Hey NASCAR … Ready To Listen To Your Customers Yet ?
I’m over at the NYTimes reading the Sunday Edition like I do every Sunday and I see an article that basically says NASCAR’s attendance is down 14% 6 races into the season.The International Speedway Corp., who own 12 of the 22 tracks that NASCAR uses, which would lead you to believe that it’s WAY BEYOND a good ol’ boy thang, is down 19% revenue wise.
Here’s the sad part - neither of them know why it’s happening.
Let me be the loudest to tell ‘em.
You forgot who you were. Simple.
You tried to go Hollywood and Rodeo Drive. They may dress better, but they won’t pay your bills.
They don’t wear #20 T-shirts to church like we do.
They don’t get married in #24 T-shirts.
They don’t have a different #8 shirt for every day of the week.
Redneck’s have paid the bills for decades. Been there, bought the T-shirt and wore it to church. Every Sunday. And to wedding #3. And on the honeymoon.
Then they started to kill off races in places where there’d been races since the day they started, see Darlington, SC. and Labor Day.
They went together like redneck’s and NASCAR. Or used to.
Then they started to make the cars all look the same. See Car of Tomorrow. Too bad there won’t be any tomorrow’s if they don’t forget this Orwellianism.
You may say it’s for the safety of the drivers, and it may well be, but when the Ford’s look like the Chevy’s, which look like the Dodge’s which now look like the Toyota’s, you got a problem.
It doesn’t help matters any that the Toyota is the only one of those built on American soil.
By the way, I drive a Kentucky-built Camry. I live in Owensboro, Kentucky and love driving a car built by my brethren, some of whom are rednecks like me.
The Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge supporters can’t say that, unless they live on foreign soil… like Mexico or Canada.
Owensboro, Kentucky is the boyhood home to the Waltrip’s, the Green’s and Jeremy Mayfield, just in case you were wondering if I was an official NASCAR-watchin’ redneck or a faux-redneck.
For 50+ years, the manufacturer’s products looked different.
People were, and still could be, polarized around “their” cars.
Polarized people spend money.
I’m 44 years old and I was rootin’ against King Richard Petty and for David Pearson way back yonder in 1969, even as a 6 year old.
Hell, I’m a redneck. It’s what we do.
For all of those years, I kept up with NASCAR’s comin’s and goin’s.
I have not watched a race this year. May not.
It doesn’t appeal to me anymore, because there’s no polarization for or against a manufacturer.
They all look alike.
Even the tracks are all owned, or damned near it, by the same folks.
They all look the same.
NASCAR’s all about NASCAR and how they can fill their pockets.
They forgot who paid the bills. Polarized, screamin’ rednecks.
Also, you guys play too loose and easy with the rules, which you make up as needed, during a race.
Somebody way out front and lapping the field ? Throw a caution for something like “debris on the track”, and let everybody catch up, change tires and make adjustments.
Throw a caution with 10-15 laps to go, so we can have a close finish and make the people want to come back.
Do you think we don’t know you do that on purpose ? OMG ! We may be redneck’s, but even we ain’t that damn stupid and we’re tired of being treated like we’re that dumb.
If a driver or crew chief happens to call you out and speak the truth, haul him into the NASCAR “woodshed” and let him know that truth and honesty make work for Superman, but is frowned upon in “your” sport, which you privately own and run as you see fit.
I could go on and on with the Why’s and How Come’s, but you aren’t going to listen anyway.
It’s your game, you make the rules and always win.
Here’s your problem in a nutshell.
You tried to stray away from the redneck’s and now the redneck’s are staying away from you.
Me and thousands of other are voting with our feet and our wallets.
Simple.
Thanks to the NYTimes for the inspiration and to Steve Helber and the AP for the photo.
If you have an opinion about this topic, send it to me and I’ll publish it.
The Reason Most Business Websites Don’t Rank Well
Once again, last week, on one of the 20+ blogs we operate, I got an email from a company wanting me to pimp their product.
This one, as a lot are, was golf related. I searched several times on Google for what I would assume would be their main keywords.
After that dismal failure, I searched for one of their main products with their name in the search term I used.
Another dismal failure.
So I go to their site and see nothing but Flash, animation, redirects and fancy award winning type of design. Nice colors, jumping whirlygigs, etc.
The awards would not be for sales or search engine optimization, by the way.
Their web design team did what they wanted to do, which was make a pretty site, instead of a site that would actually sell the product.
I did one single, solitary, pitiful, little ol’ blog post and was #1 on Google for the previous search term … in 3 days.Again.
Little do they know that a correctly configured, properly tweaked WordPress blog would be all they’d need to assume their rightful place, on top of the search results for their own product name.
For a small fee, we’d build them one and for another small monthly retainer, we’d populate that blog with whatever content they wanted.
It helps that I’m a sales genius ( kidding here ), along with being a blogger and have a staff to do all the really hard work.
All I have to do is devise a strategy for the content, the link campaign and a few other things we won’t go into here. All white hat, I’m not smart enough to do anything sneaky. Remember, I’m a salesman, I can’t be that smart.
We’re doing 5 blogs as of now, for small businesses and one starting in a week or two for a state agency.
If your small, or not so small business, is tired of ranking poorly, if at all, contact me or some other sales-minded blogger and take back what’s yours.
How about the image in the post ? Blogging is a great big idea for all businesses.
Selling Starts At The Top
After his death some years ago, someone finally realized that John D. Rockefeller was as great a salesman as he was a financier.
In truth, he might have been one of the greatest salesmen of all time.
His sales career started at age 16.
Some time in the past, I remember reading that Mr. Rockefeller had 3 sales philosophies, which he had started even at that young age.
Just a boy, he had recognized that there’s a tremendous amount of waste in selling, so he found three key rules to guide him.
Sales Philosophy #1 was that he would only call on large companies.
Sales Philosophy #2 was that go after big orders.
Sales Philosophy #3 was to always see the right man, the one at the top.
Using those three rules for his selling guidelines, he went out and produced one of the top sales careers of all time.
I personally think that #3 is the one that stalls most salespeople today.
Either they’re scared to go after the top person in the company who makes buying decisions, they don’t know who it really is because they’re lazy or stupid or their company won’t let them go hard after the account.
Any one of those is a career killing mistake.
Bank Tellers Gone Wild !
It’s Saturday, the day before Easter and I want to deposit some of the checks that have come in during the week from all of our affiliate programs, ad sales and such.
I go to my local branch and go inside and am at least the 6th person back.
Two tellers, which is normal and one at the drive-up window, which is normal.
The teller on the left is dealing with a young lady with a check written on an account from this bank, but she doesn’t have an account.
It’s not too painful, but it does cause some consternation, as the teller acts as if the young lady is some kind of criminal because she doesn’t have an actual bank account of her own.
I can’t say as I blame her, as most transactions performed in person are painful, which is why I have direct deposit, bank and pay bills online and use PayPal when I can.
The really painful part though, is when the teller completes her transaction and then tries to sell the young lady a “no minimum balance checking account “, while 6 of us, who have accounts stand and listen to the young lady and the teller go thru all the features.
OMG ! This ain’t the time for this. Like Kenny Rogers said, ” … you gotta know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em. “
Have her come back when the lines aren’t this long or refer her to a customer service rep who doesn’t have card carrying customers waiting 6 deep and getting more fed up all the time.
There’s a time for sales and there’s a time for customer service.
What Does The Pressure To Sell Do To You ?
I recently had lunch with a friend of mine who happens to be a sales manager in an industry that’s very, very different than mine.
One of his salesmen joined us. He breezed in, ate and left in a rush. In his time with us, I was moderately impressed.
I asked my friend about the young man’s future.
He said he also had been impressed with the young man during interviews and his references were solid. His sales also had been very impressive, but he’d finally found his one weakness.
The young man came unglued under pressure from a competitor.
99% of the time he was a great employee, but in the crunch time, he was totally worthless and had a bad habit of making everyone around him uncomfortable.
That’s a bad trait to have in a salesman, who depends on the support of the entire organization for his success.
If he starts blaming his support staff for the deeds of a competitor, he’s not going to last long, because his support will slowly go south and so will his sales.
As a salesman, especially, you need to learn to accept the bad as part of the game and wear it’s cloak alone.
The successes are to be shared and celebrated with your supporting cast.
I’ve made it a habit, over the years, to take the blame for my support staff and their shortcomings and to bring them wampum to celebrate our successes.
Donuts, lunch or lattes does wonders for their morale and makes them aware that I value their support.
It might not be fair to take all the blame and share the loot, but it’ll make you famous … if only in your organization.
If A U.S. Marine Was Your Sales Manager
Every week, at least, I get an email from Harvey Mackay. You will too, if you subscribe to his newsletter, like I recommend you do.
Harvey may be my favorite business genre author. I love all of his books. Not some, all.
This particular email had leadership lessons from the ‘Guidebook for Marines‘.
I’ve adapted it to sales managers, but I wanted to give credit to Harvey for engaging my brain and for a great newsletter.
His newsletter is all content and no fluff, so do yourself a favor and subscribe.
The bolded part of each lesson is from the Guidebook, the word after the bolding are mine.
1) Know yourself and seek improvement. You’ll never be all you can be ( I’m former Army and proud of it ), unless you continue to study your profession and your craft. Look for your weaknesses and improve them, do not practice your strong points, improve the areas where you’re weak. Be real and be honest or you won’t grow.
2) Be technically and tactically proficient. If you don’t know your products better than all your salespeople, shame on you. If you can’t plan a campaign better than your salespeople, shame on you. Know your job and work to broaden your horizons.
3) Know your Marines and look out for their welfare. Know what your salespeople face in the field and work to make it as easy as possible for them to do their job. Work with them individually. Sales meetings are passe. No salesman worth his salt will talk about his problems in front of his peers. Take him to lunch or dinner and never, ever share the info he reveals.
4) Keep your Marines informed. Never, ever let information get to your people by any means other than you. Never. The damn phones are there for a reason. Do not let me find out company news from a customer. Or a supplier. If I do, your credibility is gone. Shot. Ruined. Forever.
5) Set the example. You’re the standard, whether you like it or not. Sorry. Never ever let me see you sweat, unless it’s beside me in the trenches. Set the bar high and conduct yourself as a professional … at all times.
6) Ensure the task is understood, supervised and accomplished. Make it simple and clear what you want me to do. Check to see that I did it. Tell me you checked and tell me what you think of what I did … in a constructive manner. Simple.
7) Train your Marines as a team. Make sure we all know our roles and do not let the parameters get blurred. Make us accountable and make it a matter of record. Get us together as a team and make some of our goals ‘team goals’.
Make sound and timely decisions. All I have out there is my credibility to my customer. If I can’t get the necessary info from you to give to them, I can’t be held accountable to you for my goals. Make yourself as accountable to your salesforce as they are to you.
9) Develop a sense of responsibility among your subordinates. Give me enough rope to rope the damn steer. I can’t go to battle with a shoelace. Let me do the job and we’ll talk about it afterwards, not during the process.
10) Employ your command in accordance with its capabilities. Enlist me, equip me and then empower me. You will be the reason I succeed or fail, according to how you prepared me. If I fail, you should have known beforehand that I wasn’t ready.
11) Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions. Just like the point above says, a sales manager is responsible for the salesforce under him. If we fail, it’s your fault, not ours. Period.
Those 11 points are a good starting point for sales managers. There are plenty of other points that could be added.
Feel free to do so here in the comments or on your blog.
