Automotive Sales Benchmarks

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!