Richard Keith Latman - The Blog

Bill Gates Retires - About Time

Today's news about Bill Gates supposed retirement leaves me with mixed feelings. It is indeed the passing of an era at Microsoft and the company has changed dramatically. I, as most of you know, have some personal feelings about Bill Gates and his business practices which date back to when we were trying to build Microworkz into a PC company for the masses. After the front page story about us appeared on 2/1999 I got this email from Mr. Gates:

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 1999 11:30 AM
To: Rick Latman

Subject: Microsoft and Microworkz

Rick,

As you are aware, Microsoft maintains specific licensing requirements for computer vendors that require you to comply with our terms and conditions in order to be an authorized pc builder wth msft tools. I will tell you now that we will not allow you to install Windows on Microworkz machines and destroy the profit margins of our business in the process. This is not a discussion, not a debate point and we will bury you in legal and punitive fees if you don't stop this immediately. We are free to set the price of our software at any price the market will bear, your price will be $230 per machine.

Now go sell your whiteboxes at $299.

Those of you who know me probably know how I responded (since you could buy it per piece on the street at about $90) and why this case became so "newsworthy" in Seattle and only in Seattle. He was an all-powerful man in that town and probably still is. Few of you probably know that he then turned around and used us as a DEFENSE against the government in the antitrust lawsuit. Here's some links for interesting reading:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ofnote/07-23joc.mspx

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,11574,00.asp

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/07/12/BU75493.DTL

I'll talk more later on this topic but it's nice to finally say "Goodbye" to Mr. Gates, I only hope he fights as hard for the charities as he did to enrich his pockets at the expense of the World.

DealerCRM v2.0 vs CRM Failures

Since leaving the dealership floor in 2003 I have learned a lot about software, visited hundreds of dealers from coast to coast and trained thousands of salespeople how to use iCarMagic's tools. Here's the thing: Are we really helping them sell cars or are we showing them new ways to do the same old thing? Because we all know 'intentions' and 'actions' are very different, today I thought I'd take a minute and talk about what I have observed and learned during this journey.

There are usually only two types of salespeople that are prevalent in our business, 'hunters' and 'farmers'. The 'hunter' watches the lot like a hawk, works every deal like it was his or her last and usually has reasonable monthly closing ratios. The 'farmers' in our world, and there are very few of them, provide excellent customer service, get great CSI, follow up timely and yet although consistent, have lousy monthly closing ratios. 'Hunters' live feast or famine, 'farmers' make a regular income and sell about the same amount of cars every month.

I started with the brief description above (that we all probably know) to then pose the compound question: Why do we need a CRM tool and what do we expect it to do for us? Certainly we don't believe the BZ Results claims (which sound a lot like those high energy diet pill ads on the radio to me) , so what do we want? Well from my talks with folks here's what I hear:

1. Standardized processes
2. Mandated follow-up
3. Automation to help with the email load
4. Good reporting
5. All the data in one place
6. Protection from risk when blowing someone out

Am I crazy or are those the same problems (with the exception of email) that existed when I started in this business in 1984? Have we not yet learned that tools are worthless without training, management and motivation? Most of you have heard me tell the story about my sock drawer-business card crm tool or the now-infamous interactive real-time personalized diagram tools I use (pen and paper) as a real substitute for any poorly designed CRM system. When used in conjunction with good training and management, both these solutions are fool-proof solutions and I guarantee your staff will sell more cars this month if you implement them now. In fact, I'm willing to give you a money back guarantee for the cost of the supplies if you are not totally satisfied.

I know, as usual, I got off topic :)

By now you all know we are busily working on a new version of the iCarMagic suite to be released early next year. While I can't tell you much yet about what it does, I can tell you it is really a huge leap BACKWARDS in computing. Less complexity, less feature confusion, less clutter and it's so easy to use even your salespeople will try it. We've rethought the whole process again, went back to the showroom floor and learned from the mistakes of the auto software industry. The system, code-named "Chopper", should be available to our beta users on January 1st and to everyone else at NADA. It's a big change and perhaps the first really new thing to hit the dealers since, well, since the first version of iCarMagic.

More to come...

iCarMagic Sold? Not!

Over the past few days multiple people in our industry have begun to suggest that iCarMagic has been sold to *gasp* Reynolds. Let me, Keith Latman, be the first to tell you that this rumor is untrue and that we are not for sale. As I have told everyone who has asked me over the past few weeks, it is not even under consideration for a number of reasons:

1. iCarMagic is still a project without an end date. We are busy working on version 2.0, are signing customers faster than ever before and have too much potential to sell out
2. This whole "sell or not sell" debate is futile: Yes I know everyone has a price but what is wrong with building a good business with a solid base and good profitability? I am proud of what we have achieved, love who I work with and can't imagine doing anything else for the next few years.
3. Although the upcoming trial is always on my mind, I truly feel that justice will prevail and a fair verdict will be reached. We have built a team here than can support this company with me or without Keith Latman, so again, there is no rush to sell.

OK, rumor quashed, now can we talk about the product? :)

Microworkz.com - The Business Model

Thank you to everyone for the hundreds of emails I have received over the past few days. I know many of you are avid Microworkz.com watchers and happy customers (and yes there were thousands of happy customers) and I am happy to write about what happened and why it happened. Let's start today with the biggest issue most of you have raised: The Business Model

While some have called the "free pc" revolution a fantastic pyramid, it was in fact the same business model used by many companies in many different business very successfully since the early days of marketing. Subsidizing, or losing money, on specialized hardware used to then sell a monthly-fee based service is nothing I invented: Cell phones, XBOX's, Cable boxes, TIVO's, IPOD's and a host of other consumer electronics are sold well below their cost in order to "hook" the consumer in and get them to buy services on the subscription model. Microworkz's business model was completely sound; it made economic sense then and today because revenue was earned in a myriad of other ways from a host of companies. As an example of what I mean, take a look at this article about what Dell is doing today:

http://news.com.com/Dell+embraces+Google/2100-1032_3-6077051.html

We had these kinds of deals with major banks, Amazon, Internet providers like Earthlink and AT&T and others. The net result was an enormeous profit on each machine delivered and enabled. Now that was a very different issue, the real problem at Microworkz was production, building a company and dealing with the media all at one time. Here's one of my favorite articles of late... xBox looks a lot like an iToaster doesn't it?

http://businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2005/tc20051122_410710.htm

Welcome and Disclaimer

As many of you know, I have been indicted by a Federal Court in Seattle on a few charges related to the filing of two different bankruptcy petition in the year 2000. 6 years later I've been told to answer for things related to non-disclosure and conspiracy to commit fraud. It's a very heavy indictment and I'd love to write about it but as you can expect, I can't. What I can write about is the history of Microworkz and what happened that has led to the closure and indirectly this trial. Also on this blog expect to learn about what I am doing now and expect the future to be.

Also let me clear up one thing: My legal name is Richard Keith Latman, I go by Keith now because when I left my wife I felt I needed a fresh start and a break with her violence and troubles of the past. I have never hidden from anyone, have a wonderful life and now maybe you can hear, as Paul Harvey used to say, "the rest of the story".

Happy Reading

Keith

P.S. This BLOG is based on my personal opinion and experiences. Some of these opinions or comments may contain things you don't like or don't agree with and for that I am sorry in advance.