Turn Your Dealership Upside Down
Let’s just suppose for a minute or two that the car business is not really all that different from any other big business. Forget about all the delusions we’ve been laboring under for the past 50 years. How about we just forget the past 50 years and move into the 21st century? Let’s talk frankly about words somewhat foreign to most dealerships: change; flexibility; thinking like a customer; customer friendly; honesty; sincerity; profit and other such good stuff.
Take into account that China is opening a new foreign owned factory every 26 minutes. Consider that China is graduating 600,000 engineers annually, while the U.S. graduates 70,000. India is producing 89,000 MBA’s a year. There are over 245,000 workers in India answering phones from all over the world, and making outbound calls for credit cards, cell phones and late payments. Countries around the world are not just making sandals and fireworks anymore. They have changed to keep ahead of the times.
It is not too late for dealerships to change. By change, I don’t mean closing 30 minutes early on Saturday or Sunday. That’s not change. I’m talking real change. Change in the way you do business, change in the way you do life, change so big that you may not finish this article without throwing it across the room.
Move your managers. Move your new car manager back to detail. Move the detail manager to the new car slot. Give them both 60 days to learn something new. After that works wonders, and it will, move all your managers around. Let them all learn how the rest of the dealership really functions. When they get back to their previous positions, notice how much better everyone works together, and how much profit there is in learning new things.
Close on Sundays. If you’re already closed on Sundays, close on Saturdays. What, you can’t handle a little change? What sort of insane thinking do we hold on to that keeps everyone but the top managers from getting weekends off? Does the word “salesperson
turnover” have any meaning for you? Have you ever heard the word “family?” Let your salespeople spend every weekend with their families for a change. Then see how much better they work when they’re at work. Stop bragging about a five day work week or give everyone the same five day work week. Guess what? No scheduling problems. Everyone is at work when the doors are open. Stop calling yourself a family dealership when your people can’t get time to spend with their families. Be who you say you are.
Stop advertising. Most dealers in most locations have 10, 20, 30 or 40,000 drivers by the dealership every day. Who in the world in your town is left to advertise to? Make your lot more presentable. Make it more user friendly. Teach your people to be more polite, nicer, friendlier, more patient, better listeners. Teach them to be the kind of salespeople that people off the street really want to come in and talk to. Stop advertising, just be the kind of people and dealership that your advertising says you are.
Uniform pricing, you know, have the same price on the internet that you do on the showroom. It’s only fair, it’s only common sense. To hear internet people in the car business talking, you would think that no other business in the world is using computers. Do you actually think you can call your local copier store and buy a copier cheaper from their internet department than from a showroom salesperson? Call Orvis, Landsend, or LLBean. Do you think they have to discount things on the internet to get people to use the internet? Every business in the world is using the computer. What is wrong with our thinking that we need to sell at a lower price over the internet, than on the showroom? Who in the world came up with that one?
Pay salespeople enough to keep them. It cost billions to manufacture a car, millions to run a dealership and we continually run “no experience necessary” ads to sell our products. Get some people with experience. Turn them lose and let them sell. Let them make a profit. Stop being afraid of salespeople who can sell. If our average buyer is in the 45 to 55 age group, why not hire someone in that age group? We’re hiring 21 year, old no experience necessary kids and expecting them to have credibility with people their parents or grandparents age.
Stop closing deals for salespeople. The job of a manager is not to do the work of the salespeople. It is to help the salesperson do a better job. A manager who can’t stop selling should be selling. A salesperson who gets deals handed to them is not learning anything. The job of a manager is to help every salesperson reach their full potential. Doing their job does not help them, it harms them by teaching them that they don’t need to grow and improve.
Pay attention to the female buyer. Again, “no experience necessary” salespeople do not know how to talk to the opposite sex. Women control a vast majority of the sales, especially car sales. It is not helping when we hire kids who don’t have the foggiest notion of how to talk to women, how to respect women, and how to shut up and listen to what they want, need and can afford.
The whole world is changing. Every industry is changing. If we are not willing to change, and change fast, we will be changed, and that change is not going to be pleasant. Small change is not working. Make big changes. Start today. Turn the dealership upside down. You’re going to enjoy the ride.
John Brentlinger
Author of The Little Blue Book of Selling