Dab-A-Lube at work Is this you?

Why it doesn't work

In these trying times we at BG have run across a wide variety of managers, owners and employees. We are often asked the same question…”how is everyone else doing?” We get caught in the crossfire with that one because we don’t really know if they are looking for justification of their own problems or are they truly searching for information. I have decided to answer everyone at once.

In business you can be a part of one of the following groups:

Proactive, Reactive, or Inactive.

Let me define them.

PROACTIVE is a group that sees down the road and makes adjustments, even if they are wrong, well before trouble comes. They are also the ones never willing to rest on their laurels. If a bad decision is made they change again, and if a decision was good they still look for a way to make it better. Never satisfied describes the proactive ones.

The REACTIVE group waits until change is absolutely necessary and then relies more on someone else’s decision than their own. They don’t really look at how to move forward, they just want to get by. If they were steering a boat I a storm they would be the ones to fight it, never getting anywhere, but staying afloat. They always ask how did so and so get it done, not look at what I am doing.

The INACTIVE guy may get by, but will never be strong. They will be the first one to blame the economy, the president, the weather, and their spouse for bad business. They will always think about it, and rarely do it. If they do it, they will never truly commit. They have more excuses than carter has pills (for us old folks).

The bottom line is this, in our business we never have 100% saturation, we can always do more. We can always be different. We lose more business than we keep because we don’t think it is necessary to give our customers a reason to come back. The fact is we do. We need to take care of business at home. Our customers are our lifeblood. They need to think of you the same way they think of their pediatrician.

This can all be summed up with one word…VALUE! You need to give it to get it. That never means being the cheapest.

To show you what inactive means, look at the picture on the side. A sampling tray that for the proactive store generates 100s of dollars each day of customer pay maintenance work (the highest gross of all) is being used to hold up a flag, and no one said a word.

Nuff said!

I think I’ve answered the question. Now it’s your turn.

Posted on: June 5, 2009

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