Years ago, a business friend of my father asked me to conference call with him and another gentleman.
They were developing a new service to better sell cars online. They needed someone to start selling it to dealerships. I had relationships with many dealers in many states. They thought that, since I could open those doors, I would be a natural fit.
There was just one problem: I didn’t understand the service. The service, they said was going to be huge. Truly the next big thing. But I knew that not understanding a product is a really tough hill to overcome when trying to sell said product.
(Not to mention that, as a coach, I’m paid to be in the client’s corner. If I show up as a salesman, that credibility is gone. I’m in their corner … as long as they buy my product.)
So I passed.
Within a year, many of my dealerships were using the service, Lotlinx, to more effectively get their inventory in front of customers searching for a new car.
Whoops.
I am not getting paid to post this article. But I have been thinking about Lotlinx recently because of colleagues who are involved in some other next big things. I’ll share them here, in the interests of helping you and feeling like I didn’t miss it again.
A next big thing for customers
CNBC has a story about how Amazon is eating into Facebook’s ad revenue. Amazon? Yes, Amazon: So many customers go there first that it is a natural place to be seen. (And Apple’s privacy improvements make it harder for the likes of Facebook to target ads.)
If you need help exploring this opportunity, see my friend Dusty Sutherland at CognitionDigital. He told me about this concept at least a year before the CNBC article. I’m just now wrapping my head around it, but he’s already helping clients with an easy dashboard to launch and track ad campaigns.
A next big thing for employees
Do you know what a Section 125 plan is? The IRS has had these “cafeteria plans,” which are in addition to regular insurance, since the 1970s. The gist is that the premium payments are deducted from employee wages before the employer calculates social security, Medicare taxes and federal withholding. That pretax money can be used for medical services.
Was that legalese to you? I’ve been wrapping my head around it for a while now, too, thanks to my friend Al Mullins. He offers such plans through Elysian Dealer. Elysian’s plan includes health coaching, telemedicine and screenings. Employers lower their tax bill, employees make more money and everyone has more options for staying healthy.
There. It’s out of my system now. If you make a bundle using either of these next big things, remember me fondly.