At Car Motivators, we love the opportunity the car business gives to hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country. And while we are more known for taking the top-performing sales professionals and automotive leaders to an even higher level through coaching, we also enjoy helping out new people, often referred to as "Green peas" by industry slang. We all started somewhere, right? Yet with all this opportunity, so few who get into selling cars in the car business make it more than a year in their profession.

The greatest things that hold them back, are of course the same things that hold any of us back, what I call limiting beliefs. A limiting belief is a story, con, assumption, or mindset that will prevent success, hinder growth, paralyze, and hamper performance

This blog is to honor our commitment to supporting aspiring automotive professionals across the country and the dealerships that would give those Americans an opportunity. Specifically, this blog is designed to help new to car sales professionals identify and eliminate those limiting beliefs that would hold their success back. This blog will also arm you sales managers with some of the coaching questions that as one of the top sales coaches, I’ve used to help new sales pros break through barriers to sales success.

With no further delay, here are the limiting beliefs:

1. “If I just had my business cards, I’d start selling cars.” 

This one is a big concern! It’s like new salespeople believe every business card handed out is a car purchasing voucher that prospects will bring back to their dealership in exchange for a vehicle purchase.

The reality is: Business cards are dismissal slips. Handing someone a business card is the path of least resistance taken by someone fearful of asking for a prospect's contact information. And let’s not forget, it’s the year 2023, and there are far more efficient and effective ways to exchange contact information. Instead of business cards, create a contact of yourself in your contacts list and name yourself “(Your Name) (Make You Sell) Car Gal/Guy.” Thus, “Sean Kelley Hyundai Car Guy” would be the name of my contact. When a customer asks for a business card, instead tell them you were tired of customers losing your card and that it would be best for them to have your contact saved in their phone. And if they forget your name, which most will, they can just do a spotlight search for “Car Guy/Gal” and your name will pop up. Here’s the best part, when you send them your contact, now you’ll have their phone number too.

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: Who were the last few people that gave you a business card? Can you pull those cards out right now? Where are those cards right now? How much value then are they for the person who gave you the cards?

Enabling Belief: “I will be courageous enough to always exchange contact information, and schedule follow up with everyone I meet. Because business cards don’t sell cars, and my customers won’t line up to buy them without me building relationships with them.”

Business cards don’t sell cars, but exchanging contact information and following up with prospects does.

2. “The most important thing I need to learn is the paperwork/software.”

When I hear this one, it takes all my power to hold back the cringe. I’ll take a deep breath and remind myself, “Sean, they don’t know what they don’t know.”

The reality: While paperwork and software are a small part of selling if you don’t know the steps in the sales process, and why you’re leading the customer through each step in that process you won’t have to worry about doing much paperwork. Nothing is more important than learning the steps in the sale process and the WHY behind each one. Here’s a tip for learning paperwork, sell yourself a car. I mean, you don’t have to buy one, simply write yourself up from start to finish as if you were buying a car. As you’re doing so, simply label each piece of paperwork with a #, 1 through whatever in the order of writing it up. In this way, you’ll have a little paperwork guide you can keep on your desk and use when you learn how to sell someone something!

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: Let's say you could get the paperwork side of things down in a couple of hours, what else would you need to learn for you to succeed in this career?

 Enabling Belief: “I understand there is so much more to learn than paperwork, and I will devote an hour each day to learning, starting now and going on forever.”

To maximize success at selling cars months or even years after you’ve learned the paperwork, you’ll still be working to learn the sales process, learn the common objections and their solutions, learn your product knowledge, your competitor's product, learn the phones (inbound and outbound), learn how to engage and sell to service customers, how to network with local businesses, learn how to market yourself on social media.

5.   “I’m good at talking to people, so I’ll be great at selling cars.”

That’s the equivalent of saying, “I can stack bricks well, so I am a great architect.”

The reality: Having a big comfort zone is an advantage in the car business, but the specific words you use are a key aspect of your ability to sell. There are plenty of very nice, phenomenal conversationalists that struggle to hit their sales objectives each month. Instead, learn the key questions that must be asked to assess a customer's needs and wants. Learn power phrases to address customer fears and objections. Seek out the people who are top performers selling many customers, generating all the repeat and referral business, and learn what they’re saying, and equally importantly why they’re saying it.

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What’s the difference between a casual conversation with a stranger and a selling conversation with one?

Enabling Belief: “I will use my words wisely, and master myself to master the language of sales!” There are no free words in sales. Just like martial arts have different degrees of blackbelt, sales is a language and very few people have the raw talent to start as a black belt in sales.

6. “I need to hide the fact that I’m new to car sales from my customers.”

It’s reasonable to have this fear because customers do value expertise, product knowledge, and process understanding when looking for the right sales consultant to help serve their needs. That being said, before you go hiding that you’re new to the business, there are even more important factors that need to be accounted for.

The reality: Car buyers also have a fear of car salespeople who aren’t transparent, honest, or downright lie. Ask 100 customers, “Would you rather work with a salesperson who isn’t transparent/open and honest with you or a new car salesperson who doesn’t know everything yet?” What do you think the answer is? If you are new, it won't take long for customers to figure it out. A great way to build trust is to be vulnerable about your fears. By telling a customer you’re new, you are gaining instant trust. This will allow the customer will reciprocate and be honest about their car buying concerns and want to work with you more!

 Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What do you think most car buyers' perception is of “Car salespeople” in general? How would being honest with them upfront change that perception?

 Enabling Belief: Customers want honesty and transparency, as a new sales rep, give them that and they’ll give you trust. Customers want to feel in control while avoiding high-pressure sales reps, so what if you were honest with the customer, AND gave them a choice? After your greeting, use this phraseology, “Mrs. Customer, before we get too far into the sales process, I want to be completely transparent with you. I am new to this career, and you may ask some questions to which I don’t know the answer.

That being said, my manager and coworkers are available to help me and I would love to continue working with you if you’re OK with it. Are you comfortable moving forward with me, or would you prefer I get you a seasoned sales veteran to help you today?” The ones that want a seasoned sales veteran, probably wouldn’t have had a great experience with you anyhow! The vast majority that continues to work with you start on a foundation of trust, which will help you sell and close more deals while permitting you to be new and ignorant. What a WIN?! “I will be honest with customers I meet, and give them the choice to work with me and not take it personally or fear failure if they chose not to.” 

3.“Asking for help will annoy people.”

Permit yourself to learn something new, would ya?

 The reality: Abraham Maslow concluded that all humans go through four stages of learning, anytime they are growing. Stage 1 is unconscious incompetence: you don’t know what you don’t know. Stage 2 is conscious competence: now you know what you don’t know, or can't do. Stage 3 is conscious competence, now you get it! Stage 4 is unconscious competence, now it's muscle memory and you can do it with your eyes closed. Most companies, managers, and coworkers who know that EVERY person must try, fail and learn until they are competent also understand that a new person is going to need help. The key word is “need” because without help you are likely to fail.

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What could not be asking for help cost you? What could you gain from seeking help from managers and people on your team? If you could ask for help anytime, on any topic, what would you ask for help on right now?

Enabling Belief: “Even though I am a solo contributor, we succeed as a team and my managers and co workers would rather help me than allow me to fail.”

This one is quite simple, ask for help and seek out support and your odds of success go up exponentially. Don’t ask and plan on a much longer and steeper learning curve that could potentially cost you your car sales job.

 4.“I’m just checking out the car business.”

 Bad idea. You might as well update your resume and seek out other employment now.

 The reality: To maximize your success in the car business, it will take stretching your comfort zone, learning the language of sales, and doing things that only a fully committed human being will do. You must be fully committed to thriving in this business. Tony Robins talks about how the Vikings would invade habited islands. They would take their boats to the island, hop off with their weapons and basic gear, and then proceed to light their boats on fire, completely burning them to ash, before raiding the villages. This is because they didn’t want to leave an option for retreat. My buddy Jonathan Dawson, automotive sales trainer says “If you’re just checking out the car business, you’re going to check out of the car business.” And if you search #GoAllin, you should find automotive recruiter and trainer Anthony Santangelo’s profiles.

 I myself decided to turn down a corporate job at Enterprise rent-a-car, and go ALL IN on the car business and since then, I’ve been able to become a dealer groups top salesperson, get promoted through finance, used car management, general sales manager, been offered owner/partnership opportunities and now own the most successful car business coaching practice. And all while growing a wonderful family of five. Not bragging, letting you know it’s ONLY because I went all in on the car business.

 Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What could not be asking for help cost you? What could you gain from seeking help from managers and people on your team? If you could ask for help anytime, on any topic, what would you ask for help on right now?

Enabling Belief: “I am going to take advantage of this car business opportunity like it’s the most important thing I’ve ever done because there is no back up plan. I believe if I give it my 150%, I will succeed.”

When you don’t go all in on something, you won’t get all the results you could get. When you don’t get all the results you get, it is often the difference between success/longevity and failure/quitting.

1. “Product knowledge is useful so I can answer all my customer's questions and teach them everything about the vehicle of interest.”

Yes, product knowledge is important, and being able to answer customers' questions helps, AND…

The reality: At the same time, customers don’t need to know everything about the vehicle, and over-educating them will cost you sales. On top of that, product knowledge is critical for so much more than answering customer questions. Product knowledge also helps you know which vehicle to sell a customer. Product knowledge helps you identify when the customer has picked out the wrong vehicle for themselves and there’s a better solution. Product knowledge helps you compare your vehicle to your competitors so you can prevent your customers from wasting their time at other dealerships.

The last and maybe most important reason for knowing your product is that it's literally and figuratively how you “build value” for your customers. Product knowledge can be lethal (in a good way) in the hands of the right salesperson and can be extremely detrimental to someone who doesn’t understand how to build value using a tailored walkaround with their product knowledge. Case and point, for a mother of 4 kids who are replacing a vehicle that was just in a car accident, daytime running lights create safety by making her vehicle more visible to other drivers 24 hours a day! But if you’re selling the same vehicle to a young single buyer, the same daytime running lights make their vehicle more visible and look great so they will turn heads. Same features, same benefits but different values for each type of customer.  

 Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What’s the value of having great product knowledge? How does product knowledge help you build value in yourself? How does a professional salesperson use product knowledge to build value in a walk-around presentation? 

 Enabling Belief: “I will learn product knowledge because it will first help me tailor my sales presentations to my customers, and second because customers appreciate expertise!” 

Use the same features of your product to build value for THREE different types of buyers, then you’ll know you know how to use product knowledge to sell and not bore your customers.

To sum up, every one of us has knowledge gaps and limiting beliefs. Furthermore, when starting a whole new profession, we don’t know what we don’t know, and our brains have tried to fill these knowledge gaps with beliefs. Many of them will be limiting beliefs that could potentially hold our success back. Selling cars is one of the most fun and lucrative professions on the planet.

There are massive opportunities in the automotive industry for both personal and career growth. All that being said, it is critical to identify knowledge gaps, limiting beliefs, and STAY COACHABLE! Because when reality sets in and you realize this isn’t as easy as you had assumed, you will want to quickly eradicate these beliefs and replace them with the right mindsets for success.

And you can bet if you’re not getting the results you, or your company wants that Car Motivators team of leadership, management, and sales coaches will be here to support you! You can find us in our closed Facebook group at facebook.com/coachingthecarbusiness or email me anytime Sean@carmotivators.com

Host

Now you've been coaching dealership personnel longer, and with better results than most folks I know. So the question is going to be why does coaching work so much better than traditional sales training?

Sean

Great question, thank you for asking. At the end of the day, when it comes to helping people master and implement skills, training is critical. In fact, it's the foundation for success. What we find is that most dealerships have very skilled managers, and very talented salespeople. Of course, you know, there's always a range. But for the most part, they know how to sell a car. And they've had a lot of training both on the job and sometimes formalized. And training helps with “can I do it?” In addition to “can I do something?” Okay, “will I do it?” Right? “Do I want to do it?” “Do I need to do it?”

 So training helps with that very first layer? Can I do it? But when it comes to will I do it and do I want to do it, and do I need to do it, that’s where coaching comes in. With coaching, we're able to help get buy-in from that individual around doing something, help them understand the why connect the dots to what they want to accomplish in their immediate future and their long term career goals. And by helping them better understand how that will help, how that sort of skill, using that skill will help them achieve their goals, they're more likely to do it. 

And in addition, we don't just coach, it's not just a grassroots approach. It's also a top down approach. So we're helping the managers of the dealership become better leaders. And as a result of that, they're able to create accountability measures. And that's where the need comes in. So we're able to expertly ease people out of their comfort zone, and build on the foundation of training that the dealership already has, you know, imagine you have two avenues, right, you can come in and say "you guys are selling cars all wrong, use my approach." And I've heard trainers in the industry say, "if you're not selling cars the way I teach you, then whoever's success has been just luck!"

I'm sorry to say, but there's some really strong talent in the car business. And, they've been successful without that type of training. And they'll probably continue to be successful without that type of training. But again, if a dealership needs that foundation of training, we'll suggest that too. So training is important. But coaching is where the rubber meets the road. I always say training is like having a shiny car in your driveway. Coaching is the gas that makes that car get from A to B.

Host

That makes sense. It's more of a personal development and a motivational/ inspirational concept there that I think is longer lasting. But that's just my opinion.

Sean

You're right. To your point, you know, every person on your team, every manager on your team needs individualized development. It's that simple. Training is a one size fits all approach to people development. You know, it's a floodlight, right? You're giving everyone the foundation and it's pretty candid, pretty off the shelf. This is the best practice, this is how we're going to do this and everyone, you want everyone to be aligned with that. In reality, when you try to implement training, think about how many salespeople say, "Well, I'm not going to do it that way, my way works better", or the manager poo poos that if the team isn't aligned to doing something, if they're not all on the same page, then what are the odds of it being implemented effectively? It's just not going to happen. 

So with coaching, we're able to get alignment, we get the managers, the salespeople and everyone on the same page. And we don't have to tell them, we don't come in and say you're doing it all wrong, do it our way or no way. We're going to work with them because it's a lot easier to tweak and enhance their process and methodology for selling. Of course, we're going to take our best practices from our dealers, our highly successful dealers from across the country and suggest things to improve the systems and processes and, and training and methodologies that our dealers are already using. But that's a lot easier than trying to get them to rebuild everything from the ground up. So that's where dealers find a lot more success with car motivators coaching than they do with canned, one size fits all training.

For a Free Coaching Call: https://bit.ly/3jChTYC

At 2:04 pm on January 2nd, 2023, I received a text message from a multi-millionaire client I've been coaching for the last four years. 

It read, "...After a record year in both volume and gross and outselling the top sales consultant in my dealer group by over 100 cars, I know I can still grow. When you are in town next, let's make sure we sit down and develop some new ways I can grow my business to sell even more cars this year."

As you can surmise from the text, he is a very successful car salesman. Since it's the new year, an excellent time for reflection, I began thinking about the reasons for his success. I want to point out a very subtle, yet essential factor required for people to reach their fullest potential in business. And that subtle factor, my friends, lies in your ability to find the right balance of Strategy vs Tactics. 

Think about it: This particularly busy KIA salesperson outsells his nearest co-worker by well over 100 cars a year. Yet, he still understands the importance of pausing his daily tactical efforts to strategize with his coach.

There is a critical difference between officers and enlisted people in the military. Officers strategize and decide the objectives (goals) based on a 30,000-foot view of the battlefield, while the enlisted people execute the strategy (mission). Additionally, enlisted personnel only initiate the mission after creating an execution strategy known as a “battle plan”. Can you imagine a country ever winning a war, let alone a battle without this level of planning and coordinated implementation?

In reading this article, I want you to understand the difference between strategy and tactics so you will better understand how much time you need to dedicate to strategy in your routine if you are to reach your potential in business.

What is the difference between Strategy and Tactics?

Simply put, strategy is planning, and tactics are execution. Average performers and underperformers will execute accordingly, and naturally, the results of their activity (good or bad) position those actors in the appropriate position. 

On the other hand, one thing top performers have in common is that they start with the “end in mind”. In this way, they know what they want the outcome to be (visualization), and since all things are created twice, first in our minds and then in reality, top producers are much more likely to end up where they want to be. Why? Because they know where they want to go before they embark on their journey, they’ve already materialized it in their minds before manifesting it in reality.

Included in the strategizing process is the identification of the necessary benchmarks to hit enroute to the destination (goals), the consistent behaviors necessary to achieve that goal, and finally, the purposeful actions necessary to get the ball rolling. The next step is tactics and execution.

To Reach My Potential in Business, What Areas Need a Strategy?

Well, that depends on your position within your business. If you're a business owner, you need a specific strategy focused on every aspect of your business. Suppose you're a middle manager, there will be strategies necessary for your specific areas of responsibility. Suppose you're a front-line sales employee and want to reach your fullest potential, and aim to become a multi-millionaire selling whatever it is you sell. In that case, you will want to treat yourself like you are your own business, and carve out time for strategizing every aspect of your daily behavior. In addition to supercharging your efforts by adding a personal coach to help you strategize effectively, there are eleven areas you want to consider creating a routine around strategy for:

1. Vision for Success
2. Goals/Benchmarks
3. Leadership
4. Managing
5. Marketing
6. Lead Creation
7. Sales
8. Money
9. Customer Service
10. Technology
11. Your Routine

Peruse each area of business strategy and the few coaching questions I'm providing for each category below. Then, ask yourself, "How could creating a strategy for each of these elements positively impact my business?" If you have some good answers for these, then there is an opportunity for you to improve your likelihood of success by strategizing in these areas.

1. Leadership - Who will work for you? How will you motivate them? How often will you need to meet with each person on your team? What skills will you need to teach them? How will you get your team working together? What products and services could add value to what I do? 
2. Managing - What expectations must be set, and with who?
3. What metrics will I need to measure success in each area? How will I hold myself accountable? How will I hold others responsible? What does excellence look like? What is the minimum performance? 
4. Marketing - What do I want my brand to look like? Who is my target market? Where can I reach them? What appeals to them? What problems do they have? How do I help them solve those problems? What are my marketing goals, and do they align with my business goals? 
5. Lead Creation - What does a qualified lead look like? How will I convert awareness to interest? How will I ensure interested people can raise their hands for me? 
6. Sales - What is my engagement strategy for a qualified lead? How will I convert? What skills do I need to master to be more effective in sales? What is the maximum value of each client? Where do I need to adjust my approach to maximize the value of each opportunity?
7. Money/Financials - How can I reinvest in my business this year? What are the best investments I could make? Where can I better steward my own money? Does my financial strategy align with my business objectives, or am I trying to save my way into a profit?
8.  Customer Service/Experience - How do I stand out from my competition? What makes my service/product worth more than my competition? What do my customers complain about? How can I remove those complaints? What is my client retention compared to my peers? What are my customer's expectations? What changes will I need to make to my process to exceed their expectations?
9. Technology/Software - What tools are at my disposal that I need to utilize to their fullest? What systems are antiquated or out of date? Which software creates more drain/busy work than adding return on investment?

How Often Should I Strategize in Each of These Areas?

That's a great question that varies based on your vision, goals, where you are today, and how fast you want to get to your destination! That said, I'll share my routine around business strategy that's helped my team and me build the top coaching practice in the car business, Car Motivators. 

Strategy Session Type - Frequency - Duration

5-Year Vision Planning - Every five years - 4 Hours

5-Month Benchmarks - Every five months - 2 Hours

5 Week Goals - Every five weeks - 1 Hour

Leadership - Every Other Month - 3 Hours

Marketing Strategy/Content Plan - Annually - 4 Hours

Lead Creation - Quarterly - 2 Hours

Sales - Monthly - 2 Hours

Sales - (Weekly Pipeline Reviews) - Up to 1 Hour

Money/Financial Planning - Quarterly - 3 Hours

Customer Service/Experience - Quarterly - 4 Hours

Technology/Software - Every 6 Months - 2 Hours

Managing - Monthly - 2 Hours

Update Personal Routine - Quarterly - 4 Hours

Coaching with my Coach(s) - Monthly - 2 Hours

After reading this article, do you think you’ve been spending enough time on strategy? What areas will you need to strategize in to reach your potential in business? What low-value tactical activities will you need to let go of to make room for strategy in your routine? Now it's time for you to get tactical and execute on manifesting your strategies. Feel free to send me a message and let me know where you will start! 

You can reach me Sean@CarMotivators.com or via text on my cell phone 314-323-8234 anytime.

Are you giving your leadership the grace they need to lead you through the struggle?

Company owners and managers have the hardest jobs in the world right now. Leaders are darned if they do, darned if they don’t!

Owners whom I coach face a divided team: Some employees want to close to avoid getting sick. Others want to work and feed their families. Only owners know how hard it is to build a business and a team! Most care about their people’s health yet feel that shutting down the company is giving up to the virus without a fight!

Managers I coach are the glue keeping the stressed-out employees and customers together! They are adapting quickly, but constant high tension situations wear on them. As does the question always on their mind, “How can we produce enough to keep our jobs?”

These are no doubt, challenging times, and here are some ways to make things a little easier.

Owners: The only poor decision in a time like this is indecision. Remove the whispers and morale erosion by scheduling time to listen to employees’ opinions. Soon after, make a decision and take a stand! Communicate the "why" behind your decision to your team. In this way, you can align your team to the direction you are leading them. This will eliminate much of the fear of the unknown. When your employees know where you stand, why it's important, and have clarity around your plan, they can take decisive action. Simply put, rip the band-aid off. You may lose someone who isn’t a good fit. That’s better than losing people who are! Owners, remember three things. First, it's your job to set the direction of your company, even when the decision sucks. Second, you can't saw wood without sawdust. All decisions have a downside in a time like this, it's not your fault. Finally, Winston Churchill’s quote, “You have enemies? Good, that means you stood for something in your life!”

Managers: Maintain a united front with your owner! Leadership must maintain a united front, and if you sew seeds of doubt, you are making your team ineffective a critical moment in your business's history. You may need to have difficult conversations with your company owner if more communication and direction is needed from the top. Tell them what you need to get the job done, and remember you cant get it if you don't ask for it. Stay healthy and manage your stress; you can’t center your team if you’re not focused and centered yourself. You can’t predict the outcome, but you CAN stay positive and communicate positive intent. You will give it your all to ensure the best possible outcome, so there’s no point in amplifying negativity! You are a leader if this is going to make us fail, fail giving it 150% effort. It's time to step up, even MORE.

Employees: You are entitled to your opinion, but spreading negativity and “shoulding” all over your owners and managers isn’t right. “We should be closed.”, is a toxic statement that is likely designed to indirectly influence the company's direction. Be understanding, knowing they have a lot more than you to worry about! They have their family, their employee's families and their business! Does the situation suck? Yup! Is it a good idea to make it suck more by sewing seeds of contention and doubt? Nope! “Heavy is the head that wears the crown.” So don’t add dead weight to your already stressed-out leaders. Instead, add value and find ways to be productive! The way you react to this situation could be your one chance to prove how valuable an asset you are! If you can’t say anything nice, don’t talk.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way!

Sincerely,

Sean Kelley

#thecarbizcoach

Prior to entering the car business, Sean believed leadership was the key to ensure his Special Operations team would survive two combat deployments. Sean Kelley #TheCarBizCoach has since applied those same leadership principles to automotive management, and successfully lead dealers for a decade: lowering turnover, increasing profit, customer retention, customer satisfaction, and setting first-time regional records. Sean Kelley has built a massive following with thousands of coaching clients on Linkedin, his Facebook group, and has become a featured writer and vlogger for www.dealershipnews.com. Sean’s passion for coaching and people development led him to become Chief Business Development Officer of DriveCentric CRM where he helped them double their annual revenue in just months. Now, as CEO of Car Motivators and President of Next Sale App for Missouri, Sean and his coaches work with dozens of dealer groups, and automotive tech companies coaching hundreds of sales managers across the country. This is why Dealership News voted Sean Kelley consultant of the year in 2018. Sean was also ranked #10 in Ambition.com top 100 sales coaches to follow. Sean’s passion is for helping automotive leaders achieve great results through their people and technology. Due to Sean’s enthusiasm, sense of humor, knowledge, and engaging presentations, he has keynoted or spoken for multiple conferences like: Digital Dealer, Automotive Game Changers, Rockstar Automotive Events, Canadian Game Changer Seminars, St Louis Auto Dealer Association, Texas Independent Automotive Dealer Association and more. Sean helps those with a growth mindset create winning cultures with his unique self-developed approach to coaching and people development called D.R.I.V.E.C3™. Sean’s vision is to positively impact the leadership landscape of the automotive industry and its people by living out his mission of bringing coaching to the car business.

Today I was coaching a spry young and driven project manager of a very successful dealer group and long-time coaching client. We discussed three project plans seeking to improve the processes and remove obstacles to success. This great conversation led me to a lot of reflection on the act of planning itself. I always tell people that coaching without a plan is just therapy. When it comes to achieving results and helping others make them, I'm no spring chicken! I truly began planning while working with high ranking military officials in combat zone mission briefings in the Army. Then I enjoyed planning in a senior-level leadership role in a dealer group. Now, as an executive coach, it's my job to help sales managers and sales pro's clarify what they want to accomplish most, understand why it's important, help them create an action plan to achieve their objective, then care for the plan long term. 

As such, I follow up and check-in along the way, sometimes things go great; other times nothing happens at all. This is when masterful coaching comes in. I don't judge or criticize, I ask them if accomplishing that objective is still essential or if they want to let it go. It's almost always still vital for them! Then I ask questions to find out what got in the way of their action plan fulfillment. We address the challenge, adjust our plan, and move forward. After having thousands of these conversations, I have come to some simple yet powerful realizations about plans. I share them with you in this article hopes that your plans become as airtight as possible. Regardless I want you to be ready for when they fail because they will, and that's OK because you'll fix it!

Realization #1 There is no perfect plan because there is no perfect person!

There are diminishing returns in over planning; thus, trying to create the perfect plan is a waste of time. I recommend deciding in advance how much time to allow yourself for planning. That will help you stay focused and give you a deadline for getting started. Also, this will help you present yourself and others a little grace and dignity when the plan doesn't work out perfectly. Because after all, the last perfect person walked the earth 2000 years ago, and you saw what happened to him.

Realization #2 Any plan becomes 100% more effective when there is a contingency plan.

My special operations team never ran a mission without a primary plan, secondary plan, and tertiary plan. Since failure is always a possibility, you don't want to be scrambling to create a new plan at the same time. This leads to undue stress, sloppy execution, and poor results when, most of the time, all you needed was a backup plan in the beginning.

Realization #3 No plan gets accomplished with no desire, no discipline, and no dedication. 

Having a plan without someone wanting to achieve the results from the plan will sure the plan fails. It's like giving a four-year-old a plate of steamed okra in hopes of having them eat everything on their plate. They'll sit there and poke at it with a fork, dump it behind the couch (my kid did that), or maybe try to feed it to the dog. You have to sell the okra, in this case, the plan to the parties involved, get the buy-in! Then watch them eat the okra, in this case, check-in on the plan, and continuously remind them of what accomplishing this plan will mean for them. "You're going to grow tall and strong from eating this delicious slimy green okra!"

Realization #4 A plan can only maximize results if the plan is maximized through continuous improvement.

Once your plan is underway and you are conducting follow up, checking in, and supporting efforts, this is the opportunity to improve. Things to look for improvement: How can we do this better? How can we do the action items more efficiently? Who else could contribute to these efforts? Are too many resources dedicated to this action item? Is there another step in the plan that doing first would make this step easier? To truly maximize the results of your plan, revisit it throughout, ask those questions and make the adjustments necessary.

Realization #5 Increase a plan's complexity two-fold, and decrease its odds of completion tenfold.

Complexity in planning would be the bane of my existence if I weren't self-aware enough to know it's my issue. Because I love planning and enjoy coordinating many moving parts, it's easy for me to create unnecessary complexity. A plan needs to be simple to execute and big for impact. "How can a plan be simple yet big?", you ask. A lot of people focus on one objective, and each person has one or two simple action items or behaviors they are responsible for executing. It's significant because there are a lot of people involved and it's simple because each person knows exactly what one or two things they do. Start giving people three or more things to do in their plan and watch the whole thing fall apart. When planning, it's always better to K.I.S.S. (keep it stupid simple). Check for understanding by asking those involved to repeat their strategy back to you. If you can't explain it to a third-grader, it's probably too complicated.

Realization #6 A plan's action items are as good as the person's understanding of why, what, when and how to do them.

A leader's biggest frustration is often when their people don't take action, which leads me to ask some tough coaching questions. I ask things like, "When did you expect them to have that done by?" "Did you give them that expectation?" and "What training and testing did you give them to ensure they could do that?" and "How did you teach them that process?" and "Why is doing it that way so important? Did you explain that to them?" Often the answers to these questions give the leader the clarity that the person they were planning with didn't have clarity! No plan is complete unless you can answer this question for each part of the project: "Who does what by when and why is it so important?" Another element that makes for a high level of clarity is by writing the plan details down, and ensuring everyone involved reads and signs off on their action items.

Realization #7 To avoid an obstacle, you have to know it exists and a silent disagreement is a hidden obstacle.

Honest communication is essential to effective planning. If you can't have an honest dialogue with someone, why the heck are you planning with them in the first place? If someone is "yessing" you to death but not executing on the plan, or if you are picking up on body language that they disagree with the plan, deal with it right now. It's best to get the disagreement in the open so you can adjust your plan, or help the disagreer get over it. Otherwise, plan on having the same discussion soon while adding frustration in the mix, and higher stakes leading to potential blow-ups.

I hope this article on planning makes your work life more successful, enjoyable, and productive! It would be my honor to help you plan your next benchmark to success, so feel free to reach out to my receptionist and schedule a strategy with me at 1-888-921-0221 or email Sean@CarMotivators.com

Sincerely,

Sean Kelley

#thecarbizcoach

https://www.carmotivators.com

After leaving US Army Special Operations and serving over two years in combat zone deployments, Sean Kelley #TheCarBizCoach applied those leadership principles to automotive management and successfully led multiple dealerships for over a decade. Sean’s passion for people development led him to become Chief Business Development Officer of DriveCentric CRM, a software company, where he helped them double their annual revenue. As CEO of Car Motivators, Sean works with dozens of dealer groups, automotive tech companies and hundreds of coaching clients across the country. As a writer, Sean’s work and success stories working with his clients have been published in multiple automotive publications. Sean was "Consultant of the Year" in 2018 by Dealership News and ranked #10 in Ambition.com top 100 sales coaches. Sean’s engaging presentations have been featured at conferences like Digital Dealer, Automotive Game Changers, Rockstar Automotive, Canadian Game Changers, SLADA, TIADA, and Driving Sales. Sean’s vision is to positively impact the leadership landscape and culture of the automotive industry by bringing coaching to the car business. Your coaching journey starts here!

There are about 17,000 new car dealers across the country and over 20,000 non-franchised used car dealers. Most of which, have at the very least one desk manager. This person, often called “The man (or woman) behind the curtain.”, plays a critical role in any dealership. It is this person’s job to leverage their salespeople to ensure customers make the right purchase for both the customer and the dealership. The type of purchase that will ensure the dealership remains profitable, but also enhances the brand of the dealership through the experience of the transaction, and simultaneously builds the skills and confidence of the salesperson involved.

After a decade desking thousands of deals as a desk manager and having led desk managers as a GSM, I am able to share some great insights around desk management. Now, coaching dozens of dealers and their management teams, and conducting cultural assessments across the country: these awesome peoples unique perspectives have taught me what makes a team believe their desk manager is phenomenal vs average. I share these insights in hopes that desk managers continue to grow and improve, or that new desk managers who aren’t shown the ropes are able to learn what it takes to be amazing at the desk vs mediocre. Because I believe an amazing desk manager can have a vast positive impact on their team.

So, what does make a phenomenal desk manager compared to an average desk manager? Here is what I believe makes a desk manager extraordinary!

Wants their team to earn a great living, and tracks this for each individual salesperson.

Desk managers that truly care about their team’s financial wellbeing feel responsible for their teams’ income level. While it certainly does not all rest on their shoulders alone, they take this very seriously. Some desk managers even track their salespeople income objectives for the month, and are consistently reminding their individual people where they are at, in relation to their objective for the month. They want the salespeople to feel like the manager cares about their income as much as they do. By doing so, they know their manager has their best interest at heart. It is important to know that growth and accountability also come with measurement and follow up. The true leader of desking helps their people reach their income goals by being proactive and checking in after each deal, throughout the month, with each person.

Trains before the game and coaches during the game.

The Fabio of the four square is proactive in their approach to people development. When their people aren’t busy, they will grab employees and roleplay real and relevant negotiation or business transaction scenarios. They believe in continuous improvement and are always seeking ways to help each employee grow where they need it most. They will coach people on the metrics within their CRM that could ultimately impact results. Some of the best desk managers I work with across the country will even assign books for their people to read and have team meetings and discussions about them. They may have their people rate themselves on various selling related activities and determine who could help them train the rest of the team, or ask who wants training on which topic. This all happens during down time. Once a customer is engaged; however, it’s game time. The training stops and coaching kicks in. They will stay calm, cool and collected. Even when faced with the most challenging customers, they coach their people through it. They leverage this on the job coaching to help each salesperson develop problem solving skills and adopt the right mindsets that are duplicatable and sustainable. They know that being a crutch for their employees and solving their problems for them is not scalable and hinders success. They seek out opportunities for growth during the game, and ask the right thought provoking questions at the right time. This coaching ensures ensure guided autonomy takes place and salespeople continue to think for themselves.

Ensures salespeople follow the process.

We all know that it is possible to sell a car without following the entire road to the sale. The challenge that allowing salespeople to circumvent the process creates, is that it lowers accountability to the process itself. Salespeople may sell some cars by skipping steps because a fraction of buyers don’t need the entire process. Ultimately, it’s all the sales that would require the full process completion for the sale to come to fruition that are at stake. An exceptional desk manager is process driven and seeks to be each employee’s accountability partner in ensuring that they act the same way. They are on the lookout for people in the act of skipping steps, and quickly make corrections. Allowing certain people to sell how they want, when they want, can also rub off on other less tenured employees. Unless there are clear expectations tied to tenure or performance, they ensure everyone sticks to the steps at all times.

Knows what’s going on and gives relevant info.

An extraordinary desk manager follows each customer interaction from start to finish. They are consistently communicating with the customer and the salesperson. Whenever necessary, they provide relevant information and add value to the situation at hand. Asking enough questions and reading all of the information within the CRM and DMS for each customer is critical to seeing the big picture. Tailor fit responses to customer questions and suggestions based on the customers personality, needs and wants, past behavior, desired traits, expectations, and progress through the process are critical. This awareness helps the manager give great information to their people and clients that lead to informed buying decisions with little buyer’s remorse that go exceedingly smooth.

Meets the customer early in the sale.

Seeking to avoid the “Man behind the curtain” perception, to set expectations and plant seeds that will help with the sale further along in the process, the exceptional desk manager seeks to meet customers early, and often, in the sale. Assuring the customer that they are in great hands with their salesperson. That the manager is always here to support them with your team adds a massive degree of value. It also shows the potential buyer the appreciation level that is necessary for them to not just feel good, but to feel great about their purchase.

They trust, but verify.

Buying a car is a stressful experience through the eyes of many customers. This is partly due to the stigma attached to automotive employees. Also, because customers don’t understand the buying process: the unknown creates fear. This fear and anxiety causes customers to put up a wall or sometimes lie to salespeople and managers. This phenomenon may also occur when a salesperson asks the wrong question at a bad time. In addition, salespeople may have facades. They know their salespeople have information that they may want to avoid sharing for fear of a negative reaction. An extraordinary desk manager doesn’t believe, “buyers are liars”, nor do they believe that their salespeople are. They trust people and give everyone the benefit of the doubt. This creates open dialogue and good communication which is necessary to be truly effective at the desk. It shows the customer and salesperson that they listen, and thanks to the law of reciprocity, ensures that they are listened to as well. On the other side of the coin, the manager also sniffs out when something isn’t quite right. They will verify reality at almost every impasse. The intent is to determine if the customer has been lied to and is misinformed. To uncover if the customer doesn’t trust the company or salesperson and as a result is offering a lie. Or to find out if the employee is fearful of sharing the truth or simply unaware that the information they possess can help make the deal. The leader can and will ensure proper guidance and response by trusting everyone involved but also verifying reality.

Holds people accountable and asks their team to do the same for them.

Not even the exceptional desk manager is 100% flawless in ensuring they accomplish everything that they set out to do each day. No one is perfect! However, the exceptional desk manager will work with other people to co-create action plans and ensure that these plans become reality. They will hold people accountable the way they want to be held accountable. They may even ask others around them to help hold themselves accountable, which ultimately ensures the long-term success of everyone. Accountability is a mindset for the exceptional desk manager. As a result, deals go smoother, finance can operate at a higher capacity and you can count on them and their team to get things done.

Works deals the same as other desk managers.

Alignment and uniformity helps everyone stay on the same page. When people are on the same page, they know how to approach the desk. Any stores with multiple desk managers can vastly improve the employee experience when putting together deals in this way. Working with dealers across the country, one of the primary complaints I hear is about salespeople, “Playing Mommy Daddy”, with different managers to accomplish the result they want. This occurs primarily when the managers each do things their own way, and the process or methodologies are inconsistent. The exceptional desk manager will try to follow the same order of operations as the other managers do to help ensure alignment and consistency.

Knows how to leverages ALL the tools at their disposal.

The best gym set in the world won’t help you get buff, unless you use it. Then if you use that gym set without knowing how, there is a great probability of injuring yourself. Most dealers invest thousands of dollars in some awesome tools. (and some not so often, but that’s an entirely different topic) Everything from used car appraisal software, website plugins, to CRM technology can help the tech savvy desking star, rock out extra deals, build value in the purchase for the customer, or streamline and enhance the sales process for the dealership. Often these tools go underutilized and great opportunities to grow the business are wasted. Know what tools are in your toolbox and use them at the right time.

Understands different communication styles and flexes them accordingly.

There are many ways to communicate, so what is the best way? The way that the buyer prefers. The phenom of automotive desk managers can identify which method each customer prefers after a brief conversation with the customer or sales associate, or sometimes even after having read the notes in the CRM. They also understand each of their salespeople’s preferences and know how to flex to them. By doing this, the manager can read between the lines on where each deal sits as it progresses. Then the desk manager will ensure the language, information and delivery is set for the salesperson to tailor to the customer! Sound crazy? If you have a fact and data driven customer that likes to crunch numbers and analyze the information, and a fast-talking story telling excitable salesperson, the deal may be doomed! Unless the exceptional desk manager slows the deal down, offers up the facts, data, and time frame that will help the salesperson help the customer make an educated and informed decision! On the other hand, if you have a thoughtful mindful customer with a type of customer that is hard charging, push the car over the curb to accomplish the results type of salesperson, the pro manager will load the lips to ensure thoughtful questions are asked and concerns are expressed.

Creates a fun exciting and positive experience for salespeople.

What is the experience like when your salespeople touch desk? Is it stressful? Are their jobs threatened? Is it berate and browbeat? Is it rewarding and fun? Is it positive and exciting? Does the experience make them want to do it again or avoid it like the plague? I loved working
deals with my first and only sales manager in the car business. The man, that I was lucky enough to replace when he moved on, made desking deals extremely fun. There was no customer challenge that he wouldn’t help you battle through as best he could. You always left his office feeling confident and excited that the ammo he has given you would work. When it didn’t, and you did exactly as asked, he would take the blame too. You were recognized for a job well done and offered training and coaching when there was opportunity to grow.

Shows extreme appreciation.

Gratitude is a great way for a desk manager to show humility and appreciation. Every time a salesperson drops a deal on your desk, acknowledging their hard work and dedication to take a deal that far is paramount. In addition, they show the customer extreme appreciation for their business. Only with extreme appreciation can others truly understand how important their role is in your career and life. The most grateful guys and gals of the sales desk will say thank you a minimum of 3 times while working each deal!

Knows how to build value through others.

When you talk about building value, it can sound so vague. One of the ways I interpret value building, means to give insights that are aligned to what the buyer wanted but wasn’t aware of. Offering up something you know that they didn’t know which will help them make a good or better decision. The best way to find out what they are or are not aware of something is to ask them! To build value through others is the equivalent of asking our salespeople to ask the right questions which will help them add value! The savvy sales manager will ask open ended questions to their salespeople like, “How do you know the customer wants to own this car right now?” Or “What do they already know about the car you are about to show and what do they want to learn more about?” By asking questions like these consistently, your team will begin to uncover these values adding opportunities which will help them help the customer!

Tries to avoid multi-tasking.

If I had a penny for every time a salesperson told me during a cultural assessment, “My manager ignores me when I’m talking.” or “If they would stop texting and listen…” Our brain can only process one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is a lie! The illusion of multitasking comes in someone’s ability to switch back and forth between two or more tasks quickly. Along with working deals, most desk manager jobs are comprised of many other to-dos. The extremely skilled desk manager is a master of time management. They know how much time is needed each day for desking deals and plan accordingly. They know when they need a time out to grind through paperwork, operational tasks, responsibilities like training, coaching, marketing, or any other slew of job requirements. They get them done when they are supposed to get done. When they are desking a deal with you, they seem 110% focused on what it is you and your customer need to move forward with a deal.

Loads the lips of the employees when working deals.

Salespeople of all tenure are faced with the “Want the deal more than what’s best for everyone.” mindset. The extraordinary sales manager can flex his or her communication style according to the customer and salesperson. He is able to tap into his real-world experience, automotive I.Q., employee E.Q., and ensure that they present the right things to say, and in the right way, to the salesperson on a silver platter. The salesperson should not only know what they are saying, but the ‘why’ behind the statement. In that way, they have the flexibility to make the statements more impactful and relevant. Loading the lips with more advanced salespeople should also be slightly different from new people. I recommend when working with veterans, to ask them, “what is your approach going to be?” or “please walk me through your close here so that we can make sure we that are on the same page.” After hearing their game plan, you have earned the right to load their lips. When you ask, you may be surprised by how many will already be thinking about saying what you were about to tell them to say! Other times, the exceptional desk manager will learn a new close from the veteran! Either way, every interaction involves a discussion about the next conversation with the client.

Understands perception is reality and ensures each deal feels like a great deal.

A term I have learned to love from my time in Psychological Operations is, “Perception is reality.” If our customer believes that they got a great deal, then the reality is, they got a great deal! Salespeople see almost every deal, every day, as do managers. The challenge this presents is that knowing a customer paid less for the same car last week, puts a mental barrier up that makes us feel like the customer isn’t getting a great deal this time! An amazing desk manager works with salespeople on every deal to help the salesperson convey the value the customer is getting for the money. They understand a good deal is a state of mind, and they find out what makes the salesperson believe it truly is a good deal. The goal is to help the salesperson and customer both know that they were at the right place at the right time. This desk manager understands that price isn’t the only part of a great deal. It’s also finding the perfect vehicle for the customer and ensuring that the experience is fantastic. The perception of a great deal can be skewed one way or another depending on these other factors. Often, the customers that pay the least, also happen to believe that they paid too much! It is all perception, and the pro desk manager, knows how to create this perception in every situation possible.

Knows when to SWAT. Knows when to switch vehicles. Knows when to locate or trade for a car.

An extraordinary desk manager will have control over their aged inventory because they are great at ensuring salespeople land customers on the right cars that they need to move. Along with that, they will seldom lose deals because of inventory challenges. This is because they understand the value of contingency plans. They ensure that their salespeople have that 2nd or 3rd back up plan if the in-stock unit does not work for the customer or bank. They know when the stakes are high. They will understand when a customer is going to walk and that it’s time to do a locate or buy a car from another lot to ensure that the customer will buy today!

Doesn’t give up.

An extraordinary desk manager treats every deal like it’s the most important deal of the month. They are tenacious and must outlast even the hungriest of salespeople when they have thrown in the towel on a deal. They have more stamina and power than the most stubborn buyer. No doesn’t mean no forever, it means not right at this second! Sometimes they overcome a dozen objections alongside their salesperson before even thinking about throwing in the towel. Even when the month is three quarters over and the dealership is halfway to its goal, they redouble their efforts. Consistently partaking in the right actions and activities that produce the results they want because they believe if they are going to miss an objective, it wont be because they didn’t give 150% effort. They simply do not give up.

Is a great problem solver.

The best desk managers believe that there is always a way to get to a yes. When they hear a “no”, they don’t get bent out of shape or down in the dumps. They determine that there is a problem that needs solving and they work with their salesperson and the customer to uncover and solve it. By doing so, everyone gets to move forward. Even if a problem cannot be solved right now and the customer has to leave, they work behind the scenes to solve the problems and sell a car. Their intuition may even work in the background, allowing them to breath life back into a dead deal before the month is over. How many extra deals can be engineered with a little problem solving and persistence at your dealership?

Knows the banks programs and the bank reps.

So many banks create so many possibilities. The exceptional desk manager is always understanding of what opportunity will fit best for the client and the dealership. Thousands in extra revenue can be generated quite quickly if your exceptional desk manager knows which banks pay the highest flat, or what lenders fund certain deals easier or faster. They are there also there as a safety net for finance. This will ensure no customer leaves over a finance or payment challenge. Salespeople often become frustrated and disengaged when finance steers the ship on credit and loan calls. The savvy desk manager inspects what he/she expects and isnt afraid to click another lender in dealertrack or pick up the phone and call a lender to get something approved or funded.

T.O. a deal when they can or flip a deal when they can’t.

Never letting a customer leave without touching desk is critical to a sales team’s success. In fact, the data I have accumulated shows that by increasing T.O. percentage by 30%, a salesperson’s closing percentage goes up 8%. That is a huge sales increase simply by ensuring that everyone gets a turn! The pro desk manager will be able to identify the moment at which a salesperson can no longer add value to a conversation with the customer. They will spring into action at that moment. The desk manager can’t be everywhere at once. Prioritizing time is essential for being efficient and effective at the desk. While the aficionado of dealership desking wants to T.O. every customer, they also know when it isn’t a good time to get roped into a lengthy close. As such, they are aware when it’s time to grab a good closer off the showroom floor and send someone else in to make the deal happen (even if it means a split deal). Ultimately, the salesperson is better off having 50% of a deal now, then 30% chance of a deal later with great follow up. The pro desk manager will ensure that each salesperson knows the value in a TO, and everyone will understand and welcome this part of the process with open arms.

Connects cross functioning dealership departments like finance, service and BDC.

The mantra of the dynamic desk manager is “there is no “I” in team”! Their process integrates cross functioning departments such as finance, BDC, service, even cashier into everything that they do. They believe that either the dealership employees succeed together or fail together. You may have heard the saying “business goes where it’s wanted and stays where it’s valued”. Involving the entire team can help customers feel this gratitude that leads to customer loyalty and satisfaction. Imagine a smiling introduction to your cashier to each customer. What if the porter pulled the car up front and wiped off the door handle before opening it for the customer to begin the delivery? What if the service customer had an extra coupon laying around that they gave to that special customer before they took their new car home? Selling used cars can be a challenge when customers have had a negative experience from buying elsewhere with mechanical issues. What if you brought your service manager or technician in to go over the shop bill to build credibility? What if before an unsold showroom visit left, you introduced them to the BDC person that would be following up long term to ensure the customer receives the information that will help them make a great decision? There are many creative ways to involve the entire team that create an amazing experience, build the dealerships brand, and generate customer loyalty (and the best desk managers do just that).

Goes to bat for their team.

The clever deal tactician knows how to pick their battles. They also know how critical it is to have a sales team that has their back. For them to have your back, they need to know that you have theirs. It’s the law of reciprocity! At some point in the game, a challenge will come from above that will threaten their team’s morale. A challenge could come from an unruly customer who is treating their car salesperson with utter and blatant disrespect. While unfortunate, this is an opportunity for the desk manager to go to bat for their team. Even if this amazing leader loses the battle, their team will have taken notice, and this will help everyone rally behind them. The excellent desk managers team has their back, knowing they will not let them fail. This is the ultimate safety net for any manager.

Stays cool under pressure.

The desk manager is constantly under fire. As soon as they hit the showroom floor, the phone is ringing off the hook. Vendors bombarding them from every angle and vying for their time. The customer from last weekend shows up to pick up the floor mats that they were promised, but that salesman is off work today! Salespeople line up to work deals. The owner of the store is on the line asking them to have a new demo cleaned up and have plates slapped on it for their friend who is coming to visit. Then you have your finance people that are coming up to the desk angry because a credit app was missing a middle initial! It never ends. Yet, the true desking stallion stays as cool as the other side of the pillow. They can prioritize tasks, say no to people, delegate out things that are of low or no value, and defer things that can wait until later. No matter how busy things get, they stay calm, because the steadfast leadership needed to get the job done comes from a state of confidence in both their ability and their knowledge that they are focusing on the right activity at any given time.

They believe in continuous improvement.

There are many more traits, habits and behaviors that make a desk manager excellent or even phenomenal instead of average. They know how to make the biggest impact in their career and the careers of others around them, by continuously growing and improving. The phenomenal desk manager may still be reading this because they want to squeeze every drop of knowledge out of an article they can! As a result, no matter what changes arise in the market place, they adapt and overcome them because they constantly learn and grow.

If you don't run a car dealership... what a great time of year fall is! The time of year when parents are knee deep in their children's school activities, and their kids 1st quarter grades. Sports fans are focused on baseball playoffs, and football season is picking up. The weather starts shifting from hot and humid to cool and windy. The night starts coming earlier and earlier causing people to hunker down in their homes earlier each day. On top of all that, throw in some holidays to take minds off of car shopping. All of this adds up to a fairly large probability you may have some salespeople or stores in a sales slump.

This article isn't about giving your team excuses to be in a slump. The goal is to help you realize this problem.To inspire you to help each employee break free of the ill-fated downturn with performance coaching. Let's get our team members mind out of the gutter and refocus their intentions on sales success using the DriveCoaching D.R.I.V.E.C3 coaching framework.

If your first instinct is to sit the employee down and berate them about not selling enough units, ignore this. If your kinder gentler approach is to tell them what you do to get out of a slump, turn away. Instead, we must understand their mindset, prior to offering any help. We do this in step 1. We need to let them know WHY we are asking them these questions. We MUST ensure our team member is open to the discussion.

Step 1 Discovery: Discover what they want to achieve regarding sales this month. Discover where their head is at. Discover the coaching opportunity. Discover if they even want your support.

Here is a statement to recruit them to the discovery: I want to ensure you get what you want out of your career this month.

Here are a few questions you could ask to help you discover how to recruit your employees to their cause. 

What are you trying to achieve this month?

Are you on pace to accomplish what you want for the month regarding sales?

If the rest of the month finishes the way it has started out, will you be content with your numbers?

Is now a good time to sit down together and ensure you get what you want out of your business this month?

Step 2 Recruit: Help them understand what they get out of the deal. Create buy-in with a recruitment statement.

After hearing what you want to accomplish this month, and looking in the CRM I see there are activities, opportunities, and possibilities we could create that would help you achieve the goals you want most.

Step 3 Inquire: Find out what they have already done. What they are doing now. What they plan on doing. Mission: Find the missing piece of the puzzle. 

Why have you dialed back your daily sales activities? (looking into the CRM metrics)

Walk me through your daily routine, let's try to uncover some opportunities.

What have you already tried this month?

Where is the biggest opportunity to increase your business for the remainder of the month?

Comparing this to your best month in the car business, what is different about it? What are you doing differently to account for the change?

Step 4 Verify: Verify it’s time for you to add value. You have found a hole in their actions, activities, or plan through inquiry: and now it’s time to make sure you add value through a story, statistic or new possibility.

After asking them enough questions to ensure you see the big picture, you should now know where you can add value to the coaching session. Do it with a statement or question such as...

I think I see a few things that are getting in the way of what you want this month, and I have a story that may shed light on it. Is there anything else I should know about what you are saying or do you want to hear the story now?

Step 5 Educate: Now it's time to educate your team member. We can share information that they were aware of. A story that is relevant to their situation. Stats or metrics that could provide inspiration. "What if" scenarios that allow them to think outside the box.

Remember…

What would be possible if you had tried X, Y or Z in addition to your current plan?

Another manager was in the same predicament as you.  Here is what she did to overcome the challenge...

What would it mean to you, if you could still accomplish that objective by you starting today? Based on what you told me, I would like to share some potential blind spots you have around this topic...

Step 6 Co-Create an Action Plan: Too often as leaders we tell people what to do. The problem here is that there isn't buy in if it's our plan. In addition, can they do it? Will they do it? Don't tell them what to do. You have given them alternative viewpoints and perspective around their challenge. You have helped them discover new outcomes they hadn't considered. Now it’s time to find out from them, what THEY are willing to do. Work with them to help them build the solution. They will take full ownership of their plan and commit to it. By having them create it, this helps ensure execution. Here are some examples of questions you can use.

What are you willing to do differently, starting today?

It sounds like you have gained some key insights here, what is your plan moving forward?

Are you willing to create a plan with me to ensure you have the best chance for success?

Step 7 Care for the Plan: Being a coach doesn't end with telling someone what to do, or helping them create a plan. "Trainers" take note of this please, a real coach helps the “coachee” by caring for the plan with them long term. Anyone can train someone on something. This isn't necessarily supportive and without accountability and measurement, does anything change? As a coach, we need to ensure the forward momentum moves our employee out of their slump. What is the best way to care for their plan? Ask them!

What can I do to help you ensure this becomes reality?

How would I support you around this in a perfect world?

What would it mean for you if I followed up with you to make sure this happens? How do you want me to do that?

Step 8 Confirm the Value of Coaching: Coaching is extremely rewarding, especially when making a positive difference in the life of someone who is going through a tough time at work. This is where you get to relish in the confidence you have instilled and the amazing coaching you just gave! Simultaneously, this ensures you have actually helped them. Make sure you covered what they wanted to be coach on. Then schedule the next coaching session. Just like going to the gym, coaching can make a massive difference if done regularly. Here are a couple examples for you.

Did you see a ton of value in our discussion today? Great, why don't we get a time on the calendar now for next week to continue the momentum?

Where is your head at now as opposed to 30 minutes ago? That's great to hear, I am happy to do this again in a couple weeks if you want this same type of growth.

Now that you have a very simple coaching system to leverage, take advantage of this gift. Find out who is in a slump and coach them out of it! Dealerships that  DriveCoaching has worked with have seen large increases in profit, market share, lower turnover, and higher customer satisfaction, even in down markets. If you are interested in accomplishing the same results, message Sean Kelley here on Driving Sales or email me at Sean@DriveCentric.com. You may also visit our website at www.DriveCoaching.us.

#drivecoaching #coachingthecarbusiness #winningcultures #coachingexcellence #thisistraining

Years ago as a young car sales person, I came to one realization, that altered my behavior and activities which ultimately impacted my sales and commission checks. I want for you as a sales professional to come to this same realization so that you may earn a greater living as I did.

REALIZE WHO PAYS YOU

Depending on your place of employment you may get a check, weekly, bi-weekly, or sometimes monthly. Direct deposit or check in hand, most sales people receive their pay directly from their companies account. As such, many sales people believe it is their employer that pays them.

On the other end of the spectrum you have the sales people that believe they are paid by themselves. “I am my own business.”, is a catch phrase often used by company salespeople. Hard work, dedication, and the daily grind creates a façade where, “I pay myself through my closing skills.”

If you really want to know who writes your checks, simply follow the money.

Your bank > Your Dealerships Bank > Your Buyers Bank

As sales people, we must adopt the mentality that our pay check comes from our buyer NOT from our self, or from our employer. The value, urgency, relationship, and enthusiasm that we transfer to the client is directly related to the paycheck we earn, from our buyer!

SALES PEOPLE CAN MAKE LESS THAN MINIMUM WAGE

Even top earning sales people earn less than minimum wage when we fail! We must understand that the buyer has the right to pay us zero dollars. That’s right, your buyer doesn’t have to follow federal or state minimum wage regulations. If you spent the day with a prospect, and don’t earn the business, you didn’t even earn minimum wage that day. Truly do an amazing job with that customer and earn yourself much more than minimum wage!

DON’T BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU

Most sales people won’t ignore their managers calls or emails. The vast majority of sales people would follow up with their company owner after an important meeting. Most sales people are extremely respectful to the leaders of their company, even when they don’t get what they want.

Since we are now of the understanding who really feeds us, technically not the people above us in our company… Can we now begin to treat our customers with the same respect? Can we follow up better, interact better, and react better to what they do? Start treating every customer like they are your boss. Realize the customer gets to decide if you get fired right now (no purchase), or give you a massive raise today (big purchase and referrals)!

SHIFT YOUR MINDSET AND INCREASE YOUR COMISSION

Make this shift in mindset right now, and watch your profit skyrocket. This works every single time. Remember: The money you make is a biproduct of how you treat your buyers. How you treat your buyers is directly related to your perception of their value to you. The value your customers see in you and your wares are directly related to how you treat them! Realize that your buyer is writing your paycheck and increase your commission immediately.

Earlier this month while training a used car manager on appraisals, we were utilizing the latest and greatest automobile appraisal technology. I started thinking about the good ol' days of flipping through that little black book. Today we were looking at metrics like market day supply, average market price, cost to market, SRP's, VDP's, and many other automobile metrics to decide if we should keep or wholesale a particular car. Then if we decide to keep the used car, what ACV to give it. I began to reflect back to a time of used car management without market driven technology/data. Asking myself, "How in the world was I able to successfully run a used car operation without any of this technology or data?" Reminiscing helped me realize many of those old school techniques are still useful and incredibly important today. In fact, I realized the importance of combining the appraisal techniques of the past with the new market driven technology/data to ensure ultimate success!

After appraising a few cars together, we started to adjust pricing on the lot’s aged inventory. We noticed, some of these “lot rocks” had all the key metrics of a fast selling car, yet they were approaching 90 days old. Why were these cars still rotting on the lot? After all, they had low market day supply, and we were in the cars right. They were priced according to the market and sure looked good on paper!

Here are seven common sense appraisal questions to consider when bidding a vehicle that will help you make the best buying decision and put the right amount of money in your used cars.

1. What alternative exit strategies do you have? 

Most market driven data doesn’t factor in alternative exit strategy methods. Sure they have MMR, average book, NADA...etc. What about your wholesaler friends? Can you call them and ask for a bid on the car? Can you run the car at a silent bid sale? Does the car make a great secondary financed car that you should buy it regardless of your precious market data? Is it a car you could swap with another car from another rooftop in your group if you don’t sell it quickly?

2. How abundant is this car in your inventory?

To hit your used car objectives, maintaining the proper inventory levels is important; not just having enough inventory, but also having something for everyone. Do you have enough of those low priced cars in your inventory? Do you have enough third row SUVs in your inventory? If it is a truck you are considering, do you have any trucks in your inventory? Is this a fast seller in your market, but you already have 4 of them that you can't sell? In the end, if you need to fill a hole in your inventory, sometimes buying one that doesn’t look that good on paper doesn’t matter. Transversely if the car looks good on paper, but you have several in your inventory that just don’t sell, this should affect your bid or disposition. Remember: You can't sell asphalt!

3. Is the car ugly?

Market driven data gets too narrow when you drill down to exterior and interior color on used cars. Ugly is ugly. If the thing is a bad color combo, or has weird aftermarket appearance modifications all over it, bid it accordingly. Market data doesn’t factor in cars that have been hit with the ugly stick! Don’t justify over bidding an ugly car buy with the saying, "There's a butt for every seat." You want to invest your available purchasing budget towards cars that more butts than one enjoy sitting in!

4. Are you lieing to yourself?

Are you factoring in ALL the costs that affect what you will have in the car? It's easy to put too much into a car when appraising it, if you lie to yourself about these costs! If you're going to have to pack it, warranty it, paint it, service it, or add any other costs to it, you need to factor those things into your ACV. Look at the big picture before you justify bumping a buy bid. If you step up and bury yourself, even if the car is a fast seller that gets a bunch of SRP's and VDP's , the best data in the world won't help it sell if your sales people know you’re buried in it and they won't make more than a hundred bucks when they sell it! Some managers may avoid that scenario by not allowing their sales people to be privy to that type of information. Regardless, they will figure it out eventually, and you will know they have when that car with awesome market data is still collecting dust on your lot after sixty days. 

5. Is the car a dirty rat?

There are some cars that no amount of reconditioning can bring back to life. If it’s rough, just bid it as such, regardless of what your precious market data says. Nasty smoke smells, stained carpets, wheel damage, rust, deep scratches all over...etc. are all factors that make for nightmarish used cars that hang out on the lot, contrary to the so-called statistical facts! If it wasn’t taken care of on the outside, what will your mechanics discover when they open up the hood? When you run the car through your shop and you can't keep the shop bill under four digits, do you think you also afford the four digit reconditioning bill? How long will it take to get this car to a sellable status? If it's going to take three weeks to get the car front line ready, are you deducting three weeks of depreciation from your bid? Factor in how pigged-out this rat of a car is into your appraisal. Don’t be scared to walk away from a purchase or trade in if it makes you dry heave while sitting in it!

6. Do your sales people like to sell that type of car?

There are times when a car with horrible stats is a gem for your lot, if you have the right employee! Case and point: when I came to run a Hyundai lot from a Ford based lot, I continued to sell lower mileage, prior rental Ford Taurus Limiteds to friends and family members. Even though these cars had horrific market day supply stats, I had clients that loved them and wanted to buy them from me. An opposite circumstance: Let's say you’re at an import store and you bring in the nicest domestic car with a low market day supply. The problem might be that your sales people would rather sell your certified, pre-owned or new cars for OEM spins. This domestic car could become an aged unit regardless of the market statistics, so bid the car accordingly. Use common sense and look at specific sales people’s track records with specific makes and models. If a credible salesperson has a demanding client base and wants you to keep a car with crummy data, you may want to keep it if you believe they will sell it!

7. Are you trusting your gut?

Your experience, as a car sales person and a sales manager, has given you instincts that no market driven data can bestow upon you. If you don’t feel right about a car, or you just feel that you’re pushing the value, just get rid of the darn thing. Keeping one extra car won't make or break your entire month or year. However, making poor buying decisions based solely on market data and no common sense could cost you sales and profit, while also causing you big headaches! If you’re nervous, hit it low, get aback up bid on it, and trust yourself in making the right decision. Ask your peers and co-workers for second opinions if you’re unsure. Have one of your mechanics look the car over if you’re curious about its mechanical condition. In the end, when you buy that car, it will be your profit and success, or pain in the rear and loss. Trust your gut and use common sense in conjunction with market data to ensure your used car inventory is one that turns at great speed and with maximum profit!