Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More
Today’s Manager Mojo podcast features Mr. Bob Dorr. We learn how Bob began his career as a door to door encyclopedia salesman and steadily progressed to be the founder and president of a financial services company. It’s a fascinating journey and Bob shares with us the lessons he learned along the way including his 4 “L” secrets. I know you will enjoy this engaging, enlightening, and educational podcast!
CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE MANAGER MOJO PODCAST ON iTUNES!
CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ON STITCHER RADIO!
Enjoy the transcript of the podcast here!
Steve: Welcome to the manager mojo podcast. I’m Steve Caldwell, author of Manager Mojo, Be the Leader Others Want to follow. We’re here to offer common sense solutions and training for management and leadership issues. We believe that leaders are made, not born, and I would love for you to have a free copy of my book. You can pick up your copy by going to manager mojo dot com. Look for the gold box encouraging you to join the mojo movement and sign up. There are other free gifts just waiting for you. That’s manager mojo dot com. Now, let’s get started with today’s topic.
Hello and welcome to all of our manager mojo podcast listeners. Today we have the pleasure of talking with Mr. Bob Dorr. This is gonna be a great time today because you’re gonna get to hear the wisdom and experience of a man who’s spent over 40 years in management and has recently retired and has agreed to come out of retirement to kinda spread a little wisdom with us today and share some of his insights he’s gained over the years. So let me tell you just a little bit about Bob. Bob is a proud graduate of the University of Michigan, he holds two degrees from Michigan and got his Bachelors and his MBA from there. And he spent most of his career in the financial services industry, and has had a wonderful experience. He worked for a number of different large corporations including Bank of the Common Wealth, Michigan National Bank, VMS Financial where he served as president, Dana Corp, Lease First, Bank One and then when he retired he was the founder and president of MidAm Credit Corporation. So Bob has had a distinguished career and I’m always pleased to get to deal with somebody who’s started at the bottom like all of us do and been able to progress in his career to reach the CEO and founder level. Bob Dorr welcome to the Manager Mojo podcast today
Bob: Thank you very much Steve.
Steve: We’re looking forward to hearing a little bit from you today and, one of the things that I wanna kinda start with is that so many people in management believe that okay I’ve got to start somewhere in the middle and then hope I get to the top but that was not the case with you because I know from looking at your resume that you actually got started working selling Colliers Encyclopedias door to door. Now I have to ask you about that, I just want you to share with us your experience and tell us, what are some of those things that you learned back then selling encyclopedias door to door that served you through your career?
Bob: Well I found myself out of high school, accepted at Flint Junior College and not very much money to go forward, I needed a job. And so I looked in Help Wanted and I saw an advertisement for selling and I went down and applied and was accepted and I spent the summer selling books in the Flint, Michigan area. We went also to outlying cities and sold books and we’d go to work at 2 o’clock in the morning. There were probably 15 young fellows like myself. A trainer we would spend an hour rehearsing our spiel, so to speak, and then we’d go on the road and do it. And fortunately for me I did very well at that as did another fellow that became a close friend of mine. And so the next year- I went down with the college and they called me and said are you selling books again I said yes he said I’m sellin’ in Chicago come and sell here. So I went down and I, you know I enjoyed it very much. I enjoyed the interface with people. And believe it or not the next year he called me again and he said, you know book selling has been so good for us he said why don’t you join me again. He said I happen to be in Germany, and I found a lot of military families here that are very good candidates for books. Come over, we’ll sell books for a couple of months, take the money and see the world. Gordon Tower by the way was this fellow’s name. Gordon if you hear this please call me I’ve been lookin’ for you forever.
Steve: I hope he does
Bob: And so anyway by that time I had taken an apprenticeship with General Motors I said ‘gee Gordon I’d love to but I can’t.’ And so anyway Gordon went off with another fellow and they did that. They sold books for two years, they saw the world, they went all the way around the world and then probably three or four months later when he got back to the country, he came to my door with a great big long beard and what an incredible amount of wisdom he could tell. So that is the story. I didn’t tell you much about what I learned but what I learned was how to get people’s interest quickly, and to try to keep them focused. Selling is a skill and also an art, and both skills and art can be developed so… So that was a blessing in disguise for me because as I went on through my life, there isn’t anything that you can do in life that doesn’t involve interactions with people and selling. The skills that you learn selling, the knowledge that you gain of how people think and act and react, you know, is priceless.
Steve: Bob that’s awesome and I can just see you going’ around selling books and, you know that’s- there’s so many people who would be scared to death to do something like that but you stepped out and you did it. Now did I hear you correctly in that you said you guys actually got up and started your day at 2 AM in the morning?
Bob: No 2 o’clock in the afternoon
Steve: Oh okay so 2 o’clock in the afternoon. I was like oh my goodness. I was trying to figure who was up at that hour that you were selling to.
Bob: We spent an hour in the office in downtown Flint and our trainer would go through the-more or less a canned pitch. And you know we’d try to stop him here and there and we’d learn from watching him and then we’d go off and- with a- we’d go out with a, like a manager. He would take 3 guys and a car so four of us would go out and we’d find a neighborhood and he turned us loose on the streets
Steve: That’s awesome
Bob: And we went knocking on doors
Steve: That is awesome. So you learned how to deal with people and create quick conversations with people and connections with people selling books door to door. Then you transferred or you took that knowledge and when you really got into the world of formal work you really started out in the banking industry. What drew you to the banking industry?
Bob: Oh I’m embarrassed to tell you. I mentioned I took a position with General Motors as an apprentice. I guess I should tell you about that because you’ll see how the selling came in. I finished 2 years at Flint Junior College in pre-dental and I went down and took the test for dental school and they said why don’t you go back to school for one more year. Well I didn’t have the money to do it. So I’m sitting home that summer on the porch and all of a sudden this beautiful Jaguar convertible, little tiny sports car, pulls up in front of my house, and this friend of mine, Bobby Alexander, gets out of the car and says Bob how you doin’? I said great I said what are you doin’? Where’d you get a car like that? He says well I got a great job I got a great job. I said what’s the job? He says I… I’m an apprentice for GM. I said really he said yeah I make great money. I said oh gosh I could I need some money I need a job. So well he said you know, Bill Renneko’s father is the fellow that hires apprentices for GM and remember we went to school with him I said oh yeah Bill. He said why don’t you call Bill? So I called Bill, I said I’d like to talk to your father if I could about a job. So he puts his father on the line, Mr. Renneko comes on the line. I said hello Mr. Renneko I said how are you he says Bob I, it’s nice to meet you. He says I understand you’re interested in an apprenticeship. I said Mr. Renneko I have thought about that all my life I thought about becoming an apprentice I said I would love to do that if there’s any way. He says why don’t you come out and see me next Tuesday so I did
Steve: Awesome
Bob: I walk into his office, he says so Bob what kind of an apprenticeship are you interested in? I said, after a pause, excuse me? He says what kind of apprenticeship? I said well what kind you got? He said well you know we have millwrights, we have pipe fitters, we have electricians, tool and die, machine repair I said- I’d had a course in Physics, we studied electricity and I really liked it. I said electrician- I said that’s it- I said electrician apprentice, I’ve always wanted- I had no idea what an apprenticeship was, it was a 4 year training program. I needed a job for the summer so I could go back to school. So that’s- he said oh your enthusiasm is so great he said see you on Thursday, you start at, you know 6 o’clock in the morning. So that’s how I got to be an apprentice. Well I was on the job for, you know, couple 3 weeks before I realized, this is a 4 year training program that you’re in, it’s pretty good, and so let’s have a go at it. And I did. And there’s a lot of stories, I’m not going to tell you about that but that was a wonderful experience for me also and… Then I decided I’m going back to school, I applied at University of Michigan I got in, what am I gonna do, I can’t remember the science? So, I think, well I’m in business now, in the manufacturing. I need to learn manufacturing management and so I signed up for the business school, and that’s what I started to you know study. The experience was good, but as time went by, I realized that just like an electrician, once you become an electrician, you know you’re on the bottom of the totem pole and you gotta work nights. And same way with foremen. This is what’s embarrassing but this is true. I thought to myself gee, I don’t wanna work nights. I wonder what kind of a job I could find that wouldn’t be nights. And I had heard those stories about bankers’ hours you know, 9-3? So I started banking, and I took finance in banking, and that is how I made the decision, you know, life steers you in many strange ways and that’s how I got pointed in the direction of banking, and it turned out that I absolutely loved it. I suspect however that you could make your heart work if you manage yourself right to love anything you get into. Nothing is easy, but if you work your- work on your mindset, you can adjust and be happy doing whatever it is you’re doing. I was very happy doing any and all of the different jobs I had. Not that there weren’t a lot of frustrations, but that’s a part of life also.
Steve: That’s a fantastic story and what a great testimonial for all of us that, we never know where life’s gonna take us and you followed it and at least you didn’t have to do that night job until you started to get promoted and had a lotta extra hours didn’t you?
Bob: Yeah, right.
Steve: The so-called bankers hours didn’t exist very long
Bob: I worked… I worked 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, maybe sometimes 7, almost all my life but I really enjoyed, I always enjoyed my work. It’s not that it wasn’t frustrating, I had lots of frustrating events, but I… You know that’s, that’s, your job is your thing
Steve: Yeah
Bob: Like your marriage is your thing
Steve: Absolutely
Bob: Now these are what life is all about
Steve: Absolutely and it’s overcoming. Well, you went into the banking business and at some point you got promoted to manager. Tell us what that first experience as manager was like for you.
Bob: Well, my entry into banking was in commercial lending. And I was in lending for a couple of years and I was going fine at it, but at the time I was at Michigan National Bank and they decided that their branch system, let’s say the, at the very retail level, that their branches were not generating loans the way they would like them to. And so they reorganized the management structure of the banking- of the branch banking system. And they took, I think there were 3 of us, possibly 4, I think they were 4 of us that were in commercial lending and they recruited us to head up 4 different divisions of the branches. So that each one of us had, I think approximately 12 branches that we were responsible for managing completely. However, the major focus was to get the bank to develop more loans, get the branches to develop more loans. So that was my first experience in actually having people report to me and having the responsibilities of management along with the responsibilities of lending. And… like anything that you do for the first time, I started it with trepidation, and you know the first, the first weeks, the first months, the first 6 months are the greatest learning period for you but, I learned, I think how to do that- In fact my group- my division was many, many times the number 1 loan originator so… So I figured out how to do it.
Steve: Well what surprised you most when you had all of these people now you were responsible for? Did you have something that you really struggled with when you first started?
Bob: I was concerned about delegation. I was concerned about giving people authority to become involved in the lending program because I ultimately was responsible for it. And I learned as time went by that one of the secrets to management is delegation. You know?
Steve: It’s not easy to let go is it?
Bob: It isn’t easy, no, it isn’t, you know? It’s like this, hey I know how to do this, let me tell you how, listen to me.
Steve: Right
Bob: And you know what, that is absolutely the wrong way to get anything done
Steve: And why is that the wrong way? I agree a hundred percent but, what did you find that people didn’t react to when you said ‘hey I know how to do this and just let me tell you’?
Bob: Well I think I can tell you very easily. Throughout my life, I- once I got into management- I had lots of quote unquote “bosses”. And the term ‘bosses’ or ‘bossing’ is a negative term. My grandchildren say
Steve: I agree
Bob: My grandchildren say- I’m trying to teach em how to hit a golf ball they say you’re bossing me, grandpa. Well, people don’t like that. And, you know I think that of all the different managers I had, and much- if you look at- if you think of the different companies I worked for an the positions I had a lot. There were really only two people that really stood out for me that I really liked and as I think back, why is it that Richard Webb at Michigan National Bank and well both Ed Reiter and Dave Francisco at MidAm, why were they so, why did I like working for them so? And the reason was because I never had to. I never worked for either one of, any of those people. Their management style was to delegate and to presume that you knew what you were doing and that you’d get it done. And if you didn’t know what you were doing you would figure it out, you’d learn how. And I just loved working for them because they didn’t boss me; they didn’t tell me what to do. They helped me, they supported me, and I developed, I think, a management style of… Well in a nutshell, here’s how I see the job of a manager. The job of a manager is really a very subordinate position. You’ve got a boss, you’ve got somebody that you work for, and you got 1, 2 5 10, 20 however many people that supposedly work for you but they don’t. My philosophy is that I work for my boss and I work for my subordinates, and if I can make each of those two groups, if I can make them successful, if I can make them feel proud, I’m gonna be a success. So
Steve: That is awesome
Bob: I gotta make my subordinates heroes and I’ve got- And so I would look at it like that. Like, when I go to my subordinates, instead of telling them how to do their job, I’d ask them what I could do for them. And I just think that’s a very important aspect of managing people
Steve: There’s no question
Bob: You manage people, you help them, and you work for them. And of course you have to work for your boss too
Steve: Sure
Bob: But of the people that report to you, if you’re their best helper, they’re going to love you. They’re going to do a good job for you they’re going to try as hard as they can. And if they’re successful, your boss is gonna look at you and think wow, this guy is really doing a good job for me
Steve: Absolutely. And one thing that I wanna point out here Bob, because I think it’s the underlying secret that you’re talking about and I wanna make sure our listeners really catch this. Is that, you know you learn first that you might struggle a little bit with delegation, but what lesson you truly learn was that you learned how to trust other people to do the job as well as you would do it. And what an awesome thing that is. Whenever you begin to really trust other people to do the job as well as you can do it. That’s when you began to make that transition isn’t it?
Bob: Well, it is. And another aspect of it Steve is this: Managers oftentimes find themselves in the spot of having to hire people to, you know, to develop their chain. Well, you know, if you hire people that you think are smarter than you, your job is gonna be a lot easier
Steve: Amen to that
Bob: And, right. And so whether they really are smarter than you or not is only a question of you go take an IQ test, because the kind of smarts we’re talking about here are not, you know not who’s got the highest IQ, but most. I’m not gonna- let me retract that word. Everybody. Everybody has a ‘me’. Everybody has an ‘i’. Everybody has a ‘we’ being ‘me and mine, my family’. And if you think about what we learn in school about Maslow’s concepts, pre-potency of needs, those key needs right at the bottom of the ladder, the most important ones have to do with me, me, me, and so… taking advantage of that knowledge, feeding the ego, so to speak, seeking out- I’ll tell you what I used to do as a manager. I used to be a real sneaky guy, you know? I used to sneak around the office, and I’d try to catch employees. I’d try to catch ’em doing something I liked.
Steve: Awesome
Bob: And then I would praise the hell out of ’em
Steve: I love it
Bob: But I never- my philosophy was never to criticize. My philosophy was when somebody was doing something wrong or they weren’t getting what they, you know, weren’t accomplishing something, to see how I could help them maybe but never ever, ever tell them ‘no you’re doing this wrong you dummy.’ You don’t do that, you know?
Steve: Bob I love that! I gotta interrupt you here because I’ve just got to talk about that ’cause I can hear right now listeners who are thinking, oh he was talkin’ about I’m gonna be sneaky and I’m going to catch them doing something wrong! And boy you nailed it. You said I was looking to see what they did right
Bob: How much more powerful is that than criticism?
Bob: Well I think criticism, all that criticism does is hurt somebody, and make them probably dislike you. But, everybody loves to be told they’re doing a good job, and if they hear you telling their neighbor that they’re doing a good job, they’re gonna feel a little bit bad because you’re not telling them, you know? So this is what people want, people… we live by our egos, and we don’t recognize that, and we don’t want to admit it. So that knowledge, that the single most important thing is me, and then at mine, my family and my children, that’s just the way human nature is. If you stop and think- I’m going to just digress for one second- you know, we tried socialism, all over the world. I mean, more than half of the people, half of the population of the world was subjected to an experiment of socialism. And that didn’t work. Because people are… people are people that we’re human nature, the most important thing is me. And capitalism works with that, you know? Go out there and see how you can do the best possible thing for yourself. And so I just think that people need to re- managers need to recognize what humans, the way humans are built- a lot like most other animals- and then we need to take advantage of the knowledge and help people feel good about themselves.
Steve: Absolutely Bob. You know, so many of us go through years and years of trial and error in management and some of us get fortunate and figure out that the best way that we can serve other people, is to go through the positive aspects of rewarding people, lifting them up, giving them what they want. That’s the secret to you getting what you want. The more people you give them what they want and need, the more they’re willing to help you grow and help you get what you need.
Bob: That’s absolutely true. When you mention it, use the term secret, I would like to share another secret that I’m sure most people realize already
Steve: Please do
Bob: I call this the secret of life. And it’s so… and you know, some people go through life and they never learn this, but it is so important. I think I was maybe 30 or 32, 33 when it first really became clear to me, and that is this: That it is absolutely impossible for a human being to give, to give more than they receive. My experience is that whatever I gave, and I’m not talkin’ about cash contributions or something, but I’m talkin’ about giving something to somebody else, helping somebody. Whatever you give, I guarantee comes back tenfold, and once you learn that, then, you know what you do? You start helping everybody you can. You start giving as much as you can, you see somebody on the street- I think this is so easy, get up in the morning, you walk down the street, you see somebody… at least walk by and give them a smile. You know what, a smile it’s so rewarding. And say how you doin’ buddy? And you know what? Maybe 1 in 12 won’t even look at you like you’re crazy, but most people like that, that’s giving. And it’s amazing what comes back
Steve: I love that
Bob: So, okay. Enough about that
Steve: No no no I love that. I think it’s awesome and it’s all a part… We cannot separate our life from our career, and I think too many people do. They try to have this duality, meaning they go to work and they’re one person, and they go home and it’s a different person. And it’s nothing but stress whenever that’s the way you’re living
Bob: That’s right
Steve: You have to learn how to make one life, and make that a good one
Bob: We’re getting very philosophical but that is absolutely true. The concept of… the concept of giving, the fact that it’s impossible for you to give more than you get back is so, so important in everything you
Steve: Thank you so much for sharing that. I know that our listeners are going to benefit from that. You know if at
Bob: Steve
Steve: Go ahead
Bob: What?
Steve: No, no go ahead
Bob: Steve there’s one other thing I… have been thinking about that I’d like to share
Steve: Sure
Bob: And I call it the secret of leverage but I’m gonna change the name here because all of the young managers, would be managers, et cetera, that may be listening, I’d like to tell them how to get rich, the secret of how to get rich
Steve: Please do
Bob: Because- and I think it’s a terrible, terrible shame that I have to say, let me tell you the secret of how to get rich. We live in the United States, the rest of the world sees our streets paved with gold, people can’t wait to get here. What I’m about to tell you I think is- the concept for example of entrepreneurism, you know did you learn anything about that in grade school? In middle school? In junior high school? In high school? Indeed, even in college. And I went to one of the best business schools in the country the University of Michigan, and I don’t remember anybody ever talking about entrepreneurism. They talk about how to get a good job and go to work for somebody else, find a really good company that you can work for, for the rest of your life. But the way to, the only way to get rich, is what I’m about to tell you it’s the secret of leverage. Now, let’s take college graduates for a minute but it doesn’t have to be college graduates. Let’s take a doctor or dentist, a lawyer… any of those types of jobs. You learn your skill and then you go out and you practice it. I did a lot of work with dentists and back in the days when I worked with dentists, the average dentist’s annual income was a couple hundred grand a year. Pretty good right?
Steve: Mmm hmmm
Bob: But, they had a limitation on how much they could make as does every profession. Every occupation has a limitation on how much you can make, and that is the limitation of how many work hours there are in a year- 2000 approximately- and, how much a person can make an hour. So, if you can make $15 an hour packing groceries, then multiply it by 2000 and that’s the maximum amount you can make. If you can make $200,000, multiply that by 2000 hours. If you can make… if you make whatever $200,000 divided by 2000 is –
Steve: Right
Bob: Whatever your hourly income is
Steve: Right
Bob: But that’s the cap. So, how do people ever get rich? Well I guess if you made 2 hundred thousand you would be rich. Yes? Well not necessarily. How about if you make a million? People make a million. 2 million, 10 million, 20 million, how do they do it? And the answer is human leverage. The doctor, or let’s just take the dentist again. The dentist is doing well but he’d like to make more. The way to make more is to hire some dentists to come work in your shop. So let’s say that our dentist hires 5 young dentists out of college, puts them in to work for him. And maybe these guys at that level and make a hundred thousand a year. And maybe he structures his business so that 15 or 20 percent of what each one of them makes goes to him, because he’s managing the business. That money is, he’s gonna make in addition to his hundred and his 2 hundred thousand. Now, he’s gonna say well I’ve got 5 guys and I’m making a hundred and fifty thousand dollars off a these guys
Steve: Right
Bob: Plus my 2 hundred thousand. What if I open up another office and hire 5 more guys? BOOM. What if I open up another office… and now you see how it is. This is the secret. The only way to get rich is by leverage. Don’t let yourself be capped by what you can make. And maybe that’s not good advice for the people we’re talking to, our managers, because I’m sure their bosses don’t want them to go off and be entrepreneurs and start their own businesses, but believe me, ladies and gentlemen, think about what I’m saying, this is how it’s done. Thank you
Steve: There’s no question about it, and actually I would say this, that most… anybody in business would understand that leverage is the key for their company to grow. So the reality is every manager, every leader of every company should be focused on leverage because that’s the only way their businesses are going to grow, it’s the only way that they are going to keep customers happy, and it’s the only way that you can truly succeed in life. Bob Dorr thank you for that wisdom, I really appreciate it. This has been so wonderful today and on behalf of the Manager Mojo listeners, I want to thank you for your wisdom and for helping us see that it doesn’t matter how you start, it’s the way you think through your life and through your career that makes the difference. And I certainly thank you on behalf of our listeners and thanks again for being with us today Bob
Bob: Well it’s a pleasure to be able to share the things that I’ve learned over the, over a long period of time. And believe me again fellas when it’s- and ladies- when it’s time to retire you’re gonna love it. It’s a wonderful experience
Steve: That is so awesome. Well I’ll tell you what I thank you again for sharing your wisdom today. Thank you Bob Dorr and we look forward to hearing more from you, and the very best to you. Now one other thing I wanted to say. What was the name of your friend again that you’ve been looking for? Maybe somebody knows somebody that knows him
Bob: Gordon Tower
Steve: Gordon Tower
Bob: Graduated from Beecher High School in 1959, and I believe he might be in Oregon or one of those States out there. I’ve been searching for him. I’d like to see how he eventually turned out
Steve: I want to encourage our listeners, if anybody knows Gordon Tower, make sure you email me Steve at manager Mojo dot com and I’ll make sure that these two guys are reconnected
Bob: Thank you very much Steve
Steve: Bob thank you and have a marvelous rest of your day
Bob: Oh thank you.
Steve: Thanks for joining me today on the Manager Mojo Podcast. Let’s rock the world. Please encourage your friends to subscribe to the podcast and I would love for you to share and connect with me on social media. I’m on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And don’t forget to pick up your free copy of Manager Mojo: Be the Leader Others Want to Follow, by going to manager mojo dot com, and signing up to get your free gifts. Until next time, I encourage you to exercise your Mojo, and become the leader that others want to follow.
