Lets face it, the world of the hospitality salesperson is not what it used to be. Glad handing folks in the parking lot is nothing like it once was. It’s no longer enough. It’s no longer adequate. It’s no longer effective. In the future some salespeople will be replaced and others will become more valuable. There will be fewer, but more sophisticated and technologically supported sales staff that drive the dealers bottom line.

Successful salespeople of the future will understand innately the perspective of both the seller and the buyer. Sales actions and approaches will be driven not only by how the salesperson wants to sell but equally by how the buyer wants to buy. Without this fundamental shift in philosophy, a value add is not possible for the in-person salesperson. Without a value add, there is no value. Without value, there is no need - for the salesperson.

Classic referral marketing and long term relationship building practices will become the necessary norm instead ...

There has been a tremendous amount of excitement buzzing around recently about Facebook, Twitter, and other online social platforms. Many vendors, professionals, consultants and businesses are nearly desperate to try to find a way to increase sales using these trendy communication methods. Is it worth it? Can I really justify “all the work” associated with social networking? Yes, it is. Yes you can.

As some of you already know, in my past-life I operated a few independent auto repair shops. I was tremendously successful. When our family relocated four hours south, I lost touch with a few auto-repair-buddies. Recently, a friend of mine called and we re-connected. He called to ask for help. He has found himself operating his own shop and he is struggling to attract new customers. He was hoping I could help.

In an effort to help, we agreed that I would travel to his shop each Friday for a few weeks to play a sort-of consulting role (something I’m not used to) in his shop and s...

I was sifting through my mail today organizing the junk from the important. I got to thinking about all this mail. Who sends it? What does it mean? Did they really think I was going to open it? So much garbage in my mailbox these days! Regular mail is not much different from electronic mail, the junk gets ignored. If you are sending follow up mail, real mail, the paper kind, you may be surprised at the number of pieces that go unopened. Real mail from real people gets opened and read. If your mail appears canned, computer generated or impersonal, chances are, it will get tossed.
5 Tips to get your mail opened and read, and not tossed!
1) Hand address every envelope. Really, with a pen, take your time. How much time could it take anyway? It’s not like your sending hundreds of mail pieces a day. Get your pen out, hand address the darned things. This means you cannot use windowed envelopes. Windowed envelopes scream  NOT PERSONAL and get tossed.
2) Use a real stamp. Not a ...

What is it that you are communicating? If your language and delivery suggest that you are eager, hungry, or even desperate to “Get them in this car today” your chances of doing so are greatly diminished. Learn to lower the pressure by using natural language to open up a discussion. Selling is not about pressuring people to see things your way, selling is about discovering the truth, discovering how you can help. Selling is about helping the customer determine ON THEIR OWN that your product (car) is better than any other car they may be considering.
It is important that you understand just how significant the words you choose are. Nobody wants to be sold and we all know this. You and I run from pressure sales pitches because we are just like our customers, normal folks that don’t want to be SOLD. The reality is, whether you agree or not, your reputation (as a car salesman) precedes you and your customers will EXPECT you to take a high-pressure approach. Your approach ...

Many sales people think they know what somebody is inquiring about before speaking with them. When you receive an internet lead or a telephone call, do you assume the person contacting you is interested in buying something? Most sales people do, this is a mistake.
The reality is, when somebody calls you or emails you (even if they started from a third party lead-provider site), you have no idea what the person needs help with. You don’t know the problem they are trying to solve.  Since most of us are trained sales professionals, we quickly jump into “sales mode” as soon as somebody inquires. Why? Because that is what we were taught to do. This is bad because you have no idea who this person is and they have no idea who you are - there is no relationship yet. If you assume you have a relationship just because they contact you, you are asking for trouble.
One problem with many internet lead providers is that they are sales-focused and attempt to steer customers...

In a meeting with my partner the other day, we were discussing our industry  and where it may be headed, where it’s likely to change and how much different it is today than it was a few years ago. The overwhelming topic: “the young guys and the old-school guys.” 
Our conversation trended around the difference in how less experienced (usually younger) salespeople and older, more seasoned sales people, approach the car selling process. Older, more seasoned sales people seemed to be more likely to use an “old school” approach - treat customers like sitting ducks - do everything possible to close the sale - now. Younger, less experienced salespeople seemed to be more interested in building relationships, working referrals, and helping customers solve their problems in an effort to make a deal when the customers terms were met.
OK, OK, old-schoolers may be saying “wait just a minute, I help customers too!” and new reps m...

Nobody can say when the economy started tanking, there are lots of opinions. But, it seems to me that Fall 08 was the start of our current situation. Let’s decide it was September 08 for sake of argument. Are you doing anything different today that you were 7 months ago? If so, what? If not, why not? 
There are countless ways to improve. Countless initiatives, strategies, plans, changes and adjustments that COULD be made. Most folks are doing the same things today as they were last fall, most folks have changed nothing. Because of this, they get what they deserve - less of everything. “If you keep doing what you always did you are going to keep getting what you always got” - or something like that, you know the saying. That was generally true in the past. But, wait, think about it for a minute. This is not necessarily true anymore.
One of the biggest challenges facing dealers today is the rapid pace of change - outside of their dealerships. The fact is, if yo...

This post will make all the professional sales-reps sick, just sick. It all started when I took a little trip North a few hours to watch my best friends son play baseball this weekend. 
In the middle of the 3rd painfully slow inning (watching 9 year old baseball is like watching grass grow!) my buddy says: “what in the heck is Lexus thinking, I need a new car and they refuse to tell me what cars they have to sell.” I giggled a bit because I knew exactly what he was referring to. Lexus dealers generally do not list their inventory online. Why? I have no idea. I can imagine a few ideas but they make no sense. They may have 10 years ago but not today.
The tragic (tragic for dealers local to him) story goes like this: “I went online and clicked around to see if they had the car I wanted. I was surprised to find that Lexus dealers do not list their new inventory on their websites. Since they do not list their new-car inventory I have no idea who to buy it from. I ...

Many of us work hard to develop a good reputation and overlooking what others think or say about us could be costly.  Fancy terms like Online Reputation Management or Search Engine Image Protection have evolved and you can benefit by gaining a deeper understanding of this modern trend.  Google Alerts is a service designed to help you learn about internet content that contains certain words or phrases - such as your name.
Wikipedia says: “Search Engine Image Protection (SEIP) Also known as Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM), combines the science of Search Engine Optimization, with technical and marketing expertise, for the sole purpose of protecting your name and reputation from undesired public information accessible via internet search results.” 
In english, all this means is that you want to know when something is published about you so you can act accordingly. 
Why should I monitor my online reputation? You should care what is bei...

About 10 years ago I attended a "Sales Training Camp" and came home with piles and piles of paperwork, examples, scripts, and other goodies. I ran across this list of 10 ways to shape-up a sales force that I took home from that seminar. Not surprisingly, we are saying many of the same things today as we said a decade ago. If your a salesperson, you may not like any of these ideas - sorry. If you are a performer, you understand. If not, um, become one or find a new gig.
1, Fire them: Hapless Hal clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s been with you a month. What’s the point in waiting? If someone’s really not going to work out you know that immediately. Use a three month probationary period to weed out the worst performers. But the staff who are not obviously useless need time to learn about the dealers products, and that can take 12 to 18 months. In theory, any of them should be able to do it, because they have proven track record...

 

I was reading a blog post the other day about some new business trends. It got me thinking about the good-ole-days. The days when customers were loyal. The days when most of us lived and died by certain brands. The days when it was OK to be open, honest, helpful, and profitable, all at the same time. These were the days when most of our bosses were making enough money to warrant pay raises on a regular basis. I wondered what happened? What changed? Why does it feel like old-fashioned values and principles no longer work? The reality is, they do work. 
Most of us know the value of referrals and the value of our existing customer base. Or do we? I'm going to suggest that you probably don't know. Yeah, you think your database of clients is valuable but do you really know just HOW valuable? It's nearly impossible to know how many customers is enough customers if you don't know what they are "worth." So, assuming you practice good old-fashioned custo...

 
So here's the thing, we’ve been working on a project with a large organization recently and hope to close the deal soon. But, suddenly, without warning, our client has gone missing. MIA, gone, nowhere to be found. Not literally, but they stopped returning calls, answering emails and basically began ignoring us. Did we do something wrong? Did they buy a competitors solution? I got to thinking about what may have happened and have come to a few conclusions. Read on and you may save yourself a few deals….
You lost a deal when everything seemed to be going just fine, you didn’t do anything wrong (so you think) and the relationship was getting stronger with each phone call. Then suddenly, without warning, whammo, game over, no more prospect. This happens to everyone and your being confused it not unusual. Here’s the thing, you were probably not as far along as you thought you were. You were HOPING to get a deal, but in all your hoping you forgot about learn...

My wife (Lynn) and I took the kids (Paige, Austin) to New York City for a family vacation this summer. We did all the typical stuff. Statues, Museums, Ballparks, all of it. The Books enjoyed the city and we've been sharing "big city stories" with our friends and family ever since. Of all the things we did, and we did lots, the thing that sticks in my memory the most is a taxi-cab ride we took through central park. Yes, through the park. The taxi wasn't a real taxi but one of those little bikes with the seat on the back - a Rickshaw.
The ride was OK but the guy pedaling was amazing. He wasn't amazing because he was pumping a family of four around the park on a little bike, five people counting him! He wasn't amazing because he smiled, and laughed, and entertained us the entire time. And he wasn't amazing because he spewed neat facts about the park for three hours. He was amazing because he had a LINE of people waiting to take a ride from him. There were other taxi's sitting e...

A dozen or so years ago most folks had no idea what CRM was. Today, most folks still have no idea. If you think it is software - you are wrong. If you think it’s a secret weapon used to increase sales, productivity, or reduce expenses, you’re partially right but not totally.
CRM is a concept not a product: Before changing anything, you should get your head around the idea behind CRM - Customer Relationship Management. Generally speaking, CRM is a well formulated plan that is centered around getting you and your staff customer focused rather than product focused. CRM is not software, fancy tools, web-based magic or anything else. CRM is a plan, a process, a customer-centric philosophy. 
This post is a simple list of common pitfalls many dealers experience when purchasing software to help their CRM strategy. They are not in any order of importance. Some experience these pitfalls immediatley, others down-the-road. Very few organizations (or individuals) are fortunate en...

Dealers promote step-by-step sales processes in nearly every store we visit. Processes help us by allowing us to stay focussed, track and measure results (how many ups do I need to take to sell 15 units?) and  predict the future (this ad budget should produce this much traffic). But, applying a rigid sales process every time, with every customer, is not a good approach. In fact, flexibility is an important skill that many salespeople never learn. It is especially important when trying to set appointments.

We all know the steps: Meet-Greet, Fact-Find, Walk-Around, Road-Test, Demo-Drive, Write-Up, Counter-Objections, Close. 6, 7, 8 steps, each store is a little different but nearly all stores will follow something close to the "8 Step Process" listed.  Here's the ironic part. The "easier" the customer transitions from step-to-step, the LESS likely you are to actually close the deal. We have all had the client that eagerly went along with the pla...

This post is in-your-face but the harsh reality is, if you can't answer each of these 10 questions with an astounding yes, you shouldn't be in sales. If your a manager and EVERYONE in your staff can't score 10 for 10, lose the ones that can't. Why bother? You are not in the babysitting business.
I figured this audience had thick-enough-skin to get through this with a slight smile and few laughs. If you can't answer yes to one of the questions, ignore the others, they don't mean anything individually, they mean tons together.
One more thing.... You may be asking yourself, "how am I going to cover the floor?" or "who's going to unlock the cars?" "None of my gang can score a perfect 10 on these questions, your kidding me right?" No, I'm not kidding. I'm a firm believer that a customer would rather have no help than horrible help. If your salespeople can't score a 10 for 10 on this simple quiz - your customers are better off without them and so are you. k, ...

 
I was in the grocery store the other day digging through some apples, looking for some without all the dents and such. I hate shopping but my wife asked me to do this weeks duty because she's not feeling well. My shopping list included apples. After finding the apples (it was easy, they were under the GIANT produce sign in the market) a lady pulled up a little scooter and parked it next to the apple-bin. She was blind. Her little scooter was like the ones some senior citizens drive. The blind lady reached into the apple-bin, pulled out an apple then placed it in the little basket hanging off her handle bars. She did this three times. The first thing I thought of was "how the heck does she know what apples she just selected?" The next thing that crossed my mind... "How the heck did she drive that crazy cart through the store without crashing into stuff?" 
She didn't seem to spend anytime "feeling" or "squeezing" the apples, she just ...

I thought I would share some thoughts on what the heck social networking is. Believe it or not, some folks have zero idea. I'm attempting to shed some light on what it is, how it works and why you NEED to get involved if your in the car biz'.
Lots of people ask about online social networking and what it's all about. Why do it? Isn't it a waste of time? As a sales professional, there are lots of reasons to do it and it's certainly not a waste of time. In fact, it may be paramount to your survival.
Before we get into modern, online social networking, a bit about professional networking "old-school" is worth discussing. Not so long ago, real-life, person-to-person, professional networks were common. They still are today. Think Chamber of Commerce, professional lunch groups, and other professional referral organizations. They are everywhere. For many, being a member of a professional network is strictly business, for others it's strictly social, for many it's both. If...

The other day, the board-leader at one of our clients stores remarked: "I haven't had a fresh up in days, all I get lately are internet customers visiting the store."  I wonder what a "fresh up" means to Joe? What's an internet customer to Joe?
It never ceases to amaze me how so many salespeople categorize their "ups" and "leads" into types based on how much research the customer may or may not have done prior to visiting the store. I would bet that Joe also mutters under his breath that "their not buyers" when the customer says they were online before the visit. Would he also think that they are not buyers if they said "I talked to my Uncle John about this car before I came down, he knows everything about cars." I would bet not. 
Hint: If you are not helping the customer that visits the store (because they are not buyers), you are not helping anyone, yourself included. Think about it, they would not be visiting th...

My kids played hooky from school today, it was going to be a big day. After tons and tons of anticipation, we watched the historic inauguration while their classmates studied english, math, and science up the street at the middle school. We sat glued to the television. We all listened. The kids gawked at the fancy helicopter as it banked away towards Texas with the Bush's aboard. I worried, hoped and wondered.
In President Obama's words, our challenges are "serious and many" and "starting today we must pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and begin rebuilding." The question is, will you? Do you have what it takes? Or, are you going to continue doing the same things this year as you did last. Are you going to wait until December to look back on '09 and ask yourself "what happened?"
As a nation we have our work cut-out for us. As a small business operator, or a sales person, the burden is larger for you than for most peopl...