Lead On with Greg & Mark (LOwGaM)
We invite you to join us as we talk about the world of leadership during times of complexity.
Lead On with Greg & Mark (LOwGaM)
S3: E9 Leadership Lessons from the Showroom Floor
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What can leaders learn from their own experiences making major purchases?
In this episode of 'Lead On with Greg & Mark,' join us as Mark dives into his recent car-buying journey. Discover the leadership lessons hidden in everyday decisions as he recounts his experiences with different dealerships. How do these stories resonate with your own major purchase experiences? Let's explore the intricate dance of customer expectations and service together!
We chat about disruptive innovation versus incremental innovation; and Greg tells about his least favorite things to find in the water when he had a pool.
But that's not all – Greg is back with the final round of our classic TV show theme song challenge. Can you guess these four iconic tunes from their lyrics? In the comments, tell us which of the classic TV shows we’ve discussed brought back your fondest memories?
We also give a special shoutout to a dedicated listener whose insightful leadership questions add depth to our discussion from Season 3 Episode 6. Have these reflective prompts sparked your journaling journey in 2024? We're eager to hear your thoughts!
Get ready for another fun-filled and thought-provoking episode with Greg and Mark, where we navigate the complexities of leadership with humor and wisdom.
Remember, you can catch all episodes of 'Lead On with Greg & Mark' on your favorite podcast platform. Tune in, reflect, and lead on!
Check out all episodes of Lead On with Greg & Mark on your favorite podcast platform!
You're listening to Lead On with Greg and Mark, brought to you by the Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units. Join us this season as we engage in conversations on leading on through times of complexity. Now for your hosts, Greg and Mark.
Speaker 2Hello, gregory, hello.
Speaker 3Mark, how are you Wonderful? Yeah, so a little bit of feedback from some listeners. Oh, let's.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3So one of my dear friends and colleagues, sue, responded to a LinkedIn post on one of our most recent episodes where we talked about five questions that leaders can ask themselves to reflect and grow.
Speaker 1I think that was our.
Speaker 3New Year's episode it was. And just as a reminder to our listeners, if you we're just sort of curious what those five questions were, go back to the episode for Deep Dive, but just sort of quickly they were what will I learn this week? What relationship will I improve this week? What problem will I address or avoid this week? What opportunity will I seize this week and how will I increase my value this week? And then, of course, you could take those and reframe them. What did I, what did I learn this week, just to check yourself, or what relationship did I improve this week? She said that she likes those questions. Thank you, sue. We appreciate the feedback. And again shout out to Mark Sandborn, who actually drafted those questions. They were just highlighting his work and she said she's going to use them. And she had three additional questions from her seat as a leader that she'd like to add to the list for herself.
Speaker 3I'm going to throw them out there for the listeners so that everybody hears them. So here are your questions that you're adding. What did I learn about myself as a leader this week? I like that one.
Speaker 2So it's a reflection on the past week. It's a Friday afternoon kind of thing.
Speaker 3What did I learn about the people in my organization this week and what did I learn about the organization itself this week?
Speaker 2And that's more global yeah.
Speaker 3Super smart job, shout out to Sue. So if you're following our challenge by the way, I challenged you in that episode for journaling, right? So if you're following and we're going to, I'm going to check in on that very quickly If you are yourself challenging yourself to journal in this new year or at any point in your leadership journey. We have those five original questions Again Mark Sandborn's questions. Now we have Sue's three questions.
Speaker 2What I like about it you have five prior to the week and then Sue had the idea it's more like you're reflecting back on the week. Those three questions, absolutely. I think it's great. It's like a nice you know reflection sandwich.
Speaker 3So reflection sandwich sounds delicious. What's the soup to short? Oh, that's the soup of the day. Sounds delicious. So tell me. I issued a challenge to you and to me and to our listeners on our New. Year's episode and it was really based on my own wants and needs, but it seemed like it resonated with you.
Speaker 1We were talking about journaling?
Speaker 3Yes, and we were thinking about journaling through the lens of those questions, if you need a prompt. So it's early in the new year, or at least it's early since the challenge has been issued, have you?
Speaker 2had any success. So I have. But I have to tell you, just like New Year's resolutions I mean, we're all out. Everybody knows, you know I'm going to lose weight this year, or everything else. Journaling is one of those things for me, so I'm doing well with it now. But is the test of time going to play out here? So it has been successful for me? And long story short, just setting simple goals for the week. A lot of them have to do with not the major projects, it's the little things you know, learning more names of the staff, just you know regular, like small goals.
Speaker 3Well isn't that? Yeah, and that's smart, right, because small goals are attainable. They're contagious, yes.
Speaker 2Yeah, I like that, and those will become bigger goals.
Speaker 3Yeah, you know what, when I was studying Entrepreneurship through the lens of public education, that was the focus of my dissertation. There was a lot of this is, you know, 10, 11 years ago I started that work, so some of it's a little dated. At the time, the big Theory and entrepreneurship was disruption. Everybody wrote a book with the word disruption in it. Yeah, flip the tables right, you know disruptive innovation.
Speaker 3Right, and ironically it's a hundred and some odd year old concept by a Austrian Economist, schumpeter, and it was creative destruction. The idea there was that you can't have something new without destroying something old. There's only so much anyway. But that really took leadership by storm in the you know, like 2010s, and what I actually found was that it wasn't the disruptive innovations that mattered, because they were so few and, quite Frankly, hard to capture lightning. It was incremental.
Speaker 2Innovation, not to not disruptive.
Speaker 3In a little bites at the apple, one step in front of the other. It's like the tortoise and the hair analogy the hair right, run and disruptive. I have the hair plotting One bite at a time. This is what we're gonna do this week, then next week and ultimately it Incrementally builds into something greater than it was before it started mark.
Speaker 2That makes a lot more sense to me and you know the way it's always been presented to me in the past was shocking the system and it Doesn't need to be that way.
Speaker 3Maybe sometimes it has to be that way.
Speaker 2Maybe if it's, if it's in a going in a bad direction, but but every innovation can't be a shock to the system.
Speaker 3No, no, you got a disgusting hot Take it off.
Speaker 2It also could be Exactly.
Speaker 3Incrementally take care of that hot tub every day. You wouldn't need to shock it right?
Speaker 2Yep, exactly exactly. You just brought up some bad memories and me taking care of my pool.
Speaker 3It's what did you learn? Taking care of your?
Speaker 2my wife would walk out and I'd be there like screaming at the pool and and I'd be like, honey, just go, go, please go back inside. I have to work this out. But it's when chlorine, remember that of course the shortage of chlorine. Yeah, you know. So I'm, I was, I was being too were you stuck? But I also rationed the amount that I use. I say we're pretty enough in which, which resulted in a lot of algae, I see and a lot of arguments with my pool.
Speaker 3Yeah well, you don't want to go in disgusting water, right? No, what do you do with your pool in the water? Do you drain it all the way? So I don't have a pool anymore? No, I have the.
Speaker 1I live at a lake, so that's a late kind of you're not put chlorine in the lake.
Speaker 2Oh no, I'm not.
Speaker 3What's this? What's the nastiest thing you found in?
Speaker 2your pool. They were those moles.
Speaker 3Moles. But if they fall in they can't get around there.
Speaker 2Yeah, they're in the filter. That was a nasty one.
Speaker 3I did have a snake once you see, that's why I won't have a pool, because I'm terrified. Yeah, there was a snake once. Yeah, I was alive or it was dead.
Speaker 2It was dead.
Speaker 1It was dead, it was dead.
Speaker 2Yeah, I have a friend Billy. He like jumps the snakes and so he has a huge fear of snakes.
Speaker 3It's embedded in our DNA that we should be, afraid of these things.
Speaker 1Yeah, right so there's no shame, billy.
Speaker 2Yeah, no shame there, brother.
Speaker 3All right, so Greg yes, mark. You know the expression beating a dead horse. We're gonna continue to beat that dead horse. I got four more songs for you.
Speaker 2No, these are four TV. Yeah, theme songs from the 80s and 90s. But he's now listeners. I'm only really give me a little credit on this, because I know I'm gonna get be getting some feedback like come on, you're better than this. But when it's being stated like in written form, as compared to being sang, of course it's. I'm an auditory learner here, so you know I have to kind of sing it to myself.
Speaker 3I wanted. I wanted to make it a challenge by reading the lyrics. Cold I accept the challenge. You know, in a future episode we could take these same songs and just play the first five seconds. Like name that tune you probably get them all right away. We could do that too, but if you've never seen small wonder, you wouldn't know it anyway, right, I didn't know small wonder, all right. But everybody knows cheers, I hope, right, absolutely.
Speaker 2Are you ready for?
Speaker 3your for.
Speaker 2I'm ready.
Speaker 3Okay, let's go look at what's happening to me. I Can't believe it myself. Suddenly, I'm on top of the world.
Speaker 2It should have been somebody else believe it or not, I'm walking on air. That's greatest American hero. Well done, sir.
Speaker 3Yes you're one for one. Now you ready? Yeah, this is the original from 81 to 83. Oh, that's what it says here. I thought the show was not as old as that. I would have thought the show was from the.
Speaker 2It was released 81 that's what this says, the original. Maybe there's more than one version.
Speaker 3All right, give me a break. I sure deserve it. It's time I made it to the top. Give me a break. I'm looking forward. Get behind me, pull out every stop. I want to happy. I'm tired of pretending. Won't let him this.
Speaker 2Facts of life I'll give you hint, the name of the show I remember I could picture that she had. She had red hair. No and no.
Speaker 3I'll give you hint. The name of the show is in the lyrics. I've read Give me a break.
Speaker 2Give me a break. Give me a break. Well done, I'll tell you.
Speaker 3But not, I don't get credit for that, that's okay, I'll give you credit number three I Bet we've been together for a million years and I bet we'll be together for a million more. Oh, it's like I started breathing on the night we kissed as I stare at you, greg, and I can't remember what I ever did before. What would we do baby without us? What would we do baby without us? Silver Spoons.
Speaker 2Nope.
Speaker 3That's it, you got it. And there ain't no nothing we can't love each other through. What would we do, baby, without us? Shalala, not growing pains. Nope, this is a little older, older. What you want me to give you a character, yes, Alex P Keaton oh my gosh, come on, it's a.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh, I can't think of it. I come on, just the embainment, just the embainment. Yeah right, michael J Fox how could I not remember this? Meredith Baxter, I know, I know what's the name?
Speaker 3Steven gross oh. My gosh come on, dude. Family ties, family ties. Well done, I knew this song.
Speaker 2It was on the tip of your tongue, I couldn't think of the name of it, though All right Must be getting old.
Speaker 3Here we are. This is the last one. Here we are face-to-face a couple of silver spoons, silver spoons hoping to find. We're two of a kind making it.
Speaker 2Oh, you're making this easy. I'm gonna grow. I think I am 50% on this together.
Speaker 3We're gonna find our way together, taking the time each day to learn all about those things. You just can't buy two silver spoons together. Yeah, you and I. This is like modern poetry. These are gonna be like modern.
Speaker 2They are gonna be in a book.
Speaker 3Yeah, can you imagine that was your job in the 80s and 90s.
Speaker 2Just write a theme song my gosh, so good angles love it.
Speaker 3Yeah, love it, hey. So a couple of episodes ago, we talked about your new car yes, the Subaru. How's it going? I love it. We also bought a car relatively recently Ironically, we also bought a Subaru just before you and I wanted to talk to you about my experience.
Speaker 3Okay, all right and I want your feedback, not your reflection. Yeah, all right. So this is one of the first times where my wife and I spent a lot of time going between dealers. Sometimes we would play the habit of Falling in love with the car online and then just going and buying it, maybe not shopping around too much. I don't feel like we made bad purchases, by the way, because I felt like we did all the research up front.
Speaker 2You already had it figured out before you even entered the lot exactly, and there's something to be said for that.
Speaker 3We we did it a little differently this time. We actually went to five or six dealers and we said, when we went to the first, the second, the third, that we were not going To buy the car because we wanted to see what was going on. Okay, now, interestingly, we nearly failed at this, because the first place we went and I won't- name the brands, wait.
Speaker 2So you're telling yourself we're not gonna, before you even walk on. We're not gonna buy the car by the car, got it. We're gonna go and check out five or six cars in the same class from five or six dealers and they're all close to each other.
Speaker 3Okay, yeah, we almost failed at the first one we went into, because we go when we follow up with this car, yeah, and we say to the guy that will come back in despite our original intention, all right, we like to sit down and go over. You know, buying this car. So this is on a Saturday afternoon, okay, and let's say it's maybe three o'clock, four o'clock, the dealer doesn't close until eight, nine o'clock, plenty of time. And Then it's closed on Sunday. And then there was a holiday on a Monday, you following. So the next day of the dealership would have been open was a Tuesday. So this sales guy knows that he's got a bird in the hand. We're telling him we want to sit down. We've just test driven this car.
Speaker 2He's holding all the cards.
Speaker 3He's holding all the cards. Despite our efforts to not buy the car, we are willing to sit down and talk to this guy about the car, because there was a shortage of these cars and so it's like gosh, if we wait, we won't get it right. We were our own sort of paradox here. Anyway, not paradox, our own sort of worst enemy, right? You know what he says to us Four o'clock on a Saturday, he goes gosh, I'm really busy. I'm about to go to lunch, a late lunch.
Speaker 2He actually said that.
Speaker 3Yeah, something like that. He says would you guys mind I'll take care of some of the paper. Could you come back on Tuesday?
Speaker 2Wow.
Speaker 3So that's through Sunday, through Monday and Tuesday, and I just remember thinking that's odd right.
Speaker 2For a salesman, you want to just complete the sale yeah right. That's a huge investment from your standpoint.
Speaker 3Right, so interesting. So we say thanks and we walk out right Now he has our number right and he doesn't know that. We didn't storm out of there. We didn't say you're crazy, we just said OK, right, because what we didn't know is if we were going to find another car that day. We still wanted to have that option. So we go to another dealer. They don't have anything on the lot. The guy says let me get your number, I'll call if anything comes in. It's been three months that guy's never called us once. That's another dealer, right. Guy has never called even just to say that he doesn't have anything for us. It's as if he took the number and threw it away.
Speaker 3This is the way the market is now Right. Third dealer We'd have to. They don't have anything in stock, but we'd have to order it. Are we interested in ordering it? And we say we're not OK, so no fault on his own. I actually felt bad for him because he wanted you know. So you're back to number one. Fourth dealer.
Speaker 3Fourth dealer right, we go in and we test drive the car. We like it, but we're not sure that we like it more than the first car you follow, so we don't buy it. At this point we're saying, well, why is? We'll wait till Tuesday, maybe test drive the first car again. She texts us later that night hey, have you guys thought about it? Follow through Fifth dealer, falling over the car that we ultimately buy. Great sales guy, great attention, literally bought it from the fifth dealer, did not buy it from any of the first four. How about that? I don't know. It's a fascinating look, I think, at the state of the market.
Speaker 2maybe I'd say supply and demand is a thing I still think. Going back, you guys had your minds set on not committing.
Speaker 3Correct, yet we were going to violate that anyway, and you?
Speaker 2were going to violate that, and I just think there's a lot to be said for that.
Customer Service and Dealer Experiences
Speaker 3Well, and the car that we bought the fifth car that we looked at, significantly less than the first one that we were going to buy that sales guy sort of blowing us off saved us a lot of money. He did you a favor, he did us a favor, isn't that funny? He was sort of annoyed when he teched. So he reaches out to us on Tuesday, to his credit, and he says I'm here, we actually found another car and he sort of blows up Listen, he was going to sell that car regardless. We hadn't put it down payment on whatever I don't know. I mean, what's your theory there as a leader?
Speaker 2I would say number one customer service. So, no matter what supply and demand it is, you treat people the right way. That's my takeaway from that, because it's like I said, he was holding all the cards in that first one and it shouldn't be that way.
Speaker 3But isn't it just interesting that he walked away from a commission? Or is the market so great that he doesn't care who buys the car? The car's going to sell itself. I think it's a ladder.
Speaker 2I think it's that the market is that good right now. Or maybe it has been, that's been a trend, so that's kind of how he's done business.
Speaker 3Yeah, or that he's one of the few people that even had something in stock. You know, yeah, I don't know, but I won't go back to any of those dealers. And then if somebody else needs a new car, you know I'm going to that fifth dealer.
Speaker 2Tell me about that fifth dealer a little bit more. Like what some of the qualities?
Speaker 3Relatively new sales guy, yep, had just come in from another industry, so he's starting his way up the ladder at this particular dealership. As a sales guy, admitted that he didn't know everything about the car but was going to learn with us. He did know about the car I mean, don't play that, he was like bumbling and he definitely knew the car, wanted us to see every version of the kinds of cars that we were looking at, pulled out three or four, five cars for us to look at, didn't care that he had to move them all back, whatever it wasn't, spent a lot of time with us, no pressure, gave us a very good price on the trade-in.
Speaker 3A lot of people say you shouldn't trade in, but anyway we felt like this was a good deal and just normal, like a normal guy, followed up, no issues, no issues at all and he followed up with it after then yeah, we were able to get the car and no drama, and he's the kind of guy and we got a thank-you note in the mail and the thank-you note Mm-hmm so it sounds like he did all the background work that needs to be done, like all the leg work for you.
Speaker 2Yeah, of course, and it's a stressful thing and it's a major investment from your standpoint, and I think he saw that yeah. Where I think some of the other dealers made just it just another sale, it's just another sale didn't you know?
Speaker 3I Just thought it was fascinating. You get the bird in the hand, right, yeah, but I'm, and just let us walk out the door, yeah, like if we were doing him a favor, that first dealer, by buying the car. Well, maybe that strategy worked for him before well, it probably didn't harm him because I imagine someone walked in on Tuesday, saw that car and bought it anyway, so he probably didn't care right, and there's probably a trend of that happening.
Speaker 3Yeah, but it's less about his commission and just might like I won't go back to that dealer again, I won't buy that brand of car. For if I, if I ever buy that brand of car, won't buy it from that dealer. You know it's interesting, some of these were all owned by the same. You know, there's a chain of dealers and the culture in each of the dealers was totally different right, yeah it's just sort of fascinating right.
Speaker 3Almost like in a system like two schools, same school district, but maybe different cultures in each of the schools because the principal is different. Yes, right right. Yeah.
Speaker 2Oh, very interesting.
Speaker 3Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2I just I wanted your take on it, so that's my take. Is you know? I think there's I will always say the human side of this in sales. That's, that's what it's all about. Connecting, yeah, educating, follow-through, yeah. All these things that we look for and that's those are leadership skills as well.
Speaker 3What we ultimately decided to do, which was shop around before we committed. We ultimately wound up doing this by our best efforts. But physically yeah, we literally did it, but we were. We were very quick to go back on that and almost buy the car because we were like this is sort of a Diamond in the rough here. Yeah, anyway, greg, the next episode. I have four more songs for you.
Speaker 2Well, I thought we were done with this.
Speaker 3No, we are well done. I will have a different challenge for you. Yeah well, I'm looking forward to that challenge, sir, and I look forward to continuing conversations Always nice to see you.
Speaker 2Always. All the pleasure is all yours. Thank you big Mike. Peace and love, peace. And let's wrap this up All right. Thanks again, listeners. In the meantime, let's make it a great day and innovate. We're USA, oh, usa. All right, all right, oh.
