Visit the Sage

Hidden Costs

One of the many things Dad drilled into my head over the years was, "If you insist on buying new vehicles, then you need to drive them 'till they drop or you're just throwing good money down the toilet. I mean, why would anyone pay for a car that devalues by 20 percent the moment they drive it off the lot?"

I won't discuss the validity of Dad's argument, nor the accuracy of his devaluation claim. I'm just acknowledging the fact that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in this case -- the two vehicles Cindy and I have right now are a '91 4-Runner and a '96 Dodge Ram. (We haven't had a car payment in eight years.)

Of course, when you buy a vehicle with plans to drive it until it drops, many of your maintenance decisions are affected. For example, we've always had most of our maintenance done at Dobbs Tire & Auto Centers, because they have a fixed-forever guarantee. Once they fix something other than that which has normal wear and tear, if it ever breaks again you get the parts and labor free.

Late last week, however, I learned the hidden cost of fixed forever when the break lines on our Ram sprung a leak. After analyzing the problem, Dobbs informed me that to replace the break line they'd need to remove the gas tank, and that the whole job would be about $600 parts and labor after sales tax.

As luck would have it, about six months ago William Morris of Oakville Automotive joined Yellow-Tie here in St. Louis -- and his shop is only about three miles from my house. So I decided to give Bill a call and find out what he had to say about the repairs Dobbs proposed.

First, Bill confirmed that the tank would need to be removed to replace the entire brake line, and that the $600 price tag was about right. But then he added, "Of course, most of the time you can simply cut out the bad spot, flair the ends and patch the line back together -- saving you a couple hundred on labor costs."

That's when I realized the hidden cost of Dobbs' fixed-forever guarantee -- they never offer the simple solutions that save their customers money. Instead, they simply replace the entire part -- no matter the cost of parts or labor -- which saves them return-visit repair time that would be free under their guarantee.

I think Dobbs is missing the boat on this one. Perhaps they've never thought this through and don't realize the cost of this guarantee from my perspective. If I was planning to sell the truck tomorrow, for example, then I'd have paid $200 for a guarantee that has zero value to me.

Or maybe they know full well, but have simply chosen to do business this way. (If that's the case, I'll applaud them for their focus as I drive my truck to Oakville Automotive.)

What I can tell you is this. They didn't ask me a single question about my intentions with the truck, so they have no idea whether I value their guarantee. And they didn't explain all of my repair options. Instead they simply gave me one option and asked me to make a yes/no decision.

Do you know the hidden costs your company's uniqueness are generating for your customers or clients? Have you done the math from their perspective? Are you giving your customers all their options, or crossing your fingers hoping they won't learn about the alternatives on their own?

It literally costs nothing to increase the value of your relationship with customers and prospects by being up front on these issues.

If Dobbs had explained my options, I'd probably have let them replace the entire line -- extra labor and all -- because it's a pain in the ass to take the truck from one auto mechanic to another.

But Dobbs didn't give me all my options, Bill did.

Guess who's fixing our truck.

Gill E. Wagner, Sage of Selling
President of Honest Selling
Founder of the Yellow-Tie International Business Development Association

Idea Transfusions

If you're looking for a story about some salesdrip, a provocative statement about sales, another pulpit-pounding sermon on honesty or sage advice about how to this or how to that, I'm afraid that today I will sorely disappoint.

No, my friends, today I'm going to do something just a tad more self serving. At least it's a story, and you might even glean an idea of your own, but never let it be said that I failed to warn you of an upcoming sales pitch.

I'm an idea guy to my core. So much so, in fact, that I've started, built and totally abandoned three successful companies, because I succumbed to the "Ooohh, that's shiny" syndrome and quickly set off on a quest toward something else. (Inventors like me usually waffle between rich and broke dozens of times, but we always have fun.)

Anyway, one idea I've always had and never been able to pull off, however, was that I would love to be paid for my ideas.

The problem with getting paid for ideas, you see, is you can't put a price on them until after you've had them, and once you've had them the cat is out of the bag.

About 16 months ago (December 2006), I was sitting with Matthew Homann of realBIGthinking -- we were having one of our idea chats -- and Matt asked me "When you're working through problems with a sales team, what, exactly, happens?"

In my response I included the eight words that actually launched this concept: "It's sort of like a transfusion of ideas."

Almost immediately after those words came out of my mouth, I thought "Idea Transfusion -- that's kinda cool." And since there were only six hits in Google at the time (now there are 15), and the domain name was available, I bought it knowing that someday I'd find a way to use it.

Fast forward to August 3, 2007. I was sitting at an association meeting and T. R. (Tom) Hughes -- a local CEO of a very successful construction company -- was telling the story of how he grew his business. About halfway through his speech he quipped, "Remind me to tell you about this consultant I know. You get all his help up front, then you pay him whatever you think it was worth."

I honestly don't remember a word of Tom's speech after that, because the forces of the universe had suddenly collided in a "triad of shiny":

Get paid for ideas ... Idea Transfusion ... Pay me whatever you think the ideas are worth

"I absolutely MUST take this consultant to lunch" my eardrums screamed, "So I can find out how that works."

Unfortunately for me, Tom had a twist at the end of his speech -- the consultant he mentioned received all requests through prayer.

Of course, if a single shiny idea is enough to get me to close a company, you can imagine my inability to resit a Triad of Shiny. So by that Sunday I had launched an Idea Transfusion session and written a blog entry about it.

Since that day I've done two sessions with two sales teams -- both resulting in wonderful ideas, thrilled clients and really nice checks. And today I launched the Idea Transfusion Team -- the exact same concept only instead of just me, it's me and 28 other crazy attorneys, accountants, consultants, coaches, mentors, trainers, entrepreneurs, etc.

See http://www.IdeaTransfusion.com. (No, it's not a new company -- just a brand through which we're providing these unique facilitation and presentation services.)

And let the games begin.

Gill E. Wagner, Sage of Selling
President of Honest Selling
Founder of the Yellow-Tie International Business Development Association