10 Tips for Recruiting Sales People Successfully

Sales people provide life for all companies. If everything starts with sales people, it only makes sense to make sure that you are recruiting the best potential sales people

Tip 1: Recruit from want, not need. Make recruiting an everyday activity, don’t wait until you need it.

Tip 2: Have a strategy to recruit people all the time. To orchestrate a successful ongoing recruiting program you must first have a game-plan. Plan and develop a flow chart of your desired results. Write down the obvious. You must know why you are looking to create a recruiting strategy. “When the why gets strong, the how gets easy.”

Tip 3: Know who is in charge of recruiting and his/her qualifications. People must be educated on creating and orchestrating a strategy that works. Don’t leave the who and how to chance.

Tip 4: Newspaper ads – the Sunday paper is full of ads for sales people. If you plan on using help wanted ads as part of your recruiting, you must write the ad with the mindset of the good sales person you are looking to recruit. Use two age-old formulas: WIIFM – “What’s in it for me?” and AIDA – “Attention, interest, desire and action” when creating your ads.

Tip 5: Try using several avenues to recruit such as full color newspaper inserts, business journal classifieds, a banner ad on your web site, local colleges, Internet job postings, radio ads, military bases, job fairs and employee referral program. Never leave the vitality of your company to just one avenue of marketing. You must build a marketing web that has many marketing branches to attract good people.

Tip 6: Have an “ideal employee” profile. Know who you are looking for before you find them. When you’ve developed a precise guideline of what the perfect recruit looks like, you can begin your process with that in mind and then remove the emotions involved in interviewing.

Tip 7: Payment plans satisfy base-level needs of the potential recruit. Pay all recruits during training and guarantee them a living wage during their learning curve. Many potentially good sales people are not given the chance to ever enter the business. Lower the barriers of entry in order to find the best people.

Tip 8: Have at least 50 written interview questions. Don’t you show a sales person how to profile customers? Preparation is key to a good interview. Be ready with sub questions to the interviewee’s answers that allow him or her to elaborate and communicate in detail. A good interview will follow the 80/20-rule and allow the recruit to speak 80% of the time.

Tip 9: Test and profile a potential sales person. Anyone who has interviewed people has come across a great interview, horrible employee. A good recruiting strategy must utilize many tools to reduce the emotion and help to make a more logical and quantitative selection. There are many tools today that can be used to gauge the personality, sales aptitude, emotional IQ, intelligence and just about anything else you want to know about a possible future employee

Tip 10: Don’t hire people based only upon resumes. If you want to hire good sales people, recruit and hire based on talent and attitude and teach them the necessary skills.

Recruiting and hiring effectively is a continuous process that is both part science and being creative. Having a consistent plan will make your recruiting a success. 

10 Tips for Recruiting Sales People Successfully

Sales people provide life for all companies. If everything starts with sales people, it only makes sense to make sure that you are recruiting the best potential sales people

Tip 1: Recruit from want, not need. Make recruiting an everyday activity, don’t wait until you need it.

Tip 2: Have a strategy to recruit people all the time. To orchestrate a successful ongoing recruiting program you must first have a game-plan. Plan and develop a flow chart of your desired results. Write down the obvious. You must know why you are looking to create a recruiting strategy. “When the why gets strong, the how gets easy.”

Tip 3: Know who is in charge of recruiting and his/her qualifications. People must be educated on creating and orchestrating a strategy that works. Don’t leave the who and how to chance.

Tip 4: Newspaper ads – the Sunday paper is full of ads for sales people. If you plan on using help wanted ads as part of your recruiting, you must write the ad with the mindset of the good sales person you are looking to recruit. Use two age-old formulas: WIIFM – “What’s in it for me?” and AIDA – “Attention, interest, desire and action” when creating your ads.

Tip 5: Try using several avenues to recruit such as full color newspaper inserts, business journal classifieds, a banner ad on your web site, local colleges, Internet job postings, radio ads, military bases, job fairs and employee referral program. Never leave the vitality of your company to just one avenue of marketing. You must build a marketing web that has many marketing branches to attract good people.

Tip 6: Have an “ideal employee” profile. Know who you are looking for before you find them. When you’ve developed a precise guideline of what the perfect recruit looks like, you can begin your process with that in mind and then remove the emotions involved in interviewing.

Tip 7: Payment plans satisfy base-level needs of the potential recruit. Pay all recruits during training and guarantee them a living wage during their learning curve. Many potentially good sales people are not given the chance to ever enter the business. Lower the barriers of entry in order to find the best people.

Tip 8: Have at least 50 written interview questions. Don’t you show a sales person how to profile customers? Preparation is key to a good interview. Be ready with sub questions to the interviewee’s answers that allow him or her to elaborate and communicate in detail. A good interview will follow the 80/20-rule and allow the recruit to speak 80% of the time.

Tip 9: Test and profile a potential sales person. Anyone who has interviewed people has come across a great interview, horrible employee. A good recruiting strategy must utilize many tools to reduce the emotion and help to make a more logical and quantitative selection. There are many tools today that can be used to gauge the personality, sales aptitude, emotional IQ, intelligence and just about anything else you want to know about a possible future employee

Tip 10: Don’t hire people based only upon resumes. If you want to hire good sales people, recruit and hire based on talent and attitude and teach them the necessary skills.

Recruiting and hiring effectively is a continuous process that is both part science and being creative. Having a consistent plan will make your recruiting a success. 

Price cutting is a self-inflicted wound. Nobody holds a gun to your head and makes you cut your price. I know that many of you are thinking right now: "There is so much competition today that you can't maintain profits," "Everybody is giving everything away," "The salespeople can't negotiate," and "Everybody knows our pricing from the Internet..." Blah, Blah, Blah. Stop whining about price!

Only about ten percent of buyers buy on price alone. For that ten percent, you can decide to lower your prices or let your customers buy elsewhere. Every person who has ever sold anything knows that the happiest customers are the ones that pay you profit, whereas the unhappiest customers are the ones that you gave everything away to. Here's a news flash: You don't have to do business with them. It's your choice.

All things being equal, money will be the customer's final decision. It is your job to make everything unequal. Customers consider the 3 M's: Money, Machine, and Me. What are you doing to elevate the "me" part of the equation? The "me" part of the 3M's stands for you: your process, the dealership, the service, and the reputation. It's the easiest part of the equation to change. Your dealership is unique and your customers need to know why. You have to believe that you are the best and that you are worth more. Many salespeople and sales managers have a flawed, weak belief system. If you don't believe you are outstanding, you will make yourself a replaceable commodity.

Every day you must work as hard on yourself as you do on sales. When you get better, your customers will get better. Do you work on yourself every day in the area of attitude, education, motivation, sales skills, customer follow-up, and marketing? Let's be brutally honest and forget about being politically correct...most sales people stink at their profession. The majority of salespeople never work on the above skills. Can you really tell me that those unmotivated and uneducated idiots are the tough competition? Your only competition is in your own mind.

Recently, while in Las Vegas, I shopped for shoes at Caesar's Palace. At the first store I went to, I noticed the salesperson looked agitated to have to hang up the phone to wait on me. He was extremely rude and did nothing to add value to his store or differentiate himself from other run-of-the-mill salespeople.

The second store I went to, I encountered a sensational salesperson that created rapport, sold value, and quality. He knew his product and made a high price seem like a bargain.

The first store lost two sales and the second gained from the first salesperson's stupidity.

Is the first salesperson and his inadequacies the norm, or was it an aberration? My experience says that unfortunately, he's the norm. My hunch is that your experiences are the same as mine.

Work every day to get better and show it to your customers. Work on your belief system.

Don't be a commodity, and stop whining about price. Price is the easiest problem to solve in the sale.

For your free special report “10 Ways to Overcome the Best Price Questions”, email me at info@tewart.com with Best Price in the subject line.

Price cutting is a self-inflicted wound. Nobody holds a gun to your head and makes you cut your price. I know that many of you are thinking right now: "There is so much competition today that you can't maintain profits," "Everybody is giving everything away," "The salespeople can't negotiate," and "Everybody knows our pricing from the Internet..." Blah, Blah, Blah. Stop whining about price!

Only about ten percent of buyers buy on price alone. For that ten percent, you can decide to lower your prices or let your customers buy elsewhere. Every person who has ever sold anything knows that the happiest customers are the ones that pay you profit, whereas the unhappiest customers are the ones that you gave everything away to. Here's a news flash: You don't have to do business with them. It's your choice.

All things being equal, money will be the customer's final decision. It is your job to make everything unequal. Customers consider the 3 M's: Money, Machine, and Me. What are you doing to elevate the "me" part of the equation? The "me" part of the 3M's stands for you: your process, the dealership, the service, and the reputation. It's the easiest part of the equation to change. Your dealership is unique and your customers need to know why. You have to believe that you are the best and that you are worth more. Many salespeople and sales managers have a flawed, weak belief system. If you don't believe you are outstanding, you will make yourself a replaceable commodity.

Every day you must work as hard on yourself as you do on sales. When you get better, your customers will get better. Do you work on yourself every day in the area of attitude, education, motivation, sales skills, customer follow-up, and marketing? Let's be brutally honest and forget about being politically correct...most sales people stink at their profession. The majority of salespeople never work on the above skills. Can you really tell me that those unmotivated and uneducated idiots are the tough competition? Your only competition is in your own mind.

Recently, while in Las Vegas, I shopped for shoes at Caesar's Palace. At the first store I went to, I noticed the salesperson looked agitated to have to hang up the phone to wait on me. He was extremely rude and did nothing to add value to his store or differentiate himself from other run-of-the-mill salespeople.

The second store I went to, I encountered a sensational salesperson that created rapport, sold value, and quality. He knew his product and made a high price seem like a bargain.

The first store lost two sales and the second gained from the first salesperson's stupidity.

Is the first salesperson and his inadequacies the norm, or was it an aberration? My experience says that unfortunately, he's the norm. My hunch is that your experiences are the same as mine.

Work every day to get better and show it to your customers. Work on your belief system.

Don't be a commodity, and stop whining about price. Price is the easiest problem to solve in the sale.

For your free special report “10 Ways to Overcome the Best Price Questions”, email me at info@tewart.com with Best Price in the subject line.

Do you feel like you are missing out on something? Are you confused as to what the next step is in making your dealership successful? It’s a different ballgame than it was even just a few years ago. The traditional dealership is dead and you must bury it to prosper in the future.

            For years the car business could be a very forgiving business. There was room for a lot of error in a dealership and yet a dealership could still be profitable. Those days are gone. Dealerships cannot be run in only a “seat of the pants”, entrepreneurial fashion anymore. To be successful dealerships have to be measured intensely in four areas – People, Process, Product and Positioning.

People – You must choose a path that works for your dealership philosophy. You must recruit people on a full time basis based upon want, not need. The leadership of a dealership must have a written and executed game plan for recruiting that utilizes online services, job fairs, colleges, tech schools, high schools, web sites, micro-sites, social media, newspaper, mass media and more.

Each dealership needs a detailed plan that includes a) interview questions, b) number of interviews c) personnel trained to interview d) testing methods for potential job skill match e) screening methods f) follow up methods g) initial and ongoing training methods for new hires

Process – Each dealership should have a written and executed process for every part of the dealership – sales process, internet lead process, marketing process, service process, parts process, manager process, used car inventory process etc. As an example, the selling process must be reviewed to make sure it is up to date and matches today’s marketplace. Most sales processes being used today were created in the 50’s and 60’s and have changed only slightly. Meanwhile, for the customer, everything has changed. Information gathering, overall knowledge, shopping process, volume of choices, expectations, value perceptions, lessening of brand loyalty are all things that have changed dramatically.

Every dealership needs to review their process based upon TLC – Think Like a Customer. What are you currently doing in your dealership process that lessens customer trust or ease of shopping/buying. Most dealerships are living in the stone-age when it comes to something as simple as the meeting and greeting of the customer. Nothing in your current process is sacred and the mantra for many things should be “just let it go.”

Product – The days of “Stack’em deep and sell them cheap” are over. Your new and used inventory must be monitored daily using analytic systems and technology that measures not only your inventory but others and market conditions. Many dealers have fought using any type of turn system even though simple mathematics proved you would be better off doing so. Well, the tide has turned again. Turn systems by themselves are now outdated and can even lower your dealerships ROI without other factors involved. Each vehicle is an investment just like a stock or mutual fund and must be analyzed, bought, priced, marketed, sold and eliminated using several conditions. Just saying that you have a 45 day turn system is not good enough anymore.

Positioning – Gone are the days of running display newspaper ads and waiting for traffic to arrive. Your dealership must have a dealership strategy that combines market positioning. Selling vehicles based upon price only will not create long term success. Successful dealers will no longer be able to delegate all of their marketing to an advertising strategy without educating themselves on the marketing and positioning aspects of their dealership.

Dealers will have to massively educate themselves on things such as, direct response marketing methods, copyrighting, multi-step campaigns, integration of on-line and off-line methods, social media, continual customer relationship building strategies, and sales to service continuity programs and retention. Dealers will learn that many advertising agencies do not understand any of these things and simply create lousy to mediocre production and buy the media. Without a well thought strategy using intentional congruence with all of the above mentioned factors you cannot be successful in this and future marketplace.

In the last year, I have asked hundreds of dealers the following questions:

#1 - What are your overall sales to service retention numbers and percentages beyond a first free oil change?

#2 - What are your number of inactive customers and what percentage is that to your overall customer base?

#3 – What is your planned and executed strategy for a continuity program to keep your customers for sales and service?

Here is the sad result. Out of hundreds of dealers, only one knew the answer to these questions. I continually find that dealers and managers do not really know what is going on in their own dealerships and are not doing anything to educate them to change that.

The reality is that the future belongs to dealers who educate themselves more, execute better and understand the value of speed in today’s marketplace. The marketplace of today and the future will continue to be very unforgiving with little room for margin of error, inattention or being slothful. The traditional dealership is dead but the exciting news is your new dealership is waiting to be born.

For a free special report titled “10 Things You Must Do At Your Dealership To Be Successful” email me at info@tewart.com with 10 things in the subject line.

Do you feel like you are missing out on something? Are you confused as to what the next step is in making your dealership successful? It’s a different ballgame than it was even just a few years ago. The traditional dealership is dead and you must bury it to prosper in the future.

            For years the car business could be a very forgiving business. There was room for a lot of error in a dealership and yet a dealership could still be profitable. Those days are gone. Dealerships cannot be run in only a “seat of the pants”, entrepreneurial fashion anymore. To be successful dealerships have to be measured intensely in four areas – People, Process, Product and Positioning.

People – You must choose a path that works for your dealership philosophy. You must recruit people on a full time basis based upon want, not need. The leadership of a dealership must have a written and executed game plan for recruiting that utilizes online services, job fairs, colleges, tech schools, high schools, web sites, micro-sites, social media, newspaper, mass media and more.

Each dealership needs a detailed plan that includes a) interview questions, b) number of interviews c) personnel trained to interview d) testing methods for potential job skill match e) screening methods f) follow up methods g) initial and ongoing training methods for new hires

Process – Each dealership should have a written and executed process for every part of the dealership – sales process, internet lead process, marketing process, service process, parts process, manager process, used car inventory process etc. As an example, the selling process must be reviewed to make sure it is up to date and matches today’s marketplace. Most sales processes being used today were created in the 50’s and 60’s and have changed only slightly. Meanwhile, for the customer, everything has changed. Information gathering, overall knowledge, shopping process, volume of choices, expectations, value perceptions, lessening of brand loyalty are all things that have changed dramatically.

Every dealership needs to review their process based upon TLC – Think Like a Customer. What are you currently doing in your dealership process that lessens customer trust or ease of shopping/buying. Most dealerships are living in the stone-age when it comes to something as simple as the meeting and greeting of the customer. Nothing in your current process is sacred and the mantra for many things should be “just let it go.”

Product – The days of “Stack’em deep and sell them cheap” are over. Your new and used inventory must be monitored daily using analytic systems and technology that measures not only your inventory but others and market conditions. Many dealers have fought using any type of turn system even though simple mathematics proved you would be better off doing so. Well, the tide has turned again. Turn systems by themselves are now outdated and can even lower your dealerships ROI without other factors involved. Each vehicle is an investment just like a stock or mutual fund and must be analyzed, bought, priced, marketed, sold and eliminated using several conditions. Just saying that you have a 45 day turn system is not good enough anymore.

Positioning – Gone are the days of running display newspaper ads and waiting for traffic to arrive. Your dealership must have a dealership strategy that combines market positioning. Selling vehicles based upon price only will not create long term success. Successful dealers will no longer be able to delegate all of their marketing to an advertising strategy without educating themselves on the marketing and positioning aspects of their dealership.

Dealers will have to massively educate themselves on things such as, direct response marketing methods, copyrighting, multi-step campaigns, integration of on-line and off-line methods, social media, continual customer relationship building strategies, and sales to service continuity programs and retention. Dealers will learn that many advertising agencies do not understand any of these things and simply create lousy to mediocre production and buy the media. Without a well thought strategy using intentional congruence with all of the above mentioned factors you cannot be successful in this and future marketplace.

In the last year, I have asked hundreds of dealers the following questions:

#1 - What are your overall sales to service retention numbers and percentages beyond a first free oil change?

#2 - What are your number of inactive customers and what percentage is that to your overall customer base?

#3 – What is your planned and executed strategy for a continuity program to keep your customers for sales and service?

Here is the sad result. Out of hundreds of dealers, only one knew the answer to these questions. I continually find that dealers and managers do not really know what is going on in their own dealerships and are not doing anything to educate them to change that.

The reality is that the future belongs to dealers who educate themselves more, execute better and understand the value of speed in today’s marketplace. The marketplace of today and the future will continue to be very unforgiving with little room for margin of error, inattention or being slothful. The traditional dealership is dead but the exciting news is your new dealership is waiting to be born.

For a free special report titled “10 Things You Must Do At Your Dealership To Be Successful” email me at info@tewart.com with 10 things in the subject line.

 Death of The Traditional Salesperson– Part 2

                A recent article I wrote titled “Death of Traditional Salespeople” received more response than any article I have ever written.  Judging from the massive response, I struck a nerve with salespeople, managers, business owners and just about everyone who read the article. Based upon the overwhelming response and the huge amount of requests for more information on this theme, I am providing the following article.

                For as long as I can remember traditional sales training has focused highly on certain sales skills such as cold calling, presentation-demonstration, objection handling and closing. This model is outdated and out of touch. The traditional model taught to salespeople has an adversarial tone and combative tone that goes against the grain of basic human communication.

                Selling is not something you do to someone. By my definition, selling is assisting people in finding and understanding a solution to their problem(s). Every buyer has a problem whether it is a want or need problem and it’s the job of the salesperson to guide the buyer to the solution instead of force feeding him with product or services. It’s much easier to practice what I call the “slippery-slide method of selling.”

                If you were at a pool and it had one of those slippery-slides, you would start at the top and slide effortless to the bottom.  In sales, it’s usually the salesperson that puts obstacles in the way of the customer from flowing effortlessly to their destination. The obstacles start in the form of an outdated mindset of “control” and coercive techniques.

                If instead of concentrating so much on outdated word tracks to overpower people, why not concentrate on understanding basic human emotion and thought in assisting the customer rather than fighting him. Let’s start with the most abused skill in selling which is listening. So much of selling is actually just listening. It is a proven part of communication that when most people listen they listen intently for about the first ten seconds and then quickly shift into thinking about what their response  will be. A quick shift occurs in the salesperson that is now self-focused and control oriented.

                To truly listen is to seek to understand based upon complete focus of the customer and their perspective. Perception of the customer is the only reality that matters. It’s not about right or wrong or overcoming objections but about truly understanding the customer and their thoughts and feelings.  From understanding comes a shared goal achieving process with the customer. You and the customer share a destiny rather than acting as opposing players.

 Traditional objection handling techniques stress changing a customer’s thoughts and emotions rather than understanding them and then utilizing those thoughts and emotions to come a winning solution for the customer. I call this paradigm shift “selling form the heart.” Some old school types will read this and think it’s a bunch of psycho-babble and feel good mumbo-jumbo.  To those of you locked in that vein of thought, understand that it’s not my mission to change you, as most adults do not change.  As Jesus said to his disciples, “Don’t tarry too long with the non believers.”

To find out more about this topic and  receive some FREE bonuses go to www.superstarbookvideo.com

 Death of The Traditional Salesperson– Part 2

                A recent article I wrote titled “Death of Traditional Salespeople” received more response than any article I have ever written.  Judging from the massive response, I struck a nerve with salespeople, managers, business owners and just about everyone who read the article. Based upon the overwhelming response and the huge amount of requests for more information on this theme, I am providing the following article.

                For as long as I can remember traditional sales training has focused highly on certain sales skills such as cold calling, presentation-demonstration, objection handling and closing. This model is outdated and out of touch. The traditional model taught to salespeople has an adversarial tone and combative tone that goes against the grain of basic human communication.

                Selling is not something you do to someone. By my definition, selling is assisting people in finding and understanding a solution to their problem(s). Every buyer has a problem whether it is a want or need problem and it’s the job of the salesperson to guide the buyer to the solution instead of force feeding him with product or services. It’s much easier to practice what I call the “slippery-slide method of selling.”

                If you were at a pool and it had one of those slippery-slides, you would start at the top and slide effortless to the bottom.  In sales, it’s usually the salesperson that puts obstacles in the way of the customer from flowing effortlessly to their destination. The obstacles start in the form of an outdated mindset of “control” and coercive techniques.

                If instead of concentrating so much on outdated word tracks to overpower people, why not concentrate on understanding basic human emotion and thought in assisting the customer rather than fighting him. Let’s start with the most abused skill in selling which is listening. So much of selling is actually just listening. It is a proven part of communication that when most people listen they listen intently for about the first ten seconds and then quickly shift into thinking about what their response  will be. A quick shift occurs in the salesperson that is now self-focused and control oriented.

                To truly listen is to seek to understand based upon complete focus of the customer and their perspective. Perception of the customer is the only reality that matters. It’s not about right or wrong or overcoming objections but about truly understanding the customer and their thoughts and feelings.  From understanding comes a shared goal achieving process with the customer. You and the customer share a destiny rather than acting as opposing players.

 Traditional objection handling techniques stress changing a customer’s thoughts and emotions rather than understanding them and then utilizing those thoughts and emotions to come a winning solution for the customer. I call this paradigm shift “selling form the heart.” Some old school types will read this and think it’s a bunch of psycho-babble and feel good mumbo-jumbo.  To those of you locked in that vein of thought, understand that it’s not my mission to change you, as most adults do not change.  As Jesus said to his disciples, “Don’t tarry too long with the non believers.”

To find out more about this topic and  receive some FREE bonuses go to www.superstarbookvideo.com

You may find this article a bit odd knowing that it is being written by a sales trainer. I believe traditional selling is dead on arrival. The days of hiring and building a well trained sales staff that executes all facets of the sale, follow up, prospecting, marketing, telephone skills and building a database of repeat buyers has for the most part been dead for a while.

Some of you reading this may be shocked or even angry at such a statement and declare that it is certainly not the case at your dealership. However, it is the case for ninety-five percent of dealerships across the country. If you have been able to recruit, hire, train and retain a professional staff of salespeople who execute on an extremely high level then I say “bravo to you.” Our company has certainly helped many dealerships do the same thing. However, after almost thirty years in the business I can tell you it is not the norm.

What I see in the auto business today as an average is scary. I see lazy, untrained staffs that either cannot or will not learn the skills necessary to become a strong, professional salesperson. I see dealerships with weak or non-existent game plans to recruit, hire and train a strong professional staff. I see managers who like to sit behind their desks and wait for untrained sales staffs to bring them deals.

I continue to see dealerships moving to more and more specialization and technology. I see dealerships utilizing CRM’s, in store or external Internet departments, outsourced BDC’s and sales processes that heavily utilize managers and technology. Although technology does not sell vehicles, it surely assists you in the process. More dealerships will move towards an old school but now new school process of product specialists and managers. People will only be trained and expected to perform in certain areas of competency. F&I managers will be moved more towards the front of the sale rather than the back of the sale. Many smart dealers have moved towards this arrangement years ago.

Dealers have been beating their heads up against the wall forever trying to get salespeople not only trained, but get them actually doing it. For the most part, it has not worked. I have heard certain sales trainers cry out “It’s not an option.” That’s easy to say, but those same sales trainers went broke while owning their own dealerships. I am not writing this article to be politically correct. I am writing this article to be a witness to the truth as I see it. The average salesperson today in most stores is lucky to have a job let alone resembling anything close to a professional salesperson. Customers just won’t tolerate amateurs and old school selling anymore.

If you are fighting the same battles you have been fighting for years and not getting better results then it may be time to stop blaming your managers and look in the mirror. It may be time to try a different approach. And to all the truly professional salespeople out there that don’t fit into the ninety-five percent category I mentioned, you have my apologies as you should be held in very high esteem and not lumped in with all the rest. You are truly some of the most valuable people on earth.

If you would like to receive my free report on the new generation of selling, email me with the phrase “new generation” in the subject line

You may find this article a bit odd knowing that it is being written by a sales trainer. I believe traditional selling is dead on arrival. The days of hiring and building a well trained sales staff that executes all facets of the sale, follow up, prospecting, marketing, telephone skills and building a database of repeat buyers has for the most part been dead for a while.

Some of you reading this may be shocked or even angry at such a statement and declare that it is certainly not the case at your dealership. However, it is the case for ninety-five percent of dealerships across the country. If you have been able to recruit, hire, train and retain a professional staff of salespeople who execute on an extremely high level then I say “bravo to you.” Our company has certainly helped many dealerships do the same thing. However, after almost thirty years in the business I can tell you it is not the norm.

What I see in the auto business today as an average is scary. I see lazy, untrained staffs that either cannot or will not learn the skills necessary to become a strong, professional salesperson. I see dealerships with weak or non-existent game plans to recruit, hire and train a strong professional staff. I see managers who like to sit behind their desks and wait for untrained sales staffs to bring them deals.

I continue to see dealerships moving to more and more specialization and technology. I see dealerships utilizing CRM’s, in store or external Internet departments, outsourced BDC’s and sales processes that heavily utilize managers and technology. Although technology does not sell vehicles, it surely assists you in the process. More dealerships will move towards an old school but now new school process of product specialists and managers. People will only be trained and expected to perform in certain areas of competency. F&I managers will be moved more towards the front of the sale rather than the back of the sale. Many smart dealers have moved towards this arrangement years ago.

Dealers have been beating their heads up against the wall forever trying to get salespeople not only trained, but get them actually doing it. For the most part, it has not worked. I have heard certain sales trainers cry out “It’s not an option.” That’s easy to say, but those same sales trainers went broke while owning their own dealerships. I am not writing this article to be politically correct. I am writing this article to be a witness to the truth as I see it. The average salesperson today in most stores is lucky to have a job let alone resembling anything close to a professional salesperson. Customers just won’t tolerate amateurs and old school selling anymore.

If you are fighting the same battles you have been fighting for years and not getting better results then it may be time to stop blaming your managers and look in the mirror. It may be time to try a different approach. And to all the truly professional salespeople out there that don’t fit into the ninety-five percent category I mentioned, you have my apologies as you should be held in very high esteem and not lumped in with all the rest. You are truly some of the most valuable people on earth.

If you would like to receive my free report on the new generation of selling, email me with the phrase “new generation” in the subject line