You Will Break Before Your Leadership Strategy Does with Allan Cooper

Speaker A: Systematic change takes bold leadership. And I don't think we have enough of that bold leadership. As you said, you're. Let's go to this way. You're a great salesman. Oh. So they'll promote you and make you a closer and you might make a decent closer. Oh, if you make a decent closer, we'll make you a sales team leader. Or if you do that, we might make you a gist. It doesn't mean that you have the core characteristics in the makeup of the, of the character of the person of, to do that.

Speaker B: Yes. That's a completely different skill set, you know.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: All right, welcome back to another episode of you're in Charge, the podcast that helps new managers, uh, become really, really great leaders. I'm, uh, your host, Glenn Pash. I'm the CEO of PCG Digital and the Pash Group. And today we want to talk about different types of leadership, but also the pressure of leadership. You know, when you're in that chair, what does that feel like, especially as a new manager? Uh, and today I'm joined with a friend of the podc, someone who's returning again, Alan Cooper. And, um, I'm excited to have you here, Alan. Can't, uh, wait for our conversation.

Speaker A: Hey, g', day, mate. Listen, it's great to, ah, be back again that you have so much confidence to invite an Australian back.

Speaker B: As you can hear, folks, he's not, he has that accent. Um, and, but I love your perspective and that's why I want you back. So before we jump in, if you could just introduce yourself, share a little bit about your journey, talk to the audience, and then we'll dive into our topic.

Speaker A: Yeah, quick one, you know, look, I've been here in the US for 40 years. The accent is not six, uh, years of Rosetta Stone. It's Ridgy Didge Australian. Um, came in here when I was 25. Been here obviously, you know, 65 or 45 odd years. Um, started in retail, did my 15 years in that and, um, did a little bit of, uh, Well, I mean, you know, it was a transition from not wanting to be in an industry that I absolutely hated to being in industry still that I absolutely love. It's the best in the, in the country. And it was a journey that took me through sales, um, and a little bit around where we are today. I mean, to get sort of dive in a little bit there, mate, is that I was building relationships out of the service department instead of standing on the blacktop selling vehicles to people that were already customers of dealerships. Whether it was the one I was working in or others that they bought somewhere else, they were repairing cars, replacing cars, and found that I fell in love with helping people. And I think that's the key, is that you've got to be able to build relationships in this industry. And longevity of tenureship is what made my life a success here. Um, it breaks my heart when I hear that we've got a 76% turnover rate in sales. It shouldn't be with good leadership, good management, good systems, good business culture. This industry should be one where we're encouraging family members to join it versus trying to steer them away to anything but being a car salesman or a

Speaker B: lawyer, you know, I think those are. The two are a politician. I think those are down the bottom. But I think. And again, you touched on a few things that I think are really relevant to this. So before we get into the pressure of leadership, because I definitely, um, later on, I want to touch on the new organization that you're. You've started and are leading around that issue. Um, but you touched on it. You know, there's different aspects of leadership. Um, we should be encouraging people, helping people, guiding people. And so for new managers out there, someone who's coming into this, they're in it, whether they're, you know, they've, let's say from a sales perspective, they've sold for a long time, but they're new to management or even if, uh, they're younger. What are some of the things when you talk about the different types of leadership, like you just said, relationships. I know you talk a lot about these different pillars of leadership and, uh, aspects of leadership. So walk the audience through your vision of what leadership means in a practical sense.

Speaker A: Yeah, look, quite simply, I love the term servant leadership. It's been applied to me. But I also have modeled myself off of others that fall into that category. Uh, people like Steve Cannon, ex CEO of Mercedes Benz. He's an ex West Point graduate, ex CEO, uh, vice chairman for Arthur Blank and his group of companies. In the sports world, he's partners in dealerships now with Joe Agresti. This is a guy that, um, and I fell into it by circumstance, I think he fell into. Because of his background and training in that, you know, servant leadership. Um, that's. It's leaders that exist to serve their teams, not the other way around. Right, right. That's, that's the key thing here. You know, the military, you've got a group of men and women that you're leading. You lead by example. You know, and if you're a bad leader, it falls apart. And so how do we get that into the auto, um, industry? And my belief is, is that, you know, especially with technology amplifying leadership today, I mean, it wasn't around when, you know, I'm a dinosaur. I mean, I came out of a cave 40 years ago. We didn't have, we still had rotary doll phones, right? You know, Rolodexes we didn't even have, or just faxes were just kicking off. But, you know, technology today amplifies the leadership style and bad leadership scales dysfunction faster. Good leadership scales through trust and clarity and innovation, and that's about inclusion and transparency and a purpose. So if you want to lead people, what are they following? They're following an example. And mine was all about, you know, we, if we, you know, again, let's just use the dealership environment and not my vendor world. Because that's another aspect of this. When we, you know, became, well, moved into the entrepreneurial world. But at its core, it's about the community. So selling cars is relationship basis. It's also scaling to generational sales to that person, to that person's family, to their greater network, to their business network. And you, you know, I didn't finish on, um, where I came from, but 15 years remaining as a salesman, as a unicorn, and with a partner, I mean, you know, we'd sell well over a thousand cars a year. Two of us just salespeople, right? We had our model in there, people trusted us, we delivered offside, we put in a program, but we became involved with the fabric of the community, the charities around that, the schools. I mean, it's, you know, you see it in dealerships. We, we sponsor this little league, but we really dug in deep and, and picked specific charities that meant something to us. And I followed that my entire career here and with my relationships in Australia. So my, my, my big point here is everybody that's coming into the leadership world right now in a dealership is immersed in technology. They've grown up in it by. Walked into it with you back decades ago, right? So the technology scales, the behavior day, the real question is, how are you scaling as a leader through that? So, you know, there's so much disruption right now. Um, the good leaders, they go to transplant, translate the complexity into clarity for their teams. You know, it's. It used to be it was a transactional leadership basis when I was kicking off, but I moved into that relationship ecosystem, which is where we really are today. I mean, with AI kicking in here, it's the great leadership qualities that are going to drive the teams and those teams. And I got to stress this really hard here. I played a lot of rugby, I played a lot of cricket, I played team sports, I played individual sports too. But you don't build a championship team overnight. It takes a period of time. So you can't get this quick win in automotive and. But we live in this environment, mate. And think about it. How many cars you sell today, how much you sell this week, how much you sell on the weekend, how much you sell this month? Oh, you had a great. Now let's start in how much you sell today. You know, it's not consistent. Like, let's look at a year's worth of sales is, is someone like me that started selling 10 cars a month off the blacktop, did it for two months and hated it. Moved into the service department and found out through building relationships with mechanics and the service advisors and the pun. Started to sell 30 cars a month.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Purely because I built relationships with people. Cars come second, the people came first.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And that was. I looked at it that I was. And as a leader, you're not selling cars and trucks, you're selling people. People are the product. If I can win the confidence of that consumer, they might move through different brands and around. And maybe a lot of us worked in dealerships groups where we're a lot of different brands. We're lucky to they pivot. Nobody has brand loyalty the way they used to. But you've got to build a team that is centric to a period of time. Don't try and push this. We're going to get it done in a week, we're going to get it done in a month, we're going to get it done in a quarter. I looked at everything on a yearly basis and you go through pain points through that. We go through cyclical economic issues through a year. Look at all the turmoil we've had. Imagine being a brand new salesperson coming into this industry 12 months ago and what they've seen happen in the last 12 months.

Speaker B: Right, exactly.

Speaker A: It'd be hard to find, to see a clear path to, wow, I can make money in this industry because things get tipped upside down. So I go back to it. It's relationships, transactional leadership's gone. It's relationship ecosystems. It's having the transparency, it's building the trust, it's building that connectivity to your team to pull them up and replace you. Um, as the leader, I always was in the position that I wanted to have the Best group of people working for me that was smarter than me, that were more ambitious than me.

Speaker B: Well, that just makes it, that just makes a great team. I mean the best leaders are always saying I can't be great at everything. So the best leaders I've run across are hiring the people who are better at them at certain things. So that way I don't have to worry about it. I have someone who's here. Uh, let me just spin a little bit or dissect a few things that you did because you gave such a, such great information there. So someone's sitting there and they're new and they're in a position where. And they hear that lead the team and they start writing all of that down saying I gotta lead the team. I gotta be a good example of that. What I also see is there's a lack of training for those people in the industry. You know, we promote. You either have. I was talking with someone on the last episode. There seems to be a lot at the front of any position in. Since we're talking about dealerships, this is going to expand to any business as well. Um, there's a lot, entry level, new hire training, initial training, things like that. There's also training at the C level. Right. So in this case, dealer principals have an ADA school or they have 20 groups and they're out there, but someone who just moves up a level and they're a manager, they're left to figure it out on their own. So if you were talking to a, uh, group of brand new managers and you've just said to them, you know, setting the example and someone says, uh, what should I be focused on in the first? Like you said, building relationships. I just took over a team. Give me an example of what someone could do to help them build that or start to build relationships with their team.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know what, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna go off the reservation here with that a little bit.

Speaker B: That's why you're here, because you do.

Speaker A: Um, when I, um, and I, I, it's something I still learned in the deals from an Aussie guy that got me into the car industry too. It's another, another day for another topic. But he and I ended up teaming up in the fleet department back in 1987. Um, he pulled me out of the service drive. You know, you got someone selling 30, 40 cars a month. Um, that's big numbers back in 87. It's big numbers now. It's still ridiculous, isn't it, mate? 10, 10, 10 cars a month was the average 50 years ago. It's still the same today. How? Why? For everything that we're here talking about here. But so to go back to your question there, it's leadership by example. I, um, didn't sit there and wait for people to come into the dealership. I prospected, which meant I got up off my bum, I got the leather on the bottom of my shoes, grinded away on the footpath and I went and knocked on doors around town. And I maintain that it's this is that when you have face to face relationship communication like we're doing now digitally, M, your engagement is so much more. The trust level is people can look you in the color into the corner of your eyes and see the color there and go, I trust this guy or this woman, right? So I would take them and I would. If I'm going to back it up, I've got a team of three people. I'm going to tell them that we're going out for an afternoon of prospecting and I'm going to go show them how to cold call and knock on doors. It's all good and well to have Internet leads and all the different sources of business that you can get that like. But if you're talking about the fabric of your community, which is your prime marketing area around the dealership, how many people have gone and knocked on the commercial businesses around there? Uh, you're not knocking on doors in, in the residential area, but you go and knock on the doors of businesses and ask to speak to the owner and you, you have your, you know, um, I had my, my delivery speech down. You know what I did, I could order your cars delivered to your home or work. You never had to come into the dealership, you know, never wanted to see you there. Basically we do it all over the phone for you. We did that 40 years ago, mate. People are still trying to say that's what we're trying to do now, you know, that it changed. So the engagement by example is what I'm trying to say. Be brave enough to take your team and rest on your own laurels of uh, like I'm going to show you how to engage with people, right?

Speaker B: And even if you're not, you know, someone might say, well, my boss won't let me go knock on doors. But even if it stays in that room, like you're saying, whatever it is, that I'm going to sit with my team, I'm going to talk to my team and I think that what I always tell people, uh, around that is ask them questions. If I'm taking over a team, I want to sit down and said, what was good, what was bad? Where their friction, what can I help you with? But then ultimately, like you said, is whatever that job is they're doing, you should show them how you do it. If you want them to get better, help them by showing them. Just don't talk to them. Like you said, let me show you what I do. Let me show you what I did. I think that ultimately does build a better relationship because you're just not standing at the front of the room wearing your, you know, manager badge, my new shiny manager badge and telling, pointing the finger. And now I'm in charge. Do what I say. I'm a big fan of do what I do. Let me roll up right next to you. So we're elbow to elbow in the day to day sort of fight of the day. I think that that really endears the new team members to this new leader.

Speaker A: Yeah, look, mate, it's uh, you gotta show them that for every win there's a lot of failures.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: It's a numbers game, right? Talk to 100 people, you're gonna get 20 that are interested, you're gonna get 10 that are considered buying. And you might sell three cars. So, you know, just paraphrasing numbers there, that's the same knocking on door. You're going to get people to say, take a hike, pal, not interested. Of course you'll get the people that engage. So my point there being, mate, you've got to show your team that failure, uh, failure forward, failing fast forward is part of our industry, part of our business.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Everything is not a win. I came up through an environment maybe 40 years ago where people were yelling and screaming at me saying, I'm not a salesman. If I didn't sell every person that walked on the lot, you know, it was the buff and bluster. It goes to what we'll talk about a little bit later here. But if you show them that, look, persistence pays off, rejection pays off. Get used to, get used to hearing, no, I'm not interested.

Speaker B: But learn what I like about what you said and I want everybody to hear that and just put a little pause on that. Uh, uh, and I love the phrase, I use it as well, fail forward. Right? Don't fall backwards. If you fall backwards, that means you're timid. If you're falling forward, that's because you're trying. And I love what you're saying is that failure is how we learn failure. That's what we did as children, that's how we learned how to walk, how we learned how to do everything. Riding a bike. You learned how to ride your bike. Especially when the training wheels came off. It's through cuts and scrapes and banged knees, and guess what? You got up and you tried it again. So I think that creating that environment, that failure is acceptable. Failure is part of it. And more importantly that it's when they see you fail, they fail. They're willing to fail as well.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I try to find a, uh, replacement for failing. I, uh, want to say it's just, it's rejection. You don't fail, you get rejected. I'm not ready. No, I don't want this yet. But you've built that. You've built the first thread in that fabric of connectivity to that community. Even the guy that says, take a hike, I'm not interested. I don't. Uh, again, persistence pays off is the other side of this. Right? Systematic change takes bold leadership. And I don't think we have enough of that bold leadership. As you said. Let's go to this way. You're a great salesman. Oh, so they'll promote you and make you a closer and you might make a decent closer. Oh, if you make a decent closer, we'll make you a sales team leader. If you do that, we might make you a gsa. It doesn't mean that you have the core characteristics in the makeup of the character of the person to do that.

Speaker B: Yes, that's a, uh, completely different skill set. You know, when I'm a single performer, whatever area it is, and now I do that so well that I'm recognized. And they say, great, now you're going to be in front of a team. Well, now I have to worry about other people and not just myself. I have to coach them. I have to put up with their failures or struggles or not willing to do. And that takes a completely different skill set than all I have to worry about is myself. And as long as I'm doing what it is, I can win. That takes a lot to learn. And unless somebody's there to coach you and develop you into that new role, I think we've burned a lot of good potential managers or leaders because we weren't there to help them through that initial, as you said, change that new skill set, that new friction, that new day to day that, uh, you know, when you're sitting there going, what is going on? And then the people above you are just holding you accountable for that. You're like, yeah, but I Don't know how to get the team better. Only thing I can do is try to yell at them and do what I did. And, uh, that may or may not work.

Speaker A: Look, it's like, man, I left the business in 1999, you know, I was selling a thousand cars a year just as a salesman. We had a system. We did a lot of factory orders. I never wanted to. I never wanted to sell anybody a car, mate. We built cars for them. We delivered them right from the factory to their home to their work. That became the road to advertising and marketing for us because word of mouth was so much stronger than anything paid that I could do. It's as simple as that. And look, that systematic change required bold leadership. And the dealers allowed me to do that. They trusted us. Because once you get that momentum, and let's not think that it didn't have like, oh, let's make you, uh, you know, gsm. Let's make you a gm, you know, take you down this like, no, I'm really happy selling a thousand cars a year. Working four days in the dealership. Fifth day was prospecting, which meant for me, I sold cars to the Lakers, the PGA Tour, Taco Bell headquarters, McDonnell Douglas. These are the people I went knocked on doors on, mate, that said to me, take a hike, not interested. Decades ago, that became clients.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: So, uh, you know, I think that's the other side that's really key there, Mate, for a team is that you've got to have purpose. And if you're in a, in a dealership environment, you're in a community. What's the, what's your purpose as an individual? Let's forget the dealership. Mine was education and healthy kids and the military and, you know, the organizations I became involved in and still am through that.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So purpose isn't a branding exercise. It's a leadership discipline, too. Like, I really cared about my community. How could I help kids? How could I help the better women's society? Kids without food, Feed America. I mean, there's so many you can get. If you want to be a great salesperson. What is your purpose beyond just getting a commission check and feeding yourself and building a life for your family, which is what it's all about in its basis model. But you got to get yourself woven into the fabric of the community because that drove so much for me. And then, you know, the trickle down from that, from the leadership side that you, you become part of an elite group or. And if you've got, if you're leading a team, if you can use that. If I was back there, I would lead them down that path of uh, what's your purpose? Find. Is there a charity, is there a community, is it school, is it sport, is it religion? Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. Find it and integrate it into the fabric of your sales mentality. Because elite, elite teams thrive on trust, accountability and a shared mission. If you don't have those three things, you're at sea. Because think about this. If I could walk into the dealership every single morning and it's utopia, trusting everybody around me, knowing the accountability is there to prove that I'm not going to get short shifted or redirected somewhere else, that it's there. And a shared mission. What's, what's. I'm not about, I'm not big into mission statements and things like that in all honesty. But what is the mission of the dealership? Okay, it's about making money and being profitable. It's about providing transport to the community in a personal environment, into a work environment. And the tax base is what it does for, you know, it can trickle down so far.

Speaker B: But I feel even to you what I think, uh, what I like about what I'm hearing is it's even one step beyond. Because yes, a dealer could be employing a lot of people, they generate a lot of tax for the community and things like that. But that's just table stakes because I'm growing my business. But when to your point is when I've seen examples of dealerships where they might not use their conference room all the time, so they offer their conference room to the school board to come in and have their meeting or you know, some other organization, you could have your meeting here helping um, to sponsor, you know, the sheriff department or hosting some a, ah, golf tournament and having charities there. I think to your point is that it's, I can go work anywhere, but if I'm working for an organization that is committed to helping or as you said has a mission, not something written on the wall.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: But they have a mission. They have a purpose to be part of the community, give back to community, take care of people, you know, then to your point is that becomes that shared mission. And I like those three things that you said. You know, especially around accountability, I think high performers, um, they want to be held accountable, they want to feel like they're pushing themselves and getting better or they don't want to disappoint the team. They know what that level is and they don't want to disappoint. But that idea of a shared mission, you know, makes it. So. Let me, let me now pivot to.

Speaker A: I got one more to throw in. Yeah, go ahead. Uh, you know, clarity of roles and, and the unity of purpose that equals sustained performance. If you have clarity within a dealership, if you have a great business culture within the dealership, that's gained, that drives the accountability and the trust. But, but, uh, a unity of purpose as your team or as a dealership, the sustained performance, that's a natural flow on me.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: How many dealerships have you been in where you walk in and you can feel the combative nature of the different silos in place? Or even just individual people that, um,

Speaker B: there's just no energy, there's just, very, well, we'll see how the day goes. And. Or to your point, it's a very transactional environment where everyone's more or less out for themselves and there is no shared purpose, there is no shared vision, there is no accountability, there is no culture. I mean, those are all words that people throw around. But, ah, you just get a sense of it.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's like, look, like, you know, I said the rugby, the cricket, and, you know, the individual sports, I mean, culture shows up on the scoreboard, right? If you've got a great culture in a sports team, it shows up because you play and you win as a team.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: You know, there is, as we've all heard it, there is no I in team, so. But we live in an environment, mate, where it's a team environment as a dealership, but everybody's an eye, uh, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: How many people care about how many cars the person in this booth next to you sells a year? They don't. They're only caring about what they sell. What about when you can make it as a team? And I, uh, transition here because my partner and I worked together for the last five years of my career. We were the two sales guys that teamed up and we built a business in a business and we sold thousands of cars, fleet, tail, retail, whatever you want to call it. We were the early Internet pioneers, according to J.D. power. So, uh, 1995, 96, we had three states as a territory for Dodge, Chrysler and Jeep was insane. But we worked as a team, and working two people together, all of a sudden we tripled and quadrupled what we sold because somebody was always around to pick up the slack, right? And then we did genuine flick business that we cherry flicked too, because of. Again, I didn't stop. The culture of let's go knock on doors I dragged, didn't drag newbies that came in to join us that wanted to be trained. I walked the streets with them. I told them like, here's what we're going to do. And they said, well, why don't we just send Internet lead, you know, why don't we send an email? Why don't we send. Because I said face to face, mate. No one does it anymore. No one handwrites a card anymore. So all I was going to say, mate, is that like sports culture shows up on the scoreboard in business it ends up showing up on the balance sheet.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: That's the key here. It's got to be a team environment. When a dealership gets that team environment magic down, they are rock stars. And you know those rockstar dealerships around the place that don't have a 76 day turnover rate, they have a 7 year turnover rate. So sorry, I made a segue there, mate, but I think that's important.

Speaker B: People come to them because they hear about it and uh, you know, they attract people versus flushing people out. We have people coming to them because their team is saying, you should come work for me. Like you were saying at the very beginning, you know, if the industry could do that. But there are dealerships that have figured out a way to do that in their community where people want to go and engage or want to go work, want to be a part of this because it looks like it's a great place to work and we all want to go be part of a great organization. So every day we go in, you know, those eight hours, nine hours, 10 hours, whatever you're there, you know, we're spending it with people more than we're spending it with our family. And hopefully that's a great environment that makes us better as people. And we feel like going back to your wording. We have a purpose, we have a mission, whatever that is. We have pride in our company, we have pride in our teams. I think that's a very important thing in this day and age.

Speaker A: Yeah, 100%.

Speaker B: All right. So one of the reasons you and I were talking, that's why I wanted you on the show. Because there is a new. You, uh, have always been engaged, uh, from a form of education, working with charitable organizations. You know, I've, we've known each other for a long time and then there's always something new. I'm like, oh, you have a new mission, meaning a new charitable, new thought. And I started off with, uh, the conversation today, this idea of pressure because in any business, especially Sales. But in any business, there's pressure. You know, I was having a conversation with someone and they were just starting their company, and they were like, oh, my God, this is like, it never lets up. And I was like, well, that's what happens when you're run. When your name is the top of the leaderboard, you're the one who's running it. The pressure's on you. And I think at every stage there's pressure. I could be a salesperson not having a good month, or the pressure of, I have a good month, what's going to happen next month? And, you know, I'm running a team, whatever. And I think from a male perspective, um, you know, and I'll let you have the floor in a minute to talk about this organization is that men, especially in business, don't talk about a lot of the pressure. And we don't talk a lot about, you know, our doubt or our feelings. Uh, you know, we just have to suck it up and come in the next day and, you know, and if you show that weakness and maybe you talk, you know, complain with your friends over a beer somewhere, but for reality is, it's. There's a lot of men out there that should learn how to do this, but there's really no place to go. So I'm sort of teeing you up because I really love this organization that you're starting, and I think it's. It's really, really important, and I'm really happy for you. So I really want to sort of give you the stage to be able to share what you're doing.

Speaker A: Yeah, thanks, mate. Look, and, you know, so what Glenn is referring to is that, um, men in automotive, um. It's not what it sounds like. You know, we know that our industry runs on the Prado Principle. 80, 20, 80% men, 20% women, um, as much as I'm the Aussie and that, you know, we could jokingly say, oh, yeah, you know, we go wrestle crocodiles and swim with sharks and jump on kangaroos and time down this macho image that men typically have, um, or have of themselves or people but have believed that they should have. Um, again, that's an age thing. I mean, you know, I was born late 59, so I'm a boomer. Fellas and ladies, Um, I grew up in that era where you don't cry, you don't show emotion. Uh, oh, well, as the Australian, anyway, you know, you, you play your footy, you play your cricket, you take your bad hard knocks, you just, you get on with it you fail forward, as we were saying, was the way at which is. Is not right. You know, uh, doesn't matter it's a male or a female brain. It takes a toll.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And some of us are more predetermined to that than others. Part of mine, I suffer from depression, uh, big time. Um, and I hit it for decades and whether. And I know part of that for me. Guys, uh, ladies, I'm just talking to you though, aren't I mate?

Speaker B: At the moment.

Speaker A: But I know it's a wider industry, but, um, mine's a lot of head knocks. You know, seven knockouts playing rugby and cricket. I got no idea how many concussions, so that's a contributing factor to the depression. But I sold cars and was really successful doing it. I started in partnership a couple of companies. We started Auto Town, which was the first CRM in automotive. We started Call Command, which became One Command. I took other companies, Call Call Source to Australia, built businesses, travel the world and everything else. But through all of that, I suffered to the point that got really, really bad. Um, I just get down. I, I had an attempt on My Life, 2019. It was so bad. Um, I felt the pressure and hopelessness. I didn't feel the pressure. I shouldn't take say that wasn't pressure for that. It was the hopelessness. This cloak of darkness, this sense of. It's just I can't break out of this. And that was a. They used to say it's a chemical imbalance. It's, it's, it's actually chemical blockage, as they now know, serotonin, all the different brain, um, chemistry gets blocked, doesn't move. That took me there. But if I go back to and what I've seen and why I've started this is that I've lost so many friends in the industry to mental health and wellness issues. Number of suicides. One just recently. VP of marketing, LA dealership. Head of digital. Young wife, two young kids. And he decided he just couldn't take it anymore. But nobody knew, nobody talked about it. So this is me hopefully breaking that ice to people that I have nothing to lose anymore. I know I battled through this. I recognize what my issues. I know how to handle it as best I can. It's just like a, um, it's never going to go away. But I just got to manage it and know that the issues are there. The pressure that we have in the dealership environment, when I went back to it, I don't know if that was a catalyst that triggered maybe some of this my first. I used to get dropped off at the dealership. I didn't have a car when I landed here. I had one bag and a few thousand bucks in a, in a bank account to travel the world and decided to stay. Got in the car industry, um, worked till 3 o' clock in the morning a lot. I mean we were bell to bells when bells didn't go off until the

Speaker B: dealership, until the lights came. Oh yeah, right, right, yeah.

Speaker A: Back in the day. Right. Um, and you're again the pressure from m. The people above you that necessarily don't have great training or great expertise or great education in management of people, um, and the sensibilities of what is good leadership. So I suffered through it and I suffered through it even in the companies that I was a founder of with my partners that didn't recognize it and I hid it. So I want to be that change. And it's not just uh, a segue here. Men and automate, there's so many men. I mean since I did this a month ago and launched it, I've been inundated with calls and texts and emails from different people sharing that, that trust me, that know me. I mean that's the, you know, that goes back to the dealership days. How do you trust somebody? I ah, like I said Clayne, I got nothing to lose here.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I'm not in fear now. When I had one command call command and auto town, I would never have come out about this.

Speaker B: Oh no. Because of that and the fear of well, that person can't handle it when we have to make a change. And I think hopefully we've gotten better and I think things like this podcast and other training out there, we're trying to become better leaders. We're trying to be versus just as you said, transactional going back or people above you. Uh, listen, we're similar age where you just did what you were told and didn't care about your feelings. Just get it done and see. You know there was always that frustration and now hopefully we're having a new era of men and women but focusing on men here where they are open to talk about it but there still is a stigma around it. But also now you giving them like you talked about aa. So we now know we have a valve. If I'm struggling with substance, I know where I could go when I'm ready. But when you're in this situation, I could feel that. But there isn't any place for me to go that I know of that also understands the industry. You what you're trying to provide is this, you know, this, uh, again, group of people, an area of people where it's okay, like we've all been, you know, and being able to talk about in order to have an outlet to be able to have people come and talk so that they don't end up, like you said, that person you just described, who I'm sure most people are like, I didn't know. I never saw it. And it's more shocking. And so I'm really, uh. This is really admirable what you're doing. It's all good, man. It's all good.

Speaker A: Yeah. No, it's funny. The flashbacks come, you know, um, around that. And I think that's where it feels so good. This. So living with purpose. This is my purpose.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Right now, is to how do I help my fellow people in the industry? And it's men and women. You know, one of the things that, uh, I'll step into there, um, is I was always heavily involved with women in automotive. I was working at speaker back in the day. Jody Devere started that off to Ask Patty and transferred through, you know, the different levels of ownership that it's got. And everyone's great and has an admirable purpose in life with what they're doing to help people grow in this industry. We're trying to lift the industry no matter where it is with people like us. Um, the. My purpose here through Men and Automotive is to create a safe haven. Absolutely. It's a. It's a catalyst right now. It's a spark. I'm getting a lot of advice and a lot of people contact me about ways they'd like to help or suggestions of what they'd like to see it become. Um, I, you know, I've owned the URL man in Automotive for a long time, and it was never going to be about a men's conference or Men's Focus or anything like that, or a men's club. I have. I've had people team to this day without even going into the site. You know, if they don't go to Men in Automotive and look at it and read through it and go see what it is right now. And that's just the first take. Thank goodness for AI we can come to that. I couldn't. I hardly put a PowerPoint together or Excel spreadsheet in 30 years in business. I always had people that did it for me.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: I went to AI and I built a website and an Apple. Um, and. But it captured the essence of what is going on here, but no, to be a safe haven for people to come to chat, talk. Look, I've had people, I've just, they called me and just said, can I just talk? And you not say anything. I went, of course, in complete confidence. I'll never say who it is and no one will ever guess. There's a CEO in this country that runs a major OEM that suffers.

Speaker B: Yeah, there's so many people that suffer. But now to, for you to be able to help, provide an outlet where someone can call or as you said, eventually a network of people that can just. And I think you just said it best is that there's a place that I can talk and someone's going to listen. They're not going to try and fix me, they're not going to judge me. And I think that's what they need because again, sometimes people, it's therapy is one thing. Uh, and I go to therapy, I, uh, have a therapist. And I think there's value, but there's also difference. That's great because they can be objective. But when you're also talking to someone that understands the industry, understands the environment, understands the challenges, I think that also is a valuable resource for people as well. So I think, I think what you're doing is great.

Speaker A: We have to. And I, uh, do this, we're going to create greater awareness, we're going to create acceptance that mental health, mental illness, mental wellness, that all relates to a disease just like cancer, it just happens to be something called depression that no one's understood. There's, you know, the science office is psychiatry and doctors and psychology and therapy. I've still got mine, you know, and without it, I wouldn't be where I am right now because I trusted. Here's the deal. I'm that macho guy. Like, I'm never going to talk to a psychiatrist. And why I'm not. Why do I need a psychologist? What do I. I can figure this stuff out myself. Um, and until you, I wouldn't trust. I wouldn't trust my mates to tell them. I wasn't going to let them know that Coop, the guy that was, you know, hard ass on a rugby field or a fast cricket bowler or anything else had problems. Um, but then the moment I did, and I'll get. I'm going to shout out to a couple of people, and you're one of them, mate, because I told you later, you've known for years about this.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: And as I, as you find out, you've got to have the trust. So people I Told like you,

Speaker B: it

Speaker A: wasn't shared around, it wasn't discussed, but you became an outlet, you became a resource, you became a sounding board. You became a safe haven for me to speak about the issues. Like, you know, it's so easy. Like I did. I tried to bottle up the emotions before and eventually got to me. So through that. But, you know, I. Charlie Vogelheim's a bit of a legend in our industry, going back to Kelly Blue Book days when he was the editor. Met him in 1986. He should, he should be called one of the pioneers of the Internet. He was the guy that pushed Kelly blue book onto CD ROMs and wanted to take him onto the Internet. You know, couldn't move the company quick enough, uh, for his liking, um, or mine. Um, but I told him 15 years ago and, uh, he just, he embraced me, I mean, embraced me as a person, that this wasn't a major issue, although it was a major issue, um, and checked in on me and we've, you know, we're best of mates. David Kane was another one that came along and spoke to about it. You as a third, um, in there, Steve Cannon. As for, So I, you know, my, I've got my network of mates. Um, you know, sadly, shout out to mate of mine. Australia, CEO, three degrees, um, scientist, mba. He and I played too much rugby. He took twice as many hits to the head and now he doesn't suffer from depression, but he suffers from tbi. So I've got tbi. He's got tbi. We hope it's not CTE in a few years, but again, he's somebody that clicks in his mind, like, oh, I better check in on Cooper. I haven't heard from him for a while. That's all I'm going to say to some of everybody in the audience there is, like, you never know what someone's going through, so be kind. But also, if you think something's not right or just, just being inquisitive, check in on your friends and your friends is your network. I mean, I, I, My best mate, my old partner, I, you know, he's still selling cars, God bless him. Thousand cars a month. I mean, a year. Like I said, um, that's his life, though.

Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I think that's great.

Speaker A: As a lot of us have, I mean, gone burnt through marriages, divorces, kids, depression. It's everything you talk about here. Coming back to men in automotive, the mental health side, the pressures of. You're as good as your last sale. Uh, you're as good as your Last commission check your last month. What are you going to. How do we build a safer environment for men and for women to have this as a career? That's very solid living day to day, week to week, month to month on commissions is a really hard pathway and there's nothing harder than the car industry. And doing that. It truly isn't, you know, I, you know, it's. They're small sales. You've got to get the numbers to, to make a good living. And if you don't make a good living, then you, that's what happens. People leave it. Right. So how do we as an inner. How does we as a group of people, is there a way that we can change this? That like I said, it'd be great to be able to tell my, you know, grandchildren, like, gee, currency, what a great place to go because you can have a solid lifestyle, great family environment, help your community, have fun, talk to a lot of people. You're dealing with something that is the second largest purchase for most people. Um, the largest purchase for some. Especially now. We, um, need to look after the mental health and wellness around and that takes a change. Going back to summarizing parts of what you said, the leadership, the management, the guidance, the education, where. How do we change that? We know the great dealership groups that do a wonderful job of that I've now learned. I've been asked to go and speak to a vendor Group. They got 450 salespeople. They have a mental health and wellness initiative that they just kicked off. But when they went through men in automotive, they saw it from a different, through a different lens and have asked me to go down and talk to them in more depth than what we are here. Obviously. It's so important, mate.

Speaker B: I absolutely agree and I could not be more proud of you for what you're doing. We will put all of men in automotive into the show notes. Uh, we gotta wrap up. Um, but I will.

Speaker A: One more thing, one more thing though, mate. I think just to AI, I mean to me this is something that's important with where we are with the leadership and the mental health side of it. You know, technology is becoming a leadership force multiplier if you want. Um, and it's the, that translation between technology and people and how you, that losing the human element is what everyone's talking about, right? A.I. is going to replace me.

Speaker B: A.I.

Speaker A: is going to do this. I'm, you know, it's, it's not doing that to my mind you, it's freeing people up to do higher value work. So my view on it and for anybody in the dealership environment, it's about simplifying the complexity, um, and humanizing the technology adoption. Um, and if you do all that again, then align all those tools with purpose. The best leaders don't compete with technology, they orchestrate it. And that's where we are right now. We have got to orchestrate the technology, bring it together on in alignment, simplify some of what seems to be the complexities out there, but humanize it, um, because I hear everybody talking about the change, the step away from it.

Speaker B: Right. But I think to your point is it's all about it still is a human business. We have to use that technology. Um, so like I said, I gotta wrap up. I appreciate you being here. Um, we'll put in the show notes all about men in automotive, your contact. Um, so if they want to follow you on LinkedIn, Alan Cooper, they can find you on LinkedIn. Men in automobile.

Speaker A: A double L, a N C, double

Speaker B: O, P E R. All right, all right. Um, let me just read us out. So, uh, audience, as you know, uh, I appreciate that you're here. I hope that you got a lot out of, uh, what Alan said. If you did, please share this out to your network. Please make sure you like and subscribe. We're here every single week. Our goal here is to bring you tips and strategies, as I said said earlier, to make you a better leader. I want to thank the team at Black Swallowtail Studios and PCG for engineering the episode. And as I say, at the end of every episode, you're in charge. But now Alan gave you a few more tools to help you become the leader that you want to be. Look, uh, forward to seeing you next week, Alan. I look forward to seeing you in person. And we'll grab some dinner.

Speaker A: Look forward to it. Thanks, buddy.

Speaker B: Be well.