I run a used car department at a new Ford franchise. We have been doing really well lately, which I'm sure is the case for most dealerships. We have actually been really, really consistent this year and have basically sold 75 used cars every month (+/- 2 cars).

We for sure aren't complaining about the numbers we have been putting up lately, but I think it is always important to take a step back and analyze things even during the better times.  Because of the fact that we have leveled out at 75 units, we are trying to find a way to take this thing to the next level.  We aren't trying to get greedy or anything, we are just trying to explore other options to help us bump 10 or so units per month.

     With that said, I feel like we have tried just about everything to help us get that extra bump. We have tried screwing with our car/truck mix and putting more cars out there than we normally do ( all that did for us was cause an aging problem!).  We have tried the whole set and subset method and buying things in large bulk and selection.  We have tried the price band method by just focusing on cheaper inventory.  We are next to a Chevy and Dodge store and we tried buying some of their  more desirable cars and give them away.  We have tried bumping our display up by 15-20 cars. We have messed around with different ways to advertise. And finally, we are currently trying some high roller cars that we have never tried in the past due to our demographics. 

    Anyway, we like to think we are pretty good at what we do but we can't seem to take this thing to the next level.  I'm beginning  to think we have reached are store's capacity but I am still optimistic that we can grow a little bit more.  Any ideas?  Have any of you guys tried something that I didn't mention? Or maybe an secrets as to what I may be doing wrong?

     I run a used car department at a new Ford franchise. We have been doing really well lately, which I'm sure is the case for most dealerships. We have actually been really, really consistent this year and have basically sold 75 used cars every month (+/- 2 cars).

We for sure aren't complaining about the numbers we have been putting up lately, but I think it is always important to take a step back and analyze things even during the better times.  Because of the fact that we have leveled out at 75 units, we are trying to find a way to take this thing to the next level.  We aren't trying to get greedy or anything, we are just trying to explore other options to help us bump 10 or so units per month.

     With that said, I feel like we have tried just about everything to help us get that extra bump. We have tried screwing with our car/truck mix and putting more cars out there than we normally do ( all that did for us was cause an aging problem!).  We have tried the whole set and subset method and buying things in large bulk and selection.  We have tried the price band method by just focusing on cheaper inventory.  We are next to a Chevy and Dodge store and we tried buying some of their  more desirable cars and give them away.  We have tried bumping our display up by 15-20 cars. We have messed around with different ways to advertise. And finally, we are currently trying some high roller cars that we have never tried in the past due to our demographics. 

    Anyway, we like to think we are pretty good at what we do but we can't seem to take this thing to the next level.  I'm beginning  to think we have reached are store's capacity but I am still optimistic that we can grow a little bit more.  Any ideas?  Have any of you guys tried something that I didn't mention? Or maybe an secrets as to what I may be doing wrong?

    So I am pretty new at this whole management thing and am struggling with one of our new sales guys. He does so many things right and so many things wrong that I don't even know where to start. I'll do a quick list of his pros and cons so you guys can see what I am dealing with!

     Pros: 1-  He sells a lot of cars and will probably lead the board almost every month this year.  2-  He is a very likeable guy about 60% of the time.

     Cons:  1- He is very argumentative with managers when he doesn't get his way 2- He is confrontational with sales guys and has earned a pretty bad rep with most of them 3- He refuses to do any Ford certification testing that we require 4- He forgets things almost as quick as you tell them to him 5- He magically disappears any time that there is any lot work to be done ( lining cars, parking PDI's, locking up, etc) 6- He misses morning training meetings fairly regularly, he isn't very punctual, and he leaves for 1-2 hours randomly during his shift.

     Anyway, there are so many things that I don't like about the guy due to the fact that I try to run a pretty tight ship but he also is a likeable, funny guy who can outsell anyone else on the floor.  My predicament is deciding what to do with a guy like him. Anytime I try to tell him what to do he gets mad and defensive and doesn't really care what I have to say for the most part.  I don't want to be too rude to him in fear that he will blow up and quit and I don't want to lose a 15 car guy. With that said, he needs to be held to the same standard as the rest of the sales guys and I know it is my job to make sure that happens.  I need to figure out a way to get him to be more of a team player in a way where I don't piss him off. Any suggestions?

    So I am pretty new at this whole management thing and am struggling with one of our new sales guys. He does so many things right and so many things wrong that I don't even know where to start. I'll do a quick list of his pros and cons so you guys can see what I am dealing with!

     Pros: 1-  He sells a lot of cars and will probably lead the board almost every month this year.  2-  He is a very likeable guy about 60% of the time.

     Cons:  1- He is very argumentative with managers when he doesn't get his way 2- He is confrontational with sales guys and has earned a pretty bad rep with most of them 3- He refuses to do any Ford certification testing that we require 4- He forgets things almost as quick as you tell them to him 5- He magically disappears any time that there is any lot work to be done ( lining cars, parking PDI's, locking up, etc) 6- He misses morning training meetings fairly regularly, he isn't very punctual, and he leaves for 1-2 hours randomly during his shift.

     Anyway, there are so many things that I don't like about the guy due to the fact that I try to run a pretty tight ship but he also is a likeable, funny guy who can outsell anyone else on the floor.  My predicament is deciding what to do with a guy like him. Anytime I try to tell him what to do he gets mad and defensive and doesn't really care what I have to say for the most part.  I don't want to be too rude to him in fear that he will blow up and quit and I don't want to lose a 15 car guy. With that said, he needs to be held to the same standard as the rest of the sales guys and I know it is my job to make sure that happens.  I need to figure out a way to get him to be more of a team player in a way where I don't piss him off. Any suggestions?

     I wanted to throw out a post about hiring new sales consultants. We have had some great posts and comments about training new sales consultants but in order to train a new sales consultant you have to hire some first!

     I don't know what everyone else has been running into, but I have seen so many different kinds of people from so many different walks of life due to the fact that a lot have people have lost their jobs lately.  The problem I am having with that is having to decide what type of previous experience would translate over to selling cars.  The other problem is deciding whether or not these prospective employees will be in it for the long haul if I hire them and give them an opportunity. 

     My goal (like most other dealerhips) when I am hiring someone is to find a guy that will blend well with the team and hopefully find a guy that we can train and will eventually make a career out of selling cars.  I realize that the car business generally has a pretty high turnover but I try to limit that by hiring guys that are serious about making this a career.  I just feel like if I were to hire some of the ex realtors, developers, construction workers, and sales people from other industries they won't consider this their profession and it really is just going to be a temporary solution to their problem.  I could be wrong, but it seems to me that as soon as the market recovers in their respective industries and they have an opportunity to go back, they will.  Another problem is that a lot of these guys were making really good money back in the day and are in the position where they need to continue to make quite a bit of money.

      I don't know if there are different questions I could be asking during the interview process but I find that it is really hard to determine what intentions a guy has with regard to making this a career.  I have also been really up front with guys with regard to a realistic income that they can expect their first year and I may be shooting myself in the foot.  I just want to hire and train a guy under the pretense that he will make over $100k his first year. It's definitely tough to decide.  Any thoughts or suggestions on what has worked for you guys?

     I wanted to throw out a post about hiring new sales consultants. We have had some great posts and comments about training new sales consultants but in order to train a new sales consultant you have to hire some first!

     I don't know what everyone else has been running into, but I have seen so many different kinds of people from so many different walks of life due to the fact that a lot have people have lost their jobs lately.  The problem I am having with that is having to decide what type of previous experience would translate over to selling cars.  The other problem is deciding whether or not these prospective employees will be in it for the long haul if I hire them and give them an opportunity. 

     My goal (like most other dealerhips) when I am hiring someone is to find a guy that will blend well with the team and hopefully find a guy that we can train and will eventually make a career out of selling cars.  I realize that the car business generally has a pretty high turnover but I try to limit that by hiring guys that are serious about making this a career.  I just feel like if I were to hire some of the ex realtors, developers, construction workers, and sales people from other industries they won't consider this their profession and it really is just going to be a temporary solution to their problem.  I could be wrong, but it seems to me that as soon as the market recovers in their respective industries and they have an opportunity to go back, they will.  Another problem is that a lot of these guys were making really good money back in the day and are in the position where they need to continue to make quite a bit of money.

      I don't know if there are different questions I could be asking during the interview process but I find that it is really hard to determine what intentions a guy has with regard to making this a career.  I have also been really up front with guys with regard to a realistic income that they can expect their first year and I may be shooting myself in the foot.  I just want to hire and train a guy under the pretense that he will make over $100k his first year. It's definitely tough to decide.  Any thoughts or suggestions on what has worked for you guys?

    We have had a problem with marriage that has created quite a bit of controversy lately at our dealership.  I'm not referring to marriage between a husband and wife, I'm referring to marriage between 2 sales consultants.

I'll start with a definition.  Being "married" on a deal is when 2 sales consultants are working the same deal together.  It is pointless to tie up 2 guys with 1 deal so one of the guys will go take another customer while the other guy continues to work the deal.  If the guy who took a new customer sells a car he would give up half of that deal to the guy that continued to work the original deal, regardless of the outcome of the original deal. Hopefully you guys followed all that. I read it 3 times to make sure it made sense!

Anyway, we have never had any sort of a rule regarding this marriage clause at our dealership.  It is only been a problem lately because we hired a couple of guys that have worked at other dealerships who have had that rule.  The problem we have now is that every salesperson thinks it is the best rule in the world.

Here's my stance.  I see the logic behind why 2 salespeople would want to make that agreement having sold cars in the past myself.  However, I think they are trying to cheat the system and get paid for work that they didn't even do.  They shouldn't be compensated for a deal that they didn't work with a customer they didn't even meet.  Also, I think we need to have a definitive rule because if we give our sales guys an inch, they will take a mile.  The other reason I am against this marriage clause is because I believe everything will work out in the long run when you average every deal out.  Meaning, a salesperson will definitely get screwed if he gets stuck working a crappy deal and the other guy on the deal goes and gets someone to lay down and buy.  But he can be on the good side of that deal in the future and according to the law of averages, everything should work out and be equal.

I may be completely in left field on this one, but I feel good about the decision we made as a management team.  The reason I wanted to write a post about this issue is because we have had lots of resistance from our guys when we made our decision.  Have you guys had issues with this at your dealerships, and if so, how have you handled it?

    We have had a problem with marriage that has created quite a bit of controversy lately at our dealership.  I'm not referring to marriage between a husband and wife, I'm referring to marriage between 2 sales consultants.

I'll start with a definition.  Being "married" on a deal is when 2 sales consultants are working the same deal together.  It is pointless to tie up 2 guys with 1 deal so one of the guys will go take another customer while the other guy continues to work the deal.  If the guy who took a new customer sells a car he would give up half of that deal to the guy that continued to work the original deal, regardless of the outcome of the original deal. Hopefully you guys followed all that. I read it 3 times to make sure it made sense!

Anyway, we have never had any sort of a rule regarding this marriage clause at our dealership.  It is only been a problem lately because we hired a couple of guys that have worked at other dealerships who have had that rule.  The problem we have now is that every salesperson thinks it is the best rule in the world.

Here's my stance.  I see the logic behind why 2 salespeople would want to make that agreement having sold cars in the past myself.  However, I think they are trying to cheat the system and get paid for work that they didn't even do.  They shouldn't be compensated for a deal that they didn't work with a customer they didn't even meet.  Also, I think we need to have a definitive rule because if we give our sales guys an inch, they will take a mile.  The other reason I am against this marriage clause is because I believe everything will work out in the long run when you average every deal out.  Meaning, a salesperson will definitely get screwed if he gets stuck working a crappy deal and the other guy on the deal goes and gets someone to lay down and buy.  But he can be on the good side of that deal in the future and according to the law of averages, everything should work out and be equal.

I may be completely in left field on this one, but I feel good about the decision we made as a management team.  The reason I wanted to write a post about this issue is because we have had lots of resistance from our guys when we made our decision.  Have you guys had issues with this at your dealerships, and if so, how have you handled it?

After having read Mark Tewart’s post on “The death of the traditional salesperson” and seeing the commotion that it caused, I wanted to write a post on training.  Mark had many opinions in his two posts, but the most important part that I took from both of them is that dealerships for the most part have virtually no training processes in place.  I commented on his original post and suggested that he check his data again for the fact that I’m pretty sure he is inaccurate in saying that 95% of dealerships across the country have no idea how to effectively train a sales staff. I’m sure some do better than others, but 95% seemed like a pretty staggering statistic.  I wanted to get some feedback from other dealers and trainers out there and see what training process, if any, is in place at your dealership.

I will start by sharing our training process that we do for our sales crew at our dealership. I would rank our training process at probably a 7 ish out of 10. I think we do an above average job, but I think we definitely have some areas we can improve on.  When we hire a new salesperson the process is as follows: 1- We have 2 team leaders that take them through a 2 day orientation to familiarize them with the dealership and our sales process. 2- We have one of our sales managers put them through what we have named “blacktop university”, which is a 2 week intense training for 3 hours every morning. 3- We require that within their first 3-6 months of employment, all salespeople have to become master certified with Ford.  4- We try to do our best with ongoing training after the initial training. We do a 30 minute training on various topics every morning before we open and try not to be the “manager that just sits behind the desk” like Mark said in his post. 

So that is what we do at our dealership but I’m dying to know what other dealers do so we can hopefully prove Mark wrong!  Like I said, I think we do a good job out our dealership, but I’m sure we have room for improvement.  Let me know what other things you guys have tried that seemed to work so we can hopefully improve ours a little bit.  I’m hoping some of you guys were able to pick up a couple pointers from the way that we train and you can use them at your dealerships. Comments and questions wanted please!

After having read Mark Tewart’s post on “The death of the traditional salesperson” and seeing the commotion that it caused, I wanted to write a post on training.  Mark had many opinions in his two posts, but the most important part that I took from both of them is that dealerships for the most part have virtually no training processes in place.  I commented on his original post and suggested that he check his data again for the fact that I’m pretty sure he is inaccurate in saying that 95% of dealerships across the country have no idea how to effectively train a sales staff. I’m sure some do better than others, but 95% seemed like a pretty staggering statistic.  I wanted to get some feedback from other dealers and trainers out there and see what training process, if any, is in place at your dealership.

I will start by sharing our training process that we do for our sales crew at our dealership. I would rank our training process at probably a 7 ish out of 10. I think we do an above average job, but I think we definitely have some areas we can improve on.  When we hire a new salesperson the process is as follows: 1- We have 2 team leaders that take them through a 2 day orientation to familiarize them with the dealership and our sales process. 2- We have one of our sales managers put them through what we have named “blacktop university”, which is a 2 week intense training for 3 hours every morning. 3- We require that within their first 3-6 months of employment, all salespeople have to become master certified with Ford.  4- We try to do our best with ongoing training after the initial training. We do a 30 minute training on various topics every morning before we open and try not to be the “manager that just sits behind the desk” like Mark said in his post. 

So that is what we do at our dealership but I’m dying to know what other dealers do so we can hopefully prove Mark wrong!  Like I said, I think we do a good job out our dealership, but I’m sure we have room for improvement.  Let me know what other things you guys have tried that seemed to work so we can hopefully improve ours a little bit.  I’m hoping some of you guys were able to pick up a couple pointers from the way that we train and you can use them at your dealerships. Comments and questions wanted please!