Making Sense of Sales Training
There is perhaps no business in America which outwardly places so much stock in sales training, yet the generally accepted results are mediocre at best.
How can an industry that is so vital to the American economy be so lax in training people to sell effectively? Why does most sales training produce so little results, and why doesn’t the training create better, stronger, longer lasting salespeople and managers?
It takes billions of dollars to manufacture a vehicle, millions to operate a dealership, yet managers and salespeople generally are being reduced to clerking their way to one seventy-five dollar mini-deal after another.
The mini-deal, whatever the reason given for taking it, is a poor excuse for not being able to sell the buyer what they want, need and can afford.
The internet, as great a tool as it is purported to be, is simply another tool in any business. It can be used rightly or wrongly. When the internet is a servant, good things can happen. When the internet becomes the master, bad things happen. You can tell by your bottom line whether the internet is your servant or your master.
If your dealership is still giving cars away at little or no profit, just to “get people to use the internet,” the internet is your master. If the internet is your master, the cost of doing business will be so expensive, the master will eventually eliminate your position, throw you under the bus and never even remember your name.
If you could not rely on holdback, would you be leaning so heavily on internet mini-deals? Every manager must be aware that all the manufacturers need to do to reduce the amount of dealers is to eliminate the holdback.
Holdback + costly internet leads + mini-deals + the nationwide weakening of the sales force = dealerships being at the mercy of the manufacturers, the media and the price buyers.
For a business as big and supposedly as strong as the automobile industry, being at the mercy of the market is not a good position. We can fire all the CEO’s and CFO’s in Detroit, and that will not fix the problems.
Lest we think that we can make it up on the back end, don’t be so sure. As soon as the powers that be are able to eliminate virtually all front end profit, they will start on the back end. Profit is profit, front end, middle and back end, and if the front end profit is under attack, the next attack will be on the back end.
The car business is afflicted with a selling problem. The car business is afflicted with a profit problem. The car business is afflicted with an image problem. The car business has too many people managing and selling who believe that profit is a dirty word. And, the car business has too many people who think that sales training is only for salespeople, and that two days memorizing closes and word tracks is sufficient training.
Knowledge of the problem is the key to the solution.
Two problems surface immediately: most managers are not ready to help salespeople learn and earn all they can honestly earn; and, most salespeople are not ready to help the buyer get what they want, need and are willing to pay for.
Managers are intimidated by pressure to “move metal.” They are still suffering under the delusion that every buyer buys within 72 hours and if we let them out the door they will never be back. When the buyer beats on the salesperson on the lot and the manager beats on the salesperson at the desk, no one wins, not the dealership, not the manager, not the salesperson and certainly not the buyer. The salesperson will be gone in a month or two, the manager will be gone in a year or two, and the buyer will buy next time from another dealer who will give the car away to get his business the next time.
Who would want his business the next time? The result of giving cars away at little or no profit costs the dealer most of the managers and most of the salespeople, on a constantly moving merry-go-round.
And yet every weekend, newspaper advertisements are full of dealers who beg price buyers to come to their dealership. We are paying for advertising which attracts only price buyers, disloyal, unfaithful, undermining price buyers who don’t care where they buy a car, as long as they can make sure the dealer doesn’t make any money.
Billions to make a car, millions to operate a dealership, it is just too expensive a business to be giving cars away.
Salespeople are intimidated by the pressure to “kick the buyer over.” The emphasis on product knowledge, sales technique and dependence on the manager to “close the deal” ruins the focus on the buyer’s wants, needs and budget. Pressure is not the way to get the sale. Control is not the path to the sale.
There is no “path to the sale.” There is a path to the buyer’s heart, there is a way to earn trust, there is a way to learn what the buyer wants, needs and will pay for. But that is the way of open, honest communication, listening, sincerely hearing, understanding and then genuinely helping.
Selling is not forcing, controlling or manipulating. Selling is not pushing something on an unsophisticated buyer that they do not want, don’t need and can’t afford. Selling is honestly helping the buyer get what they want, and need, in the price range they choose. There is a simple way to discover wants, needs and budget. It just takes some training, learning and growing.
Training which focuses on product knowledge, control, psychological manipulation, high pressure, ten new closes, word tracks, constant badgering to weaken a buyer’s resolve, that sort of training is ruining sales and profits.
Real world training must focus on the wants, needs and budget of the buyer. To focus on those things requires self discipline, honesty, patience, sincerity and a genuine desire to help the buyer. Those characteristics must be present in the sales force, and in the managers.
Real world training must include the managers. A manager who is still relying on the command and control, push and pressure, scream and shout managerial style will ruin any new salesperson who attempts to patiently help a customer.
When your products are dollar for dollar pretty much the same, there are only two basic differences in your dealership and the one down the street: How your managers train and treat the salespeople; and how your salespeople treat the customers. Those two differences must be learned by managers and salespeople, and it must be done through real world training for both groups.
Salespeople sell just like managers manage. When managers and salespeople learn to work together for the good of the buyer, the dealership can become strong and profitable. That strength and profitability can be learned through proper training, individual growth and personal development.
John Brentlinger
Author of The Little Blue Book of Selling