The Delerious Mudmaker Program

(Blogger's Note: Ah, Friday. Pizza Friday at Fire M headquarters. A very interesting comment was posted yesterday from an ex employee who worked at Fire M headquarters in India. We'll touch on this more on Monday after my sources give me the skinny on why the chubby cut bait and believing his propoganda. Remember the premise for Slumdog Millionaire when the host of the show turns on the contestant. The same holds true for Fire M, except you never know when yor the contestant. take The Co Founder, he has ben the subject of executive abuse for seven nine years and he still hasn't completely cracked. But I will say this, you can't blame Lady M -she is just taking orders from general electrified. His brittle defense, independently speaking, is that Da Bank needs to see numbers. And, since his numbers suck, he has to blame everyone else for not producing so his teflon persona is still shining with the board of directors. If the board would stop chasing windmills and analyze how many people were fired or have left the company they could then ascertain there is a problem from the top down, not the bottom up. There is an unwritten rule that generals never go to the front line but they do contribute something other than berating emails asking where are the Doritos. And I don't mean the brothers.)

But now back to today's tale.

When Don Cane showed up with thought there was light at the end of the tunnel. general electrified refused to take advice from anyone of his consultants or employees. He would immediately absorb the information and offer his standard "We'll take a decision on this tomorrow." That was code for "I am going to take your idea, tell you it will not work, file it and then reintroduce it as my own in a few weeks."

When I was first informed of this process by The Co Founder and later the lead salesperson in the company's west coast office, Trevor Landem, I thought the two guys were just frustrated with the non progress of the company. However, after Don Cane, the CO Founder and Trevor all began to speak the same language I had believed them.

"Trevor, how long have you been here?" I asked one day when general electrified and The Co Founder were in India with Don Cane.

"Almost since the beginning. And it has been very interesting. These guys are lost. We need to get some executives in here to straighten them out." Trevor said.

"Well, Don looks like he might be a good guy." I added.

"Oh, Don's great. It's not the employees; it's the Co-Founder and the general. They don't have a clue. The Co Founder gets thrown out of every dealership he goes into because he's so rude and the Co Founder thinks everyone is beneath him. You can't run a company like that. Your customers have to come first."

"Trevor, you sound a little frustrated?"

"Frustrated. I have seven sites waiting to get done. They are six months behind on a simple web site. Delirious, over there is so far behind on SEO marketing that we are charging dealers for nice reports, confusing them and telling them if they don't pay we'll shut them off. That would be lucky."

Delirious, the Mudmaker program manager that program hyped as the savior of the auto industry. The copycat application was so employee heavy that the product couldn't turn a profit. However, general electrified did do one thing right – he utilized his talented graphic department in Bangalore to develop power point reports filled with data and charts that would confuse most dealers.

If it weren't for the craft, skill and dedication of the graphic team in India, there isno reason that Fire M could brag about product.

But with Don Cane in place, supposedly capturing the reigns of pseudo power from The Co Founder, with Trevor Landem still selling and handling customers, with Eddie Moringer on the east coast and what the Co Founder referred to as his girls in the northwest, Midwest and the Heartland things seemed to be moving in the right direction.

Although the golf tournaments were shaky, attendance poor, and sales were down, there was hope on the horizon. And it all had to with training. You're gonna love this.

"Mike, could you pass me a slice of sundried tomato"....


Monday: Danny Columbo walks out of the flame, into the fire.