MAXIMIZING SALES by Georges M. Guerrier

The sales personnel needs to remain focused on their main job requirement, which is to sell the unit. Discount issues, invoice pricing and rate quoting should be handled by the sales and/or business manager(s), their intervention should be welcome being that their sales experience is what has placed them in their leadership positions. By enabling the management team to do their job, and since they are more qualified at handling these situations, the business department then has the fullest opportunity to maximize each deal. 

***Note: No customer should not be sold on discounts and/or manufactory’s warranty alone. A complete demo/walk-around should be performed on all vehicles before a deal is negotiated and figures are presented. This should be done without exception.

Regardless of whether or not the product in question is a recognized brand leader, the individuals that purchase them are typically creatures of habit, given to the same shortcoming, desires as any other customers across the board. Accordingly, we must not forget that a great majority of car purchases are based on impulse buying and not necessity. If excitement breeds emotion, then “HALF THE DEAL IS THE FEEL OF THE WHEEL” must hold more overly true. Maximizing the interpersonal bond that may and should develop during the primary steps of the sale and throughout the relationship period between the consumer and the Sales consultant/dealer will enhance closing ratios and the overall grosses, as well creating the building a long term relationship with your customer base; systematically through consistent and appropriately conducted follow up this will also have a positive impact and addition to Fixed-Ops Absorption.

The customer must believe that his/her payment reflects tremendous value and a sound purchase. This correlates to what else they may purchase to maintain and/or protect their purchase/investment for future use, and/or resale. 

 This understanding has a tremendous impact on finance penetration, especially since the F&I department has a limited time period to optimize profits and accomplish the rest of their responsibilities.  Results:This will commit the customer to the sale of the unit NOW, and thereby secure your front-end gross,  systematically allowing your business manager(s) to get that prospective bump in payment for additional gross in the back-end, and aftermarket products sales…etc. 

If we have to give away a unit to make the deal go down, we will. However, all options should be exhausted before we are forced to go to that extreme. 

Accordingly, customers occasionally need to negotiate a deal in order to feel like they have beaten the dealership and won. Their sense of conquest will solidify the Car Deal.

It is obviously not a unilateral effort by any one department, but a combined push that primarily falls on the shoulders of the sales team to effectively get the ball rolling and keep it rolling till the finish line.   When evaluating the seemingly unchanged traditional sales statistics we must remember that 85% of our consumers have decided to buy before they have left their homes (which represents a potential for a 4:5 closing ratio), but we are still typically left with the fact that nationwide wide we still have a 1:5 closing ratio. 

Accordingly, note that national statistics illustrate that 18% of “Sales Managers” train on a regular basis which once again is our 1:5 ratio, and if 88% of our customers feel that they have not receive a proper product presentation then this correlates to a 4:5 ratio of dissatisfied customers leaving us we the very real potential on the previous ratio to being only able to close at the nation’s average of a unbelievably low 1:5 closing ratio again. 

It should be obvious to most, based on such clearing comparable ratios and percentages that we must always place a higher emphasis on our sales team and demand that our entire managerial staff assist in their continual automotive sales education. 

I have always believed that we should teach through example, in the words of one of my mentors “Don’t Tell Them Why You Are So Great; Show THEM!!!” 

I am of the belief that we as managers should set the standards for excellence; we must instill discipline and drive within our sales staff. Accordingly, we must place competitive goals which pay out rich rewards. We must openly celebrate the top producers by name and recognition for “their” specific accomplishments, in so doing without mentioning any specific employee’s names but by vocalizing unsuitable performances based on undesirable numbers (we will alleviate any HR issues). 

Make your sales team know in their ”Soul’s, Heart’s & Minds” that we as managers respect and maintain the chain of command, and that chain of command is there to see them succeed; not by being their friends but most assuredly by being their mentors. If they understand “Lions Don’t Run With Tigers” and they understand why this is. Then we may finally begin to weed out the weak more quickly, and regain what so many in our industry have come to believe we have lost, that is control over our sales staff; this will occur simply because they the sales staff will actively desire the recognition and additional respect that comes with being a leader and prized example of excellence. 

The worse thing we can do is just raise the bar, and not let our people know that we recognize that there are only a given few that are true Titans. 

In my humble opinion, there exists very few equals in our “Car Business”. If we allow our overall staff to believe we are all the same, then we will always get inferior performances. 

In the words of the great Vince Lombardi, “If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?” 

In the end True Winners want Recognition… 

In conclusion, to quote Lombardi once more, 

I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.