The 4 P’s of Success in Social Media
The 4 P’s of Success in Social Media
Glenn Lundy went from homeless drug addict to the 2nd largest used car dealership in America…through organic social media! Want to hear his story?
Glenn Lundy is a husband to 1, a father to 7 (#8 on the way), and the host of the wildly popular Facebook Live show #RiseAndGrind. He’s been seen at places like Hustle and Grind Con, Grow Your Business For God’s Sake! and many more stages across the country. Glenn was spotlighted on ABC, NBC, and CBS, and is an expert in dealership culture development, and leadership training. With 20 years’ experience in the automotive industry, Glenn lead a dealership from 120 cars a month to an 800% increase in sales in five years, becoming the 2nd largest used car franchise in the country. His unique style makes him one of the most coveted GMs in the business. Glenn has the unique ability to help identify the areas for growth in your store, and teach creative ways to invoke your dealerships spirit. With a background in sales, and finance, he uses his skill sets to create growth, as well as tapping into the mental side of human development.
Website: https://glennlundy.com/
Twitter: @GlennBLundy
LinkedIn: Glenn Lundy
EBook/Audio Book: “The Morning 5”
Listen to the podcast here:
Read Along as Karla and Glenn discuss Successful Social Media Posts
Karla Nelson: And welcome to the People Catalyst Podcast, Glenn Lundy.
Glenn Lundy: Hey, I’m excited to be here, Karla. Thanks for sharing this space and time with me.
Karla Nelson: Yes, sir. Well, thank you for being on the show, we’re super excited too here. You’ve got such a unique story, Glenn, and it’s really multifaceted. So I can’t wait to just dig in, but before we get started, can you share with our listeners kind of your entrepreneurial story, we all have one, and they all have their ups and downs, but how did you get started? And I know that you first got started owning a car dealership, right?
Glenn Lundy: Right. Working in a car dealership. So I started in 20, and really, I can’t go into my entrepreneurial journey and leave out certain components that are super important, which is-
Karla Nelson: Oh, share with us.
Glenn Lundy: Yeah. So I am a husband to one, my beautiful wife, Leslie is a huge part of the journey. And I am a father to seven children going on eight-
Karla Nelson: That’s so much just right there. Okay, Glenn, just right there. You can hit a period after that and we’re done.
Glenn Lundy: That’s it, right? But pretty amazing. So husband to one, father to seven going on eight, 20 plus years in the automotive profession. And then also I’m the host of the wildly popular morning show, #RiseAndGrind. And so I started in the automotive industry over 20 years ago when I was 20 years old. And I had this season where I did really well, I’ve always been good in sales, so I did really well in automotive. I climbed kind of through the ranks, and while doing so I was drinking a ton, started doing drugs, lost my relationship, lost custody of my six year old daughter.
Karla Nelson: Oh, no.
Glenn Lundy: My life outside of the building was awful. My career in itself was-
Karla Nelson: Which you know is actually very common in sales.
Glenn Lundy: Yes, it is, very common. And especially in the auto industry, it’s super common, 80 hour work weeks working, two days off a month. There’s just not a whole lot of space for relationships or a life outside. And so I went through that whole season in the automotive world and ended up ultimately leaving the world of automotive for a little while and blaming the world of automotive for all of my… I like to drink, it’s automotive’s fault, I like to do drugs, it’s automotive’s fault-
Karla Nelson: That’s what they all do-
Glenn Lundy: I lost custody of my daughter, that’s automotive’s fault. And so I went through a season, I got out of the business for a while, came back… or no, sorry, I shouldn’t say came back. Went on kind of a journey traveled around, lived in all kinds of different places and ultimately landed in Kentucky, where I met my wife.
Karla Nelson: Yeah.
Glenn Lundy: She helped ground me. I look at myself like a kite, I’m a kite, and she’s down on the other end holding the string.
Karla Nelson: Yes sir it takes two.
Glenn Lundy: She lets me fly but she doesn’t let me get away. And so I met my wife, got back into automotive, but this time on the automotive side, I had made a commitment that I wasn’t going to let the industry destroy my relationships in my life outside of work. And so in order to do that, I literally had to change the narrative and eradicate the negative stigmas associated with the car business to create an environment where our careers could thrive as well as our life at home. And so I really focused on that, and was able to help this dealership in a really small town, population 9600 people-
Karla Nelson: I saw that, 9600 people, that is a small dealership to be-
Glenn Lundy: Yeah, tiny little dealership, tiny little town, and we were able to grow that dealership 800% in just under six years making it the second largest-
Karla Nelson: So, that’s where the 800% club comes from-
Glenn Lundy: That’s exactly right.
Karla Nelson: I was trying to put that together.
Glenn Lundy: That’s exactly right.
Karla Nelson: Okay, that was one of my questions.
Glenn Lundy: Yes. So a lot of success there, that kind of put me on the map as far as being known in the auto industry as a disruptor, doing things a lot different. And so two years ago, after spending eight years with that company two years ago, we decided to step out into the entrepreneurial world own our own business, and now I work with 56 different dealerships across the country, helping them get similar results, and then I also have my show #RiseAndGrind which I do Monday to Friday mornings at 5:30 AM and we’ve done 751 episodes-
Karla Nelson: Wow, 5:30 is a Pacific Eastern?
Glenn Lundy: Eastern.
Karla Nelson: Eastern?
Glenn Lundy: Yeah.
Karla Nelson: Oh, that’s really early for those at the Pacific time.
Glenn Lundy: Yeah.
Karla Nelson: And so can you share with us a couple of the… What you did in the strategy to help that 800% growth at the dealership and what you did differently?
Glenn Lundy: Yeah, we had to take kind of your traditional business model. So most people, when they go into business, they think, “Okay, I need to make some money,” even when I was a kid, this was my first thought, I was 13 years old, I’m like, “I need to make some money, how do I make some money?” So, we typically in business, we start thinking, how can we make a profit? And once we figure out a product or a way to generate some cash or some money, then we start to seek customers, and we’re like, “Okay, well, how do we get more customers, so that I can make more money?” And then once we get to a certain level of customers, we start thinking, “Well, what if I could get some employees, then I could get more customers and then I can make more money.” Right?
Karla Nelson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Glenn Lundy: Pretty standard business model. So, what we had to do with the dealership, is completely flip that on it’s head. How do we get great people and develop great people, that ultimately will draw and attract more customers that will ultimately help us make more money? So putting our employees first was one of the biggest things that we did just right out the gate, you hear people say “The customer’s always right,” well, not in my store. In my store, my employees were always right. I always had my employees back. And by having my employees back, I trusted them and they trusted me, therefore, they ended up making better decisions and they would really take care of the customers.
Karla Nelson: Yep.
Glenn Lundy: And then the customers would love the experience, so they would go out and tell their friends which brought us more customers and more. So, utilizing that mindset of really having the back of my guys, we were able to build way more than just a business relationship. We were able to build a family and we were all on the same mission of eradicating the negative stigmas associated with the car business. And so mixing that with digital campaigns and strategies and you fall down, you get back up, you take two steps forward, you take a step back and trying out all types of different things, but ultimately creating this core culture, this core underdog winning culture, that just over time, as we’d stayed consistent with it really was able to make a massive impact.
Karla Nelson: That is awesome. And you know what, the work that we do is very similar in the fact that, our assessment… and it’s based off 110 years of marketing research, about how people adopt new ideas. And what’s interesting is, so many businesses, they go right to the customer, they jump over their people.
Glenn Lundy: Yeah.
Karla Nelson: The customer is like, “Wait a second, you have to get your team to adopt new ideas and do new things, and be part of a winning team.” And they are your extension to your customer. So I think so many times we ignore that piece, that’s really important and just think about, “Oh, the customer,” because you have to generate money too, you have to generate revenue, right?
Glenn Lundy: Sure.
Karla Nelson: You have to be able to sell something. So is the… Are those the types of strategies, then you work with your 56 auto dealerships that you work with now, utilizing those same strategies about focusing on team development and focusing on personal growth and focusing on what the team needs in order to be that extension to the customer?
Glenn Lundy: We’ll see, at first Karla, at first we have to talk nothing but car. Because these are owners that have been in the business for a long time and, they on to try something new, and so we talk about advertising, and we talk about processes, and we talk about all these different strategies at first, so I can earn their trust. And then once I get in, then I’m like, “So, let’s talk about how you treat your people.” but we can’t lead with that. If I say, “Hey, we’re gonna talk about…”
Karla Nelson: Got to meet them where they are at.
Glenn Lundy: Yeah, then they’re out. So, we do a combination of really just focusing on, how do we create processes and systems that are ultimately going to generate a result for the dealer so that he will then trust and be more open-minded to considering some outside the box ways, of how we do handle our employees and create that culture within that trusting environment. So it’s a little bit of everything, it’s process, it’s people, it’s profitability, we’re looking at everything, but ultimately I’m trying to break them down and help them see that people should come before profit, always. And when you create that environment the profits are ridiculous.
Karla Nelson: Takes care of themselves.
Glenn Lundy: It takes care of themselves, yeah.
Karla Nelson: I know, takes care of themselves. Well, and people want to be a part of a winning team, so if you give them the tools that they need in order to be successful, versus just telling them, “Be successful,” That’s why, the four different core natures of work that we teach, based off the law of diffusion of innovations, movers, shakers, provers, and makers. We call them that on purpose, because everybody thinks it’s the early adopters in the movers and shakers of the world. It’s just easier for them to adopt a new idea, that’s all, right?
Glenn Lundy: Sure.
Karla Nelson: But everybody can lead, and everybody can be a part of the team. And we need everybody on the team, because here you’ve got your innovators on one side. And then you’ve got your individuals that, aren’t going to buy an electric car until the last gas station is gone on the planet. And people are different and that’s okay, and if you teach them a process by which they can work together in those processes and systems, then you can enable them to be successful, and then they want to, because people want to be successful.
But unfortunately Glenn, we probably have five negative terms for those different individuals that naturally work in a process and system together, and there’s no positive words. So why is it… and it’s funny because when we do training, people laugh and it was like, “We’re laughing, but it’s really not that funny,” right?
Glenn Lundy: Right.
Karla Nelson: And the fact that, instead of holding somebody in their magnificence, they get held in their smallness. So, how did you shift from working just with the dealerships now to Rise And Grind, 5:30 in the morning, Eastern Standard Time. You are just my hero, but you do have seven kids, so… You have to beat them up at least, huh?
Glenn Lundy: We got two. If I’m going to do anything consistently, it must be very early in the morning, as the day progresses, anything can happen in my house, that is for sure. But #RiseAndGrind, part of our strategy at the dealership, we really used organic social media tools to be able to attract incredible talent as well as be able to really increase and ramp up our reach and our volume. Being a tiny store in a tiny little remote location, we had to utilize the tools and the resources that were in front of us, so social media was huge tool and our utilization of that tool really helped me to see, to be able to connect with people all across the automotive industry, and to be able to really get a window in, “What was going on out there, man, our industry is messed up,” for a lot of people, so it’s a messed up industry.
And so, as we grew and I got more connections and more people reaching out going, “Man, I hate working in the dealership, can I come work for you? My boss does this, my boss does that,” just awful, “I have to work this, I have to do this,” so on and so forth. And so I realized like, “Wait a minute, we have a platform here, and we have an opportunity to really institute change, not just in this dealership, in this small town, but across this entire industry,” because sometimes what you have to do to get people to really recognize that it’s time for change, is you have to pull back the curtain and expose them for what they are.
So we started really pushing this whole idea of eradicating the negative stigmas associated with the car business and just highlighting, not specific dealerships, but the industry itself how flawed it was, and just showing people, I started doing Saturday morning sales meetings live on Facebook every Saturday morning with my entire team, and just showing people like, “This is what a meeting should look like, this is how you should be leading your people,” and in doing so, it created this notoriety and this opportunity. So, #RiseAndGrind, I kind of reached a point where I was like, “All right, there’s a lot of negativity on social media, we already kind of have some influence on social media instead of complaining about there being nothing but negativity, what if we create some space that is motivational, educational, and inspirational, and we could drown out that stuff for at least 30 minutes a day anyway, and create a space for something different.”
So that started to seep into my head, and there was multiple components to it. So one, I wanted to create a space with nothing but motivation, education, and inspiration. Two, I wanted to create a reliable space where people could come and know that they would be seen, so on my show every single morning, I try to say, “Good morning,” by name to all the people, if Karla was watching, I’d say, “Good morning, Karla,” and help people feel seen because I spent a season of life homeless, and in that particular season of my life, the worst part was not being hungry or not having anywhere to live, but it’s, you become invisible, people literally won’t make eye contact with you. And so when I felt invisible, I became… that led me to feeling hopeless and hopelessness led me to feeling super depressed, which led me to suicidal thoughts and ultimately an attempt at one point.
And so I thought, “Well, if I could create a space, that is motivational, educational, inspirational and that can connect with people,” then maybe, just maybe, there’s somebody out there that’s having a rough night or having a rough time and they’re like, “You know what, if I can just make it till 5:30 AM, I know Glenn will be there, and he’s going to call my name and he’s going to help me be seen and I’ll be okay,” and crazy enough, that’s happened multiple times-
Karla Nelson: Wow.
Glenn Lundy: …with my show. I’ve had many people reach out that were on the verge of taking their own lives, and it was turned around just by hearing their name, man, people’s names are so powerful.
Karla Nelson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Glenn Lundy: And so I wanted to create that as well, a motivation space, help people to feel seen. And then from a business standpoint, it made total sense. The first part of the day, is when people are most influenced, the mind is consuming and so from a marketing standpoint, I used to start every single show, I’d say, “My name’s Glenn Lundy, I’m a husband to one, and a father to…” back then it was five, “I’m the General Manager of Dan Cummins Chevrolet-Buick in Paris, Kentucky, the second largest used car franchise dealership in America, it’s 5:30 AM and I hope you’re ready to rise and grind.”
So I say that every day, so as people were watching, from an advertising standpoint, here I was plugging, Dan Cummins Chevrolet, Dan… every single day, and attaching it to positive feelings, positive emotions and so people started to connect those positive feelings and emotions with our dealership, which led more people to want to work for us, which led more customers to want to do business with us, more people were referred to us. So it really was like the triple whammy, I could help people, I could create a motivational space and I could sell more cars, are you kidding me, love this-
Karla Nelson: Like the triple way there-
Glenn Lundy: And so-
Karla Nelson: What were some of the things you said, you talked about the organic social media, and there’s always so much to be said around organic and paid and different types of relationships that you build. One of the things you mentioned is how you would be there and use somebody’s name, which I think Glenn is… makes so much sense that it’s, just if somebody… especially right now during the times we are all kind of locked inside, it’s kind of nice to just to say, “Hey, what’s up, how are you?” Because you never know what somebody’s going through, right? At that time.
Glenn Lundy: That’s right.
Karla Nelson: But what were some of the other kinds of strategies that you use in order to… was it just focusing on your local area? Was it focusing on when customers would come into the store as well and reaching out to them? Or did you really just go at it from the manager aspect of it and reaching out truly to the team, and recruiting other people that believe the same thing that you believed, right?
Glenn Lundy: Yeah. As the dealership grew, obviously our staff grew. So we started with 40 people, when I started working there, we had over 300 employees as time went on and so-
Karla Nelson: Did people just drive from wherever to go buy a car from you?
Glenn Lundy: Yes, absolutely. We sell cars everywhere in America.
Karla Nelson: Because it’s only 9600 people, if you do the math, 300 of them being employees, that’s pretty funny right there.
Glenn Lundy: Yeah we had, and a lot of our employees drove long ways too. I had one guy that for… He finally just moved last year, so for… I guess nine years, he drove an hour and a half each way to and from work, every day and working 12, 14 hour days. So when you create a space like that, that’s so positive and so rewarding, people will go the extra mile to be on your team, especially when you show it to them in social media, which we did all the time and so, one of our strategies that I taught my people as they were growing my… I hate calling them employees, my staff, whatever-
Karla Nelson: Team members.
Glenn Lundy: …my family, my work family,
Karla Nelson: Well, you know what, you spend more time at work than anywhere else.
Glenn Lundy: That’s right.
Karla Nelson: So it’s really important that you spend time working with people that empower you and hold you in your magnificence versus beat you down and make the day harder, right?
Glenn Lundy: That’s right, no doubt. So, I taught them to utilize social media, so they were soldiers of the game as well, and I led by example. So as far as organic social media goes, I figured I created a system, I call the 4Ps of social media, and it’s based on how relationships are actually built in the real world. And so, as far as the 4Ps we do two posts a day, every single day on our social media page, Facebook Page, Instagram, whatever it is. And those posts go in this order, first we post something personal, a hobby that we like, a team that we love, our kids if we want to do kids, some people don’t want to do put their kids online, that’s fine, whatever you want to do, but something personal so that I can connect with you on a personal level first. Just like in real life, we typically connect over something we have in common, maybe it’s a convention that we both like to go to, that we enjoy, which I know you love conventions as much as I do.
Karla Nelson: Yes I do.
Glenn Lundy: Yeah.
Karla Nelson: I don’t care if I’m at the front of the stage or up in the back of the room, I miss that so much right now.
Glenn Lundy: I know Karla, I totally get it, it’s my jam as well. But something personal, maybe it’s a team that you like, maybe it’s a hobby that you share, something like that, it’s how we typically meet in real life. And so same thing online, I want to meet you personally first, so some type of personal post, then we follow that post up with a professional post, so the second P is Professional. What do you do that is unique to you, that might be valuable to me? Now in real life, we do the same thing we meet, and then we’re like, “Hey, how are you?” “Yep,” “Great,” “Oh, this is so fun,” “Are you having fun?” “Yeah, I’m having fun.” “So what do you do for a living?” We immediately go into that, because we want to see if there is a possible exchange of resources where we can lift each other up, so we do that online as well. We meet over something personal, we immediately go into professional, “So I’m Glenn Lundy, I like dogs and I work at a car dealership,” so that’s our second P is professional.
Now our third P is Purposeful. And by purposeful, I mean share some type of post that makes me feel something positive, don’t make me angry, let’s not talk Trump or Biden or Black Lives Matters, or any of those things don’t piss me off, that’s not going to work. Instead, make me feel, make me laugh, maybe make me cry, inspire me, motivate me, anything like that, educate me, but make me feel something. Because that emotional attachment is what’s going to draw me in, that’s what’s going to bring me closer, just like in real life, we meet somebody over something personal, we talk about what do you do for a living? And then we start sharing stories and maybe we have a laugh, or we find a common bond, through something emotional. We’re cheering at the same time at the 10X Growth Con, whatever it is. There’s some type of emotional connection, so we want to do that online. So first a personal posts, then a professional post, then a purposeful post.
And then our fourth P is Poll, P-O-L-L. And what I mean by poll, is ask a question. Now, I use the word poll, just because it starts with P and it makes it easier for people to remember, right?
Karla Nelson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Glenn Lundy: But, it’s really just ask a question. And when I say, ask a question, it needs to be one sentence, I should be able to read the question, without hitting the more button, I’m lazy, I don’t want to hit more on your post, and I don’t want to read 16 paragraphs, and then you ask me a question, it’s not going to happen. Ask me a question one or two sentences at the very top where I don’t have to click more and then I should be able to respond to that question with two words or less, one or two words. So by doing that we do a of couple things.
In real life, same thing happens I meet Karla. Karla and I both like dogs, Karla tells me where she works, I tell her where I work. We share a laugh or a giggle or some type of emotional experience and what do we do? We ask questions. So do you have kids? Do you… and we go back and forth with an exchange of questions as we get to know each other. So we want to do the same thing online. I want you to ask a question, keep it simple, short responses. Don’t ask me, “Hey, back in 1980, what was your theory on the best movies of all time?” Don’t do that, just be like, “Do you like movies?” “Yeah, I love movies.” I can answer that quickly. There’s a reason that, the post, what color is this dress? Did you ever see that post Karla? What color is this dress? And some people said it was pink.
Karla Nelson: Oh, yeah because your eyes see it differently?
Glenn Lundy: Right. But do you know why that’s the most viral post of all time?
Karla Nelson: Because it’s easy to answer.
Glenn Lundy: Because it’s one sentence, and you just put yellow or blue or whatever.
Karla Nelson: And it’s unique too because you’re like, “What, you saw that I saw this”
Glenn Lundy: That’s right. So it goes viral. So I want you to do the same thing. Now, what you’re doing is, you’re engaging me, now we’re having a real life conversation because you’re asking questions and I’m responding, but then we’re also triggering the algorithm. So Facebook’s saying, or whatever social media platform is saying, “Okay, this person likes Karla, they’re responding to her question in her post, so now I’m going to send them Karla’s next post, which is your personal post, and maybe we get to know each other a little bit better, then the professional, then the purposeful, then another question.” And we just keep cycling through these four types of posts, two posts a day, and we build a relationship online, just like we would build a relationship in person. So by teaching my team that, and utilizing that in our dealership, we were really able to stretch our organic growth far beyond anything we could have ever done on the paid side.
Karla Nelson: Wow. That’s awesome. I love this Glenn, you’re so awesome. I love this strategy. I’ve taken so many notes on this.
Glenn Lundy: Thank you Karla.
Karla Nelson: I cannot wait to share it on social media. And so can you share a little bit, how can our listeners get ahold of you? How can they get more? How can they connect with you, then on social media?
Glenn Lundy: Yeah. So the easiest way to get to all my stuff is glennlundy.com, if you head there, the link to my Facebook, my Instagram, my LinkedIn, whatever you enjoy. Also, my gear and a book that I wrote, I have a little book that I wrote called The Morning 5, five simple steps to an extraordinary life that really dives into the power of morning routines and how you can utilize those to change your life. And so they can go to themorning5.com and download that for free, if anybody would like that free ebook, you can get that there. But yeah, glennlundy.com will connect you to everything.
Karla Nelson: Perfect. And I’ll make sure, or my team, I should say, will make sure that all the links are in the information below the podcast. Glenn, what a wonderful experience to meet you, to hear your story, your story is incredible. The fact that you have seven kids and one on the way, God bless you my friend.
Glenn Lundy: Thank you.
Karla Nelson: And I can’t wait to learn more and see more and connect with you in the future.
Glenn Lundy: Yeah. Sounds wonderful. Thank you so much. I really enjoy your energy and I enjoyed being here with you today. It’s been incredible.
Karla Nelson: Thank you, sir.