But if he can’t tell his story, he can’t sell his glory…

We all have our glory days, especially in this industry. One thing we need to remember as sales managers, especially as used car managers, is that we have a sales force (both new and used salesman) whose deals most of the time are dictated on our ability to put a trade in together so they can sell the vehicle that they are showing. Their confidence in us has got to be more and greater than any other sales manager in the store. They have got to believe, beyond any shadow of doubt, that there is nothing in this industry or business that we don’t know.

One nice thing about that when dealing with used car managers is I’ve never met one, including myself, that didn’t know everything there was to know about everything there is to know about the car business.

Your glory days reflect what you have already done. If you, as a sales person, sold 25 to 35 cars a month that means that you know how to do it. The only reason a sales force directly under your tutelage is not selling the same number you did, in your glory days, is because you have not taught them. We can tell somebody that we sold X number of units a month and how much gross we made per car, and that’s great. Telling them is one thing, showing them is another. Give me a sales manager who can show his salespeople how good he was and improve their income level and I will show you individuals that are going to be more than successful in this industry.

I know that sometimes in class I’ll get carried away and talk about my glory days and the month that we sold 200 units, and the salesman that I had that made over $15,000 a piece, and the one that won the Rolex…

Then it would dawn on me just how interested and mesmerized they are at listening to what I’m telling them on how we did it. I sometimes think this is “old hat,” but it is only “old hat” to me. Anything that worked to sell more cars is always something they want to hear. It’s something that we feel, we have gone over before, that they have heard it all before, when in fact, most of them have forgotten it and actually enjoy hearing you discuss your glory days again.

Tim Deese is the CEO and founder of Progressive Basics, Inc. He is a former franchise car dealer who has designed and implemented used car training and marketing for 15 manufacturers in 28 countries. Progressive Basics has trained over 50,000 dealers and managers. He has been a speaker at numerous NADA conventions, and was one of the top rated speakers in 2001 and 2008 at the Australian Automobile Dealers Associations Convention. He spoke at FADA conventions in Quebec and Hong Kong, along with Ford and BMW of the Middle East. Tim Deese is also one of the key speakers at Fenabrave in Brazil 2009. You can reach Tim at: tdeese@dealer-communications.com

Call out: Their confidence in us has got to be more and greater than any other sales manager in the store.