What you don’t know can’t hurt you.
It’s a euphemism we all know and we’ve all used – even if ironically.
According to the experts at the Oxford Dictionary, the saying dates back to 1576 where it appeared in a book titled A Petite Palace as “So long as I know it not, it hurteth mee not.”
While it’s a common cliche, the fact is that life experience often proves it wrong.
If you want to see the proof for yourself, you need not look any farther than your sales floor. Because what you don’t know about your salespeople can hurt you.
We don’t often associate analytical tools as the best way to measure the performance of the people we hire to connect with our customers and build lasting relationships. I’m a common sense guy, so if my staff is hitting their numbers and selling cars, there’s really no reason for concern or to take a deeper dive into the opportunities they’re working…right?
Not necessarily.
What I’ve come to accept over the last few years is that when good data is presented in a way we can easily understand, it has a tendency to challenge everything we “think” we know about selling cars. Too many of us think that we are the “Presidents of the I Think Club.” I learned that from one of the truly smart guys in the car business, Gary Marcotte, over 10 years ago and I’ve never forgotten it.
