The Five Absolute “Musts” for a Successful Automotive Sales BDC
If you’re like most dealers I speak with lately, you’re either looking to add a Business Development Center (aka BDC) or trying to find ways to make your current BDC more successful? If so, then there are just a few simple “must haves” that are truly non-negotiable if you’d like your BDC to succeed today and over the long term.
MUST #1: BDC’s Must be Profit (not Cost) Centers
The primary reason BDCs failed in the past is they simply weren’t very successful at driving what I call “plus business.” I saw it played out again and again: a dealer would return from a 20 Group or an industry conference and announce “It’s time to move our internet sales efforts to a BDC!” So the store would hire a few BDC agents, give them computers, telephones and headsets; and send all the inbound leads and calls their way.
The problem was that whatever volume the store was selling before the addition of the BDC, they pretty much were selling the same amount after the BDC was added. The only difference was that the dealership now had additional compensation costs to deal with each month.
These BDCs were cost centers, not profit centers; and they certainly weren’t “developing” any business (as their name implied). Over time, dealers wised up and closed these ineffective departments.
Many of the BDCs I encounter today – generally because of better training, templates, talk tracks and overall direction – are driving plus business for their dealerships… but, they’re still a cost center. In fact, just as in the past, the primary reason I see BDCs shuttered this year is because they are a cost center, and not a profit center.
Despite (or because of) their success, BDCs today often cause a dealership’s overall sales compensation to get out of whack. While this profit hit is often easy to absorb in the short term, over the long term no dealer can live with this. Something has to change, so the BDC is closed and the leads and calls are rerouted back to the floor.
Bad move.
Instead of shuttering a successful BDC, dealers need to work to make their BDCs profit, not cost centers; and there is one easy and instant solution for this. It’s called the Sustainable Pay Plan.
MUST #2: BDCs Must Use Sustainable Pay Plans
If you want your BDC to grow and provide you with incremental sales today and in the future, all while maintaining the integrity of your overall sales comp, then you need to create a sustainable pay plan. Simply put, this is a pay plan that allows you to grow the BDC without killing your net profit. Here are the must haves to a sustainable pay plan for a BDC:
- Pay the BDC on APPOINTMENTS THAT SHOW; not on sold units and not hourly (though there is generally an hourly component to the BASE that a BDC agent will make). For most markets, a solid pay plan for an Appointment Coordinator (BDC agent) looks like this:
- $10-$12 to even $15/hour in base pay that is a DRAW AGAINST COMMISSIONS.
- $50 commission for every VALID (discussed later) appointment that shows.
- $100 volume bonus for every 10 VALID appointments that show.
- Pay the floor salesperson that CLOSES a BDC appointment a REDUCED COMMISSION. (Generally, this is a half commission with a full or half mark toward their volume bonus.)
This second point is hard for most sales managers to swallow. They like to argue something nonsensical like “My salesrep closed the deal; he did ALL THE WORK; so he deserves a full commission!”
No he did not; and no, he does not. He BARELY deserves the half commission you’re awarding him. Appointments today close at an extraordinary high rate (between 50-80%), so the most he can argue for is that he did half the work. Moreover, the minute he’s ready to make the calls and set the appointments for himself then we can talk about giving him the entire deal.
However, let’s look at this another way:
One of your floor salespeople – let’s call him Bob – sets an appointment for a prospect tomorrow at 9:15 AM.
Overnight, Bob becomes ill and decides he should stay home. He calls Joe (a fellow floor salesperson) and asks “Joe, can you take my 9:15 appointment this morning?”
Joe agrees and sells the car.
How much of this deal does Joe think he deserves?
Half; Joe thinks he deserves exactly half; not a penny more and not a penny less.
Joe looks at this as a split deal with Bob. After all, Bob set the appointment, didn’t he?
Why should Joe think he deserves only half when Bob set the appointment, but suddenly he deserves a whole deal when a 22-year-old young woman with a headset set the appointment from the BDC? It doesn’t make sense; pay a split commission on appointments set by the BDC.
MUST #3: BDCs Must be Managed Like Call Centers
Many dealers I know created their BDCs by staffing them with a few of their existing floor salespeople and then paying them like floor salespeople (generally on the sold units). Their argument was simply that they needed knowledgeable people to be able to answer customer questions and that they only felt they should pay when this department sold a car.
Wrong and wrong.
The truth is that your BDC is more like a bank call center than it is a traditional sales team. You don’t need seasoned salespeople to be successful and you should never expect them to sell anything. Their job is to set appointments that show, period. When you compensate a BDC agent on a sold unit you are encouraging them to start “selling” on the phone – something that is not just a bad idea, but also counterproductive. You’ll end up selling fewer units to appointments this way, because your BDC team ends up over-qualifying every prospect.
Moreover, when you employ “car guys” in this role, you often get a group that spends too much time answering questions and almost no time setting appointments that show. Like a bank call center, your BDC should be driven by metrics and talk tracks, not selling and product knowledge. In fact, the less product knowledge a BDC agent has the better – it means they can only stick to the approved talk tracks and will spend all of their time setting appointments that show and buy.
MUST #4: BDCs Must Have Strict Rules for What Counts as a Valid Appointment
You might think you’re being nice or even driving incremental business when you allow your BDC to set soft appointments, but you’re not. In fact, you’re costing them and you money; here’s how:
When you have soft appointment rules – like paying a BDC agent for an appointment that shows a day early (yes, I’ve seen this more often than the alternative) or giving the BDC credit for a sold unit because they had “meaningful contact” with that prospect in the last 72 hours – you’re actually hurting your sales and the paychecks of the BDC agents.
Unless you have strict rules in place for what constitutes a valid appointment – my choice is to only count these if the prospect arrives within 45 minutes of the scheduled appointment time – your BDC will NEVER have the discipline to pin a prospect down on a specific time. Why should they? That takes work, it’s sometimes uncomfortable, and they’re going to get paid either way, right?
Yes it takes work. Yes it’s sometimes uncomfortable. No, they’re not getting paid, because the prospect won’t be showing up.
When your team allows a customer to say something like “I’ll be there before 9” there is almost no chance this “appointment” will show; because it’s not an appointment. A true appointment requires both a specific day and a specific time. Without a specific time, there is no mental commitment by the prospect to show up, so they generally will not.
Once you force your team to start setting stronger appointments (by paying them only for those that arrive within 45 minutes) their show rates will multiply as will your sold units.

MUST #5: All Sales Managers Must Support and Defend the BDC
Despite the fact that we’ve had this pesky internet around in car dealerships for nearly a generation, I still meet more desk managers who enjoy torturing the Internet BDC than I do those who support their efforts. This boggles my mind, since these same managers are paid based on what the entire store sells, and that the BDC is often instrumental in driving the growth for the stores I visit.
The time for sales managers to not only support, but also to defend their BDCs arrived years ago.
It’s simply bad for business for your desk managers to keep taking the side of your sales floor in disputes with the BDC. After all, if the floor team did their job, you wouldn’t need a BDC. The reason for nearly every Automotive Sales BDC in place today is because the sales managers cannot or will not get their floor teams to make the required calls using the proper talk tracks. It’s simple activity management that fails for almost every dealer on the floor, yet succeeds in a BDC environment.
The reward for having your sales managers begin supporting and defending the efforts of the BDC is you can make the BDC team a true developer of business.
It starts with Internet Leads, and then you add all inbound phone calls. Once you have solid efforts in place for these two, you give the BDC your orphaned owner database. Finally, you allow your floor salespeople to “contract” with the BDC to make their owner marketing and Be-Back calls (since they’re likely not making these today). The cost to the floor team? Just half their commission (a sustainable pay plan).
Then and only then can you look to your BDC as a developer of business that feeds your dealership a steady stream of ready buyers.
Good selling!
…
About TheManager:
Steve Stauning, creator of The Appointment Culture and an expert in The Customer Experience. He is also an extremely popular keynote speaker, writer, and industry consultant. Learn more about Steve at SteveStauning.com.

New BDC Guy
September 25, 2021 @ 7:56 PM
I am just starting as a BDC rep at a used car dealership. It’s a new venture for them and me and I will be the only BDC rep. I will be strictly commission…$25 per appointment and another $100 per closed deal. The GM has stated that he’s open to re-evaluating the pay structure as we move forward and both learn more. I have two questions…first, does this seem like a reasonable pay structure? Second, is there somewhere I can find some tips on how to do the best job I can at generating appointments?
TheManager
September 25, 2021 @ 8:04 PM
It seems reasonable if you have adequate phone up and lead opportunities. Here are my favorite resources for setting appointments that show:
https://stevestauning.com/suggested-training-curriculum-for-car-dealers/#.YU_HBLhueMo
Scroll down to the videos recorded for Internet Salespeople and BDC Agents.
New BDC Guy
September 26, 2021 @ 9:37 PM
Thank you!
Rose
July 14, 2021 @ 2:29 PM
What are your thoughts on having BDC team only focus on true business development and inbound calls and have the internet sales team focus on new inbound leads for the first couple days? What’s a good way to integrate BDC and Internet Sales team with lead handling?
TheManager
July 14, 2021 @ 4:46 PM
Hi Rose,
Great questions! In my experience “clean” works best. That is, one person has responsibility for getting the customer in the door. If this is a BDC Agent or an end-to-end salesperson, either will work (if they follow a process). What hasn’t worked successfully for the medium or long term is to have split responsibilities. For example, Salesperson handles new leads for 3 days, then they flip to a BDC Agent if no appointment is set after 3 days.
In these cases, no one is “responsible” for lead closing rates or appointment show rates.
Regarding your first question about focusing on true business development, that would be great! If it were my store, BDC Agents would be focused on driving incremental business and not just on handling the inbound leads.
Hope that helps!
TheManager
Tabitha Martin
March 10, 2020 @ 12:17 PM
What would you say to a BDC Manager that is told that you have a 60% set rate. 80% confirmed. 60% show rate and 17% close, that BDC is responsible for close percentage!!! PHONES ONLY
TheManager
March 10, 2020 @ 5:09 PM
Hi Tabitha,
Well, the BDC cannot control closes. Period. End of story. I do, however, think the other benchmarks are all in-line and attainable to a BDC using the Appointment-First Approach.
(BTW, for any managers that argue the BDC has anything to with closing, remind them the BDC has ZERO say in who the prospects are. Their only job is to get a warm butt in a seat on time. The rest is up the floor.)
Best wishes,
Steve
Rafael
January 11, 2020 @ 2:02 PM
Hello there.
I’ve been a BDC Manager/Internet Manager for while. Especially at my current company. The new partners are making sudden moves and don’t think they understand how important is the BDC /Internet Department to a dealership. (Said to transfer the leads to our floor sales without a proper training). So, if you have any suggestions it would greatly appreciate.
Thanks a lot.
TheManager
January 11, 2020 @ 4:30 PM
Hi Rafael,
Happy to help; I’ll email you directly to get a little more info.
Good Selling!
Steve
Erin
December 14, 2019 @ 11:07 AM
Steve, I have to say since i live in a “rual” area I know #4 would never work. We live in a severe weather area. On top of that the closest populated city is 45mins away. That ones population is around 19,000 people. Then the other being a hour away only 39,000 population. The city I work in has 3,000 but I make calls for 2 stores the other being 20 mins away roughly about the same in poplation but a much smaller store.
I get paid hourly and I’m more than fine with that. Although being former sales I do understand your point on trying to make the sale before they arrive. I just switched over. I find myself doing too much reaseach and not enough calls. As I’m at about 10 an hour. But the appointments that I do set have sold. I’m still learning and I want to be good at what I do. So really I came across this site seeking knowledge. So far what I’m learning, is stick to the script. Try to make every conversation an appointment to stop in and discuss the details with our sales department.
TheManager
December 14, 2019 @ 11:16 AM
Erin,
Your situation is definitely unique; and your pay plan would be different from one in a huge urban store. That said, we see appointment show rates and close rates drop dramatically when the appointments are “soft” and arrive more than an hour before or an hour after the scheduled time (when they do arrive).
One way to make sure your customers know the appointment is important is to give them all the WIIFMs (What’s In It For Me) on arriving on time. For example, you’ll have the vehicle cleaned, gassed, and parked out front, so that when they arrive, they can start their test drive in minutes.
If you’re not already doing so, I encourage you to watch my free videos on appointment setting: https://stevestauning.com/suggested-training-curriculum-for-car-dealers/#.XfUKUOhKiMo
Contact me through that site if you’d like a copy of my current internet sales process and templates, along with some sample appointment-first word tracks.
Best wishes,
Steve
Stina
June 25, 2019 @ 8:03 AM
Steve im a BDC and new to this field. I would love any tips and the breakdown of pay plan from you.
TheManager
June 25, 2019 @ 8:11 AM
Hi Stina,
Sending you an email now where to find my free video training that will help.
Best wishes,
Steve
Kayla
August 10, 2020 @ 7:48 PM
I too am new to this field and would like to be more knowledgeable on how I can be a successful BDC agent.
TheManager
August 11, 2020 @ 5:51 AM
Hi Kayla,
I just sent you an email with a link to this page: https://stevestauning.com/suggested-training-curriculum-for-car-dealers/#.XzJ3oihKiMo
All my free video training developed for car dealership positions (like BDC Agents) are linked from that page.
Best wishes,
Steve
Shannon Johnson
May 16, 2019 @ 3:56 PM
Good Afternoon, I am currently the BDC Manager at volume dealership in West Virginia. I handle around 300 new leads a month and Keep track of those until I turn them over to a sales person. I do work with honor and integrity. Our dealership is very transparent with no hidden fees. I will get the numbers and provide them for the customer. I will help pull up cars for test drives if needed. I have 4 sales people that I do a round robin with as far as appointments. The other 6 sales people will sometimes end up with one of my leads because people do not believe in making appointments to see a car. No matter how much I try to convince, Most of them will say.. ” I will stop by when I have the chance “. I Respect that. And so does the GM and Managers here at the dealership. They do understand that I’ve remained in contact or continued to attempt contact. I am the “yes” girl here. I am the one who smiles, shakes hands and even laughs and attempts to make those who come into our dealership feel “at home”. I enjoy the conversations I have with the leads/ customers. My Pay is $12 on the hour and 25 sold 10 visit. Here at Subaru there are NO split commissions. So even our sales people do not split when they help each other. They simply repay that person when they can. I can say that when the Subaru rep shows up, He has little to go over with me. And he says he likes listening to my voice recordings because he believes I do smile when I am talking. My scores are always over 100% and that makes us number 1 in our area. Thank you for your suggestions.
JAY
January 16, 2019 @ 1:57 PM
Was a bdc rep for about 4 and a half years.. and I became pretty darn good at it. If anyone in the business wants to compare notes, pay plans, horror stories etc. shoot me a email. I left because the owner didn’t feel we were that important and cut our pay. have been asked numerous times to go back but love my new job. Miss some of the coworkers and and not having to work nights or weekends still throws me off
Erica
January 10, 2019 @ 12:38 PM
I’m currently just hourly pay of $15 but they are trying to figure a pay plan for me. I am the only one who handles all incoming leads. I also pull rebates and do menus. Last month I had 24 internet sales. We are in a small town and have a large selection of inventory. We are a volume dealer. I have no clue what a fair pay plan should be but I know I should be getting spiffs and more than what I do because of all the responsibility I have.
TheManager
January 10, 2019 @ 12:47 PM
Hi Erica,
If I was advising your dealer, I would suggest they pay you a base for the rebates and menus work, and then pay you a flat for every valid, shown appointment. I would not recommend paying on sold units, as the floor sales team determines whether your appointments close or not. I’d be happy to send my pay plan recommendations via email (complete with a spreadsheet your dealer could use to determine the impact.) Just contact me via SteveStauning.com.
Heather
October 24, 2017 @ 2:58 PM
Do you have a sustainable pay plan for a Service BDC? We answer all inbound calls, confirm appointments, call missed appointments, make CSI calls, SOR parts recieved calls, open recall calls, Declined services calls, inactive customer lists, etc. Currently we are paying hourly plus $1 for shown appointment.
TheManager
October 24, 2017 @ 3:04 PM
Hi Heather,
Great question; though I do not have a service BDC pay plan that turns the service BDC a profit center. That said, it would be fairly easy to create if we can properly quantify the value of shown appointments (which is surely more than $1) and the profit from the declined service the BDC generates. Then, I would pay those as a higher commission, but use the hourly as a draw against that commission. Hope that helps.
Best wishes,
Steve
B.E.
December 23, 2016 @ 3:27 PM
I currently work as a BDR for a auto dealer in Akron Ohio. I make less than $23k a year with a 9.00 hourly rate, $5 paid for a show and $10 for a sold unit. I am convinced that this pay plan is not up to industry standard, and am trying to find out what would be a reasonable request when I address this with my boss. I maintain a show to set ration well above 65% with a 50% show to sold ratio. What type of pay plan can I suggest that is both fair to me and my employer?
TheManager
December 23, 2016 @ 3:46 PM
Hi B.E.,
Without knowing a couple of things I cannot tell you if your pay is too low, too high, or just right. (For example, if you only had 10 shows a month, and those shows could arrive hours before or after their scheduled time, then $23K a year is too much.)
That said, the pay plan that I think is most fair to both parties is the one detailed here – MUST #2 (adjusted for your market, if Akron is an expense place to live). But, the rules that are included here must also apply – especially the 45-minute rule for you to get credit for a shown appointment – MUST #4.
So, if you’re an average BDC Agent receiving 200 leads/calls per month, then you should expect to get 50 legitimate appointment shows per month (a 25% show-to-opportunity ratio) and you should make $3,000 per month (50 appointment shows x $50 each + $500 in volume bonuses). This would give you $36,000/year and you would be driving tremendous value for the dealership.
I have clients using this plan with great BDC Agents who are driving 80-100 legitimate shows each per month (with about 250 leads per person, per month) and they’re earning $60,000 – $70,000/year per BDC Agent, and the dealers could not be happier. (Of course, these clients are religiously following all 5 “musts.”)
judith brown
October 23, 2015 @ 6:16 PM
I agree with everything except point #4. (Surprise!!) As a BDC Coordinator, I can attest to the fact that MOST appointments do not specify their time. In fact, many of our customers aren’t even within a 45- minute range. What I do believe though is that the BDC staff member must be a person of integrity and honor. I’ll agree: it’s difficult to find that person…but we do exist.
TheManager
October 23, 2015 @ 7:35 PM
Hi Judith,
I know that on the surface “Must #4” seems unattainable to almost every BDC coordinator and BDC manager out there. (I know, because it’s always met with horror when I introduce it to every team I train.)
However, when you are forced to SET the time for the prospect (or you lose credit for the appointment), you will do so in a friendly, yet firm manner that ensures more than 90% of those who show for their appointments will actually arrive within 10 minutes of their time.
Believe it or not, going from a 24-hour rule to a 45-minute rule usually triples the number of appointments that show for the average BDC agent. The reason for this is simple: Soft Appointments show at less than a 35% rate, while Strong Appointments show at better than an 80% rate. More than that, when you use firm language to ask for the appointments (which you are more likely to do when you MUST get them to show within 45 minutes either side of the scheduled time), you actually SET more overall appointments.
Finally, why is it consumers are on time for dentist, hair, nail, dog grooming and oil change appointments, but we don’t think they’ll commit to a firm time for a $35,000+ vehicle purchase? It’s because we don’t make them…
Best wishes,
Steve