The average dealership spends 8 times more on advertising and marketing than they do on training.
I’m a firm believer that you can spend all the money you want on advertising , but if you do not have skilled sales people to make, deals you are wasting money_big time!
Time and time again we see all kinds of dealership advertising and marketing shemes attempted to bring customers on their lots. Yet, when they arrived the majority of the time they are greeted by untrained and unskilled sales people who does not have enough skill or finess to get the customer from the lot into the showroom office. The customers are showing up on your lot at the expense of at least $600/ customer based off your advertising budget and leaving without your management team getting the opportunity put together a deal. I know this sounds simple, but dealerships advertise to sell cars and make money, however, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Advertising and marketing dollars are spent with the intent to gain a return on your investment correct? When truly you are not spending top dollar on your biggest asset, your sales staff who must be skilled enough to get that return on your investment. You spend big bucks with advertising agencies to recruit and hire sales people_you soon take it for granted that the bucks have spent hiring a sales staff is enough to get the job done. Of course dealerships want immediate returns on their investment. You see, this is where most dealerships comtinue to get it all wrong. They stop investing training dollars in their sales and management staff.
How do you get the most out of your money to sell cars?
Start by spending more on training your sales staff.
Learning something new is and has always been important to improvement. Most dealerships have poor training and development processes in place which is why they cannot get fair return on their investments.
Your sales people sell cars_dealerships don’t!
Know this that no matter how much money you spend on mailers, radio spots, television ads or monthly campaign themes, if your sales people are not discipline and skilled it won’t help sell cars. The name of the game is to generate revenue when comes to advertising and marketing. However, the name of the game should be train to gain and retain; train your people on how to sell cars, close deals of the advertising you spent big bucks on and train the how to retain customers for repeat as well as referral business.
Let’s look at it this way.
If you spend and balance your expenses to spend more on training like advertising, the great things will start to happen.
Just imagine if you got your entire sales management team and sales team sold_motivated on the importance of training. Of course along with the commitment of spending big bucks on training to structure a great regimen to incorporate advertising and training together in your monthly expenses. Imagine teaching your people how to get in front of customers with your advertising and how to handle the customer properly. Can also imagine that if you transformed an average 8 car sales person who only sell 2 out the 10 customers they meet into a person who now can sell 6 or 7 of the 10 customers they meet on your lot? Now we are talking big bucks and a return on your investment. Just think if you can have consistent training on daily basis how much more your gross per car could improve as well as your net profit. One can only be tickled pink if you could have doubled your training dollars how much more your net profit could double. Talking about return on your investment.
Advertising can prove to be great if…
But if your sales staff does not know how to get a customer more interested in the advertised product, sell them on why they should buy from your store and keep them excited about coming in on your advertisement_ then you are truly Not going get a reuturn on your investment.
You see truly advertising doesn’t sell cars at all. Advertising is a tool used to bring the customer to your store with excitement and interest. Now your sales team has to be coached up and prepared to keep the customer excited about buying a car.
Practice, Drill, Rehearse
Professional sports teams are peak performers when it comes to their profession. This means they practice daily, drill daily and rehearse daily to be great. That means when it’s game time the are ready to perform at the top level, providing professional services. Question for dealerships are you truly putting professional in front customers you spent big bucks on to bring into your store to gain a return on your investment? Or are you just putting average sales people in front of customers with the hope of selling cars off of your advertising in which you spent big bucks on? You have got to know by now advertising will only get you so far with average sales people.
Now is the time to start investing in developing well trained and well Coached professional sales people who can give you the return on your investment by training your sales staff on how to do the following:
Get: a true sales professional know how get customers from your advertisement and gain their true interest in your product_selling them a car. (ROI)
Sell: you certainly have to have trained sales people who have been trained and disciplined on the selling process on how to sell cars. So many times sales people who are average skip steps repeatedly and it cost you twice the most with those big bucks you spend on advertising. You must training and train differently than you have been and create a smooth, consistent selling process that will give you a great opportunity to close a deal.
Keep: Average sales people may sales cars off your advertisement however, professionally trained sales people know how sell and get repeat business from their sold customers. If you invest dollars in training you will be able to keep those customers by having a sales person who will follow up if customer leaves without buying from your advertisement, they certainly work to get the back in to the store doubling your chances to close the deal. Retaining your customers starts with training.
Commitment: a dealership that trains together will certainly gain together. If dealerships will make solid commitment to training together by teaching best practices and processes… then your return on your investment will be great.
Know that training will sell far more cars than advertisement if you are willing to make a commitment to spending big bucks on training.
Be Great,
Roger
Interested in bringing Roger to your store?