DealerRefresh

Obstacles, Observations and Opinions of an Automotive Internet Sales & Marketing Manager

by -

Stop Chasing Shiny Objects

Stop Chasing Shiny Objects – and Start Selling Cars!

At Digital Dealer 13 (held in October 2012 in Las Vegas), I delivered a presentation titled Stop Chasing Shiny Objects (and Start Selling Cars)! It was well-received, and it helped the 100 or so in attendance understand that the loudest voices in automotive digital – those screaming for dealers to dump thousands of dollars and multiple manhours every month into Pinterest, Foursquare and Twitter – had no idea that these activities/sources did relatively little to drive sold units.

Moreover, those overzealous marketers told dealers that if they didn’t focus on these shiny objects, well then, they were just dinosaurs who were about to go extinct. (Some in automotive digital at the time were even screaming for dealers to pay attention to oddities like Klout, Tagged, Tactilize and LoveIt!) Of course, the dealers who did listen wasted a lot of money and a lot of time, only to eventually discover that these channels were relatively worthless.

They would’ve been better served spending that money on bus bench advertising and their time on virtually anything else.

That Was Then, This Is Now

While most every dealer has moved beyond the allure of the next big internet sensation, many are still chasing shiny objects. They’re looking for that magic bean that’s going to grow their sales, their grosses and their CSI with no work on their part. They’re falling for marketers promising to share their “secrets” to dominating the marketplace… for a few thousand (or more) a month, of course.

The claims I’ve seen lately by some of the uber-prolific marketers in automotive are disturbing. Not in their hubris, but because so many dealers are actually falling for these magic bean pitches. [Read more…]

by -

Assumptive Selling

Assumptive Selling

Certainly, you’ve heard the saying: When you assume, you make an ass out of ‘u’ and ‘me.’

Cute, even funny… but not at all applicable in sales. Not today. The typical car buyer today has already gathered all the information before they ever step foot on your lot or pick up a phone to call you. They know what they want, and they’re ready to buy today. In fact, they want to buy from you… they’re just afraid to tell you that.

Regardless of what you believed in the past about making assumptions, today it’s important to change your mindset. Today, top sellers use Assumptive Selling thinking to simply sell more vehicles for more money. Understanding this, it’s time to start using a new saying: When you fail to always assume the sale, you should always assume you’ll fail.

(This saying must be true, right? I mean, it takes the words from the first part of the sentence and rearranges them in the second part.)

Selling Cars is Not Hard

To be clear, selling cars is not hard… it just takes work. To the uninitiated, success in car sales appears to be like playing a slot machine. That is, sitting on your butt until you get lucky.

The truth is, success in automotive retail is more like using a vending machine. It’s predictable. It’s about completing the right steps in the right order to generate your reward. Grab your coins; insert them in the slot; press the right buttons; receive your snack. Rinse, lather, repeat. Assumptive Selling is not about luck, tricks or a magic potion; it’s about completing the right steps in the right order to generate your reward. It is not for the lazy.

Assumptive Selling is not new. Assumptive Selling has been around as long as there’ve been salespeople; and, despite what you’ve heard about people who assume, assumptive sellers have always been more successful than their peers. In automotive retail, Assumptive Selling is about knowing what does not exist. With Assumptive Selling, there are no tire-kickers; no unqualified buyers. Everyone is a buyer, and everyone is buying today.

Assumptive Selling is not about closing; it’s about leading. It’s about leading the customer down your path (whether on the lot or on the phone). It’s about taking charge, being direct and providing guidance; all while understanding that every Up wants to buy and they want to buy today.

Assumptive Selling is about believing everyone is a buyer… and knowing that the first time you believe someone is not, you’ll be right.

Connected Customers

Today’s connected customers want to buy; they’re just afraid of being sold. They show up on the lot with all the information and they don’t like being interrogated.  Salespeople who win today are the ones who recognize this, speak to their customers like human beings, and then pull them through a buying process in an efficient manner that makes sense to the customer.

When you do this with enthusiasm, energy and passion, people want to share in your enthusiasm, energy and passion. They will come along for the ride just because it seems like what the cool kids are doing. Assumptive Selling without this enthusiasm, energy and passion is not Assumptive Selling.

The basic principle for Assumptive Selling is simple: You should always assume the sale. Always. Assume. The. Sale.

Assumptive Selling

Assumptive Selling is available now on Amazon.com

A prospect who pulls onto your lot or walks into your showroom is a buyer who is here to buy; and… she’s here to buy today. The ringing phone represents a buyer who wants to buy today. The sales lead that’s just dropped into your CRM was sent by a buyer who wants to buy today. Everyone is a buyer… and, they all want to buy today.

Assumptive sellers always assume the sale. Assuming the sale gives you confidence that your buyer can sense. Assuming the sale gives you energy that your buyer feeds off. Assuming the sale keeps your thoughts positive in the face of objections. Assuming the sale makes you a more likeable person.

The Green Pea

Always assuming the sale helps you sell more cars for more money than you ever dreamed possible… except, of course, during your first full month as a salesperson. It seems every new seller – every Green Pea – starts off strong in the car business. I’ve seen Green Peas sell 25 vehicles in their first month – all while the average salesperson in their dealership sold 10.

How did they do this? Simple: They assumed everyone was a buyer who arrived to buy that day.

The negative forces in their dealership – the guys sitting around in the smoking circle – laughed at the Green Peas because these newbies were “too dumb to know any better.”

Green Peas, because they don’t “know any better,” assume the sale. They follow the steps you’ve taught them as closely as possible, and they sell a bunch of cars. They’ll do this for as many months as it takes to get pulled into the smoking circle and realize that every Up is an unqualified tire-kicker who couldn’t buy a car today if you were giving them away.

If only we could all think like Green Peas forever; if only we could remain “too dumb to know any better” for our entire career in the car business.

Buying a Car is Exciting!

Whether the customer is here to look at a brand-new car or a ten-year-old vehicle you took in trade isn’t relevant – buying anything new is exciting and your used car is going to be new to them. Of course, while buying a car is exciting, no one wants to be sold; that’s why Assumptive Selling works so well: you’re not selling, you’re guiding and assisting.

When the customer feels like they’re being sold, they can become defensive. They begin to create objections they never had; they become more aloof; and they disbelieve anything you tell them. All this because they’re starting feel sales pressure.

Assumptive Selling, meanwhile, is nearly devoid of pressure, because you’re simply agreeing with their desire to own your car today. In their mind, you understand them – and, you might be the first car salesman to ever understand them! This allows you to guide them down your road-to-the-sale – and they’ll gladly come along.

Buyers Love Assumptive Selling!

In possibly the best sales movie ever, Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), Alec Baldwin’s character Blake famously teaches, “A guy don’t walk on the lot lest he wants to buy.”

Since we know buying a car is exciting for the customer – and that every Up is here to buy today – Assumptive Selling is not just a way for you to close more deals, it’s also a better customer experience. Assumptive Selling can make buying a fun event for your customers; especially when compared to the ordeal of the old-school, five-hour road-to-the-sale.

Assumptive Selling results in more closed deals that close quicker and with less friction than any of the alternatives. That’s why buyers love it. It’s time for you to start assuming the sale…

Good (Assumptive) Selling!

Assumptive Selling: The Complete Guide to Selling More Vehicles for More Money to Today’s Connected Customers is a book for vehicle Salespeople, Managers and even Dealer Principals! It’s available now on Amazon.com.

by -

3 Ways to Continuously Engage with Candidates Throughout the Hiring Process

Fewer than 1% of job seekers are interested in careers at a dealership, meaning once you receive applicants for your open roles, you need to keep them engaged throughout the hiring process – or risk losing top talent to other job opportunities. Rather than waiting until a candidate signs an offer letter to kick off your employee engagement strategy, you should also have a candidate engagement strategy in place that begins as soon as an application is submitted.

If your dealership doesn’t continuously engage with candidates throughout the hiring process, their initial excitement about joining your team will fade and they’ll likely look elsewhere for their next career move. Below, we’ve pulled together several tips to improve overall candidate engagement. [Read more…]

by -

Address the Problem: Stop Making Panic Decisions

Though I rarely have time to go to such things today, family reunions are a great place to hear stories about your relatives, some of which reach legendary status. As it so happens, one of my distant cousins was a Naval Aviator who got to fly the real star of Top Gun, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. However, unlike other stories you might hear about heroics over the Persian Gulf or going supersonic during an airshow, my cousin did quite the opposite. He dumped a $38 million aircraft into the ocean.

Although I wasn’t in the Navy, one can easily imagine that it’s a complicated feat to launch a 60,000 pound aircraft off of the moving deck of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. It takes the coordinated effort of thousands of people, not just the pilots and the sailors on the deck. All of these people have processes and procedures that must be followed to the letter to ensure that personnel doesn’t get hurt, machinery doesn’t get damaged, resources don’t get squandered, and that support can reliably be delivered to fellow service people when in need. These actions grew out of much planning, iterative design, with careful trial and error, all measured with the keenest eye to detail, not a knee-jerk reaction.

As the reality of a slower market is setting-in across automotive showrooms throughout North America, panic decisions are starting to take place at a rapid pace. Instead of trusting in the people, partners, and processes that have worked for years, multiple issues are being addressed at once, with little thought given to how many small and interactive variables are being disrupted. [Read more…]

by -

5 Ways Your Dealership Can Maintain Employee Compliance

Keeping track of constantly changing workforce compliance and regulatory requirements can be costly and time consuming for your dealership’s HR team. Not only does your team have to ensure compliance for employees you already have on staff, but you also need to maintain compliance throughout the hiring process for each new role. If your dealership isn’t compliant every step of the way, it can lead to fines, litigation and other legal action.

Is your dealership maintaining employee compliance starting with the hiring process? We’ve pulled together several key compliance steps to keep in mind. [Read more…]

by -

Here are 15 Great BDC Templates to Steal!

Automotive BDC templates are critical to efficiency. Your BDC’s templates should include both word tracks for phone calls and full email templates. If you have strong templates and a BDC that utilizes them you will be well on your way to success.

Steal these BDC templates, plug them in, and then chill…

Click To Tweet

A dealership without strong automotive BDC templates is a dealership that is wasting time and losing customers. In this article I’ve selected 15 of my favorite email templates. Feel free to start using these today.

Template Headaches and Solutions

For too long automotive BDC templates were designed by marketing teams and used primarily for first responses. If you have a first response with large images, video links or tons of links to your site, it will get relegated to spam!

Here are 15 Great BDC Templates to Steal… [Read more…]

by -

Was I Too Dumb for CRM?

In the early aughts, my dealership invested in a CRM system.

I was basically a sales guy/assistant manager who (quite by accident) had championed/embraced internet leads, and whipped-up an internal lead management system for our 15-store group. I had probably just “graduated” from 100% commission to a salary+bonus pay structure — probably 4-5 years into my automotive career, and was unknowingly building what would later become widely accepted and known as a BDC. So naturally, this CRM thing was my baby. And then, my baby was born.

I can remember instant regret, remorse, anger — this “thing” and these “trainers” that landed in my dealership didn’t much seem to resemble the system we researched. But alas, here it was, it was here, and I was here.

Here’s where, in hindsight, I look back and ask, was I that dumb? [Read more…]

by -

3 Elements of a Successful Dealership Applicant Sourcing Strategy

Dealers have many options to fill job openings, but continuously face challenges finding quality candidates for in-demand roles such as service technicians and sales managers. And with fewer than 1% of job seekers considering a dealership for their next career move, it’s critical to have the right strategy in place to attract strong applicants – including those outside the retail automotive industry.

fewer than 1% of job seekers considering a dealership for their next career move

Click To Tweet

Are you doing everything you can to attract quality candidates and turn your dealership staff into a source of competitive advantage? Below is an overview of three key elements your dealerships should make sure to include in your sourcing strategy. [Read more…]

by -

Dear Toyota: Here’s $108 Million to Spend in Your Fight for Share Against Ford

As the Toyota brand works to replace Ford in the top spot for US vehicle sales in 2018 (as of this writing, the Ford brand holds roughly a 14% share of the US Market to Toyota’s 12.4%; source here), you have to wonder how much of a difference an extra $108,000,000 to spend on targeted advertising would make.

I suspect it would make a difference.

By the way, you can replace Toyota and Ford in the headline with any two OEMs you’d like. The bottom line is that the average dealer I encounter today is wasting about $6,000 every month just on fraudulent/wasted SEM (primarily display and pay-per-click advertising).

Here’s my math: [Read more…]

by -

Digital Dealer 24 Review with Kevin Frye #DD24

It’s Five AM on Monday morning when I get up. Between the cat meowing to be fed and the dog whining to go out, it’s time to start the day. It has been a long, cold winter, but it’s April, it can’t be that chilly outside, right? Wait, GREAT GLOBAL WARMING! I just looked out the window and there is SNOW on my truck? It’s time for me to get on a plane and head as far south as I can go in search of warmth and sunshine. Digital Dealer 24 in Orlando, here I come!

Digital Dealer 24 at the Orlando Convention Center

Orlando, home of the adult Disneyland…  Wait, am I getting confused with Las Vegas? Maybe, though after multiple WestPac tours with the US Navy, I think that might be found in either Thailand or the Phillipines. I was excited to return to Orlando which has hosted the east coast Digital Dealer show many times. All prior conferences had been hosted at the Rosen Shingle resort, while DD24 was going to be located at the Orlando Convention Center. How did that work out? [Read more…]