Welcome to The Selling in the Motor Trade Podcast, an association with Symco Training.
This is the weekly podcast where we share best practice tips and ideas on how to sell
more cars, improve your service department and generally put more profit into your dealership
or dealer group.
I'm your host, Simon Bowkett, and some of you probably already know me as Skippy.
I will start with saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast.
Welcome to another episode of Selling in the Motor Trade.
I'm so excited about the guest today and you probably know I say that all the time, but
no, I'm seriously excited.
We've actually got a real doctor today.
Now I love psychology as to why people buy things, why salespeople do things when asking
them to do it, and sometimes they don't.
I love to know the psychology about what makes people tick.
I suppose I'm a bit of a people watcher, and maybe you are as well.
But today I've got Dr. Tharaka Gunarathne.
Now I don't know if I'm pronouncing your surname right there, doctor, but actually I'm so excited
to get the real ideas as to why people do what they do or why they don't do it.
So Dr. Tharaka, do I pronounce your surname right?
Tharaka, is that right?
So Tharaka, that's my first name, and that was pretty much right.
Gunarathne is my surname, and to be honest, you know, people within my family forgets.
We've left that out, so it's Dr. T for short.
Okay, Tharaka, when you said I've got that almost right, Tharaka, Dr. Tharaka, I'm going
to try to get that right.
Thank you very much.
Tharaka, I understand you're a TEDx speaker, okay, you're a podcaster.
What have you guys made or heard of, Dr. Tharaka, with Chennels 4s, can I improve my
memory?
Go and find that.
Go and have a look at some of these TEDx speeches there because they're really, really
good, okay?
I suppose you talk lots about manage your mind, and you can manage your bottom line.
But can I ask you a question?
This is a podcast about the motor trade and selling in the motor trade, so people are
going to want to know, what's the first car that you bought?
Great question.
My first car that I bought was actually a Volkswagen Golf Mark II in red, bought a second
hand from a nice couple in the hills of Scotland somewhere.
I was about 18, 19 years old, and I got into the car with my dad.
I think he was driving a Vauxhall Cavalier, very old Vauxhall Cavalier at the time, and we drove
off into the hills and bought the second hand VW and brought it back.
It kind of hobbled its way back, Simon, and we had to do so many repairs on it, and back
in the day, my dad was very sort of pro, I'll just do everything myself.
So the car, it spent half its life on four pillars of bricks getting that, no other changed.
But it was great, and it got me to medical school and back most days, and yeah, what a fun car
to have.
I've got to use a medical skill, I've got to ask you, tell us about your journey, you're
a medical doctor, and now you're doing high performance coaching and dealing with high
top-end performance in lots of different industries.
How does that happen?
Tell us about your journey.
Yeah, well, Simon, it was kind of by accident, I didn't plan it as many of these things go.
So I've been a medical doctor for 15 years, and through that journey, I specialized in
medicine of the mind.
So, hence, I'm a psychiatrist, so I made it to consultant level psychiatry, and part of
the reason for falling into that path, that stream of medicine, I think, is from my experiences
as a child, because many people in my own family, Simon, around me were struggling with mental
health problems.
I kind of developed as a practical psychologist, that sort of got people understood the importance
of communication and feelings and all that kind of stuff.
And so that really shone and carried me through medical school, and it helped me select that
path of psychiatry.
But to cut a long story short, whilst I was a consultant psychiatrist, practicing consultant
psychiatrist, I saw the author of a TEDx talk pop up on one of the global emails that got
shot round the department, and I thought, hey, you know what, I feel like that's for me.
I feel like I should apply for that.
I did.
And that conference was themed, shifting perspectives.
Shifting perspectives.
And I thought, hey, you know what, I kind of do that as a mental health professional.
I have to help people see things differently in order for them to experience a bit of a
recovery.
You know, if you're depressed, for example, or if you've got depressive patterns of thinking,
keeping those patterns of thinking can become, can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?
And so that becomes a bit of a downward spiral.
But by shifting your perspective, you give your chance to work your way in another direction.
So anyway, I thought, hey, I could do that.
So I did that in 2016.
And then a few TED talks later, I find myself bringing a message to the working world.
When you manage the mind, you can manage your bottom line.
It really is.
It's one of the parts that in the motor trade, I'm going to say sometimes we've been, we've
just left it out.
It's like where the numbers, where we achieved, where we're up to, okay, just do the job.
Hey, listen, in your time then, you've clearly worked with lots of high performance people.
You've met with people, they just win and win all the time.
I'm guessing you must deal with some people that they always seem to struggle in some part
of their life.
Can I ask you, what is the mindset difference between someone that seems to go from win
to win, to someone that seems seems to go from loss to loss?
Mm, mm.
I love the question.
And I think it's so, so important when you work with someone in a coaching setting or
with a team to help them define, well, what does winning look like for you?
Because often our top of mind impression of winning might look like numbers, it might
look like profits, it might be the number of cars that we've sold, it might be the promotion.
The tangible, very sort of commonplace wins in our mind, but winning can sometimes also
look like, and my well-being is good, or I'm sleeping well, or I'm getting time my kids,
my relationship, my partner's restored.
And so when I'm doing work with folk who want to win, we start there, and I get into what
I call the 11 growth areas, I've defined 11 growth areas that I think that if you manage
all of these different accounts of your life, well, you're winning in general.
Because you hear stories, don't you Simon of CEOs that have absolutely crushed it in business
and managed to take their company from, you know, where they are to light yours ahead,
but they neglected the health, but they neglected their relationship, but they're lonely, whatever,
you know, so there's so many different facets.
So I would define that first, but does that make sense, does that again, even before I
get into the answer?
No, no, of course it does, okay, winning is at all part of your life.
It's not just in bottom line, okay, you need to win an all part of it for the bottom line
to make sense.
I suppose that's what you're driving at.
Yeah, so the bottom line is actually, you know, it's code for actually what matters to you.
So bottom line, of course, can be your financial bottom line, but, you know, we have multiple
bottom lines in life that matter to us, so it can be well-being, it can be your health,
it can be your relationships, it can be your free time, your time freedom, your relationship
freedom, your travel freedom, all these different freedoms to experience in life.
And so when you manage the mind, you position yourself to manage your bottom line is the
short way of putting it, or expand the bottom lines in life that matter to you.
And so that's, you know, and I've learned that as a mental health professional, there's
so much that's connected to your mind, not only your performance, but things like your
neurotransmitter activity in your brain, your susceptibility to viral illnesses even, how
likable you are, which can predict how embedded in relationships or lonely you are in life.
So there's a whole bunch of stuff, but circling back to your question then of what's the difference
between, you know, someone that's win-win-win and someone that's struggling.
There can be healthy reasons and there can be unhealthy reasons, so that's a caveat,
I'll just put aside real quick. And that is that, believe it or not, you're going to have clusters
of personality traits that when coupled together in a human being can almost pathologically drive
them towards success. Okay, so what I mean by that is they're hitting the numbers and the climbing
the ladder, but at the same time, you know, people are just commodities to me. If you're valuable to
me, I keep you if you're not, I get rid of you. Okay, and so the winning comes at another kind of
an expense and that can be, can be social. But that aside, the pathological winning aside,
if we think about people that are doing well, yeah, your mindset's got a lot to do with it,
and I'll just be simple. Henry Ford said, if you think that you can, you can, and if you think
that you can't, you can't, maybe let's open that up. I love that. Henry Ford, if you think you can,
you can, if you think you can't, you can't. It's so, so true, isn't it? And listen, I want to get your
views then moving forward then on the subconscious mind. We say in the motor trade that you get a car
salesperson. So many times they sell a car and then straight after they sell a car, the best time
to sell a car is straight after you've done it, because you've still got that buzz. There's that
spring in your step. So they do that first deal on a Saturday morning. It's a full up deal. Then
they go and speak to the next customer. Now that customer buys, and Dr. Tharaka, they turn up and
say, I can't believe I bought a car today. I just popped out to get a brochure. And in their mind,
they say, yes, get in there. They've now got more of a spring in their step.
They come out to the next customer, and that customer says, to be fair, you're the first place
I've been. I'm just looking. That goes in one ear and out the other. And because they're on that
roll, they sell them a car. And then we sat in the motor trade, when everyone they speak to turns
to gold, we call it the Midas touch. You know, the mythical Greek god king, or was a god or a king,
King Midas, I think it was. Everything that touch turns to gold. Right. But actually,
the same thing happens in reverse. Everyone you spoke to is turned to crap. Okay. I mean, they do
a deal. Okay. They sell them a car, and then that customer fails on finance. And you see sales
people, the heads drop, we go into, we'll almost come down. The people who can't listen to this,
they can't see it, we're dropping down there. That's what sales people's body language. You see it
written over them. They go and speak to the next customer. They sell them a car. And then they
can't get the car they want because the semiconductors, there's a worldwide shortage of them. They go
into lower again. They sell the next car. And then someone, one of their colleagues says,
Oh, that was my customer. They bought the last four cars. And they lose that deal. Actually,
we call it the opposite of the Midas touch. Because if you spell that reverse, it spells
saddens. And sometimes the mindset of that salesperson, when they're down in the saddoms,
it's really hard to get themselves out of that. So can I ask you, what is it? What can that
salesperson do? Who's listening to this? That's down in the SADIMS in that dark place. Okay. What
can they do to get them back up to where everything that touch turns the gold? Is there anything
specifically they could try? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. A whole bunch of things. And you know,
maybe you start by saying that, you know, what goes on between the ears has a real impact on
the actions that you take and the results that you achieve. What you think, what you believe,
and what you assume has an impact on the magnitude of the actions that you take,
the tenacity of the actions you take, and the results, the progress and profits that you make.
Now, it's not a perfectly linear connection, mind-action profit. There are lots of moving parts in it.
But you know, as a rule of thumb, it's very, very helpful. What can you do if you're down in the
dumps? Well, there are lots of things. Here's a top tip. Number one, you want to zoom out,
because often when you are so involved in getting that next win, we're very busy on the dance floor.
As Royston guessed, we'd say very busy on the dance floor, not enough time on the balcony. So
if you can zoom out, get on the balcony, change your perspective. You don't just see that one loss.
You go, okay, one loss, but ten wins. Okay, right, so in perspective, I'm still doing okay.
You see, one of the things that gets us down is not what we think about the situation,
but what we think about ourselves as a result of the situation. So it's not like, oh, they didn't
buy. It's, oh, I'm a failure. That's the damaging thought. Do you see the difference? So you want
to just zoom out and just get perspective and then try and do a fair assessment on everything
that's going on. Do an assessment on yourself, do assessment on the person you spoke to, because
maybe they just absolutely shouldn't have bought in that moment. Maybe the right thing for them was
that they didn't buy, and maybe actually it was a good thing, that in that moment that the sale
wasn't, it didn't materialize, because it's a no now for a bigger yes later, whatever. There
may be lots of reasons, but it's important that you do a fair assessment on yourself,
because if you start to self-criticize, that is fuel on the fire.
Don't we do that as humans normally? Don't we beat ourselves up? If my best mate spoke to
myself sometimes the way I speak to myself, it wouldn't be my mate very long. Is that a natural
human trait sometimes? Yeah, I think for many of us, it is. The good news is that we can train
ourselves out of it, and you just hit the nail on the head, Simon. If my friends spoke to me like
that, which I can't believe they would, then we wouldn't be friends. And I think what's interesting
is that when we start to, and this might sound a bit fuddy-duddy, but bear with me on this one,
if we start to speak to ourselves, like we would a friend, the language is very different.
The language is very different. So you know there are times where we're just pushing yourself
with tired. It's like, I can't do this anymore, but you keep doing it. But if it was a friend, you say,
sit down, take a break. I'm going to make your cup of tea, shut the laptop. It can wait an hour.
So we're just we're shining kindness onto that person. You know, rejuvenate and they're more
powerful. They get their strength back and then they go again. But for us, we just kind of, you know,
we just go and go and go and go. And so there's something about using our ability to talk to someone
kindly, as a friend, and use that self-kindness. So, but you're right. It's hard, right? Because we
can be our own worst critic. Yeah. That's it. So I want to circle back a little bit. You said
something before. I didn't pick up right. Mind, action, profit. Can you expand on that? So the mind,
action, profit, get the mind right first, then get the action and then the profit. Can you expand
on that for me? I like that approach. Yeah, for sure, for sure. So actually, we can improve our
state of mind. So when I talk about the mind, I'm talking about, what do you think, believe and assume?
So that's very cognitive. But also, how do you feel? All right. So thoughts, beliefs and assumptions,
and emotional climate will have an effect on how you take action. So, for example, you don't
make decisions the same when you're angry compared to when you're relaxed. You don't make decisions
the same, or you don't communicate the same with people when you're anxious compared to when you feel,
perfectly peaceful. And so our emotional climate has a big effect on muscle tension, body language,
use of facial expressions, our tone of voice, everything. And all of these are micro data
communications between person to person. So your emotional climate is one thing. But then also,
what you think, what you believe and what your assumptions are, have an effect on how you interact
with someone. So for example, if you grew up fearing authority figures, let's just say you were raised
that way, maybe you had a very critical teacher or a very critical parent or something like that.
And so as a child, because your brain is very fertile. And by the way, your brain's 86 billion
neurons in here. I'm holding up my half brain model here to you, Simon. The viewers can see,
but those who are not, you have no idea about what I'm doing.
How many billion did you say in there? Yeah, 86 billion neurons in your brain. And you have
trillions of connections between these neurons. And they're very fertile and multiple as a child.
And so you're learning a lot about the world, life and people. But let's just say you have
the schema that authority figures are scary. And now you're 36 years old, you are a sales rep
and or a sales exec on the shop floor. And and someone walks in and just echoes the past for you.
What does that do? It activates all those internal laws in the operating system and puts you into that
very negative place. And so now the way I feel, the way I think the way I assume about this person
is very subjective and based on my experiences growing up, right? And so circling back to my
action profit, what you think, what you believe and what you assume, coupled with how you feel
has a massive effect on how you interact with people and take actions.
Yeah, I suppose in a practical point of view, we just see salespeople all the time. If they go and
speak to a teacher, and that teacher was hard work, and they didn't make a decision forever,
okay, they immediately think the next teacher, they're going to be the same. Yeah, that's not
always the case at all. Right. Right. But they think they're going to be that way just because of,
hey, what flashes through their mind, I think, is that last teacher that was hard work,
they never made a decision. Oh, here we go again. Okay, that company carbine, they're going to be a
waste of space. But actually, not every company carbine might be a waste of space.
Likely. So a nice top tip for those that are listening in is to use what we call curiosity,
stay curious, be careful about the conclusions your brain forms about that one off interaction
you just had with somebody. But instead, if you stay curious, you walk away from that interaction,
you go, Hmm, I wonder why the conversation went like that. What was it about me? What was it about
them? It might have been, it might have been they had an argument with their partner before they
came to showroom, they had an argument in the car park. And, you know, actually, the anger that I
felt in that conversation wasn't even meant for me, it was for the part, it was just projection.
So again, by staying curious, we, we don't allow our brains to jump to conclusions off the negative
ones, right? Oh, I suck as a salesperson. Oh, it was my fault. It might have been, but like,
there could be other explanations. Like, let's just keep our mind open to that.
I suppose it works in the other way as well. And I had a conversation with a salesperson
Monday said, I've got Eddie expert. And now Eddie expert in the moderator is the customer
that's hard work. They think they know everything. And this person was just, give me the best price.
Don't deal with that way. I just want to know what the numbers is. And there's a whole lot of
negativity coming from the customer. I said, hold on, we got put ourselves into the customer's
shoes. Why is the customer like that? What experience have they had in the past? I said,
listen, if someone's like that, you may even try to just turn and say,
sir, I'm just trying to help you find the right cars for you. It almost sounds like you've had a
tough time trying to buy a car in the past. And what's happened? Because this person may have
had a situation they felt they were ripped off in the past. They weren't dealt with in the right
way. And once you know what the issue is, you say, sir, I know exactly where you're coming from.
I understand how you feel. I'm going to make sure I'm not going to do that for you. And just
struck on there that customers might feel that way as well.
It's what we call in our world of psychotherapy,
transference. So it's literally, it's literally I'm now bringing my historical interactions with
another figure or person and transferring that into this current interaction I have with this
person, because there's something about that person unconsciously even that's activating my
mind for me to think that you're an echo. And so I literally now transferring a relationship dynamic
I had with this other person into this here. And if the sales rep can pick that up and go,
like, you wouldn't necessarily speak this out loud. But if you're like, gosh, there's a lot,
you seem very angry. Or I feel like a failure right now. Like, why? Where's that coming from?
Oh, that's, I think it's coming from the person that's just walked into this conversation with me.
They're, they're, they're pointing the finger. But what that's actually not about me. That's their
story. Okay. Right. I'm clean. I can keep going. So it's a useful skill. Yeah, cool. I like that
transference. Okay. I've not heard of it into that way before. Listen, I'd love to get your views on
the subconscious mind now. Okay. I've read some books. We've, I'm sure you read plenty of books to get
to where you have. But I want to get your views on some books like I've heard Walt Disney said,
whatever the subconscious mind can conceive and then believe the conscious mind can then go and
achieve. And I think Napoleon Hill and his book, Think and Grow Rich, he took lots about visualization.
He took lots about seeing exactly where he wanted to be and then working out what he had to do. Um,
Stephen Covey or Dr. Stephen Covey, I think his was see, do get. They're all talking about
visualization. I want to get your views on visualization. Does it work? Is it a load of
hocus pocus? Should we be doing that? Um, get your views on that if that's okay.
Yeah. Uh, I love this topic because it, it, it's connected to optimism and the neuroscience and
the psychology of optimism. So in a sense, what, what visualization is, I'll pull this model of the
brain out again. The visualization is, um, a conversation between the front and the back of
your brain. So behind your forehead, you have the CEO of your brain, the decision maker. This is
the frontal lobe here in orange. And at the back here, if you just, um, fuel to the back of your
skull, you can feel actually a skull like nodule, a kind of sharpie bony prominence. You feel that
at the back of your head. I want to know how many people driving the car listening to this podcast
are doing the same thing now. I hope you all are. Be safe. Be safe for those of you driving a car
or operating a chainsaw right now or a power whisk. Uh, but yeah, there, there's a, there's a really
sharp bit of a skull at the back. You're such a thickest part of your skull. It protects, uh,
your occipital lobe, which is where your visual cortex is. So this is a bit for seeing. Now,
when I want to picture something in the screen of my mind, um, and this is an interesting side
fact, but about 1% of the population do not have the capacity to picture things in their mind.
They can't see. Really? Yes. And so visualization doesn't come naturally to them. But anyway,
in the most, in the great majority, visualization is the CEO is saying,
I want to see, uh, you know, I want to see the Lamborghini on the driveway.
Let's just say, right? Okay. Okay. A young, a young girl, a young boy's dream. Okay. And so
what's happening there is that frontal lobe is talking to occipital lobe, a occipital lobe is
starting to, to paint an image, an image on the screen of your mind, which is where we get the
word imagination from. Ah, okay. Right. Yeah. So we're using our image, a nation, imagination.
Okay. Meaning an image on the screen of mine. What are we doing now?
We are now picturing a version of the future. This is what we call optimism. Optimism is gratefulness
for the future. Okay. So it's not about, so technically gratefulness is my emotional response
to the present. I'm grateful for the air I breathe, the food in my table, the shoes of my feet. I'm
grateful for now. But if I can get excited about the future, I'm now practicing what we call
optimism, which is I'm able to picture the future above what is actual. Okay. And so when we
visualize, we're creating these images in the screen of our mind of what could the future look
like, not the actual, but the better than actual. This is optimism. The opposite, right? It's about
picturing a future that's worse than the actual. Okay. Now what we know is that what we visualize,
especially when we practice it, is not only connected to success, but it drives success.
Okay. So it's not, it's not even like an association. It's actually the more we visualize,
the more we make our future a reality that we can see and believe, we're more likely to take action
towards that. So it's mind-action profit again. I think about it. I believe it. I'm taking action.
And just bouncing back to that question you asked earlier onto the assignment,
you can work on mind-am-action both. You don't have, it's not one comes before the other, but
in terms of what we're talking about right now, yes, of course, like the more I condition my mind,
the better my actions were followed. So the more crystal clear I can make that vision,
the more I can see it there, the more likely I am to get your mind to put the action in to make
it achievable. So it really is not hocus pocus. There is some real science behind that.
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, it's funny because we have access to it. Like we can
actually, sports people will visualize, you know, actors actually don't visualize or become their
character in their mind. In fact, that's probably a really great example. You know, some of my
friends are actors. And you know, literally, I see the character, I've become the characters,
a perfect example of what's going on in my mind becomes externalized in my actions.
Yeah. I love that Ian Thorpe, I was a swimmer growing up in Australia. Not a very good one,
I might add. But I heard these stories all the time about how we shut his eyes beforehand.
He'd listen to music because music takes us back to a point in our life when we think we were invincible.
And he shuts his eyes and pitches the whole race. He pitches himself touching the end of the pool
and see him the exact time he wants to get. He plays the whole race in his mind beforehand.
I know some of the Formula One drivers do exactly the same thing. They picture it beforehand.
And I suppose I like the process that I think it was Walt Disney said, whatever the subconscious
mind can conceive, but then believe the conscious mind can go and achieve. So it's nice to know the
the the science behind that. So can I ask you a question then? So you're, and I hope you don't
mind me saying this, but in your life there, you're dealing with patience. And if you get things
wrong, there could be dire consequences. And our world is selling cars. If we get things wrong,
we don't hit budget. Okay. If we get things wrong, it doesn't matter there. Okay. So
so many times you're dealing with someone else and you're trying to help them. So the question
I'm asking is, what advice do you have for that sales measure, that service measure that's got
someone in their team that they need to help? They can see that their mindset's not right.
What can they do to help that person get them into that right mindset? And I suppose I'm driving
back to your medical past because you must have to help people get them the right mindset.
What could that manager do to help get that mindset in their team?
Yeah, it's really important when I'm hearing this a lot, Simon, from managers, this exact question
that you ask is that I've got someone on my team, I've got some people on my team, I need to lift
their attitude. I want to see them lift their attitude, lift their belief level, lift their
expectation level so they can mobilize more. And the good news is you can do something about that.
But quick anecdote from my line of work in the clinical world, so I was like clinically practicing
psychiatrist when I was doing that, we would have a weekly meeting with a variety of staff members
with nurses and psychologists and we'd all be talking about our cases that we're working with.
When you think about it in mental health, it's difficult stuff that we're bringing to these meetings.
We've got patients that are more depressed than ever, we've got patients that are not eating,
that's a really dangerous situation to be and we have patients that are suicidal,
or patients that are hearing voices, distressed, running away, things like that.
And so, can you imagine that? That's our 19-minute discussion meeting,
there's all we're doing is talking about, I'm stuck, how do we make this better?
How do you not get into that environment yourself as a practitioner?
Yeah, so I mean, it's like, okay.
Sorry, that's another question there, but it must be a question.
Yeah, and you know, I think that it's a constant battle. I don't know if we are ever completely
immune. I think that, you know, sometimes there were times where actually you're able to
create that psychic distance, as it were, that mental space whereby I can help, I can serve,
I can diagnose, I can treat. And at the same time, their emotional predicament isn't going to
overwhelm me and then derail me and then ultimately stop me from serving them well.
So there's a lot going on there, but what I was going to say with regards to the team was that
I felt it was really important for us at the beginning of every meeting to focus on what went
well. So when we talk about in the last week, what's gone well for you, with any of your patients,
with anything that's happened outside of work, because I think it's so important that we train
the CEO of our brain behind our forehead to be able to hunt for good data. So you're going back
to question about the manager who wants to help shift behavior and thinking in the team. One tool
is having a what went well huddle, you know, and just keeping that in the life of the team
of what went well huddle. At the end of the week, one thing that went well, let's go around the
group 90 seconds, go. And people practice this. See, I love that. Because so many sales meetings,
I have walked ourselves really more depressed before I went in there. Yes. Okay. Yes. And it
starts right at the beginning of the day. And it's like, well, that went wrong. And you didn't
move that car back there. And that one failed on finance. And you just see this. And that's why I
said that transference. Okay. Actually, even as a manager, I've had my whole sales team,
make me out, saying, you know, that car's too expensive. Okay, we'll never sell that car.
And actually, it's that negative thing. I love that tool there. What went well, what went well.
Yeah, it's such a simple question to ask. And I often say this when I'm working with
teams in automotive after work with senior leadership teams, I give them this example. You know,
if you ask a kid, how was school today? What do you get from them? Shug their shoulders?
Fine. You know, what did you do at school today? Nothing. Right? That's the answer. Shug shoulders,
right? If you ask them, as I did, my young kid today, what went well today? You get a different
answer because you're forcing the CEO of the brain to hunt for good data. Not a problem,
not a crisis, not a complaint, not a worry, not a loss, but something good. It doesn't mean we
ignore opportunities, miss it doesn't mean that at all. It just means we keep the CEO train those
neural pathways, your brain's neuroplastic, you know, train your brain to be able to hunt for what
goes well. So that's one tip, Simon. But can I give you another top tip? Yeah, please. Listening in.
There's something called the Pygmalion effect and the Golem effect. The Pygmalion effect describes
the performance and someone that you lead or manage dependent on the level of expectation you
have on that person. So let's say you were a teacher and you believe that little Jemima is
great at maths. You've seen it before and you think, because she's learning, she makes a few
mistakes, but yeah, you think, oh, you know what? She's just progressive and then she sits
the test and she comes back from that test and you say something to her like, you know,
I knew you were going to do that well. You know, I knew you were going to get a great mark there.
That's a healthy level of high expectation. What we know is that when we have a high level
of expectation or someone we lead parent to each, we can actually see an improvement in their grades.
That's improvement in their performance. And it comes from the mythological story of this
chap called Pygmalion, who was chiseling a statue away, an inanimate statue of a woman
who he thought was so beautiful, he literally made the statue start to come alive according to
what he was seeing in his mind. Okay, so that's the mythological story, but the science shows
that it happened. The golem effect is the opposite Simon. The golem effect is if I have a low level
of expectation on little Jemima, what will Jemima wasn't going to do well on that test?
You know, how much did she get? Oh, she got 95%. Ah, she got 5% wrong, you know, so and so got 96.
If we have this constant low level of expectation on little Jemima, what we end up seeing is
we crush their performance, their performance and grades go down.
So now we turn this back for manager, we go, you know what, there's a lot that your guys and girls
can do to improve their performance and mindset. But you also have some keys, you're not completely
disabled, you can actually start to make some tweaks by shifting your leg, making sure you
don't become the wicked, evil stepmother in Rapunzel. You know what I mean? Or that that
super critical hostile cold and frosty, because we're humans at the end of the day. We want to
make sure that we're keeping expectation high. It's such a in the motor trade. I know that so
many times we're guilty of saying, well, that was wrong, and that was wrong, and that was wrong,
and that was wrong. And we keep on telling them everything that was wrong there, and that's the
expectations, not like, ah, that did well. I think it was Kenneth Blanchard wrote in his book,
The One-Minute Manager. He said, what we do is management sometimes. It's a game of 10-pin
bowling, okay? We throw the ball down, and you see the pins go down. You've got to result,
but what happens is, definitely in the motor trade, we put a sheet in between the pins
and the person bowling. So throw the ball down. I know I've got a result there, but I know what it is,
okay? And then what we do is we put a manager on the other side of the sheet. We throw the balls
down, okay? They hear the thing, and the manager says on the other side, you've got six. I always
have a laugh about that. No. In the motor trade, we say, you missed four. What happened? Yeah,
missed four. Why do we, Simon, why do we do, why does this happen? What's your thoughts on it?
Listen, I want to ask you, you're the person who's been to medical school, I hope that.
I hope you can tell me, why do we always look for what we missed, what we missed out on?
Is it a human trait there? Do we want more as humans?
Well, let's go back to an example we're very familiar with. You and I are both parents,
and so when we were thinking about our kids walking for the first time, learning to walk,
every time, you know, a little baby gets up, they're surfing on the couch, and then they fall
on their big, spongy backside. What do we go? Oh, why? You're doing amazing. Try again. You try again,
they fall over. Oh, that was such an amazing fall. You're doing so well. And it's with that
leadership that they one day start to walk. And isn't it interesting that there comes a time when
we switch from that mood into, yeah, you missed four.
Isn't so true. But here's, oh, go on.
Let's go say, but in the motor trade, I don't know if it's just our industry. I've only worked
on the motor trade. Yeah, listen, sometimes it's like our managers, they'll turn around and say
to your young child, okay, you've got three children. Turn around and say, can you not see
everyone else can walk in the family except for you? Okay, listen, I'll show you one more time.
It's not that hard. In fact, your sister, she was actually walking which was 11 months,
and listen, you're 11 and a half months. So listen, I'll show you one last time,
if you can't do it, we're going to sell you on eBay. You wouldn't do that with the kid learning
to walk. So let me give you an example from the medical sphere then.
So when I was a junior doctor, okay, so I've done five years of medical school,
and I rock up to the ward as an intern, as you, I guess, was the phraseology back then.
And when the big boss consultant, the big boss consultant that everyone follows around goes from,
you know, patient bedside to patient bedside. You know, old school guy
asks me, you know, have you, have you got the x-ray word? Have you done the blood? Why haven't
you done this? Why haven't you done that? The number of mistakes that I made, because I was
afraid in my interaction with this person, right? And what we know is when we study this,
and actually medical cultures changed, we studied this. The level of criticism,
hostility, and fear is related to a poorer delivery of service, more patient errors,
misidentifications, prescription errors, things like that, dropping the ball,
left, right, center. I find it hard to believe that it doesn't translate across industries.
Do I mean? It's exactly that. So many times I see managers. I was guilty of it. Turn around
and say, you haven't done this. You haven't done that. You do it this way. You do that. The people,
the poor people, brand new, they don't want to act for fear. Every time I do it, I get it wrong
anyway. So why do we do that? It definitely transfers across. That just leads me to say that all
details of this episode and other episodes on the selling in the motor trade can be found on our
website Symcotraining.co.uk. Go there to get a copy of our book, Words That Sell Cars.
Go there to sign up to a free trial of our sales fitness online sales training program.
Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bowkett through LinkedIn. Thank you.