Jason Cranswick is back on the pod. Last time we spoke it was book club stuff, but a lot’s changed since then. Jason stepped out of his C-suite role and now runs Cranswick Consulting, working as an executive coach and board advisor. In this episode we get into what that move actually looks like, what he had to learn (and qualify for), and why so many motor trade leaders struggle to let go of the day-to-day.
We talk about the real line between being a non-exec, a board advisor, and a coach. Jason explains why leaders “step onto the pitch” when pressure hits, and how that limits team development. We also cover what he sees again and again with senior managers right now: feeling isolated, chasing validation, imposter syndrome, and having no space to think. We finish on AI, generational change, and a simple way to approach new tools: treat AI like a 16-year-old intern — useful, fast, but you still check the work
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About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon’s words ‘real world’, it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visitwww.symcotraining.co.uk
Welcome to the Selling and the Motor Trade Podcast, an association with Symco Training. This is the weekly podcast where we share best practice tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department and generally put more profit into your dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett. As some of you probably already know me as Skipping. I will start with saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi, it's time for another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. And a familiar guest is back with us today. It's Jason Kranwick. Now, the last time we spoke to Jason, we were talking about book reviews. We had our book club and we kicked around lots of different ideas. But he was also the management director of Maribani. But Jason now heads up Kranwick Consulting. And I'm keen to find out Jason's journey, what he's doing now and what he's learned along the way from C-suite to consulting. Or coaching, I should say. Jason, welcome back. Skipping. Good to see you, mate. Thank you for having me on the pot as ever. I always enjoy talking with you about things. So, listen, lots have happened since you last on the podcast. Why do you tell our listeners? What have you been up to? Yeah, so earlier on this year, springtime, I took the decision to exit Maribani. I guess, to be fair, the work I've gone to do, we've done, we've done consolidated businesses, grew the business, it's an acquisition. And really, I was ready for doing the next thing. And yeah, so I guess it's less exit, but more evolution-ready, moving in from the C-suite into being a coach and business advisor consultant. So, yeah, a bit of a step. Happy to share some of the experiences. But yeah, now very firmly in the world of working with other people, helping unlock their potential. So, tell me about being an executive coach. When you've stepped away, what did you do, qualification-wise, what have you done on the coaching side of it? Yeah, so I wanted you to have the stripes. I didn't just want to go and give out unsolicited advice. So I went and did two things. Firstly, I went to Cranfield School of Management and participated in their Non-Exect Director program, which was fascinating. And really, it was good to spend time understanding what is the role of a Non-Exect. How far can you go with advisory before you step over that line of operation and executive? And it was great. So I was there with a cohort of about 25 other people from all different industries, chair of public sector, 100 businesses, and every breach trying to understand what the role of a Non-Exect is. So I'm happy to talk a little bit about that one later if you want. And then I also embarked on a personal journey of qualification with the ILM. So delighted about a month ago, I completed my journey of the ILM level seven exec coaching and mentoring qualification. I've massively underestimated what I was. I thought it was going to be a few days and a couple of essays. It was, I think it ended up writing about 20,000 words in assignments. It had to do over 40 hours of observed coaching. I think I attacked it, did it in about four months where as much people tend to take about 18 months doing alongside a day job. But as a qualification, fantastic, completely endorsed it to anybody that's thinking of wanting to move into a coaching, either full-time role like I do, or maybe even becoming a coach manager within a business. So it's a really, really interesting process. Well, can you, I was going to say for our listeners, but more for me. Non-exact director, what is the role? Okay, because you said that before, how do you make sure you don't step over into operational side of it? Now, Jason, you know me, I'm a control freak. I find it, I find it very hard not to step over into the operational role. So how do you, what does a non-exact do? And where does the line start and stop? Yeah, there is a very clear line. A non-exact director, you're still on the stat pack for the business. So like you are with an executive role, companies house know who you are, you're responsible accountable in very much the same ways as an executive director. But the purpose of it is very much to give that devil's advocate for you to make sure there's good governance within the business to maybe provide an external perspective. It's very familiar in large corporations. I've come across an ex-ex in my corporate life before. But it's something that really interesting, I think in our industry, there's a few people who would position themselves as being a non-exact, but maybe actually a more of a board advisor. A board advisor, which I do more of, doesn't feature on the stat pack for the business. So very much brought in for specialist knowledge, provides advisory services and it's then down to the business to the side whether they want to use that advice. And I've got a number of clients where I act as a board advisor. And then of course you've got the coaching role, which is what you'd recognize as someone who is providing inputs and challenging mindset to enable the performance to come from others. And I must know, I love it. It has its roots as you'll remember, Comeman. I'm still cracking on with the book. We've maybe talked about that one later, but a lot of my coaching thoughts comes from working with young people playing sport where my role isn't to step over that white line and step onto the pitch. If I see an opportunity to score a try, I can't jump in there and do it. Under nine's local rugby team, I would be morally bankrupt to do that. But my job is to make sure that the players have the skills and the skills, the awareness, the dexterity to be able to go and play. So all of those things I'm saying is all about me staying on the other side of the white line. Whereas to your point, a lot of us like to step over, take over, and that's a different place to where I am now. Is that the mud to trade though, Jason? And what do I mean by that? I'm thinking of people listening to this. It goes out to, I don't know, 6,000 primarily dealers every Thursday. That's our audio fan. When I say dealers, sorry, it's as managers, senior managers, salespeople, service advisors, and heads of businesses that generally and investors that want to listen to what's happening in our industry and want to move on. How many of those guys, I step across the line and score the try in the under nine's game for the analogy? And I struggled with that myself. I would just, it's easier for me to do it than just tell someone what to do. It happens a lot. By nature we do, we like to get a shit done, if I can say that. And we've often all come up through operational roles. In varied, we've been a really great salesperson, so we then become the great the end sales manager, the great sales managers then become head of business and very vertical progression. So it's very easy for us to just step in. And there's times where that might be appropriate, but actually it's that sort of old adage, do you give them a fish or do you teach them to fish? And my personal philosophy has always been to try and unlock the potential of others. I guess by nature I was always a coach manager as opposed to just being a manager. I think there's a massive place for being the right side of the white line, building up the skill set, tool set and mindset of the players and going through those hard yards of developing people so that they can then play and you can become more objective and strategic in your activities as the leader. But at the minute, and I've seen it from a different point of view now, with where the market is now, there's a natural tendency to step in. And also, I guess we're all running pressured environments where resources are maybe thinner than they would like to be because of cost. So the challenge is how do you keep the clearness of mind and the objectivity to remain coach? And that's where, to be fair, a lot of my work is with my clients, is giving them the space and oxygen to think differently rather than just being there, cranking the handle and operating. I suppose, and again, a question, is it the outside set of eyes? So many people you're working with, I imagine they're working in the business to use another cliche all the time, but not working on the business. Is that the advantage that you do coming in? It is, and I guess I have the benefit. I work for a portfolio of clients. I've got about eight different clients that I work with. Some of it is in person, a lot of it is online. In the exact coaching world, I'm spending time with founders, CEOs, senior leaders, and it's like this. We have, invariably, a one-hour session every few weeks to just give them the clear space to think differently. We're invited, I'll give them some input, but more often, not my job. It's 80% then, 20% me in coaching. In mentoring, it's 80% me, 20% then, where I'm imparting knowledge. My job is to help uncover, unpack, and then unblock what's going on in the business. I use a lot of different methodologies, which, to be fair, go back into my C-suite days, maybe with things I did instinctively, whereas now I haven't got through the qualification journey. I now understand the core can set an eye model or the grow model and things like that. I'm using academic models now and I've been wasn't conscious of them before. It's fun. It's play time. The clients seem to be enjoying it. I'm getting some lovely feedback from clients. What did you learn when you went through some of this? You talk about some of these academic models and stuff like that. Is there anything that really stood out that you've learned along the way that you wish you knew when you're in the other world, maybe? Yeah. I guess what I have learned is a high level of consciousness, a much more conscious now of there are models, there are methods that you can use. It is in some ways form an egg. I now know what I didn't know. That cycle of learning starts with not knowing unconscious incompetence. You don't know what I don't know. Now much more consciously, I'm providing thought and input. I've reminded myself of the fact that I enjoy helping people. That's why I've gone into coaching. That's why I didn't go and just invest in another business and remain operational with a narrow scope. I like working across a portfolio. When I look at my client base now, I only work with one dealer. The rest is non-motitrade or an auto sector. I've worked with a number of services businesses. I've worked with a very large consumer finance business. I work with some, let's call in Southeast Asian vehicle brands that are looking to grow within the UK market. I have a lease code and a very large technology business that I'm working with now. They're all wanting to sell services into or generate revenue from automotive. But actually, the vast majority of them are not dealers. I love to deal a bit because I can probably provide more instant fix there. I probably step closer to the line there than others. Whereas actually I go into a consumer finance business and I understand that their clients but I don't know their business model but what I can do is give them the space to think differently. I suppose that's interesting because I was going to say the motor trade is going through a huge change but no, the world is going through a huge change with AI. The speed things are changing and some of these AI companies, it's like for me, what skill would I want someone starting their life now? I think the skill is the skill to learn and adapt very quickly. That's the skill that people need to know, how to adapt and learn because if you're going to learn exactly how to use a chord, that's going to be replaced by something else so quickly. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you've used the word there a few times, skip a skill. The skill sets you can learn, yeah, tool sets you can buy or build. Mindset is the thing you have to adopt. And I think that's the thing here is I spend all of my time working on the mindset of my clients and senior leaders and managers within businesses. There's nothing we can't learn. There isn't anything we couldn't work to adopt in terms of tools but you've got to have the open mindset to it. And skip you, I don't mind saying, look, I'm not one man band. It's only me, Cranzer consultant is me. Yes, I've got associates that I could work with if needs be but my clients are buying my input. I run the business on an iPhone and a MacBook. That's me. I only have three assets really in the business. An iPhone and MacBook and a car. So I have to use technology to organize myself and deliver the services. So one of my clients the other day, we were looking at some work and he says, I think I really need to bring in a senior leader within the business is the challenges I need them to be able to address for me. And I spent 15, 20 minutes prompting a closed chat group that we have, chat GPT group. And 15 minutes of prompting 20 seconds later, we've got a perfect role profile that absolutely meets the needs of what he needs for his business. So I couldn't do that. I could sit there for hours and hours laboring over it, but we need it to be able to get it and move on. And it's 90% accurate for what he needs and now he can fine tune it. So things like AI are absolutely essential today. But I think it's a mindset thing, we're unblock it, go unblock the way to using these tools. Yeah. And Jason, listen, technology has changed all the time. That's like AI, for example. I mean, where is it going there? It's changing so quickly. I don't think anyone can keep up with it. And I think you really have to learn to adapt and change there. You do, but you've got to get involved. I think that's my view. It's not the only way. It's already here. It's not a thing of the future. It's a thing of now. And I remember it was very similar when I go back to the mid 2000s when the internet was starting to really influence how consumers were searching and deciding. So we've got to get involved. It can't be passive. But someone said to me one day, and I used a close group in chat GPT as a way of protecting what I do. A colleague or a friend of mine said, it's a bit like having a 16 year old intern that come up with some really great stuff. But you've got to check the work. Yeah. And it's so true that you couldn't afford to just have all your vehicle descriptions done in chat GPT because the likelihood is it will throw up some errors. 90% of it will be right. So it will help you fast track to get to that point. And likewise, if you've got customer comms, you won't want to just use chat GPT to write emails to customers. But there is a lot of other use cases of AI where it really does give you the efficiencies that you need. But just because you won't look at it, doesn't mean it's not there. Isn't so true about that. It's another employee, that 16 year old, you wouldn't just say, crack on with that and go, what? That's what you come back with. This is no good. It's a teach and train and AI. You do. But if you think about it, the 16 year old of today is the customer of tomorrow. So their perspectives will help inform our consumers will buy tomorrow. And interestingly, one of the bigger challenges I've worked with not seeing your leaders around is their ability to understand the generational divides within businesses. So number of people say, oh my God, I've got this salesperson that's here now. They're a Gen Z and they don't want to work Saturday's and they want a lot of work life balance. And in my day, what we do, the other thing is not about your day anymore, is it? No. How do you embrace the diversity of a young generation? And the last managers that aren't Gen Z are already in plan business. The next managers within our business are going to be Gen Z and the next people on the front line of our business will be Gen Alpha. Well, we think very differently to baby boomers. Yeah, Alpha. It is scary. But also, I'm at the age. I can remember this new thing called Google coming out. And it's like, no, I like to advertise an auto trader in the paper because I pick up the magazine. How many people don't even use Google anymore? Straight, chat GPT app or whatever you prefer it is using that instead of Google. So the whole thing is turning like a head. But this is the whole thing about change. I remember years ago, I was at a conference and Luca De Mayo, who some people know, who the time was global head of sales marketing for a crowd. He reminded us that never will the pace of change be this slow again. And I remember the time it was probably about 2013, he thought, wow, what a profound statement. But he had right 12 years, everything has accelerated. Yeah. Yeah. So the good news is, in the last 12 years, the people that buy cars are humans and the people sell cars largely humans. So all that change, but the core product and what we're doing of selling cars, parts and hours is still a very human centric. Yeah. We were both just at a conference two days ago and Tony Wortland said something in his panel group and it's so true. When the Japanese come in, they took about 30 years to get a foothold. But of course, you go back then, you had to wait until your neighbor had one of these things called a Toyota Corolla. What's it really like? You had to wait until you jumped in maybe a taxi or something like that and you spoke to the taxi driver. Is this Nissan or that's in the way of being back then? Is there any good? Of course, it took 30 years. The Koreans, actually, they took a lot less about 10 years to take a hold. But actually, there was more information out there. But now of course, the Chinese, the speed that they're rolling out is so quick because no one has to speak to a person to see if this BYD is any good. You absolutely just go straight online and that speeds up so quickly. So I love what Lucas had the speed of change that will never ever be as slow as this. Right now, he said that back 2013. 20th state in that was. And it's just going to keep on going and going and going. It's interesting, man. That wasn't his, he, people are at the statement from someone that said it many years prior. So yeah. Yeah. It is so true. So listen, in your role as a coach, when you're going into businesses. Yeah. And lots of different, all in automotive, but not just dealers, suppliers, I suppose what we do. What are some of the common things that you see? What did managers make the same mistakes again and again? Yeah. Some of the recurring themes and they are, they really are quite profound. I think there's a big topic of validation. I think the leaders, how do we feel validated and valued so much around them is uncertain that there's a human need to be acknowledged as to whether you're doing a good job. So that's something that seems to be recurring theme. I think the isolation at the top, I think a lot of leaders are feeling incredibly isolated. And certainly one of the things I really advocate is people just talking to each other. The number of people that you can just get a good reference point from if you just are prepared to be open. I think there's a really high level and I think we might talk about this before, but the degree of imposter syndrome seems to be quite high. That fear of being tapped on the shoulder and being told you're not the one that you've been found out. But actually I do a lot of work with leaders around imposter syndrome, which is reframing and turning it into an innocence and a curiosity rather than feeling that as an imposter you shouldn't be there so you don't ask a silly question. Well, what would be the benefit if that question was asked? Because there'll be a load of other people sat around the same table not knowing the answer either. So it's almost how do you turn the insecurity into actually a bit of a power. And I think the other one that comes through so much and a lot of my sessions and in coaching, coaching is, I say, is 80% the coaching. So the client and 20% may ask a few certain questions and invariably it's just about giving the space to think there's so much noise. Actually just having an hour to just pause, reflect, think clearly, all the right answers invariably are there. It's not often I have to come up with an answer for the coaching client. It's usually it's a fact we've been out just getting off the bus for an hour. That's really where the power is. But there's definitely a noise versus signals thing at the minute. There's a lot of noise. People are also getting clear signals. And we saw it at the event two days ago, Skip. There's a lot of people there with an open mind this time, whereas last year before they were going, I don't know if I need this. You know, I'm doing OK. So this year, people go, I tell me, I need to learn about this thing because I don't know enough. Yeah. So true. But then there's so much noise because how many every company's just put AI behind the name, OK, Pinewood AI, Symco Training AI, we should call it. You should do. And so it's actually sifting through that noise though, isn't it? And finally, but you have to be curious. You have to want to go into that. And it comes back to mindset. When I go back to mindset, there's something you said before that really triggered me, that imposter syndrome. I suppose something that's always helped me is probably being a foreigner building my business hardware around the world and not being scared to ask the silly questions. And that's one of those things being so, so curious and saying, hold on, how does that work? I can remember years ago, something with a company called Evan's All Shore before Pin Dragon got him. This is 95 now. OK, I heard about this department. I'd never heard of before called After Sales because in Australia, it was just called parts and service. America is just called fixed operations. Yeah. But I remember I could have that question. And you know what, even more recently, I was at the NADA conference and you're going to laugh at me now. But they kept on talking about these things called OEMs. Yeah. And I turned around and said, what's an OEM? Yeah. And I'll tell you, we're with a bunch of UK dealers. OK. And I promise you, someone said, I'm glad you said that. OK. I would like to ask. Someone said, I was just going to Google it. OK, because we just got the manufacturers. Do you know what, I was having lunch last week with a group of people of which couple were potential new clients. Another different of ours had sort of pulled this lunch together. And I sat all this late and she said that she went into a business, was promoted, had you know, real anxiety around being the imposter. And she sat there in first board meeting. She was in a director level and someone made the comment about EBITDA. And she sat there and went, raised her hand. And she said, sorry, I don't know what EBITDA is. So apparently the CEO of the meeting said, I'm going to just ask some of your colleagues who can tell and they will draw on that. And what was clear is that none of the new EBITDA. But they still banded around. So, you know, and I love the phrase where he said, who are the colleagues can ask? Yeah. And what we then got talking about again, you know, from a coaching point of view, is a concept called beginners mind. And if we approach things with a beginner's mind, in other words, let's accept that we might not know everything, but ask the questions, then the likelihood is you're going to learn faster and make fewer mistakes. But you've got to be prepared to make yourself uncomfortable by having that beginner's mind. And these are some of the things that are right at the beginning. I sound a bit wacky now, I suppose. But these are things that maybe, you know, in my career, either I had the benefit of people that told me these things early, or, you know, I'd almost by osmosis picked up what these things were. Yeah. But I only wish in some ways I'd asked more of these beginners mind questions early in my career, so that I didn't have to sort of fumble my way through it. And that's something I'd really encourage all of my clients to do is just have that mindset way prepared to ask the silly question, because you won't be the silliest person in the room. Is everybody learns together then? Yeah. So, so true. And again, there'll be lots of managers listening going. They've never had to deal with earnings before interest and tax and this is, but so, and I go tell you, the dar bit, I still struggle with the e-bit and the dar. Okay. So actually it's asked the question, because again, you've never had to worry about that side of the. Yeah. And then find out it's not a separate, be curious. I've got to speak curious, be curious. That is probably the best way of summarizing that here. Yeah, it is. Anything else really stands out doing the coaching there that the common themes there. Yeah, I think it is just that keeping people space just to think clearly. I talk about getting off the bus and my teams at the past will have a lot of resonate with how I used to manage those businesses. Just keeping people space to think. And just making sure that people understand that it's not only then, I suppose the final one I would say is spend a lot of time with clients getting them to just to reframe things. And looking it through the other's eyes, I've got a book here. I was going to just reference. I love it. Surrounded by idiots. It was a sentiment I often felt over the years. Yeah. But what this is, it's about having empathy for different types. So I have a lot of clients where they get frustrated that their boss might do things different to them or that they've got people that don't get them. And I just try and get them to reframe it. Or what if you try to look it through their eyes? Or would be the benefits of having some empathy for their perspective and can that help you position? And it's funny, I've got one client in particular I do a lot of work with who he was frustrated about how he's managed. And I said, no, reframe it. How are you managing them? How are you managing up? Not how is it managing down? And he had this sort of epiphany. I said, look, you've got to be able to see it through the eyes of your boss to understand where it's coming from. But then your job is to manage back upwards in a way that is then compatible. Otherwise, you're always going to end in conflict. So yeah, we aren't surrounded by the experts, we're surrounded by difference. And I think we have to sort of value that diversity. Yeah, I think you're going to go down the phrase of it's hard to saw like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys. That's not what the book refers to. I think the idea is they have a different view there. A different mindset, which is, which we actually, so listen, what's the future for trans-work consulting? Where are you looking towards? Do you know what? I'm very much in a happy place, which is good. You know, I'm fit, I'm healthy, I've got balance. I'd like to think to what I'm doing. I've got the reward I look for through the diversity. I'm enjoying, you know, picking up the new clients as they're coming. And I'm enjoying the sort of cognitive stretch for me in terms of learning different parts of our industry. I'm always open to talking to people who are wanting, you know, some level of support, whether it's executive coaching on a one on one basis, whether it's a leadership executive coaching proposition, which I have with somewhere I manage to hold or coach the whole management or leadership team. And likewise, anybody that's looking for input to, you know, projects and initiatives, I've got one client, I'm helping through an acquisition process at the minute, which is just about me giving him an extra pair of hands, a very challenging time to successfully complete transactions. So yeah, I'm open, but look, people know me well enough. If stylistically I'm warm to them, then I'm open for conversation. Love it. Listen, always enjoy our conversations. And this book, we've got to talk about this book last time. I just put some pressure on you about December, 2000 and 25 was the date. We were going to have a completed manuscript. And where are we up to? So I have a lot of people who are listening to this. So people are listening. That quiet point was me showing the, the, the, the hardback version of a manuscript. So the co-man theories as it's been called, I'm about three quarters done. I thought I was done actually about four months ago. And I guess my qualification journey with the island's helped me go back and just revisit some of the theories and hypothesis that I had built in some new sort of reference points to it. So I'm about 250 pages. I want it to probably 300 pages, I think is the target, but I'm going to rewrite maybe a quarter of it. So you are holding my feet to the fire. You set by Christmas. And I think I'll have, I'll have a working draft. I've shared snippets with close friends and family, got some feedback on it. But I think by Christmas, I'll be in a position. So okay, this is now in a working draft sufficient to now go off and see if any lunatic would actually buy it if it was published. But I refer to it every day, you know, the, the isms in it around unlocking potential, that line of where the coach stops and the player starts. You know, I use a lot of the models in it with my, my clients already in terms of helping them plan their journeys. So yeah, it's well in progress, not finished yet. Well you were right. It was Christmas. So we're recording this on the, what are we, the 14th today? So it's not two weeks that you have. You have a little bit longer than that. But it's, it's actually, it's, it's there. Listen, having written a book, I know how hard it is. I know how long it takes. I know the rewrites and the rewrites. It's difficult there. So that, that's a big effort. That's a huge effort. So well done on that. So I will still, I imagine that we'll have a phone call just before Christmas to say, have a great Christmas and I'll hold the feet. Well, you, you and I are having lunch, aren't we? Next week, there's some other, other good, good pals. We've got our really useful societies. I've named it, of people coming together to, to sort of share, share ideas. So I guess it will get a bit of, a bit of discussion there. And that's probably going to be a group that will get a first read of it as well. But you know what, a game is that accountability gets things done. Yes. And I hold your feet to the flame is the right thing. But you're holding your own feet to your own flame. By that and people know about this. And I just think that's so important. Because when you let people, that's that start was why. Okay. You've got the why there. You need the everyday discipline because I know what you're going through to do that. That won't be easy to get that done. Justin, always enjoy our conversations. We're going to have a conversation on in the future about the book. I can't wait to have a book review on your own book. Really appreciate our conversations. See you again. Thanks, good. That just leaves me to say that all details of this episode and other episodes on the selling in the motor trade can be found on our website. Go to www.salesfitness.com.com.com.com. Go there to get a copy of our book, Words That Sell Cars. Go there to sign up to a free trial of our sales fitness online sales training program. Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bowkett through LinkedIn. Thank you.
