We all have iPhones today, iPads, laptops, communicating devices of all forms, shapes and sizes. They are great for looking at data, I even like them myself. What I have found is that they are even better for helping you in training your people. They have the ability to do a video. This is the question it asks you, whether you are the dealer, GM or sales manager, how good are you? Let me answer that up front so we all understand what we are doing here. You are only as good as their production. If their production is down (the sales people) you can blame recession, poor advertising or recalls but at the end of the day you have the same number of people driving by your store that everybody else does. If the guy next door to you is getting 50 ups a day and you are getting 5, then you’d better close 4 of yours. The only way that’s going to happen is if you teach them how to do it.
What I recommend you do in one sales meeting a week is video 2 salespeople doing meet and greet and then you as the sales manager do qualifying. I would do this weekly for one month. I am going to be walking you through these steps in upcoming articles. However, the first one and most important step is bringing that customer in and how you greet them. The age old phenomenon “can I help you”. I was recently in a dealership in Georgia, an extremely large Ford store. I don’t want to use the name because they are a very professional operation and these things do happen, they’ve happened before, they are happening now and they will be happening 20 years from now. Awareness is the only thing that curtails it. I was there to do a sales managers meeting about what is going on in the pre-owned world. Prior to doing that, I came in incognito and walked the new car showroom, the pre-owned lot and the wholesale line. Here are the four ways I was greeted out of the 20 plus salespeople that only had one or two customers.
Salesman #1 “Hey cus”, with his head sticking out of the door on the used car building. That was followed up with, “man, it’s hot out there isn’t it”.
That was that conversation. The next 3 happened on the new car side. I was walking back under the cover of the building and there was a sales person, well dressed, on his cell phone that was obviously having a personal conversation, laughing and cutting up. He turned around to keep from acknowledging I was there. As I walked by I tapped him on the shoulder and said “hey man, how ya doing today” and he waved his hand as if to wave me off, not to bother him. That was my experience with salesman #2.
Salesman #3 was in the pickup truck area. I was looking at a Ford F-150, beautiful truck and I was in awe. I had not seen that particular truck and I drive an F-150. It was sitting only 20 feet away from where I had pulled in with my truck. The salesman came out and said “that’s the best looking truck we’ve got. Everybody that comes in wants to try to buy that truck”. Now stop and think about that, what does that tell you? There’s not going to be a deal on that one.
When I walked into the showroom there were 2 salespeople sitting at a desk having cokes and chatting and I overheard one say “we need more traffic”. A few minutes later I walked back about 15 feet in front of the desk and looked in the window of a car on the showroom floor with my back to them and neither one of them got up and walked over. I know this store well and it has some of the best sales managers in the country but salespeople are human. They don’t know what they don’t know and they won’t know until you tell them.
Till next month.
