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?

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!