According to NADA the average salesperson’s productivity is slightly less than 10 units per month. The Rikess Group works with two of the largest volume dealerships in the country, and they need to have a minimum of 80 salespeople on staff to hit their volume targets. With customers physically shopping less than two dealerships, it would make sense that productivity per salesperson should be rising; but it isn’t! Why? It’s because of a vicious circle anchored by high turnover and low…

According to NADA the average salesperson’s productivity is slightly less than 10 units per month. The Rikess Group works with two of the largest volume dealerships in the country, and they need to have a minimum of 80 salespeople on staff to hit their volume targets. With customers physically shopping less than two dealerships, it would make sense that productivity per salesperson should be rising; but it isn’t! Why? It’s because of a vicious circle anchored by high turnover and low…

Planning for Tomorrow, Today

I apologize in advance, as this column is going to upset a number of sales managers.

The biggest challenge most dealerships face is recruiting the Millennial generation who have the right skill sets to become true salespeople. 

There are a ton of qualified Gen Y’ers who could sell cars but choose less lucrative positions because they don’t like the traditional sales process and aren’t provided enough…

One Price Selling – What Are You Waiting For?

Most Dealers are closer to a One Price Selling sales process than they may realize. If you’re an excellent pre-owned dealer you’re basically not negotiating. You must price your cars to market to get leads. On the new car side, the customer is setting the prices. With new tools that allow prospects to literally buy the car from home, negotiating power is shifting to the consumer.

The number…

“Nature abhors a vacuum.” There would be no reason for “disrupters” like TrueCar, Carvana, and Vroom to exist if dealers provided customers with what the majority of them want. This includes

• Eliminating negotiations and move to a simple, transparent sales process
• Eliminating wasted time in the sales process
• Money-back guarantees
• Market-based pricing
• The convenience of having a car brought directly to the…

WINNING THE PRICE WARS

As most of you know, I have over 150 One Price Selling dealer clients. In talking to dealers who are interested in this selling process, I always hear, “My market is different. We have a number of dealers who just give cars away. How can I compete?” For starters, most markets aren’t that different - they are highly price competitive - therefore, you don’t want to compete solely on price. You want to create a differentiated sales…