Automotive Sales Training - The Death of Traditional Salespeople - Part 3

How would you rate the skill sets of the sales staff at your dealership? Let’s review a few of those skill sets:

 

Phone skills — taking inbound calls and making outbound calls

 

Follow-up skills — Following up sold and unsold customers with an organized game plan utilizing multiple streams of follow-up methods

 

Marketing — Utilizing a planned and sequenced marketing campaign utilizing multiple media methods for low- to no cost self-marketing and prospecting

 

Action Management — Otherwise known as “time management”; a well-thought out and executed game plan for a daily, weekly and monthly action plan

 

Self-Education — A well-planned and executed game plan for self-education based upon increasing sales skills, people skills, life skills and marketing skills

 

Closing skills — The ability to bring all the work done with the customer, the relationships and value created to a purchase decision

 

Over the years, I have been in thousands of dealerships and know that the answers to the above questions for the vast majority of dealerships are a lot poorer than any of us would like to admit. If you are a manager or dealer, my question to you is the following:

 

If you have been trying unsuccessfully for many years to raise the skill levels on the above areas, what will change or make a difference in the future? If you keep banging your head against a wall and all you get is a bloody headache, then wouldn’t it make sense to try something different?

 

One of two things will have to change. Either you must spend the time, effort and resources necessary to recruit, hire, train and retain the right type of quality people, or you must devise a new sales process that alleviates most, if not all, of the above responsibilities from your sales staff. There is a much greater chance that you can hire and teach salespeople to execute a few things really well rather than expecting your sales representatives to execute a whole range of responsibilities at a high level.

 

Some of you may read this and say that I want you to just give up on salespeople and for some of you that is partially true. If you will not spend a tremendous amount of time and resources on recruiting the right people, then don’t bother in expecting better results. It’s ridiculous. What do you presently have in writing that you implement on a regular basis for a recruiting, interviewing, testing and training program for your dealership? My guess is five percent of dealerships have anything. If that is the case for your dealership, once again I must ask, “What do you expect?” If you say you want a good sales staff that performs necessary sales functions at a high professional level and you spend zero thought, time and resources towards getting good people that even have a capacity to perform these functions, then you will get what you pay for.

 

If you have determined that you cannot get high-quality people or do not want to spend the resources necessary to get the top quality people, then I do not find shame in creating a limited sales process with limited functions for your sales staff to ensure a high probability of success. My hope is that you chose some plan of massive action rather than keep doing the same thing and expecting a miracle. Hoping and praying alone does not seem to work. To paraphrase a quote, “Pray, but move your feet.”

 

To receive my articles and FREE special report on Death of Traditional Salespeople, contact me at info@tewart.com with “Death of Traditional Salespeople” in the subject line.

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Comment by Mark Tewart on February 21, 2013 at 8:33am

Thanks Keith. I appreciate the comments.

Comment by Keith Shetterly on February 20, 2013 at 11:10pm

Hi Mark!  I put it this way:  We hire people do do a job, but they do the job we TRAIN and PAY them to do.  Great article, as always.

Comment by Jason Mickelson on February 15, 2013 at 9:45am

10 Criteria to Evaluate Your Sales Calls

Everyone says you have to record and evaluate your calls, but what are you evaluating?  Better yet, ask yourself if everyone on your sales team is aware of your expectations. If there is any doubt, consider taking a little time and develop your evaluation process.  Ensure that you are clear on purpose of your calls and how they should sound. Then educate your team on your expectations to maximize buy-in. 

If you need a conversation starter, here is an example of 10 criteria that I found on the web at telephonedoctor.com.  This list is pretty good and it makes great sense.  If you want to have real fun, develop a list similar to the ten criteria below and then ask your team to guess your list.  This will prove harder than it one might think.  

First Impressions  checklist

Tone of Voice

Rapport Building

Ownership of Call

Listening Skills

Determining Needs

Professionalism

Problem Solving

Summarizing

Last Impressions

 

Your list may be 8 or 9 or 12, but have a list.  Your team and customers will thank you. 

 

Jason Mickelson

Auto iLead

Comment by Mark Tewart on February 14, 2013 at 11:36am

No, actually there are dealerships that have adapted limited job descriptions and expectations for salespeople and have found much success. There are many ways to success but you have to pick a way and dedicate yourself to continually improving and making it better. Many dealers have been beating their heads against the wall for years trying to accomplish hiring the self motivated and productive sales staff to no avail. It's not that one way is better, it is which way can you make successful.

Comment by AutoSTARR on February 14, 2013 at 11:00am

Interesting statement: "If you have determined that you cannot get high-quality people or do not want to spend the resources necessary to get the top quality people, then I do not find shame in creating a limited sales process with limited functions for your sales staff to ensure a high probability of success." Have you found in your years of experience that a dealership using this strategy is still as successful as one employing a handful of highly skilled sales staff, or are their numbers always going to be significantly lower?

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