At virtually every dealership 20 group I address, at least one dealer will ask the question I hear most often with respect to internet sales: “What’s the best internet sales structure for a dealer today: End-to-End; a BDC; or giving the leads to the floor?” I’ve been asked this question over and over again […]
In a recent article I posted, I discussed the five things car dealers can do today to ensure they stay on top during the next down market; and one of those five was to increase your lease portfolio. In the post I explained why increasing lease penetration was important, but I didn’t give any tips […]
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the next down market in automotive retail is coming. No one knows precisely when – and none of us is certain what will trigger it – but, it is coming. Moreover, given the current market realities, it might be coming a little faster […]
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 […]
At PLADOOGLE, we just published a white paper detailing our extensive mystery shop study that looked at how well dealerships responded to our internet inquiries over the first 30 days. We read and graded every email and listened to and graded every voicemail. Here are Seven Fast Facts from 425 Car Dealer Mystery Shops: We […]
92.6% of LinkedIn Users Believe Made Up Statistics If you’ve spent any time at all on LinkedIn, you’ve no doubt been exposed to some terrific statistics about how perseverance pays off for salespeople. These stats, courtesy of a National Sales Executive Association study, detail some shockingly stark data that prove the average salesperson is lazy and […]
Are You Venting or Just Making Excuses? A colleague recently posted a rant about the quality of the leads she was handling on an automotive industry social network. As a part of her diatribe on her most recent batch of Internet sales leads, she gave some great examples of just how bad the leads really […]
Quick, Read This Email… Now! Today I received another in a long line of email messages from a certain vendor touting their newest and greatest product improvement. This email, like all of its predecessors, arrived in my Outlook inbox as a message of High Importance. Because I receive just one in five hundred messages marked […]
Sales: It’s Nothing Personal A salesperson who works for one of my company’s primary vendors – someone who happens to be a former coworker and a person I considered to be a friend – just lost a bid with my company. The vendor had held this business for the past several years and we […]
Reciprocity – Sales Training 101 From a very early age, we all learn about reciprocation. That is, when someone does something nice for us, we tend to do something nice for them. As humans, most of us don’t want to be indebted to someone else – especially someone we barely know. In sales, we […]
The Best of the Sales Management Blogosphere As is our custom at AskTheManager.com, we’ve scoured the Sales Management Blogs to bring you the very best posts and articles from the past week. For the past several months, we’ve paid close attention to the Leadership Development, Management Training, Time Management and Sales Management Blogs, and […]
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly with Presentation Projectors A colleague commented the other day that he was presenting a sales proposal to a medium-sized company and their conference room was not equipped with a projector. He had not prepared any handouts in advance and had to deliver the entire presentation from his laptop. […]
Best Sales Management Blog Posts – Week of August 31, 2008 The editors of AskTheManager scoured the World Wide Web to bring you the Best Sales Management blog posts and article available for the week of August 31, 2008 – slim pickings on a holiday weekend. Of course, most leadership development and management-related […]
It was pretty potent week for the Sales Management bloggers. This week the editors of AskTheManager.com found some good Sales Management and Sales Training advice in the following posts and articles, with the best stuff coming from Paul McCord and Brad Trnavsky: Attitude and the law of attraction. By Brad Trnavsky A few days ago […]
Does Competitive Product Knowledge Have A Value? How important is it for a salesperson to know about and talk about a competitor’s products and offerings? I’ve heard strong arguments on both sides for whether or not to talk about the competition in a corporate appointment. How important is it for a salesperson to […]
Q. I’m a sales manager who manages three separate sales offices that are 40 miles apart. What are your thoughts about using a blog to communicate company news and events, and deliver sales training to my teams? Andy in Ohio Great question, Andy, and great idea. There are literally thousands of companies who use blogging […]
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 […]
Management by Questioning… Not the most electrifying title for a post, I know, but an important topic nonetheless. A friend who owns a successful business recently lamented that his sales teams were ineffective selling into the “terrible economy” we’re faced with today. I was surprised, because this man has always done a great job driving […]