Lessons - The Perfect Sales Formula | Glenn Lundy - Motivational Speaker & Sales Expert

So let's talk about what sales traditionally is in car dealerships and let's talk about what you made it. Yeah definitely. So the auto industry at large is an industry where you did not have to be integral. You did not have to even be excellent. You did not even have to be good to be able to make total profit. So back in the day, everything was very regional. If you had a dealership located in the area that people drove by, you were going to sell some cars and you were going to make some money. And for the longest time, it was the hiring process was filled with many underhanded CD people just because the way the industry was built. It was built where we need you there from 7 a.m. to 8 o'clock at night, 7 days a week. So what kind of person do you have to be to be able to be at work, 7 o'clock in the morning, so 8 o'clock at night, 7 days a week. Well, you're probably not much of a family man or woman. You probably have some type of outside influence to keep your energy levels up. And you probably drink your sorrows away because there's these empty voids that come along with that. So to track to the certain type of human and regretfully, we still deal with the ramifications of that today and even though the industry is evolving rapidly and tremendously. And so going in, it was important to me that we, like literally I wrote a mission statement and my team, we read it together every single day. And the statement said, I am on a mission to eradicate the negative stigmas associated with the car business. I can do this by making people feel special, feel important and feel like they're the only one. I will offer an experience that will exceed my customer's expectations today, tomorrow and in the future. I will not just sell cars, I will create fans. And so we created a culture and an environment around that. I wouldn't hire anyone with more than two years experience. I wanted people that were brand new into the business or zero experience so that ultimately we could cultivate them and shape them the way that we wanted to not based on previous bad habits. And we brought people into this inclusive environment. Scott, it was very important to me that we put people first. Our our people first, our customer second and our profits third. So all decisions were made in that order, right? If it makes sense for our people, if we're going to elevate our people, then the answer was yes, customers, you know, they always say customers always right. We didn't believe that our employees were always right first, right? Unless we found out they were wrong, but we always trusted our employees and stood behind them before any other customer because they were the most important. And I follow this lead process that I'll share with you and that I'll share with everybody listening. This is a really powerful acronym that I put together and really made a big difference for us. So the word lead is spelled L-E-A-D-D, right? Now, some of you are listening going, please, I guess, well, I'm going to like to why it's L-E-A-D-D. I'm going to break that down for you right now, all right? So the L in lead stands for listen. You have two years of one mouth for reason. I know your mom told you this, you should listen twice as much as you speak, right? So we very much had this mindset as leaders in the organization that we were always going to listen twice as much as we spoke. We always made sure that our employees felt seen, heard, and significant. That comes through listening. And by listening, we were able to tap into not just why they were there, but who they were, what mattered in their lives, what problems do they have, what outside of work, so on and so forth, right? So listening was the first key to great leadership in the dealership and evolving our people. The E in lead stands for encourage. As we were listening to our people, we weren't listening to defend, we weren't listening to object, we weren't listening to overrule, we were listening, trying to find opportunities to encourage the behaviors we wanted to see more off and the greatness that exist inside each of these individuals, right? So we would always, for example, in a meeting, every single meeting that we had started off by listening, letting our people speak first, and then we would encourage. We would celebrate if somebody got a great review. We would celebrate if somebody took care of a customer in the way that we wanted to. We would celebrate anytime they sold a car or any of those things picked up trash in the parking lot. We would celebrate so every meeting started with lessening and then encouraging. Now, most managers that I know, they start every meeting with the A in lead, which is advice. So most managers just want to go in and tell people what to do, smack a little butt and send them out their way, right? Here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to do around that. Get out of here, right? That's the typical meaning, especially in the auto industry. So we start by listening. Then we encourage. Now, when you do that, you've now earned the right to advice. See, I'll take advice from someone who listens to me and encourages me. I will totally 100% do that. I won't necessarily take advice just at face value from anybody. Make see me first, make me feel important, and then I'll listen to you. So we listen. We encourage. We advise. And then we develop. The D in lead stands for develop, please, please, please, everyone listening here. Please do not advise people and then not take the time to develop them. Telling someone what to do and then taking the time to actually show them how to do it to completely different processes. You can have all the knowledge, wisdom in the world. You can share it, right, and you're not going to move anybody's life forward unless you take the time to really develop them, right? Give them, teach them to fit, as they say, right? Develop them. Then the last D in lead stands for daily. You need to do these things every single day, not just on Saturday in the meeting, not just when the cameras are on every single day. So we listen, encourage, advise, and develop. When we do it daily, it's got, I'll tell you, this works with your spouse. This works with your children. This works with employees. This works with prospects that you're looking to close deal. This works in every situation you really possible. If you listen, encourage, advise, and develop. If you make that your mantra and that's what you do, you will go incredibly far. You'll have incredible success and you'll help develop everyone that comes behind you. And just help me frame it because you had obviously wild success in car sales. Was that before rock bottom, or did you, I say rock bottom as a beauty of reference, but was that before that point in San Diego, or did you go back into sales after San Diego? So in the auto industry, I moved up quick, right? Like I went from sales to a sales manager, to a finance manager, to a GSM. So I moved up quick in the auto world, but again, my life kind of outside was falling apart. And so I left and blamed the auto industry for a lot of my problems. So I just decided industry sucks, I don't have anything to do with it. Yes, I'm good at it, but I'm out, right? I'm 100% out. And that's when I went to pursue all these other endeavors that led me to homelessness and Scott, I'll share with you, there was. So when I was homeless, like the worst part about homelessness, people think the worst part is you have no money, you have nowhere to live, you know, things like that. But really the worst part about homelessness is over time you start to become invisible. And so my days were the same, right? There was a bus that ran 24 hours. I'd sleep on the bus, wake up 6 a.m., get off the bus at the depot, walk around, look for change, give enough change for a sandwich, and I used to go to McDonald's, get a sausage of a muckled egg every day. And so I did that and then I'd spend the rest of the day looking for change so that I get back on the bus, right? And as you're homeless longer, you start to blend and people don't want to make eye contact with you. They don't know if you're going to mug them or you're going to ask them for money or guilt them or shame them or whatever. And so they start to look above you and around you and no one says, hey, and you just start to become, you know, invisible, you start to blend with the background. And so that invisibility led me to like homelessness became hopelessness, right? And the hopelessness became a deep depression. And the deep depression became suicidal thoughts. And the suicidal thoughts ultimately became suicide attempt where I attempted to take my own life in the Pacific Ocean just off the cliffs of Lumia, California. And in that, my playing was just swimming out as far as I could now wouldn't be able to come back, right? Oh, and be able to make a back it. I'm not a good swimmer, just like the stereotypes. I'm not a very good swimmer. Not all. And as I thought that that would be a good way to do that. And so I attempted and thankfully the tide was coming in as I was trying to swim out. And I was such a terrible swimmer that ultimately I had never made it out past the tide. And I got washed back up on the beach. I mean, as I was laying on the beach, looking up at the stars, realizing that the tremendous huge this of the universe, all of my problems became really small. And I realized something's got, I realized that in every situation, in every city that I had been, there would differ friends around me in different environments. The result was always the same. And that was a big deal for me, because I was like, wait a minute, if everything around me keeps changing, but the result stays the same, maybe I'm not a big dumb to everything that's going on in my life. But maybe I'm actually the catalyst of all of the things that are going on in my life. And so once I had that realization, like you take yourself wherever you go, type moment, that's when it started to shift for me and I started to go, okay, wait a minute, if I'm the catalyst of all things negative, does that mean that I can be the catalyst for positive things in my life? Is that what that means? And so from there, I am the student, I have no problem studying, like I said, school was always easy for me. And so I started studying, like in order to figure out who you are, you have to figure out where you come from, right? So I started studying my ancestry, I started studying my Scientology, I spent six months in Scientology getting to know the subconscious mind, the conscious mind. I started studying all of these things and ultimately I ended up on this path where wait a minute, maybe we're not 2D mind and body, but maybe we're 3D mind, body and spirit. And so that led me to start studying Buddhism, Catholicism, all these different religions and ultimately through Christianity, through studying Jesus, I found my path to spiritual enlightenment and understanding that there's three dimensions to this thing called life, not two. And that was the biggest shift for me, Scott, that's when I started to take responsibility for my own actions. And so fast forward, I ended up moving to Kentucky, I met my wife, I shook her hand, I introduced myself, and she got pregnant. And I was like, wait a minute, what's happened, what's the point decade ago, and I'm not about to go down the same path that I went on before. And so I decided I was going to go back into automotive because I was good at that. But this time I was going to make a positive impact on the industry versus allowing the industry to make a negative impact on me and my family. And so that was the motivation. So I got back into the industry 13 years ago now back when I was 30 years old. After taking a couple of years off, I went back in in that small store in Paris, Kentucky. And I was able to do some tremendous things and continue to this day to be able to make an impact on the industry nationwide.