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You would be very lucky if you (currently) do have a manager that provides your staff with adequate training. But it’s rare.

What am I talking about?

There are many reasons why your managers are not providing the proper training:

1. How did they get promoted in the first place?
   Usually, it’s because they are the top salesperson.
2. Are they qualified to be a trainer and a coach?
   Usually no, as they often say they do not have the time to work with their team.

Now more than ever, your team needs motivation, morale, support and encouragement on a daily basis. If you have observed any sales meetings, they are usually not very inspirational and can be the opposite. It is imperative to ask for real, good feedback from your staff to provide the right training they need.

It’s Adrian Law here from Automotive Stars.

In this blog, I’m going to share with you, how your sales people form their bad habits that ultimately cost you deals, but most importantly how to create great sales habits.

Currently, I’m reading a book called the “Power of Focus.”

In this book, the author shares after their extensive research, that at least 47% of what we do each and everyday is habitual. Now, if you really think about that, it’s pure habits. That means what you and I do each and every day; at least half is on auto pilot.

If your individual sales people aren’t selling you at least 20 cars per month, that means that themselves and/or their sales manager simply have some poor habits. In the Automotive Stars brand new online academy, we teach in depth how to go to from poor habits to empowering habits. For now though, here’s a couple of excellent habits the top performers in the industry have.

Number 1: is what I called ‘Showtime.’

Showtime is where all guns are blazing. It’s lights, camera, action. Basically it’s when you are on. For a salesperson, they often think it’s when they say hello to a customer, that showtime begins; It’s not. It’s when they first see a customer or when the customer sees them. It’s making sure you are presented well, your attitude is good and you are on.

For myself, running things like ‘Road to a Sale’ is something that I do each and every month and have presented it thousands of times now. I don’t always feel like it just like a salesperson may not feel like dealing with a customer. However, when it’s time for me to perform, showtime! I’m ON and will give 100% to the presentation and to the attendees. If your salesperson is a bit depressed or little bit down before they meet a customer, when it’s showtime, they switch the switch and are on. After the customer leaves, they can get back to being depressed or down if they choose to.

For sales managers, when is ‘showtime?’

Showtime for them is any time their staff are around plus when customers are in the showroom. If the sales manager’s energy is low or their attitude is bad, what happens to the sales people? Of course, they get dragged down as well. The same goes if the sales manager’s energy is good and their attitude is good, it picks everybody up.

The second great habit is where sales people in this industry ‘know their why.’

What do I mean by know their why? It’s the reason they go to work. They know what that is. It might be for their family. It might be that they love going on holidays overseas so they are saving up for that. This could be what drives them.

It’s different for different people but you’ve got to know what your WHY is.

What gets you up in the morning? What keeps you going? What motivates you? What inspires you? What keeps you wanting to go back asking for more money? What makes you pick up the phone and make those follow-up calls? What is your WHY?

If you’d like some help discovering what the WHY of your sales team is or you’d like to join some of the elite dealerships in Australia and create great new sales habits through the brand new, online training. Simply click on this link and I’ll see you on the inside.

Hello and welcome to the 2nd part in selling to customer 2.0.

In part 1, we looked at who is Customer 2.0, what attributes they have, what makes them tick and why you need to adapt to get this type of customer onside.

We looked at how Customer 2.0 processes information and how as a dealership you can use negative online comments to your advantage.

In part 2 we will be focusing on meeting Customer 2.0 face to face and how your salespeople can keep control of the process whilst engaging this new breed of customer.

If you haven’t seen part one yet, I urge you to look at that first. You can do so by clicking here

If you have seen it, what’s next?

The Road to a Sale is still as important as it has ever been and needs to evolve. You could say it plays an even bigger role in selling to Customer 2.0 as building rapport, gaining a good understanding of who your customer is, what their circumstances are, and what they really need and want in a vehicle needs to be done with great expertise.

With Customer 2.0 only visiting 2.4 dealerships on average, it’s important to tailor your presentation so you need to ask lots of good, quality questions to be able to do so.

Having visited a dozen or more ‘non client’ dealerships with my partner recently, the quality of qualifying we received was very disappointing and it effected where she ultimately bought from.

You may think that your sales guys are really good at this pivotal step in the process.

What if they are not?

I guarantee sales are being lost if this step isn’t done well. On a more positive note, just recently I overheard a 2.0 customer taking great pleasure in telling a sales person that they had done all their research online.

Luckily, Mark (the sales person) has been well trained and was able to respond positively to this whilst taking control of the conversation.

It’s vital as a sales person selling cars that you are leading the process. I.e. You are in control, not the customer.

If the customer is in control you’ll either not make the sale or if you do, generally you won’t make any gross and probably won’t get their finance etc.

Information V’s Knowledge

Customer 2.0 may know a lot of INFORMATION. But there is a big difference between information and KNOWLEDGE.

A simple way to describe the difference is – Information can be the features of what the car has. (This is what most sales people blurt out.) Knowledge is explaining how the features benefit the customer and showing the customer how they work. 

Provide knowledge as it helps in getting Customer 2.0 to follow you and your game plan.

Another great thing to do is to emotionally involve the customer: With a big-ticket item like a car, most people buy with emotion and justify logically, (logic usually being the $$$.)

Up until this point Customer 2.0 has been looking at pictures and reading user reviews. All this is using the conscious and analytical parts of their brain. The information that Customer 2.0 has are the cold hard facts.

If you can give an engaging presentation and test drive Customer 2.0, do you think that could give you an advantage over the other 1.4 dealerships he or she has or is going to visit?

You bet it does!

If you are not sure how to do any of these things, don’t worry we can easily help you. Learn More Here 

OK, so you’ve done a fantastic presentation and test drive. Customer 2.0 has spent his or her 3.5hrs in 2.4 dealerships and now they want to sit down and talk turkey with you.

Customer 2.0 can often feel like they have the advantage. Why? Because they have a world of information, a whole computer tucked away in their back pocket. If they are looking at buying a car, how can they not get the best price when they can show you evidence of cheaper cars from down the road or anywhere else in the whole country for that matter?

The price is important but if you make it personal, have fun, build value, and be transparent with Customer 2.0. If they like you and trust you, they will buy from you.

Let’s See Entertaining Selling in Action Click Here to View

At Automotive Stars we have the solutions to empower your staffs performance. It will cost you NOTHING to to find how we can take your staff to the next level. Contact us TODAY to find out how.

Dealer Principals from around Australia keep asking me the same question. That question is this – “How do we add value and keep gross with today’s ultra informed customer?”

In this edition I am going to address this important point for you.

The Problem:

The biggest challenge dealerships have faced in recent years is the advancement of the internet. These days we all carry a very powerful computer around in our pockets. This has led to a new breed of customer, who I like to call Customer 2.0.

The question is does Customer 2.0 need a dealer at all? Is Customer 2.0 happy to research, email and buy by pressing the ‘add to cart’ button? With an ever increasing online culture are dealers getting squeezed by more informed, more savvy customers who have researched the ‘best’ price and know the specifications and model lines before they set foot in a car or a dealership?

The good news is YES the customer still needs you!

We are going to look at why this is so and also how to engage Customer 2.0. We will also put forward strategies to empower dealerships like yours and deliver strategies to give sales people back the control.

So who is Customer 2.0?

Lets look at a few characteristics.

• Customer 2.0 Loves posting his or her meals on social media
• We have to know they smashed it at the gym or it does’t count.
• They spend more time online than they do watching TV.
• They prefer emails and text messages to phone calls.
• Customer 2.0 doesn’t trust traditional marketing or advertising and seeks out user reviews.
• They expect you have a significant online presence.
• With small attention spans websites better be quick, there is no patience for lag.
• Expects higher level of customer experience

The good news is the majority of Customer 2.0’s will still purchase by visiting a dealership. Why is that? Could it be for all the web based information they still want a good human experience when purchasing a big ticket item? Or does it mean that they still want to see, hear and feel the product. Or it might be as simple as they want to trade their car in.

Customer 2.0: It could any one of these points, it doesn’t matter which. Just know that either way it still gives your sales people an opportunity to engage them and influence their decision whist getting them emotional about the car.

Website: Customer 2.0’s first contact with your dealership will be via your online presence.Your website must be spot on and that means it looks good and is running efficiently. As I mentioned before, Customer 2.0 will not wait long for a page to load. Maybe you experienced this yourself and thought forget it and moved on to the next website. I know I have!

Social media: Customer 2.0 uses many different social media sites and this plays a big part in his or her decision making process. Having a strong presence on social media sites is an important tool. Especially for this new breed of customer

Embrace your negative comments: This may sound strange but embrace your negative comments, both on and offline. Realise that every company has them but how you respond to these comments can say more about your company than the negative comment itself. Customer 2.0 will trawl the internet for user reviews about your products and business. The simple truth is this, if a company has comments that are all from 100% satisfied customers, nobody would believe it. Customer 2.0 would be skeptical and could form a negative opinion of your company being deceitful.

Right to reply: The solution to bad reviews, is your right to reply. If you can reply in a calm helpful manner by asking the customer to contact you personally so you can get to the bottom of their problem and is a very powerful signal that you take people and their problems seriously.

We hope you enjoyed this blog. Please leave a comment below and click the like button.

Happy Selling!

Hi. I’m Adrian Law, from AutomotiveStars.com.au and this is Frankie.

Apart from being very cute, the breeder and sales process we dealt with were effortless, educational, and real. We left feeling very happy having spent thousands of dollars on this little beauty just yesterday.

Today, I’m sharing how to get a detailed shopping report on your sales staff at absolutely no charge.

A well-executed shop on your dealership is one of the best ways of truly knowing how your sales staff are doing. You may even pay for a company to do shops for you, which can be good. But, here’s a different and I believe much better way to look at it.

As a successful training organisation, all of our staff drive cars. We also buy cars and through some very disappointing, dealership experiences and in sharing our feedback with the sales manager or DP, leads for training have come our way.

Yes, that’s one reason we are offering you a free shopping report. But we also know what we are looking for when with how well the complete sales process has been conducted. Not just your sales staff but also your business manager, aftermarket and your sales manager.

As you may know, some of the paid shoppers are simply ticking boxes and depending on your size, location, our resources etc. We may not be able to help you with your training needs, even if we wanted to.

Therefore, a reason for our free shopping report which is as big as the first reason is this:

We are determined to lift the quality of both sales process and service a customer receives within dealerships to improve your CSI.

Hopefully, your shopping report will be a positive one. But if not, I’m hoping that you will be able to get the necessary internal or external training to correct any issues.

You could be throwing money away so simply send a ‘Yes’ to support@automotivestars.com.au and we’ll organise your personal & confidential shop asap.

Just with that, I personally want you to know that the information gained from the shop is 100% confidential and will not be shared with any other party.

So once again simply send a ‘Yes’ to support@automotivestars.com.au and we’ll organise your personal & confidential shop asap.

I’m Adrian Law from AutomotiveStars.com.au bye for now.

To be a top sales person, yes you need to get the customer to agree to buy your car.

But in this article I’m going to share with you how getting client commitment starts very early on in your Road to a Sale process.

Hi, I’m Adrian Law and a mistake that far too many sales people in this industry make, is attempting to get strong client commitment as early as step one of the process.

How often do you hear – ‘If I can get you a good deal, will you buy today?’

I know this line still gets used a lot in the industry but I personally don’t like it. Especially when the sales person has been with the customer for less than 5 minutes.

To do this right, I’m talking about getting smaller commitments throughout the Road to a Sale so when you come to the bigger question of ‘Would you like to buy the car?’ The customer has already been primed for the bigger ‘Yes’ at the end.

First things first however. As an automotive sales coach, I highly recommend dropping the word commitment when you speak to your customers or partners. It may be a guy thing and may even help the ladies to know this next bit of information.

If you are guy reading this article right now. Do you honestly like commitment?

When I ask participants in my seminars to raise their hands if the like commitment, 99% of the men’s arms stay very close to their sides!

If a man has a female partner and the partner says ‘would you like to make me happy?’ Often the man will say ‘Yes! Of course.’ If however, the same partner asks for a ‘commitment’ some will run for the hills.

It’s pretty strange when you think about it. It can be the same for customers though, so why run the risk of it be off putting.

If you are attempting to get a deposit for example. Instead of the word ‘commitment’ use the word ‘secure’

For an example – ‘Mr. Jones you just need to leave a $500 deposit via Visa or MasterCard. That secures the car for you if we can do that price.’

Compare it to – ‘Mr. Jones you just need to leave a $500 deposit via Visa or MasterCard. That is your commitment to buy the car if we can do that price.’

The first one is so much better, so use that one. This next part is equally important if not more so.

Successful closes are the accumulation of other, smaller closes throughout the Road to a Sale process.

So many managers tell me that their sales people need help with closing deals but have they closed on rapport, on qualifying, on the walk, drive appraisal and intro to their manager etc. etc.

Often, if I look at the breakdown of stats of these same sales people it’s not the closing where the issue lies. On many occasions it’s not enough bums on seats or low number of people being written up.

Each of these things requires a small client commitment to occur.

Another great questions to ask is – Has the customer agreed to follow the next part of the process that you’ve outlined?

My original automotive sales coach called this establishing expectations, while others may call it sign posting.

Basically it’s where you tell the customer what’s going to happen before it happens. It’s simply but extremely powerful.

Let’s say that I’ve done a good meet and greet and have built some rapport with Mrs. Smith.

I could then say something like – “Mrs. Smith, let’s just take a seat for a moment and I’ll simply ask you a few questions to find out exactly what it is that you want and need in a car; and then I can show you some vehicles. Would that be OK?”

If Mrs. Smith agrees, who’s in control of the process?

That’s right I am. And, it’s a tiny client commitment to follow our process of qualifying without the customer knowing they are doing so!

As I said before, it’s simply but extremely powerful. You can use this at various stages of the sales process to set up the next step and to get agreement from the customer. Imagine doing it before a test drive to set up the write up when you get back.

Here’s an example of how you could do that – “Mrs. Smith, if it’s OK with you I’ll just explain our test drive process. I’ll drive out of the dealership and whilst you are relaxing, I’ll point out some of the great features and benefits of the car. We can then go to the local park where it’s nice and quiet. I’ll stop and open the vehicle up, give you a good presentation and answer any questions that you may have; and then you can have a drive. If you prefer, you can go down the back streets to get a good feel of the vehicle, before heading back to the dealership. After that if you are happy with everything we can go through the figures and see how we can make the car very affordable for you. How does that sound?”

If Mrs. Jones says something along the lines of – “That sounds great!’

How’s that for a client commitment?

It’s ‘Gold!’

With the time we’ve got available here, the last piece of advice I’d like to give you on this topic is to ask lots of good questions and then you can recap the customers’ answers.

Do this and it also classifies as a small client commitment. Having visited several dealership recently that are not my clients. It’s very disappointing when most of the sales people don’t ask hardly any questions. You have to know who your customers are and what they need and use a car for.

Unless you have that as a minimum how can you expect them to secure your car?

As your sales coach, if you’ll let me be that? I’m here to share with you that you can’t.

Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed this blog. There’s some gold nuggets in here so feel free to read this article again and contact us for more information.

I’m Adrian Law from Automotive Stars.

Happy selling!

Most managers tell their sales people to have a reason to follow up their customers.

In this blog I’m going to share with you why that’s not enough, and how each sales person can get a couple of extra deals per month through using effective follow up techniques.

Yes you have to have a reason to call but as a top sales coach for over the last 15 years, I’ve learnt that having a game plan and an outcome before you pick up the phone are even more important.

Think about it for a moment.

If you know what you want to achieve before you start the conversation, would that increase the chances of you getting that result?

I promise you it would. If I asked if you could give me a lift and you agreed. What would be the first question that you’d ask me?

Where do you want to go Adrian?

Without knowing that we are either going nowhere or where you want to go. The same is true on a sales follow up call.

Know where you are going and have a plan of how you might be able to get there. If you don’t, the customer will probably control things

Effective Follow Techniques include – Making The Call Personal

Rather that just asking “any more thoughts on the car John?”

Why not personalise it with something like this – “Hi John, It’s Adrian Law here. I was just thinking about you and what we discussed on the weekend. I’ve just had a look at the car again and it’s everything that you said you wanted. Why don’t you come in and have another drive. That way you’ll know 100% if that’s the car that you want to own or not.”

Then you can set an appointment. Setting an appointment should be the most common outcome you aim for.

If you are in sales I understand that you might be reading this thinking that you sell plenty of cars over the phone, and I’m all for you getting a deposit over the phone if you can.

Having said that, unless you have unusual circumstances, a huge percentage of the cars you sell are when the customer is in front of you.

My advice is to walk before you can run when it comes to the phone. If you are new or not that confident on the phone keep it simple. If I’ve got my telephone sales coach hat on and have been asked to speak to a sales person who’s struggling on the phone.

I recommend that they stop trying to do what their manager has asked and I’ll chat to the manager straight after our conversation. Often they have been told to get the customers details, get an appointment, sell the dealership, seed finance, warranties etc.

That’s way too hard to do if you are not confident on the phone. To start with, just focus on getting the customers details and setting a quality appointment.

Once you get good at that you can add the other things but not before.

This Next One often isn’t thought about as an technique, but it can be – Successful Sales People Are Busy.

That may come as no surprise to you but one thing that separates them from the rest, is that they value their time. If you are in sales, you may be thinking, hang on a second Adrian, I value my time.

Maybe you do but how most average performers speak to customers you’d never know that they did.

‘Come in, ask for me.’ ‘When can you come in?’ ‘I’ll be here.’

In fact at the time of recording this, just yesterday my partner Angie and I were in a dealership in Sydney, looking for a car for her. Angie likes the Mazda and at one stage

she asked “When I want to come and test drive, do I need to call you and book a time?”

I couldn’t believe it when the sales person said – “No that’s OK. Just come down when you are ready.”

After we left I asked Ange if she would have made a time then and there if he’d simply replied with a ‘Yes, it would be much better to make a time?’ Angie said that she would have made a time.

When you value your time customers will too. Not always, but more often that not.

The difference between saying ‘No that’s OK. Just come down when you are ready.’ Compared to something like this the following is huge –

Yes, it’s much better that we make a time as it’s often really busy down here and I’d hate it if you came in and I couldn’t look after you properly. Let’s arrange a suitable time and then I’ll take you through the car properly. I’m very confident that you’ll be impressed.

Are you able to come in tomorrow morning or is after hours better for you?

This happened to us in the dealership but it could just have easily have been on the phone.

Out of the two responses which do you believe is the Most Effective Follow Up Technique?

You are smart enough to be reading this blog so I’m confident that you chose the second example

Rather than offering the customer 10 different times trying to find one that suits or catering to there every request. If you aren’t busy, act like you are. Give reasons why they need to make a specific time and let them know when you are available.

Check your diary, set unusual appointment times. 12.45 instead of 12pm can even subtly influence people that you’ve got a lot on.

Don’t get me wrong, customers couldn’t care less that you are busy, but it this affects their ability to get what they want; often they will let you lead them
We’ve got lots of different strategies and ways to get your sales team much better results, so please get in touch to see how we can help.

In closing; a long time before I was a sales coach, I was firstly a telemarketer and then moved up to become a telemarketing manager. In both roles without fail, the sales guys and girls that learn’t and practiced the effective follow up techniques made the most sales and the most amount of money..

I hope you enjoyed this Blog

Studies have shown that there’s two things that separate the sales guns from everybody else.

Today I’m going to be covering one of those two things. So what differentiates a sales gun from everyone else? It might be the drive, it might be the bums on seats; but when you look deeper and the studies have proven this.

It’s the ability get gain trust quickly and to qualify well. Imagine if all your sales team did that. You’d sell a lot more cars.

In my two-day Road to a Sale course, we spend an entire day on these two steps. To give you a snapshot, here’s a part of what I teach so you can do a fantastic 6-position sell.

It’s a 4-step process to be a 6 Position Sell Champ where the first step is to – Ask

This is simply asking what’s most important to the customer. It might be asking quite a few different questions to uncover their – Needs, Wants & Desires

The second point is – Tell or Be Told

Let’s say for example that you are with a customer called Mrs Jones. You might ask what’s most important to you in a vehicle? And she says ‘safety’ because of her children.

You could then say ‘This car has ABS brakes, do you know much about ABS brakes?’

If Mrs Jones does know some things, I would jump to the ‘be told’ part of the second point and let her tell you what she knows. That way she becomes the sales person and is now selling to you!

And if she doesn’t know anything, you tell her! The challenge is that in this industry once we get more knowledge and learn about our products etc. We tend to ‘tell’ too much, rather than ask first.

Even in management, when we want something done we often ‘tell’ people what to do, when that’s not how we learn.

You can do a much more effective 6 position sell if your ‘ask’ first, then either ‘tell’ or ‘be told’ depending on whether the person knows about what we’ve asked them.

Step 3 is – Show

This jumps into the presentation and is ‘showing’ the customer how something works.

ABS Brakes might need to be done on the test drive but ‘showing’ could be used for the blue-tooth or for the seats and how they move backwards and forwards, up and down, or the mirrors. It could be used for any feature/benefit.

So many people revert to ‘telling’ but telling can be quite boring for the customer. Especially if we’re telling them what interests you rather than what interests them.

Hopefully what your saying may be of some interest but if your talking technically for example and your raving on about kilowatts and talk. Somebody that’s not into that kind of thing can easily switch off and they won’t buy anything.

However, if you can tailor your presentation from what you’ve discovered in your qualifying, it’s going to be a much more effective 6 position sell.

The final part is – Do

This is getting the customer involved. If you don’t get the customer involved, again it can be boring.

Get them to pop the bonnet, get them in the back seat, get them uncovering the spare in the boot. The more hands on the customer is, the better.

If the car you’re presenting has keyless entry, hand the customer the key. Let them walk towards the car so it opens by itself.

Let them do as much as possible. It’s the same as in a training course. If I spoke at you for 1 or 2 days, it can also be boring.

However, the more we interact, the more we role play, the more we do certain activities, to drill home the basics so you do the fundamentals well.

I.e. Building trust quickly and qualifying well. It’s been a great course and you walk out of there knowing your stuff.

Final point!

We often get stuck in the ‘Telling’ and – ‘Telling is NOT Selling!’

This 4 step process is an effective process to –

A) To Qualify
B) To Present

For more information contact us at – Support@automotivestars.com.au

We’ll be happy to help.

If you enjoyed this video, please share and like us on Facebook

See you soon!

Today I want to quickly share with you something that frustrates the hell out of me and is probably costing you deals. It’s been said that you can’t improve what you don’t measure. A statement that I believe is very true. Whether that’s in Tennis, Football, Formula one racing or Sales.

You’ve got to know what the score is and the breakdown of the score to know how to improve things.

However, so many times over the years if your numbers aren’t where they need to be, either a sales manager or a salesperson is purely guessing on what needs to be improved.

Guessing! Would you run your business like that?

What do I mean by guessing? Managers think a specific person needs help with closing or the meet and greet; without having the facts.

For a specific example, just a few days ago an old friend of mine called Dave calls my mobile phone.

Dave has gotten back into the industry recently and after selling 14 and 15 cars a few months ago, in the last couple of months he’s only sold 7 each month.

After receiving a written warning, Dave calls me asking for help, as he’s worried about losing his job.

One of the first questions I asked Dave and I would any sales person that wanted my help; is for him to tell me his stats. I.e. The breakdown of what’s actually happening with his Walk-Ins and phone enquiries. With his Walk-ins –

I want to know how many of the following Dave has had – Walk-Ins, Test Drives, Appraisals, Write-Ups and Cars Sold

Dave, like a lot of other people in the industry, didn’t know his stats but proceeded to tell me that he just needs to see more people and the top salesperson sells 20 cars a month but is getting all the gimmies from his manager.

Do you know know how many times I hear stories like this and other things that your salespeople would never tell you or their manager?

Aside from working on getting their head right, how can you improve individual sales if you don’t know the facts?

If you don’t have them, it makes it much, much more difficult.

I have a great example of how knowing the score can help your sales team. Last month I sat with a salesperson called Mark. Mark has made the transition from Used Cars to New in the same dealership.

In used cars, Mark excelled and was asked to move over to new to be the 2ic.

Over the next few months, Mark really struggled with his sales and was pretty head-nicked.

As Mark works for a client of mine, they had all the stats that I wanted to see and even though he had similar excuses to Dave in that he thought the top salesperson was getting all the house deals etc.

After looking at the previous 3 months’ data I was able to show Mark that in fact, his closing rate was better than the top sales persons. Mark had an excellent ratio from test drives to selling the car. He simply needed to get more bums on seats and before I shared this information, he didn’t know that.

Maybe some of your guys need to focus on getting more people written up. It’s different for different people. However, you’ve got to know your stats and secondly, you have to use them.

It’s so frustrating to see that you go through all the trouble of compiling as accurately as possible information and then don’t use it.

It’s insane!

I often say – Show me salesperson stats for the month and I’ll show you a snapshot. Everyone can have a good or a bad month.

However, show me 3 months of their stats and I’ll show you a pattern.

At Automotive Stars we’ve got automotive sales benchmarks and spreadsheets, where your guys simply add their data into it and the spreadsheet will work out all the percentages for you, so you know your numbers.

It would be great if you could just tell them to keep accurate records and they just did it.

What I’ve discovered is that most salespeople and managers really need to understand the true benefits behind it. Be coached on their specific data and know that it’s used as a performance improvement tool not for punishment.

If you measure and use your stats properly, there are a couple of extra deals in it for each salesperson and it’s so worth doing well.

I’m Adrian Law from Automotive Stars.com.au Please like us and share on Facebook, Linked in etc and we’ll see you soon!

Hi, it’s Adrian Law here from Automotive Stars and in today’s blog I’m going to share with you 3 effective strategies on – How to Increase Your Gross.

Stay tuned..

When I speak to sales people and sales managers around the country, a lot of them are saying that it’s much harder to make gross and are struggling with that recently.

They are mainly blaming the internet and customers shopping harder than ever before.

I actually disagree. I think it comes down to the strategies that your sales managers and sales people are using; or should I say NOT using..

If you work with us you can get access to 24 key strategies on how to increase your gross. As I said before, today I’m going to share with you 3

First Strategy

With the first one, I’m going to give you an example of a guy that I’ve trained successfully over the years. Martin is his name and previously Martin has sold Ford, Toyota and also Hyundai, and he grossed exceptionally well across all three different brands.

What he did was quite in genius, and this is what we teach; but these are Martin’s words not mine. He said  “Give a $40,000 presentation on a $20,000 car.”

He’s meaning that you talk with passion. That you really give energy to your presentation. You also know your product. Martin knows his product inside out and could sell Hyundai over Ford, Ford over Toyota, Toyota over Hyundai and every combination.

How come? Because it doesn’t really matter what product you are selling. Well it does, but if you know the strengths and weaknesses of each of the products you have and also your competition has, it makes is so much more easy to deliver a great presentation to the customer.

Another thing that Martin does very well that we teach. Is that he spends quality time with his customers. He would spend all day if necessary to get a deal. After that, customers often don’t need or want to go anywhere else.

If they’ve had a great presentation, a fantastic Road to a Sale and you’ve found out not only what they need and want but also about them and really show interest. Why would they want to go anywhere else? They wouldn’t.

Second Strategy

If your sales people and business manager aren’t doing this already, I highly recommend that they do; and that is –  ‘Talk in Weekly Payments.’

Before you get on the defensive, I’m not meaning that all of a sudden your sales people turn into finance experts. I couldn’t disagree with that more. However, rather than them talking about a car that costs $30,000, $40,000 or more. Why not break it down into weekly payments?

Let’s say for example that a customer sees a car that’s $20,000.

A smart sales person would say. “Mrs Jones, that’s approximately $120 per week, less with a trade in and/or a deposit. What weekly budget did you have in mind?

Then, if he or she gets an answer from the customer, then they can promote their business manager and it’s win/win for everybody.

How come?

Well, who’s going to negotiate when it’s $120 a week? Are they going to say ‘I want it for $115?’ Highly likely not. Especially when you compare it to them wanting $1000,s off the deal on a $20,000 car.

Secondly, customers can afford a lot more than they think. They can buy a full pack with after market, purchase an extended warranty and it has so many other benefits for them.

They can get a better car, better extra’s and the sales person and dealership gets to make more gross and more sales. It truly is win/win.

It’s really important how the sales person sets up the business manager in a positive way. I’ve got several clients that are exceptional at this. If you’d like to know more, feel free to get in touch.

Third Strategy

Finally, the third strategy out of 24 that you can get access to if you work with us. It’s not a newbie. It’s been around a long, long time and when I say it you might think this is obvious to you and your dealership. It’s simply – ‘Do Everything That You Can to Sell to The Customer on The Day.’

You might be thinking – Adrian, I know this, my dealership knows this, I drill it into them 100 times a week.

I understand..

This is primarily for the sales people, and there’s lots of them in the industry these days;
that are too nice.

The average sale in Australia, happens after the order has been asked for between 3 and 4 times.

Nice people don’t ask 3 or 4 times for the order. They just don’t.

You know as well as I do, as soon as the customer leaves your dealership, even if they come back. Your gross is going down.

In reference to these ‘nice’ sales people, I used to be one of them; so I can empathise. The challenge was that I thought I needed to become someone who I didn’t want to be. Someone that was pushy, I thought I needed to become the typical used car sales person and do pretty much anything to I could to get a customer into a car.

This couldn’t be further from the truth but a lot of sales people, especially the nice ones; don’t understand that.

Last month, I was asked to run a specific session for sales people that were struggling to sell on the day. One of the guys in the class, his name is Ian. On the 16th of the month he was only on one deal for the month and he’s a competent sales person. It might not sound like it but he’s been selling for 20+ years in different industries.

Just by taking on board a couple of the strategies that we shared; when I saw Ian the very next week he was only one off target. I think that his target is 14, so he’s sold a lot of cars in a very short space of time just by implementing a few new ideas..

It’s pretty impressive and if you’ve got some ‘nice’ sales people, it’s worth investing in them to build up their courage to ask for the order 3 or 4 times. It’s really earning the right to write.

I had to get the lesson, big time many, many years ago when I was too nice. It doesn’t take too much to build up your confidence just to ask. People won’t be offended. Just ask for the order 3 or 4 times and you’ll often get the deal.

That’s 3 strategies on how to increase your gross. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed it. Please like us on Facebook and get in touch if you have any questions, comments or you’d like to know more about what we do here at Automotive Stars.

I’m Adrian Law from AutomotiveStars.com.au we’ll see you soon!