#196 - 3 Tips For Handling Your Leads w/ Maggie Pugesek

Hello and welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast brought to you by Buckeye Dealership Consulting. Today we're going to do something a little bit different. We have Maggie, I think a little scary for one in particular. Dealer Maggie with CNM Consulting is going to secret shop a dealership. Hint, it might be one of us and it's definitely not me. And we're going to see how this dealer's salesman handles Maggie's incoming sales lead. And then Maggie's going to talk to us about her three top tips for handling leads. So this is a great episode packed with information, handling the call, training on skills and follow up. So we cover some really great stuff. Maggie, say hello to everybody.

Guys, thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here today.

Here we go.

Welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast with hosts Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson, a podcast by dealers for dealers. Here we go.

The so my name is Maggie Fugassic. I am partner at CNM Coaching. We do phone training specifically for the independent market. We write custom scripts and then basically train your team how to use them. I've been in the automotive industry for a decade now, 10 years. I live in Wisconsin with my husband and my two kids where it is getting rather chilly and I am not loving it. But, you know, that is just pretty much a little bit about me. And that is what we do here. And I think we have some good stuff to talk about today.

Oh, yeah, we're going to go over three tips to help field Internet leads, better phone calls. Maggie's going to tell us like the three big faux pas that she sees all dealers do in their sales department, their BDC department, their BR reps, their QRTs, everybody, whatever these guys are. And Maggie, we also got permission to secret shop a dealership. Right. So you're going to send in an Internet lead right now to this dealership and through the course of this conversation, we're going to see how long it actually takes for an agent to reach out to you. Right?

Correct. Yep. So I'm going to fill in some information really quick and then we shall see what happens.

Yep.

This is, this is always. This is always scary. I hope I wasn't the one that we tried to Internet shop here.

Yeah, we'll see what happens. Maggie, once you get that shot off. Let's jump right into it. What is your first tip that all dealers need to be inspecting and we should know?

So the first thing that I would definitely say is that we really want to try to be focusing a lot on picking up the phone and calling the customer. So, for example, it is where I am in Wisconsin. It is 1014 right now. I just put that lead in. So the clock essentially starts, and then we have to wait and see exactly what happens and what we receive. So the first thing that we want to do is pick up the phone and call the customer. Now we know that we have approximately five to 10 minutes, 15 max, before they've moved on to something else or they're looking at another website. So the faster you call, the better. Another really hot topic surrounding how to handle Internet leads is, do I text or do I call?

Yeah, I totally want to stop you right there. I know you go down that road, but everyone knows that listens to this. I am a text. I've pushed all my guys toward texting. We. We 99% text. And I'm starting to get told, like, you know, I'm starting to look at my appointment conversions, and I'm sure you'll go down this road, but maybe, maybe that not such a smart idea. What's your opinion?

So my opinion is, my opinion is to call first and then text. My opinion is to use every single method of communication you have available to you. Don't pick one, pick up the phone and call first. If they don't answer, send them a text. Hey, this is Maggie with Ab Motors. I just left you a message. You know, is it easier if we text right now? Because maybe they're at work and then they can just respond really fast. We know that text messages are more likely to be viewed or received, right, Than voicemails. People don't necessarily always look, listen to their voicemails. I am so guilty of that.

Nobody does.

So I read the transcriptions, but I don't always listen to them. But still, you know, picking up the phone and calling them is your best bet for delivering that awesome message that you want. Whatever it is that your store has, whatever your value statement is, whatever you really want to push forward to your customer, the best way to get that out is via phone. I also think, too, a lot of miscommunication can occur via text. And it's a lot harder to gauge how solid your lead is via text, which is why I like to get them on the phone. Especially if your store has a couple of specific requirements like, you know, valid driver's license, piece of mail, pay stubs, things like that. It's a lot easier to catch if somebody's maybe not telling you the truth if you're actually talking to them, versus just texting back and forth and they're just agreeing to everything that you say or which we know happens. So pick up the phone and call. Those first 15 minutes are so important.

And Maggie, the 15 minute thing, so what happens after the, the after hours? How does a good sales department handle those after hour leads? Because that's always confusing to me.

I know the first thing I would say is have a good auto response. Something that lets the person know that hey, you know, we, you've reached us after hours. We, your business is super important to us. We open at 9. Someone will give you a call as soon as we open. And then it maybe have some other stuff in there too, like maybe invite them to fill out an application on your website. Any sort of thing that you can do to keep them engaged with you not flipping over to a competitor. Even though it's maybe Sunday night at three in the morning because people do shop at very odd times, you know, you still want to be able to call them right away when your doors open. So as soon as your doors open, pick up the phone, call them right away. I will tell you though, Luke, it is a lot hard, harder to get those people on the phone. Those overnight leads are the tough ones because it's hard to figure out when they're free. So my advice on that is to mix up when you're doing your follow ups. If you call them first thing at 9am when you open and they're not there, you know, they don't answer the phone. You leave a message, maybe try later that day and then also send that text message. And then if you have to continuously follow up, rotate your methods of communication, email, text and phone. And then also times of day you're doing those things.

So I hear you saying email, text and phone. I mean, do we even recommend email anymore? I mean you said phone, text. I'm wondering about email, I guess.

Yeah, yeah. So a lot of people seem to think that it's dead. But like I reached out to you guys via email. Right. You responded to my emails. I communicate with probably 90% of my clients via email and a lot of people use their emails, especially since it's also on their phones. So I would say my advice is use all three methods. If you have it as a requirement on your website, try it, use it. At the very least, you can use it to ask for referrals. You can advertise. If you do any special promotions, trade in promotions. Your service departments have promotions. You can use it for anything.

Yeah, my rule has always been phone first, text second and Email. Third, do all three. Do all three of them and then find which one they want to use best, right?

Yeah, but, but here's my. Here's my rubber. If I reach out to a business via text, that's because that's the way I want to communicate with them. I know they have a phone number. I'd call them if I wanted to have a voice conversation. I don't. I answer zero vendor phone calls. So if you're a vendor and you're listening, I literally take zero phone calls, but I will respond to an email. But if I email you and then you try to call me, that's what's me like. I'm not even going to talk to you ever again because I'm emailing you. Like, that's. I don't have time to take a phone call. I don't want to take a phone call. And in my personal life, I don't look at emails at all. But I will respond to a text, but I won't take a phone call. So anyways, if our customer's reaching out to us via text, would it be more appropriate to reach out to them back via text and say, hey, thanks for the inquiry? Do you have time to talk on the phone right now or is this best? I think if I just shot a phone call straight out to you, you'd be pissed and be like, dude, I'm obviously at work, I text you.

Or if that's not the way leads come. But that's not the way the leads come in. Typically, Jeff, someone didn't pick up the phone and say, pick up their. And text the dealership and say, hey, can you, you know, let's talk about this. The lead comes in as a lead form and so you don't know which way. Right, Maggie?

Yeah.

So I guess for mine it's via text.

So everyone's different. Everyone's. And also chat. Right. We're excluding chat here, too. We use chat as a tool to help us essentially gain the lead. We're looking for contact information. So we use chat to go, yes, let me some information to you. What's the best number for somebody to call you on? And then they get the phone number that way. There's nothing wrong with asking somebody what their preferred method of communication is. I think it's a very reasonable question, especially since you're. You're trying to cater to them. The only downside is you can build a lot more relationship and rapport with someone via phone than you can via tag.

I think that's one Thing that's hitting me, interesting, Maggie, lately is you lose the content, you lose the context, you lose the rapport, you lose the ability to build value in your program unless you are either talking to them on the phone or sitting down in front of them. And I think I've started to forget that with the whole, you know, digital retailing and remote selling and, you know, all this stuff as a buy here, pay here. When it becomes too transactional, I think you lose the emotion, you lose that ability to connect with them.

One of the things I always say is people don't buy cars from places, they buy cars from people. And remembering that getting that connection between your salesperson and that customer is how you get them to like your people. And if they like your people, they'll show up for their appointments. So that's why I'm such a big advocate for the phone. But also, texting is great. Again, you can use the same psychology techniques you use over the phone via text. They all work the same way. You just don't have that vocal connection, that voice inflection, that warm fuzzy feeling you can get when you hear someone's great voice.

That's. People need to remember that is like scripts are scripts for a reason. And it doesn't matter whether you're calling somebody or texting somebody or emailing somebody. You've got to stick to the. To the script. And people can answer questions just as well via text. They can any other way. So if you go off script in those forms of communication, it's not going to be as profitable or not going to be as successful. Right, Maggie?

Yeah. So we like to call them word tracks because I like people to have a little bit of fluidity in what they say. I don't want them to feel like I have to read this book. But also there are things that work and things that don't. One of the best examples I can give is when you're trying to ask someone for an appointment and you say, do you think you maybe want to stop in today? Which is kind of like asking somebody, do you think you maybe want to pay me back that $500 you owe me? Like, nobody really wants to do this either or. So it's like, when are you more available to come in? I've got time right now or later today. We're open till six. Bam. Just go for it. Give them those choices. Stay in control. Remember that you have the authority here. And if you use those choices, you're going to be able to control that conversation so much easier than Going, do you think you maybe want to stop in at some point today? Or my favorite is, how soon are you looking to get into a vehicle? And it's like, well, I called you today, so how about now?

Yeah, yeah, it's. I mean, it's urgency. And so many times it seems like people aren't urgent about things. You know, every time I go to my salespeople and I say, hey, what happened to this lead on this car? Well, I mean, they're thinking about it, this, that. And I said, well, did you ask them to buy the car? And they're like, oh, no, why didn't you do that? You know, it's like somebody you got to train, but it's urgent. You know, we need to try to get you in this morning or this afternoon, which ones fit you better? And then nail down those. Those points. Right?

Yeah. And I always go for same day first. Like, obviously, if it's five o' clock and you close at six, probably you don't have a lot of flexibility there. So then I might say, I've got time tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon. Otherwise I'm going to say right now or later today, always.

Yeah, same here. So, Maggie, we're going on minute 10.

I was just going to say that.

Still no phone call. Hey, everybody. Sorry to interrupt the podcast, but while we're talking about leads and handling leads, better tax time is coming. You are going to get inundated with leads. And so handling these tax time leads quickly is very, very important.

It is. And to handle them the proper way. And that's what, that's what Maggie's talking about. But tax max, it gives you an advantage on those leads to other dealers. Right, Jeff? Because you can actually do the taxes in house. And that's really, that's going to give you a leg up. Even if you don't handle the lead exactly right, you might still get that customer because you're doing taxes. Right.

Yeah.

And it's so important to sell that value upfront within that first phone call when you're trying to sell your program to this customer. Hey, here's another advantage of going for us. We're going to defer your down payment. We're going to use a portion of that Uncle Sam money that's coming back to you, and we're going to use it now to get you into a better car or a more affordable payment. So it's just one more value add that your dealership can do. So sign up for tax max. Now, my guys all did the training yesterday, so they're all learning the fourth quarter program right now. And starting next week, I'm going to roll it out to all my preferred customers. So everyone who is a current customer that wants to upgrade or a second vehicle or some of my paid offs from the last two years, those are the people I market to now in the fourth quarter program. Because I know I have a relationship with them, they're good people. They're not going to hang me out to dry. So I'm okay deferring, you know, two or three grand for two or three months.

Yeah, it's great.

These specific people. So that's who I start my fourth quarter program on now. And then in a couple of weeks, I'll roll it out to everybody. So call Tax Max, get signed up. Be sure you use our discount code to get 20% off. Back to the episode, let's transition to tip number two, which I think we touched on a little bit. And if we don't hear back from this dealership in the next couple minutes, maybe we'll have to reach out to them and see tip number two. And we touched on it was the skills, right, the phone skills.

Yeah.

Now, Maggie, talk to me to the difference between. I mean, this is training, right? This is sales. Is there a difference between sales meetings, sales trainings, and phone skills?

Like, great. That's a great question. Yeah. So kind of one of the things that I like to see dealers do is first off, please record your phone calls. Please record your phone calls if you don't know what they're saying to your customers. You have no fingerprint on the pulse of your business at all. You have no idea what's going on. So please record your phone calls, but you should play those calls during meetings. I like to encourage people to come up with some sort of a guideline or score sheet we could call it. Right Things that you're looking for them to accomplish in their phone calls, whether they're inbound or outbound. Pass everybody a blank sheet, play a couple of calls. Everybody grades everybody. We talk about it collectively after each phone call. That is the easiest way for you guys to go. What are weaknesses? What are our strengths and how can we overcome them? And this might sound really stupid, but like in the Wolf of Wall street, if either of you have seen that movie, that's exactly what he does. He says to them, what are your objections with handling and selling these stocks? And he writes them all down on the board and then he comes up with phrases for every single one of them to use when they're faced with that objection and bam, all of a sudden he's a billionaire, right? So it's really simple. If you go through these calls and then you can even write down common challenges or occurrences that you're experiencing and then help your actually tackling one of those topics each week to overcome those issues so that everyone collectively is doing better. Obviously you could have, you know, somebody like me help you with those things, but just record your calls. You don't even need to hire somebody. You can totally do it in store, but you've got to hold yourself accountable to doing it. And you have to hold your people accountable to doing what you're teaching them to do, which is usually the hardest part for most people.

And how, you know, we all know typical objections we get from customers because most of us have come up through the ranks, from selling cars to being an owner to this, that and other. And so, you know, what's the down payment, what's the monthly payments, you know, or that's too much down or I can't afford that a month, you know, there's something wrong with the car. We all know these type of objections we can get. What are, what are the major ones you're seeing doing training?

You just listed them all off. The number one is down payment, number two is probably monthly payment. I would also say that there is a very high level of insecurity in most of the customers where they'll start that conversation off talking about their bad credit. And then when you try to go over your qualifications and explain the program, they revert back to their bad credit. And the reason they're doing that is because they don't feel confident enough in what you've said. Said you haven't made them feel comfortable yet. So saying something as simple as, you know what, we can do this. We, we do this every single day. We can help people. We just have a couple of quick questions to ask you once we go over that process. We'll take it from there and see what we can do to help you out. But rest assured, you know, we help people like this every single day. And it doesn't have to be that, you know, you could come up with your own, but it's something about making them feel more comfortable and confident about moving forward before just assuming that they want to right that old notion of like, they need us more than we need them. No, not anymore. There's a lot of options. Unless of course, you're in Montana, then you don't have a lot of options. But the down payment and the price ones, I always handle very similar, even if it's a monthly payment amount or a down payment amount. And my advice to you is to ask them, if you were to come in right now, how much do you have? And then from there, it's all about kind of cradling them into the appointment. Because how many times has someone told you, I've got 500 bucks. They show up, they love the car, and magically they come up with another grand. Now they've got 1500. We don't know how, we don't know where it came from, but now they have the money to buy the car. So you want to get them in, you want to help them, and the only way you can do that is if you've taken a look at all of their stipulations, they meet your requirements, you have a car that's going to meet their needs, and then we can get them in. So I'll say, how much do you have? And then I'll say, you know what, down payments vary depending on your vehicle needs, your budget. Best thing to do, come on in. We'll see how we can help you out here in person. Same thing with monthly payments.

Yeah, there's so many, it seems to me like our salespeople are trained to, when they get scared to, to go to numbers. And I think that's the worst thing you can do because every customer is going to ask you the down payment. You know, and our, our line is. Well, we try to, we try to divert to start with, you know, say, okay, well, we understand you're worried about down payment. We're going to look at your monthly payment budget, come up with a good plan, and we're going to go forward. Right. And so people need to be trained to train their salespeople that it's not. Well, you know, which I hear and I've heard for years, oh, our down payment started fifteen hundred dollars. Well, once you say that if the customer has $500, you've lost that customer and that customer could have had perfect credit. So you don't know what you. You don't know until you don't know it. Right. And are they're going to somewhere else, do you, I mean, is that. I think Jeff was talking about building confidence in your program. Is that, Is that what you got to figure out there?

Yeah. And also too, like, don't be so quick to give them a number. Oh, gosh, ask them first. Like, what are you thinking? How much do you have? Not only do you make them feel valued by Their answer. Right. You're making them feel like they're engaging in their own process. But it also tells you, all right, where are we going to go from here? Did they have enough or do they don't? And the same thing applies to monthly pages. How much were you looking to spend? I heard a call a couple of weeks ago. This poor little old lady, she's on Social Security, doesn't have a lot of money. She's looking for a car for 75 bucks a month. She's not going to be our ideal candidate. You have to be honest with those people. If they're in that type of a situation. There's no. There's no way. I mean, you know, how much of a down payment she would need for something like that. So I think that making sure that you're not just rattling off numbers because you want to answer their questions and you have that desire to do so. The other thing, too, is salespeople have a tendency to try to sell the car over the pH, and you can't do that. Now, if someone's in front of you and they want to talk down payments, that's different. They're there. You can show them cars that match what they have, hopefully. But it's totally different over the phone. So don't use those same tactics that you use in person over the phone, because they're different.

Yeah, Marcia and I were talking about it the other day, and it was talking about.

It's a little.

It's way harder for the person in front of you to get up and leave than it is for the person on the phone to get off the phone. And I think people forget that. That's the reason it's in the opposite.

It's all about 15 minutes. Maggie. What I want to underline from this is we use the word training, and we. And we know what to say, and we know how to say these things. But how important is the scary R word roleplay? How important is that? Because I feel like we go in and we have these sales trainings, but what it really is is just sales telling. And I'm going to tell you what to say, and I'm going to tell you how you're supposed to handle this. And I'm going to tell you. But what we need is role play. Because until our salesmen and our BDC reps start rewiring their brain and not just to go and use their own script or default to answering, you know, these bad habits, we have to retrain the good habits. Right. And that only comes through role playing with each other. With you, with like, it just. It's such an interesting thing. And I think we skip over it when we say sales training. It's actually sales role playing.

Role playing is whenever I do an on site at a store, obviously I start with training them first, right? So we spend like the first half of the day training and then the second half is all role play. What I do is I ask them to role play with each other. So like, if I was training the two of you, I'd be like, all right, you too. You're going to role play. You're the customer, here's your scenario. You're the salesperson. Here's what you need to overcome. Here's your objection. And then go at it. And then I support them when they struggle. That's what you have to do. And I know it's awkward and I know it's uncomfortable, but you can make it funny. You know, when they ask what your last name is, say Batman, I don't care. But you can do different things to make it a little bit more light hearted. But it is super important. And I always role play with people when I train them. It's usually what we do on their third session and they do get nervous. And I said, look, I'm a person just like you. The only difference here is that you're not going to lose your job or lose a customer by practicing with me. I'm not really buying a car from you. This is a safe environment. This is the best opportunity for you to be able to learn what to do going forward. And I always role play with them first with myself being the salesperson. And they love it because then they throw these. I had one person one time try every objection technique I had written for them in the call. And finally we got to like the 8 or 9th one. And I was like, this is getting a little redundant. Like, obviously I could overcome your objections. Can we move on, please? Because it was. It was pointless. No one's going to do that to you on the phone. So definitely leading by example, I think is important. And then also taking the time to make sure that they feel comfortable practicing together. Yes, it's weird. Yes, it's awkward. Give them lunch, you know, and just go for it. It's the best way to learn.

We did one thing. I took a. I took a volleyball, right? And volleyballs have those little panels on them, 18 panels. And so I wrote an objection on each one of those panels. And I'll walk through the office and I'll Give them a closing line and I'll throw the volleyball at them. Right. Hey, that's a great car. Come on in, let's do some paperwork. Throw the volleyball. And where their thumb lands is the objection that they then respond to. And so we'll do that back and forth and we'll bounce this volleyball back and forth and just go over these objections.

Jeff, I've never.

And it's a new one each time.

And I've never thought that you had a really great idea, but that is a really great idea.

Yeah, yeah. It's been. Thank you, Luke. I try to keep some from you, but this is. It's good because it's kind of on. Hey, this is, you know, how was the test drive go? Come on in, let's do some paperwork. Throw the ball. Their thumb lands on an objection, they say the objection and then I have to overcome it. Right. And we'll do that back and forth. And that's been kind of a fun midday, kind of get the blood flowing and role play when, you know, two o' clock things start to slow down a little bit. So it's a good time to kind of catch people, you know, and get those objections and be quick on your feet, too. Maggie, no phone call. Should we make a phone call?

We can make a phone call. I will do that.

Okay.

And then let's see what happens. Oh, this is going to be fun.

Sorry for the next break in, guys and gals, but we're talking about Buckeye Dealership Consulting. Jeff, is that time of the year tax planning and all that goes into the end of the year and also getting ready for the new year. Buckeye Dealership consultant can help you.

Get.

Put together that reinsurance company or show you how to sell the new products going into tax time because you're going to need to make every dollar you can going forward because these prices are still high, right?

Yeah. So many great things. Guys, it's not too late to get your reinsurance company set up. I don't think it's mid November. So call the guys there, get your reinsurance company set up and then try to squirrel away as much money as you can before the end of the year, but also have those products available when tax times comes and you get those big down payments from tax max and tax returns. You have back end products to sell to make up some of that gross margin that you're losing on the front end right now.

For sure.

It's a great place and it's tax deferred, tax advantageous.

Yeah.

Yes. Tax advantageous to put that money in your reinsurance company and start building some long term wealth. So give the guys a call there over at Buckeye and get your program set up now.

Oh, sorry we missed your call. Please leave us a message and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Wow, that's not even a personalized voicemail.

I was going to say. Well, we understand why they didn't get back to you. They're not there.

I hope they're there.

Maybe they don't want to sell cars.

Oh, I don't know.

Maybe try them one more time.

I wonder how often that happens.

All right, let's try again.

How many of us have actually called our dealership after hours or during hours and ask people not to pick up? To see how your phone tree works, to see what your voicemail sound like? To see, you know. Yeah, our system automatically texts you if we miss a phone call.

Same here.

Hi, I was calling about a vehicle that you guys have for sale. It was a 2012 Honda Cross Tour.

Let me get that pulled up. I believe that is still in service Car. Yes, yes, that is phone service. Is it coming soon?

It is coming soon. Okay, awesome. All right, well, I'll just call back on the website. Oh, I didn't even see that. All right. Okay. Well, I'll just call back in a couple of days then. Thanks.

Did you. Do you want me to get your info so I can let you know when it's ready?

Sure, that'd be great.

All right, what's a good number to reach you at?

It's 8:0340-8803-4460-4460.

And your name?

Kristin.

Yes, ma'. Am. Last name?

Johnson.

Miss Kristen with a K. Correct.

Correct.

Awesome. I got your.

Thank you.

Thank you. You have a good day.

You too. Bye.

So I will take up for him on a couple of things. He is the only person working leads right now, so the 15 minutes is pretty tough. Especially I know he's got a customer in the office. So anyway, that lead was not handled as we trained. So we will train on that.

What do we miss, Luke? What do we miss?

We missed everything. So number one, he's trained to try to move you to another car initially. If you called in on a coming soon car, he would try to move you to something or get you pre qualified for when that car is ready, get a deposit, you know, go through the standards, which he did not do. But that 15 minutes is. It's a struggle for us currently because we don't have enough staff to handle it. But it's still, you know, still not what we should be doing.

I picked this car because, first off, it was the first one on your website, but also great photo. Like the first photo that you guys chose to use for it was the most attractive to me. That's how I usually mystery shop cars. I pick the ones that I would actually want to buy myself. And that was a. I liked the way that you had it set up. Your website is also super easy to use. That's usually one of the first issues I see when I try to mystery shop a dealership is he can't find a contact Us form. You have them everywhere, which is amazing. I would say that that was the first thing I was going to say is he didn't really ask me if I was open to anything similar. Also, I don't know how long it takes you to get things through your service department, but you could always try setting a tentative appointment for a couple of days out. Hopefully the vehicle could be ready by then. And then also, I would talk about any of your minimum requirements, perhaps, what if I'm not a good candidate? What if I can't afford this car? Just some different things like that. That would be my suggestion. Trying to build a little bit of rapport. I know that you guys have been in business for a long time and you have a lot of, like, stuff on your website about us and your team and the different things that you guys offer. So I would have loved to have heard him say something about that. I mean, you guys have been in business since I was four years old. So, you know, you got a lot of roots in the community, and I'm sure you have different cool things about your program. Tell me about those things. Make sure I meet your requirements, and then just get me in the door. Sell me a car when I'm there, not now. That's what I would tell him.

Totally agree. And you know, it's funny how you can train and train and still never get what you're. What you expect the outcome is. But if you don't listen to the calls, it's hard for you to know what's happening. Right.

Also, what was his greeting supposed to be? Because all I heard was like a hello. So I was.

I think you missed. I think we missed a part of that call. Or either something's going on with it. I don't know.

Yeah, one.

Yeah, something happened.

Well, the first time it went to some awkward voicemail. So you Might want to decide.

I don't know.

Trees working.

I don't know what that is. Did you press?

I pressed one.

Okay. Huh.

I want to check your voice.

This is such a. Yeah, it's weird.

But as an overall conversation for all dealers to get some value from this. Yes. Call in from your kid's phone number or someone they're not going to recognize and just see how it goes through the call tree. Or even call in and say, guys, don't pick up the phone. I want to try to get through our automated messages. Or I want to see what your voicemail sounds like. Or I want to leave a voicemail and see if anyone even calls me back. Or, you know, plus, with the Internet lead side, we all kind of have pretty good. I think we probably all gauge our Internet leads and we kind of see what's coming in and hopefully it's being handled. Luke's obviously a little behind the eight ball because he's shorthanded right now, but.

That makes it tough.

It makes it tough. But also. And he's sitting here talking to us and not handling the overflow leads to get to him in time. But, but, but again, it's like bad sales, bad staffing beget more bad sales and more bad staffing because Christie's moved on to another RAV4. I was actually impressed that your guy stopped her and said, hey, let me get your info and call you when it's ready. I. The tone of your voice, Maggie, was almost, okay, well, I'll call me when it's. I'll call you back when it's done. Or whatever.

Like, I was like, that training, what happens? That training started to kick in. Right. It's, you know, if you're taking off and I. And that's the reason you have to role play, because if you're taking off topic, sometimes you have to get back to topic. And that's why it's so important to role play.

Yeah. And full name, too. He got the phone number, the first name, the last name.

So did you notice I only provided my first name? And then he was like. And you're like, you know, because I. Again, that's what we do. That's what a customer is going to do. If you're not asking for full info, they're going to just give you what you ask for. So he did do a really, you know, good job at getting my contact info. You can definitely mark that a dead lead, though, Luke. Not a real customer.

What also. What also happened is we're going through some changes from our CRM to another product. And I'm looking here, and your lead has not come through the new product, and he probably wasn't in the old CRM.

So I've got leads falling into fricking no man's land.

Yeah, we found that out yesterday. A button on the website will still go to the old CRM, but it's not coming to neo, our new program. And so we, you know, it's one of those things.

It was a specific vehicle lead, so I went to that vehicle. Yes. I didn't hit the contact button. That was under the vehicle on the main page. That's a reason I like to mystery shop dealers, too, is because stuff like this happens all the time, or they all the time.

He actually told me about this problem this morning, and so that's how I know.

That's good.

Yeah. So he. I guess you. When you went to the cross door, you hit the one. The. The five little buttons that are right beside the car.

Yep.

And none of those are going into NEO right now, so we've got to fix that.

Yeah.

The other thing is three months ago, so that's good.

Well, I was just gonna say, you know, one of the things that I've been telling people, because staffing has been a really big issue. If. If you're in a position where you want to hire somebody and you have enough Internet leads that you feel like you could have someone just doing your leads, go to a temp agency. They are full of people that need work right now, people who are vetted, and they're ready to rock and roll. You can bring them in, train them, and then if you like them, you can keep them. And that has been really successful for staffing BDCs most recently, because all of my clients are like, I can't keep salespeople right now, or I don't have enough BDC people. So go to a temp agency. They'll find you someone with a great voice, bring them in, teach them your stuff, and then they can handle your leads while your salespeople are busy selling cars. That's funny.

I never even. Never even thought about going. Yeah. Never even thought about going to temp agencies. Because you figure if. If the job market is as good as it is currently, that there wouldn't be even any tent workers. Right?

Yeah, but there are.

Interesting.

So interesting. And then your third tip, Maggie, is follow up.

Yes.

So we did the best we could at the time. He got your name and phone number, and he's going to follow up now. Right. And we're not going to be able to stick around long enough to see how that works out.

But no, I can leave the phone line open and see if he calls me back and you guys can follow up on it if you want. Unless he already knows it's a dead lead.

But I'm under the impression that follow up and my old CRM, we could set up campaigns and follow up until the fricking end of time, email, email, email, email, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I, but more recently the philosophy of like your leads are only good for like what, 48 hours or something? I don't know, what's the timeframe of when someone buys a car? Maybe seven days after that point they're out of the market now, right?

It's five to seven days. Yeah.

What's the point of following up after five or seven days? Do we need to, instead of having our guys follow up with all these old leads, is it better for them to focus on the new ones and be more aggressive in the first five to seven days and then if they fall off that maybe we follow up at six months or something like that, or good or two kind of beating a dead horse.

Such a great question. Because the new leads I can see like yes, we feel like those are the best, we should hit those really hard. The one thing I will say about the independent market versus a new car market is sometimes they spend their down payment. So while we might think we've got five to seven days, we actually have.

Slightly until Friday night.

We've got probably two weeks, maybe even three because sometimes unfortunately things come up for them and they need that money that they had saved and so they have to start all over from square one. I do love the 30 day follow up. I also love a 3 month follow up because if they choose your competitor over you, they're probably buying a junk car that's not going to last them and in three more months they're going to need another car. So I like three six, nine month follow ups. I think that's awesome. But I also like to see up to 18 attempts to contact a customer if it's a no contact. So let's say for example the lead comes in overnight, you call them first thing in the morning and they don't respond. It can take up to 18 attempts to get that person on the phone. And that's all methods of communication. Right. So text, I wouldn't consider email in there but I would do text and I would do phone and I would consider up to 18 attempts so I would say you really still want to try to call those people for two weeks. Now I'm not going to call them three times a day for two weeks because they're going to hate me. But for the first week I'm probably going to call them once a day and I'm probably going to send them a text and then maybe before I go home I'm going to shoot out an email just trying to get them to respond to me. Somehow after those two weeks are up, I might go from like 30 days from the actual date of lead submission and then from there I'm going to put them into like a 3, 6, 9 month follow up, 12 month follow up program.

Especially in the buy here, pay here market. Unfortunately there's so many people that repo because they bought a bad car or whatever happened and they're not bad people, just bad situation happens. So you never know. I mean we have leads that are still coming in, you know, and our follow up unfortunately has to end a little sooner than that because we don't, we don't have the staff to really to do it like that. But you never know. Three months down the road they bought a bad car, they're back in the market. So it's. I like the three months for sure.

The other option too, you bring up a really valid point, Luke. And I think the other option too is if you're using a text software, you could schedule those texts to go out and then you don't have to do anything. Yeah, schedule them to go out just like you schedule a Facebook post, schedule some text messages to go out to someone, you know, maybe every couple of days or whatever. If you don't have the staff do it for a full two weeks or anything like that, then set up some text. You could even do emails, schedule them to go out and then you don't have to worry about it. But you're still having that automation kind of do some stuff for you, which I do think is important so they don't feel forgotten. And you never know what might change. The repossession is a great example. A lot of times the customers are like the shiny object, right? So even though you may offer a great warranty or a 30 day money back guarantee, they might see the cool Mustang down the road that's available for two grand, that has no brakes and all the tires are bald and in three weeks after driving it it's completely crap. And you know, they should have obviously gone this route where they have a warranty or different things like that so they do get easily distracted by shiny objects, which is unfortunate, which makes them in the market a lot more, you know, a lot sooner than normally like you or I would be for sure.

Maggie, this has all been such great information. I think all of us are going to go out there and secret shop our own dealerships or maybe reach out to a dealer buddy and have them do it. You know, like I said, all of us, most of us have the ability to record phone call conversations. So I could secret shop you and I could send you over the recording, you know, or hopefully you record it in house. So so many great things. Maggie, if people want to get ahold of you and learn more or if they want to get your staff some coaching and some training, how do they get ahold of you?

So you. The easiest way is to call me. My phone number is 877-909-9461. Toll free number. We also have a website, it's CNM Coaching, but you have to type out the and so C A N d m coaching.com. we're also on Facebook. I have a podcast as well that I give away free tips all the time. I'm going to do like a call of the week where I play a scrubbed phone call and kind of talk about what happened in it, which I think is super interesting because I love to hear what happens in phone calls and maybe we'll do some collection stuff too. So the easiest way is to call me. That's the fastest.

It makes sense that Maggie has a podcast. I'm looking at her background and her audio quality. She's obviously got it. She's got a student something set up there. So. So check out her podcast as well. Maggie, thank you so much.

Thank you guys so much for having me. This was the best podcast I've done so far. It was so much fun. Thank you.

Thanks, Maggie.

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