got to be better and more competitive and crisper in how we communicate with each other. And most importantly, I shouldn't say most importantly, but equally importantly, our clients, because buying patterns are changing. What people are looking for is changing and how we communicate is changing. Presentation skills must be sharpened because that is a differentiator. And finally, integrated sales business planning. If you're having sales business plans, are you involving parts in service? Are you engaging the organization in a cultural move? Are you bringing down the silo by saying we all have a view into the customer turnover and retirements? I'm going to ask you a question. Is it time to reorganize? Is it time to consider a reorganization? And by the way, a reorganization doesn't mean it doesn't mean that you have a problem. It means you're looking at your business and saying, guess what? We have opportunity. And are we today scalable to meet that opportunity? Most are struggling with this. Most think they're set up. And I'm going to suggest to you that you may not be, and that's okay. You need a couple of things, a bench strength of people who's coming up in your ranks. Do you have a bench of people in the world, people that you have relationships with that you can now say, you know what? We have an opening. I need a sales professional in here, or I need a finance professional or whatever it might be. And you have somebody on your bench that you can call and say, remember we met at AED. Remember we met at this show or that show. Remember we, Hey, you know what? I want to talk to you about joining our team. Business growth means people growth. And that means new opportunities, period. Now here's the next question. What can be separated and re-imagined as a new role? You know, one of the role, excuse me. One of the reasons, remember I talked about the band-aids a moment ago. Well, guess what? One of the reasons we're putting band-aids on because we may have one person again, juggling too many balls, trying to do too many things. And you know what? If we're juggling too many balls, everything gets done halfway. That's a quick recipe for mediocrity. Can we lift people up and seek more focus at the same time by reorganizing? Absolutely. If you've got somebody who is an enormous talent and you see them being bogged down, make the investment in your business and them today and reorganize, reshuffle, do something that sends the message. You are valuable and we're going to grow the company at the same time. Help people play to their strengths. We have people who do things really well, and we have people who don't do certain things really well. Allow people to play with their strengths. You know what? Because when we do that, then we're not doing what I say in my time management course, half work. Half work equals mediocrity. That's when we have one person who should be doing one job is doing the job of three or things they're not comfortable doing. You see, here's the question I would ask you, and I want you to write this down. Can your company today scale, scale up, scale sideways? And there's nothing wrong with scaling down, and some of us may have to scale back next year based on funding, whatever keeps your doors open. Any change to that means that you have to adjust and flex. You learned that the hard way this year in the pandemic, post PPB, excuse me. The new PPP post pandemic means we have to go back and continue to evaluate whether we can scale. What is your current and planned state? Side note, do you have key performance indicators in place right now? And that basically is the what, how, when, why, and who, and we're going to talk about that a little bit more. Here's the simple point. If you have people who understand what their goals are and how they're being held accountable, that equals a scalable organization, a more flexible organization. If you don't, and you have people running around doing lots of different things and no sort of, wait a minute, timeout, some accountability here, then you're going to have a bigger problem down the road. And that road isn't that long. The more we focus inward on our people, the more we focus outward on the client. You can't be a rockstar organization if you don't have rockstars in on. And what I'm sharing with you today are things that the small dealer can easily start thinking about and some things that you can actually start doing and executing on. We got to bring down those walls culturally. This is what I talk about. This is my path. I say a lot of things are my passion because it all comes down to one thing. It's about the people. We got to bring down those walls between sales, service parts, ops, finance, customers. You allow people to play to their strengths and you make it about a common view into the customer. You know what? Culture is a funny thing. You can't just say we're going to change the culture. I decree it so. Culture begins at the top and it has to be adopted at the bottom. We have to live the culture, act the culture that we want because it's not who we are. It's excuse me. It's who we are. It's not what we have. It's not your new building. It's not your pay scales. It's none of that stuff. It's who you are. That's why culture, you know, I love this quote by Steve Gruner. It says it's difficult to change and I agree with that. It's not difficult to change if you make a commitment to it and you live it every day. You're proactive about it. One of my favorite experiences was up at Tomahawk with Trekker a couple of two Decembers ago. We did a three-day workshop and I looked at them and I looked at this organization which is diverse and eclectic and so passionate and so committed and I thought where does that begin? Well, it begins with this gentleman right here in the far right in the corner leaning back and smiling. He's the founder of the company. He understands that when a customer says yes or no, they're saying it to the entire company. That's the culture that I passionately believe in. The next thing on that wheel, if you will, is do you have a five-year strategic plan? Have you thought about what the next five years are going to look like? And by the way, if you have great, it's time to revisit it and if you haven't, no criticism. It's time to go there. Some of my clients are deep into five-year plans and they are works of art. Some keep saying to me, yeah, we're going to get to that. We have to sit down. We have to do it. You have to sit down and I'm going to give you some thoughts on this right now. So the basic question you have to ask is who are we today? Where are we today and who are we going to be? something, excuse me, you should be doing it internally, but you shouldn't be driving the process. This is where a facilitator can really come in handy and there are people out there who do a marvelous job at creating and helping guide you through doing a five-year plan. So what does it look like quickly? You have to ask that central question all the time. Where are we today? And don't get lulled because you had a great year and don't get lulled because you didn't have a great year because the new PPP being prepared post-pandemic means that everything is off the table in terms of where we were, everything is on the table in terms of where we want to go. So we talk about business backgrounds and history. We talk about what do we sell and why? Is this still the market we want to be in? Do we want to expand our market? What are ancillary or related markets? How are products help our customers and community? I happen to love when I take people through a five-year plan. This is the one that I love the most and I'll tell you why. It shouldn't surprise you. It's about people and culture. It's about people's connection to the business, not the objective stuff, but the subjective meat on the bone, the stuff that says, this is why we do what we do. Of course, there's deep dives into operations, finance, marketing, sales planning. How are we doing those things? Are we doing them right? Are we integrated in them? As I said, a moment ago, are we really up to date on competitor and customer analysis? If you find people saying, I think, I hope, I assume, I bet you need to sit down and start doing some long-term intensive planning. And finally, people planning. We're going to talk about that in just one second. And you've already heard me talk so much about that. Look folks, a five-year plan is not, in my humble opinion and professional opinion, something that is optional. We need to be sitting down and talking about that five-year strategic plan and guess what? It's not something that just you as the CEO and your two or three top people do in a vacuum. You don't do that. It's an offsite experience where you get somebody who can take you through it, holds people accountable and asks you difficult questions. We mix people up to bring down the silos. We have people representing all over the company and guess what? People want to be involved in this because if you engage your people and you ask them to be engaged, they'll do it. People want to know how they matter. Your five-year plan is fluid and changing all the time. That's good. My one client, Equiton Corporation of America, they meet on a regular ongoing basis to assess where are we with our five-year plan? How are we doing against it? Where do we need to adjust? This sets the cultural and operational tone and don't undersell culture because that's your people and that's how your customers experience you. That drives the behavior that you as an owner need to set and reinforce because that's your differentiator in this crazy world where we're going to potentially get squeezed or if we're model is that entrepreneurs like to do it all, and I see companies where we've got the founder who's still running the company and can't let it go, and there's some control there. We have to get to the point where we're morphing and flexing and scaling our leadership team. This comes back to the question, when it comes to succession planning, who's coming up? Do you have that bench strength? Do you have people that you're actively developing and they know that they are being looked at to step up and take bigger and bigger roles? If you've been putting off this work, you're putting off your future growth. Succession planning is not optional. It may, this is a quote from a dear friend of mine who is a professor of entrepreneurship and business growth right here in Philadelphia at Drexel University. I interviewed him for a podcast, which is a podcast, but using my name, which is the only good thing I can think of for my name. Succession planning may be the single most neglected aspect of business ownership. Why? Just is. We're so busy running the business, we're putting Band-Aids on, we're reacting to everything. Remember I said one of those concerns is the reactive mode that we find ourselves in. And you know what? We now have, despite the fact that we've come through this, one of the upsides is we have an intense and unique knowledge of how people have reacted to this pandemic crisis. Look around your organization and say, who kept moving? Who stood up? Who didn't let this knock them down? Who stepped to the plate? I'd like to think you could say everybody did, but that's not realistic. There are people who have distinguished themselves in this time so that they are ready for you post pandemic. Are we taking the time to care for them? You know, there's a lot of models out there for succession planning. If anybody wants to talk more about this, we can. This is an entirely different and much more in-depth process and I don't want to trivialize it. Suffice to say, it takes time, it takes effort, and it takes accountability. We have to know the key jobs now and in the future. We have to build the profiles. We have to do competitive gap analysis. What do people have and haven't? Think about if you decide, for example, that everybody needs financial literacy. Well, you know what? Is that a gap? Do all your branch managers have it? Does one person have it so much that, you know what? They're a potential to rise up in the organization. Then we have to have individual development plans for people. Nobody likes to come to work and say, what's my future? I want to know my future and I want you, ladies and gentlemen, to make sure people know that they have a future with you and we're developing you as such. Maintain a skills inventory, which means, for example, if you're going to be a branch sales manager, what are the skills required? If you're a VP of HR, what are the skills required? You can't juggle those balls and expect multiple people to do multiple things forever. The next part of that non-linear post-pandemic preparedness plan, hey, this one isn't a surprise to anybody, new revenue streams. Hey, we know where revenue comes from. You know, it's sales, obviously. It's service, it's parts. You know, where revenue also comes from is obviously acquiring new customers. Nothing better than a new logo. Nothing better than retaining and growing that organic growth. You know where else revenue comes from? Not losing people. So we can spend time picking off the competition or we can spend time doing things that may or may not yield what we need them to yield. And please, let's not forget that the cost of an open territory, the cost of a vacancy costs you money. You know that. So let's focus on our people. Now, look, that's not the only place we're gonna open up new revenue streams. We have to go into that five-year strategic planning and have a very cathartic, candid, deep, deep conversation with our team and with ourselves and say, well, where are we headed? What influences our revenue? Well, you know, what drives revenue today may not be what's gonna drive it tomorrow. That's not being complacent. We can't be fighting over shrinking dollars. We have to look for ways that set us apart and what's our niche. Competition is expensive. Years ago, I ran a sales organization, one of my sales teams specifically dedicated to knocking off the competition. I wound up dissolving that team because at the end of the year, it was a zero-sum game. Now, I realize there are nuances in this market. How much money are we spending picking off the competition when we could be growing our community and being visible and being differentiated? We always need to find what's our sweet spot. You know, it's interesting on LinkedIn. I see so many of my AED friends posting things. I mean, Mike Velasquez in Miami is always posting pictures of the folks at Equipment Corporation, Bobcat of the Rockies, one of my customers, posts great pictures on Instagram. You know what? I see what they're doing and I see what sets them apart. I mean, the list goes on. I see what you're putting out there that says this is how we're different. When I first went to Denver to work with Bobcat of the Rockies, I didn't even know they had an Instagram account and on the plane ride out, I was looking at it. I'm thinking, I know so much more about them now than I did when I booked the workshop. It was so wonderful to see how the pride and the energy and the passion around that. So what's our sweet spot? And finally, we know this because I'm talking about people. Intellectual capital is your asset. So look, how do we expand business? There's rental and sales. Rental, that's a big deal, folks. I see a lot of work. I see a lot of companies in this space putting a lot of heat and light on rental. I think next year, depending on how people are gonna be paying for things, rental could be a much bigger deal than it is today. Expanding your business, whatever that looks like, buying businesses, expanding, going into new territories, new and related markets. If you're doing one sort of business, can you do another sort of business? Trekker out of Miami and Puerto Rico does a phenomenal job of making the world aware that they're a big case dealer, construction, and they have a forming organization as well. They do lots of different things. And they do it simply because their people are passionate about showing the world their niche. Now, the point here, folks, is not to tell you all to go onto social media and post pictures. The point here, folks, is to remind you that you do have something that sets you apart. Do you know what it is? Because it's there. And don't say, well, it's just our service or it's just our sales. I get that. What is it though, specifically, that makes you who you are? And of course, there's always diversification. That's a tricky one. Again, these all come out in the process of that five-year plan. And then the final thing I wanna talk to you about, I'm gonna ask everybody to take a deep breath because this is no longer optional. The last 18 months, what I have seen across all industries that I work in, and I work, I'm blessed and honored to be able to work across lots of different kinds of verticals, diversity has now become something which is, yeah, we'll get to that. Yeah, we're diverse. It's no longer optional. And I know that this is a sensitive topic. One of my clients, Ernst & Young, the accounting firm, we do supplier diversity workshops where we teach suppliers how to be more visible to you as somebody who might be buying their products and services. Well, you know what? That same mindset applies. Here's what I do know. And I've talked to colleagues and friends and clients in government, in purchasing. Clients and governments are gonna be looking much closer at your diversity and inclusion initiatives. Now, this has a lot of meaning to it. And this is a whole nother workshop. It's a whole nother conversation because we don't have enough time to really delve into what that means. It's that important. Suffice to say, friends, diversity and inclusion initiatives, what you are doing is going to be under the microscope increasingly in the years to come. There's two types of diversity. You know, there's the one that people sort of identify with. They say, well, people diversity, hiring people of different ethnic backgrounds, different age groups, whatever, right? I used to work for Xerox Corporation in the 80s and they were one of the first companies to truly have what was called a balanced workforce. Each sales branch had to mirror from an internal population what the city or the area looked like. It was something I learned early on and it was something I learned early on that drives business. And it's the right thing to do. Then of course, the other side of diversity, which I think doesn't get enough attention is what's called supplier diversity. Now, many of you already may know what this means. You all may know what this means. Simply put, who do you buy from? Is it a diverse supplier base? Do you have women-owned companies that you deal with? Do you have minority-owned companies, veteran-owned companies that you deal with? These things are going to be under the microscope. And if you're flinching a little bit or you're like taking a deep breath or rolling your eyes, this is here, folks. I see it every day. It's not a train that's gonna go away. People who are funding are gonna start asking these questions. I had an opportunity recently to look at an RFP for a client and they said, look at this page. And I flipped through it and sure enough, they had to write and certify that their diversity and inclusion policies were in place. They had to describe how they make buying decisions for their vendors. It was an enormously complex part of that RFP. I implore you and ask you passionately to start giving some thought to this if you haven't already done this. Why does this matter to you? I think it's obvious because it's the world we're in right now because diversity is a fact of our business life. It's the right thing. There's a lot of minorities, women, businesses, so forth and so on that are leaving corporate America. They're the fastest growing segment out there. There's a lot of talent out there, folks. Let's start thinking about who we're doing business with and how we want people to do business with us from the perspective of diversity and inclusion. And look, we know logically diversity is a good thing. More creativity, more innovation, a different viewpoint, better consumer understanding, richer brainstorming, better decision-making. This came right from Inc Magazine, an article published just a few weeks ago. So I would like you to think about your diversity and inclusion, both from people and from a supplier perspective. That must be part of the new PPP because as Stephen Covey says, strength lies in differences, not in similarities. And we need a diversity of thought in the world to face new challenges. Be ahead of the curve, ladies and gentlemen, be ahead of the curve because everything right now is at stake. Nothing is guaranteed to stay the same. There's reciprocity, trust, and reputation. The good news is everybody on this call, you have a great reputation. Your customers trust you. They come back to you. And is that enough? What can we do to edge it up just a little more? Is our reputation something that we can do more to expand? That starts with people. Why do people trust us? Where does that trust come from? It's about the people. Reciprocity, why do people come back to you over and over again? Besides your pricing, your terms, your delivery, how easy it is to work with you? Well, that's all about people. Post-pandemic, the new PPP, in my passionate opinion, begins and ends with avoiding complacency, begins and ends with something you all know when you come into work every day. Yesterday was yesterday, today is today, I don't know what tomorrow is. Nothing is guaranteed. And that's good that you keep that in mind. That's not a negative, you see, that's a positive. That's why small businesses grow. That's why small businesses stay the community pillars that you are because you don't allow yourself to become complacent. Because every day you're looking through a new set of lenses. Every day you are willing and courageous and daring enough to say, stop, what's our five-year plan? Stop, how are we developing people? Stop, I don't know what tomorrow holds. We need to look through a different set of lenses. Ultimately, what I say in my workshops is, you know, if you wanna make things really, really efficient in how you develop your culture, every interaction should be seen through this particular lens. How is this interaction, this conversation, this email, this text, how is this gonna help our customers say yes? Because if we can answer that question, guess what? Now it's relevant and now it's crisp and it's current. That brings down those walls and creates the culture that sets you up for the new PPP. Leaders know that change begins within and that means no silos. Leaders are one step ahead. You're all working to be one step ahead and you give yourself and your people the tools to stay ahead, learning and development. Software, whatever it might be, new hardware, new software, new equipment, new whatever. Leaders know that you live or die based on people development. Leaders create a culture of purpose and this drives a culture of profits. When people understand why they do what they do and why it matters, they do it again. Remember people are your differentiator. Leaders don't allow anyone to become complacent. You see somebody fading away, you see somebody becoming numb, you see somebody having something happening to them where they're just now saying, that's just not my job or I'm just the. And those of you who have been through my workshops have heard me say this and you can never hear this one enough. In fact, you have to hear things three to seven times before it really sinks in. Don't ever let somebody say I'm just the because that's that internal dysfunction that I was talking about because if somebody says that, it's felt by a customer. And leaders actions are seen through the lens. How does this make our clients better? And this hits everything I talked about what's in for 2021. Differentiation, clarity, humility. Remember that list? This nails it for you. And this sets you up in ways that you cannot break down. Here's where it ends or begins. It's not your customer's job to be remembered. It's your job to be memorable. Everything ladies and gentlemen that I'm sharing with you this morning will help make this a reality, guarantees this is a reality. And the common denominator, it's all about the people. I wanna thank so many of my clients who have helped me create a message that matters to the AED leadership and the membership. I got to speak at the 2019 Leadership Conference out in Napa. That was a great trip. We talked about a lot of this then as well. At the end, next month, I know Liz McCabe has some information on this. If you've got some up and coming and I know you do, sales leaders. We're doing our yearly. We sometimes do it once a year, twice a year. We were supposed to do it live in October in Austin, but because of the pandemic, we couldn't do it. We're doing this online and it's gonna be awesome. I'm gonna keep people engaged. It's four sessions in December. It's Sales Leadership Workshop. And it starts with helping people talk about culture and people. And then we get to the basics as well. Hey, if anybody wants to talk to me about any of this, please, there's my contact information. I love this organization. This has been such an amazing connection for me over the years. And I absolutely have enjoyed every minute of work with AED and all of the members who have been kind enough to invite me into their homes. Folks, I am here for you. And most importantly, you are here for each other. Phil, I'll turn it back to you. Thank you, Todd. Appreciate it. All right, so Todd did mention that we are having a sales conference coming up in December. Looks like that class is actually full, but if you're interested, let us know in the chat, reach out to your AED regional manager or email us at help at aednet.org. So thanks again, Todd. Really appreciate it. We do have one question. If you've got a minute to answer that, any thoughts on how to promote these concepts up through the org chart to the founders? Any thoughts on how to promote the what? I'm sorry, Phil, I just didn't catch that part. The concept you talked about. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so like everything else, every conversation is a selling moment. That's what I live and die on, right? We have to sell it up. And you know what? It's one of those things that we have to begin to socialize in the organization. It's not something that you necessarily just sit down and say, we have to do this. It's a gradual conversation. And here's the point, here's a point that I'd like to make. Every single time that you can connect this, what you need to do with how it's gonna impact revenue, nobody's not gonna, you're gonna get listened to. As one of my clients said, he said, Todd, if you bring me something and you can show me how it's gonna make the company more profitable or gonna retain people, I'm all ears. Now, listen, I'd like to think that that's logical and intuitive. And of course we wanna do things that make our companies healthy. We need to socialize it in the organization, which means we need to start sharing our thoughts and our comments and then build your case and how it connects to revenue. And if you wanna talk to me more about that, just give me a call. I don't know who's asking the question because I'm speaking into like a void here. I can't see all of you. I can only see the very handsome Phil Riggs and Kristen and Sean and Liz and Mark. And well, I can only see their names, but if you wanna talk to me more about this, I have a ton that I can say on it. I probably just couldn't get into it, but you need to socialize it and start building your case. How does doing all of this, which is about business continuity, survival, equal long-term growth, profits, and sales? It should be a fairly easy connection to make, but I'm happy to talk with you more about that one-on-one. Thank you, Todd. Really appreciate that feedback. That came in from Craig Drury. Actually, he's the vice chairman of the AED Board of Directors this year. Oh, hello, Craig. Well, Craig, I'm honored that you are online with me. Call me and we'll talk more. All right. Thank you, Todd. And thanks again to Craig. We're now gonna take a short break. The link to the next session, as always, is in the chat box below. Please follow that link to enter the next session on the 18 most important drivers of business valuation. We'll begin that at 1130 Central. We'll see you there. I keep a close watch on this heart of mine I keep my eyes wide open all the time I keep the ends out for the tide that binds Because you're mine, I walk the line I find it very, very easy to be true I find myself alone when each day's through Yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you Because you're mine, I walk the line As sure as night is dark and day is light I keep you on my mind both day and night And happiness I've known proves that it's right Because you're mine, I walk the line You've got a way to keep me on your side You give me cause for love that I can't hide For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide Because you're mine, I walk the line I keep a close watch on this heart of mine I keep my eyes wide open all the time I keep the ends out for the tide that binds Because you're mine, I walk the line Come find us in the next session and send in your song requests

people

culture

leadership

post-pandemic

strong leadership

effective communication

company culture

diversity and inclusion

strategic planning

employee development

customer needs