Facts tell and stories sell. If you want to become really good at sales, then you must know how to tell your story. People think in pictures and they can and will follow a story. People learn better from stories and become emotionally connected to stories. What is your story and can you tell your story and tell it well?

What makes you who you are? You are different from anyone else. Your life experiences, background and everything about you makes you unique. Unfortunately, if you are like most people, you think you are typical and that there is nothing exceptional or unique about yourself, and if that is what you think, you are absolutely wrong.

You could tell any customer 50 things about your product and he might remember a few of them. But, if you shared with a customer five things about yourself, he will remember all of them. People buy from people — not salespeople. People don’t necessarily like salespeople but they do like people who they can relate to or who they can connect to by their story. Stories make you a real live person instead of a commoditized salesperson. A customer can get a product anywhere, but he can’t get you anywhere else. If you don’t believe that, you are doomed to sell less than you could and should. You will also be doomed to experience frustration in sales because you have relegated yourself to the position of “order taker.” Stop selling products.

You do not have to dominate a conversation or talk only about you. However, you have to weave it into a conversation and eventually how that might relate to your customer. A conversation occurs when two or more people are communicating with one another. A conversation is rarely about a product alone. The conversation more often than not includes opinions, experiences, background and a personal spin to those products.

To have a true conversation, you will not only share your story but will also learn your customers’ story. A story is not only what a customer is looking for; it is the who, what and why of a customer. Imagine asking customers deeper questions rather than “what product or model are you looking for?” Dig deeper, dig deeper, dig deeper. The story is there and your customer wants to share that story. When a customer shares their story and you truly listen, you have now connected you, your product and service to them. The connection is deeper and more emotional than other salespeople will have. The following simple questions will allow a customer to share their story with you and begin a conversation and relationship.

“Mr. Customer, what is the most important thing to you when you buy?”

“Mr. Customer, what was the first thing that made you want to buy what you currently have?”

“Mr. Customer, tell me how you plan on typically using ______.”

“Mr. Customer, do you work near here? Where? How long have you worked there? What do you do? How did you get into that?”

“Mr. Customer, as you have been shopping, what one thing has kept you from moving forward in making your decision?”

Think about some of the best books you have read or the best movies you have seen. Did they have a compelling story? Think of the most interesting and compelling people you have ever met. Did they have a great story? Did you want to know more?

Know and communicate the stories of you, your product and business. Just as importantly, you should know the story of your customer. Stories create influence and connection. Influence and connection have created more sales than any product or price ever has. Price creates commodity and lowest price wins in a commodity environment. Price cutting is a self-inflicted wound created by the salesperson with a weak and untold story. In your next three sales encounters, work on sharing your story and understanding your customers story. You will be amazed at the results.

To receive the Free Special Report “Stories of the Rich Salesperson” e-mail me at info@tewart.com with the phrase “Stories of the Rich Salesperson” in the subject line.

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1. Manage things and lead people.

Processes should be defined and managed daily. People should be lead by example daily. Management by strict control inhibits star performers and eliminates creativity of intelligent people. Feelings of manipulation are caused by strict control. Control, manipulation, and disrespect keep many dealerships from moving to another level of performance.

2. Speed of the boss = speed of the team.

If the boss has a sense of urgency, the team will, too. The leader sets the tone. Great leaders create an attitude and atmosphere of winning. The leader sets the stage for the proper belief systems necessary to succeed.

3. Coach people more than you manage deals.

If you spend your time coaching people through training, one-on-ones and positive feedback, your people will become less addicted to you. Spend 80% of your day with your team and your customers. The rest can wait.

4. Create a .Stop Doing List..

To find out what to do, you must also define what not to do. What are you doing everyday that you should either, stop doing, delegate, or do less of, or at a different time?

5. Practice the 4 D.s of action management.

Dump it, Defer it, Delegate it, or Do it. With proper action management, you will spend less time in crisis and emergency mode.

6. Recruiting is an ongoing process.

Determine an ongoing action plan for recruiting. What channels will you use to recruit and how much time each week to do it. What automated systems can you set up through web sites, job boards, college placement centers, military posts, etc. can you set up to increase potential candidates? Don’t wait until you need people to dig through the drawer to find the help wanted ad that everyone else uses.

7. Set clear expectations.

People need and desire clear expectations of their job functions, behavior, and performance. The days of hiring people and showing them the inventory, their desk, and telling them to get busy are over. For a greater chance of success, people cannot succeed without written and communicated expectations.

8. People don’t change that much, so stop trying.

Do not try to put in what God left out. When a person has reached adulthood, they primarily tend to repeat the patterns either they have created or that are based upon their nature. Grow a person’s strengths, and stop trying to fix their weaknesses.

9. Educate and motivate daily.

Good people want continuing education. Educate and motivate every day. Educating daily creates results; periodical training never does. If you have people rejecting education, then you must reject them. Would a great coach allow certain players to not practice because they didn’t want to?

10. Listen, listen, listen.

Nothing inspires people more than when they feel a manager will actually listen. People need to be respected and heard. A manager’s best customers are the people they coach.

11. Get out from behind the desk.

Lead the team. People want to know that their leader is one of them. Desks can become huge barriers to communicating.

12. Don’t forget emotions.

Behind all goals, dreams, achievements, and failures are emotions. Learn to tap into each team member’s pleasure and pain motivators to better guide them. Coach each team member with this in mind – thoughts become words, words become actions, actions create habits, habits create results, and they are all seeking emotions.

Great leadership is essential in creating great teams. Expect more of yourself and your team will follow. The leader is the final reason for success or failure.

Two things keep people from being successful: laziness and the lack of leverage. The good news is that neither of these are incurable diseases, but they can be if left untreated. Let’s take a look at both and how to get rid of each one.

Leverage creates the tipping point that gets you moving and taking action. Leverage can come from wants, needs, fear, love, hate and other emotional triggers. All leverage points are good if you channel them correctly, even if they start out as a negative emotion, such as anger — at least you are moving and will notice that the longer you keep moving, the more likely you are to replace your negative leverage with something more positive.

Discover and get familiar with the “why.” When the “why” gets clear, the “how” gets easy. Also, remember it is okay to start with extremely small steps. Take small steps that are guaranteed to give yourself positive reinforcement. I call these points RPE’s – Recent Positive Experience. RPE leads to more thorough risk-reward behavior patterns. Most people do the opposite. Most people want the goal or success and focus solely on the goal without recognizing the steps.

Each new year I witness newcomers to the gym. They usually have found a leverage point of pain — the pain of being too fat or too unhealthy. What they see in the mirror causes pain. The pain becomes unbearable and they want to remove the pain. I think it is an incredible point in their life and I am amazed at their desire. Sadly, often the burning fire of desire quickly evaporates. After a week, they don’t see the results of the hard work, and they give up. We have become an instant gratification society. We want our results and we want them now. Bailouts, drive-thru’s and video on demand are all based upon instant gratification and speed.

Quickly, despair sets in and people stop taking action; it adds to their failure board as further proof that they cannot win. The sad truth is that they were just days away from beginning to see the results they wanted. They quit too soon. Most people do.

Here is the lesson: At first, focus on the action as the result. The reward is in the action. With continued and corrected action, results are guaranteed. If you knew you could play a sport and win, would you do it? Of course you would. Your life and your goals are the exact same thing. You are absolutely guaranteed success before you even start. It is undeniable and cannot be refuted. It is a given.

Start off knowing you cannot lose — unless you quit. Focus on how successful each action is by itself and how each day there are more actions strung together that provides proof of success. Write down what you want and then keep a journal of your actions and success. Read that journal and create a blueprint in your brain that reinforces you, your journey and success. After all, the true reward is the journey to the goal and not the goal itself. Give your subconscious testimonial proof of success for each action. If you are too tired or lack desire to do what you need to do, just look at the journal and take one step. Just one step and then another. Eventually you have given yourself proof that, even on your bad days, you are an unstoppable force.

Divide your big goal into small goals and take one section at a time. Anything is possible this way, and most things seem impossible any other way. Get yourself a reinforcement coach. We all know someone who is a positive influence who knows how to get you going. If you don’t, start looking and asking. Everyone needs a coach.

If you are looking for inspiration, think of something or someone greater than yourself. It is usually harder for us to let someone else down than ourselves. Make a commitment to someone else. Make a commitment to something good that rewards someone else when you reach your goal. Most importantly, make a commitment. What do you have to gain and what do you have to lose? What is most likely? The answer is usually in between. Don’t let your subconscious grow your fear to be so large that it keeps you from taking action. Fear is paying interest on a debt not yet due.

If you are lazy, it’s not a terminal condition. First of all, laziness is a label given as permanent and is nothing more than a state of mind perpetuated into reality. Change your mind to change your reality. Ask yourself, what will I be like in five years, 10 years, 20 years if I keep this laziness up? What will I be as an example? If I were being interviewed at 100 years old about my life, what would I say? Would I be proud?

Here are some tips:

• Start your morning differently • Write, write, and write what you want

• Take one step at a time • Get a coach

• Find the why • Create a new label

• Focus on the good • Give yourself proof of winning

• Ask yourself each day, how did I do?

• Bombard your brain with positive influence – read, listen and watch good stuff

• Give yourself permission to have setbacks. It’s part of the process.

Remember: You are perfect for where you are supposed to be right now, because without you being who you are right now and where you are right now, there is no way you could be who you will be and where you will be in the future. Celebrate the perfection in your imperfection.

To find out how to increase your business bottom line by $250,000 or more, e-mail me at info@tewart.com with the phrase “Business Makeover” in the subject line.

Do you hustle? I mean really hustle. As a kid growing up I was a huge fan of the Big Red Machine, Cincinnati Reds baseball team. Pete Rose became my favorite athlete. Forget about Pete Rose as a man and all his personal shortcomings, Pete Rose gave it his all every time he stepped on a baseball field. Pete truly earned his nickname Charlie Hustle.” If you want to be successful, no matter your looks, talent, connections or anything else have going for you, you have to learn to hustle.

Recently I was in New York City on business. Later in the evening after my meetings I went to a famous Jazz Club called the Iridium Jazz Club to listen to T.S. Monk. T.S. Monk is a great Jazz drummer and the son of legendary Jazz musician Thelonious Monk. The music was incredible and I enjoyed the music and atmosphere tremendously. A funny thing happened in the Iridium Jazz Club that night. I learned more about business, marketing, sales and the hustle you must have to succeed than I did in any of the business meetings I attended. Go figure.

While watching the music, I noticed something. A young girl was invited into the club by the club manager, he gave her something to eat and then she took a professional looking camera and starting taking action shots of T.S. Monk and his band. She made me curious, so I asked her what she was doing with her pictures. Here’s is what I she told me and what I learned from her.

This young girl was nineteen years old and a student of Bowling Green University in Ohio. She had saved money and moved to New York for the summer to attend photography school and shoot photos of bands and musicians to build her music photography portfolio. This young girl had moved from a small town to a large city by herself with no connections to pursue her dream.

This young lady had put together unique marketing material that included a catchy brown envelope with rough texture and her name in an unusual font at the bottom. The envelope contained three photos of her work and a business card with a music type photo of herself and contact info. The young lady went to school during the day and at night went to music clubs around New Work City and asked if she could shoot pictures of the performers. While at the clubs she would tell everyone she met what she was doing and of her dream to be a photographer of Rolling Stone Magazine. She let the band know how excited she was to shoot pictures of them and that she would provide them the pictures for free for the chance to build her portfolio. In between her school in the day and the picture taking at night she would call on Rolling Stone Magazine and other music related magazines trying to get an opportunity. I have no doubt this young lady will be successful. As a matter of fact she already is. In creating her dream, she is living her dream. The young lady knows how to hustle.

Towards the end of the evening at the Jazz Club I got to meet TS Monk. Mr. Monk told me that he went from playing Jazz to R&B music and had some hits and success but when he decided to  came back to Jazz music, his dad had already passed and some of the doors that might have been open before to him were no longer available. Having a famous dad had allowed him some opportunity but he had to be able to deliver. T. S Monk talked to Jazz player who was a friend of his dad and asked if he could come out and play with him. The man said sure and told TS to come on out. TS sat there all night and never got to play. TS asked the man about the next weekend and the man said to come on out. Again, he sat there and never got to play. And so this same scene kept occurring for months. TS would go to the nightclub; he would sit and never get invited to play. Finally, one night he was asked to play. After that night he started to get invitations and opportunities started to open up for him. As TS said to me, he had to hustle and keep believing. 

Whether you are Pete Rose, TS Monk, a young music photographer or a salesperson with big dreams, hustle is a common element of success.

Traffic is slow, business is weak, the economy stinks and banks aren’t buying. Repeat this mantra 100 times and see how you feel. I promise you that if you replay this message enough, you will believe it as absolute truth and become depressed and desperate. No matter what circumstances are at present, the choice is simple: You choose to win or choose to lose.

The one single ingredient that is always present in any success story is self-determination. You are always responsible. You are responsible for the good and you are responsible for the bad — it’s just that simple. If you will allow any excuse for failure — no matter how overwhelming the evidence — you have sown the seeds for more excuses to follow.

To succeed in good or bad economies takes the exact same ingredients, but in tougher times it takes more resolve to keep producing the successful ingredients. Your success or failure is based upon your beliefs and philosophy. If you do not have a belief system to support success and a personal philosophy of self-determination, you are subject to all forces that cause failure.

You must create an impenetrable mind — a mind that can sustain all attacks of negativity and philosophies of randomness. The dirty truth is that most people do not believe in self-determination. Most people are excuse makers, and have philosophies of luck and a welfare belief system.

In the United States, which is the richest country in the world, with resources and opportunities that can only be imagined by people in some parts of the world, people make excuses everyday as to how they cannot control their own destiny. It is much easier make excuses than to take control of your own destiny. After all, how can it ever be your fault? The economy is so bad, and you certainly don’t control the economy.

The economy is made up of single micro-economies that create a larger macro-economy. You do control your economy, and it starts between your ears. When you listen to the news and hear that things are not good, do you allow that to be your destiny? After all, if you hear it on the news, it must be true, right?

Let me ask you a few questions. Did you allow your expenses and debt to get too high? Did you allow weak processes and accept less-than-favorable results? Did you create an on-going relationship based marketing program to your existing customers, or did you ignore your most valuable asset — your customers? Did you neglect to install and enforce daily education? Have you massively self-educated yourself on a daily basis to stay abreast of all developments in marketing, technology, social media and marketplace changes? Have you created a marketing plan based upon measurable direct response media that you continually tweak? Do you allow excuses and surround yourself with excuse makers?

Success is based upon certain fundamental truths. Install and adhere religiously to those truths without fail and you will succeed. Although everyone has setbacks, setbacks are not failures and are only temporary signs to adjust and plan accordingly. Always ask yourself, “What’s next?” Keep moving and adjusting. Success and failure are ultimately choice. The choice is yours.

Don’t you hate to hear your customer say “no”? You spend a lot of time and energy with a customer and when you get to the final stage of the sales process, the customer says the dreaded “no” word. You were all excited and hoping for a sale and then poof, the air goes out of your sails. The good news is that you can change from getting “no” answers to “yes” answers.

First, you must recognize that getting a “no” answer isn’t accidental or bad luck. When a customer gives you a “no” answer, it is systemic from a thought or feeling that occurred before decision time occurred. Although it’s not possible to get a “yes” answer 100 percent of the time, it is possible to improve your ratios tremendously by doing a little review.

Review the last 20 customers you have been with who said “no.” What were their objections? Write down all the objections. Categorize each objection. The good news is that objections only fall into a few categories. Once you realize that you face the same objections over and over, it’s easier to prepare for them in the future.

Now let’s dig into why the objection occurred. For all the complexity of human beings, we are pretty basic in that thoughts and emotions drive our decisions. Small companies, big companies, your country of residence, foreign countries — those things do not change human nature. As a salesperson, you must dig deeper, dig deeper, dig deeper. When you get to the core, you will find fear. What fear is the customer feeling? The overriding fear is of making a mistake.

When you receive an objection, you must now practice risk reversal. The fear has reached a crescendo and created a perception of extreme risk. Sometimes the easiest way for a customer to deal with risk is to say “no.” Customers object for only four reasons: to stall, complain, negotiate or make a valid objection.

Unfortunately, the majority of objections are also unspoken. You have to use your gut to feel the objections of your customers. You may listen to what the customer says, but you also have to feel what they are trying to say and also what they really mean. These three things can be very different from one another. Listening without feeling and understanding will only cause you to chase veiled objections. You will forever be trying to change objections without getting to a “yes.” Your objective is not to handle or fix objections, but to get your customer to the point of not only saying “yes” but feeling good about their decision. Notice I used the word “feel” once again.

Fears can be either intrinsic or extrinsic. The customer can have information given to them extrinsically that creates a fear around you, your product/service or the money. Or the customer can create fear based upon their own thoughts or feelings. Remember that perception is reality to the customer. What will change their fears, whether they are intrinsic or extrinsic? Confidence is the game changer — confidence that you can show and transfer to the customer. People want to feel confident. Usually, your confidence will come from competence.  The more competent you are in listening, understanding, communicating, problem solving, persisting and creating a kindred friendship, the confident you will be and the confident your customer will feel. Your confidence will trump any extrinsic information given to the customer by another salesperson.

Try the following risk reversal techniques.

1. Re-demonstrate Your Product or Service — Move people back from their head with their heart. It’s hard for people to make decisions based upon logic only without creating fear around our logic. People tend to have more confidence and conviction around their emotions than their logic. Emotions are fun and logic is boring, scary, black and white, right versus wrong. Re-demonstrating your product or service renews the emotion that justifies logic.

2. Ask the Pointed Question — “Mr. Customer, if you had to pick one thing only that is keeping you from buying what would that be?”

3. Reduce the Scary Monster of Decision — “Mr. Customer, the hardest part of getting what you want is to make the decision to do so. That’s normal. The root meaning of the word ‘decide’ means to cut off from all other things. That can be a scary thing. Once you make the decision, all the fear goes away and you lift a ton off your shoulders. It’s okay to make the decision to have what you know you already want to do.”

4. Make No Mistake — “Mr. Customer, based upon what you have told me, based upon what you have said you want to do, what your goals are, what you are getting and accomplishing, you are not making a mistake.”

Just as the customer has to decide, you have to decide as well. Do you feel worthy of making this sale? Do you feel like you and your product/service is the best for the customer? When you do, you will go from more “no” answers to more “yes” answers.

Every salesperson is really in two businesses: the people business and the marketing business. If you are great with people but don’t have any customers to demonstrate this quality to, you’re in trouble. Marketing must become the No. 1 function of any business, including sales. Marketing precedes sales.

Begin to think in terms of leads, not sales. You need marketing that will generate leads. Most salespeople think only in terms of advertising. Salespeople either wait for their business to advertise, or take a blind “stab-in-the dark” approach to advertising. Usually, the results are minimal to non-existent.

One-stage advertising asks people to buy now. For most salespeople, this technique is too expensive and will lead to too few results. A better technique is two-stage marketing. Two-stage marketing is designed to get interested parties to raise their hands, so to speak. You just want to create leads from qualified potential customers. Lead generation = dollar creation.

There are several techniques to get leads. One way is to create a special report. For example, this report may have a title of “Ten Things Every Car Buyer Must Know.” It’s always best to create a simple report that walks customers through the process. Paint a picture of the “do’s and don’ts” of car buying. Be an advocate to the buyer in order to create trust. When you write the report, follow some important, time honored advice: “Enter into the conversation the customer currently has in their mind.” In other words, TLC — think like a customer.

Next, think of how you can get the potential customer to learn about your report. Where do your customers hang out? Where do they live? What do they do? Where do they go? Where do they belong? You may pass out the reports. Run an ad in the local newspaper publishing an “800 hotline” number for people to receive the report. Create an alliance with other businesses to give reports out to benefit their customers. Always think of ways to benefit other businesses as well, so they will want to give out your report.

Cross-promote between businesses such as restaurants, body shops, car washes and insurance agents. You promote their business and they give out a coupon for yours. Make the coupon a two-stage mechanism by providing something of value, such as information or a free gift, rather than a discount or special deal.

Go to the reference desk at your public library and study the SRDS: Standard Rate and Data Service Guide. You will find endless streams of information and ideas on how to access lists and groups of potential customers. You may buy subscriber lists from magazines that appeal to your potential customers.

Create a “Be-Back” CD and give it to every person who does not buy from you. In the CD, give them the reasons to do business with you and create a hook. Get a list of inactive or orphan owners from your business and begin to send a three-stage mailing sequence trying to get them back into the fold.

When you create a river of leads, your pipeline of sales never dries up.

Surveys continually show that people dislike buying a vehicle. Although the numbers have gotten better over the years, people still dislike the car-buying experience. The key word here is “experience.” Everything you do is sales and selling. Every person in the dealership is in sales. Everything the customer sees is selling. What message is the customer receiving?

Selling today is not about feature-benefit selling alone. Any dealership that is being trained primarily on feature-benefit sales approaches is boring their customers to death and practicing “me-too” sales approaches.

Imagine a good old-fashioned water slide. I like to call these “slippery-slides.” When you get on a slippery-slide, you start at the top and you effortlessly slide down with nothing to obstruct your destination. In traditional selling, we teach a road-to-the-sale process that is akin to making a customer go through an obstacle course. Have you ever seen a person at the end of an obstacle course? That person is tired, drained and spent. Do your customers feel the same way?

Here are some points to observe in your dealership:

Do your customers experience an easy, simple and pleasing first impression and perception?

Website - Receptionist - Inventory Merchandising - Salesperson Greeting - Process

Websites — The best Websites aren’t often the prettiest or have the most bells and whistles, but are simple and easy, catch a customer’s attention and invite, engage and create a call to action. What is the “TOT?” What is “The One Thing” you want your customers to do who visit your site?

Your Website sells.

Receptionist — Has your receptionist ever been trained? Do you ever pay attention to how he/she greets customers on the phone or in person? Most dealers would be shocked if they took the time to “look under the covers.”

Your receptionist sells.

Inventory/Merchandising — Go across the street from your dealership and look back. Get in your car and drive by your dealership from every angle possible. Look through the eyes of the customer. What do you see? Where is the natural sight line of your customers in relation to your dealership? What message are you conveying and are you inviting and engaging your customer? When your customer pulls on the lot, do you have clearly marked directions? Do you have clearly marked and easy access to parking? Is your inventory clean, grouped and aligned in a way that it displays absolute fanaticism and perfectionism towards creating a “wow” experience for the customer? Is your lot clean, painted and policed on a regular basis?

Your inventory and the merchandising of your inventory sell.

Salespeople and Managers — Do your salespeople greet customers? If so, how do they do it? Yesterday, I walked into 12 different dealerships and the greeting at all but one of those dealerships was either non-existent or horrific. How does your dealership recover from a bad greeting? Many dealerships are spending a ton of time and money on Internet leads but not a minute or a dime on what to do when you get them. Yesterday, I experienced not being greeted at many dealerships. I experienced greetings from salespeople and managers who would not get out of their chair to greet me. I experienced many unexcited, non-smiling greetings that would make any customer feel uninvited and uneasy. I also experienced group greetings by managers and salespeople congregating in groups who stared at me but did not greet me. I wonder how your customers are being greeted? I am beginning to believe that all managers’ chairs should be removed from showrooms.

Your salespeople and managers sell with everything they do or don’t do.

Process — What do your customers hate about your process and why? Do your customers hate your negotiation process? If so, it is easy to fix. Train on how to negotiate without the customer feeling the negatives of negotiation or eliminate most or all of negotiation. Do your customers hate your F&I process? What do they hate and why? Remove the things they dislike or just proactively change the perception of the process. Perception becomes reality for a customer.

Your process sells.

Everything and everybody associated with your dealership sells. The question is, how well?

For a free Special Report “Ten Things Every Dealer Must Do to Be Successful This Year” e-mail me at the address below with the phrase “Ten Things” in the subject line.

 “The more things change, the more things stay the same.” This quote can be an accurate reflection of most industries. With all the massive changes underway in the automotive industry, the majority of the industry operates in much the same way as it did 50 years ago.

One small part of an industry begins to change and reaches what Malcolm Gladwell termed in his book the “tipping point.” That tipping point allows the change to gain momentum and become norm for an industry. This change usually occurs in one small segment and can be isolated. If you examine the business or industry as a whole, you find that even with the change being influential, the rest of the industry or business remains intact adhering to traditional thoughts and norms.

With dealerships there are a couple of old sayings: “The front-end sells the first car and the back-end makes the next one,” or “the frontend gets the customers and the back-end keeps them.” There is a lot of truth to both of those sayings and to the importance of understanding the roles both areas play in your business.

I find the majority of emphasis is still placed on customer acquisition in most dealerships. If you want to build a solid business, you must emphasize acquisition and maintaining — this is how to experience exponential versus linear growth. Here are a few tips in making that happen:

Tip No. 1 - Create continuity, loyalty, rewards, VIP or recognition programs with enough real teeth in it to motivate a customer

Every time I shop at Kroger’s grocery store I love putting in my reward number and then watching the total bill go down as my rewards points are deducted. At Panera Bread when I give them my rewards card, I usually get something free and build redeemable rewards for the future. I love when I make flight or vacation reservations for free using my airline and credit card rewards. I love when I get a free car wash after my tenth visit.

Do you get the point? People love to be rewarded with free bonuses and will be motivated more to get that free bonus than to get a discount on something. Rewards and loyalty programs influence shopping patterns and behaviors — bottom line, end of story. Stop making lame excuses like “rewards programs get expensive,” “loyalty programs take away my profit” and “I am giving away profit I don’t have to give away.”

Most dealers spend vast fortunes on getting customers and little on keeping them. It would be hard to spend too much effort and money on customer retention. Your profit creation for long term is so great from continued business and referrals that the amount spent on retention is paltry compared to a typical dealerships advertisement budget.

Tip No. 2 – Create forced continuity programs

A forced continuity program is a program that forces your customer to use your service department in exchange for something of value they receive at no charge. Over the last several years I have asked more than 100 dealers what their long-term service retention as a percentage of their sales are, and only one dealer knew the answer. The answer to that question a vital sign to the future of your dealership.

When conducting sales training sessions, our trainers tell salespeople that in the beginning of their sales career they should spend 80 percent of their time on customer acquisition and 20 percent on customer retention. However, as time progresses, salespeople should work on flipping those percentages. A dealership is no different than a salesperson.

A product our company provides for dealerships is lifetime power train coverage. I have witnessed firsthand that with the right underwriter for this product, lifetime power train programs are worth their weight in gold. It is simply amazing how much this forced continuity program provides in increases to sales to service retention, new and used sales, gross and net profit, vehicle maintenance and vehicle service contract penetrations and repeat sales. Just like the loyalty and retention programs mentioned earlier, I have heard every fear-based excuse dealers have for not having programs like this in their dealership, but nothing in well-executed experience proves those fears are real.

To quote one of the greatest marketing lessons I have ever learned, “You must put an iron cage around your customers.” If what you do and what you provide is exceptional, your customers will want to continue to do business with you. Your goal must be to stop further commoditizing a commodity business and become a category of one.

To receive my free Special Report, “Putting an Iron Cage Around Your Customers,” e-mail me with the term “Iron Cage” in the subject line at the address below.

Everyday managers walk into their dealerships in the morning and start their day with tasks or TO-Do list items. Unfortunately, those items rarely involve direct interaction with their sales team. The ultimate place for managers to be is in front of customers and salespeople.

Salespeople need interaction and input. If a manager allows a salesperson to direct their own day by their own design without input and coaching, the results will often be lackluster and will lead to feelings of being alienated.  Attitudes will decrease and salesperson turnover will increase.

Most likely you have heard of Pareto’s Rule otherwise known as the 80/20 rule. The rule states that 80% of the money will be made by 20% of the people. The rule has stood the test of time and will remain true forever. If you know that only 20% of people are self-directed, that means the remaining 80% need direction, coaching and guidance with their daily focus.

Gone are the days of salespeople working in the fashion of independent agents where they are measured at the end of the month for results and the winners are rewarded while the non-producers are fired and replaced. Salespeople will be coached and guided from the beginning of the day and then periodically throughout the day. Actions and productivity will be measured, praised and rewarded knowing that more often than not those things will produce results.

The Law of Reaping and Sowing will be applied by coaching salespeople to sow seeds continually during the day. CRM’s, BDC’s and social media tools will all push dealerships to measure and correct every daily action of salespeople.

Imagine if there was a football team with a head coach who did not believe in practice. Or, if the coach did not believe in coaching, monitoring and holding responsible his players for every detail of their normal day or what they did in the games. Imagine if a football coach each day said nothing to his team and at the end of games just looked to see if his team had won and who had played well or not. Would a coach do these things? Would a coach tell his team to go win and never guide this team?  Who is calling the plays at your dealership? Who is doing the coaching before the game? Who is monitoring every action and number?

The role of the traditional salesperson is dead. Gone forever are the days of waiting until the end of the month to see how the salespeople have done. Think of your salespeople as you would players on a team. Each has strengths and weaknesses. Each player will have expectations and responsibilities. Each player will be continually coached on techniques that involve sales skills, people skills, marketing skills and life skills. Create a team of team members rather than expecting all your players to be superstars that can do everything on their own and produce superior results. The old model is dead and it never was effective. Bury the old salesperson model and give birth to the new one today.

For the FREE Special Report “10 things Your Dealership Must Do to Be Successful” email me at info@tewart.com with 10 things in the subject line.