In my tenure as a sales manager, I would bring the new hires together after the interviewing process was finished, before we started any formal training, and have a heart to heart discussion. I would start that meeting with “please, just do what I ask you to do.” I would say this not out of ego, but because of experience.

“Don’t analyze it, don’t think about it, don’t worry about it, don’t concern yourself with it, please just do it” I would say. I wanted them to understand from the very beginning of the relationship, that they were paramount to my personal income. The only way I would see an increase in my income was for them to see an increase in theirs. The train has to be led by someone with experience.

When a consumer comes into a dealership, the majority of the time, there are a few things that brought them there that never change. They are a previous customer, a customer from media/website advertising, a service customer, a referral, or a curiosity seeker who stops in after a drive by siting. They are all potential buyers.

The way to know if an individual is a purchaser is if he or she drives in to your lot in an automobile — that is a “clue.” That lets you know the person depends on automotive transportation to get them from point A to Z in their daily life. These customers don’t buy a vehicle at age 16 and plan to drive it until they die. That is not the way it works. People trade vehicles and buy new or late pre-owned models every day.

“Don’t analyze it, don’t think about it, don’t worry about it, don’t concern yourself with it, please just do it.”

In the training, I would explain the fundamental responsibilities and processes of new hires as such:
Our job is to make certain that we help customers on the way to that automotive purchase. There are certain things required by you that is my responsibility to make sure you have. Most important is number 1. How to greet a customer. We are going to teach you the proper way to walk out and greet a customer. How you greet people and shake hands is important to our way of doing things. We want an individual who can take what he has learned and use it in a normal form of communication. However, that being said there are certain things that we want to make sure are interjected.

2. Qualifying a customer for their needs is paramount, otherwise you end up over or underselling a customer. Your knowledge of inventory and your ability to gain from them exactly what they are looking for will shorten that process to a demonstration drive. So, we are going to walk you through (role play) greeting a customer and qualifying a customer professionally. By doing this we will arrive at the right vehicle that this person needs and can afford.

That takes us to the next step – 3. perfecting the demonstration drive. Naturally, beyond any speculation, the demonstration of a twenty thousand plus dollar car is mandatory before someone will pay that much to purchase it. That is why we need to teach you how to explain the importance of a demonstration drive. At the completion of the demo drive this leads us to what we call a trial play.

4) A trial play is where we want to make the customer comfortable with the situation of going into the office and sitting down and discussing the purchase scenario and then having it turn into an actual delivery. This is a very important process because the manager is going to have to become involved, especially if there is a trade in. How well you have set this up and how comfortable you have made this consumer is exactly how smooth this deal is going to go once the turnover is achieved.

Once the vehicle is sold and the customer has left and we are working on the financial process and paper work, it is important that you follow this vehicle all the way through the service, clean up and preparation for delivery. It is your job to make sure there is gas in this vehicle, its clean, fluid levels are all up, and the air pressure is right in the tires. These are seemingly small elements in the process but they are paramount in your responsibility of delivery of the vehicle.

I hope this will help you in working with your new sales people. If this is something that you like and the kind of thing you want me to write about, it is important that you email me at [email protected] and let me know. Tell me some other things you would like to read about from my experience. Let me know what you are interested in the most or areas where you need a little help.