Ken Schmidt: How Harley-Davidson Transformed from Commodity to Lifestyle Brand

Speaker A: That was my job. My job was to change the narrative about the business and the perceptions that people had. And the realization was, uh, one that people didn't have good things to say about us too. If they did talk about us, they would describe us the way they would just about any other motorcycle. Great products and great service, uh, you know, great. People said that's all great, but, uh, and it's all true. But if a competitor is saying it, and that was my line in the sand is we will never. If we're going to be competitive at a dominant level, and we're obviously not, we cannot be described or ever describe ourselves using terminology that any of our competitors would ever use. We're not going to talk about, uh, horsepower, reliability, rideability, quality things, because one, people expect to hear that. And it's kind of boring, frankly. It's not memorable and it's, it's something that, that salespeople, uh, leaders tend to either gloss over or don't understand that say, if we don't have some vernacular, if we don't have things that we say about ourselves that are distinct and meaningful and memorable that nobody else can say or is saying, we're already at a competitive disadvantage.

Speaker B: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Excellence Project. My name is Eric Worre, and today we have Ken Schmidt. He is one of the, uh, business world's most demanding executive advisers and speakers, driven by the acclaim he earned leading Harley Davidson Motor Company against all odds to Turnaround in the 1990s from the brink of financial ruin to global dominance. He's the author of Make Some Noise, the Unconventional Road to Dominance. He's a host of the Tailgating with Geniuses podcast, co founder of Torque Sessions leadership training. We had a great conversation. We talked about everything from trying to determine who you are is. It's so much more important than what you do. Creating, um, branding thought processes and mechanisms that, um, cause people to remember who you are and repeat it to others. So many lessons. Really, really good stuff. I took lots of notes. I think you're going to get value from it. So with no further ado, let's jump into my conversation with Ken Schmidt. Ken Schmidt, how are you?

Speaker A: I'm quite well, Eric. How are you?

Speaker B: I appreciate you coming to Las Vegas and stopping in, uh, and, and uh, having a conversation with us. Thanks for doing that.

Speaker A: It's my pleasure being here, man. It's a great place to be.

Speaker B: Well, I hope so. I hope so. So Harley Davidson, heard of them? Yes. That's been your, your kind of.

Speaker A: That was the, the thing that was my thing.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And made my bones.

Speaker B: Talk to me about making your bones with Harley Davidson.

Speaker A: Uh, timing is everything and kind of putting your foot on the gas is everything. So I got in a situation where as a major fan of motorcycling, had the opportunity to go talk with some people, Harley Davidson, and uh, begin working for them at a time when nobody wanted to go work for them because they were, uh, going under.

Speaker B: When was this?

Speaker A: That was mid-80s. So, uh, I started 85.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: And the, the prevailing winds, uh, and the prevailing belief was, okay, this company is going under after, you know, 80 some years in business a name it. Everybody on the planet's familiar with, uh, the de facto kind of the Kleenex of the bike industry, if, if you get the uh, metaphor there. But the company had essentially killed itself like a lot of businesses do, uh, because it didn't know how to compete, knew how to do a lot of things really, really well. But unfortunately, uh, everybody that Harley competes against started doing things really well too. And the industry became commoditized and price driven, like any industry you can name. Uh, and Harley learned that lesson the hard way. And thank God I got to be part of a small team of overly enthusiastic, uh, people thought, you know what, let's see, let's see where this thing goes. Let's try doing some completely different stuff. Take some ideas out of left field and see if it works because what is the worst that could happen?

Speaker B: So interesting. So, so you coming in, you're, you're in charge of reimagining the brand.

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, re. Repositioning, uh, uh, two main tasks. One was to kind of reposition the business as we had been rendered non competitive, did that largely, uh, to ourselves. And the second part was to attract investment to the business. Uh, wasn't exactly hot in the minds of investment people since the chapter 11 sure was hanging.

Speaker B: And I'm going to try and get the dates right, but I was, I happened to be at New, uh, York Stock Exchange.

Speaker A: Yeah, right.

Speaker B: Ringing the bell. And I think it was 99. Was that the time that, that Harley went public again there now what the.

Speaker A: Because I remember there was a lot

Speaker B: of buzz around Harley Davidson at that moment. The same exact day I was on

Speaker A: the floor, a couple things happened. We went up. First, the IPO on the American stock is, was 86.

Speaker B: 86.

Speaker A: And then 87 switched to new York Stock Exchange. And, and then probably about the time you were there, the stock symbol changed from HDI to hog. Hog there. And that, that's what it was generated a lot of eyeballs. Well, all three things generated a lot of attention.

Speaker B: It did, it did. So um, as, as you're kind of describing this, the. Do you ever read any of Guy Kawasaki stuff?

Speaker A: Oh yeah, I've met him. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah, that, that uh, Was it the same type of a principle that he was trying to do with building the mission and cause around Apple? It, the emotional attachment.

Speaker A: Yes and no. The, the uh, in the rear view. Yeah. There's things that were, there were kind of some, some common ways of thinking there, but at the time we were flying blind. But flying blind almost in a good way because we had never heard of. Because words like uh, branding hadn't mhm. Entered business vernacular yet. That was a time when, you know, quality was all anybody cared about. You know, engagement and stuff like that. That, you know, socialization, community, all those things that businesses strive or hope for now and phantom ideas back then.

Speaker B: So, so, so you come into the company who was struggling at the time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Widely known to be struggling.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: With um, an outstanding product, uh, but a product that had been weakened by its positioning.

Speaker A: Yeah. And see what happens is to your point, Harley really, really good at manufacturing mhm. Motorcycles had uh, a lot of practice added over you know, eight and a half, some decades. But if you looked at the history of the company, you see that in North America, which was Harley's primary market, that Harley owned The market from 1953 for Harley had no competition. So it had decades of market share in excess of 95%. That's essentially a monopoly.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: You don't even have to measure market share when it's that big. Uh, what started happening though is what you see and just about any industry, the, the world started going, hey, you know what? People like these things, uh, and Harley's really carved out a nice chunk of the market. They're in America for big powerful motorcycles. And the guy said, Honda said hell, we can do that too. And we could do it faster, cheaper, better. We have a way bigger dealer network.

Speaker B: I remember does back in the day. Um, my, my dad was a big

Speaker A: into the Gold Wing thing. Oh yeah, the, the Wing Dingers, the Honda Gold Wing. You don't mess with those guys.

Speaker B: They would go with uh, you know, couples and yeah, they go for rides and. But I don't think there was ever even a thought at that time to like jump on a Harley and go,

Speaker A: yeah, the uh, the Gold Wing guys to uh, yeah, finish the thought. There are as over the top committed to Gold Wings as hardly people Are to their. Yeah. I distinctly remember back then a meeting. Oh no. Still to this day is once people are on uh, once they've chosen that route they stay. That's it by and large. Where we said why are we wasting our time trying to convert these guys?

Speaker B: Is that what they were doing?

Speaker A: Yeah. And we did a lot of that. And you know what? They got great bikes. They're in love with them.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Let them go. Let's go. You know Fish, where there's stuff we can actually couch.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And a lot of those are just really about comfort. Oh yeah. Instead about muscle and attitude.

Speaker A: It was kind of the, the.

Speaker B: It's like a little mini car almost with a big huge.

Speaker A: Whereas the things the Harleys were loud and kind of ah brutish and would kind of shake a little bit. That or a lot of bit depending on what you did to the motor. That the Hondas were silky smooth. It was a car engine on.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, it was a muscle car versus uh Lexus.

Speaker A: Quiet, super uh, comfortable. Any kind of technological.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Possibly imagine. Yep. Then they were way out in front on all that. But what started happening uh, was as these look alike products started coming into the market and Harley did what a lot of businesses would do and just thought you know what, this is good to have competition. Our people are loyal. Our names tattooed onto millions of bodies around the world. He's nobody going anywhere. And um, the lower priced, really well made stuff came in uh, from the Hondas of the world. Then Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki and uh, market share just implied.

Speaker B: That was. What was the name of that movie, the gung ho movie that Japan was making. All these different uh, uh, that was a car movie. Uh but it was a similar thing this, that you know they were really good at putting together.

Speaker A: There was a tremendous movement and actually hardly benefited from this back in the.

Speaker B: There's some. It'd probably be a derogatory term right now but it was a you know. Blank rockets. Yeah. You know back at the time I, I want to be careful.

Speaker A: I know what you mean.

Speaker B: You know what I mean. But that was, that was that group.

Speaker A: But the, the prevailing thought in America was. And uh, and we saw this because of the car industry that Japanese manufacturers are better than American man. Here comes Toyota, here come Honda car. They're gaining all this market share.

Speaker B: Why?

Speaker A: Because they have computers in their plants and all their employees wear matching uniforms and sing the company song every morning and do calisthenics together and they have this whole. I remember it's kind of futuristic vibe to manufacturing that the whole world kind of fell in love with. Yeah. Uh, Harley included. And uh, Harley blatantly, uh, went and stole ideas in Japan and got with the people from Honest to show us how you do this. Tried to bring that back into the Harley plant. Hey, here's what we're going to do. Uh, we learned it from Honda and all the, you know, second, third generation Harley guys working in the factory said, oh my God. Yep, we'll take some of the ideas, but we won't do that. There's no way this is going to be a Japanese based.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, business. And there's a lot of pushback on that.

Speaker B: So. Yeah.

Speaker A: So fun time.

Speaker B: Yeah. So you come in, you're there to reposition.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, how did you determine? Did you know you're there to reposition?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Or, or are you coming in to just help the business?

Speaker A: That wasn't the, the language used back then. And I always have to use my fingers, improve our image so we can sell more motorcycles. Uh, again, that's before people talked about branding and, and even words like positioning because the, the thought was. Well, it wasn't the thought, it was the reality. People didn't like us outside of the bike industry.

Speaker B: Uh, was it just the, um, the

Speaker A: renegade Hell's Angels mothers, American moms deplored the name Harley Davidson because their mothers deplored that. So they saw this as something dangerous. I never thought. Saw this as crime riddled Ye was all that was Hollywood that going all the way back from the 50s and the 60s and 70s that these guys are mean trouble and they kidnap teenage girls and they committing all these super high profile crimes. Uh, but, and everybody believed, everybody believed this whole myth of, you know, the outlaw.

Speaker B: Well, and the other part of it was, you know, the. Back in the day, uh, uh, having some sort of tattoo, you were like on the dark side of the elements. Yeah.

Speaker A: You were either a merchant marine or you were some kind of a. Today's a little different. Yeah, way different.

Speaker B: Um, but, but back then I remember, you know, the leather jackets, the tattoos look.

Speaker A: And I mean, Easy Rider, that Easy Rider comes out in 1969 and that was the Academy Award. I mean that, that put motorcycles and the biker criminal culture, uh, in, in front of millions of eyeballs.

Speaker B: It was outlaw vibe.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah. So, and so we got.

Speaker B: You had to expand the market from outlaw vibe to the rest of the world.

Speaker A: Yeah. I mean the, the, the fun dividend of that is that. Oh, uh, that sold a lot of bikes. That kind of imagery.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Because there's always that portion of. Be a bad boy of the population. Hm. If I write that, people will think I'm, you know, I'm a dentist Monday through Friday, but right. You know, if I'm Saturday, I'm going to be judged like, I'm cool.

Speaker B: Uh, all the outlaws that roll into

Speaker A: Sturgis went in for that. But if you look bigger picture, the damage that that kind of imagery had and evoked in the eyes of the insurance industry, state, local, federal legislators, all that, that the, the people that made the decisions that really impacted the industry did not like us.

Speaker B: Probably police officers too.

Speaker A: Oh, please. I put, I put them at the top.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, we would drive one of those. So you're going to get pulled over,

Speaker A: try to have an event somewhere or a rally, what we call rally somewhere. Uh, when we first started doing that, and more often than not, the, the mayor of the police department say, yeah, sounds like a great idea. Just don't do it here. We don't, we can't have that element coming into our town. And then two, three years later they're calling us, hey, can you bring those guys here? We, we understand they spend a lot of money and then they leave. That's exactly what they do.

Speaker B: So tell me, tell me the, the process that you went through to take what, what had turned into a commodity on one side and kind of a, uh, outlaw, dark side of outlaw. Because, I mean, there's a fun, it did turn into a fun side of outlaw. You know, a weekend outlaw.

Speaker A: The, the, the, the dentist. The quote, unquote, dress up.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in, in where they, they still had attitude, you know, you. Because you kept the attitude.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Uh, so how did you think through this and how did you sell it?

Speaker A: It kind of came in stages, Eric. The, the very first thing I had to look at. Then you see there's some, some really beautiful accidental discoveries that are about to take place as a result of doing this. Uh, because everybody was focused on doing what they'd always done. And if we can just do that better, hearts, minds and dollars are going to flow back. So if we make the bikes, even better. Hey, these other guys can't compete against us. Uh, and if people want to think that we've got this black cloud over, so what? Because the motorcycle world will always know us and love us. Uh, and my. On my. Literally on my first day, there's. And people had all kinds of ideas. You know, you need, we need to advertise more. Yeah, you need money to do that. We need to discount More. We need money to do that. So I sat down, uh, behind my IBM Selectric typewriter.

Speaker B: I remember which.

Speaker A: Which I learned in high school, which was.

Speaker B: That was the. The number one. Literally the only thing I learned in high school. How to type on a Selectric.

Speaker A: How about that?

Speaker B: In a room filled with typewriters. It's it and it's the skill that served me more than any other thing I learned.

Speaker A: Isn't that amazing? Uh, so I tagged my typewriter and I typed three questions, and I pinned them out in front of my office, and three questions. What are people saying? What do we want them to say? And what are we doing to get them to say it? Because I saw that that was my job. My job was to change the narrative about the business and the perceptions that people had. And the realization was, uh, one, that people didn't have good things to say about us, too. If they did talk about us, they would describe us the way they would just about any other motorcycle. You know, great products and great service, uh, you know, great people. I said, that's all great, but, uh. And it's all true. But if a competitor is saying it. And that was my line in the sand is we will never. If we're going to be competitive at a dominant level and we're obviously not, we cannot be described or ever describe ourselves using terminology that any of our competitors would ever use. We're not going to talk about horsepower, uh, reliability, rideability, quality, things like. Because 1. People expect to hear that. And it's kind of boring, frankly. It's not memorable. And it's. It's something that. That sales people, uh, leaders tend to either gloss over or don't understand that, let's say, help. If we don't have some vernacular, if we don't have things that we say about ourselves that are distinct and meaningful and memorable that nobody else can say or is saying. We're already at, uh, a competitive disadvantage. We're good at marketing. Everybody's good at marketing. We're good at promoting. Everybody's good at that. But I said, when we're talking about competing here, that's the narrative. That's your reputation. That's what people say about you. For God's sake, man, you can't. You cannot win in a marketplace when you're described using language that would be used to describe somebody else. And it's a fun thing that I love doing. I consult with clients and picture Eric. This could be, uh, the top leadership at businesses that we all buy from every day in a household Name things. Or it could be startups, things you've never heard of, things in other countries. And I sit in a boardroom with the top people and I'll say, all right, pull out a pen and a piece of paper. So why don't you imagine right now that somebody that knows you well, current customer or current client, current, you know, patient or something, if your doctor is on a plane sitting next to somebody that you have tried to land as a client forever, this, this person would represent the single biggest, most important customer you've ever had. Huge, mhm, impact on everyone's wallet. Huge impact on the reputation of the business. And the, these two folks and they're sitting on the plane talking and the, the, the person that represents the business you want to land is sharing with the person who knows you like a problem that they're having in their business or that you know, uh, having in their life. And it just happens to be something that is involved that your business is focused on. So, so what is this person that knows you going to say about you and what will be the most important conversation about your business that ever takes place and you're not there to influence it? What would you want that person to say? And the answer I always get, people always tend to lean back in their chair and look up and fold their arms behind their head and they go, well I guess. And I go, stop right there. If you have to guess what you want people to say, we got a problem. And if there's six people in the office, uh, write it down. What would you want this person to say? You know, give you like two minutes to write it down. And if there's six people, I'll get six radically different answers. Or it will be that kind of trite. There's an action oriented, you know, team driven company that focuses on qualities. Well, no human being talks that way and need to shit you. But it always just kind of shines this light on this notion of look, we don't know who we are, so how can we expect all the other people that work here with us and for us to know who we are, how can we expect the customers that we already have to describe us the way we want to be talked about? That positions us to succeed, not positions us to just be in the game with these other lookalikes. And I'll tell you, uh, Eric, that I have only on very few occasions run into businesses where they've ever even given a second a thought of this, thought to this. Or they'll say, well, you know, we've got marketing people and communications people. That's not what I'm talking about. You're the guys. You're the people running this business. Mhm. Everybody here models your behavior. They say what you do, they act the way you do. This is job one. The reputation of the business is your most valuable asset. That's your job. That's not. Mark, what do you want people to say about this business? Who do we want to be? If we can't have agreement that we're not in agreement now on, um, you know who we are, then we've got a problem. Second, we got to start moving. That's what I always know. Well, I'm about to make some money. I'm going to make some money here. I'm going to help these guys develop that positioning, develop that vernacular and also develop that notion that says we got to change our mindset here. This going through the motions and marketing and selling and lapsing into the very, very typical, very expected language of business. Can I help you? How can I help? How can I be a service to you? Uh, who do I have the benefit of or who do I have the privilege of serving today? See, when people hear that stuff, they hear it everywhere. Their, their brain shuts off. It's, it's not in any way engaging. It's not anywhere human. It's not, there's no warmth to that. Uh, so I always focus first on and say, look, this is kind of rudimentary positioning 101, but it's also reputation management 101. And I said what we did at uh, Harley, because I knew from the get go that when people talked about our business, it was from one of two camps. One, from the it's a bunch of greasy criminal bikers. Or two, this is a outmoded old line motorcycle company. Uh, that used to be great. There was a tremendous amount of that. I mean you had the loyalists, the Die Hards that would take a bullet for Harley, that would never say anything bad about it, God bless all of them. But that, that was the, the mindset. Or if you talk to somebody at the Wall Street Journal, say, what's the first thing that pops in your head when you hear our name? Let's say like thugs, uh, uh, failing business had had it all. So I said, look, we have to, let's start first with vernacular here. And we're going to incorporate this vernacular into our discussions with the investment community, our lenders, our vendors, our partners, all of our employees, all of our dealers. This is how we need to begin talking to people. We're not going to say that we're in the motorcycle business. We make motorcycles. That's obvious. We can't be known for what we do. We need to be known for who we are. We need to put a, a person's face on this business. We need to attach human qualities to a business because that's what people remember. And he's here. I'll talk all day on that. What, what are three to five words that we can use that are going to be the pillars, your words of this business for Harley Davidson at that time. And we literally came up with this in an afternoon. And I don't advise that to other businesses, but that's what you do when you're in chapter 11. And the five words are still what drive the vernacular to this day. It's lifestyle. This is a lifestyle.

Speaker B: Lifestyle is one of them.

Speaker A: Yep. That's, that's number. That's the pillar above everything. And below that is freedom.

Speaker B: Uh,

Speaker A: below that is camaraderie. Below that, the opposite of camaraderie, individuality. And the bottom pillar is rebellion. This isn't rebellion against the man, rebellion against the government or society. This is just rebellion against doing things the way it's always been done. If the rest of the industry is going left, we're going to be the company that goes right and has a lot more fun doing it. And what I really liked about that language was it did so much for us as a couple when we would get up and speak in front of the investment community in New York. The, the stock exchanger at one of the huge investment firms, instead of getting up and said okay, we're many motorcycle manufacturer telling people what they already know is a waste of your breath and their time. They this bulletproof lifestyle brand. People love us for who we are and what we do here. And what we do is we provide great writing experiences for people on and off their motorcycles. They can experience real freedom. Ah, the, the joy of camaraderie, of making new friends, of social networking before that word even existed. Do you want to express themselves through their motorcycle, through their clothing, through their lifestyle? See, all of those words are visual words.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: They and the, the, the visual words with a strong sense of humanity picture. Say lifestyle. You just. People pick. Your mind goes to people doing something, whatever that is, ride motorcycles, hanging out, uh, kicking tires at a concert somewhere, riding bikes and then having some Budweisers after, you know, whatever. That's the lifestyle, whatever you picture it to be. And we would always get asked about that like, wait a minute, so you're a lifestyle company. That's the greatest thing that could happen is somebody asking you to explain yourself. Now we've got them. Now we're going to have a conversation. Now. It's not going to just be us talking and hoping that they're taking notes, they're curious. Uh, this isn't what they're used to. Not what they're used to from us and not what they're used to from other business.

Speaker B: Were you a writer at the time?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: So, so you were coming with some personal experience.

Speaker A: I was coming from his personal experience as a motorcyclist, not as a Harley person. I, I grew up despising the, the company and, and finding it abhorrent for the same reasons. Oh yeah, because that's what my, the other guys that had bikes said. Uh, and the guys in the bike shops that we hung out in said that that's the bad guys, that's the bad crowd. You don't mix with them. Yeah, uh, okay, I won't. And you know, I was kind of curious. If they were such bad people, you know, wouldn't they be in the papers more often? Wouldn't they be committing horrible, heinous crimes that everybody seems to believe that they do? Uh, but so I love motorcycles. That side of it you discover is as you did when you got your 99% of, that's just grossly exaggerated, 100%, um, stereotypical, uh, you know, easy to make fun of stuff that you don't understand or aren't part of. And what's interesting is when we would talk with, you know, if I'm sitting across from pension fund managers or investment fund managers, and they'd always bring it up, uh, you know, especially back then when that whole biker thing was more prevalent. I say, well, you know, I see, you know, you're doing all this work to, you know, change your image and show the world something else, a different perspective than they're used to. I said, oh no, we're not. I said, you see us for who we are. And the problem is when you see five guys go by on motors on Harley's that look exactly like what, you know, the, the drive in movies convinced you to believe. Long beard, cigar hanging out of the mouth, missing some teeth, you know, looking like they're coming from, when you see that, that you believe stronger.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Yeah, these guys are trouble. But when you see people riding by on them that look like me. Yeah, that look like, you know, these other guys are with that look like your Mailman.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: They're invisible to you. And we were invisible. I say you're not. We're not pinging on your radar because we don't look the way you want us to. And that's the overwhelming majority of the bike market. Yeah, that's, it's so sort of open. Once you get past that belief in the stereotype.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, things just get. First it gets easier, and then you also come to, you know, come to your senses and go, okay, you know what? These guys, these guys aren't bad people. And I want to see, I want to learn a little bit more about this. Right, right. And I love the fact that we made people curious.

Speaker B: Ah, the, the, um, a couple other words that come. And they probably tie into these. You guys come up with these in an afternoon. That was a hell of an afternoon.

Speaker A: That was pretty stout.

Speaker B: Uh, Is, is a sense of patriotism kind of amongst. In, in United States, for sure. Sense of patriotism. Um, and this sense of rediscovering youth almost, you know, it could be in the rebellion piece, you're going back to the rebellious, uh, teenager in your, in

Speaker A: the camaraderie part of the camaraderie as well. And if you look out and not to get too, uh, shrinky on you, the psyche of the American male, basically, uh, men are hungry for, you know, especially now with everybody working at home stuff. Are hungry for companionship, friendship, camaraderie. And, you know, a lot of people, he left the workforce, so they're not surrounded by people every day.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Something they can't go every day. Really powerful. They get the bike, they're at the dealership. There's events, activities, there's organized rides, there's organized clubs. People get involved in that, say, well, now I've got, I got friends. I like this.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And the motorcycle is the catalyst of having the friendship. So.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Right on.

Speaker B: So, you know, as you're describing the words, I'm like, well, yeah, that, that is the brand. Yeah, that, that's totally it. Uh, I can see that in people that I know that ride. I can see that in them, their attitudes, their, their whole stuff. And what's great about that is, is the other. The Hondas couldn't, couldn't own those words.

Speaker A: No, and that's the point.

Speaker B: They owned, like, comfort. It was like, you know, I, I, My cousin built a muscle car, uh, that I got in the garage, like a 65 Mustang.

Speaker A: Oh, boy. For me, so. Oh, thank you.

Speaker B: It's just a, a beast. But, um, he was going through Questions. And I said, well, I was thinking about like an automatic instead of a, a stick. He said, I won't build it. I won't build it. You have somebody else build it. That, that's not this car, you know, so.

Speaker A: Got to be true to the roots, man.

Speaker B: Yeah. So it's kind of the same thing. Like if, if you want to, uh, there, there's the muscle M and then there's this comfort for, for wussies. Yep. You know, go get on that wussy

Speaker A: gold wing and enjoy. If you. Yeah, well, you know, what do you say to people who.

Speaker B: And go listen to Barbara Streisand over there and your headphones, uh, with your speakers and your gold wing and we're going to be men over here.

Speaker A: I uh, just enjoy.

Speaker B: And women. Women it took. The female market opened up too.

Speaker A: I used to, uh, let me put this, that, uh, the first time I looked at ownership data at Harley. So let's just call this 85 or 86. Less than 1/2 of 1% of our registered owners were women. And uh, not only that, but in the entire United States of America there are only 440,000 registered hard. Uh, this is an 80 company. Been in business for 80 some years. There's millions of them out there. No, this is a small business. It was then it was a big, it was a big small business or a small big business. Uh, then you know, the company eventually reached a point where it's selling, you know, 300 plus thousand bikes a year. Uh, but the fact that there were no women got a lot of attention on the Wall Street. If you could just crack this market. And we all, you know what we do? We, we need to tap into this because women are showing up at the events and the activities because they're riding on the back of their, of their.

Speaker B: They don't want to ride in the back.

Speaker A: Right. And exactly. Uh, we said, well, we need to do a better job of marketing because we weren't doing any marketing to women anyway. So we did a whole bunch of research and, and, and started pushing dealers. We need to be way more active. We need to be way more welcoming and encouraging of women into the sport. And what we did to our detriment is we treated them like a, like a different species and they began to push back hard.

Speaker B: Don't.

Speaker A: We don't want this. We don't want this special. We, we're here for the same reason that the men are.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: If you make us feel like we're like a minority here or that we're being treated different. And they would tell us that we, we, this smells bad to us. And you know, we're a mostly men and be had never done anything like this with. You're absolutely right. Uh, why should. We're going to treat you the same way we do everybody else. Boots are over there, helmets are over here. You want to take a test ride? Come around to the front. Let's go. Uh, and in they came. And there's no better salesperson in the world for selling bikes to women than other women that ride them. So yeah, create opportunities to bring them together. This, the, the fear factor, the intimidation factor went away. If I can do this, you can do it. Says woman to her. Go to her friends at work, whatever and bing. Um, those, those who like the idea and they came. You know, so 25% of new bike sales are pretty much every year now. Wow.

Speaker B: So the one thing. And I want to get into how you came up with the concept, but then how you, how you implement it in a second. But let me, let me ask just a question first. I have, I have lots of clients in the direct sales space that, you know, have gotten beaten up here or there. Uh, or, you know, maybe they got, you know, went through some struggle with FTC or uh, you know, some short seller attack on Wall street and uh, that kind of limped out of that situation and trying to figure out what, what the, what the, the next evolution looks like. Um, and, and it's hard for them not to mentally play defense. Uh, you know, that, that's their inclination is, is either keep their head down and be quiet because they, they've had their face kicked in a few times or play defense when they are out in the world versus playing offense.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, uh, what I find fascinating about what you're sharing is just the visual words were enough to start things going down the right direction because some of these people call it we're in the health and wellness.

Speaker A: We're.

Speaker B: And it's so generic. It's so kind of blah. You know, we're here for helping with weight management. Uh, that, that's, that doesn't visually describe who you are. Right. What I like loved what you said is, is, uh, who we are, not what we do.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What you do is weight management. What you do is health and wellness. But that's not who you are.

Speaker A: See, the, the truth of the matter is, and this is again, this is another thing that for reasons I'll never figure out, Eric does not get talked about in business school by people getting their their MBAs is that we're human beings. And because we're human beings, we humanize everything. And here's what I mean by this. This is what I always tell CEOs all the time. Said try to describe a business. In any business, the first one that pops into your mind and not use or imply the pronoun they. Right? Sprints, my cell phone service provider. And, um, they suck at that. Right. I could say they're great or they're awesome, they make great sandwiches, they have great service. Because we're, we have to do this. We humanize everything. So if we're talking about a business, what we're essentially doing is describing a mere reflection of the culture of that business. Kind of we see you for who you are. Right. We might know you for what you do. You know, you make things. We get that. That's pretty obvious. Uh, but what we're going to remember, uh, or not, is who you are. So as a biz, that's something that we talked about a lot, uh, in the. What, at that time passed for executive row. It that Harley says we're, we're not exactly in the right business here and we're pushing a lot of the wrong buttons. Give you an example is, uh, a, uh, motorcycle example. And I, I use this one all the time. Is. And you were guilty of it. I know you were. What do Harley owners do at red lights or stop signs when we're not moving?

Speaker B: You're ra.

Speaker A: We rev the engine. Mhm. I said, well, why would anybody do that?

Speaker B: It's a flex.

Speaker A: It makes. No, it's all. It's like a reflex almost. Uh, and people have all these, you know, uh, very technical answers for, oh, you know, they're doing it for safety and they want to make their presence known. So no, let's look at us as a, as a humanist. What. Let's apply a little neuroscience to this. When we're revving our engines is we're talking to you in very plain English. We're saying, look at me, I'm a badass. Look at me. And if you don't look, we just rev it louder. And when you look, even if it's just for a split second, even if it's a look of disgust, if we see you see us, uh, dopamine is released in our brain. Uh, somebody just validated me. I'm here. I'm not invisible like I am in my car or I am when I'm at work or at the mall or, you know, getting on a plane somewhere. A Tiny little bit of delight has now, of course, do my brain. Because one of life's most inherent human needs has just been met. People are looking at me, and I believe that they're looking at me and judging me. I like that. We go up to the next light and we do it again. Thus proving that humans will return to any source of delight until it fails to delight them. And that, to me, is the definition of loyalty. We return to that which delights us. So we would be in meetings back at. In Milwaukee at Harley, and just ask a real obvious question. Why are we here? And you know, hands that go up and. We're here to serve. We're here to provide great quality products and, and, uh, great reliability and. Right. Ability. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Is it. We have to do that. But why are. Why are we here?

Speaker B: What's.

Speaker A: What's the umbrella that covers everything that we do? Uh, and, you know, people weren't getting it first. We're here to be a source of delight for people. Because when we delight people through the way, through our attitude, through our passion, through the effort that they see us making, uh, to understand them, to be part of them, to welcome them into our. Our family or into our friendship, they like them and they come back for more and they tell their friends and the belief that we had for years was that they. All those Harley tattoos that were out there were people professing their loyalty to their motorcycles. Humanly impossible. Humanly impossible. We didn't know that they weren't loyal to the motorcycles. They're loyal to the people behind the bus. I love them. I respect. I'll only buy from them. They make the best stuff, they take the best care of it. They've got the best racing teams. They, you know, they, they, they, they, they. And when the. The they being said about you are positive, that means people prefer you over the other businesses that they either don't know or don't like.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, so I always tell people like they positive T H E Y with a plus sign after it is the holy grail of competition. When you become the positive they. The one that people talk about in a preferable language that means you're doing things that they remember, that they like, that they appreciate that they're coming back for more of and that they feel good telling their friends and family about.

Speaker B: I don't know if it existed back then, but, uh, the concept of Net promoter score.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Was that a thing back in the 80s?

Speaker A: Uh, no. That, uh, NPS showed up or that. That's kind of a mid-90s phenomenon.

Speaker B: It's got to be very high today

Speaker A: and hugely embraced by everybody. Hugely, uh, improperly used, unfortunately by a lot of people too.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Uh, you get up, you get off the plane. I just got off playing flight here to Vegas. A couple days from now I'll get a little survey email. How likely are you to recommend us again? And I'll say zero. And no one has ever asked me why? Because somebody would have to ask me. And no one's how is your flight to Los. Nobody ever. So why would I recommend them? How about asking, what would you like to see us do better? Mhm. You know, I'll answer that. Uh, why are you sending me a survey when I was right there at the airport? Right. Your people were right there. Ask me when I'm getting off the plane, hey, what could we have done better? I will tell you. Mhm. You're going to get my feedback and hopefully do something with it. Mhm. Uh, so that was kind of the curse of the net promoter scores. But one of the, in that same vein, one of the first kind of visible shots over the bow that we took, uh, that sort of put us on the map as, as a business and as a success story for other companies to follow us. When we started going out and doing events, pouring all of our money and all of our, you know, human resources, m into going out and bringing trucks full of bikes, playing loud music, serving up the barbecue and letting people see, touch, feel, smell bikes and take brand new ones for rides. And what we made some amazing discoveries doing this, and probably the first of them, and I wish the freaking car companies would learn or take, uh, seriously, is somebody would get off a, a bike that they just got done demoing and instead of letting, oh yeah, that was awesome. Ask them a question that they have to answer, uh, using practical language, what do we need to change on this bike to make you want it? And that's when we discovered that 100% of human beings standing right in front of you, when you ask them a question, they're going to answer it. They would not if we got a 2% response on a survey. How did you, you know, what did you think of the bike that you demoed? You get like 2%. Well now we're getting 100% response. We're standing right there and people are saying, I need the handlebars to be higher. The handlebars were too low or they weren't wide enough or the seat was too high. Well, this is, we can fix that stuff. This is what we do what, you want us to bend the middle that way. We can bend it that way. Punch a few buttons on the machines and on, uh, the machine tools in the factories, we can start doing this. And people began to talk about this. This is a company that is actively asking the people that it serves or hopes what, what they would like to see the company do better. Anybody can do this.

Speaker B: And you would probably also have a lot of people say, you don't need to change anything.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Oh, I love it just the way it is. Well, thanks. Uh, a lot of times, say, or, uh, if you're the president running the company, what's the first thing you're going to change? What are you going to point your magic? Wanda. And then they would say, my wife says, uh, the sleeve holes on the T shirts are too big. Why? Because they were all made for men. Uh, and women's women don't wear T shirts like that on purpose. Uh, we didn't know that, but we didn't ask. But anytime we found that we asked questions, we got answers and tried to tremendous intel.

Speaker B: I just wanted to break in for a second and ask, if you're struggling to stay motivated in your network marketing business, are you feeling stuck, like you're spinning your wheels but not seeing the results that you'd hope to get? Well, you're not alone. This happens to everyone. And that's exactly why I created Go Pro Insider. This is a daily video coaching program designed to give you the exact steps to move forward. In an average of just seven minutes a day, you'll get my best strategies to master your mindset, sharpen your skills, and start seeing real progress. If you're tired of guessing, searching all over the Internet for solutions, and ready for a proven path to success, join me@ah, gopro insider.com for as low as $9 a month, just 30 cents a day, it's time to take control of your business and your future. Goproinsider.com okay, let's get back to the conversation.

Speaker A: So we came out of that, we

Speaker B: broke into some of the strategy of how you put this into implementation, but I'd like to get into maybe a little bit more of the strategy. So you, you identified the visual words lifestyle, freedom, camaraderie, individuality, and rebellion.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Which I relate to all those words.

Speaker A: Uh, love them all.

Speaker B: Uh, so you finish your meeting. You've all have these words up on a board.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: You got circles or stars next to them. What was the practical application in shifting the company and culture and language and Dealerships and Vibe so represented those words. And was it hard to get buy in from your executives, owners, shareholders on that?

Speaker A: It. Uh, second question first. Yes, it was hard to get buy in because people didn't understand it. It's, they didn't relate to it. It's soft. No, because they're talking about oh, we want to be a lifestyle brand, uh, or lifestyle business. We didn't use the brand because nobody talked about and focus on being a visual sort of delight for people and that's going to come. And how we answer the phone, how we address people in dealerships, how we address people at rallies and people. You know, all we've ever been trained to do is sell.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Talk about and glorify our products. We're extraordinarily proud not just of our products, we're also really proud of our knowledge of those products. And you know, Harley kind of was one of real artists of people who knew what every nut and bottom bolt.

Speaker B: Yeah. And, and it used to be the case. The brand that I remember, uh, before you helped to shift it was if you were a mechanic it was probably a good thing to have a, a Harley because you were always going to need to be tinkering, you know, and I'm not a tinkerer. Uh, so that always intimidated me. Like I'm, I'm going to have to like know how this thing works. Scary for me.

Speaker A: Uh, but you're not alone there. And we used to make jokes about is our writers like to tinker because a lot of times they had to um, before we got way better at the, at the manufacturing side. But, but secondly that, that was also a very accurate reflection of our writing community at that time. It skewed very what we called gray collar. It wasn't the, the, the, the guy working in the, they were out there

Speaker B: with a wrench assembly, sitting in their, in their, in their driveway, uh, with a wrench with their bike.

Speaker A: Guys who knew how to work largely guys who knew how to work with their hands, knew how things worked and how to keep them working and would you know, do the road service and their own oil change.

Speaker B: How did you, how did you get executives to buy in? Uh, what was the biggest resistance? Who gave you the biggest resistance?

Speaker A: There was the, the resistance was almost universal. But on the, if you looked at

Speaker B: the, and you're, you're the new guy

Speaker A: design coming into engineering company, the manufacturing. This is the, the dirty hands. These are the people, uh, and the people that are running those sections of the business. But when I talked About, I think I mentioned some happy accidents early. We would come back from, you know, if the took the, the demo trucks would go out on weekends and go to places like Detroit, Des Moines, Iowa, uh, kind of blue collar centers of America, NASCAR events before NASCAR became like the NASCAR that the world fell in love with. And we would come back and say uh, here's kind of the report. And the report is that there are a lot of people out there that are upset with us right now. Why are people upset? Uh, because they didn't like, uh, they had a problem with their warranty and we didn't. The dealer wouldn't honor it, you know, because the, the business cratered. Uh, and they're extraordinarily unhappy and they're extraordinarily unhappy that all these people are suddenly jumping on Hondas and things and they're angry with us and the leaders would, it would bounce off because it's like what if, if I'm telling you somebody else's problem or you think well that, well you know, that sucks for them. You guys need to hear this yourself because we take it very, very, very personally when there's some big 6 foot 8, 300 pound dude chomping on a cigar in front of you, telling you that, that you've let him down. It's powerful stuff. You need to hear this so that the new CEO, uh, uh, just a brilliant, wonderful guy named Rich Tear like said okay, I'm going to put together a team and we're going to come out and run demos, you know, two weeks from now or whatever they did. So it was the CEO, the cfo, head of engineering, head of manufacturing and then area we call the shop stewards in the, in the factories, the paint guy, the welding guy, the frame guy, engine guy. And you're going to talk to people and what started happening? Well, yeah, a lot of people were saying really nice things, very positive things, but a lot of others are saying, oh, so you're the president of Harvard. Well let me know how much you, let me tell you how much you've screwed up this business. Now they're taking it seriously and we're all talking back in the office on Monday. Go, oh my God. Everybody in this business needs to hear this. They need to hear the suggestions, they need to see how people are reacting. But they also need to hear what we've done wrong, uh, so that we can collectively and together right the, right these wrongs to let them see that we're doing.

Speaker B: So, so the, the, your effort in getting the buy in was, was mostly just exposure to those people understanding their customer exposure.

Speaker A: But also they saw immediately that something very, very powerful happens when we are a visible presence in front of customers and prospective customers. Now, we're, it's not an invisible company. Here's a catalog and dealership is, you know, 10 miles outside of town. I said, here we are, uh, we are talking to you, we're asking you questions. We're learning all about your families and friends and what you like and what you don't like and what you want to see us do. But all this potent stuff started happening. So when we kept saying the goal of the business should not be to have a larger advertising budget and to advertise on national tv, because that was just never going to happen. Uh, we need to be the most visible company in the industry right now while we've got a little bit of momentum doing that and people seem to be reacting to it and leadership got behind that. We're going to sponsor more events, more activities, more chances for us to get together with people, a, have fun with them, let them see how fun and cool this lifestyle is. But secondly, get their feedback.

Speaker B: Well, so, so let me ask. So, yeah, we, you want to, you want to bake in to the culture, lifestyle, freedom, camaraderie, individuality and rebellion. So, uh, it probably sounded a little soft. It wasn't as tactical as your executives would normally want. But you showed them some, gave them some visual examples and some experiential examples.

Speaker A: And what's, and what, what happened is, first of all, anytime the company is doing anything, if it was a dealer meeting, if it was a large industry gathering, and these things have been around since World War II. There's a Sturgis bike rally in South Dakota. There's a Daytona, uh, every March for over 80 years. There's Laconia in New Hampshire for over 80 years. If, if you're going to be a employee volunteer at those events, you need to sit through two full afternoons of training. This is how you talk to customers.

Speaker B: And that's the Vibe. The Vibe reference those five things and

Speaker A: what it used to be was okay. Now on this model you're going to talk about, that's a 1340cc engine and that's going to push 68 pounds of torque to the rear wheel at 3500rp. And people memorize that this is what's important, as if the human species understands that kind of language. But that's what competitors did. This, you know, torque and horsepower. And that's all Great for really experienced people with a engineering background. The average person on the street isn't going to remember any. They either like it and think it's cool or they don't.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: So we're gonna. The effort of the company, if we are going to delight people, get them comfortable with us and have them come back, is that we need to glorify the people we're in front of, not what we're selling. Because if we make them feel about them.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, it is absolutely about that because

Speaker B: it fit to who they are.

Speaker A: Instead of saying, let me tell you what's so like so awesome about this. Motorcycles. Hey man, what would like the coolest bike ride you could possibly imagine look like? Oh, you know, I'd go out across the American. Well, who'd be, who'd go with you? What kind of bikes would you put, what would you have to put on the bike to carry all your stuff? And people start getting engaged in that conversation. This is, this is cool. What would it be like experience the west and go, you know, 200 miles without ever seeing a stop sign. Enjoy that kind of, that level of freedom, that kind of freedom with your friends. You know, join camaraderie, the ultimate lifestyle. Yeah. And it's not like every sentence has to have those fibers. No, but just, but it's those and, and get. Let people understand that we're, that you're. What's, you're what's most important here. We can't exist without you. Magical things happen for us. When we're delighting you, when we're making you feel welcome and wanted and part of something special. It's stuff that people just flat out aren't used to from anybody, you know, let alone a, uh, bike company. Uh, and it's a very contagious thing. So when employee, you know, it's some, you know, somebody from payroll is out working at one of these. This isn't somebody who spends all day immersed in product. But when she looks over and sees, you know, five people standing in a circle and how are the guys to. And everybody's telling stories and everybody's kind of laughing and hitting each other on the back and stuff, they get the message pretty, hey, you know what? This is what we do. And people like that, I'm going to do that too.

Speaker B: How long did it take on a tactical sense? How long did it take to get buy in from the executive. The C suite. Yeah. Uh, for, for this cultural um, change.

Speaker A: Well, first, what, what I will tell you because this, it's really really important is that Tyrolink, the CEO believed in this 100% because we can see it in the numbers. This stuff works. We are going to be the most visible. We're going to be the most visibly passionate people in our industry. We're going to be the most present. We're going to listen you. We're going to put the, the customer first. That's not the desired behavior of our workforce here. That's the expected view. This is what we are going to.

Speaker B: You got, you got buy in from the decision maker because

Speaker A: we'll be able to see very easily people who are within the business that aren't.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Stick out like a sore thumb.

Speaker B: I'll bet you that the, the people on the manufacturing line bought into this really fast once.

Speaker A: Well first of all we opened the

Speaker B: doors because wasn't that their vibe, uh, that sense of pride.

Speaker A: And something amazing happened when we opened the doors of the factory to tours. M and now other people could watch them welding a frame. M. Or the stuff's coming out of paint and it's you know, being pinned straight by hand. They turn around, there's like eight because you know, part of a group watching them.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, or like actually like clap like go bad go. That's so cool. Well imagine what's going on inside that guy's chest.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: This is pretty people digging what I'm doing here. Uh, um, that's that emotional feedback that way.

Speaker B: Tours started after this shift.

Speaker A: That was all part of this. We're gonna be visible.

Speaker B: So started with CEO saying that this is the new mandate. Um, which trickled down into your executive offices. Uh then you started doing in person events.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Uh, sponsoring events however you could.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Kind of guerrilla marketing your way out there into the, into the in you know, to get in front of the C customers. Yeah. And then opening up tours to enhance the. The kind of the pride amongst the user. Aspirational for people. All that's the bike I want to get absolutely there yet. Uh, and, and people on the line being proud um, did had to start. I remember the shift that happened in the dealerships. Uh, the dealership shift was significant.

Speaker A: It was huge.

Speaker B: It went from just bikes went from

Speaker A: a bike shop to a destination to

Speaker B: a person who you know, they might have been used to be a doctor but they're sick of being a doctor and they're in there wearing Harley stuff, being a tough guy. You know, uh, when it's. When it's like an ex doctor but he's running that place and he's having the Time of his life as he's talking about bikes all day, hanging out with other people. They got lounges in there, people sitting around. They go in there just to buy T shirts, all kinds of stuff.

Speaker A: Well, magical things start happening when dealers are noticing, wow, my floor traffic is up. There's a lot more people coming in here on weekends.

Speaker B: Like the difference between a Starbucks with all these sitting around areas and stuff. They created like a community. The dealerships actually became communities instead of just a bunch of metal.

Speaker A: Well, you said the worst thing that could happen to us as a business is, is somebody comes in once a year and buys four cans of oil and then leaves. That's not what this is about. That there's no camaraderie there. There's no lifestyle as we want that we want to see our dealership as the local focal point of our business. That's the gathering spot. That's where the camaraderie and the freedom and individual. That's where all of this.

Speaker B: I remember, I remember. And it, and it became very high end too. Uh, just like the interesting thing thing is there's um. And you tell me, you, you're the, you're the expert. You lived it. I'm just giving you my observations from, from watching from a marketing perspective. And I like it is, is there was almost like a whole group of wealthy people.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Wanted to feel something.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Because you know, they, they were numb from their wealth and they wanted to like go in there and. And be a rebel again and put on their do rag on the top of their head and put on their sunglasses and go be a different person for a day.

Speaker A: An amazing thing started to happen and we never really knew what to call it because we started to sense, uh, right around like 1990 going forward, when suddenly the, the People magazines of the world were picking up on. Hey, uh, Schwarzenegger and his buddies are all out riding their Harleys. And then all like the PR machine for the celebrities kicked in. Oh, we want, we got to have, you know, Tom Cruise on a Harley on the COVID And uh, oh, this whole kind of celebrity slash yuppie, if you remember that word. Yeah. Started to surface. Wall street loved this. Oh my God. This is like what we always wanted to see for this company is this influx of people when was money. This is this, this triggered right around 1990 and the, the Terminator with Schwartz. I remember also had a lot to do with it. I remember. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, I remember that whole, the whole vibe and this whole new group of people kind of came into the Marketplace that, that weren't bike riders.

Speaker A: It was so fun to watch and also a little bit scary and unnerving because there was this initial fear when this flood of new money started coming in.

Speaker B: Were they going to ruin it?

Speaker A: They're going, they're, they're going to do

Speaker B: this poison are our beautiful things.

Speaker A: Yes. And then they're going to move on and then they're going to. They're not real Porsche or their dragster or whatever that is. Exactly. And then we also got uh. Because we would do at uh, major events, we'd always do. We call a town hall meeting. Mhm. Fill a giant arena with you know, a thousand or so people, a couple thousand people and leaders up at the front. Any questions, no presentations, just, just quite. Ask us whatever you want to know. And sometimes people will get upset. I don't like what I'm seeing of these yuppies and celebrities taking over m our business. And the guy who was the head of sales had the best like accidental answer to that that I could have possibly imagined. Do you like the new engines everybody? Do you like the new transmission system? Do you like the new paint treatments on the bikes? Yet none of that would have happened without this influx of cash. We need this for the business. They're coming into this for the same reasons that you did. They want to ride motorcycles. They wanted, they want to, they want

Speaker B: to play, they want to be in the cool.

Speaker A: They want in on the lifestyle. Then people go. Then like the PhD people start. Can we observe this? Because if uh, we, I think if we go to a dealership and you have uh, the, the Porsche owning yuppie type coming in and then the, the more blue collar thing that that's just going to be a formula for disaster. And what they saw was, what we saw is once everybody's under the same roof, nobody cares. They might stay in separate spots.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: You know, the guys that are, you know, all chain smoking or hanging out over by the service bay talking bikes with the mechanics and the newer guys are in the, you know, looking at the clothing, accessories.

Speaker B: But it was an equalizer.

Speaker A: Everybody got along. And that flood of money, uh, um, what we call it, white collar writers that were, they were totally new to the bike industry.

Speaker B: Yeah. So we were saying they weren't riders.

Speaker A: Really unique in that. Uh, very fun to watch. But what also started happening was it was getting confusing to the uh, the haters and the naysayers. So these guys came by on Harley's the kind of, all kind of clean cut and that and that was a problem for you or. Or they would, you know, show up at a rally somewhere. And I said, who are these guys? And I'd say, well, you know, pick out the roughest looking dude you can find and ask him what he does for a living. I guarantee you'll be surprised. I'm a junior high art teacher.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Wait, what? I thought you were, you know, a trade killer. That guy over there, he's a CEO of Visa. Uh, that dude over there, the beer cyclist. That's Neil Diamond. The Neil Diamond? You didn't recognize it because you didn't expect him to be here. He's here, and lots of people like that. Why nobody's bothering him.

Speaker B: That became kind of the cool thing, you know, like the Sturgis and.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: And the celebrities riding around. Yeah. And, uh, you know, it was probably after this whole phase, but that Wild Hogs movie.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: Those guys getting on their bikes, going on an adventure.

Speaker A: This was all stuff, Eric, that I could. That people working to hear everybody back in Milwaukee or the other big factory in New York is scratch your heads. Like. Like the Wild Hogs. Like. Like there's no way this is happening.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, but all it did was benefit the home team. So I was like, we're like, wow, we're the kind of beneficiary of all this love that's out there.

Speaker B: And the nerds got accepted.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: The nerds got accepted into the community by the tough guys. And.

Speaker A: And what I said, when you are there and you pull up on a bike, you show up at an event somewhere to Sturgis Bike Rally at a dealer event. Uh, at Arizona Bike Week, there's not going to be a single rider there that's going to ask you what you do for a living. Hey, where you from? Where'd you ride? Hey, how you liking that? You know, new street glider. Talking about the bike, where you're from, what you're riding, what you like, who's your dealer, how fat's your wallet, what do you do? And, you know, they don't care. It's just people out having fun together, and that means a lot.

Speaker B: And, and everybody kind of dresses to the middle.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: As you know, it's like the, the. The. The billionaires dress down. That's.

Speaker A: That's a excellent way of putting that. And that's also a really good observation.

Speaker B: You know what I mean?

Speaker A: Observation. Because everybody. The, the, the. The.

Speaker B: They all kind of. There's a kind of a Harley uniform.

Speaker A: The strange paradox of camaraderie and individuality.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Very aware of it. Because it's intentional. It's. Yes. We want that feeling of, I don't want to say sameness, but that mutual, uh, community. We look like we're part of the community, but we also know that it's important for you to be able to stand out and be different. So you're going to express yourself without

Speaker B: a patch or something.

Speaker A: The patches on the clothing, different colored clothing. Uh, all the accessorizing that you're putting on your bike to make sure it doesn't look like anybody else's.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So you're standing out while blending him.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I. That. It's like, uh, I had a similar experience. I went to Sundance Film Festival. Yeah.

Speaker A: Once.

Speaker B: Uh, and. And there's movie stars next to directors, next to people, fans. And they're all dressed up like in a ski town.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because it's cold. And everybody dressed to the middle. So. And everybody was like, you're.

Speaker A: You're standing next to.

Speaker B: You're standing next to a, uh, an actor, an actress, and it's like, oh, oh, uh, hi.

Speaker A: Now we're.

Speaker B: They don't know who you are, and. Because nobody knows who everybody is.

Speaker A: How great is that?

Speaker B: Everybody's nice. You might be talking to a big producer and you don't even know it. Uh, so you better be nice.

Speaker A: I would do that like Sturgis. Right. So be some old women standing by the door. And I'd be standing there talking with Neil diamond, and then he. He'd walk away. I go, hey, that was Neil Diamond. They go, wait, what? What? See?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Didn't expect to see him here, did you?

Speaker B: Probably don't even know for somebody's first one, but if they were there three times, they already knew.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah. But it.

Speaker B: They probably heard stories coming in that they were going to see people like that.

Speaker A: And, but also the guys like that, the celebrities knew that they could come into this world and. And they're never going to not be recognized.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Especially the really, like Schwarzenegger.

Speaker B: But they won't be mob.

Speaker A: Every Jay Leno shows up. Everybody knows them. But there's that kind of, hey, you're here for the same reasons that. That we are. So it's. It's cool. We're not going to swarm you and jump all over you.

Speaker B: Well, let me. Let me transition a bit. So, um, this is all great. I love it. Uh, I. I like the visual words. Very, very important. Uh, and most people, they. They stay in the commodity language. Um, and we're just going to do

Speaker A: that better they do it to you, do it to yourself. It's that it's self defeating behavior. And uh, I, I use people in real estate as an example because I've been to a lot of real estate companies or a lot of big realtor meetings and over, you know, coffee or something, I'll ask somebody like well describe yourself, tell me about yourself. And they'll immediately lapse into their memorized elevator speech. I've been a proud member of the community for 17 and uh, I, I just go okay, who are you? But who like what from that was I going to remember? So when my neighbor asked for a realtor, I said well this person has 17 years of experience and they, that you can't. And you described yourself the same way every other realtor in this meeting would describe themselves as you've got this chance.

Speaker B: The purple cow type of a thing,

Speaker A: uh, sticking out what, what I telephone

Speaker B: or standing for something more than sticking.

Speaker A: I do something for fun sometimes. I'll say, look, if I could guarantee that tonight at 7 o', clock, 100% of the human race or 100% of the people in your market, whoever it is, are going to be listening to their radio. Mhm. 100% to hear you take 15 seconds to describe who you are, what you do, who you do it for and why people should prefer you over everybody else. You've got 15 seconds. This is your shot at the big time. What are you going to say? Give you, I'll give you like three or four minutes to write. Oh, we need more time. No, I want you to, I, I want kind of, I want to know what's on the top of your brain. Everybody will immediately lapse into the she

Speaker B: said, you know, same old.

Speaker A: A team oriented, quality focus, customer centric. And I say that's what he wanted to say. So what would have happened if you first thought on okay, what do I want these people to remember about me? What's going to be unique, distinct, uh hm. Meaningful, memorable, like you can use any language you want. You could make up any words that you want. Mhm. As long you say it, say it over and over and over, then that becomes you. And that's your, the, the signature line on your emails has that language below that best, best looking realtor in whatever, best looking plumber and whatever. Who's going to forget that?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Even if you're not the best looking. So what they know you're just messing. Uh, anybody can do this. And it, what it does is it, it kind of plants a seed in people's mind. So, you know what I do need to think more about? How do I want to be remembered?

Speaker B: Yeah. Ah.

Speaker A: Uh, and I. I tell people everywhere I go, I said, on the front of your phone, on the back of your phone, on the front of your laptop, put the letters R and R real big. Uh, what's that for? And I said, because when somebody calls me, I said, all right. And I see who they are in the call already, I'm about to talk. Somebody I know, somebody maybe, I don't know. This is going to be somebody who's going to build my reputation. This is going to be the person that's sitting next to that guy in the plane that we talked about earlier. And when my name comes up, uh, what do I want that person to say? So the R and R stands for remember and repeat. What do I want this person to remember about me and tell somebody else about repeat. Because. Yep, it's not your job, although everybody thinks it is, to answer questions and send people on their way. There's somebody call, and they want to know when the meeting is, uh, or if I got the proposal or if I've signed it or if I have any questions or they've got a question. And as soon as I can answer that person's question and get them off the phone, that's a victory for me. And I say, that's a complete zero. And you give people what they expect or what they came for, they don't remember because it's what they expected, it's what they're paying for. That's. Woody, how much enthusiasm is coming through the line if it's on the phone? How much of that of your kind of magic vernacular is. Is coming through? Because that's. You're on stage and the spotlight's pointing right at you.

Speaker B: I, like, remember and repeat. The, uh, you know, what I call it in. In my world is to create a verbal commercial.

Speaker A: There you go.

Speaker B: Um, Yep, that. And. And you'll know that you've succeeded when

Speaker A: you start here, start hearing it back,

Speaker B: and you start hearing it away from you. And it. Oh, I. There's my little verbal commercials.

Speaker A: So people from, like, the investment communities, because we talked about this all the time with them and we spent a lot of time with them. How do you know? Because they always go, why aren't other businesses doing this? And kind of think, like, like, I want to learn more about this. Uh, how do you know when it's working? And I suggest, go out and talk to. There's 10 writers standing over there. Looking at that display to start a conversation with them and see how long you get in the conversation before you hear this language that we're using that we're not going to measure it with charts in data. We just know it when we're hearing it. And ears perk up. And that was what also we would always tell our dealers and their salespeople is when you hear them, they're going to talk about you when they're talking about you, using the language that you want them using to describe you. Not just what we do as a business, but you personally. You know, the needles moving you. They've noticed and reacted to the effort that you made to stand out and be.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And be different and to put that human face on the business.

Speaker B: So do you consult today?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Is that what you do? Mostly. Let me look. I got a couple books here.

Speaker A: 1.

Speaker B: I don't have it here. Um, Want to start with why?

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I've seen that one. Which is, you know, everybody knows that.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's very similar, what you're talking about. The other one was, um, Unreasonable Hospitality.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You heard of that book?

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Will Guidera. He had that, um, he would. He had. He was in the top 50 restaurants, uh, in the world, um, but came in 50th out of the top 50. And the only thing he did was change the hospitality, the user experience. He went to number one.

Speaker A: It. It. Which gets to the. You're known for who you are versus what you do. As I always tell people when you're recommending a restaurant, uh, hey, how'd things go at that, uh, that steak joint two weeks ago? The guy immediately. I can't really remember what I ate right. But I remember they did a great job. Their service was awesome. My server was. They've got the best bartenders there is. What specifically? What did you eat that day?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: What, uh, you have is your appetite. I don't. I can't really remember. Nobody does. You never remember the product. You remember the attitude and everything that happens around it. And if you don't, you don't have that preference. Uh, you have a hard time going back. For the Lord, the great foods are given. You paid for that.

Speaker B: That. Right.

Speaker A: You expected it.

Speaker B: So your book is Make Some Noise.

Speaker A: Make Some Noise. The Unconventional Road to Dominance.

Speaker B: That make some Noise. And I'm sure you can get that on Amazon every place else. And we'll put all of your contact information in the notes. But, um, since you're here.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Give me some free consulting.

Speaker A: Sure, man.

Speaker B: So just in General, let's say I have a product that is, has um, a similar situation as yours.

Speaker A: Uh,

Speaker B: walk me through how you would consult. Or let's say I have a client and that client has, does very, very good, has a commodity type product. Everything's a commodity against, uh, other bland, you know, generalized, uh, generic descriptions, you know, health and wellness, stuff like that.

Speaker A: That um,

Speaker B: I'm guessing you'd start with, with uh, the vid coming up with the visual words to figure out who you are.

Speaker A: What, what, what I typically do. Especially if it's like a one on one type situation like that. I said, all right, I'm, I'm a customer. What do you want me to know? And I don't go beyond that. Yeah, look, and they'll start and they'll give me the, the product breakdown of the feature benefit products. And what I really love about this product is it, you know, allows you to do this, this, this and this. And then when they're done I say, okay, now if I went out and asked a hundred people right now who own and use this product to describe it, you think that's the way they would describe it? Yeah, they would. I'm tell you right now that they don't. Your, your focus on excellence and your focus on quality, quality and um, and solubility and, or whatever those magic words are, that's not the way people talk. So we immediately need to think, okay, remember we're, we're humans doing business with other humans. We're not machines. We don't assume that Everybody has a PhD in engineering and science. Uh, so do it again, tell me what we have here and they'll always lapse into product talk. And I say, okay, so what we

Speaker B: want to do, or, or sometimes it's visionary, uh, aspirational vision, you know, we plan to become the number one XYZ company in the world.

Speaker A: And, and, and what I would always tell people is say especially if you're meeting me for the first time. I see the first mistake you make is you're trying to be interesting is I will react faster and better to you and remember you if you are interested. So if you are making me the focal point, if you are making me the, the point of interest in the point of the discussion as the opener, first of all, I'm going to be way more likely to listen to the sales pitch afterward, but I'm going to immediately notice that this is different. You're going to gather tremendous intel about me.

Speaker B: Hm.

Speaker A: The all human beings have one favorite topic of discussion and it's themselves.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: And the faster we get people talking about themselves, the more faster they begin to like us. But what I always tell people is don't just do what. How was your weekend? Oh, it was great. Okay, I'm glad to hear that man, because mine sucked. And then go into the. Remember we want to elevate this person, make it feel like that. Uh, right now all my effort is focused on tell me about you. And every time that person gives you a nugget of information is. You react to it like it's fascinating. Mhm. Oh man. Dude, that's. You did uh, tell me more. What was that like? And someone's interested in me. And as long as you are reacting and if you're really good. Right. Writing down, just jiggling a few notes because if they see your pencil moving, all they're thinking is oh, I'm throwing up some real nuggets m of awesomeness here. I'm m going to keep my lips moving one. Uh, and the more my lips are moving, the, the more I'm liking.

Speaker B: And you're doing that with your like your, your primary avatar.

Speaker A: You're doing well the customer. You're doing it if you're a trade show. You're doing it if you're standing in front of somebody on a sales floor in a meeting somewhere. Any is when we, when we lead with humanity first. Instead of that this crazy notion that's kind of drilled into people that nobody's got any time. We, we gotta get straight to the pitch. Get, get that signature on paper as quickly as possible. That's. You're commoditizing the business that way is I can buy. There's nothing, Eric, that you could sell me in my mind that I can't get from somebody else somewhere else for less money.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Because that's, that's my life.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Whether I'm buying a TV or coffee mug, carpeting supplements, that's, that's the way I viewed. Because we all view the world out. Because that's revealed itself to us that way. Everybody's good at what they do. All the products are good. So get the one that's on, on sale. When you lead in that uh, and approach the customer in that kind of expected, you know, worn, uh, out approach the customers immediately thinking all right, I just want to know what this costs. Because if it's cheap, if it's not cheaper than the other guys, you've, you've already, you've already lost me. And, and people say all the time you know I'm selling something that's not sexy. You know, I'm not selling this cool motorcycle. That Evil Knievel was jumping over the the fountains in front of Caesar's Palestine. I'm selling back end software. I'm selling dental floss. It's never make it about the product. We don't talk about dental product.

Speaker B: Never make it about the product. You make it about the.

Speaker A: It comes down to people is when, when we lead with that. Uh, and because we're showing such an active interest in someone, that person begins to like us as soon as we've got them. When they like us.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: I've got you when you like me. Because now you don't. Because now it's like I don't need to shop around anymore. I like this.

Speaker B: I.

Speaker A: Because I like you. I trust you. Uh, and you're selling, you know, stuff that looks really similar to whatever everybody else is. I might as well buy from you because you were so nice and kind and polite to me.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And my God, how people push back on that.

Speaker B: Really.

Speaker A: Oh my God. And I'll say what I love to do. And you live in a great town to do this in Las Vegas where there's a lot of like industry trade shows.

Speaker B: Tons.

Speaker A: And everybody goes to every industry has their shows. And I said I can, if there was a catwalk or a place where we can kind of get up and look down on the, the floor where all the booths are and all the sellings happening and all the sexy new stuff. And uh, I can show you in five minutes everybody who's failing and failing miserably. I said, I said we'll go up and I'll say, you see all the boost down there where people are sitting down? Yeah. Let's watch for a while. Not a single human being will approach them.

Speaker B: Why?

Speaker A: Because they look like they're on break. Break. They look like they're. Or they're. God forbid.

Speaker B: They're sitting.

Speaker A: They're staring at their phones. When did you ever approach someone in your life that was like rest, you know, unless the building's on fire, I'll go bother somebody. I'm going to talk to these guys. They're talking behind the booth. Versus these guys could be selling a cure for cancer at that booth. But you don't approach because you pick up on the human cues. You look bored. Therefore whatever this business is is boring. Just got the message. Next. I'm moving on to the next one just based on the behavior of one

Speaker B: or two as you're Describing that. I'm. I'm imagining a Harley setup.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker B: And everybody who had ever thought or did own one, uh, is probably in there telling stories, hanging out.

Speaker A: Yeah. And get close. You get somebody that. That hit in the arm. Get that done. Hey, man. Ah, that armor, whatever it is, you think, well, that. Does that really resonate? I guarantee it resonates because we're. We're human. They like me here. They don't like me at the drugstore. They don't recognize me. I'm part of this group, but they like me here. I got. I've got a home here. Pow.

Speaker B: Because all you got to do is walk in and say, I have one of, you know, XYZ of your. Of your products.

Speaker A: But if you went into a Harley dealership and the person. Thanks for coming in today. Can I help you? How many times in your life have you heard that. Hey, man, grab a cup of coffee, donuts over there. Make yourself at home. Well, hey, that's. I like, hey, this is cool. This is. Nobody's shoving stuff down my throat here. I like this. I'm gonna linger. I'm gonna ask questions. Now we have an opportunity to have a discussion with each other. What your weekends are like, what your families are like. And, um, you know, you learn from the guy pretty good quickly, that he's 36 years old, he's got seven kids. He's not going to have a whole lot of time in this.

Speaker B: How many clients have you guided through this process?

Speaker A: Oh, geez. Hundreds.

Speaker B: So, and, and if you had to average them all out, how many would just. You weren't able to help them because they. They refused to. To pivot.

Speaker A: Uh, realistically and truthfully, probably half.

Speaker B: Yeah, I would have just picked that out.

Speaker A: And here's what will happen. I. I will get the. The calls from m. Uh, I don't know, somebody marketing or HR or a CEO. They could be. How to, you know, can you come back? Uh, because, you know, the ball is not moving or. New guys in charge, new gals in charge. And they're all about, there's a blocker

Speaker B: in the building that's stopping it.

Speaker A: Efficiency over everything else is. The only way that we're going to get more profitable is doing what we do faster, better, cheaper, uh, kaboom. Uh, and your market cares about that? Your customer? No, but that's. That's what the leaders being measured on by the board or whatever. And also. And let me guess, they don't want to hear this. Yeah, soft stuff. So then they're happy with that, with the lower.

Speaker B: I spoke with a company, a client, uh, prospect client last, last week, which is, um, about 2 billion dollar a year company. And we really need to do this. We really need to do that. You know, since Pandemic, we've had a little bit of a lull and we need to turn it around. Everybody's highly motivated. I said, fine, um, is there alignment with ownership? They went, well, I. Until there's alignment with ownership. And I'm happy to be part of that conversation. I can't help you that I won't even walk in the door.

Speaker A: I'm glad to hear you say that because. And I, I mentioned in my book, it's probably every speech I've ever done that anybody who works for a living models the behavior of the people running the business. We can't not do that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: All behavior is learned. And if you want to succeed, you want to kind of model what the. In your mind, the successful people.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Say and do. So if a business is going to have a fundamental change in mindset and in behavior, it absolutely cannot happen without 100% visible, enthusiastic participation in cheerleading.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: By people running the business. It comes back to that tiering club. And this is what we do here. This is our, the expected behavior here.

Speaker B: The other thing that I, I run into, and I'm sure you do too, is they say they have alignment until you start to implement something. And one influential, uh, person contacts one of the, the owners and says, I don't like what's happening right now.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, which it's been the first 15 minutes. And that owner just panics because they got that call or from that key shareholder or whatever. And then you're like, uh, ah, you know, let's, let's kind of do this, but let's not all the way do this. We got to make sure that this person happy. And if that happens, you're dead.

Speaker A: I was coming that does agricultural chemicals. And I think, well, gee, how exciting is that? Well, it's a, first of all, a massive business, as you can imagine. Well, how, how does that business work? Well, typically the, the farmers or the farm owners or the corporate farmers will call us and then we arrange, have the product, the, the smaller guys come and pick it up themselves. Uh, or we deliver it. All right, what would happen is if you, not the guys that are working for in the warehouse, you, the person that's running this business, got in the truck with the delivery guys and spent a week, a month just going and talking to Coach. Show me your business. Show me the Barnes. Show me, show me the equipment. What's the biggest problem that you have here? As. Dude, you are doing such an amazing job here. Wow. If the whole world worked as hard as you do, you know, all this, if you're like reinforcing that, they're not going to go buy from some. That's. It couldn't be a more commoditized business. But now they like it because why? Because they're hoping you come back.

Speaker B: Uh, they could brag to their friends that the president of XYZ company came to my farm and wanted to know what I thought.

Speaker A: And he showed me two other things that I, you know, could or should be. You know, whatever, whatever that is. It's. You're not going to, uh. Sitting in your office, that's not going to happen.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, trusting that you're, that the. Everyone below you is doing that the way you would want it done. Delivery people tend to just make a delivery. They're entering the sanctum, they're under their roof. They've got an opportunity to have so much influence here for partners.

Speaker B: Uh, lemonade.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: You know, uh, on the porch. The, the. A lot of executives are resist resistant to that because they're completely overwhelmed and they're, you know, committing death by meeting. And they're just like sitting in 14 meetings a day and they're like, they can't even conceive of the business running without them sitting in all those meetings.

Speaker A: The real problem with a lot of people, uh, and I'm seeing more and more of this and it makes sense if you think about it in our data driven world. As I say, if I can't chart, measure and graph this, how do I justify it? And you can't chart. Maybe somebody is smart to figure out a way to, to determine the level and the quality and the sincerity and empathy of, you know, your employees when they're talking with customers. Potentially really, really hard to do. But when you look at your selling costs going down, when you look at repeat purchase going up, you uh, can point that at nothing and say that's just happenstance. Or say no, we know why this is happening because these guys will shop and buy from somebody different every year. Now they're coming to us every quarter.

Speaker B: Powell.

Speaker A: All right, clearly we're doing something here that's working. Keep your foot on the gas. Keep this, keep it going. Because we also know the inverse happens is somebody new comes in that all that effort stops. Well now the there I'm loyal to people.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And if the people Are, uh, making me feel like I'm welcome or worth a million. I'll go find somebody else.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Or I'll just go back to shopping on price and be happy with whatever I buy.

Speaker B: So let me ask this. So, uh, of the clients, you have part of your clients that just can't get there in alignment. Some of them might start, and then you get a blocker or executive gets cold feet, backs out from the transition, uh, back into the commodity business of the ones that buy in. How long does it take to shift a culture like this?

Speaker A: Well, first of all, how long did it take? It's actually pretty remarkable that we started the, what I call the cultural evolution that was this move away from glorification product to glorifying of people and being a lifestyle brand and being a source of delight. We started that in 1986. 1980.

Speaker B: Say that again, slower.

Speaker A: Which part?

Speaker B: We transitioned from.

Speaker A: Oh, we transitioned from being a product first company to being people, uh, first to being a source of delight, uh, for people to, uh, showing more empathy, to putting on more human face on the business, to not lead with product, to be the lifestyle brand and bring that language to life. We started that project in earnest, began the mindset shift in 1986, which just by coincidence, I guess was the worst year in the company's history. Lost a couple hundred million dollars. It was horrible. By the end of 1989, we were completely sold out of product in every country we were competing in. Um, it, it took off and you know, success feeds on itself and fuels itself, uh, became tremendous momentum. But all this new blood, all this new energy coming in and everybody's running 100 miles an hour. I've never worked harder and like this business more and typically I've never worked hard. I, you know, I need a break. Nobody's saying that. When, when the business is rocking this, things are coming my way.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, me and the people working with me here in this dealership or this department within the company. We deserve this. We made this happen. Yes, you did, man. Congrats. Keep her going. Everyone's talking about you.

Speaker B: Right? That's what we want. Everybody talking and, and you can have something, you know, in, in the brand that you helped shift. Lifestyle, freedom, camaraderie, individuality, rebellion. All very specific, all very visceral.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, very visual words, as you said. Uh, I think that's so good. And I think people can find their equivalent, whether running teams, running companies, um, the brand of their life, their family, what they're going to be on social media, all of those things, they can come up with a similar words. Yeah.

Speaker A: I was at a big meeting for the H Vac industry.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And all these guys, and I was talking about, you know, the, like, you're. You had the best dynamic imaginable. You're in people's homes. Are you talking to the decision maker who chose to hire you over everybody else? You're under their roof. How do you take advantage of this? Oh, you know, we come in and we put the little booties on our feet so we don't make them. Yeah, that. That's part of the what you do part. But what, what, what happens when you're under that roof so that when you leave that person. I like these guys. I like this business. They were great. They did such a nice job. I didn't expect this. Uh, what do you do? And basically, we present the bill and we show them what the work was. I said, what if you presented them the bill and a bouquet of flowers at the same time? So thanks for inviting us into your home. You think that person's not going to tell? Especially if it's a woman, her other friends that that happened? Because it's just weird. It didn't expect that. How nice. Pow. Boom. You're getting the call back. How much effort did that take? Uh, the guys painting the house. Let's do it before or after photo and then the flowers. You know, thanks for letting us be part of your house. Uh, part of your household for whatever that is. If you. That sounds corny. Then don't do it. Somebody will. Somebody. Well, yeah. And see which one gets you the callbacks.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: See which one is. Is noticed, appreciated, and, uh, the first R. The draw drives everything remembered. If they don't remember and repeat, they don't remember it. It didn't happen. They don't remember it. It's because they got what they paid.

Speaker B: Repeatable. Are you remarkable? Are you quotable? Are you any of those things?

Speaker A: Just, it's. It doesn't require effort.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Yes, it does. Do people notice and react to that effort, though? Yes, they do, almost immediately. And that inspires you to just keep it going.

Speaker B: Well, Ken, I appreciate you, uh, stopping by and sharing this stuff. I'm going to be devouring your book.

Speaker A: Uh, okay.

Speaker B: I didn't get a chance to read it, uh, ahead of time, but I'm gonna go. It's unconventional.

Speaker A: Huh. Huh. It's a long one.

Speaker B: Is it good? Make some noise. I'm all about making noise. I'm all about.

Speaker A: Yes, you are.

Speaker B: Um, expand their brands. And what I. What I like about this is the whole purpose of this conversation series that we have is excellence. Yep. And what does excellence mean? And how are we going to do it? So this is a way to. To differentiate yourself from the crowd really fast. And it takes a little bit of thinking, a little bit of creativity, maybe a little trial and error.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But when you find it, you'll know it. It.

Speaker A: It's, uh. That is, you're at the end of the diving board.

Speaker B: Yeah. From the end of 1989. Those five things haven't changed.

Speaker A: No, it's still. It's all still there. So.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, and I found that in an afternoon.

Speaker A: It works. Works.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And it's, uh. People remembered it. What else do you want? And what's the thing behind me?

Speaker B: Prove them wrong.

Speaker A: Prove them wrong. Couldn't possibly be more appropriate for this discussion.

Speaker B: 100. Ken Schmidt. Thanks, man. I appreciate you stopping by and, uh, uh, I will be, uh, calling on you for advice in the future.

Speaker A: 100 tons of fun. Eric. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me.

Speaker B: It's a pleasure. So that's my conversation with Ken Schmidt. All the show notes. Notes is going to have his book, his links, uh, speaking links, all the different things if you want to be able to get a hold of Ken Schmidt. What an interesting conversation. Right. Um, if you know somebody who's interested in Harley Davidsons, send this to them. Have them listen to a little bit of the history behind it. If they're interested in business and differentiating themselves from a commodity to something truly special, any entrepreneurs, marketers, business people that you know should also listen to this. I think they get value. Okay? So forward that to them and I'll see you all next time.