How Confident and Engaged Employees Can Profitability Improve The newsLINK Group recently chatted with Craig Bickmore, the executive director of NCDU, about a class he developed and teaches for dealership staff members called Thought Performance Training. Craig has worked with the association for almost 35 years and has been a director for the last 26 years. He earned an MBA from Utah State University and a bachelor’s degree from Southern Utah State College (now called Southern Utah University) in Cedar City, where he grew up. Thought Performance Training is something he is passionate about. He has personally witnessed impressive outcomes frompeople who attended the training and committed to use the techniques taught in the class in their personal and professional lives. Below are some highlights from Craig about the training. How did NCDU come up with the idea of an NCDU training series? Is there a story behind it? We wanted to create a training program with a unique twist. I went to the board about 11 years ago with a training program I thought would be helpful to dealers. We had 175 people take variations of the class initially. They came in very early, and over a period of six months, we came up with a very good training model and have honed it since then. Where is it taught? Is it taught online or in a class? I teach the class in the training room at the association; it’s something that I am passionate about, and this is something that I really enjoy doing. How long does it last? It is one class that lasts three hours and is very interactive. We start at 9 a.m. and finish at noon. How long has it been offered? We’ve done it for years. We experimented with it when we first started and made some adaptations, but it has probably been the same for most of the last 10 years. Please tell us a little about the series. We’ve honed the Thought Performance Training class so anybody can attend, whether they are a dealer, a receptionist, work in the parts center, or anywhere else in the dealership. Everyone can benefit from the class. What’s unique about it is that it is the critical training before other training is done; it sets the stage for success, regardless of position, by building confidence and helping each person identify with their own personal goals and motivation for their success. Confident and motivated employees are engaged employees, which makes for positive outcomes all the way around. During class, we identify each person’s incorrect core beliefs that interfere with what they want to do. We figure out their mindsets. Then we work together to figure out what corrections need to be made to their core beliefs, and we help them make the corrections at the subconscious level. You know, we all have about 50,000 thoughts a day, and sadly for many, the majority of those thoughts are negative or create roadblocks to success. In short, we help people align their beliefs with what they want to accomplish, which in turn sets the stage for success opportunities. Imagine if all employees came to work without any negative beliefs that kept them from achieving their personal best. What would that look like for the bottom line of a dealership? Who should attend? Anyone can attend. We’ve had hundreds participate in this class, but we, like most others, took a break when everything shut down because of the pandemic. Anyone can benefit if their subconscious is preventing and limiting their performance. I think it’s also something that is incredibly team-building, especially if an entire department takes the class at the same time. Obviously, you can’t close an entire department down for everyone to attend at once, but, you could have half of the employees attend one class, and the other half another. In the car business, we see a lot of families working together from different generations, which, interestingly enough, can bring differing perspectives into the workplace. Due 10
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