“This is the way we’ve always done it and it’s worked” – Does this mean there is no room for improvement?

“He’s an 8 car guy” – Does this mean he doesn’t have room to grow?

“I’ll never be able to sell 15 units in a month” – If you convince yourself of this, you are most certainly correct

“We have top, middle, and bottom salespeople” – Why can’t they all be top Salespeople?  Can you honestly say you’ve invested fairly in your bottom and middle-performing Salespeople to give them the appropriate opportunity to develop into top Salespeople?

“We already have good salespeople that are reaching their potential” – Do you invest in the same amount of training and development in your bottom, middle (good), and top salespeople, or just a select few?

Have you heard or been guilty of saying any of the aforementioned statements?  I know I have both said and heard them at various dealerships.  The italicized statements come from a fixed mindset.  The bolded answers come from a growth mindset.

The worst trap for Sales Consultants and Managers is a fixed mindset rather than being in a growth mindset.  Fixed mindsets accept things for what they are.  They believe that the 8 car guy will always be an 8 car guy.  They have a fair balance between the bottom (6-8 cars), middle (9-13) and top (14+) performing sales consultants rather than looking at it as an opportunity to grow each consultant into a top-performing one.

“Success is 80% psychological and 20% skill” – Tony Robbins. 

We are guilty and easily influenced by investing in the 20% because that’s what is being offered to us on a regular basis.  It’s rare to find an Automotive Sales Training program that focuses on the 80% of your success. 

Maybe it’s time we shifted our focus from the 20% traditional sales training and development to the 80% and begin investing in personal development, mental strength, and healthy habits.

I wonder what would happen to our Sales performance if we actually invested 80% of our training and development budget into personal development versus sales strategies. 

​​​​​​​

Are there any dealers out there currently taking this approach?

And how much are you investing in training relative to your advertising and marketing budget?