Training is a key component of any dealership’s long-term plans. It unifies your team’s approach to sales, fine-tunes your brand identity, and can consistently deliver one of the biggest ROIs of anything you do for your business. 

However, if you don’t know how to train a sales team properly, it can also be a huge waste of time and money. It’s not enough to give your people some videos and occasionally bring in a presenter. Today’s sales strategies are complex, and training is a specialized skill that’s not often present in-house. 

You’ll need an expert in both the industry and modern sales strategies to get it right and deliver skills that translate to your bottom line. That’s why we’re sharing our step-by-step guide on how to train a sales team—and how to spot a great training partner. 

STEP ONE: ESTABLISHING THE BASICS

The very first step to master when learning how to train a sales team is the initial teaching of basic skills and concepts. Whether you’re working with everyone at once or a single new hire, the process is very similar. There are several good ways to go about it, but no matter which one you choose, you’ll need a balance of listening and activities to make sure it sticks.

The Presentation

First, a person, video, or software presents the information. Presentations should be less than twelve minutes to hold your team’s attention, and six minutes is ideal. Videos or software should make liberal use of color, animation, and subtitles, as this is proven to increase engagement. Live teaching benefits from whiteboard demonstrations, dynamic movement, and colorful, labeled backup materials.

Active Engagement

After the initial session, perform an interactive group activity to start modeling the information. This can be a discussion, a Q&A session, roleplaying, team competitions, activities, creative projects, etc. The critical point is that everyone immediately starts using the information to solve problems. 

This helps immensely with retention versus a single lecture or video. Vary the nature of these activities for each segment to avoid predictability and ensure you cover the needs of all four learning styles (visual, aural, tactile, and reader).

Using this format, you can develop full-length instructional sessions by combining multiple listening/activity cycles. It can be difficult to know what information to present and how to pace everything, which is why a dedicated training partner can be a valuable ally and resource. 

STEP TWO: COACHING

Once your team knows the basic information, you’ll need to actively coach them over time on these skills with the sales scripts they’ll be using on the job. Obviously, you can’t keep team members off the floor for weeks while they learn, but you should be checking in with each person individually by going over the calls they actually took for your dealership.

This step is one of the most overlooked when learning how to train a sales team. So often, the initial presentation is followed by…nothing. Without active coaching on the content over time, new skills typically don’t become habits and fade quickly, and that devalues your investment. Real, durable skills take around 20 hours of dedicated practice to become useful, and up to six months to fully master. 

That being said, all it usually takes to keep a sales team on track is a few minutes a week with a coach to highlight a key point or two so they can practice on future calls. In a perfect world, weekly coaching sessions are a great interval for meeting with each employee. This gives them time to absorb the content of the last coaching, as well as work on their new skills on the job.

STEP THREE: CHECK THE LEARNING ON THE JOB

Next, you’ll need to evaluate your sales team’s performance, but it’s not as simple as it sounds to get the info you’ll need. People who know they are being watched or tested will change their behavior, an effect known as observer bias.

Mystery shopping is a key component of any modern training program because it evaluates your sales team’s actual on-the-job performance. These calls mimic real customer interactions, and an experienced coach will know how to ask the right questions and test whether new information is sticking. Any training partner worth their salt will rely on mystery shopping to generate actionable reports and insights for future work.

STEP FOUR: FOLLOW UP AND RETRAIN

Now that you’ve got the mystery shopper’s report in your hands, analyze it to see where things went well and where there are areas that may need to be polished up a bit.

Follow up with shopped employees as soon as possible so memories are fresh. Begin by thanking them for their great work, and celebrate the successes they achieved during the shop to start out on a supportive and positive note. Next, address the targeted areas of growth as opportunities to refine skills and earn more money.

In the following weekly sessions, polish out any final blemishes until everyone’s hitting their stride. 

TRAINING PARTNERS SAVE TIME AND MONEY

As you’ve probably noticed while learning how to train a sales team, this is a very time-intensive process that requires great skill on the part of the trainer. In many cases, partnering with a top-notch training agency that does this sort of work every day is the best way to get the most out of your investment. 

Phone Ninjas is staffed by amazing coaches with decades of experience in the industry coaching automotive professionals to even higher levels of excellence. We know what it takes to get ahead in automotive sales and deliver a complete package of training, coaching, and evaluation so you can focus on running your dealership—not worrying about whether your salespeople have what they need to capitalize on opportunities. 

Our clients routinely see foot traffic from phone calls triple, even quadruple, when working with us, and we can help you develop every aspect of your dealership’s strategy. Contact us today for a free demo to find out how easy great training can be with Phone Ninjas. 

You’ve hired some wonderful people to help your dealership sell vehicles, but the numbers just aren’t where they should be. Why are the KPIs not spiking? The first place to look is training. Talent is important, but if it’s not supported by disciplined on-brand messaging even the best team is going to struggle. 

Every dealership needs training programs that are reliable, data-driven, and based on real-world feedback, but a lot of programs are just well-packaged videos, dull slideshows, or impersonal seminars in a crowded hotel ballroom that only vaguely relate to your business. These expensive one-and-done strategies are generic and will never get to the bottom of the challenges you need to address to help your team improve. 

Programs that build a real mentor-mentee relationship with your staff are the gold standard. Bringing in caring professionals who will not just teach your employees, but also test, evaluate, coach, and teach them to troubleshoot scenarios from their actual daily work is the key to making real gains in the automotive industry. Here are the elements you should look for in a car dealer sales training program. 

IN-DEPTH SCRIPTS

Having a trainer deliver an hour-long lecture about overcoming objections and closing strategies may boost morale, but it won’t give employees practical guidance to navigate the moment-to-moment nuances of a real sales call. Even if your team remembers the bullet points, they still have to come up with all the details on the fly. That’s no way to keep everyone efficiently on point and on brand.

This is where high-quality, customized sales scripts can streamline and unify your entire customer service experience. These scripts should be created under the guidance of industry professionals who have decades of experience handling customer relations and sales, and be tailored to meet your specific business needs. Good scripts are solid tools that keep customer interactions focused on the big picture and assure a consistent experience no matter which employee picks up the phone.

As a conversation with a customer develops, these deep scripts branch into situationally-appropriate responses that are proven to boost lead generation and provide uniform, consistent service. And when difficult situations arise, these scripts give your employees a solid playbook to help them capitalize on challenging customer interactions and pushback that would cost even the most talented salesperson a commission. 

To succeed in car dealer sales, training programs that work are critical, and good scripts are tools that will serve your employees for the rest of their careers.

ACTIVE COACHING AND TRAINING

Professional sports teams don’t just toss their athletes a playbook and set them loose. Interactive coaching is the key to developing player skills and team cohesion. Regardless of your industry, hands-on, repeat coaching experiences beat isolated training sessions every time, and in interaction-heavy sectors like car sales it can be the difference between meeting your goals and shuttering your windows. 

Look for training companies that offer multiple one-on-one training sessions with your associates over time. Real growth takes repetition and effort, and single-point training modules and seminars simply won’t provide the repetition it takes to develop winning habits. After all, each one of your employees has their own unique strengths and weaknesses, so you want individualized, personal training to leverage what they do well and improve the rest along the way. 

Finally, car dealer sales training programs need to be industry-focused experts. Beware of inexperienced generalists! Unless trainers have decades of experience selling cars, there’s no way they can provide you with insider guidance you’re going to need to make a real impact on your bottom line. 

EXPERIENCE-BASED FEEDBACK AND COACHING

This is where so many training programs fall short: they might give wonderful information… but they don’t rely on analysis and data to generate feedback to make sure it sticks. Unless coaches actively evaluate how well your employees are using the training every day in your business and then coaching them on the results, there’s no guarantee any of it has sunk in.

A great way to get this feedback is to look for companies that offer mystery shops. Customer comment cards and surveys are informative up to a point, but they strip out a lot of vital information. By posing as a customer, mystery shoppers provide detailed feedback on the customer experience so trainers can further work with your staff to hone their skills to ever-higher levels in car dealer sales.

Training programs that work often include at least some of these mystery shops at no charge so you can evaluate how the business relationship is developing.

INBOUND AND OUTBOUND CALL COACHING

Whether you’re following up fresh leads, checking in on existing customers, or contacting a referral, almost nothing beats the warmth and validation of a human being on the other end of the phone. Every employee needs a solid skill bank that allows them to handle any situation with professionalism, care, and grace. 

The training company you select needs to deliver scripts and active coaching on a variety of possible sales scenarios so your team is ready to handle all the situations they will encounter—not just the most common ones that are easy to convert. Make sure the car dealer sales training company you choose delivers a comprehensive program that matches the real-world needs of your team. 

PICK THE RIGHT PARTNER

As a successful business owner, you know how you run your business is only part of the puzzle. Another huge piece is the quality of businesses with whom you partner.

Phone Ninjas is an automotive sales and phone training company founded and staffed by industry professionals with decades of experience selling cars and trucks. Our experience means we’ve built car dealer sales training programs that reliably produce results, and are based on practical training tips that can help any sales team improve. 

Our scripts are hand tailored to fit your business, and our trainers work to develop your team’s skills over months of personalized one-on-one training and coaching. We’ll provide feedback to help your employees grow, and show you how the quality of your dealership’s customer consistency improves before and after extensive coaching. We even throw in two mystery shops for free so you can gauge how the training and coaching are improving your sales team without breaking the bank.

If you’d like to see if Phone Ninjas can turbocharge your sales game and boost your revenues, contact us today and schedule your free demo. 

Natural salesmanship can take an associate a long way in any business, but there is always a breaking point where the intuitive drive to sell has to give way to disciplined messaging centered on customer concerns. However, the automotive world is not just one of many examples where this is true—it’s a gold-standard space for conscious branding, active training, and carefully scripted phone interactions to maximize sales. 

The fact is, cars are one of the last true sales environments out there, and they represent a pure opportunity for a team’s talent and technique to come together to move products and drive profits. Today’s environment is no longer the solo show it was 20 years ago. It’s a team sport, and the sales process is one long, integrated chain of experiences. From a customer’s initial interactions with the website to finally sliding the keys across the table, it’s all about finding the right car sales questions to ask customers—and in the right way—to identify exactly what you need to deliver for them.

An associate who’s armed with a well-crafted script will outperform any sales virtuoso who’s going it alone, and like anything, there’s an art to asking the right questions. Here are some of the very best car sales questions to ask in a variety of scenarios to help guide their leads to the car they’re going to fall in love with. 

1. QUESTIONS IN FOLLOW UP CALLS

This is a phone call that’s either following up with a potential customer who you met with already, or returning a phone call from a customer who wanted to initiate a conversation. In these cases, you’re hoping to move a customer down your sales pipeline, and will likely be providing information either proactively or in response to a particular query. 

In both cases, the most important question you’re going to ask will look something like this:

“Hello [Customer Name], this is [Your Name] with [Your Dealership] and I wanted to answer the questions you had about [X Issue]. [Provide answers]. I know [These Concerns] are important for you—would you like to go over some of the options and details?” 

This interaction does two things: first, it provides the information they requested, but second, it’s phrased in a way that lets them know your pitch is secondary (and related) to their needs. Every customer understands you care about making the sale and the size of your commission—that’s a given—but no one should ever feel like that’s more important than making sure they are well served. After all, a car is one of the biggest investments most people ever make, and your first priority for earning your keep is making sure their needs are taken care of completely and compassionately. 

2. NURTURING TRUSTWORTHY REFERRALS

Part of creating happy customers and building a strong reputation is managing referrals from your customers. Buying a car often involves making huge financial decisions with people you just met. The initial interactions sales associates have with referrals over the phone can be make-or-break for establishing a sense of continuity and trust.

When you’re contacting a referral, your script should follow this structure:

“Hello [Customer Name], this is [Your Name] with [Your Dealership] and I was given your name by [Referrer’s Name] . We were able to find them a great car. They mentioned that you might be interested and [These Concerns] are important to you and your family. Would you like to talk about some of our options?”

When we consider the structure of the best car sales questions to ask customers, this format is key. First, it communicates that you have a good relationship with someone they know and trust. More importantly, it relays that the discussion you had with their friend about them was centered on their needs, not your wallet. Again, the phrasing is structured so that their needs are first and your sales pitch is a response. 

It may seem a bit cynical, but the reality of sales is that most people are inexperienced with negotiating and naturally view car sales associates as slick operators who aren’t to be trusted. An excellent script should always be proactively reinforcing the idea that transaction is about people first and money second. 

3. CONNECTING WITH EXISTING CUSTOMERS

It can always be awkward calling a friend when you want something, even if you know them well. When you’re calling out of the blue from a business, it’s extremely important to get the initial interactions right so it doesn’t feel blatantly transactional. 

If you’ve got some great deals you want to share with old customers, your script should be centered around this question:

Hello [Customer], this is [Your Name] at [Your Dealership]—I hope you are doing well. How are you liking your [Current Car]? Is there anything we can help you with? I’m reaching out because this year’s models have arrived…

It might seem a bit odd that this script doesn’t get right to the point, but once again, the most important thing to communicate to a potential customer is that what they’re feeling and what they need matters first and foremost. If they’re happy—great! And if they’re having trouble, you’ll definitely want to address it before you try to sell them something else. 

The key here is, whether they’re completely happy or looking to make a change, you still have the same opportunity to invite them to look. Was your old car great? Guess what? The new models are even better! And if your old car is on its last legs, now’s a great time to get an excellent deal. 

PERFECTING YOUR SALES CALLS WITH PHONE NINJAS

Sales scripts are all about delivering consistency and empathy for your customers, support and guidance for your sales team, and as a result, hitting your goals and driving profits with better service. But if you don’t ask the right questions—and in the right way—you will quickly find yourself getting sent to voicemail while your numbers slump and revenues dip. 

That’s where Phone Ninjas can give you the boost you need. We’re experts at training sales teams to optimize their interactions with detailed, customized scripts, individual coaching sessions, and consulting services for dealerships and sales teams on any sales communication issues you may be facing. We don’t deal in vague or generic advice either; we offer two free mystery shops to give you real-world feedback and insights to find instant teaching points you can use to start boosting your numbers today. 

Visit Phone Ninjas to learn the right car sales questions to ask customers that will get them in the door quickly and driving away happy.  

Picture this: it’s the end of the quarter, and your dealership is so close to hitting your targets, and you can almost taste the victory champagne. You’ve been burning the midnight oil, the team’s been cranking out calls—but you’re still a hair’s breadth away from the goal line. Then, you discover all the near-misses your team has swung while handling phone leads. It’s an instant red flag, and you know something needs to change.

Let’s talk brass tacks. In the dealership game, a phone lead is often the first domino in a chain that ends with a closed deal. But what happens when that first domino doesn’t want to topple? You’re left scrambling to hit quotas at the end of the sales period, struck by a frustrating sense of “what if?” If this sounds familiar, this is the perfect time to brush up on training your team for results-driven phone skills.

This blog is a playbook for booking appointments, building relationships, and landing sales that make everyone grin from ear to ear. Let’s pull back the curtain on turning a call into a sale—no fluff, just the proven tactics that reliably close deals. The first resource you should consider is a free mystery shop to uncover where missed leads occur.

MYSTERY SHOPPING FOR SUCCESS

Your team has the passion, drive, and hustle—but they’re still missing opportunities on the phones. Missed leads can be nearly undetectable until you start digging into the details from the outside. Even if you can point to where the ball was dropped, figuring out a clear growth path is challenging. This is where the real game-changer comes in: mystery shopping.

Think of this as a scrimmage between two pro teams. On one side of the field, there’s your sales crew. On the other side, you’ve got phone sales experts like the coaches at Phone Ninjas. These mystery shoppers aren’t here to take off your watch and tell you the time; they’re drawing real insights from a call that goes beneath the surface. 

They’ve worked with hundreds of businesses like yours, and they’ve instilled high-converting tactics every time. By pinpointing the weak spots and shoring up your strategy, they can provide a concrete, honest score that ties into a precise plan for improvement. 

But mystery shops show their full potential when the organization handling them can dig into your CRMs, the scripts, and processes that should make scoring phone conversions a layup. Ironing out your procedures opens the door for better visibility, but it also keeps sales consultants and BD agents focused on their calls… instead of fiddling with an unreliable CRM. 

The next resource worth your investment is a business development center (BDC), which continually refines how your team is handling phone leads.

BUILDING YOUR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CENTER (BDC)

A business development center, or BDC, is a lead-producing unit that can transform calls into a steady stream of conversions, serving as a direct pipeline to ongoing revenue. If you’ve already created a BDC but it isn’t churning out leads, it’s time for a serious tune-up—so, here’s your chance to remind yourself what makes a robust BDC thrive!

Dedicating people to specific tasks within the BDC is ideal for handling phone leads. The reps you choose should be your most skilled and knowledgeable, and know your brand and offerings like the back of their hand. You’ll split your BDC members into two main groups: inbound and outbound. 

BDC for Inbound Calls

Inbound calls aim to provide immediate, informed, and smartly scripted responses to customer inquiries. BDC reps should be well-versed in product knowledge and customer service to comprehensively capture and convert interest into engagement.

BDC for Outbound Calls

Outbound efforts should be equally tactical, but these conversations aim to nurture leads by reaching out to previous customers or other warm leads. This proactive side of the BDC takes a more methodical approach to attract and convert potential customers.

After you’ve organized the teams into their respective focuses, it’s time to think about ongoing training. This is an essential part of what makes a solid BDC work: long-term, repeated, results-driven coaching. 

ACTIVE COACHING AND SUPPORT

BDC training can include everything from studying deeper product terminology and feature sets to mastering phone scripts and adapting to customer objections. Ultimately, the goal is to deliver on-message calls for constant conversions—a goal you can’t achieve without repetition. That means executing this precision training requires a steady cadence, with weekly check-ins to monitor progress.

At Phone Ninjas, our Active Coaching methodology combines bite-sized training sessions with a customized rhythm for performance tracking. Each part of our process is tailored to an individual salesperson’s strengths and growth opportunities, blending real-world scenario reviews with personal goal-setting. 

BDC PHONE SCRIPTS FOR MAXIMIZING CONVERSIONS

Effective phone scripts are not restrictive—they provide a framework for clarity and consistency. BDC scripts should be comprehensive, allowing the sales team member to make simple judgment calls within a specific set of parameters. The mission here is to sound organic while hitting every relevant point in the script. 

High-performing scripts are designed with a natural flow in mind. Here’s an example of what a strong BDC script will look like for an inbound call:

• A greeting and introduction that sets a positive tone and guides the conversation toward the customer’s needs.
• Questions that qualify the customer’s interest and preferences.
• Descriptions of products or services tailored to the customer’s responses.
• Objection handling cues, questions, and flows.
• Calls to action that guide the customer toward the next steps, like setting up an appointment to visit the dealership.

However, without proper coaching, phone scripts are only as good as the paper they’re printed on. They are not a one-size-fits-all solution because every salesperson is different, and each one needs a purpose-built approach to succeed. Similarly, scripts should be living documents that reflect your evolving message and the sales landscape. 

Regularly review calls to understand where scripts are working and where they’re causing missed leads. Feeling stuck while revising your old scripts? The Phone Ninjas team are experts at handling phone leads, and we can provide custom scripts for your dealership that cater to your specific sales goals.

THE PHONE NINJAS METHOD FOR HANDLING PHONE LEADS

As we round out this guide, we want to emphasize that mastering phone lead conversion takes more than an excellent script or comprehensive product knowledge. It’s a balanced blend of continuous improvement, transparent progress tracking, and expert accountability. You cannot bottle and serve that at a one-shot conference, sales class, or webinar. And it’s certainly not something you can learn in simulations—it takes real-world reviews to get actionable strategies for improvement with handling phone leads.

Phone Ninjas’ Active Coaching programs are laser-focused on equipping your team with the tactics and tools to steer phone leads to better outcomes. Our method is built on the insights we’ve gained coaching hundreds of businesses like yours to sales success. The key to Phone Ninjas’ approach is simple: no one stops learning with us. We stick with your sales team week after week, giving them a right-sized dose of corrective feedback and encouragement to focus on growth potential and minimize distractions.

Ready to ramp up your phone sales engine and recapture those missed leads? Get a free mystery shop from Phone Ninjas today!