Automotive Sales Training - The Importance of Making Half-Time Adjustments
By Kirk Manzo
President & CEO - The Manzo Group
Have you ever noticed that games are often won or lost in the second half?
During the first half of many football games each team is implementing the strategy they developed during the preceding days leading up to the big game. Each team has studied film of their opponent's previous efforts diligently searching for vulnerabilities in the opposition.
As an Automotive Sales Manager you must realize that your customers will often game plan for days, if not weeks before arriving at your dealership, doesn't it make sense that you review how the team (your sales team) is doing at half time of the big game?
Each morning you need to examine the previous day's automotive sales activities. Yesterday represents the first half of the big game and today is the second half, where the game will be either won or lost.
Daily Save a Deal meetings are the most effective way to accomplish this task. Every morning all the managers of your dealership meet to review and discuss yesterday's activities. In order to accomplish this in a timely manner, the sales desk manager's responsibility is to log every point of contact any of your automotive salespeople have with a non-employee (up), yes even the people driving through the lot.
A manual sales desk log is preferable, but even if you use a computer based tracking system, every opportunity should be entered to get an accurate up count each day. Remember if they are on your lot, it is not because they got lost looking for the local Wal Mart or CVS Pharmacy. If they were looking for a tube of toothpaste or a box of Kleenex they would not be on your lot, they are there because they need to replace their vehicle and believe you may actually have what they want.
Recording accurate stats for the first half (yesterday's car sales activities) is critical to make adjustments in what you will do in the second half (today). The log should be color coded for efficiency during the review at the daily save a deal meeting. Green for sold, Pink for a hot prospect, and Yellow for a dead deal.
If improving your front end gross is your number one focus vs. increasing volume (choose which is of greater importance at this time) begin reviewing the Green sold list first, if volume is your bigger issue start with the Pink hot prospect list first.
In reviewing the sold vehicles you should examine how much profit was produced both on the front and back end. For this reason someone from the F&I department should be present each day to report on yesterday's F&I production results.
In reviewing each sold unit use the Plus / Delta Approach to examine your results. Plus meaning you did a good job, we made big money. The question you then ask is simply, Why?. If no one can explain why you made money on either the front or the back, then the only thing you can attribute your success to is luck. Clearly that is no way to run a business. If you do not know what you actually did to accomplish this superior result, how on earth can you hope to duplicate it again today?
Delta meaning what would you do differently? Now knowing what you do about the situation of this sale, poor result (low gross), how could this unfortunate event be avoided today when presented with similar circumstances? Mistakes and failures are a part of life, you can't avoid them. How you react and learn from them is the key to your improvement.
The Pink list of hot prospects should be discussed to determine whythis customer chose to not do business with us yesterday. Was it the trade, the payment, the selection? Regardless of reason, a manager that did not work with this customer yesterday should call them today and inquire what could be done to help them out today.
Schedule your Daily Save a Deal meeting to start 15 minutes after your sales people are scheduled to arrive at the dealership. This insures they all arrive on time each day before you start a management review of yesterday's sales efforts. Allocate approximately 20 minutes for your meeting. As time permits review 2 and 3 days back on the sale logs for all pink hot prospects still listed.
After completing a review of the sales log (print it out and highlight if computer based) then transition to your scheduled One on One's we discussed in last month's March issue.
Remember games are won and lost in the second half, win the game today.
Go make something happen!
With an emphasis on auto sales training, finance and insurance, internet sales & phone skills training, the Manzo Group's team of nationally recognized trainers conduct an intensive on-site 3-4 day training seminar focusing on driving bottom line results in your New and Used Car Sales Operations.
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