My first gig out of college was selling for a major alcohol distributor in Dallas. I hustled wine to convenience and grocery stores across the city. Lots and lots and lots of wine.

Imagine cutting deals in the back of a Wal-Mart with an angry store manager who preached the Wal-Mart Gospel religiously.

I needed him. He needed me. But it was never easy.

While the job was white collar, my hands got dirty. You know the big displays at grocery stores? Sometimes they are huge stacks of wine cases that create fancy designs. During the holidays, a stuffed Santa Clause may make an appearance. During the summer, expect beach themes.

These are high volume, prime real estate, and guess what?

Someone has to physically build them. Someone sweats blood and tears to protect and maintain them (Hint: It was the Sales Rep).

The holidays are huge in this industry and selling these displays is fiercely competitive. It was during this notoriously stressful season that I learned one of the most important professional and personal development ideas of my young career: Surprise People.

One Christmas, I was competing for an important spot. While discussing with my District Manager, he said “Go to the store in the very early morning and just build the display. Don’t go overboard and he may ask you to take it down. But it will surprise the hell out of him that you did this. He’ll never see it coming.”

So I did and this surprised the hell out of that guy. And it worked. He loved it. My competition wouldn’t think of showing up at the store at 6 AM to do this. The manager and I didn’t openly discuss my tactic. There was no need. It was clear he appreciated the flare.

Not surprisingly, there is neuroscience behind the element of surprise. The brain likes to be surprised according to a study at Emory University and the Baylor College of Medicine.  Whether you think you like surprises or not, the brain does. It likes the unexpected. It’s rewarding.

Most articles on the topic refer to your customers. I agree and encourage everyone to try this every day. Stun your customers with good service and TLC. Frame the action around the notion of absolutely positively shocking your customer. HOLY $@*%!!!

Let’s look inward though. Your personal and career development can receive a boost from the element of surprise. Managers love surprises. Your teammates will be impressed. It builds your value and worth. This is a nice way of saying you are more and more valuable than anyone who may attempt to replace you.

Here are a few ideas:

• Show up a little earlier or stay a little later than usual.
  
• Not normally a writer?  Write and find places to publish.  Your company blog is probably waiting for you.
  
• Raise your hand when volunteers are needed.  This is especially great when no one else will.
  
• Speak up.
  
• Ask your manager to role play sales conversations.
  
• Your quota is X but in reality, you could do X+Y?  Do it.
  
• Become an expert on something.  Remember my blog on Persona?
  
• Ask your manager for ideas on how to improve.
  
• Lead something. Anything. Lead a project like this for example.

So why is the element of surprise so powerful?  Two reasons:

1. You are inherently doing positive things. These little wins count toward a greater good.
   
2. Stickiness. People remember this stuff. They notice. People don’t remember when you do the basics or expected. The norm doesn’t give you a good story for your next performance review.

Now, it’s my turn to surprise one of you!  I want to hear your ideas.  What do you do to surprise customers, colleagues, or Managers?

I will keep track of everyone’s reasonable responses for 10 days. Every idea you submit counts toward an entry into a random drawing performed on video at the CI office. The lucky winner will get a surprise from me!  Best of luck. Let’s hear them!

As you might have heard, we've been busy here in the land of Oz. On April 1st, 2013, Suzuki of Wichita became Subaru of Wichita, which meant we had a lot of switching to do.

Login to view embedded media View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px7wBFs7HUE


In the digital realm, I was most concerned about our listings across Google properties, and I’ll be the first to admit--I didn’t do everything perfectly. But then again -- there’s not a good instruction manual for this. Straight up--changing anything on Google can be a challenge, and I’ll admit I wasn’t very optimistic about what would happen.

At several points in this process, however, Google surprised me.

For the sake of sharing what I learned from this experience, I documented what happened on which days with the hope of gaining some insight into how Google works. Of course, I’m not suggesting that if you do the same things I did, you’ll get the same results--this is just what happened for us. First, here’s what we were working with prior to the transition:

On April 1st, Suzuki of Wichita (at 11610 E. Kellogg, Wichita, KS) would transform into the brand new Subaru of Wichita.

The old Subaru of Wichita (located at 1633 N. Rock Road) would be turning into a second Super Car Guys location to be called Super Car Guys East.

If this wasn't confusing enough, the old Subaru of Wichita was listed on Google and Bing as "Subaru of Witcha."

In mid-March, our team moved into place at the old Subaru of Wichita location to start preparing for the transition. Suzuki of Wichita was to stay open right up until March 30th, as we still had a large selection of discounted Suzukis to sell, so we didn’t want to start changing Suzuki of Wichita-branded properties until the time was right, so as to prevent confusion. This whole thing was confusing enough!

So, without further ado, here’s a timeline of what happened (the good, the bad, and the ugly):

 3/25/13: Knowing that it might take a few days, I attempted to update our Suzuki of Wichita Google+ fan page to Subaru of Wichita, but the edit was not accepted. I'd verified our page  through the postcard verification process weeks ago.

Additionally, I updated the old Subaru of Wichita Google Maps listing to Super Car Guys East, using the “Report a Problem” function.

 3/28/13: Subaru of Wichita @ 11610 E. Kellogg started showing up on Google Maps, which was nice, but the Suzuki of Wichita Google+ page still said Suzuki instead of Subaru. Not really knowing what to do, I tried to edit the information a second time to no avail.

4/4/13: The Suzuki of Wichita Google+ Page still said Suzuki, so I went ahead and created a new page for the new Subaru of Wichita. I added some photos, started following some of the same people we’re following on the Suzuki page, and requested the verification postcard to be sent.

4/8/13: The Google postcard arrived for the new Subaru of Wichita G+ page, so I entered the pin number and verified the page successfully. So, we had both a Suzuki of Wichita and a Subaru of Wichita Google+ fan page for the same address here in Wichita.


4/10/13: I received an email from Google stating that the Suzuki of Wichita Google+ page would in fact be changed to Subaru of Wichita. I was shocked. Google was actually letting us keep our following, page, and reviews for the switch from Suzuki to Subaru. BUT, now there were two listings on Google Maps for Subaru of Wichita at the new address! Confused yet? I edited our website information on our Google+ page, a proposed change which, again, didn’t show immediately to the public. In the screenshot below, notice how the "A" listing still has our old website.



4/11/13: I attempted to edit our category information on our G+ fan page from “Suzuki Dealer” to “Subaru Dealer,” a change that wasn’t accepted immediately either. We had Skyler Livingston, the only Google Trusted Business Photographer in the state of Kansas (who luckily lives in the Wichita area) come out to reshoot the inside of our showroom to show the Subarus on display, and he advised me to delete the new Subaru of Wichita Google+ page that I had created, and keep the original one that had much more content, reviews, and so forth.

4/12/13: Google Inside View went live for Subaru of Wichita at the correct address, looked great, and seemed good to go. Then, I got a phone call that literally shocked me:  A real live Google Maps representative called me to verify the name change from Suzuki to Subaru of Wichita. I was so stunned I forgot to ask some other questions I had for them.   Last year, when we went back and forth with Google about hundreds of our hard-earned reviews disappearing, we were never able to get anyone on the phone to answer questions about the service. But Google Maps was calling us? Incredible.

Also on the 12th, the website information on our G+ fan page reflected the correct URL for our new website: ridehomehappy.com.

 4/16/13: Google called again to verify our category change from Suzuki to Subaru. This time, they didn’t identify themselves as being from Google Maps, so they were unable to answer the questions I didn’t get to ask the first time around. If you’ve ever talked to a Google rep on the phone, you know that if what you're asking about is not in their department, you might as well be dealing with a brick wall. This Google rep also wanted to verify a few of our toll free numbers, which I was happy to help her with.

4/17/18: The Google Postcard for Super Car Guys East arrived, so I verified that page.



I had deleted all of the Suzuki-themed photos from our Subaru of Wichita G+ page, but Suzuki photos were still showing up on our G+ Local listing. When I clicked on these photos, I discovered that they were being hosted on a Google+ page called “Local photos,” with thousands of albums of other business photos as well. I brought this up in the DealerRefresh forum and flagged these photos as being “unwanted commercial content or spam.”



4/18/13: The photos I flagged the day before were actually removed! Talk about efficient.

4/21/13:  New photos and points of interest from our latest Google Inside view were added to the “Local photos” page, and our category was finally changed to "Subaru Dealer."

Overall, I was impressed with how Google worked. Those of you who followed Suzuki of Wichita's story about losing hundreds of Google Reviews last year know that I was outspoken in my criticism of how they handled the whole incident, but here, I must give credit where it's due. Google came across as not only a responsible company dedicated to correct information, but they conducted themselves like a human company as well.

What didn’t work as well? Bing Maps. Utterly terrible. Here's the timeline:

4/4/13: I verified and attempted to update the Subaru of Wichita listing on Bing Maps and made a note to myself to check back.
Boo for Bing.

After repeated verification and editing attempts, the SERP is still a mess.
No Wonder Bing's a Joke.

Takeaway? Be more patient with Google than I was. If you have to change brand names, give yourself plenty of time and they just might surprise you. Though I still wish we could have changed our YouTube channel URL, it was a nice touch to let us keep our Google+ fan page, content, and reviews.

Have you embarked on similar adventures with the murky beast that is Google?

Let's keep the conversation going in the comments box below!