“Tracy Myers is a visionary…
a Walt Disney for a new generation.”

– Brian Tracy, New York Times Best-Selling Author

21 Secrets Of A Money-Making Customer Experience/Part 5

Marketing Tips From Tracy MyersGREG: Welcome back to Part Five in Uncle Frank’s 21 Secrets of Creating a Money-Making Customer Experience. Today we’re speaking with Tracy Myers, founder of the Unfair Advantage Automotive Mastermind Group and the owner of Frank Myers Auto Maxx in Winston-Salem.

Over the first four sections, Tracy has covered a lot of different secrets that have really impacted his business and shared with you ways you can bring his same secrets and principles into your own business.

Here in the fifth module, we’re going to be revealing secrets sixteen to twenty-one and really show you how they can impact your business. Tracy, in this final section we’re looking at a few more of these secrets, and number sixteen says to make everything easy.

As a business owner I would love to make things easy so Tracy, how can business owners make things easy for the customers in their business or in their sales process?

TRACY: Well, look at how easy Apple made it to use a Mac. It took my six-year-old daughter three months to figure out a PC, three months! But it took her a day to figure out a Mac.

That’s a business model that I wanted to follow, so I created an “easy list” for businesses to follow. These things have helped my life easier, my team members and customers happier, plus they’ve helped make my business more profitable.

Number one: get organized.

Number two: help your team members distress. As a matter of fact, once a month, we hire a mobile masseuse to come to the dealership and give our team members massages. Pretty nice, right?

GREG: That would be, yeah.

TRACY: Most of my Team Members think so.

Number three: update your business as technology improves. It amazes me the dealerships that I go into across the country as I’m doing my consulting work and they’ve got outdated computer equipment. They’ve got computers that are four, five, and six years old, and the way computers and technology is changing, a five-year-old computer is like a hundred years old in the years of anything else. It’s way past its prime.

Number four: have all employees know what is expected of them, and this is a huge one. Also, let them know how decisions regarding their work will be made.

Number five: have management question all employees about your process as to whether there’s a better way to do something.

Number six: focus on giving more to the customer. Solicit ideas for what else they may want, but always test these ideas on a small scale before plunging in; in an earlier module we talked about testing.

Number seven: focus on your competition and learn why they are better or worse in every aspect.

Number eight: focus on creativity by looking for creative people in your business. Hand them problems and review their solutions. Too many businesses hand problems to analytical people, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I would like them to encourage them to give problems to creative people. They’re possibly the most underutilized people in business today.

Number nine: focus on directing rather than managing, especially micromanaging. Cut that out altogether.

GREG: That was great, I love those nine things you just shared. Much like the nine things you just shared and everything you’ve been sharing over the course of this product it builds into secret number seventeen which is to go the extra mile.

I can tell that you go the extra mile in everything that you do in just speaking with you for the last couple sections. What are some ways that make you look like that hero to your customers by going the extra mile and what does that do to the mind and the psychology of the customer, especially when they’re making the purchase and after they make the purchase?

TRACY: I’m going to keep this really simple by sharing a quote from the excellent book The Go-Giver by my friend Bob Burg and John David Mann: “The secret to success, to gaining it, to having it, is to give, give, give. The secret to getting is giving. And the secret to giving is making yourself open to receiving.”

Remember, the more you have, the more you have available to give. Don’t shut off the flow. To answer your question, there are lots of ways to go the extra mile, but the way that makes the most impact is to give, give, give back to your customers.

It doesn’t have to be monetary; it can be kindness, it can be calling your customer on their birthday, remembering their name, remembering the name of their spouse and asking how their kids are doing. All these things make a massive impact on your customers, their families, and their lives, and especially your relationship with your customer, which is what you’re trying to grow.

GREG: That’s great and you know, I’m sure you have examples for days of the ways that you’ve gone the extra mile in your business, or how team members in your business have gone the extra mile.

I was hoping you could share just maybe one or two of these examples where you’ve gone that extra mile to please a customer and really everything changed, put a smile on their face and you really looked like the hero at the end of the day?

TRACY: There are literally hundreds of specific instances that I can recall since I’ve been here so long, but from my experience the one thing that most customers want you to do that most businesspeople don’t do is to listen to them.

I don’t mean talk back to them or even just let them talk to you; I mean intently listen. I remember many years ago, I sold a car to an older lady. Two years later she came back to me, she asked for me, I greeted her, and she wanted to know if she could talk to me.

Of course I said yes; I thought she wanted another car. We went to my office. She talked and talked and talked for over an hour about everything under the sun except a car.

She was all over the place, and me being a lot younger and a lot less patient, I was asking myself, what in the world does this have to do with selling this lady a car? So I interrupted her and I was very rude to do so but I said, “What kind of car are you looking for today?”

Well, she looked at me, she stared at me for a moment, dropped her head, and she started crying uncontrollably. When she pulled herself together she apologized and she explained that she didn’t want a car; her husband had passed away three weeks earlier and she just needed someone to talk to.

Well, that statement, of course- that lady changed my life forever. Plus, she’s bought more than a dozen cars from me over the years. It was definitely a win-win situation because she got a car, she got someone to listen to, but I got a life lesson that I could never have paid for.

GREG: Wow, that’s a really moving story and I think that’s a really, really great example of how you can just take a little extra time and go that extra mile with a customer and at the end of the day you learned a lot, but it turned into a lifelong customer for you.

That actually rolls right into secret number eighteen, which is, you say,to get people talking. In another sense of it, how do you get your customers talking, raving and saying all this great stuff about you and now, through social media, going out and tweeting and Facebooking and leaving reviews about your business?

TRACY: You know, a few years back, Duct Tape Marketing Blog posted an article titled “Five Ways to Get Your Customers Talking”. We were doing a lot of those things already but I liked all five of those ways so much that I implemented them all that day.

Number one: ask them, not only in person, but also online. Find your most rabid customers, the ones that love you, and ask them first, and then branch off from there.

Number two: teach them. Sometimes great word of mouth just happens, but sometimes you’ve got to help it along.

Teach them how to leave great review on review sites such as Yelp or Citysearch. For us as a car dealer, we’ve got DealerRater or Car Dealer Search; just so many things to do online and so many places to leave a  review, your customer doesn’t always know how or know where you need that review. So teach them how.

Number three: include them. One of the most successful things I’ve done here at my dealership, and I’m going to do it for my other businesses, is I created a round table discussion group made of select customers, and I asked them to advise me on potential marketing and business initiative.

These round table members have become ambassadors for our brand.

Number four: star them. We make our customers the star of the party. We film the red carpet celebration after they buy a car, then we post it on the web, then we send them a link to share with their family and friends, and you know what?

They actually send it to their family and friends, and guess who sees that? Their family and friends. It’s the most profitable way to use a video camera in the world today.

Of course, with the smaller video cameras and iPhones, the way they are now and as inexpensive as they are now, there’s no reason why everyone shouldn’t have a video camera on them at all times and film every customer interaction that’s positive.

And Number five: surprise them. Nothing gets people talking more than surprising them. You know, I remember being at a restaurant with my son and seeing one of my customers and her family sitting across from me. Before I left, I asked my waiter to bring me her check, and I paid for their dinner. Guess who she told? Everybody.

GREG: Five really, really super-powerful ways to get your audience talking, get your fans talking and raving. Those are just some really, really great tips. I can just get the sense, Tracy, just talking to you, that  you just live customer experience secret number nineteen, and that’s to treat customers as friends.

How can businesses and your team members and associates make customers feel like they’re a part of something bigger, a part of your family, yet still have that working business relationship?

TRACY: Greg, the only way to make customers like they’re a part of our family is to build a proper relationship with them. Proper relationship building creates a connection with our customers and converts strangers into friends, and that’s what we’re really trying to do in business.

People want to do business with people they like. They stick with what makes them feel safe, secure, and comfortable. Companies that understand the principles of belonging, friendship, and dependability treat their customers accordingly. The way we treat our customers has a direct impact on our business relationships.

GREG: That’s great, I love that advice a lot. Rolling into secret number twenty, it says to always make the customer right. I know as I said that I heard some business owners just cringe and you know, that’s not always a popular thing to do, but how do you overcome your own pride or your own ego and really lay it on the line and make the right decision for your customer?

TRACY: Once again, Disney really does this right. Their cast members are taught that every customer is special, and that each interaction between a customer and staff is a link to the chain of the customer’s experience.

Disney understands if they do something wrong, they’re erasing the customer’s memories of good treatment up to that moment, but if they do something right, they can undo any wrong that may have happened before.

GREG: That’s great, and I can only imagine that in the car business you have your share of stories. I’d love if you could share a story when you really had to dig deep and make a tough decision in your business and put the customer in the position to be right and ultimately help them get what they wanted or what they needed?

TRACY: Oh, the stories I could tell. I’ll share one; I received an email from someone who had called my dealership and spoken to one of my noncommissioned sales pros. She said, quote, “He was the rudest human being that had ever walked the face of the earth”.

That’s pretty strong. Normally I would have called her immediately to apologize, but her words were so harsh about this sales pro and this person was someone who always, and I mean always, receives praise from his customers, I was really caught off guard.

So since I record all the phone calls, I went back and listened to the call. Realistically, I was shocked at how nice and polite my team member was to this lady while she was literally shouting at him.

He never raised his voice and even apologized for himself, and I’m not even sure why he apologized. He had done nothing wrong. Of course, my first instinct was to call this lady and give her a piece of my mind; I am only human.

Instead I called, apologized, and listened. For more than thirty minutes, I listened, and then she apologized to me and thanked me for listening to her.

She admitted that she was frustrated with car salesmen and had took it out on my team member. That lady ended up buying a car from us and ended up being one of our biggest fans in the community.

GREG: I love that story and I think a lot of people can really just learn from that one experience and really transcend it into their business, no matter what vertical they’re in or what industry they’re in.

There’s a lot to be learned there and that really brings a lot of secrets that you’ve been talking about together, from listening to making the customer right and the whole experience. This really brings us to the culmination, which is secret number twenty-one.

The final secret here is to make a difference. After all of these twenty one secrets, and everything that needs to be done to make an exceptional business that puts their customers first, how can businesses make the world or their community or their place in the world a better place?

TRACY: A key principle at Starbucks is the idea that you should get the chance to leave your mark. The idea is that we’re not just in business to sell things; we should also make a difference, not just in our communities but in the world.

For some people, that may be about being socially responsible. For others, it may be about being involved in our communities. Quite simply, small businesses can and should come together in communities and do big things.

GREG: I love that, I love that a lot, and Tracy. Now we’ve gone through all twenty-one secrets and next time let’s kind of break it down for everyone. Thanks again for joining us and we will see you again soon to wrap this series up.

– To Be Continued. Stay Tuned For Part 6 Coming Soon.

– To Read Part 1 Of This Series, Click HERE.

– To Read Part 2 Of This Series, Click HERE.

– To Read Part 3 Of This Series, Click HERE.

– To Rad Part 4 Of This Series, Click HERE.

– To learn more about Tracy Myers, visit his website HERE.

By |2013-12-23T15:28:01-05:00December 23, 2013|Blog|

Business Owned By Tracy Myers Wins Award

INC Award Given To Tracy MyersINC magazine has named a business owned by Tracy Myers one of the fastest growing small businesses in America. Winston-Salem based used car dealership Frank Myers Auto Maxx, was on the list for the second consecutive year. The exclusive ranking was celebrated with a gala on October 12, 2013 in Washington DC and featured Gary Vaynerchuk, Jim Collins, Marc Ecko and other notable speakers. Past members of the INC list include Facebook, Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Jamba Juice, Timberland, ClifBar, Patagonia, Oracle and Zipcar. In addition to Frank Myers Auto Maxx, the list added such powerhouses as Publix Supermarkets, CDW and Levi Strauss.

“For more than 30 years, Inc. has celebrated the fastest growing private companies in America. To be honored this year is a particularly notable achievement. To rank among the Inc. 500/5000, the companies had to thrive through three of the toughest years this economy has seen in recent memory. Success in such times is eloquent testimony to creativity, resilience, and tenacity,” said Inc. Editor in Chief.

“When my great grandfather opened the first Frank Myers store more than 83 years go, I would like to believe that he wanted his family to carry on the excellent business legacy that he began. This award is dedicated to him, my dad, and the other Myers family members who came before me and who will come after me,” said Tracy Myers, owner of Frank Myers Auto Maxx.

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at www.inc.com/5000.

The 2013 Inc. 500|5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2009 to 2012. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2009. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of December 31, 2011. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2008 is $100,000; the minimum for 2011 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Companies on the Inc. 500 are featured in Inc.’s September issue. They represent the top tier of the Inc. 5000, which can be found at www.inc.com/500.

For more about Frank Myers Auto Maxx, visit their blog at http://www.WinstonSalemUsedCars.com

For more about Tracy Myers, visit his blog at TracyMyers.com

By |2013-12-22T17:39:38-05:00December 22, 2013|Blog|

Lie With The Dogs & Rise With The Fleas

 Positive 2014I remembers the old saying: “If you lie with the dogs then you’ll rise with the fleas.” That’s why I encourage you to look closely at your relationships going into 2014. Put them into one of two categories: toxic or nourishing. It’s easy to spot the difference. Toxic people have a tendency to make you feel inadequate, angry, frustrated, or guilty. On the other hand, nourishing people make it a point to make others feel loved, valued, capable, appreciated and respected. Milton Glaser developed an easy test to determine if someone was toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them: After spending time with someone, observe whether you are more energized or less energized. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. PLEASE take time to detoxify the poisonous relationships in your life as soon as possible. This is one of the easiest ways to move onward and upward in 2014! Accentuate the positive…. Eliminate the negative. It’s an easy formula to follow and it works.

About Tracy

Tracy is an award-winning small business marketing & branding solutions specialist, car dealership owner, best-selling author, Emmy-winning movie producer, speaker, business coach and entrepreneur. He is commonly referred to as The Nation’s Premier Automotive Solutions Provider while Best-Selling author and legendary speaker Brian Tracy called him “a visionary… a Walt Disney for a new generation.”

He is also a Certified Master Dealer and was the youngest ever recipient of the National Quality Dealer of the Year award by the NIADA, which is the highest obtainable honor in the used car industry. His car dealership, Frank Myers Auto Maxx, was recently recognized as the number one Small Business in NC by Business Leader Magazine, one of the Top 3 dealerships to work for in the country by The Dealer Business Journal, one of the Top 15 Independent Automotive Retailers in the United States by Auto Dealer Monthly Magazine and one of the fastest growing privately owned small businesses in America by Inc. magazine.

Tracy has been featured in publications such as Forbes, USA Today and Success Magazine, been profiled on The Biography Channel and The History Channel, written for Fast Company, been a guest business correspondent for the FOX News Network plus he’s appeared on NBC, ABC and CBS affiliates across the country. His inspirational stories and strategies for success have given him the opportunity to share the stage with the likes of Jack Canfield, Zig Ziglar (Author of See You At The Top), James Malinchak (Star of ABC’s The Secret Millionaire), Brian Tracy, Bob Burg (Co-Author of The Go-Giver), Tom Hopkins and Neil Strauss (Author of The Game & Co-Author of The Dirt with Motley Crue)… just to name a few.

Tracy is recognized as one of the top thought-leaders in the business world and has authored or co-authored 7 best-selling books alongside Brian Tracy (Author of Eat That Frog), Jack Canfield (Author of The Secret, Creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul Series), Tom Hopkins (Author of How To Master The Art Of Selling) and many others, including the breakthrough #1 hit YOU Are The Brand, Stupid!. He was also featured in the Emmy nominated film “Car Men”, which won 5 Telly Awards, and won 2 Emmy Awards as the Executive Producer of the films “Esperanza” and “Mi Casa Hogar”.

As the founder and co-moderator of the Unfair Advantage Automotive Mastermind Group, he helps facilitate and stimulate the thought process of some of the auto industry’s brightest minds 3 times a year in Charlotte, NC.

As founder of WrestleCade Entertainment, he produces and promotes one of the largest sports entertainment events held annually on the East Coast which has raised thousands for charity and broken attendance records.

Tracy spends his spare time with charities that are close to his heart and has made his home in Lewisville, NC with his wife Lorna and their two children, Presley and Maddie.

By |2013-12-21T20:45:03-05:00December 21, 2013|Blog|

Strong Customer Relationships: The Six Pillars/Part Three

Customers Have ChociesIn part one of Strong Customer Relationships, I introduced the six vital pillars that support strong customer relationships. I also discussed pillar #1: Making The Right First Impression (read about it HERE).

In part two, I discussed pillar #2: Being Easy To Do Business With (read about it HERE).

Each of these pillars have an important role to play and the stronger each of them are, the better your overall relationships will be. Today, let’s talk about pillar #3: Remembering Your Customer Has A Choice.

Pillar #3: Remembering Your Customer Has a Choice

One thing we can never afford to do is take our customers for granted. We should always remember they can usually go somewhere else to have their needs satisfied

For example, I recently had to make a claim on my home insurance policy after we’d suffered some particularly bad weather damage.

I’ve had cover for my home with the same company for years and they have been lobbying me for years to move my business insurance to them as that’s worth a very substantial premium to them.

In this case, part of our home got damaged and needed an urgent repair. It was fairly small in terms of cost but important to get it fixed quickly. Even so, the company was imposing strict rules about the way it should be fixed and who should do the work. It was going to take some time to get it all resolved.

In the end, it was easier just to get a handyman to do the repair and forget the insurance.

In this case, the money wasn’t that important but, with insurance, you want to be sure that if something goes wrong the whole process will be as smooth as possible.

Although I’d been paying them premiums for many years – and never claimed a dime – I felt they were letting me down at the one moment when I was looking to them for assistance.

That experience makes it unlikely I’ll be giving them more business. They allowed their procedures to get in the way of our relationship. They were making me jump through hoops when I needed urgent help.

The result was one of major inconvenience – and extra costs – for a good customer.

Their procedures – which may well be sensible in many situations – made life difficult for me when I needed assistance and they have lost business as a result.

The lesson from that experience is that we often create policies in the heat of the moment when something bad happens at the store level. This may be an overreaction to something that rarely happens – and we actually end up creating impediments to the very customers we are trying to help.

If you want to build long-term relationships with your customers, make sure you get rid of any unnecessary policies and procedures that make it harder for them to do business with you.

The way to make things easy for your customers is to be able to trust your frontline staff to do what’s necessary to serve and please them. That means your frontline staff needs to know that you stand behind them and will not come down on them for trying to please a customer.

The key to building strong relationships with your customers is remembering that your customers have many other places they can go to get what they need.

If you remember they have a choice, you will make it easy and enjoyable for them to do business with you!

– Stay Tuned For Strong Customer Relationships: The Six Pillars/Part Four. Coming Soon.

By |2013-12-05T16:34:22-05:00December 5, 2013|Blog|

Winston-Salem Man Wins Emmy Award

Winston-Salem, NC resident Tracy Myers, CMD, was recently honored to receive an Emmy® Award. The award was received for serving as Executive Producer of the inspirational short film documentary, “Esperanza.” Myers  owns several businesses located in the Triad area including: Frank Myers Auto Maxx, WrestleCade Entertainment & America’s Most Liked.

Winston Salem Man Wins Emmy“Esperanza” earned the Emmy® Awards for best historical/cultural documentary. Myers received an Emmy Award for his role as an Executive Producer of the film. He also served as Producer of the film, “Mi Casa Hogar,” which earned Nick Nanton an Emmy for Best Director. The Emmy® Ceremony was held on November 24, 2013 in Miami, Florida.

“Esperanza” is the inspirational story of how the Great American Pastime of Baseball led a young ball player to his life’s mission. While playing winter ball in the Dominican Republic in 1985, Dave Valle, a Seattle Mariner’s catcher, was swarmed by young children as most young fans would do. Dave soon realized, however, that an autograph was the last thing they wanted; they wanted food. They were starving, and they weren’t the only ones. The ballpark was surrounded by poverty stricken villages. After that eye opening experience Dave and his wife Vicky made a pact to return and make a difference. It was in that moment, Esperanza was born.

The film showcases Esperanza International – an organization that dedicates itself to free children and their families from poverty through initiatives that generate income, education and health, restoring self-worth and dignity to those who have lost hope. It reveals an in-depth look at Esperanza International’s incredible story and what can happen when people believe in an idea and act to make it come true.

“Mi Casa Hogar” reveals an in-depth look at the incredible story of the Casa Hogar children’s home in Acapulco, specifically how the home is providing a nurturing environment with a focus on education in this economically disadvantaged region. Casa Hogar is a children’s home that provides care, shelter, strength, love and hope in a Christian environment for orphaned and abandoned children in Acapulco, Mexico.

Tracy was previously featured in the film “Car Men” which won 5 Telly Awards and was also nominated for an Emmy.

About Tracy Myers

Tracy is an award-winning small business marketing & branding solutions specialist, car dealership owner, best-selling author, Emmy-winning movie producer, speaker, business coach and entrepreneur. He is commonly referred to as The Nation’s Premier Automotive Solutions Provider while Best-Selling author and legendary speaker Brian Tracy called him “a visionary… a Walt Disney for a new generation.”

Tracy Myers Wins EmmyHe is also a Certified Master Dealer and was the youngest ever recipient of the National Quality Dealer of the Year award by the NIADA, which is the highest obtainable honor in the used car industry. His car dealership, Frank Myers Auto Maxx, was recently recognized as the number one Small Business in NC by Business Leader Magazine, one of the Top 3 dealerships to work for in the country by The Dealer Business Journal, one of the Top 15 Independent Automotive Retailers in the United States by Auto Dealer Monthly Magazine and one of the fastest growing privately owned small businesses in America by Inc. magazine.

Tracy has been featured in publications such as Forbes, USA Today and Success Magazine, been profiled on The Biography Channel and The History Channel, written for Fast Company, been a guest business correspondent for the FOX News Network plus he’s appeared on NBC, ABC and CBS affiliates across the country. His inspirational stories and strategies for success have given him the opportunity to share the stage with the likes of Jack Canfield, Zig Ziglar (Author of See You At The Top), James Malinchak (Star of ABC’s The Secret Millionaire), Brian Tracy, Bob Burg (Co-Author of The Go-Giver), Tom Hopkins and Neil Strauss (Author of The Game & Co-Author of The Dirt with Motley Crue)…just to name a few.

Tracy is recognized as one of the top thought-leaders in the business world and has authored or co-authored 7 best-selling books alongside Brian Tracy (Author of Eat That Frog), Jack Canfield (Author of The Secret, Creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul Series), Tom Hopkins (Author of How To Master The Art Of Selling) and many others, including the breakthrough #1 hit YOU Are The Brand, Stupid!. He was also featured in the Emmy nominated film “Car Men”, which won 5 Telly Awards, and won 2 Emmy Awards as the Executive Producer of the films “Esperanza” and “Mi Casa Hogar”.

As the founder and co-moderator of the Unfair Advantage Automotive Mastermind Group, he helps facilitate and stimulate the thought process of some of the auto industry’s brightest minds 3 times a year in Charlotte, NC.

As founder of WrestleCade Entertainment, he produces and promotes one of the largest sports entertainment events held annually on the East Coast which has raised thousands for charity and broken attendance records.

Tracy spends his spare time with charities that are close to his heart and has made his home in Lewisville, NC with his wife Lorna and their two children, Presley and Maddie.

For more information about Tracy, visit his website at TracyMyers.com

By |2013-12-02T18:27:33-05:00December 2, 2013|Winston Salem Business News|
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