My wife recently shared an article with me, and as usual, it got me thinking. One of the things that struck me was that the grip strength of a sampling of college-aged men is akin to the grip strength of a 30-something woman. This goes to show two things: 1.) It’s confirmation that moms are certified badasses, and 2.) Regular activities like raking the lawn could now be considered bona fide physical activity. In other words, we’ve become wimps.
This wimpiness is the Higgs Boson of service businesses and dealerships across the country. It’s the unseen and mercurial force that binds the staff together. It’s the hollow vacuum inside the title of manager. Work does not simply happen when you cross the threshold into your office or post about it on Facebook at 2:13 AM. It requires real exertion.
Instead of actual exertion, it’s much easier and less painful to just pay for it. Much in the way that suburbia pays someone to rake their leaves, mow their lawn, or clean their bourgeois pool. With increasing frequency businesses are choosing to just throw money at their problems. It’s the wimpy way out.
Take Google AdWords for instance. Despite the fact it’s been around for more than a decade and a half, it’s now buzzworthy again. Instead of taking free courses DIRECTLY FROM GOOGLE to better understand AdWords, Analytics, YouTube…basically, the whole Google ecosystem, businesses will happily pay someone to do it for them. That someone doesn’t even have to know anyone at Google, let alone visit its campuses. It’s easier to give a bully your lunch money.
Focus on ways to make the bottom of the funnel flow more volume.
Speaking of stolen money, how about accountability? Instead of working every opportunity like it was the last opportunity, it’s just easier to acquire more opportunities. Year after year money gets spent to make the mouth of the funnel wider and wider without ever giving a single neural synapse to increasing the diameter of the stem. In 2017, it’s like a water tower draining into a drinking straw. Instead of breaking a sweat when John and Jane Closer blow through 50 lot ups, or when Mike and Mary BDC Agent mark all of their activities finished before 9:30 AM, it’s less confrontational just to get them more opportunities. Who’s running the show?
How long do you want to keep passing the buck? How long do you want to keep being pushed around by your employees and managers? How long do you want to let your vendors resell you a free report? How long before your arms are too weak to write the check?
Back in January, I made a declaration to a friend that 2017 is the year of “this is too hard.” It’s proving to be true. Never has it been easier or more cost-effective to leverage modern technology to exceed the expectations of today’s customer. But, it still takes more than just showing up. It takes much more than blindly following a sales process. It takes a shitload more than just reading a script. If you don’t need a few minutes of quiet solitude when you get to your car after leaving your desk for the day, then you didn’t give it enough. A fresh coat of paint doesn’t cover apathy.
You still eat what you kill.
