Car Dealers Want to Know How to Attract and Sell the Millennial Buyer In 2015, I attended a meeting where I observed an “expert” on Millennial Buyers as he addressed a gathering of dealer principals. This “expert” was himself a Millennial, so the OEM who paid five figures to arrange for this “training” felt as […]
Sales are flat – we need more training! Turnover is up – we need more training! Grosses are down – we need more training! We just got a bad review – we need more training! Salespeople aren’t making their calls – we need more training! I can almost hear Jan Brady now: “Training, training, […]
Cheat Sheet for Free Car Dealer Training Resources About once a week I get asked if there is a place where someone can go to see all of my free training resources cataloged in an easily digestible format. For car dealers looking for just video training, we created a Suggested Training Curriculum for Car […]
No gimmicks and no tricks. In this article I am going to give you the step-by-step instructions you need to start mystery shopping your dealership’s internet sales team (and your competitors’ teams) without spending a dime (or by spending very little). In the interest of full disclosure, my company completes a comprehensive mystery shop […]
This may sound like strange advice since I teach dealers how to implement both an Appointment Culture and The Perfect Appointment in their dealerships… but, will you please shut up about the appointments already? You are failing to set real appointments that show and buy, precisely because you talk so much about appointments that […]
I hate to break it to you, but if you run a for-profit business – like a car dealership – then your website has just two important goals: Goal #1 – Attract Visitors Goal #2 – Convert Visitors Sorry, that’s it. Attracting and converting visitors are the only real value your website provides and […]
Stop Overthinking Internet Sales: 7 Simple Strategies for Closing More Deals Today! The perception of internet sales for many dealers and traditional sales managers is that it’s still a confusing area best left to those who are more “technologically proficient.” Moreover, industry vendors, other so-called experts and even some trainers continue to profit in keeping […]
The Best Way To Overcome Today’s Price Objections Whether training sales managers for an OEM or a call center for a single-point dealer, the concern posed more than any other recently is how to overcome price objections on the phone in today’s transparent environment. Most dealers, you see, do a decent job of managing objections […]
The 5 Car Dealer Sales Call Situations (and why a BDC is best) With today’s connected customer, there really are only a few types of phone calls your team will find themselves involved with. Gone are the days of a customer phoning and saying, “I need something good on gas for under $8,000; what do […]
(Here’s another quick, helpful excerpt from the free 2015 Car Dealer Mystery Shop Study of more than 400 dealers.) What is the Goal of Your Team’s Lead Response? What should be your dealership’s goal when responding to e-leads? If the prospect is inquiring about a specific vehicle, should your goal be to have them reconsider […]
I almost titled this post “Perfect Data Matters,” but because it is one of the most important blog posts I’ve made this year, and because that title is so stinking boring to you and your managers, it would guarantee the least amount of interaction. And that is sad. Perfect Data matters. As boring as […]
Six months ago I watched a service manager struggle with the amount of customer complaints he had to deal with on a daily basis. Most of the complaints were just silly, and almost all of them should have been solved at the advisor level. Unfortunately for this manager, he was really, really good at […]
I had a fun exchange with Walmart on Twitter last month that I believe deserves sharing here – especially given that the exchange can (I’m hopeful) remind corporations to separate my duties as a customer and their duties as an employer when it comes to training their managers. First, a little background: I was […]
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 […]
It was about 6:30 last evening when I found myself at the Delta Sky Club in Tampa, Florida. I was booked on Delta’s 7:45 flight to Atlanta (where I am speaking to a group of Ford dealership managers about Internet processes this morning). I had a yearning for a cup of coffee, but I […]
Taking Over an Existing Team – Part 3 of 3 This is the third of three posts detailing a few quick tips I used when I was hired to take over an underperforming sales team ranked last in their region. Within six months, this team became the number one sales team in both […]
Taking Over an Existing Team – Part 2 of 3 This is the second of three posts detailing a few quick tips I used when I was hired to take over a sales team that was ranked last in their region. In six short months, this team became the number one sales team in […]
Taking Over an Existing Team – Part 1 of 3 Rare is the manager who starts a team from scratch. More often than not, someone is promoted from within a team or promoted/hired from outside the group to take over an existing team. When someone on a sales team is promoted from a […]
In all my years teaching and developing new leaders, the neatest trick I ever tried involved managers who were stuck making every decision for their teams. No matter how many leadership development books they read or management training resources they studied, they were simply better decision makers than the group they supervised — that’s why […]