Latest / Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers / Ep.54 - Time for a Gut Check; How Business Leaders Make Decisions

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Ep.54 - Time for a Gut Check; How Business Leaders Make Decisions · Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Time out, right?
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, they take the time out Now, here we go let's relate this to business but you can't.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: You only get so many time outs you only get so many time outs.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: So when do you do that and I know we're talking football here If it were third and eight, that's a great use of time out.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: If it's first down, he can gamble there a little bit In business if you can make the good decision.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: If it is absolutely, we're changing computer systems.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Like okay, call a timeout, let's get some help, let's research that.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to Crossroad Conversations with the Lewis Brothers, where we aim to share real stories about running a successful family business, working through adversity and pouring back into the community.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: That keeps our door open.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: We're your hosts, matt Shelby and Taylor, and we bring you relevant local business advice and automotive insights that are sure to change the way you look at running a business and maybe even throw in a plug for you to do business with us.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Crossroad Conversations Podcast.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: We are your hosts, the Lewis Brothers.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: It's episode 54.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: You know what time it is.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: It's time for a gut check.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: A gut check on how business leaders make decisions.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: This is going to be a great one.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Today we get to talk about do you go off your gut?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Do you go off emotions, facts or what others are saying.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: You know, it's really important that you look in leadership of how are you making decisions and what all are you pulling in to make that decision.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: We'll dive into all of that and much more today.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: But before we do that, let's recap.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Last week, episode 53.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: We had a guest on here, isaiah from Dodo Coffee.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: We kind of broke down and peeled the layers back and kept peeling them back about his business, where it came from, how he's kind of made his way through difficult situations and then how it is just astronomically growing.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: So if you didn't already go, check that out.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Episode 53 on Crossroad Conversations.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, hey.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: And talking about what we drove, it's that time of year getting ahead of commercial and we know commercial better than anyone else.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's important and not to jump right on there.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: But that's such a big category there, but that's that.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: That's such a big category and you really you gotta know the ins and outs of commercial if you're going to be in commercial.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: You know, for example, it's not just slapping a bed on there.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So we got experts.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: You know whether it's on the ford or the ram side of hey, do you need a 60 cab to axle?
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Do you need an 84?
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Do you need a crew cab?
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: What's your gvw need to be?
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: What are your upfits?
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Do you need a pto?
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: What psi?
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: And if all this sounds foreign to you and you need a crew cab, what's your GVW need to be?
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: What are your upfits?
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Do you need a PTO?
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: What PSI?
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: And if all this sounds foreign to you and you have a business, allow us to be the experts there to make sure that you get the vehicle upfitted correctly so it's more efficient and more productive for your team.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the big thing also is like breaking down what is commercial, because a lot of times it's missed there.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: So let me give you my basic and simple definition Commercial is you use your vehicle for business, Okay.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: So a lot of times that's a vehicle to check meters.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: You know, the Maverick is a great option.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: That has a truck bed so you can put some tools in.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: It can put a camper shell, can put a utility camper shell.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: That is a low cost of entry, sub $30,000.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: That's a commercial vehicle.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: We have those.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: It might be we have tons of local government officials that are in Bronco Sports or that are in Escapes or that are in Compasses or Renegades.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: That's a commercial vehicle.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: You might just be thinking F-750 dump truck, eight tons, eight cubic yards and we do those as well, right Up to F750, we have that available.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: But, like Matt said, the upfit we have, the relationship of 75 years of this person is great to help us with this.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: This person stands behind their product.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: These people have got it figured out because they've got a built-in wiring harness.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: This one allows you to continue to keep all your GVWR, and so it's commercial season.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, commercial season.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: It's time now.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Really, the real ones that have been in business know get it started now, because at the end of the year the only thing that's going to happen is you're under the gun of trying to close out your year-end books.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: The supply is not there.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: You're mad at yourself because you didn't start it earlier.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: So know that we have connections and flatbeds and refrigeration units and dump beds and meter vehicles and everything else.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: We own commercial and we absolutely love being able to assist in that way.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Hey fun fact, just coming back from a dealer meeting For 41 years Ford has won every single year the commercial business.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: And we sell Rams as well.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know where they're at, but we're going to call it second.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: So number one, number two commercial vehicles.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: 41 years Ford has owned commercial and that's not by accident and that's not by buying people to buy their product.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: It's because they have the quality product and the right product.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: And it's fourth quarter.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Don't wait till your accountant says hey, you need to do this.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: You should probably call your accountant and say, hey, is this a year that we buy some more vehicles to depreciate and save some more money?
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: You know it's funny you bring that up because you just you threw me an alley-oop for what I was going to talk about.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: But that's because it's facts and we both studied it.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: When you take Ford and you take Ram, they own over 70% of the commercial fleet and government vehicles, so over 70% of all the vehicles used out there for commercial.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Like you said, it could be a Maverick, it could be a Transit, it could be a Promaster, you know, or obviously it could be a cabin chassis.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: We have that in stock and we're ready to go for you guys.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: We'll help you out with a section 179 bonus depreciation.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: We'll get the vehicle out there and then even get you set up with software.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: You know, that's another part we didn't even talk about To manage your fleet, because you do not need downtime as a business owner.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: We're here to help you with that.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Another cool thing, just if you want all the cool things this year, they just released with the big beautiful bill that you can ride off up to $11,000 in finance charges with Section 179.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: So not only ride the vehicle off but the cost of financing it up to $11,000.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: That's solid.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a huge take, A little insight of a huge part of business that we're able to contribute to you as a customer.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: So come see us if you need to have any more details.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: If we didn't already hit it on the head, hey rolling into, do you trust your gut?
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: Like trust your gut like what I'm going to eat tonight.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of no, this is, this is more of in business, inside of how you do business, how you handle situations, how how you move forward with that.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: So the role of um, in the role of rolling you into, like your intuition of leadership, I think, and and to help everybody like, define, like, you've heard about that gut feeling and what do I do?
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Just go through this exercise here.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: If, if something is presented in front of you and you had to make a decision, right, that second, internally of your body, without talking to anybody else, what is your decision?
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, if you got that feeling.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: People talk about that gut feeling of like no, we should do this instead of that.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: That's your gut feeling.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Let's first define that.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Now I'm going to take you down my path just so.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I love using stories of personally, examples and how we've improved over the years.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: We never want to come on this podcast and act like we got it all figured out.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: We always have, because that is wrong.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: That is wrong.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I will tell you, going off of gut feeling for decision early on in my career, that's what I did the majority of the time.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: You know making gut, decision, making, gut decision, making, gut decision.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: As I've been in it longer, my gut is still there, but I do slow down to fact check it.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: So there's two things there in that piece there.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: So, and it will break down even more.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: But of those two things, you slow down to fact check it to make sure it's real.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: But also your gut grows and I'm not talking about getting bigger pants, yep.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Your, your knowledge of the business and your decision grows as long as you allow it to.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: So your initial gut, our initial gut, would say stew, would say hold, say reduce expenses, would say slow to fire.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Your gut grows based on the people you're around and so your gut can evolve in your business, right, like don't you feel like that's happened.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's such a great point and I'm going to go, just as you know, a little bit deeper there.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to go, just as you know, a little bit deeper there.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: And so if, if your gut is based upon previous experience and what the outcome was, you got some track record there, you know.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: So if it's like no, you got a gut feeling because you've been in that situation, you know what to do, probably pretty good to trust your gut there.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: But if you get a gut feeling in uncharted territory, you better slow down and gather to allow, like you said, your gut to grow.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Then the next time that comes around, you have the track record there.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: So I think it's really important that.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Do you trust your gut?
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, but in what context?
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Because sometimes I need to dig a little bit deeper because I don't have the track record there and we need to grow.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: So if people are completely lost here, think about how it's football season.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, think how football goes.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: You have a head coach, you have a offensive coordinator.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: They might be up in the press box they're seeing it from a different view than you are and they're saying, hey, here's play one, two, three, four, and then we're going to see what happened there run, pass, run, run, whatever it is.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: But then they might get in a situation where a quarterback sees something on the field that they've just pressed from the middle.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Or you've lined up three receivers on the left and you've got quadruple coverage over here and you might see your tight end on the right might available.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: And then at that point they're going to call a gut change check and they're going to say hot route, hot route, 680, right, or whatever it may be.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: That is going from your gut of seeing opportunity without fact checking.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: A lot of stuff.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: It's based on things that you've learned, yeah, throughout the system.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: You're like opportunity, opportunity, right that.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: But you've learned throughout the system and you're like opportunity, opportunity, right, but you've been in that situation before, so I'll throw you a curveball.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: It's such a great analogy with football.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: And then all the way down, the quarterback to make that gut decision Gets up to the line play, comes in defense, starts moving, so he checks down because of his gut, because of the experience, and then all of a sudden something happens that they haven't practiced, they hadn't gone through tee for timeout.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: So then that quarterback knows I don't have experience and a gut feeling in this formation, and that's more of a mature quarterback, the rookie quarterback says I can wing this right, but what?
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: the mature quarterback the person who's been through it says I only get four downs to get a first down.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Do I want to waste 25 on my gut of their full coverage over here?
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Their full coverage over here?
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: They're fully pressed and I don't have anything extra here.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and our line hasn't been able to hold the pressure time out.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, absolutely.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: They take the time out now, now here we go.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Let's relate this to business.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: But you can't.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: You only get so many timeouts.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: You only get so many timeouts.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: So when do you do that?
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And I know we're talking football here If it were third and eight, that's a great use of timeout.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Yep, If it's first down he, you can make the good decision.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: If it is absolutely, we're changing computer systems.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Like okay, call a timeout, let's get some help, let's research that.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Don't waste all your time and effort on the small things that I don't want to say they don't matter.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: But it's going to be okay and those need to be just quick decisions on the go, right.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: They do Like it's a, you're running a post and then you're like, well, hang on, need to do this, right.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: I told everyone hey, we need to check everybody in first and then we need to do multi-point inspection in the lane.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: And then I realized in the service lane, if we're doing multi-point inspections on 160 cars a day, we don't have enough space.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: The parking lot's getting full.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and check them in, then do the multipoint once they get in the service.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: I mean in the bay itself right.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Let me give you a real world example here, and y'all will chuckle when I go through this.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: When we first moved into the buildings, we're going over simple things like supplies Okay, toiletries, paper towels, this and that and we're making orders and our supplier comes around and says hey, for all your paper towels that are in the bathroom that you're using, do you want the I think they're recycled ones the recycled brown ones, or do you want the white ones?
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: And we said what's the cost on them?
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Well, the recycled ones were 25% less.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: We said boom, put those in.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: That was a gut reaction.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: We knew we needed paper towels, so good for the earth, so on and so forth.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: We put them in.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: So multiple months into it Tony, you're going to laugh here Multiple months into it, we see that we're going through twice the amount of the recycled ones, because something happens in the process and they don't hardly absorb any water.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: So now we've changed and we're using the other ones, aren't we?
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: oh yeah, yeah, absolutely figured out once we realized because we made that initial decision off of facts we thought were logical of less.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Yes not only are they less, uh, absorbent, yeah, they're thinner, so more of them pull out.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Whenever they pull them out, they were coming out in clumps yes, like 20, and so people weren't putting them back in there, sure.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: They were just like In there on the floor or whatever, and you would just see like almost a fresh stag, but kind of wet just in there.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: It's like.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I know that's a silly story, but it puts a valid point.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Did we make the wrong decision from the get-go?
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: No, it wasn't a business-changing decision.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: We made a gut decision based upon what we had done before.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: No, we didn't have the experience with the two different options, but then we just adapt and we change and I know that's funny and some of you are like okay, Matt, we're talking about paper towels.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Really, it's just a great example of how you do.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Something Doesn't need to be the end all be all.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: We trusted our gut there and then we adapt.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: Let's dive into a little bit.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: We've really talked about, hey, of gut feelings, of what they are, of how you implement them, how you use them in day-to-day business.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: But what gut calls are dangerous?
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Those when you go off a gut call combined with emotion in the moment, out of frustration or anger.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's when it's dangerous I think all those things, those, those were all feelings.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Right, if I'm teaching a lesson, I guess I don't know uh, emotions like heightened emotions, super excited or super depressed about a situation, angry at someone or a process.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: Let's stop there and talk about because it's more times excited.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Okay, you'll make some.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: Depressed, okay, you'll really not pay attention to it.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: Either you're sad or anything else but anger.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: That's one that probably majority of of owners, business operators, will go through.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Why is that so?
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: dangerous.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Well, generally, because your decision will overreach past that one thing and it will.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: It'll be, this is how we were doing it and this is who's involved.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: And then the anger happens because something was missed and it ends up in your lap and you're like what the heck?
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: How didn't this person not handle this person?
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: This person, this person and now my customer that we worked hard to get here and to curate and to take care of is super angry and it's basically just because their emotions got high.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Then you go the complete opposite direction and you lose that feeling complete opposite direction and you lose that feeling.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: You know that that feelings you had, that this is warm and fuzzy, based on one person or one situation you know what probably the worst thing about that is.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: I know y'all both agree and go through this.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Whenever that situation happens and you could react that way, do you normally have more encouragement from the team to go ahead and react like of hey, yeah, you need to do that, or anything else?
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: Or do you normally have more encouragement from the team to go ahead and react like hey, yeah, you need to do that, or anything else?
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Or do you have someone say, well, let's sit back?
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: and think about that.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: No one's telling you that, no, but it's what you need to do.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: It is what you need to do.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Take the facts in your gut will still be there, that inside feeling that you have, even if you just pause for five minutes or for 60 seconds, and nothing's wrong with that.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: You just call the timeout.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: You just call the timeout, even if you got somebody upset on the phone.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Hey, thank you for sharing all this information with you.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I want to make sure I have all my facts.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go check with the team, I'm going to look for solutions, I'm going to dive into this and then I'll be back in contact.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: It allows you to cool off, it allows you to collect some more information, because if you out of anger, you might not have collected all the facts or got a second person's opinion, because after all, you're getting the heat from the person who's heated Sure, and nine times out of 10, before you just fly off the handle.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: If you're like, hey, did you work on Mrs Smith's car?
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, can you tell me what happened here Without telling him I just got smashed on this, this and this.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: They'll be like, hey, here's what happened.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: He's like, okay, peel it back.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Hey, did we text or call or communicate that?
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, they told me don't text them.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: It's like have you left some voicemail?
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've left them like four voicemails, but they won't call me back.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: It's like okay.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: And it's like, hey, did we tell them that it would be thursday?
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, I told him it was going to be friday, but we got it done on thursday and we delivered it to their business.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: But they were upset because they told us the business, but actually they wanted it home.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: It's like thank you for giving me the facts.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you delivering earlier.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you for giving me the facts.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you delivering it earlier.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you for communicating.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: And then you have the facts.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: But what would happen, though, if you're just like dadgummit?
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: This person never listens.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: We're supposed to communicate more, and why didn't they text them and you didn't have the facts?
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Then you only can burn so many matches with each employee, and you might just burn your whole matchbook with that employee.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: They're like dang they always take the customer side.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: You know, the other thing that'll happen to there and that's such a great point is that can happen either way.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: You know it'll either happen where you develop, where your team is like they never have my back it was at the customer side or you flip the other way of I always have to have my team's back and you'll be closed off to areas you need to improve on.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: You know, and we've seen that where business owners have then just hammered a customer and it's like be ears first, you know, and at the end of the day, what did you win by doing that?
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: And I've been there before.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I've gotten after a customer that I just they were in the wrong, but then I lost them as a lifelong customer.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: And that could be like getting your ego involved.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: For sure, you know, like, if you've gotten your ego involved, like, no, we've got a good process.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: No, we've got this figured out, but you don't just stop yeah.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes too, when you know the subject we're talking about, of this gut feeling, where it really comes into place.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I know now that I am a better listener and I'm better at pausing and gathering, and I'll tell you when this comes into play for me is when we're going into something new and we've all talked about it, we've asked other people, we've sat through the demos and this and that, and it's still just not clear.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: You know, and we've done our due diligence.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And then you sit and you think about it and you're like man, something's just tugging me to go this way.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: You know that's when you've done your due diligence.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Emotion's not involved.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: You, you know that's when you've done your due diligence, emotions not involved.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: You've reached out to everybody and then, as a leader, you got to make the gut decision based upon what you have.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: You know, and that happens especially when you're going.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: If you're starting up a new business right now, that might be happening all the time.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Yes, you know, absolutely Diving into so, of a personal experience, tell me of either of y'all, of a time when instinct beat the spreadsheets, of going over you know just of reacting in there and reacting the correct way, because it was now shelby was talking about analogy of on the move.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: You're there in the middle of the play, you're in the middle of a business opportunity, you're in the middle of a situation and you see it, you call the audible and it rocks.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: I got one for you.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, and this is a big one, I'm going to use COVID because it was amplified during COVID.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: So when we're ordering vehicles at either of the dealerships, any makes, there's spreadsheets upon spreadsheets of quick turn units, best colors, configurations, engines, rearing.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I mean we can go as deep as you want to and the manufacturer is like here's what you should order.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Well, during COVID, if you had a vehicle, it sold, didn't matter the color, didn't matter.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: If it was a long bed, short bed, right motor, wrong motor, right gear, wrong gear, it sold.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: So that data went into the spreadsheet.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't tell what's actually going on in your market.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: And we know, gut wise, that this is the best package.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: We just couldn't get it.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: The spreadsheets were wrong, you know.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: They reflected what sold, but that's not actually what the market wanted.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: No, and I'll tell you to go even further off that.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: So they continued.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: They plug orders.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: If they can't fulfill the assembly line from dealer orders, they'll create Sims orders, and those are my worst nightmare because they're built with leftover parts.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Not that there's anything wrong with them, it's just not the most desired.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: And so during COVID and I'm talking like, and you say, anything sold, it's because the incentives are so high, because they had this fear we won't be able to sell.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: They forced the sale.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: They forced the sale and so it was a great time to buy.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Super low rates, 0% across the board, some 0% for 84 months.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: It was a good time to buy, sure, and I remember Sims orders coming in.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Now I clean orders all the way until 1030, and that's an hour past my bedtime.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: That's 1130, and that's an hour past my bedtime, that's 1130.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: In Detroit.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: That means they've got 30 minutes left before they close them.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: That's on Wednesday night and I remember, in the heat of COVID, like when we had down to like 13 new Fords on the ground, we've got 530 right now, so 13,.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: You couldn't spread them any wider apart.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they put, based on their sims, based on their sales data, nine super cab, extended cab.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Those are great, but it's not everyone's favorite.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Two-wheel drive, xl, 17-inch wheel, big motor, lots of options, brown in color, nine of them identical.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Now I had 13 vehicles on the lot.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: That was 70 to 80% of my orders and as soon as I saw them I sent an email to my rep.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I said please change these, at least a four wheel drive and at least a white so they could be fleet vehicles.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: I said we can't change them.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: They could change them.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they would not change them.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: They never changed them and I sent a chain of about 18 different emails over the next four months and could.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: I said I don't want them because I still had to pay for them.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: So what happened?
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Because stuff was so hot, my gut then said I need to get rid of these before they even get here.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: They were just now.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: It contradicts what you said, that anything would sell like to a certain point, nine that are identical.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: What's wrong?
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: And so, because they were so hot, I got with a locator service and said I need help moving these.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: So as soon as they hit the ground I had a semi waiting to ship them out.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: But because inventory was so little, it got around to everyone and my regional manager called me and said why did you just sell off 70% of your inventory?
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: I said I'll forward you the email chain for the last four months.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: You guys wouldn't cancel.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was an incorrect build, so that was gut of their gut or their bad system.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: So that's where the spreadsheet was not good, yeah, and it was a gut like I got to get rid of this.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: That's really good of diving into knowing when it's right, knowing where you adapt and whenever you change, there off your feeling.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: That's good.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Hey, fun fact quiz of the week.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is a good one.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I like this one.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: On average, what percentage of a company's marketing budget is wasted due to poor targeting or execution?
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Well, before you answer that, let me tell you this that you could spend your entire life savings in Meta oh yeah, in Google, right?
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Craig's giving me a thumbs up because he knows that's real, because they'll give you that, and it's just a slider, right?
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: You can just slide and say, hey, how big of a region do I want to cover, what age group do I want to cover?
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: And it'll gobble it up so fast and it'll have zero relevance.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because you'll be marketing to people in China.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, even if you say a target.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: it's just like these people are not in the market.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: These people are not interested in Ford, so that's my role.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I think it's larger now than it's ever been, you know, because when I first got into the business, it was really traditional marketing and there was only so much you could waste there.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: And there's only so many players right, there's only so many pages in the local paper, yeah, in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: There's not a limit on the internet.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: There's not.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: It will just keep serving it up, no matter the demographics, no matter this, no matter that.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: So I think this is a little bit of a low, but studies estimate 25 to 30% is wasted, you know, but some leaders out there feel it's closer to half.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: I would agree with that.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with that.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: It's probably taking into account everyone that doesn't spend, and then there's an over you know, because they and they can bamboozle you with the metrics.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Okay yeah, service level.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: So here here's the deal, and I've said in meeting after meeting on this, trying to compare this provider with that provider, and they both give you different metrics.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Because they want their metrics to look better.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: It's like Sam's Club.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Now, I love Sam's Club, yeah, but Sam's Club they don't have 24 packs of Coke and water, they got 30 or 34 packs, because then mentally in your mind you can't go.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: well, here's how much it was at Target or at Costco or wherever else they change the divider.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: They change it.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: It's different than the provider says.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Hey, let me show you your KPI on a click-through rate.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: Everyone else is showing on conversion or something.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: They'll find it on a different landing page.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: They will.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: That seems high.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: I'm like Matt.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: This is 92%.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Like 92%, what?
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Of what you know.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: So, you can waste up to 50% of your marketing budget due to poor targeting.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Hey, and our producers put this next part on here for me, and I appreciate that.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: It said data doesn't lie until it does.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Whoa, I'm going to have to get deep on that one Until it does.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: So here we go, let's get into that one and give me y'all's thoughts on.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: You know why data is critical, but it's not perfect.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Because it doesn't have the gut.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: It doesn't, yeah, but it is critical because it gives you an unarguably.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Here's what's going on.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it removes the data is good because it removes any bias.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, any emotion, my feeling, your feeling your feeling based on a track record, based on a sales rep?
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, based on ease of using the product.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: You know, sometimes we see that in our systems People love this because it's spoiler alert, because it's really easy and it means they don't have to work as much, you know.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: So then the dad is going to say, hey, this works, this is simple, this is easy, like for the longest time.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: And they were super smart and we love star shopper.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: For the longest time, they we would buy the whole center section or we buy the cover, we buy the back.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: And they were like, hey, we need to run specials.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: And I'll tell you at at the time, wayne had given it to me and he's like hey, you don't even have to pick them, just tell her to pick them for you.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Right, just have her, the rep pick 30 vehicles, which seemed really easy.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Right, the data, the spreadsheet said hey, have them do it.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: They make it simple and easy.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Well, how did they do it?
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: They just went the first 30, right.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: And you could say, hey, pick this, this and this.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: But if you really wanted it to be effective, you needed to insert yourself and say, let me pick some of the oldest vehicles, let me pick some of my good specials, let me pick these hot vehicles, and so that's why you got to be careful there.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: It's not just data.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: You do, and you guys have heard me say that I like data, no-transcript.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: They're going to be like well, give me an example, show me where that happened.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: And if you go into a meeting and you first go over the data, it just it puts everybody on level ground and it takes that emotion out and then it's where the value is is.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Then what do you do with that data?
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Because the data doesn't tell the whole story, it just shows you where to start.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: So let me give you real world in our business when the data does lie.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: So in our service micro meetings that we have, we go over a lot of metrics.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: One of the metrics we go over every single day is service gross percentage.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: This allows us of the money that we spend and pay for the employees to be here, what the customer pays, what our retention rate is, and we know that percentage of where breakeven is like hey, this makes sense to show up, and so forth.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: So we were looking at that and we continue as a whole service gross percentage.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: The entire department, which is a lot of people, needs to be at this percentage.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: And our business keeps growing, keeps growing Units in operation keeps growing.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: We keep moving more and more people through our quick lane.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: But here's one of the things that gross percentage kept going and we're like why does that keep going down?
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: And so then we like had to peel the layer back and a layer back, and then the data kind of lied as a whole, because what we didn't take into account I mean we were, but not in this data extraction spreadsheet is that we, the more oil changes we did it drove that down, because we actually have to cost off.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: When somebody comes in to do an oil change, people think, dang, that's high.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: It actually cost us money.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, so we have to write off every single time that labor and that cost of its works package at $99 or $119.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: So the gross percentage goes negative.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: And so we were looking at it as a whole.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: So the data was like why don't you increase that?
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Why don't you increase that?
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: And they were like, well, we need to push more oil changes.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: And so you're like, no, no, no, the more oil changes you push, the lower that numbers.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: So the data gives you that idea.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: But then when you go a little deeper, like actually it's lying a little bit there, and here's a bonus part for you.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Shelby brought up a great example.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: She's like well then, what do I do?
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Recalibrate, yeah, Recalibrate.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: So if you find something in there that's watering it down yet it's a goal of the business, you just simply recalibrate.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Change the goal a little bit.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: You just change the goal.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Or maybe go sublayer, go sublayer, layer, right, you go sub layer, you know.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: So then you can look at that and we, so we saw that.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about that.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Or, for example, let's go slip over to sales.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: You know, every Monday we do a deep dive, you know, with all the managers, on salespeople's activities, because that's what a manager should do, is manage activities.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: So we look at it, a store, our two fable stores on our Springdale store, and okay, here's where it is, here's the percentage of calls to appointments, here's percentage of pencils, so on and so forth.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Well then, at the end of the month we go a sub layer within those stores, because within the two fable stores they have two stores under that umbrella.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: So then we broke those out and it was I don't know about you guys, of course I was the one putting it together, but then when I showed it it was eye-opening because what was hidden in there is within both of those.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: We had a top performer and we had an underperformer but we were just looking at the average at the average.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: So average it looked okay, you know.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: So you had one person that was like yeah, we're okay, and they were actually way below yeah, because they were like I'm doing pretty good and the other team deserved a bigger high five right, that's right you guys have been killing it.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: You've been carrying everybody and really the team.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: That was because we had two teams that were overperforming.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: They were then using their energy, their management energy, in the wrong capacity.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Because there was a different area that they could have improved on.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: So that's where sometimes you do do deeper.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: You can't always go deeper, because then it's like you're in a four-hour data spreadsheet meeting.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Well, and that's what happens from the manufacturer they'll send us tons and tons of spreadsheet but never actually even open it or look at it.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: And then we get it and but because we're in the weeds, yeah, we're like um, did you happen to look at this like that?
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: No, we can't sell our mustangs because they all have a recall, right.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: So you just hammer, like we got to sell these.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: I well, you need to fix them before I can sell them, right?
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: And so it's the same thing with our team that we got to get further deep in the weeds and say, actually, let's go two more layers deep and see You're good, you're good, you're good, we need to help get you going.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I think that's where the next part comes up is the risk of paralysis by analysis, and that's what we're talking about.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: If you just keep going and you guys have called me out before is I keep going layers deep but I want to get to what we can take action on and then I'm going to stop there, like once we see that.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: But you could, if you just love the numbers, you can keep breaking down, breaking down, breaking down.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: It's like, okay, we break it down by day.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Do we really need to break it down by hour?
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: and by second.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, could we yeah we could, but then other people are going that's true.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: It's not accomplishing anything else.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: You know, and okay, we looked at trend for 90 days in 12 months.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Could we do a trend analysis over five years?
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I'd be cool to look at once a year, but that's not something we need to look at every single month.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: I think you've got to look at the frequency.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like the movie the Matrix and you just see just like all the numbers and the computing you know probably 99% of people.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: You're just like, oh my gosh, what in the?
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: world and as a good leader, and you learn this through speech class at first and then just being around people.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: You got to look at your audience and I can tell you and you guys have done the same thing we may have a whole agenda of something and if something is not making progress now, it's different if we're teaching like a word track, but if we're going through the data and identifying areas and it's not hitting, we might need to skip to the next subject or we might have to go a deeper dive here and delete one of the other subjects.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: You got to be able to do that in many of sales meetings where I prepare 24 slide deck to go over and I want to recap from last week and then I want to go over some metrics and then I want to introduce two or three new things, but then when I'm checking on last week's stuff I'm like we're not going to make it to the new stuff.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: But that's okay.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: That's okay, it's okay.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Because you're so.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: You're at the line, you're the quarterback and you had all these facts, but your gut, reading the room, says we got to spend extra time here.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: It's not about a checklist.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: You know your job's not to check off that you went over the subject.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Your job is to help them improve.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and if that door opens, step through it and double down Instead of just data.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: says I got to get 23 or 24 slides.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Well, and we'll find that with managers.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about how we merchandise vehicles online.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: You know, we got to do the analysis of what's the market look like.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: How's it priced in the market?
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Is the description, are the pictures right?
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: When's the last time we adjusted the price?
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: So on and so forth.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: We got some managers that spend a ton of time in there and we got other ones that check all the boxes, but did they really involve their gut there?
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I'm going why is this vehicle really not moving?
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Did I go look at it?
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Does it smell funny?
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: You know, is it not presentable?
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: No, I think it's so important you have more leaders than not that get the data, training data, going over anything else, and they're instructed to go over this and they do it all and it's just they're not reading the room whenever they're going through, they're not paying attention to how they're delivering the data and they do it all every single time without fail, going through word tracks, going through steps of the sale, going through the steps.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: The process for your business would be, and they never stop, they never change, pivot, audible anything else and it becomes ineffective and you take time.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: So think, listen to this If you're out there and you're doing it and you are getting a training you go over every time, you don't have to go over the whole training every single time, read the room and know when you need to pivot, when you need to double down on a situation, because it'll make it far more effective.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: So many times it gets lost and so many times we go and listen.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: We just got back from training and they weren't on the same page.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: They'd went completely through and I'm not joking, this is real bill deal, big training they should be on point about.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: They just reiterated what everything had went over because they didn't listen to what had happened.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: So know this whenever you get your data and you go over the data and it's good data um, deliver it how it needs to be delivered and don't over, just push it down.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: And matt does a really good job about that.
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: He he does diving into data good, but then doesn't overanalyze and push if it's not needed.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you just pick a couple of them there.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: I got to take the 180 side before we move on here, because there's some people out there listening that are going yeah, exactly, I don't get in the weeds on data.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: My business is growing.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: I know what to do.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I started my career off that way.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: I wasn't deep in the data and my gut and we were moving the numbers.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: We were selling more cars.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: We were doing this and that I was just going off a gut instinct.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: That'll only get you so far, because you cannot see the trees when you're in the middle of the forest and you know our association that we're in.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: We go to these NADA 20 groups.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: That's really helped us do that.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: We step back and the first thing we do before we have discussion is what do we look at?
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Look at the data, don't we?
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: We look at page eight, column B I mean column eight, line B.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: We look at the facts first and then we have the discussion.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: So without the facts and some comparables, you're just shooting your gun everywhere.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: You got no targets you're aiming for.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's no different than we go back to the company's marketing budget.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: If you're not targeted to what are you selling?
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: What is that demographic and how do you get to them?
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: You're like hey, marketing team, you've got 50 grand to spend this month, get us some more customers, that's right.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: And they're like hey, do you care what customers Like?
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: No, I'm just buying customers, I just want customers.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: And they're like okay, so if they don't do any more research, you just and in every business out there I'm telling you there's metrics and they're easy.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: So if you've got a roofing business, here we go.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: How many roofs did we go look at, Did we inspect this week?
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: How many estimates did we write up?
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Did we follow up on the estimates that did not say go forward and do it, the ones we're doing, what's our turnaround time there, what was our cost?
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Like all these things that you can look at within your business.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: That's the data.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Now bring in the gut and coach and I think, okay.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: So what do I do with data?
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Data becomes a line.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: If you think about long ago in school, it becomes a line and generally if it's a profitability or gross, you want that to go up.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: If it's a production, you want it to go up.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: If it's an expense, you at least want it to stay the same.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: But look to see if there's a possibility for moving it down.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: And so you look at that.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: And so sometimes it's funny whether you're stepping on a scale or you're measuring numbers like man, this scale is a little off, it doesn't matter, as long as it's the same scale.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: You always step on, that's right.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: So you just find those data metrics and you just look at that and because otherwise you're just going off your gut like it was a good month, like compared to what, yeah, right.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: And it's like, well, we're better than last year.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Well, last year we're in a building from 69.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: Or last year we didn't even have a used car department.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: So you're just like, yeah, better than last year.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: It's like, hang on, put it in a chart.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Look at the facts.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Last year you had six people.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Now you've got 18 people.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: Last year you did 12 roofs in the month of August.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: This year you did 34.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: How many people?
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: What was your expense?
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: So did your profitability rise enough to supersede your expenses?
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: I think it's just so important that people take the time and they look at the data and then they find a stopping point.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Stop and then take action, because there are some times that the data lie.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Let me give you an example.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: We're talking about football.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Let's keep talking about football.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: I've seen data and stats before when two teams are playing and the offense of the losing team has more yards than the offense of the winning team.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: So the equation was broke somewhere.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Now the start if you were just looking at yards that the offense had, or time of possession, it looked like boom, they won the game.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: They didn't because they didn't convert on third down.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: They didn't convert when they got into the red zone, whatever it may be, and that's important, and Taylor talks about this.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: But, like on Monday, we start from phone call to appointments, to shows, to pencils, to finance, because in every one of our departments we're the same organization, but when we're there on Monday, each manager has a different area they work on, don't they?
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Even though, Shelby, you train every person on the same thing, they each have different areas to work on.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: Most definitely.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: So that's an easy sport analogy to look at as you go, okay.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Or if it's basketball, they were shooting a higher percentage from blah blah blah, but they didn't win the game.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: John Madden says the team with the most points will win the game.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: And in order to get the most points you must look at the data upstream.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Right Little data, little gut.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Mythbusters time, Mythbusters time.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: The Data never lies.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: What's your thought?
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: True or busted?
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: I don't like.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: If you have clean, good data, I don't think the data itself lies.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: It just doesn't tell the whole story.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: It doesn't tell the desk phone, so then it doesn't accurately show how many phone calls.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Or, if you take it at surface level, they called the same person to trick the system to get eight phone calls.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: So, like the data itself is not wrong, it just doesn't tell the whole story.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: And you've got to validate it.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: It goes back to the who's inputting it, how's it getting inputted, and everybody else there.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to say it.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: All right, data only tells part of the story.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, we know that.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Harvard Business Review found 42% of companies admit that they're using bad or incomplete data in decision making.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: Can you imagine if you didn't know that 42% of companies admit to using bad or incomplete data to make decisions?
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Without context Data can actually lead to worse choices.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: You know how to get the data better.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: So, before you just throw the baby out with the bathwater okay, because this is what some people do when the data is so messed up, they just quit looking at it.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: However, I'm telling you push forward, get the data and share it with your team, Because what happens with our salespeople when you go over up there on the phone calls and the appointments?
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Nobody likes to lose, do they?
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: And they're like no, no, I made more phone calls, why won't it show up there?
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: They'll clean your data up for you, they definitely, definitely will.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: Or create a system or process that says if they're not in here, you don't get credit for this Bingo, right.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: That quickly says, oh shoot, I should actually use the system.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, and that definitely helps there, all right.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Last piece we want to talk about the power of trusted voices.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like a sub gut right Someone else, the power of trusted voices, listening to mentors, team members or advisors when that's important.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: What's your guys if you go like past your gut?
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: you're like I'm not going to just make this on the fly decision it's necessary sometimes and look at the data.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: What's your next step there?
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we know what we talk about, but we live in a world today that is easier to unlock what I'm getting ready to talk about than ever before, ever before.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: There's so much information out there, there are so many trusted sources that you know, then my go-to is I start looking at books, podcasts, shorts, youtube videos of experts in that area.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, now, if it's an area that I'm not really familiar with, I'm listening to multiple to see a common theme before I just take one suggestion.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: So podcasts just like this, where you get to actually listen to other people that have already been through there and they've tried this and they've tried that.
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: No, that's really good, and I think I love that you talked about that of, yes, have your inside your, your trusted source that you can talk to, which would be no different than we talk about all the time we bounce ideas off of each other.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: But if you don't have that and know that, you can go and look to books, you can look at shorts of anything online that they go through and there's a lot of information to be found in there.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: So, on top of those two that you guys talk about, this will be no surprise to you too.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Um, you want to know what I use outside of those two, and I've used it seven times so far this morning.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: Chad gpt yeah, are you?
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: using ai, sure?
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: And you're like, oh, I don't know, that's cheating.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: It's like, really, that I just outsmarted the system because we had a question from ford based on a lending situation.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: And so, in context, we're like, hey, this decision based on business and so first I will command it, as like hey, chad, are you familiar with this, this and this?
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: And like yeah, I was like, okay, tell me who's the top 10 people in this field.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: These 10 people, I was like, hey, do they have books?
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: And they say, yes, they have books, because there's times when you can read the whole book and learn a lot.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: And then there's times when you just and so then I say, hey, scrub these 10 people's books and rank that for me In this current situation, give me top three examples of what they would do, and in less than a minute I can ask all those questions and it gives me a very clear decision.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: So you're saying I have no one else in my business, I'm a solopreneur, I'm all by myself, I can't listen to anything, I can't read anything.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Then you can do that and it's going to very quickly give you other people's opinions of what they've publicated and it's out there and if you use that, then you're just.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: You are time compressing like never before.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: I think I think the important part there, with what you're talking about, what we brought up, is are you taking the action for that?
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: And most people will be like well, I would if I could and if I knew where to go.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Look, ask Chet GPT.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Go online, look, it's out there.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: You can Google up and AI will be in there too.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Top five podcast in handling difficult employees.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: It's there, it's there and you just you start looking for it and and you engulf yourself in it and it'll help your team be better too that's good.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: How to balance outside opinions with your own conviction?
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: Outside opinions, mentors, mentors, podcasts, your gut.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: How do you balance that?
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: This is such a good one because you must take the time, even if you learn from somebody else, to make sure that it fits in your culture and the way you do business.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, and I'm going to back up one layer before that is validate whoever's pouring into you and if you're listening to a book, or if it's somebody, before you just go do what they say, look at them and say is that somewhere where I'm trying to go?
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Or if they're not at the next level, maybe that's not the best piece of advice.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: If somebody is giving you financial advice but they're currently in bankruptcy might not be the best person to listen to.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and to put that into real deal context, if you see a train moving down the tracks and you're trying to get moving, you think, hop on train, let's go.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: But did you happen to see which direction the train was going or where its next stop is?
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: It's the same thing of getting that outside advice past your gut and you're just like I love it, let's go.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: Hey, team, we're changing the whole thing.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: I know we were going this way, but now we're going to go this way and they're like someone's like hey, didn't you sign up for that two years ago?
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly years ago and we didn't like it because of this, this and this or hey, didn't we get a couple of violations because of this, this, and it was like this person's doing it, they look like they're killing it and you're like you got.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: You got to kind of balance with your gut and the outside opinion.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: There's no reason that says you can't take outside opinion, outside mentorship and then run it through your gut.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: That's right, right.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you want to know, if you're like, okay, well, how do we validate that?
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: After you get done with that conversation, go back to your computer and send their business an internet lead.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Call them up, mystery shop them, yeah, drive by their place of business.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because they might be just giving you their gut.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they haven't checked the facts, and so that's in the 20 groups.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we laugh about that because they're like oh yeah, I got this, this and this and I'm up 30% and this this and this, and then you pull it up, and then you're lower, like oh, you see this.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he's up 78% in expenses.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Whatever he's doing, don't do that.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: And we've all been called out by that, and the moderator in this.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: It's just, it's amazing because somebody will start running their mouth with their ego and they're like, okay, if everybody, please flip to page 20, column A, line B, dealer number 19.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: It looks like you're the farthest down of anybody in the group.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Tell me exactly what you're doing.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: So a little bit of validation there helps.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: And then also you got to see how does that fit in your culture and your way of doing things?
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: That's really a lot.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: You could bring in a pink goose and everyone's allergic to geese and don't like pink, right, and you're just like dang it I forgot the vet.
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and I think it's really important to know that you can listen to outside sources, because I'm not saying to stiff arm them, because you might pick up on something small that you could always implement and put into process that would work really good in your situation.
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so know that.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: No, I'm not taking your plan and putting it into here, because nine times out of ten it will not work.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: You're not replacing the whole car, you're just saying hey, those tires might upgrade my ride.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely that seat might change the way this bike rides.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: So it's handlebars.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: You're not just saying saying, hey, take this one out, put that one out, that's good, that's super important there.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: All right, any stories where you guys have saved from a bad call, from from a trusted voice or something that you see out there, that you have seen a story of where data said it should do this, or x person said we should do that, and then you said, well, hang on that.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: And then you said, well, hang on, that's not us.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: I I gotta give a little bit of a blanket answer here Um, the the most powerful thing that I've been taught and dad really, really put this in me is just sleeping on it waiting to make that decision tomorrow.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: And and that break and allowing my emotions to go down allowed me to make that decision tomorrow.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: And and that break and allowing my emotions to go down allowed me to make a better call.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: You know, just slept on it overnight.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Building started on fire.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: I don't have to make that decision right this second it opened my mind to make a clear decision where I would have made a mistake if I would have reacted right then.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: You know, and I know that's a, that's a blanket.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: We've talked a bunch about gutting.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: You know an emotion in, and I know that's a, that's a blanket.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: We've talked a bunch about gut and you know an emotion in here, but that's the biggest one everybody can take away no, I.
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: I think that answer is the same for me as well, of of going through and learning that just to step back, yep, and if it doesn't have to be made right now, just hold on on, just hold on.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: So the funny thing is, because we were all raised that way right To contradict that a little bit, I constantly feel challenged to find that quicker response based on something right.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: Based on something because there's been plenty of times and I'm totally joking that we've all been in this scenario a little bit, but because there's plenty of memes and funnies about it that you're sitting there scrolling with 38 cents in your savings account and you're pissed because the $3 million house in California just sold.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: I was about to buy that.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: But if you know what's important to you and your threshold sometimes, like Cody Sanchez talks about, the person that can make that decision quicker will often win.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: So that's my challenge is to help, because more often than not you can push things away like unnecessary things by just icing them, by letting them stew no, come back up.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: But then sometimes you're missing opportunity.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: Like we get so many people and I love it most of the time Sometimes people asking for sponsorship, or hey, can you give me a lot of money?
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: And?
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: Or this, this and this, whatever.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: And sometimes, because our normal thing is, let it stew, run it through the filter, sure, we miss some opportunities.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: So, while that is really good and that's how we've been raised, there's some other opportunity and you you have to train that.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: That's no difference.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: If you've always ran at 10 minutes a mile and then you're hoping to go race at six minutes a mile, it's not going to happen unless you practice that faster moving muscle, you know so that's a good point, and I'll tell you what I've had to do so I make sure something doesn't go too far out of stewing on.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: It is, then it has to immediately go on my to-do list.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Yes, so then I'm reviewing that in the morning because I know all the to-do list stuff and this stuff rolled over.
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, I need to address that yeah, yeah, so that it's a scheduled stew, then it gets in the chat yeah, it's not just sitting on the back burner hoping that they reach back out to you.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it burns up you know you've got to be able to do that.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: That that's so good.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: Now it is Okay.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: A couple of questions for you guys on our frequently asked questions.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: You know, what do you do to separate?
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: how you make personal decisions and business decisions.
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'll jump on this one.
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: I just went through an easiest thing of his personal and business a family going to thing and outside of that emotion has to be taken out of it completely and within reason.
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: Um, in going through and knowing that, hey, I need this to stay on its own.
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: And then in business, I need this to stay on its own as long as something morally over the top, illegal wasn't done that needs to be reacted to right away, then you step back and you let this stand on its own and, more times than not, if there's something that's really wrong that's happening, it will work its way out, either if it's in your personal life or if it's in business.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: You just have to stop and slow down a little bit.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: You know we've talked about that forever, right, whether we were supposed to or not about leaving business to business and home at home.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: It's so tough to do and, like I've talked about it many times in podcasts Like I'm not and I still don't talk about work at home, not that it's taboo, but it's just like I don't want to like, it's not necessary, it's not good.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: The problem is that seems like a pretty clear line, but there's so many other like.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: More often than not, my wife would be like hey, can you not problem solve for a second?
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: And just just like let me think, or like let me be upset about this or whatever it is.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, whoops, I totally brought my problem solver and like you should be frustrated, you're right.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: Like you know, I'm just like oh yeah, let's work through that.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: Hey, we got it.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: Here's how you do this.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: And it's like so that's tough that you don't let those.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: It just naturally happens because you do it all day, you know.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: And so those decisions.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: I think the biggest thing is not that you're not human at work, right, it's just much more prescribed and very specific, even when you're superhuman, of being available for employees and customers at home.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: Be way more of I'm just dad or I'm just husband and can I just be normal for a second Right, and so that's like, and that really gets into my antisocial I like talking to people in a genuine conversation.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: Sure, and that's probably the first time you've heard me say I like talking to people in a genuine conversation.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: In a genuine conversation.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: when it's a person, I realize they're not superficial and they're not just trying to talk, just to talk because I'm Larry Hoover and they want to talk to Larry Hoover, yeah, Otherwise I'm like just the guy in the back.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: I'm just the guy in the back and I just want to be normal, and just not that I'm not normal, but I just want to be human for a second.
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: So that's.
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: I have to work to separate those two.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: I think that's that's really important and I think more it's.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: It's not we don't go home and dumpster fire, everything going on, but it's how do we get out of business mode and more in a personal mode.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: And if you haven't had this, I'm talking to the audience here If you haven't had this conversation with your spouse, have the conversation and give them the ability to call you out and say, hey, can we not be in business mode or will you just listen to me?
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: That's really good.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: It's not fun to get called out and if you're a leader, people naturally aren't calling you out.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: Can I just say that, like they're not naturally calling you out, so sometimes we'll call each other out because, no one else is going to call us out.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, every once in a while some smart aleck will just, and it's fine.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: If it's necessary, yeah Right.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: But then you have to give your wife or your family the ability to say, hey, be respectful, we're all going to respect each other.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: But you can call BS Well to respect each other, but you can call BS.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Well, and as men, we just need to be told.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: And it's like if you tell me the game plan and you tell me I just needed to listen, I can do that.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: So you just want me to sit here and listen and not give you a solution?
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, but more often than not they're just going to give you the problem.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: So I'm just that's a bonus tip for you have that conversation with your spouse and give them you know the ground to be able to go over that with you.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Hey, great conversation today on time for a gut check.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: That got over to data too, so hopefully you take that into consideration and it helps you run your business better.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: Hey, as always, make sure that you check us out on lewisssuperstorecom or crossroadconversationpodcastcom, and if you do us a big favor, hey, go ahead and smash that like button, share it or, what would even be better, leave us a review.
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: Please do Leave us a review, uh-huh.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for joining us today and we hope you enjoyed this episode.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Make sure to give it a like, share it with your friends and family.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Visit our website and send us some questions.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: We want to know what you'd like to hear, who you'd like to hear from and what you want to see, or maybe even some questions for us to answer about either the automotive industry or just business in general.