Can you believe this is happening?

You know what amazes me? Since COVID, I’ve noticed that your salespeople and managers are getting lazy.

What comes to mind is that they’re not test-driving with the customers.

What am I talking about? They’re letting customers go by themselves most of the time. Which is insane!

Please check to see if this is happening in your dealership or not. If the customers are going by themselves, there’s bound to be something about the car that they can’t figure out.

Whether it’s the technology or some features, if they don’t understand something, we tend not to like it.

I rented a car in Tasmania.

It was a beautiful Mercedes; they just told me “Bay 19” and gave me the keys and a little pack.

I got in the car but I don’t know Mercedes. I could not figure out for quite a while where the handbrake was, and it turns out it was on the driver’s side door, but I didn’t like the car.

If I think about it, I’m also not that fond of Mercedes because of that one example.

Whereas if a salesperson or somebody was with me to show me the car a little bit, I’d probably love them right now and may even own one.

That’s how amazing it is when a salesperson goes with a customer.

Of course, there’s always an exception to the rule.

If they’re juggling four or five customers on the weekend, for example, it may not be possible. But as a general rule of thumb, whenever possible, they’ve got to go on the test drive and, you know, think about the rapport.

They’re missing out on all sorts of stuff. The second test drive, I’m okay with, but the first one, they’ve got to go with the customer.

Make sure your salespeople are doing this and make sure your managers are behind it.

‘Cause they have gotten lazy. There’s no question. Alright, rant over. Bye.

If you need help with the fundamentals, simply reach out to us at support@automotivestars.com.au

I haven’t spoken publicly about this before, but I can’t keep it quiet any longer.

You’ve probably been doing well business-wise since Covid hit. For quite a while, there were no discounts, and used car prices skyrocketed.

Those were the happy days, but the market is changing, and for some, it already has.

The big issue? You’ve been relying on order-takers, not salespeople.

Your experienced staff haven’t been selling; they’ve been taking orders.

It’s the same story with your newer team members.

The newbies mistake taking orders for good salesmanship, but that’s far from the truth. They need to learn how to sell, because they actually don’t know how to.

A lot of people are saying the market’s going to look like, pre-COVID (2019.) At this stage, I agree with that.

I ask you to speak to your inexperienced people. Ask them how many ways they know to create urgency.

I’ll be extremely surprised if they know more than one.

‘There’s one left.’ This doesn’t even work anymore and your customers and clients are way too savvy for that.

Your sales team needs at least half a dozen strategies on how to create urgency.

And, this is just one small part of selling.

Another example I can give you…

In the last two weeks, we’ve onboarded two new clients facing these exact challenges.

I’m here to urge you not to ignore this problem, pretending everything will be fine. It won’t be, not unless your team gets the proper training.

Just last week, during a remote training session, two salespeople shared that their dealerships have been quiet.

They’ve been instructed to call service leads, and customers coming out of leases. Both salespeople told me “But my manager hasn’t told me what to say.”

When they asked, both their managers replied with – “Just call.”

This reveals a gap; sometimes, even managers don’t know what to do or say.

Fortunately, the salespeople had me provide them with effective word tracks for their calls. But think about it—if your team lacks confidence in their actions or words, they’re likely to avoid making those calls, or it’s not going to be successful.

So, this is my advice.

Get your team trained whether that’s with my company or elsewhere.

There’s a tremendous opportunity at the moment, and that includes your finance department. However, it requires collaboration between your business managers and sales staff.

This is critical, and more dealerships don’t do this well compared to those that do.

Without a well-trained sales and finance team, a lot of business is being left on the table for your competitors to take.

My message today is simple –  Don’t procrastinate on getting your team trained.

Take action, and you’ll be very glad you did.

If you need help with the fundamentals, simply reach out to us at support@automotivestars.com.au

This lesson from Forster might just turn you into a champion, but why is it that the best lessons usually come after a defeat or a setback?

Last week, I competed at a prestigious snooker tournament in Forster. I even made it onto NBN (Channel 9 news) on the Friday.

Players from across Australia duked it out for the prize money, and the real gem? The winner gets to play at the Crucible in Sheffield, a dream akin to a tennis player at Wimbledon or a golfer at Augusta.

At Forster, the initial format spanned two days with 4-5 players in each group, totaling 12 groups. Everyone played against each other in a round-robin, with two from each group advancing to the knockout stages. I made it through. So far, so good.

Then came the draw. My opponent? Glen Wilkinson, an ex-pro and one of Australia’s finest. At 10 am, we kicked off a best-of-5 frames match. Glen, still sharp, looked ready to rumble.

After Glen snagged the fourth frame, we were tied at 2-2. The pressure was palpable. But somehow, I stepped up and clinched a tense 3-2 victory.

After this, it went all wrong…

Right after stowing my cue, Frank Dewens, the long-standing president of Australian Snooker, dropped the bombshell: “Adrian, your next match is soon; you’re on the third table.”

Not what I wanted to hear. After nearly 2.5 hours at the table, relief mingled with disorientation. I needed a break, and food.

Down at the club, I ordered, but before my meal arrived, Frank sent me a text: “Adrian, you’re up.”

The food landed as I left. I grabbed a handful, stuffed it in my mouth, and headed upstairs to play.

It wasn’t pretty.

Interestingly, I didn’t feel like playing. The first two frames were a very tactical so I was bored. Despite playing better against Glen and in other matches, I found myself down 2-0, staring elimination in the face.

To get in the zone, I even jumped around in the disabled toilets attempting to get my energy and focus up.

And it worked.

In frame 3, I nailed it. In frame 4, I was nearly 40 points ahead with a red poised to clinch the frame and even the score.

The red rolled around the pocket and didn’t drop.

My opponent seized the moment, winning the frame and the match.

So, what’s the lesson I was talking about?

In my last match, I didn’t feel like playing. Do you always feel like selling? As a manager, do you always feel like being the best version of yourself, the positive leader your staff needs daily?

No, you don’t. You’re human.

But here’s the kicker: it shouldn’t matter (to a degree) how you feel because it’s about the fundamentals.

What do I mean?

The reason why I didn’t play well in that last match and missed certain shots is not just because of my mindset, but something happened to my technique.

So, if you’re not selling or leading as well as you want, it’s often down to the fundamentals of what you’re doing or not doing.

Lately, I’ve heard from various dealerships that certain salespeople are skipping vital steps in the sales process. It leads me to think: Do they know ‘why’ these things are so important?

Take building rapport, for instance. You might be a natural, but many salespeople miss the mark. They dive straight into the product or service without getting people onside.

Here’s my advice: find one thing in common with every prospect that you speak to. Some will be easier than others but we have to adapt. It’s easy to get rapport with people like ourselves but if somebody is not like you, it becomes more challenging.

For example, if you’re familiar with the Four Buyer Types: With Demanding Don, you have to be quick to the point, efficient and effective in what you do, and they’ll love you.

Whereas somebody like a Reasonable Ruth or perhaps a Steady Eddie, is not going to like that. They want you to spend the time to get to know them and have a nice conversation with you and it’s so important to them that they feel comfortable in your presence.

The message here is don’t let your feelings impede your progress.  Even if you are hungry and tired, stick to the sales process, and don’t skip the fundamentals.

If you need help with the fundamentals, simply reach out to us at support@automotivestars.com.au

Download the full transcript here.

Have you ever noticed that, whether you’re in a cafe or sometimes a restaurant, you can tell who the owner is?

Even in the dealership, often you can tell who the boss is.

How is that? How can you tell?

Well, I think there’s a few reasons.

One, how they hold themselves or how they walk. Often it’s because how much they care, the courtesy or the customer service they give you. The extra mile that they will go to and how friendly they are.

I had an experience just recently in the Apple store.

I spent the weekend in Sydney, I wanted an adapter.

Now, I have the adapter already but I left it at home, and I explained to the gentleman at the store that I needed the adapter.

He actually said to me, “We have a money-back guarantee, I think it was 14 or 21 days. If you wanna buy it and return it, you can do that.”

Now, was that thinking like an owner? Of course not!

I couldn’t believe my eyes, especially in such a store.

But it’s things like how you talk to your customers.

You know how precious are the leads?

If you were the owner, how would you look after them?

Would you look after them differently than what you do now?

The way you talk to your peers and the help that you give or don’t give them, the way that you ask for help? There’s so many different variables to this.

But my message today is “think like an owner,” not like this guy.

Because when you think like an owner, not only do you get the results but people notice.

I guarantee if you think and especially “act like an owner,” then you’ll go far.

If you need help with that, simply reach out to us at support@automotivestars.com.au

Download the full transcript here.

Pre-suasion: What is it?

As you know, I talk a lot about the power of persuasion, influence really. Everything that we do every conversation that we have with our customers, with our peers, with your staff, partners, etc. It’s all influence. It’s all persuasion.

I read a book by Dr. Robert Cialdini and it’s called Pre-Suasion. Not persuasion, but pre-suasion.

What’s that all about? I’ll give you a couple of examples.

Pre-suasion is what happens before we speak, before we do what we do before our actions and so forth. For example, one day I was in a shopping centre there were these bubble-iced tea places that are pretty popular at the moment. This particular place had thick, humongous cotton wool buds.

It looked exactly like clouds, and there were heaps of them. When you look at it, you felt relaxed like you wanted to go in there just to chill out. That’s pre-suasion. They’re setting the scene for how they want you to feel.

Think about a car ad, if it’s mountainous driving perhaps the pre-suasion is “Hey, you buy our car, you’re gonna have a more adventurous fun life.” That’s pre-suasion.

Applying Pre-suasion

The author, Robert Cialdini, sat in with some salespeople as they were going out; this particular example was with insurance. It was in people’s homes.

Interestingly enough, there was one man whose sales were double of everybody else in the team, consistently. When he shadowed him and the other salespeople, they all followed the same sales process. Even the best person did the same. But there was one difference.

He’s in somebody’s home and what he would do, he would act dumb on purpose and pretend that he’d forgotten something and left it in his car.

He’d be sitting there in the kitchen at the kitchen table with Mr and Mrs Jones, and he’d say, “Oh, I need to get something that’s important to show you from my car. Do you mind if I let myself out of your home and back into your home, Mrs. Jones?” And they would always say yes. Occasionally, sometimes they had to give him a key to get back in.

If you’re letting someone out and back into your home, even giving them a key to your home, what do you tend to have with that person?

Trust.

Test of trust

He was testing to see if he had trust. If they wouldn’t allow that to happen, then he would continue building rapport.

Think for yourself, how can you build trust with your clients more than you currently do? Is it getting their phone number? Is it getting them to do something for you? Think about it.

I want you to brainstorm this cause pre-suasion is super, super powerful. It’s selling without selling.

How do you sell without selling? If you need help with that, simply reach out to us at support@automotivestars.com.au