Chapter 39 — Quiz: Your 90-Day Plan

Test yourself before moving on. Every answer, with a short explanation, is hidden in a <details> block — try to answer first, then check. A scoring guide is at the end.

Part 1 — Multiple Choice (10 questions)

Q1. According to the chapter, the one job of your first thirty days is to:

  • A) Sell at least five cars to prove you belong
  • B) Learn the building and build habits — confidence and process, not a unit count
  • C) Out-sell the other new hires
  • D) Memorize every one of the 350 units on the lot
Answer **B.** Month one's goal is confidence and process, *not* a unit count — the same goal a good manager sets in the Ch 33 onboarding plan. Chasing units before you know the inventory and process is how new people get demoralized and quit. (D is wrong because you master your ~5 *core* models cold and have working knowledge of the rest — not all 350.)

Q2. A leading indicator is best described as:

  • A) A result that tells you what already happened
  • B) Your final closing ratio for the month
  • C) An activity you control today that predicts a future result
  • D) The number of cars you sold last month
Answer **C.** Leading indicators are activities you control *today* (greets, demos, write-ups, follow-up calls, appointments) that *predict* the lagging results. A, B, and D are all lagging indicators — results that are too late to change by the time you see them.

Q3. The chapter says to shadow Carmen, not Rick, primarily because:

  • A) Rick refuses to train new people
  • B) Carmen sells more cars, so she has more time
  • C) Rick's model (grind, treat the customer as an adversary) is skilled but wrong, and learning it would set the wrong habits
  • D) Carmen works the same shift as most new hires
Answer **C.** The danger isn't learning from an unskilled person — it's learning the *wrong model* from a skilled one. Rick can close, which makes his grind-and-burn-out model seductive, but it underperforms over time and washes people out (the whole arc of Ch 6). Shadow the consultative model the book is built on.

Q4. The rough unit-count goals for the three phases are approximately:

  • A) 5 / 10 / 15
  • B) 0–2 / ~5 / ~10
  • C) 10 / 10 / 10
  • D) 1 / 2 / 3
Answer **B.** Roughly 0–2 in month one (learning), ~5 in month two (traction, habits forming), and ~10 in month three (independence). That's a *successful* ramp — and the launch point toward the ~15/month median income from Ch 5.

Q5. In the model day, the two protected blocks are:

  • A) Lunch and the morning meeting
  • B) Prospecting and follow-up
  • C) Test drives and write-ups
  • D) The lot walk and the close-out
Answer **B.** A protected prospecting block (sphere, referrals, equity-mine) and a protected follow-up block (24-hour/7-day calls, "not nows"). They're the heart of the day and the first things abandoned when it gets busy or discouraging — which is exactly why you protect them like meetings you can't move.

Q6. A recoverable draw is dangerous in a slow ramp because:

  • A) It is illegal in most states
  • B) It is an advance against future commissions, so three thin months can dig a "draw hole" you spend the year repaying
  • C) It pays less than a non-recoverable draw on a good month
  • D) The manager can change it without telling you
Answer **B.** A recoverable draw is a loan against your future commissions; shortfalls in slow months carry forward and your future good months pay them back before you see real income above the draw. A non-recoverable draw is a true floor you keep regardless. Know which you're on *before* you sign.

Q7. The single most important step in the slump protocol for a new salesperson is to:

  • A) Take a few days off to clear your head
  • B) Lower your activity until things naturally turn around
  • C) Audit your actual activity in the CRM against a good baseline
  • D) Switch to higher-pressure closing techniques
Answer **C.** Audit the activity (step 2), because nine times out of ten a prolonged slump is an *activity* slump wearing the mask of a *skill* slump — the CRM almost always shows your greets/demos/calls quietly dropped. B is the death-spiral move (the exact opposite of the protocol). D is "getting fancy and desperate," which the protocol warns against.

Q8. "Manage your leading indicators, and the lagging indicators take care of themselves" means:

  • A) Ignore your sales numbers entirely
  • B) Put units on the wall as the destination, but track and reward the daily activity you control
  • C) Only the manager should track metrics
  • D) Sales are random, so don't bother planning
Answer **B.** You can't control sales (lagging) today, but you can control activity (leading). So put the unit goal on the wall as your destination and put greets/demos/write-ups/calls/appointments on your *daily scorecard*. Chase the activity, and the units chase you. (This fuses the Ch 6 activity mindset with the Ch 33 funnel.)

Q9. What does "live below your best month" protect you from?

  • A) Paying too much in taxes
  • B) The money-stress death spiral — where a raised lifestyle meets an inevitable lean month, breeding desperation selling
  • C) The manager cutting your pay plan
  • D) Charge-backs on cancelled products
Answer **B.** Lumpy commission income *will* dip. If you raise your lifestyle to match a great month, the next lean month becomes a crisis, which breeds desperation selling (pushing customers), which loses customers and makes the next month leaner. Budgeting on your lean months keeps a dip survivable. (Ch 6.)

Q10. The Project Checkpoint — the assembled 30/60/90-day business plan — pulls together four parts. Which is not one of them?

  • A) The 30/60/90 phase map
  • B) Your model day
  • C) Your leading-indicator scorecard
  • D) A full inventory list of all 350 units on the lot
Answer **D.** The four parts are the phase map, the model day, the leading-indicator scorecard, and the slump protocol taped inside the cover. The plan assembles your *prior portfolio components* into one document — not a raw inventory list.

Part 2 — True / False (5 questions)

Mark each true or false and give a one-line justification.

Q11. Selling zero cars in your first two weeks is a sign you're probably not cut out for the job.

Answer **False.** Month one's job is learning the building, not selling — selling little or nothing in the first weeks is the *normal, expected* ramp. Measuring a good day by your daily *learning/activity* goals (not units) is the correct frame.

Q12. A demo'd (test-driven) customer is significantly more likely to buy than one who only looked.

Answer **True.** That's why "demos given" is a leading indicator — getting people into a car moves them down the funnel toward a write-up and a sale. (Jordan's strong demo rate was a bright spot in the Ch 33 funnel.)

Q13. When you're behind in a slump, the right move is to pull back on activity until your confidence returns.

Answer **False.** The exact opposite. Confidence returns *after* activity, not before it — you behave your way out of a slump. Pulling back cuts the activity that drives sales, deepening the death spiral. The protocol says *flood the funnel* (more, not less).

Q14. Building your sphere-of-influence and prospecting list should wait until you're an established producer, since new salespeople should focus only on floor ups.

Answer **False.** Building the sphere list and the follow-up habit in *month two* is the highest-leverage choice of the first ninety days. The salesperson who waits has nothing but floor traffic to depend on; the one who builds it early has warm, high-closing pipeline by month seven.

Q15. Your closing ratio and your unit count are both lagging indicators.

Answer **True.** Both are *results*. If both are off you look to the leading indicators (greets, appointments, follow-up calls) to find which input is short — e.g., a fine close rate with a low unit count means too few *opportunities*, not poor selling.

Part 3 — Short Answer (4 questions)

Two to four sentences each.

Q16. Explain the difference between a leading and a lagging indicator, and why a new salesperson is better off managing the leading ones.

Answer A **lagging** indicator is a result (units sold, commission, monthly closing ratio) — by the time it's bad, the period is over and you can't fix it. A **leading** indicator is an activity you control today (greets, demos, write-ups, follow-up calls, appointments) that *predicts* the result. A new salesperson manages the leading indicators because they're controllable *now* and they let you catch and fix a problem mid-stream — and because pinning your sense of a good day to controllable activity (not uncontrollable sales) is what keeps you steady and prevents slumps (Ch 6).

Q17. Describe the model day's two protected blocks and explain why they are the first things a struggling new salesperson tends to abandon — and what it costs them.

Answer The two protected blocks are a **prospecting block** (sphere, referrals, equity-mine) and a **follow-up block** (24-hour/7-day calls, touching "not nows"). They're abandoned first because they have no *immediate* payoff — no live customer in front of you — so under pressure they feel skippable. The cost is enormous and delayed: skipping them means no pipeline, so the salesperson stays dependent on whatever walks in the door, starts at zero every month, and starves on slow weeks (the Rick model). The unglamorous between-times are where the *future* income is built.

Q18. Walk through the slump-recovery protocol's logic: why is "audit the CRM" the first diagnostic move, and why is "flood the funnel" the counterintuitive cure?

Answer **Audit the CRM first** because most prolonged slumps are *activity* slumps disguised as *skill* slumps — the cold patch lowered confidence, confidence quietly lowered activity (fewer greets/calls/energy), and the activity drop (not a lost "touch") is what's actually suppressing sales. The CRM reveals this where memory lies. **Flood the funnel** is the cure because it directly reverses that drop: more at-bats mathematically produce more hits even at a depressed close rate, and *action is the cure for the feeling* — confidence follows activity, not the other way around. The fear says withdraw; the protocol says do more.

Q19. Why are the manager's 90-day onboarding plan (Ch 33) and the salesperson's 90-day survival plan (this chapter) called "the same plan from two chairs"? Name one thing the salesperson must provide for themselves if the manager doesn't.

Answer Both follow the identical three-phase arc — foundations/confidence (1–30), traction/habits (31–60), independence/real numbers (61–90) — with the same goals at each stage, because the manager develops the salesperson along exactly the path the salesperson must walk. They differ in *who provides the structure*. If a manager runs "sink or swim" with no shadowing, no product training, and no funnel one-on-ones, the salesperson must build it themselves: choose a top producer to shadow, set their own daily learning goals, track their own funnel, and run their own slump protocol. (The chapter's whole point is to give the salesperson the plan even when the store doesn't.)

Part 4 — Applied Scenario (2 questions)

Q20. A new salesperson finishes month three having sold 8 cars. Their funnel: 32 ups taken, 20 demos, 10 write-ups, 8 deliveries. Identify their strongest stage, their leak, the one lever they should pull in month four, and one specific tactic to pull it.

Answer **Strongest stage:** the close on write-ups — 8 of 10 write-ups closed (80%), excellent. **Also strong:** the demo rate — 20 of 32 ups got into a car (~63%). **The leak:** only **10 of 20 demos became write-ups (50%)** — they lose customers between the test drive and putting numbers on paper. **The one lever for month four:** *write up more of the demos they already earn* — the same diagnosis Big Mike gave Jordan (Ch 33). **A specific tactic:** trial-close on the test drive (Ch 10) and then transition confidently to sitting down and running figures — e.g., "Let's go inside and I'll put some real numbers in front of you, no obligation" — instead of letting the customer drift back toward the door. Fixing this one ratio raises total output with zero extra ups.

Q21. It's week eight. A salesperson has hit a two-week slump (a run of "not nows" and a deal that died in finance), is panicking about a thin upcoming paycheck, and is tempted to (a) ease off — take fewer ups, leave early — and (b) push harder on the few customers they get. Lay out, step by step, what they should actually do.

Answer Run the protocol, and refuse both panic impulses: 1. **Name it** — "This is a normal, temporary, common slump. It happens to everyone, including Carmen." (Stops the catastrophizing.) 2. **Audit the CRM** against a good baseline — almost certainly their greets/demos/follow-up calls dipped when their confidence did. There's the real cause. 3. **Flood the funnel** — the *opposite* of impulse (a): for a two-week sprint, take *every* up, double the follow-up calls, work the sphere list. Action cures the feeling. 4. **One outside fix** — ask Carmen or Big Mike to watch one customer interaction and name *one* thing to fix. 5. **Re-ground in fundamentals** — refuse impulse (b): pressure loses customers and tanks CSI; do the clean process (warm greet, real needs analysis, honest numbers). The grind underperforms (Ch 5/33). 6. **Protect the body** — sleep, food, movement; sometimes two real nights of sleep fix the "slump." On the money fear specifically: lean on the *activity-to-income math* (Ch 5) — pin the day to controllable inputs, not the variable paycheck — and remember the income is reliable over a quarter even when it's random over a week. Then live below the best month so the dip isn't a crisis.

Scoring Guide

Count one point per question (21 total).

  • 18–21 (85%+): Excellent — you've internalized the plan. You're ready to build your 30/60/90-day business plan and run it from day one. Go do the Project Checkpoint.
  • 15–17 (70–84%): Solid — you've got the structure. Re-skim the sections behind any misses (especially leading vs. lagging in §39.5 and the slump protocol in §39.7), then proceed.
  • 11–14 (50–69%): Re-read the chapter, paying special attention to the three-phase arc (§39.1–§39.3), the model day (§39.4), and the leading/lagging distinction (§39.5). These are the load-bearing ideas.
  • Below 11: Re-read the chapter slowly with your portfolio open, and re-do the Chapter 5 (activity-to-income) and Chapter 6 (slump protocol) Spaced Review questions first — this chapter assembles those, so they need to be solid underneath you.

70% is the bar to proceed. This is the next-to-last chapter; the whole book has been building to this assembly, so make sure it holds before you finalize your career map in Chapter 40.