Marketing 101 By Mike French mike@mikefrench.com

Breaking the “No Organization and No Systems” Barrier

reaking the barriers of what is pre- venting you from achieving real suc- cess in your business and personal life is vital for growth. I’ve discussed before how to deal with the information over- load barrier as well as the mental barrier. Let’s now take a look at another barrier that prevents people from moving to the next level which is the “no organization and no systems” barrier. To illustrate, let me tell you about my friends, Jim and Tom, who work as sales- men for the same auto recycler compa- ny. They are about the same age, very smart, friendly and outgoing. They work the same number of hours and have the same straightforward commission oppor- tunities available to them, which is “the more you sell the more you make.” Tom far exceeds Jim each month in his sales commission success. This really bothers Jim since they both do essential- ly the same job for the same number of hours at the same company. But, no mat- ter how hard Jim works, Tom always beats him by a mile and seems to be doing so effortlessly.

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So, what is the difference between the two salesmen? Why does Jim consistent- ly outsell Tom? Let’s take a closer look to find out how each man operates during a typical day.

Starting with Jim’s Workday Jim arrives just on time to work and

immediately the phone rings with a parts request. He then hunts around to find a pen and piece of paper to write on. His computer isn’t booted up yet, so he puts his customer on hold while he gets it going.

Throughout the day Jim spends a lot of time searching for stuff. For instance, every day his company places a few items on sale, but when a customer asks him about the daily sale items, he has to put them on hold while he searches for the information.

12 Automotive Recycling | November-December 2015

After watching Jim for a while it’s painfully obvious that he’s not very well- organized. He spends a lot of time look- ing up the same information repeatedly for different customers because he has no systems in place. He loses a lot of pre- cious time that could be used making sales.

Tom’s Work Day Tom arrives to work a few minutes early

to prepare for the day. He turns on his computer and opens it to the parts locat- ing and ordering screen. He organizes his work space with some fresh paper and a pen. He locates and places the daily company specials information near his phone.

The phone soon rings with a parts request and he locates the information quickly and makes the sale. He mentions the daily specials to the caller, which hap- pen to be something the caller needs. The customer tells him to add the sale item to his order. He thanks the cus- tomer for the order and hangs up. It’s obvious that Tom is well-organized. Looking around his neatly organized desk you see posted lists of items that are repeated so he doesn’t have to continu- ally look them up. He rarely puts a cus- tomer on hold and places lots of parts orders.

Obvious Conclusion

After looking at how both men oper- ate, the answer to why Tom outsells Jim is obvious, Tom is organized and Jim is not! Tom has organized systems in place and Jim does not. Jim spends a lot of time spinning his wheels by looking up the same information repeatedly. In other words, Tom makes more sales because he has more time to do so.

The reason people like Jim fail to get to the next level in whatever they do is that they run into “no organization and no systems barriers.” They continually waste precious time stopping to figure out every step repeatedly as they wing it from moment to moment.

Solving the “No Organization and No Systems” Barrier Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth, says that businesses (or individuals) will function much better and achieve a high- er level of productivity if every part of the their operation, including everything they produce or do, as well as each employee’s job description, (what they do and how they do it) is quantified and put into organized step-by-step systems with numbered instructions so that any reasonably smart person introduced to it is able to follow the dotted line to achieve exactly the same results. This

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