Sales – DealershipNews.com

Getting On The Same Page

Dan Kommeth — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 21:58:34 +0000

I believe that all people want to be led, but getting them all to agree on a course of action can be a challenge. People bring different experiences, attitudes, and emotions to the workplace and balancing all of that with your business objectives takes some patience and practice.

The first part is getting all of your managers on board, and that involves getting them together in the same physical space, or at least that’s what I do. I start every Monday morning with what I like to call my “Leadership Meeting,” which involves every department head and myself.

I set the agenda for the week, looking at the calendar to confirm visits from any guests from corporate or our vendor partners, in-store or offsite training, vacations or other items that everyone needs to know about. Here I’m trying to avoid the “no one told me” response later in the week when something important is about to happen. No surprises.

Next, we move on to general business items

…including where our results stand for the month. In this business, we’re measured on a month-to-month basis and I think it’s important that all department heads know how each individual department is doing. If we’re having a good month in a particular department, I want to call out that manager in front of their peers (but in a good way), encouraging them to keep it up and finish strong. If we’re lagging, I want everyone to know so that they might be able to lend some brainpower to improving the situation. Let’s say the new car department is behind the forecast and we talk about it. Maybe the service manager has heard a couple of technicians talking about needing a new car. He or she can inform the new car manager and they can plan a follow-up discussion after the meeting to go over new car incentives and talk with the employees. The point is, every little bit helps.

The last part of the Leadership Meeting is the most important,

…as we go around the room and everyone gets to speak whatever is on their mind. This is meant to foster a sense of collaboration between the managers and work out any conflicts that may arise departmentally during the week. Let’s say the used car manager thinks his department pays too much in reconditioning the cars and getting them ready for sale (don’t they all think that?). The service and parts managers will, of course, be very protective of their turf, but maybe there is a discussion that can be had about ways to lower costs. Even if it only results in a plan to meet separately later in the week, hopefully, it provides a forum where managers can interact and not feel threatened. I am the moderator, however, and have to make sure things don’t get out of hand. In the rare instance where people are too emotional or argumentative, I shut off discussion and plan a follow up with the affected parties after the fact.

One more thing: the meeting doesn’t take that long, typically lasting 20 to 30 minutes. Any longer and you’ve lost their attention anyway and people won’t think it’s a valuable meeting. The key is to keep it short and meaningful in your managers’ minds.

After this meeting, the rest of the week can be spent making sure the department heads are disseminating any required information to the rest of the team and my working with them individually. Going around the store and observing what is or isn’t happening gives me the opportunity to work with that manager and employees further, and it also provides potential topics for general discussion at next week’s meeting.

Getting the rest of the staff on the same page only occurs when they see the managers do the same. I’ve seen cultures where the managers say things to their particular employees that take away from our mission. It does no good to have the service or parts manager tell a technician that the used car manager is “cheap” and “doesn’t want to spend a dime” or have the new car manager tell a salesperson that service and parts are “ripping them off” on accessories and installation. It sends the message that the departments don’t (and can’t) get along and that ultimately gets back to the external customer. Trust me, our guests don’t care about internal conflicts, they just want their problem solved.

And that’s really what it’s all about, right? We have to have our stuff together to provide a unified front to the guests. For example, we don’t want salespeople promising something for a customer, only to not tell service what’s going on and have the customer show up on the service drive expecting to be taken care of, do we? How unprofessional do we look there? Whereas if we develop a system or process to communicate “we owes” internally, we can provide a much smoother experience for the guest. That’s what earns us repeat business from guests. Not low prices, not 10 minute, $9.95 oil changes, but an actual, factual good customer experience.

What do you do to get your people on the same page? Do you do something different to internally set yourself up for success? I’d love the feedback.

Make it a great day!

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Tom Murray with WebBuy

Kelly Kleinman — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 18:03:52 +0000

CEO and Co-Founder Tom Murray discusses how you can take advantage of the new way to buy cars that are emerging online, for your own dealership. Find more informative interviews like this one, at DealershipNews.com

Kelly Kleinman:
Kelly Kleinman DealershipNews.com we are the Digital Dealer Show at the lovely Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, the sinful city we’ve got with us from WebBuy Mr. Tom Murray. He is the CEO and Co-founder. Tom, what’s the value proposition? What do you guys do over a Web Buy?

Tom Murray:
Nice to see you Kelly.. We we are dealers primarily that decided seven years ago that we wanted to create an Amazon solution, including a proceed to checkout, so to speak, functionality for the franchise dealer world. And we we began the journey and its been an interesting path for seven years. And the things that differentiate us Kelly. is that we a number one, our solution works that had an approved by most OEMs that we have now have hundreds of happy dealer customers. But there’s a couple of key differentiation points in our solution. We create a sandbox of sorts, right, for that demographic. I call it the Carvana effect, right? Carvana nd I think the number was 4700. They reach out in 2017 and 2018, sold 94,000 this year. They’re tracking, I believe, about a 170,000. So whatever you believe about their value proposition in terms of their business model, the one thing they’ve certainly done is to have validated. Right. The fact that this is in this demographic of of a buyer who’s conflict averse, who’s digitally savvy, and maybe most importantly, who wants to control the process. Right. It isn’t growing. It’s exploding. And if you’re a franchise dealer, whether whether you want to partner with my company or not, I would I would call special attention to you to really focus on the fact that this is this isn’t a fad. Right. This is coming. It’s not just coming. It’s here. And then you look at the vroom’s and the digital disruptors. Right. And if you’ve ever seen a Carvana TV commercial, for example, they’ll tell you car salesman is bad, a car dealer is bad. Don’t go there. And so we’re under attack. And I would encourage my friends in the in the franchise dealership to to recognize that right. To not stick our heads in the collective sand and go.. It’s a fad. It’ll pass. It’s not a fad and it’s not going to pass. You either need to reinvent that portion of your business because today it’s probably 25%. And I would say in the next 24 to 36 months, it may be as much as half of your customer base. So even if you’re not digitally, digitally retailing, at least give your consumer, your customer and the people in your marketplace a path to engage with you. Right. Because today, if you don’t have that opportunity, if they don’t have that opportunity, you’re never gonna meet them. And there’s so many other places that will meet their needs. CarMax. Right. Even Tesla gets referenced not because it’s a high volume car, but it’s the process. Right? It’s simple. It’s easy, and most importantly, it’s user controlled. So that was our mission statement from day one. Number two, we wanted to be able to make it dealer centric. Right. We my co-founder owns a big dealer group in Billings, Montana. My background, I spent half of my career in the retail space. The other half, I worked for the warranty group.

Tom Murray:
I was the president of Resource Automotive, the biggest division. It’s now Assurant. So we understand the car business. And we not only protect the dealers profit centers, but we grow them and we’ve actually created new profit centers. And then lastly, we give you as a dealer all of the impact drivers to control the business digitally, just like you would with a green sharpie marker in the force in the showroom we use in essence Kelly. just the way summarize it would be say we digitize the 10 steps to the sale. Right in every aspect of our solution, whether that’s sales tax to the penny, whether it is rebates and incentives, whether it’s payoff information. Our billboard is it real time auto decisioning machine that allows you to markup the loans, control it, and foster that rapid less than 60 seconds communication and the deals bought are customizable training tool, which is part of our solution. We built it from scratch. We made a dealer centric. You decide all of the impact drivers in terms of the deductions, the additions. Right. How you want to give you one quick example and the appraisal front. If if a customer is in a dealership and you say to me, hey, Tommy and both remotes for your trading, and I say, no, Mike, my son lost one of them. But we’re gonna have to deduct $400. Right, because we have to give the next customer.

Tom Murray:
I’m probably mad at you at that moment, the dealership, because you’re the message. I’ll spin the paradigm and change that dynamic, and I’m in my sweats at 10 o’clock at night on my computer and I’m clicking right. New tires click. Does it need brakes? Click? Yep. Both remotes now are missing one click and then the reconciliation comes up and it deducts the 400. I’m not mad at the car dealer. I’m mad at my son. Right. For losing the remote, possibly $400. But here’s the here’s the punchline. The people who had the self-guided experience are. 78% more likely to accept the wholesale offer, not a retail offer, because they’re in control. They’re the ones they’re appraising your own car.

Tom Murray:
So that’s just one impact driver in our solution. And then we literally take it all the way A to Z. We give them a sandbox to play with regular rates. Then it rates lease payments in real time with updated impact factors, rather return interest rate or money factor. And then we literally have an Amazon proceed to checkout functionality at the end where the customer puts the credit card in and literally buys the car. So we’ve spent a lot of time Kelly. 7 years building this solution and trying to make it dealer centric. Most of our investors are car dealers. We’ve gotten a lot of great ideas along the way and we’ve endeavoured to continually reinvent and update on a regular recurring basis in a position where a dealer says This is exactly what I do right in my showroom manually on a Saturday afternoon. If I’ve got 15 salespeople at one o’clock in the afternoon and there’s 22 ups, I’m going to lose that op on a Saturday because I don’t have a way to handle to ups. I want to augment what you do and what your salesperson to take. Three ups, not one. So if I say to you, hey, Jimmy, from pulling out, that’s what I’ve done. If nothing else had slowed you down and bought myself some time to finish with the first up right and get to you. But at the end of the day, they could literally take the phone and buy the car while they’re sitting in the customer. So there’s a lot of a lot of good impact drivers in our solution. But most importantly, I guess the advice I would give to dealers is again and I’ll kind of end where I began. This is not a fad. This is not a flash in the pan. And most importantly, it’s not going away. The franchise dealer model is under attack by digital disruptors.

Tom Murray:
And fortunately for you, we have a solution that would combat that Carvana effect and level the playing field for you and allow you to engage with those people that, you know, don’t like negotiation. They do everything on their phone. They forget about negotiating, they don’t even want to talk to another human being right then and say, hey, we’ve got a path to make you happy and to allow you to engage in a self-directed digital purchasing experience. You’re in control. So I look forward to visiting with you again. Thank you for the opportunity to visit with you today. And I hope you have a great finish to show folks.

Kelly Kleinman:
That’s whereby Tom Murray, CEO, the man, the myth, the legend. We’re going to do a podcast and then we’ll get a little more into it. In the meantime, have a great day.

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Len Short with LotLinx, Part 2

Kelly Kleinman — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 18:54:00 +0000

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Kelly Kleinman:
Len tell us a little bit about your work now with OEMs. Seems to be a focus of your marketing. It’s going pretty well.

Len Short:
Yeah. So we’ve grown largely with our sales force through our relationships with large dealer groups who are early adopters, some smaller dealer groups who are sort of very smart and cutting edge. And, you know, the OEMs have a lot of resources to look into new technologies, highlight them, see what they do for their business. Our primary impact is is moving specific inventory. Right. And that’s an issue for the OEM. They print out cars. You know, the F-150 1 every 34.5 seconds comes in, you know, online. And they’ve seen they produce them in a very steady fashion, but they don’t sell through quite as evenly. Right. So you see, you know, fluctuations in sales up and down, but you see huge swings in days supply. And when you take that down to the regional or the dealer level, the swings get even more exaggerated. An OEM can’t sell what he’s producing unless it’s clearing out little ahead of us. And, you know, so we address that that issue at the dealer level and at the OEM level. What they’ve learned to do is use our product nationally, you know, to to address those kind of bunch ups in the supply chain in either in conjunction with an incentive, in support of an incentive program that they have or actually in advance of an incentive reducing the incentive dollars that they have to spend in the marketplace. So, you know, 10, 15 times a month, we’re launching campaigns for, you know, one in 10 set of, you know, inventory in the Midwest and another one in the Southeast. And, you know, they’re using it to manage that supply chain, you know, to their best advantage and optimize their cost, you know, moving that that inventory up until now.

Len Short:
The only real lever broker dealer and OEM have had is price to try to move inventory is a very costly way of clearing inventory. You know, OEMs are up to 4000 dollars on average per unit spending.

Len Short:
That’s a big chunk of gross margin on a unit. Dealers spend 30 million or 30 billion a quarter in retail discounts to move inventory. You know, and the problem is the old, you know, price elasticity of demand doesn’t work the same way as it used to. It does, but it tends to do is shift buyers from one unit to another, not really drive incremental demands with the very costly way of clearing out. You know what you have that’s aged on your lot and the older a piece of inventory gets, the harder it is to sell. Since the phenomenon that every dealer knows you’re doing, that you’re shifting the demand to those units, you’re starving the fresher units that are then going to go through the same cycle and they’ll become aged and then you’re discounting those. So, you know, smarter technology tools and the ability to micromanage demand per unit really makes a massive difference. You know, and not only the sales rates of those units, you know, reducing the days on a lot, but in the realized margin. Right. It’s a lot less expensive if you use technology to find incremental buyers than it is to use dollars to find incremental buyers. Right. To absorb costs on your life now. And, you know, so this is one of the inefficiency, inefficiencies that is developed in our business deals, complaining about compressing margins and the race to the bottom.

Len Short:
They’re looking at the guy next door seeing what he’s price. He’s looking back to see what they’re priced. And they’re sort of person themselves into, you know, into a business that there’s a retail margin left in. And, you know, I think what what makes me most excited about this, this business is, you know, how technology is going to change that. So far, the frankly, the Internet has been a big cost center for deals. It hasn’t spent a lot of money tooling up. You know, they’re spending a digital spending’s up 288% while, you know, margins are down 38%. So you that can’t sustain. You can’t be serving. It’s great for the digital guys, but it’s you know, it can’t be serving a customer base that is, you know, getting crushed on the net margins. We have to have technology find the efficiencies and we have to get a dividend from all of this investment in technology that we’ve made. That’s beginning to happen. I think that’s going to the story going forward. And, you know, if technology can bring every dealer another $300 a unit, you know, that’s going to change the whole dynamic of this business. And I think that’s, you know, that’s what we’re going to be seeing happen over the next year.

Len Short:
Thanks, Len.

Kelly Kleinman:
Thank you.

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Len Short with LotLinx, Part 1

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Survey Reveals Customer Pain Points

Guest Blogger — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 22:50:02 +0000

SURVEY REVEALS CUSTOMER PAIN POINTS IN FINANCIAL LENDING PROCESSES, LENDERS HEED OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY CHALLENGES

Majority of Consumers Report Complaints Related to Time and Efficiency in the Automotive Lending Process

BURNABY, BC (October 28, 2019) – Inovatec Systems Corp., a provider of industry-leading, cloud-based software solutions for all financial institutions, today announced the results of its latest survey, revealing consumer pain-points associated with lenders when financing a vehicle.

When asked about the biggest complaint associated with financing their last vehicle, 56.8% of consumers said that finding a bank or lender that would approve the purchase of the vehicle was their biggest complaint. An additional 37.8% of those respondents said there were too many steps involved, and 30.6% said the processing time was their biggest complaint.

In a separate survey, lenders were then asked to identify issues and challenges with their current processes in their organization. Over 35.6% of lenders reported operational issues were a struggle, while 28.1% reported issues in lack of efficiency. The findings show a clear discrepancy between lender processing systems and customer needs. Consumers today desire quick outcomes, yet also expect personalized customer experience. Companies are searching for AI tools that allow them to increase customer satisfaction through digital retailing.

Furthermore, consumers were also asked what factors would make the buying process easier in the future. Over 62.2% said that quicker, more simplified processes were top of mind. Another 29.7% reported that in-real-time access to updates on the status of their loan would simplify the process, and 24.3% said that access to pre-qualification tools would improve their experience.

When consumers were asked about their level of understanding on the terms of their loan, only 34% reported they fully understood their loan. Sixty-six percent of consumers reported they either do not understand the terms of their loan at all, or somewhat understand but do not know every detail. This statistic should be concerning to lenders specifically as misunderstanding of loan terms can significantly affect loan default.

“The survey shows a clear divide between lender process system efficiency and customer needs that affect the overall customer experience,” said Bryan Smith, Head of Consumer Growth and Partnerships at Inovatec. “Lenders need access to updated systems that integrate artificial intelligence to improve their processes, which has a trickle-down effect to customers over time.”

About Inovatec Systems Corp.
Inovatec Systems Corporation is an industry-leading provider of cloud-based software solutions for automotive and equipment financing institutions. The seamless platform is ideal for external partner and customer communications through a robust ecosystem that streamlines the process of crediting, auditing, funding and income verification for finance applications. For more information, please visit https://www.inovatec.com/.

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The POWER of the Turnover

John Fairchild — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 18:02:30 +0000

New and Used Car Sales Departments everywhere live and die by the “T/O”. A “T/O” or “Turn Over” is a strategy employed in sales processes universally, to present a prospect with a fresh perspective into the buying process, particularly when the process may have stalled. To give them another point of view when they may have hit a wall.

Your General Manager, General Sales Manager, New Car Manager and Used Car Manager would not DREAM of “letting a customer walk” over the prospect of not speaking to a manager before they left the building. That’s how important the T/O process is. I can’t imagine how many vehicles in your used and new car sales departments actually occurred simply because of the T/O process was employed. Ask your GM!!!!!

This happens simply because customers will get to a point where the personality of the sales person involved may not be able to overcome the objections presented by the customer or really just any other small thing that may be holding the customer’s decision process for ransom. It’s a common process that results in many more sales of new and used vehicles.

So wait, what about Service Department Sales?

Could we rehash and close more sales in service simply by ASKING THE CUSTOMER ONE MORE TIME? Obviously, I’ve baited you with this question because OF COURSE WE CAN! In fact I have introduced this to a number of Dealer clients I work with and ones that have EXECUTED have had phenomenal results! Here are a few things to keep in mind if you want to try this in YOUR store!

Steps to the T/O

Create a T/O log to record your results and track progress. Make sure to include; The Advisor name, the RO number, the type of repair or maintenance done, the Parts amount and the Labor amount. Record the ones you CLOSE and the one’s you DON’T. Over time you can notice trends in WHAT is being sold and by WHO. One store I work with managed to sell $49K in parts & labor in ONE MONTH using this process!
Create a T/O basket – This is a common place the RO’s will be placed should you not be immediately available. In this way, you can call the customer back and have a conversation when you have the time to do so. Even if a day or so has transpired I recommend you still do the call back. ALSO if it’s a WAITER, devise a method to get notified at once if your not in your office so you can take a crack at the folks that are waiting when you can.
Take a “soft sell” approach. This is a time to embrace your customer to ensure they are getting the attention they and YOU want! Building rapport is so important and here’s a perfect opportunity to do so. Start with asking how their visit was handled, how attentive their Advisor was and start a relationship with the customer.
Offer your amenities – It may seem obvious and perhaps your Advisor already did but review your alternative transportation options and also SPECIAL FINANCING choices. Sometimes these opportunities may make your customer reconsider and take you up on a good offer. Sometimes the Advisor may have failed to offer or emphasize it enough in the original approach.
Prioritize your offerings and give options – Be sure to give you customer information on what CAN wait and also what SHOULD NOT wait. Your candidness on WHAT CAN WAIT will give a tremendous amount of weight to your recommendations of what SHOULD NOT wait. By using this approach, you are less likely to “blow people out of the water” with a lot of services and you are providing an option that is different than ALL OR NOTHING.

Training Opportunities Abound

This process will bring you a lot of “AHA!” moments. You will get to see firsthand HOW your Advisors are setting up their estimates and pitching your customers. The very fact that you are T/O-ing deals will force your Advisors to tighten up their methods and hopefully “up their game”. Make sure to “debrief” your Advisors and techs post T/O so they can sharpen their techniques! Did the Advisor offer prioritized choices? Special Financing options? Has the MPI been properly executed? Did your Tech recommend legitimately needed additional services? Are your mandated policies and procedures being followed to the “T”? This will give you easy and ample evidence of real world examples so you can praise when appropriate, coach, counsel and of course, provide discipline when needed.

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Most dealerships still fumble sales-to-service handoff

Guest Blogger — Tue, 19 Feb 2019 06:55:01 +0000

by David Kushma

An extremely simple way a dealership can start to build trust, loyalty, and retention among service clients is for salespeople to introduce vehicle and truck buyers to the service department when the vehicle is in the process of being purchased. But a new survey of consumers shows that such handoffs occur less than half time.

In December, DealerRater polled for Set Ops Journal over 16, 000 consumers who purchased a new car from a dealership in the recent past.

Of those, 42 percent mentioned that the dealership introduced them to the service department upon making as purchase. One-fourth of the customers surveyed said there had been simply no such introduction, and another 25% stated they couldn’t remember whether they met service employees— an indication that no such introduction had occurred or had enough impact to be memorable. Luxury-brand dealerships were somewhat more efficient at conducting sales-to-service handoffs, producing introductions 46 percent of the time, compared to 41 percent for dealerships promoting less expensive mass-market brands, according to the survey.

M5 Management Providers, a dealership fixed operations contracting firm, says the handoff “should be an important focus point inside your sales process.” Customers, the firm says, “want to be familiar with the individuals and facility where they obtain service. “

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Inspiration Vs. Motivation

Katie Mares — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 23:04:48 +0000

I recently asked a great man what he thought the difference between Inspire and Motivation was to him. As someone who has made his living motivating people, I had never thought of this before. We always ask the question what motivates people and that is wrong. We need to ask what inspires them. This was brought to my attention when someone told me that he was offended that he was asked by his employer what motivates him in life. He felt that was none of their business. I explained to him that they asked that as a way to help him. By knowing what drives him, they use that for him and not against him. He said he was motivated by money and that got me thinking. Of course money is a great motivational reason. It is the canned response given to me whenever I ask someone that. But with this person, I went deeper with my follow up question. I simply asked him what inspires him to want to make money. The answers I received from him where very insightful and I learned a very valuable lesson by asking the simple question “What inspires you”.

I applied this question to myself and came up with what I have determined the difference between Inspire and Motivation means to me personally. Inspiration is what starts the motivation process. I am inspired by my wife and my family in the Philippines to move there and be with them. The thought of being with my wife and family everyday inspires me to find a career there that will be rewarding not only for myself and my family, but for others as well. I am inspired knowing that by me being there I can make more of a difference in their lives and others. It is through this Inspiration that has motivated me to seek help from others that are highly respected in the professional field of the Philippines. I also found that my motivation for success was not just for me, I am motivated for others. Motivation is the result of inspiration.

Next time you ask anyone what motivates them, please ask the following question “What inspires you?” after they give you their motivational answer. With those 3 simple words, you will be amazed what answers you will receive. By knowing what inspires them, you will learn more about that person than simply what motivates them. You use that in helping them become a better person and employee. Also knowing what inspires them and their reasons, you also become a better employer.

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Know WHEN to ask for the sale.

Sean Kelley — Mon, 10 Sep 2018 18:09:19 +0000

Timing is everything… Watch the video to learn how Sean Kelley of Car Motivators handles it.

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Civil War: Service VS. Sales

Sean Kelley — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 23:04:19 +0000

Are Your Service and Sales Departments in a Civil War?

To be recited to the cadence of the pledge of allegiance: I pledge allegiance to the mission, of the United departments of my dealership, and to the jobs that rely on each other. Mutual success, under one partnership, communicatively, adding value and dedication for all.

I call it, the Car Motivators pledge of dealership department alignment!

You need every person in every department of your dealership to understand the strategic direction, you are trying to take your company. When they know the direction and are excited to be a part of that vision, you have alignment! This is one sign of a #winningculture. Sometimes this alignment is off within each department. More often, when you take cross functioning departments like sales, service, parts, training, office, BDC, and marketing, things are even more skewed. This can get extreme and cost your dealership a lot of money. The office team can feel completely left out in the cold when it comes to processes and procedural changes when they should probably be the first to know. Sales departments complain that it’s the offices’ job to save the dealership money by finding ways to not pay salespeople. When these misalignments occur, you are bleeding profit. This is because disengaged employees directly impact turnover, productivity, and performance.

There are many ways to unite many departments and many amazing benefits to connecting each one. For this article, we will focus on service and sales. Here are a few things that you can do as a senior leader at your dealership, to unite these two cross functioning departments. The goal is to have your people putting the company first before self-interest and ultimately take profit margins to another level. This can be accomplished through a high level of team cohesion and alignment!

End the civil war between service and sales.

The all neglected service walk. Why do employees of dealers skip this all to important step? Most of the time, employees don’t see value in it for themselves. While its often-true sales will make the first sale and service makes the rest, salespeople aren’t thinking that far ahead. They want to sell a car right now, and anything beyond month end may not be worth spending time on. I ask sales teams at dealers I coach around the country, “What value do you see in doing a service walk with your customers?” I get the same answers almost every time, even from senior leaders. They say, “The service walk helps us begin a service relationship with the customers and ensures service gets business.” They see this as value for the dealership, but not necessarily for the salesperson. If they do perform this step its often because you or your OEM force them to with through paperwork. In short, they’re doing a service walk out of compliance rather than a commitment to the entire teams’ success. Often even ignoring how it affects their success because the payout is far in the future. The further in the future the reward, the less desire to act because the reward looks smaller. If you can create an immediate reward for this activity, it will generate buy-in. Another reason employees tell me that this doesn’t happen to the extent or should, or with the impact, it should have on sales is because salespeople say, they don’t want to bother service writers. Finally, and this is a big warning sign of a service and sales civil war, is when salespeople are fearful of how a customer will be greeted when they take them to service! This means there is guaranteed hostility between the two departments, that must be hashed out.

First, let’s create a WIIFM (What’s in it for me) For the service writers AND salespeople.

What if both sides were on the same team and wanted an amazing service walk for every customer? What would it mean for your dealership?Car Motivators recommendation: Build the team cohesion by pairing a group of salespeople with a service writer. Discuss openly in these groups how the service writer could add value to the salespersons’ process by meeting these customers! When the salespeople know who they should go to, and these people are now working together with the way they know that leads to success you can eliminate the barriers that may prevent a service walk.

If the service writer is trained on how to behave, specifics on the engagement with said customer, and the salesman knows that this improves their immediate closing ratio, they are more likely to do it. The service writer should know that when a salesperson brings someone back to them, that they will reap the service business if the deal is closed, and must treat the interaction as such. Saying something helpful like, “Your lucky to have Sean as your salesman, he always takes care of his customers, you’re in great hands! I’m looking forward to servicing your new vehicle for you!”

What gets measured gets done.

For maximum accountability, start measuring which team has the highest sale to service walk numbers and ratio to sales. If your service writers are logging the opportunities that went through the service walk process, now you can compare closing ratios for service walk vs non-service walk deals. Prove to your people this step gives immediate results. Find out which service write sales teams are not meshing well, and uncover the challenge. This will help everyone function more cohesively as a unit. One store I work with by measuring these metrics, uncovered the service writers were frustrated by after sale “we owe” work. As a result, this was preventing a good service walk! By addressing the issue on the sales side and tightening up some processes, we saved the store money in after sale we owe work and allowed for sales and service to work better together.

Other tips for uniting both departments.

Overall there are many other ways that you can end the civil war between service and sales. You can have your sales department give a “pit stop” to each customer. Now the customer can stop in for a free post-sale inspection, fluid and tire pressure check. You can have service share a service retention metric on each salesperson, so the sales team can have line of sight to long-term opportunities. Service can communicate to sales with scheduled customer service visits for their sold customers so that the salesperson can ensure they talk to their customers each time. One of the many leadership lessons I learned in the Army is that people appreciate the recognition. Create a unit citation or award that you can give to each service and sales team that reaches objectives or sets records each month.

To sum up, you can achieve some great results by having these two departments align and work together. This can be integral in taking your dealership to the next level. Make the service walk introduction extremely valuable to the salesperson and customer. This ensures that your salespeople start doing the service walk after the demo drive and before the write up each opportunity. Sell it to them by asking your sales team, “Should you introduce your fiancé to your family before or after your marriage?” The answer is before, why do the service walk after the proposal? You’ve lost an opportunity to woo the customer over and make closing the sale even easier by demonstrating how confident each player in both departments are of each other. Come up with creative ways for the two departments to work hand in hand. Integrate both teams into the process and show each employee the value of this teamwork, by measuring the results and how they affect each player on the team. You will close more sales, increase service retention, and help create a #winningculture at your dealership.

Car Motivators works with car dealers across the country to customize real and relevant training that everyone at the store wants and needs. By coaching excellence into each player on the team, we create an ongoing sustainable process for developing and growing sales among your top performers. We help our dealers align to a unique cultural vision, value proposition, and ensure this vision becomes reality when we create winning cultures that impact your results. Your managers can leverage the tools you already invest in, and the people you already have to increase both profit and sales without working harder. If you are interested in achieving these results, you may email Sean@CarMotivators.com or visit https://www.carmotivators.com

#thisistraining #coachingexcellence #winningcultures #leadershipdevelopment #sales #servicedrive #culture #automotive

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Has Automation Gone Too Far Regarding Customers?

Kelly Kleinman — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 18:30:35 +0000

His comment was brash, and ignorant of facts based on countless studies generated by the top marketing groups in the US. But really, have we gotten to the point of no return with face to face selling? Have we willingly given devices, and AI reign over how we communicate with other people, or do we have to re-discover the lost art of selling, following up leads, and being responsible dealership representatives? Could it be a bit of all the above?

Are we that repellant of a profession, or are car salesmen so conniving, and distrustful that we now need to initiate contact via texts, anonymous live video streams, emails, and algorithms defining to us the probability of a lead being truly “in-market” and not just a tire kicker? Could it be all of the above?

There are thousands of metric tonnes of consultants out there setting dealerships up with state-of-the-art technology that initiates contact with customers, responds to leads, sends emails & review prompts by software, and other clever ways to squeeze dollars out of customers in every inch of the dealership. I even saw one dealer with signs in the urinal asking if the customer was flushing dollars down the toilet by not getting an extended service contract!

WTS, I’m not against automation. My blog site focuses on emerging technology and creates a spotlight in which new and old vendors can wax on about their various solutions, technologies, and philosophies. I do EVERYTHING in my power to help new vendors get a break but…I believe the practice of developing person to person skills is lost with technology. Technology dulls our senses, and truncates our ability to communicate with each other the way nature intended.

Meanwhile, while online yesterday, I uncovered some ancient texts written by some of the world’s greatest sales people, on how to achieve success as a person,. After all, we’re all always selling something right?

Without further ado; here are some success secrets of some of the most accomplished sales people of all-time…just in case your algorithm breaks down. Notice, these are more like life tips rather than sales advice. It’s about you being the best human you can be, not the best software.

“I determine to render more and better service, each day, than I am being paid to render. Those that reach the top are the ones who are not content with doing only what is required of them.” -Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman in the World

TAKEAWAY: The whole is greater then the sum of its parts and rewards are oft-times bestowed upon us based on effort, effort is energy, and energy is NEVER wasted. Remember, the love you make is equal to the love you take! Go that extra mile…every day!

“Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and said: “Wouldn’t you like to have that?” Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?” ― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

TAKEAWAY: Listen to your customer and introduce them to something they want, not what you want them to have. It’s not about you. They bait their own hooks!

“Never allow two people to do a job which one could do. George Washington observed, ‘Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.” -David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

TAKEAWAY: If you want something done right, do it yourself! Believe in yourself, rely on yourself, and stay focused on making sure your customers are happy! You may hand them off, but make sure you never drop the ball!

“Most people think “selling” is the same as “talking”. But the most effective salespeople know that listening is the most important part of their job.” -Roy Bartell

TAKEAWAY: God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason. Fools speak, wisdom listens. The customer will tell you exactly what they want, makes sure you can hear it.

“Talk to someone about themselves and they’ll listen for hours.” – Dale Carnegie

TAKEAWAY: Show people you are interested in them, everyone needs attention, be your customers spotlight. Make them feel warm and bright.

“The reason it seems that price is all your customers care about is that you haven’t given them anything else to care about.” -Seth Godin

TAKEAWAY: Ask questions, listen to answers. Your customer will tell you why they value what they seek, it will likely never be price first.

“Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.” -Mary Kay Ash

TAKEAWAY: People want to feel loved. So do you. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Who said that?

“To build a long-term, successful enterprise, when you don’t close a sale, open a relationship.” – Patricia Fripp

TAKEAWAY: Not making a sale isn’t always a loss, if you make a friend, you always win.

Kelly Kleinman

“The Automotive News Car Dealerships Can Really Use”

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