#35 CIADA Presentation - Part 1

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Independent Dealer Podcast.

This week we're going to share with you part one of Luke's presentation at.

Carolina Independent Auto Dealers Association 2019. Welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast, the podcast for auto dealers to learn and grow together. Here are your hosts, Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson.

There's always going to be issues, guys, in the car business. No matter what business you're in, there's going to be aggravations, there's going to be things you didn't plan for. But it's up to us to make sure we try to do things the right way every time.

Time.

Because if we do things the right way, we can not have to worry about getting put out of business. And that's a concern. It should be a concern for everybody. Doing things the right way is definitely the right way to go all the time. So. Maximizing sales performance. I'm Luke Godwin. If you don't know me, I've talked here before about. Rip the microphone out. I own Godwin Motors in Columbia, South Carolina. We are a primarily buy here, pay here store. Been in business for 34 years. This October, my dad started it. Before that, my grandfather was a Ford dealer in Winnsboro, South Carolina, which is a little small town. And before that, he was at McLaughlin Ford in Sumter. So, third generation car dealer. I'm supposed to be a doctor, but here I am talking to you guys. I'm a lot smarter than you.

Just kidding.

So that's me. This is Marshall's owner. Now, he's the real reason everybody's here. This guy's a rock star. He has three dealerships in Portland, Oregon. Portland, Oregon. That's a long way from here, right? That's the reason he's dressed like this. They don't dress like we do out there. They don't say y'.

All.

They don't understand humidity. That's the reason his hair looks like that. But actually, he is a great mind in the auto industry and we are glad to have him here. It should be a special treat for y'.

All.

He spoken at NIADA several times. He and Eric, his business partner, have been the quality dealer of the year in Ohio three times.

Oregon.

Oregon. What'd I say? What'd I just say?

He might have got in Ohio. I just wasn't there.

Well, he's the best thing in Ohio. I was thinking Oieda, and it just came out.

Same name. Yeah.

And number two, national quality Dealer a couple years back. These guys know what they're doing. His primary focus is retail. Higher end retail cars in Oregon. Just a really class ACT dealership. Freermotorcompany.com if you want to check it out on the web. So with that being said, Marshall, what are we doing today?

Well, not hypermedia.

Yes.

That's what you're wondering. You might have saw that on the agenda. And I don't know if that's just what they took from Luke's personality. He's hyper and likes attention. I don't know. But it's gonna be about maximizing sales performance. So we're gonna talk a little bit about training and what you need to be doing at your dealership. We're also gonna be talking about some processes. We're gonna be talking about a little bit of metrics that Luke's gonna get into. But there's about four or five, I think I put four takeaways that I want you to leave here with one, an understanding of our customers. All right, let me just take a pulse in the room real quick. How many of you guys are a buy here, pay here dealer? Okay. How many of you here are a retail only dealer? Okay. All right, so good. And then how many are you? A little bit of both. So wouldn't you like to understand our customers to make sure we know what we're doing right?

That's a pretty good mix, actually.

It's a great mix. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, those guys are all from the same dealer, though.

That is true. They all look alike a little bit.

And then if we know our customers and what they are, then what is a good sales process? Right. If we know our customers and we know a little bit about our area, what is a good sales process that we need to have? I want you to walk away with that. You guys have a handout. If you guys didn't get a handout, please raise your hand. That's a bummer. All right, and then what are we out of them? I don't know. I'm just joking. They're around here somewhere. I'll get one to you. I think what should we be tracking is another one. And then what is my doc? And if you don't know what doc is, that means you have to stay till the end.

The very end. It's at the end.

Yeah, that's a little bit of a teaser there for you. All right, so we'll get into that. What we're going to do is we're going to talk a little bit through that and then we might even do some examples here. And Luke's going to chime in and interrupt me constantly. So I know, you know, what more to give you. Because we did this, we've practiced a lot of things to go. Is there a difference between retail and buy Here, pay here. How many of you guys believe those are two worlds apart?

Good.

Nobody believes that. That's great. Because really, I really would have thought, like, a challenge on that. So if we get some challenges on that. I love challenges. Okay. I love some hecklers. That's why Steve Matthews is here.

Right.

So we gotta get some people giving us some challenges. So one of the things that I like to tell people is, well, one, how many of you guys would agree that it's hard to find good people? Yeah.

Everybody's hands should be up to the.

If this class was how to find the right people, it would be. I mean, everybody would be packed. Right. But there's no secret cure to that. We know that. There's no, you know, secret sauce. So finding the right people is hard to do. But once you get them, what do you do with them? Right. Is another thing. How do we keep them? Well, we got to invest in our people. What does investing in our people look like? Looks like training. So let's talk a little bit about some benefits of training, and then we'll dive into it before we even get there. Yeah.

How many of you right now in this room train your employees once a month? Okay. Once a week.

Okay.

So if you're not training your employees, and it looks like a lot of you may not be. I didn't say a year, but once a year. But if you're doing it once a year, that's not really training. But if you're not doing it, you got to do it. Listen to watch.

Okay? The other thing, too, is if you have a process, and Luke and I have talked about this, how much can you expand on that and expand on it and expand on it. Every single time you learn a new thing in your dealership or something else you want to implement, the process starts small and gets big. And we'll start off with it small here. So what are some of the benefits of training? Well, I'm going to tell you one, it's retention is the number one thing. Training equals retention. People love it if you're here. If you send some people here, they're motivated, I guarantee it to be here.

I'm going to stop you right there this morning. Sorry, y'.

All. I mute that.

Yesterday, I sent one of our collectors to the collection class, and I talked to her on the phone at 11 o' clock this morning. And before we hung up the phone, you know what she said? Thank you for sending me to training yesterday. I mean, I sent her there for my benefit.

Right.

But she's thanking me, so just think about that.

Yeah, it's motivating to them. It shows that they're. You're investing some of your own money and time. Trained employees have fewer questions. Trained employees ask better, more interesting questions. If you ever wonder, why the heck am I getting these questions from my employees? Well, trained ones will give you better questions. Okay? And they'll even better. They'll start challenging you, which is great, because you need to be challenged. Trained employees learn more efficiently. Trained employees are more productive. Trained employees are happier and more confident. And most importantly, trained employees protect you from liabilities.

What does that mean?

What does that mean? Well, I mean, I could go in so many different directions, but let's just. How many of you guys know that your salespeople say the right thing all the time? Okay, let's go a little harder than you. How many of you guys even greet your customers the same? Everybody raise your hand if every single person in your dealership greets the customer the same. I can't. I can't even raise my hand because sometimes we'll have somebody who just walks in and my guys just totally mess that up and they're like, hey, what's going on today? Right? Which is not the right greeting. If you're wondering, you're like, hey, that's my greeting. Don't write that down.

Okay, how about your service drive? What kind of liabilities would that create if you weren't doing the right things?

That was Niada. I can't go back there. No, I'm just joking. If you have a service drive, if your greeting isn't the right way and your walk around is not the right way, I mean, yeah, you open up yourself for huge liability, but here's one of the biggest things in the world that we live in. If I greet you differently, then I greet you. What might you say I'm doing? Discriminating. Because I don't like pink shirts. Right? That's what they could hardball him. Everybody has a different name here for these shirts.

Salmon. That's Salmon.

Salmon pink. Coral. They're all pink where I'm from. All right?

They only wear black. So they don't even know anybody.

They just wear black. There's never been this much coral where I'm from.

Don't let it fool you.

There we go. All right, so it limits liabilities. I'm gonna talk about that even more when we get into this. You guys all have a handout, so hopefully you guys can follow along and I'll tell when we're talking about different points in there, I'm sure some stats for some customers. And then I'm going to talk about a process. And I want this to be your guys process. You have something you take away and you take back to the dealership that you can train on and implement right away. Here's the main problem with dealership processes. If we have nothing to train on, how are we training? Meaning if I don't have a process now Luke said to me the other day, he's like, we have a process. And I guarantee if I asked you guys, how many here have a sales process, raise your hand. Okay, how many of you guys have a sales process written down? Okay, how many of you guys have a sales process written down? You train on every week. Okay. You see how we can just keep getting better, Right? So it looks like, oh, I got a sales process. He said something about a greeting and I said, where is it? He's like, I don't know what you said, but I said, is it written down somewhere?

And that's probably the truth of it too.

No, he wrote it down this morning on a notepad.

I did?

Yeah.

That was good. I trained on that this morning early. You did.

So if we have nothing to train on, how are we training? And if we're not training, how is our salesforce getting better? And if our sales force isn't getting better, why in the heck would they want to stay here? Why would they want to stay with me if they're not getting better? And you know, I don't know what your guys motivation for getting into the business could be money, could be cars, could be whatever. My biggest thing is I like to see people get better. I like to grow myself and I like my people to get better. And if I have no way of helping them do so, they're not going to stay. Some of them might.

If you had a salesperson that was selling five cars a month, you know, you hired them and they were great. You know, they're bombastic, they're so personable, they wear the right clothes, they say the right thing, and if they're selling five cars the first month and they sell five cars the next month, and they sell five cars the next month and you know it's in there somewhere and they leave, what's going to happen? You just wasted somebody's Time, Right? And you wasted your time.

They are so jacked. The first month they sold five cars.

Okay?

They're so excited. The next month they sell five cars. They're just like, hey, how come you didn't get better? And they're thinking themselves, why didn't they get better? Right? I mean, people like to feel like they're getting better. And truthfully, if they're not getting better, here's the other question. Do I want them to stay? And then I have to ask myself, did I give them every opportunity and every tool? Okay, so let's talk a little bit about our customers. Let's go ahead and go through this. A little handout.

Your handout. Everybody got it. This will make more sense if you have your handout. If you don't have the handout, it's not gonna make any sense.

It won't make sense. That's true.

Can I get a handout?

Yeah.

Hey, is there any more handouts out there? There you go.

Is that you? I gave you one. Okay. The first question on here is customers. Can I read yours? Because I don't know where I left. Customers care about experience more than price 94% of the time. Customers care about experience more than price 94% of the time.

Who actually believes that? You believe that.

Why do you believe that? Because I can tell you that we've had new employee change in the last two years, and my customers are thankful for the new employees versus the old employees. And my prices have gone up compared to last year. We used to be under 5,000, and now we have cars and bit higher and are selling those.

Perfect point. Think about this. If everybody cared about price, wouldn't every customer just shop on Cargurus and everybody in here would spend only their money advertising on Cargurus? Isn't that the case? Is that what everybody's doing?

I know some people are thinking, yeah, they do come in on my lowest price, and that's why they're there. Yeah. They will pay more 94% of the time for better experience. Okay, well, I'm sorry. They care about price. Are experienced better than price 94% of the time. They care about experience. That means your repeat and referral customers will come back to you if you give them a good customer experience. And if you don't believe that to be true, just think about the restaurants or other stores that you shop in and go, yeah, they could have killer food, but if their service is terrible, I may not be going back there. I say may not because sometimes the food will win Over a really bad waitress or waiter. But most of the time we're like, we're not going back there. Okay. The other stat is right after that is customers will pay more 54% of the time for better experience. Did I read that right?

Yeah, I think so.

I know that.

Okay.

That means once I give them a better experience, they're willing to adjust. What does this mean for you? For people who are coming in and they're bringing up price right off the bat, is price the true motivator or are they willing to bump a little bit? Right. If they bring up price, how many people think price comes up in the first 10 minutes? Everybody's hand should be up in the air, some sort of price. Does down payment come up in the first 10 minutes? Monthly payment come up in the first 10 minutes? If it doesn't come up in the first 10 minutes, there might be something. You got better customers.

They're there to steal the car.

Probably. Yeah. They have a different agenda when they're there. Yes. So if we're not training our staff how to properly handle that, when they come in, they say, Well, I want $200 a month and I only have $500 down. And then your salesperson's coming in and going, man, we got a tough one out there.

Hey, let me just stop for a sec. Tracy Myers is. Do you have the cheapest priced cars in Winston Salem? What makes people buy from you?

Static?

No, this guy, if y' all haven't seen his experience, when you buy a car, it's something else.

So check it out.

Tracy Myers, Frank Myers, automax.

Right.

Check it out.

So when somebody comes in and says, I want only $200 a month, maybe they want 150 or, and I only have $500 down, and if I don't know how to properly address that and I don't give them a good, I'm going to believe that. But if I can believe that I know that I give them a better customer experience, I might be able to bump that up a little bit. Right. I'm gonna give you some more here that you can bump up. Alright? The next stat. What does that say, Luke?

Customers buy within a week of shopping at a dealership 90% of the time.

How many of you guys have sold 100% of your customers this week so far?

Oh, come on.

He shot it up and then brought it back because he's like, well, hire that guy. 100%. Yeah, I guess if you only have one custom one day. Oh yeah, okay. Well then you give it Some more time, you'll be down here with the rest of us. Okay? What that. What does that mean to us? When a customer comes in and leaves, does that mean they're not. They're out of the market?

No.

No. How do we treat them, though? Sometimes they're on the next one. You're out of the market. You know what? He left. He must be out of the market now, right?

But it.

I mean, statistically, people take about a week to buy a car.

Well, boss, he was just looking. Yeah, he was just looking. Looking for a sale.

Looking for something for a salesperson. 70% of the time, people will say, I'm just looking. Is that the one? I said, is that the right one?

Customers will buy.

Oh, no, I'm sorry. That's almost. I skipped one. Customers will buy from you because they like you 70% of the time. If you don't believe that's true, think about a product you didn't need that you bought because you like that person.

Alexa always tells me how to do that every time.

I can tell you a true story. I bought a year's worth of paintball memberships I didn't need because that salesperson was awesome. Okay? And it wasn't just because she was pretty, because my wife was right there with me. I mean, that had a little bit to do with it, but she was really good. And I was like, this is so good of a deal. I just have to do this. She's so good, right? And I've never once used those, so I know it can be just because you like somebody.

We have a bottle of. We have a bottle of balsamic vinegar that I bought at a farmer's market in Beverly Hills because she was such a good salesperson. Alexa brought that. Oh, my gosh. She brought it up, like, 20. 20 times in the first year.

You bought a $2 bottle of vinegar for, like. For 50 bucks. Think about what you could be charging for your cars. But you ever go, like, to wine or get wine or cheese, they always have this backstory, you know, from Oregon. They always have the backstory about the cows. You know, if you're getting steak, they're always like, well, this was raised in a small village in Molalla, Oregon. It was massaged and was fed by the Andersons. And, you know, they only fed them twice a day, and it was grass. I mean, they have this whole story behind it. And you're like, yep, that's. That's the steak I want. I mean, it's the same, and they're.

Getting $19.95 a pound compared to $9.95 a pound, right. Or $29.95.

Yeah, you don't want to know about the. The price is there, so just know that. How many of you guys have a salesperson? You're like, I barely like him, man.

I had that guy forever yours left.

Because of you or just because he wanted to. They did not follow proper procedures. So you got them. You got them. Yeah. Had to. Sometimes we make that decision a little too late, right? Think about how many customers they chased off. 70% will buy just because they like you. Okay? All right. 75% of our customers are trained to say, just looking at a few. If you don't think that's true, just think about all your shopping experiences, okay? You walk into a store and somebody says, hey, can I help you? And you say, no, I'm just looking. But by the way, hey, where are the jeans at? Right? They're just conditioned to say, I don't want help. I do want help, but I just want you to know that I may not need help. Right? Customers are very. What do you call it? Not trained, but conditioned. They're not trained. They're conditioned to say, just looking, but they're also conditioned in a bunch of other things that I may be able to get into here a little later. When it comes to closing, right? Continue to just say, I gotta go home and think about it. That's called conditioned responses. I gotta go home and think about it. Is that a conditioned response, or is that just something they have to say? Right. I'm just looking. It's not something they have to say. It's just conditioned. And we all do the same things. We'll talk about how to overcome that. Okay? And when.

What's this one? When making a purchase, when making a.

Purchasing decision, price comes in sixth place in order of importance.

Sixth place.

That means they care about fourth. Five other things before that. That means they care about the look and feel of your dealership. That means they care about the look and feel of your salesperson. That means they care about the experience of it. That means they care about. What else could it be?

The car.

The car. Yeah. The options, the quality, all that of the car. And if you don't believe this number is true, that's fine. Take it as fourth place or take.

It as third place.

I don't care. Just know that's not number one. And sometimes our salespeople, if we don't teach them right or we don't ingrain this in ourselves, we're just going to think everybody is price driven. When they come on the lot and they bring up price and they go, that's the only thing holding them back. Well, it can't be on 90% of our customers. I understand there probably are 10% that do care, and they come in and all they want to do is grind us. Right. I'm not talking about those. Don't bring those up. I don't care about those. Talking about 80% of the time, these are the customers we deal with. Right. Okay. You guys got a little understanding about our customers. One more. I have one more. Yes. That's good for you guys. Lucky. Okay, sales are closed after our fifth attempt. 80% of sales are closed after our fifth attempt. What does this mean to us? Sales in car sales, Luke.

Or other sales?

Any sales.

Any sales. Any sales.

So you guys have heard the term always be closing. If somebody. Yeah, if somebody comes in and they're gonna go home and think about it. Right. What's my job to do now? Do I need to close them on the car or do I need to close them on something else?

Close them on something else.

Thank you. Because I only gave you two options, so hopefully you pick right. One of them. Okay, close them on something else. A small.

A small decision.

Small decision. What am I closing them on? Possibly. What could I be closing them on? Nothing back, then coming back. So how do I get them to come back? People usually come back when they have a. What? Starts with an A, ends with int. Mint. Man, I really got to help you guys out here. So they will come back if they have an appointment, right? Okay. And you guys would lose at. What's that? Wheel of fortune? A p, P, O, blank nt? I don't know. Appointment? I don't know. I don't even know if I spelled it right. All right, so we always got to be closing on something, right? If they're not here, we're closing on an appointment. So if somebody leaves and we know that it takes a week to buy a car, 90% of the time it takes a week, then I know that. Hey, you know what, Steve? You left. But hey, when are you thinking about coming back? You thinking about tomorrow? Maybe this weekend?

Probably tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Well, it's easy. Customer.

Great.

Tomorrow we think morning, afternoon. And when you say morning, are you thinking, yeah, we're the price. And I would love to give you a good deal, and I can't wait to do that. So when you come back tomorrow, make sure you bring your wife and we can go Ahead and wrap up this stuff. Now, when you say morning, are you thinking about 9 or 10?

About 9:15.

About 9:15. And did you want some. Did you want me to have your. Now, this is Oregon talking here. Okay. Did you want me to have an espresso or did you want me to have a latte ready for you when you come in? Yeah, we do have one of those machines there. Yeah, it's been really hard here to not have.

You really want to get Steve Matthews jacked up? If y' all haven't ever seen that, that's fun.

Okay, so always closing on something. An appointment, the car. It takes five times, but here's what happens to us. A lot of times somebody says, I gotta go home and think about it. And I said, no problem. When do you think you can come back? Are you thinking either later today or first thing in the morning? And they say, well, you know what? I don't know yet. And what do we do? We just leave it. Oh, they don't know yet. Okay. Hey, look, that guy out there, he's gotta go home and think about it. He said, when's he coming back? I don't know. I asked him. He said he just doesn't know. He's a disorganized person. I guess he just doesn't know what he's doing tomorrow. He has no idea what he's doing.

We didn't give him any options.

Didn't give him any options. And we didn't. Try another time. Could I try another time? And I say, well, were you thinking about tomorrow or later on this weekend? And he could say, well, I just don't know my schedule yet. No, I totally understand. Well, I just want to make it easier for you and not more difficult. And I just want to make sure that I have time to spend with you. I got to give him a little bit of selling. I got to make sure I have time to spend with you. And I want to make sure that latte or that coffee is ready for you, Steve. So just let me know when you're coming. Coming back. Now, what works better for you? Is it nights or mornings?

Actually, mornings. Mornings.

Oh, that's awesome. Okay, so when you say mornings, is it weekends or weekdays? Probably rather.

Come on Saturday.

Saturday, great. You know what? I'm going to go ahead and put you in just so I make sure I have time for you. I'm going to have that coffee ready for you. We'll say in the morning on Saturday. How does that sound? Do you see how I can push a Little bit more. Because I got to try this five times, right? But all our guys just do it once, and they come back and they say, that person is just looking. And that's why we have a lot of just lookers, because we don't greet them right. And we don't. And. And then we just judge them and then we don't try to close them. Right. You feel like you got a lot of stuff to do to get home? No, dude, I'm just good.

We all do it, guys and gals. We all do it.

They think you're crazy.

You're not crazy.

Don't worry. This is all made up. So, all right, what is the process at your dealership? How do we help them get better? This is a line that a lot of you guys start off in the week, and you go, hey, you're only at five cars, and you should really be at 10. What are you got to do? Well, I don't know. Get better. Now, we don't say it exactly like that, but if we don't give them the tools, what are we essentially saying to them? Look, get better, right? He's like, how? Sell more cars.

Yeah, that's what you need to do.

Sell more. I mean, you're only at five. You need to be at seven.

What's wrong with you? You sold 12 last month.

Have more. Have more ups? Is that what it is? You need to have.

Hey, boss, you need to advertise more.

You need more inventory.

We don't have enough leads coming in. Well, maybe if the boss just decided to train us a little better, I don't know, maybe that would work. Maybe if we had more appointments.

All right, we all got our stats filled in, so why don't we go ahead and pull out or go next to the. To the right there, and let's go ahead and fill this out to our dealership. Don't just copy what I say, please. Even though I know it is right. You can have your own. Okay. Because everybody's dealership.

Marshall and I went through this on the way down yesterday, talking about my dealership and what we do. And so Marshall has most of the time, when people walk into one of your dealerships, they're good credit people. You don't have to qualify them. So I was making a distinction that maybe in subprime or buy here, pay here, this is going to be a little different now. It's going to be a little different. You make the point. It's a little different for every dealership.

Yes, it's absolutely different. For every dealership. And I have three different dealerships and I can walk you through the differences real quick in this is how I know the differences are definitely true. So one is a high end European dealership in the heart of Portland which is 2.5 million people. So don't have to work too hard there to get people in the door. Then I have one in the rural part of Oregon, Salem, Oregon. And we deal with a little bit lower end cars there which are a little bit more credit challenged. Then I have a warehouse in Portland that we sell mostly wholesale cars out of. And when customers walk through that door, we train our customers on how to do the greeting. But the greeting is usually from a little bit further distance and they have some time. But at our new dealership, at the wholesale dealership, they walk in and they immediately are with a customer. Well, that's a different transaction or reaction between the customer and the salesperson. Right. Than somebody who's got 10ft in front of them. Now that seems minor, but it's different. That's why I say everybody's process should be slightly different. But it should all fit within the shell of this little graph that I made you. So first, the meet and greet should absolutely be the first thing in your steps. Right. And it should be the same way every time with the same person. Every time. Why? I already went over at the beginning. Hopefully you guys didn't forget.

Discrimination.

Discrimination. Thank you. What'd you say? So you don't discriminate. So you don't discriminate. Okay. That's what we picked up the most. Okay. Also consistency, what we like to call reflex. Reflexes. So that's all we, we don't even have to think about it. It's just a reflex for us. Right. You know what?

Muscle memory.

Muscle memory. Thank you. So the greeting is the same every single time. I know I don't have to worry about whether he greeted that customer the same or and I know that we're lead them right into the process. So what does a greeting look like?

What does a greeting look like, Marshall?

Well, I'm going to give you ours. At our dealership it looks something like this. Okay. Now at our dealership, a lot of times they're on a car or maybe they just walked in. But I'm going to start with that car. It's a beautiful car, isn't it?

It is a beautiful car.

Great. Have you been in Pre Motor company before? Is this your first time?

My first time.

Oh, I'm Marshall. And you are?

We've Got one.

Great. Did you come on a specific car or did you just stop by? I actually came. Okay, I'm going to stop there. Did you see how my greeting was? I'm going to start off. Did you see it? Did I say, welcome to Freeman Motor Company? Did I say that? I did not. Okay, so there's a couple things that trigger people. If I say, hey, can I help you? I'm just looking. If I say welcome, that is also what we call a triggering word. Okay. If you say welcome, sometimes people go, you're still trying to help me. Don't package this into a welcome. Okay, right. But if I just. So this is. This is the welcome. Hey, welcome to Godwin Motors. Right? Yeah. Right. Okay, that can be now. And sometimes that works. But I'm just saying I like consistency, and I like to have me more conversational, and I like to know exactly where I'm going with this. So I'm going to be more side by side with him. Okay? Now, this can be metaphorically or physically. Okay, When I say metaphorically, sometimes conversationally can be confrontational. But if we just are conversational, we're looking at a car or we're even talking about the weather. Like, it sure is humid here, isn't it?

Oh, it's beautiful.

That's conversational. Okay, that's just conversational. He's relaxed. He's not on the defense. And then I say something like, hey, have you been here before? Is this your first time here? It's the first time now. Now I can swoop in for my introduction. Hey, well, welcome in. I'm Marshall. And you are? Okay, now, if he says he's been here before, great. Who do you usually work with?

I was talking to Sam last time.

Okay, so now I know where I'm going. Right. I know that I'm gonna bring him into somebody else that may or may not work there. What if he worked with Sam? Well, you know, Sam doesn't work here anymore. He actually went on to go into the computer business. But I'd love to help you. My name is Marshall. And you are.

We've got them.

Right? Those are the things we practice all the time to make sure our greetings the same. And we know where to go with the sale. Right?

And every greeting should be your own. Think about this. It's just because his. And you may change it, right? So just because I walk out to a customer every time and say, hey, I'm Luke Godwin, or, you know, hey, I'm Marshall, or that's. That goes after Your greeting. Your greeting should be standard for your operation.

What's your greeting, Luke?

So are you out looking at.

I'm sorry.

I messed that up, didn't I?

I don't know.

I did. So you're out looking at shopping today, aren't you?

Yes.

See, I've already taken the looking part off the board, and I said, okay, I know this customer is out looking and shopping. So to not get a looking, I'm just looking response, we want yes responses.

Yep.

You're out looking and shopping today, aren't you?

I am.

Welcome to Godwin Motors.

See how I do that? Whatever it is, you just want to make sure you're directional with it. Okay? So if you get a lot of people that have been in there before, your sales people are saying, hey, they come in all the time, whatever that is, you're gonna want to go, okay, they come in all the time. What's their name? Who do they usually work with? Right. If I have the greeting nailed down the same every time, then my sales guy should be able to say, well, they come in all the time.

Awesome.

What's their name and who do they usually work with? Is it you or somebody else? Right. I can usually get that out of them if I know they're doing the greeting the same. You see how that's important and it shouldn't deviate. Now, the next step we need to investigate this shouldn't be too much different than anybody else's. An investigation at Luke's place looks a little bit different than our place. And at Luke's place, I think it's something to do with.

It's very simple. We need to decide whether someone is here on a specific car or are they here for our financing program. So our investigation would be, did you come in on a specific car online? Are you here for our financing program?

Right. Because we're about here payer.

So that leads us down a path. Well, if they came in on specific car, then we need to determine if it's, you know, for our financing on that specific car or do they have, you know, cash. Already have their financing set up.

So what I try to tell my sales people, I don't want you to be slow. I want you to be efficient. And all I'm trying to do is teach you to be really efficient. So I'm just going to direct you through this sales process a little bit quicker. Okay. So if you've been in here before, is this your first time? I'm really quickly knowing, did you find us online or did you just Stop by. If you found us online, was that possibly Autotrader, our website, were you looking at Cargurus? Right. What? If you tell me Cargurus, what do I know?

Price, price, price, price, price, price, price.

Yeah, it's the worst. Okay, yeah, we all hate it, except it works. So Price. But then what do I also know? If you were on Cargurus, what might you know about our dealership?

You see what our rating is? You see this inventory?

If they were on our website, they obviously knew our inventory, right? They know a little bit about us. If they were on Cargurus, they might not know a little bit about us, right? So if I say, hey, did you find us online? If I say, where did you find us? They're going to say, online, right? And you say, was it Cargurus or was it possibly our website? And they're going to say it was your website. And I'm going to go, oh, awesome. So are you familiar with us? How did you get turned on to our website? And if I find out they're referred by a friend, then I go, yes, because I make a little bit more from referrals, don't I? Because they already know and trust us. Now, if they don't know and trust us and they found us on Autotrader or some other third party site, Carfax listings or something like that, that doesn't necessarily tell us everything about our website or I mean, about our dealership, then I got to educate him a little bit more, right? I got to build some value there. And so I don't know to build value yet until I've asked the right questions. And maybe I'm building value with people who already know about us. And how boring is that? Best story I ever had was one of my sales guys up in our showroom talking to a guy for about 30 minutes, asked all the wrong questions. 30 minutes. Now that's a long time for me because I could be helping a lot of other people come to find out after that the guy had bought a car two days ago and he didn't even know it because he asked all the wrong questions. 30 minutes. So wasted up, wasted time.

Oh, get it?

So the benefit for your salespeople so they can move through the process quicker, right? Investigating what kind of buyer they are, what they're looking for.

Does anybody here have a salesperson that wastes a lot of time with ups? It doesn't churn them. We all do.

Yeah. Knows all about their family, their history, their fishing stories, their favorite places to go. You guys don't have the only salespeople that like to waste a lot of time telling stories. And they're like, oh, but I made best friends with them. But the best friend somehow decided to go to another car dealership and buy from somebody else, right? Because I know so many of us go, but we don't want to be high pressure. But the problem is if we don't apply a little bit of pressure, who is going to apply high pressure? The next dealership and then the next dealership isn't coming to these conferences and isn't necessarily the best dealer out there. They're maybe not a bad dealer, right? But they're maybe not the best dealer out there. And they're going to put them in a car that maybe they can't afford or maybe they shouldn't have because they didn't actually investigate to something they need and want. And how many of you guys have somebody in here who bought something different than what they intended to buy? Most of the time?

Thank you, Steve.

Because customers don't know. I don't know. I get distracted by a lot of different things. I think I should have a cool little two seater. But if, you know, I have three kids and I know after I bought that two seater that doesn't work out because they always argue about who gets to sit in the front. And then I triple buckle them and then it's illegal. So when you have a customer comes in and they say, hey, this is what I'm looking for. And they oh my gosh. Sometimes you just have to walk them through their stupidity, right? They're like, well, yeah, I want something with really good gas mileage. And you go, oh, great, yeah, we have some stuff with really good gas mileage. And you say, why, how far do you live away from work? And they go, I only live four miles from work. You're like, oh, okay. Do you do a lot of other driving where you're on vacations? And they're like, no. And you're like, so you drive four miles to work. So you want get to something that gets 50 miles to the gallon. Why? And then they don't have an answer, like, well, maybe I don't.

Then you sell them a Porsche, right?

Thank you. Yes. No, we sell them a Range Rover that gets like 13 miles to the gallon. Right? But customers don't know. And then you educate them and all of a sudden you may have a car that they need instead of coming back in and saying, hey, we don't have something they need. They want a hybrid. They want something 50 miles to the gallon, we just don't have it. Or worse, you have it and it's like the wrong color or you have everything but one little option. All because we didn't find out what they truly really care about. And maybe they really. If we just spent some time in this investigative stage and we found out this car has so many options that they like but one. And we can't get over it because we're not reminding them of all the other options they like. Right. They like everything about it, but it's missing a sunroof. And they're like, well, I really wanted one sunroof, so I'm going to keep looking. Yeah, because those used cars with all those right options, with the perfect color combination, the miles and the price, so easy to find, right? Go to the used car factory and pick that out. So we have to remind them of what they like about it. Because let's not forget, if we don't do this step properly, when we get all the way in the little arrows and we're reminding them. Well, you really did like the heated seats or you not here, right? You really like the tan leather, right? Cooling seats. I know, man, you really have to have those cooled seats, didn't you? And you really loved the backup camera, right? And you really did like the way this thing drove. And I know you came in here from Cargurus because the price is really attractive, isn't it? So, I mean, other than having that other option, what's stopping you from getting it right? But I can't do that. If I do the investigative stage. Just so you know, if I have this, and I'm training on this every day. Well, every week, once a month, wherever you guys starting place is, if I train on it regularly, your salespeople will see how the pieces fit together. Okay. If they don't do the greeting right, they're not setting themselves up in the investigative stage. Right. If they're not doing the investigative stage right, they can't get to the next step. I put a little small thing in here because there's a qualify that might be a stage for you. That's a stage for Luke. Maybe you can touch on that for just a second, what your step is.

So after we investigate and we find out that they are in our store, because our financing program, before we move any further past that, we want to qualify them to make sure they can buy from us. And this can work for any process. So at that point, after we've investigated, they're here for our Financing program. Maybe they're here on that specific car. Well, let's invite them in the office to sit them down and fill out a credit app. We don't want to waste their time or our time. So ours is pretty simple. Mr. Customer, I'm so glad you're in here for our financing program. We're one of the oldest buy here, pay here stores in Columbia, South Carolina, or the oldest in Columbia, South Carolina. Before we waste your time or our time, can we get you inside, fill our application?

Can I just tell you something that Luke did right there that I think you guys don't give yourselves enough credit for? On why? You guys are amazing salespeople. And it doesn't always translate to your salespeople. You guys have these value building statements that are in your head that just come out like that, right? You know how long you've been in business, you know what's awesome about your dealership? And if we don't practice those with our salespeople, they don't know exactly what to say. And then when you do tell them every benefit that there is, what do they do? They barf that out in the worst possible way. You know, we've been out here for, like, 29 years, and, you know, we're really good with customer service. We're like, number one. And, you know, and then it's like 10 minutes long, and the customer is like, I don't care. Right? So you have to keep it, like, super simple. And it's weird, the things you have to train on. But if we don't train on it, right? Those are the things that happen. You go, oh, that's so true. Happens. Well, that's your fault, right? I mean, who else should we be blaming but you guys? Because you didn't train them, right? You just let them go out there on their own for some odd reason and thought that, well, you know what? I've been working here for 20 years. They should know exactly what to say and the right way to say it. So simplify your statements. Give them some value building statements, and then practice it with them. Anyway, sorry, I was a little mean. No. Okay. Step two, three could be qualify like you guys just heard Luke, Step three or four is the test drive, right? What's the test drive? Why does I gotta train on that? I'm a big believer in the same route every time. Same route every time.

How many people in here get their salesperson to ride with the car? Okay, and who does it.

Because you don't have the manpower or just because you don't like to do it. Manpower, mostly.

Manpower is probably our reason.

Yeah. So I'm a big believer in sending people out on a test drive. We really break this down into. We call it the demonstration, because we like to explain the features of that car while they're sitting in it before they go on it. And then on the test drive, we have a specific route that they use. If the car breaks down, I know where to find them. If they're gone for too long, I know they probably did something else or maybe something happened to them on the way that wasn't very good. Right. I don't know. But if it's been more than 15 minutes, I should probably send a search party for them. Right. Or if they send the same route every time, I know it creates muscle memory, and I know when to start my closing. Right. Test drive routes are really important. Also, it's really beneficial for you guys to go on the test drive route because you might know a great way that maybe your sales guys don't. And I was just going on one the other day with one of our new dealerships, and the sales manager there said, yeah, we got two of them here. Let me take you on the first one. And you guys would laugh at how ridiculous it was. He goes, well, sometimes we adjust this because there's a train that you have to wait for for 30 minutes. And sometimes we can't go here because the traffic piles up. So we go this way. And there must have been exceptions. And I said, this is the most ridiculous test drive with her. Three exceptions. I can't even believe you have our guys going on this. We're gonna fix this immediately right now. This could be going on right now that you don't even know about. Right. I mean, think about a customer being frustrated because a train in our area. Train comes, freight train happens, sits there for 30 minutes, you get stuck there. Then you don't know what to say to the customer.

Hey, it's a beautiful day, huh?

You've already done. You've been trained so efficiently on all your stuff. You're like, I'm ready to move this sale along, and the customer's just sitting here. Okay, well, I guess you want to buy it then. Yep. Can't go now. You're locked in a car. Right. So test drive route. I believe in defining that yourself. I don't like my sales guys defining things. I like to define them. I love for them to give me feedback and help improve it, but I want to define it. Okay, what if they want to take it on the highway? Yeah. So we have. We have three different test drive routes on most of our places. So one's for heavy traffic and one's for. We have one for, like, hills and stuff. And then we have a Highway 1 as part of our standard one. But the standard one should be your shortest one because what. It happens a lot when people come in. They go, oh, I don't have time to test drive. Does that happen, you guys? That an objection you guys get sometimes?

Yeah.

You know what I say to you, it's no problem. I'll just take you on the short route. You know, my short route is my standard route.

Did I give you perception?

Right? Did I give you a time frame on that? No.

How long is your. Is your route in normal traffic?

In normal traffic, it's like 10 minutes. Okay. Yeah. Sounds pretty long. So, I mean, I don't think too much more than 15 minutes. You want to our sales guys, I'll give them a lot of credit. They're really good. 15 minutes is a long time, isn't it? I mean, have you guys ever sat with somebody for 15 minutes or ridden with somebody? I mean, in a car is a different setting. 15. I mean, especially if the thing's going south and they don't smell very good. You're like, oh, my gosh, please get back. We took the long route, that train. Okay, and then number four is close. We gotta teach our guys how to close, because how many closing attempts do we have to get? Do you remember? How many times do we have to do this?

Five times.

Five. Good. Try this five times. So we gotta train them how to do it. And the first time, and this is something Luke and I discussed a lot when we talk about some of our service guys and some of the things that we train our people for, they're so used to. We're in a no business. People tell us no a lot. It's a lot of rejection. And you know what? Maybe some of us, us are used to rejection, okay? Maybe we've asked out a lot of girls and got shut down a lot of times. And so that's okay with us. Okay. But maybe some of us aren't used to that.

Marshall's nerves, right?

So we got to train our guys to get used to it. So you know what, Steve, you're going to take this person on a test drive, and when you try to close them, you know what they're going to say to you?

What's that?

They're going to turn you down. They're going to say no. So can you be ready for that? Right, I got to get them ready for that. Otherwise they're going to be too scared. The biggest reason they're not asking for the sale is they're just too scared to get that. No. So I gotta get them over that. I gotta practice this with them. Okay? So I'm gonna say something. I'm gonna remind them about all the awesome things in the car. While I'm in the car, While you're locked in it. So you can't leave, okay? You're stuck in this car. There's no way you're getting out. Also, side note, if you ever want to do this with, like, your kids or conversation with your wife, that's when you have in the car that can't leave. Okay? But when you're selling stuff, you're not here, right? Okay. Right over there. So when you're in the car and you're on your test drive route and you're coming up to the dealership, this is when you start your closing statement. I think this is the right car for you. I'm going to go ahead and have our porter getting it ready for delivery. Okay. Did you want to register this in one name or two? What are you going to say to me? Well, then you're an easy customer, and I would love that. You're probably going to say something like, well, we haven't worked out the payments yet. Okay. Other than working out the payments, are you ready to go on this thing? Because here's what I don't want to happen when I get back to the desk and I don't. Tell me if this is true for you guys or not. When you get back to the desk and you're negotiating, they're like, yeah, but what about that bumper you said, you know, like, you gotta fix or that noise that the car was making? Are you guys gonna fix that? No, that noise is like $3,000.

Okay?

We're definitely not fixing that. We'll look into it. It only has one key. You gotta give me another key. Right. I need all those objections fleshed out, okay? So I'm looking for you to give me. I'm hoping you give me an objection right now so I can get that out of the way. Hey, the car only has one key. I know. That's how we buy all our cars. It's kind of a bummer, isn't it? But you know what? The good news is I can talk to the dealership and maybe they can help you out. Other than that, is there any other Reason you wouldn't want to move forward with this car right now? No. Okay, great. Or you know what? I'm not sure I can fit it into my budget. Or you know what? The monthly payment's a little too high. Other than the monthly payment, is there any other reason you wouldn't want to get this car? I got to talk to my wife. Ugh. You know what? I can get by this one, because this is where I know my sales guys didn't do the investigative step properly. If they didn't, that's fine. We're help overcome it. But at the beginning of the stage, I'm going to say, hey, is this car for you or somebody else? Go ahead with me. Oh, your wife. That's awesome. Okay, is she going to be on the decision, or are you surprising her?

It's a surprise.

Surprise. So now let's fast forward to the end when you say you got to talk to your wife, and I'm going to say liar. And I can do that because we've been.

You close it right? Then it's done.

Right?

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. Don't pull that crap on me. I did my investigative stage. I know what you're doing here. Okay. But if you do say you have to talk to your wife, I totally get it that you got to talk to your wife. It's a big decision, isn't it? Yeah. Just so I know what you're talking to your wife about, are you just talking to your price about, you know, is it the color, is it the equipment, is it the monthly payments? Or is it something maybe I said that you got to talk to her about, mainly the price. Okay. Yeah, no, I get it. You guys. Or, you know, you guys probably put together a budget. Other than making sure this fits into your monthly payment, is there any other reason you wouldn't want to wrap this up today? No, there's not. Okay. Why don't you follow me to my desk and we'll go ahead and talk about your monthly payments. Yes. Question for you. So should the wife be present when you talk with them initially to set that appointment? Shouldn't you try to get all the buyer. The buying committee involved? Buying committee, Yes. I like that you clarified that. So if it's a surprise for his wife, I'm gonna try to close it. But if you are, then that's again, at the investigative stage. What am I closing on now? Am I closing on the car, or am I closing on an appointment with his wife? Yeah. Yep. Now I know which direction I'm taking. That if I didn't do that, I'm going through all these steps, I get to the end, and then he goes, I gotta talk to my wife. And I'm going, gosh darn it, I messed this up. Okay, well, can she come down here? And what's she even doing? Right? I mean, that's the route I'm gonna go. And I'm gonna be frustrated as a salesperson, but at the early stages, I'm gonna do a little bit more investigating. I'm gonna go, it's for your wife. That's awesome. Has she got to be on the decision or is it a surprise for her and you're gonna say she's gotta be on the decision? I'm gonna say, great. You think she can come by? Maybe you can catch her at a lunch break or would you like to drive the car to her? I'm gonna get creative at that point. Cause I'm trying to sell a car. When? Today?

Yep.

Yeah. But we also have to recognize we love to sell cars today. We have to recognize that not everybody's a today customer. Right. And we live in a sales driven world and we love the satisfaction of today. But if we're not working on the tomorrow stuff and the today stuff, we're gonna run out of stuff stuff tomorrow. Right. So we have to work on both. We can't just ignore the tomorrow stuff and only work on the today stuff. We got to keep on working on both. Okay, so then when we close, I want the distinction between closing, negotiation. When I close.

Yes. We need to define that. Yes. Because I had an issue with this. Yes, you did.

Yes. Took issue with me. I'm closing on the car.

That's it. Y' all understand that what he just tried to close on was not on payment, was not on down payment, was not on anything other than that car. You want them to say yes to the car before you start negotiating?

Yeah. So you guys just heard that. Like, I want to make sure. Okay, other than the other key or other than the down payment, or other than not, if I could get you an extra key, would you move forward with this car? I don't want to try that. I mean, that's. That's like a later down. If I can get you into the payment, would you want to do this? Right. Other than that, are you ready to move forward with this car? You say yes. Okay, Follow me to my desk. Let's talk about the details of it. Maybe I can get you into this monthly payment, but I know you're closed on this Car. That one. When I come to. Luke. Luke, I got a buyer out here. I have a buyer that's ready to go on this car. All we got to do is fit this into his monthly payment and his down payment. Now, he's a little short on the down payment, but I think we can get him in there.

Sounds great. Let's do it.

But now your sales manager, desk manager, you yourself, or whoever it is, knowing our stats and knowing our customers and knowing that they have a little bit more money, I can come out when negotiating, and I'm a little bit better trained because even though you said you only have $500 down and you want $200 a month, and I know you're willing to pay for a better experience, I probably can get you up a little bit more. And this is negotiating that I like to do. If I know you need 20% down, and I know my customers can't calculate 20% because that's a really hard number to do. Okay, so let's just pretend it's five. Let's pretend it's 3,000. How much money should I ask for down from you? 600. 600. Let's make it lower. Let's say somebody you know to make this car deal work, I need $2,000 down from the customer. How much am I? And he came in and he said he has 500. How much am I asking from you?

Mid.

In the middle? Yeah, maybe if you want to be a weak closer, but I don't. I want to be a strong closer. And so I'm going to go out there. Matthew or Steve just came in and he said the Guy's only got $500 down. I go, okay, so I got $500 down. No problem. Hey, you know what, Mr. Customer? The banks really like to see about 20%. How close? Now they can't calculate 20%. How close to $3,000 can you get? I need two. How close to 3,000 can you get? 500. I totally get it. 500. And that might be all you have, but if you really had to dig deep, get into your couch cushions, what do you think you can do? That's all I ask. Man, he's tough, man. That's a bummer. I get it that you have that.

That till next Friday.

That is a normal customer.

We better let you.

Let's make sure we practice the 80%. Hey, well, let's. Let's keep going. Let's keep going with this. That's totally fine. Hey, you can. 500. You don't have until next Friday. If you think you can talk to you next Friday, people can come up with just a little bit more. Even if you came up a little bit closer to 3000, I can get you in this car that I know you love because you said this is the one you want. You've been doing a lot of research on it, and I know you really like this color and you really like the miles. I don't want you to end up in a bad car. And you know what? Sometimes it's worth stretching for a car I like rather than selling for a car I don't. How close to 3,000 do you think I can get?

I have to wait and see what my paycheck looks like next Friday.

Next Friday. Okay, no problem. If you think you can come up just a little, you see how I can just try to squeeze out just a little bit more. Now, let's not pretend that that's 80 to 90% of our customers. It might be 10. And maybe for your lot, you're like, no, every customer is that way. Okay, 80, 90. But we know that they're willing to stretch a little bit. And here's my biggest point in that when negotiating, do I give the number that I want or do I try for a little bit more?

More?

Little more, yeah. And I say, how close to do you think you can get? Right? I'm not saying it's a requirement. How close to 3,000 can you get, knowing the Hopeland banks prefer, but how close to it do you think you can get? Let them come up with their own number. Right? That's some negotiating. I also believe in first number always wins. That's another one. How many of you guys believe in first number? First person to mention the number wins. How many of you guys believe in the first person to speak loses. How many of you guys are paying attention?

That is conventional wisdom. The second one. And the first one, if you listen to Marshall's explanation. Oh, that was bad, wasn't it?

Do you want me to give the explanation, please? Yeah. Okay. So conventional wisdom says the first person to give the number loses. But I'm going to tell you why that's wrong. Because I believe we do mental adjustments in our head, and if I know, let's just take a trade, for instance, okay? Or you could use down payment, but it'll work either way. And I know some. Every once in a while, I rip a trade by saying, you know what? What do you want out of this car? And I know that this car is valued at $4,000. And he says, well, I want 11. I didn't give 11. I mean, I was thinking four. Now mentally I'm adjusting in my head, I'm adjusting to five or six. I gotta come closer. He's gotta adjust down. When he's adjusting down, what is he doing? Winning or losing? Losing. Losing. Okay. In his mind he's losing because he's adjusting down from his 11. Now let's reverse that. He's got 11 in his head. I have four. I come up to him and nothing's been said. And I say, hey, you know what, Steve? I think your trade's worth about four. Kelly Blueik says it's worth about four grand. Or auction value usually. I would say auction value is about $4,000 in your car. What does he have to do in his head? He's got to mentally adjust down, right? Now some of our customers don't, but he's got to mentally adjust down. So he's going to come a little bit closer. And then when we do settle on a number because I'm going to go up probably a five, maybe six, he comes down. Who's winning?

Hopefully you are.

Well, it's a win win. But he's feeling like he's winning because I came down instead of him. Right. That's why I believe in first number to speak wins. You can disagree with me, it's fine. We can talk about it later. Still be wrong. Next would be 6. Is. This is a big one I believe is really important. If you guys don't have a delivery, step number six is a delivery. Make sure you leave a lasting impression with your customer. So many people tell me, yeah, they just threw the keys at me and I was on my way. I like to go through in depth with the car. Go through and show them how everything works. Program their Bluetooth, if you will. Their favorite radio station. Show them how the car works and operates. When you get a brand new car, this is something that happens. We should be doing in our side too. And then what do we do? What do we get the option to do at delivery? Ask for a referral, get a review. So many things. Right. Also, we use it for signing off. This is the condition that I got the car in so that I don't get any phone calls later. It's also liability for me too. It's a great thing. Covers a lot. All right. Those are the steps.

That's a lot. That was a lot.

I know.

This took up a lot of time.

Darn it.

We only have two more hours of this.

Yeah. Then we have to Stop. Alrighty. Okay, where am I at? Keep going or stop? Keep going, keep going. You guys want to keep going or you want to just slow down?

Okay, let's run through this.

I'm going to go through this really quickly. I'm just going to talk about how important training is. Now. You guys know that you should have a process. How many guys believe that you should have a process in your dealership? How many guys believe it should be written down? How many guys wrote it down just now? I'm not doing handouts again.

You guys.

We gotta have something to train on our dealership. I believe you guys should get what's in your head and put it on paper. And this is what I told Luke. If you come into our dealership, you have a 78 page training manual. You have a month worth of training before you can even sell a car. Okay? 78 pages is super daunting and overwhelming to make. I say just start with your process. Print it out. Get it. One page, two pages, I don't care. Just get something and start training on it. The basic thing training is just make sure you schedule it and be consistent and make it interesting. It's gotta be practiced from top down. Must be held. I believe it's every week. Don't change the time, don't go over time and never cancel. Do not cancel training. This is what happens when you implement training. You go, hey, we're doing this every Friday. So that's why I hesitate when I say once a week. If you can implement this properly, then do it. If you cannot, then don't do it. Okay? Because what happens is you say, hey, we're going to do this every Friday. And then what happens this Friday? Where are you?

Myrtle Beach.

I don't think anybody knows where they're at.

I was in Myrtle Beach.

Yeah, you're at the convention, right? So you're like, who's training today? So I gotta have a plan for that. Either somebody else's training or it's canceled. And what's the mentality in the salesperson's head?

We didn't have it this week, we won't have it next week. He doesn't care.

Oh, they always cancel, right? And then things always get busy for us. So if you can't commit to it, don't do it. Must be informative and practical. Let me just go back so you guys can have that. It's got to be beneficial to them and practical. If it's not beneficial to them, you've got to make sure that every step of the sales process is beneficial to them. It's not just, hey, this is the way I want it, because I want it this way, and this limits my liability. That can't be the only reason. It's got to contribute to more sales or more gross or something else for them. Okay, I believe that once a month is only training twice a year. So once a month is better than once a month, right? Right. Once a week is training only 52 times a year. Just come up with 12 different training topics and restart every week. It's not really that hard. We just got to put it in place. Repetition is the key to learning. We know all that. Neat quote by Muhammad Ali. Keep going. Unless you have anything to chime in, Luke.

No, I don't. Okay, that's it. Okay, so, y', all, we have some time here, and this is very important. We're training. We're doing all those things we're supposed to, but we don't know what we're training on. Right? So at this point, we need to figure out what we're training on. Who in here tracks their ups at the dealership every day? Okay, how about test drives? How about write ups, phone ups, appointment sets? Are we all tracking? Okay, if you're not tracking, you don't know, right?

So let me ask you this. If you do track this in your dealership, what is an up? Just so I understand this, what's an up at your dealership?

Anybody.

They show up when they come in, and if you greet me and I say, well, I'm looking for. I'm looking for Vincent. Is that enough for you? Did I say that right? Didn't know if I had a small letter from here. I'm looking for Vincent. Is that enough for you? It could be or it is.

It is.

Sure. I just thought it could be. It shouldn't be.

It is.

It shouldn't be. You can see how there can be some confusion in it. I don't care what it is. I'm not the end all be all to define what an up is at your dealership. You just make sure you have to define this. Because what will happen is at the end of the month or the end of the day, you're gonna go. You submitted your log to me, and you said you had two ups, but I saw you talk to five people, and you're gonna be like, yeah, one of them was just getting directions. The other guy was just stopping by. He usually. He comes in here all the time. And the other guy, you know, he was here, like, last month. And we couldn't get him financed, so. Right. The other guy, he asked for Vincent. Vincent was not here. Told him to come back tomorrow. So if we don't define that, then we have nothing to track. And so I don't. I don't like to use percentages and numbers against people. I just like them to use them to get better. So if I know that your ups to close ratio, I'm gonna skip a bunch of steps in the middle. But if I use an up to close ratio of 20% and you're at 19%, is that an accurate 19% or inaccurate because you didn't track it properly? Because I didn't define it. Okay, now I could go, 19% sucks. You need to get better because industry average is 22. So you're below industry average. Ours stores it 44, so I don't know what the crap you're doing. And then he goes, you know what he's gonna do? He's gonna track less ups.

That's right.

And then next week he's gonna have 44%. I'm gonna high five you. I'm like, good job on your 44%. But he didn't track anything. Right.

So you gotta. Let's. How'd that work?

You gotta be careful about using these numbers against them, but we gotta make sure we properly define them. What's a test drive? This is crazy enough, but I had to define this. At our dealership, this guy had so many test drives. I was telling this to Luke. He had more test drives than he did ups. And I said, how's this even possible? He goes, well, these guys are driving so many cars, they come in and drive five cars at a time. That's only one test drive. Getting numb. That's not five test drives. His closing ratio to test drives was gigantic. I was like, that's. Dude, you're closing 120% of your test drives. You should definitely get more people on test drives. Yeah. So I had to define that. Everybody that comes in, if I have a whole family of five people come in, is that one or is that five ups? Right? Because I mean, it's five potential people I can sell on cars if they're a big deal.

And in the south, that happens every day, right?

Yeah, every day.

Family's got to come to buy a.

Car wash. Yeah, but I mean, you could. And if you want to, if they're of driving age, maybe they are an opportunity.

Right?

So it's. Why not? Right? So you have to define that at your dealership. I have A list of definitions. So I know exactly what this is. So I know that is an up or that isn't an up. Okay. Somebody comes in and asks for directions, is that an up? I don't know. It's an opportunity. Directions to what? The body shop? Directions to. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking for directions to ABC Motors down the street. Do you know where that's at? I mean, that's it. I mean, that's enough. Just depends, right? So make sure you define it. Okay, Test drives, write ups. Same thing with phone ups. What's a phone up? Anybody have a proper definition at their dealership that they know is the proper definition at their dealership? What a phone up is, that's when you answer the phone, you stand up. Hey, no, it needs to be defined because some people can say, you know what? Hey, how late are you open? Right. Is that a phone pop? Should be. Should be. Man, I could go right into. I mean, you guys, we talked about this training and this greeting. Investigative close or test drive and close for in person. What's the difference? On the phone, we gotta make sure we have the same track too. It's a greeting, it's an investigative. And then we build a little rapport and then we close them on an appointment. Right, but if they didn't investigate and they're like, hey, how, lady, you're open. So we're like, we're open till 6.

Thanks.

Click right instead of, oh, you're open to 6. Oh, how late are you open til? Oh, you know what, we're open till 6. By the way, are you from in town or are you out of town? Out of town. You're out of town. Okay, awesome. So are you. How far out of town are you? About an hour. Oh, okay. So you're looking at. I probably at that point know he's looking at specific cars.

Right.

So if you're coming from an hour away or you're thinking about making it tonight and cutting it a little closer, you're thinking about tomorrow morning, then I know that I can. Which direction to go. But if I didn't ask that question if he's from in town or out of town. I'm just trying to book an appointment today. Might not work out very well. Right. You had a question? Yes. What is a write up? It's great. So I believe a write up is anytime you write on a piece of paper and numbers and put them in front of a customer. So typically this happens after you close them on the car. Sometimes you can qualify them to say you know, you qualify for $200 a month at $2,000 down. That would be a write up and you'd have it. You kind of show them and you say what you, what payment you're comfortable with, depending on how that is. And then when you, after the test drive, they're going to want to negotiate on that car possibly or some other things. You're going to write that down.

It's pretty much a close on the.

Car.

And start up a negotiation in.

Front of the person doing contract. Yep. Yeah, I'm putting numbers in front of them because, I mean, I know sometimes we like to think everybody's just auditory, but in all reality they need to be visual and see something in front of them to actually know what they're getting themselves into. Right. And then appointments to show. If you guys know this stuff, think about how much more you can improve your dealership. You guys know what your appointment show to closing ratio is? Does anybody know that here? What is it, Val? 40%. If he can get a customer on the lot that he made an appointment with.40%. That's a big number. I'm going to push for appointments pretty big at our dealership it's 70% if they can book an appointment. I'm sorry, if the appointment shows now, is that the area I'm training on? Because now it's maybe it dropped to 40%. Am I working on the appointment set to sold or am I working on set to show? Because maybe only 30% of the people are showing up that I booked appointments for. So either somebody's putting in junk data or they're just not very good at confirming an appointment. And if they're not confirming an appointment, I'm going to work on them on that because I'm going to do something like, hey, I'm going to send a picture after I confirmed your appointment, I'm going to go ahead and send a picture of myself in the car and I'm going to say, hey, I can't wait to see you tomorrow at 10:15. Right. All of a sudden they have a picture of you. They know who to see when they come in. And they feel a little bit more obligated to see you because they saw you. They saw you. Yeah. Your question? Yeah, something like a phone up. Are you tracking phone ups? You know, do you have a system and you're just at the end of the day looking at that, seeing how.

Many calls came through your phone, you.

Know, or somebody actually writing down phone up, phone up. How many of you guys have a CRM. How many of you guys believe the numbers in your CRM? We require them to write them down. I mean, CRM's garbage in, garbage out, right? It's same thing with a salesperson's garbage in, recording garbage out. I mean, our guys believe it's a little bit of a culture shift in your dealership. They got to believe that you're there to help them. Right. Please track your phone calls because I'm not thinking you're blowing everybody out of here, but I just want to help you get better. That's why I started at the beginning. You want people that want to get better, right? So they need to write it down. At the end of the day, they send an email of their phone everything right here, they send the end of the day email to the sales manager. And if they don't do that, then it affects their pay.

We have a Google Doc that we record every sales phone up and up and all this in one. So it's very easy to make. They can send it in email to you, whatever. Just make sure they're doing it. Just because someone called and wanted to make a car payment, well, that's not a phone up, right. Someone who called in asking for a sales and that might be what time you close that that's probably a sales up, right?

Absolutely.

I mean, what time do you open but that you need to make sure you get those type calls to salespeople and not let just the receptionist handle calls. So just, just think about that too.

You know, I always learned that there's too good of numbers and too bad of numbers every time I think I'm doing really well. And I had a guy I was doing, doing some sales training at our dealership and he said my closing ratio from ups to close is 65%. And I said real quickly, I can tell you why that's a bad thing. If your closing ratio is 65%, you're either not tracking right or you're missing a lot of opportunities. Right. And I think it was a little bit of both. Because if I'm at 65%, but I'm only at X number of car sales, right, Then I'm either keeping my head down when customers are walking in or just blowing past the them.

And everybody has a salesperson doing that.

So if I want to train on certain steps of the sales process, how do I know? I love training at our dealership and we do it once a week. We train pretty generically, but you might be in a different stage than you. And so I've got to go. Hey, what specifically after our sales training am I going to work with you on to help you get better? I want to plan. I want to plan going into this week, going into this month. Hey, last month you saw X amount of people, but you only took 50% of them on test drives. Can we get that up to. Even if I saw not another foot walk through the door, could I get you into 60% of those test drives rather than 50%? And let's work on getting more sales with who you have.

We train on three things on phone ups just before we leave this three things. Anybody want to guess what those three things are? What three things should you get out of a phone?

Up. Thank you.

Can anybody name any of them? Name, number or contact information and appointment set. That's it. That's what the phone call is about.

And guys, repeating the number back to them is super important. I know sometimes people go, I got their number by the caller id. Yep. But that, you know why that's not good? Because I want you to know I have an appointment just as much as I know you have an appointment. If I just go, oh, great, well I'll see you around. You know, and you're coming in on, you know, the Malibu sometime tomorrow. And I wrote your number down. You don't feel like you're committed. And so maybe my appointments to show ratio is really small. And, and that's all because of the way my sales guys confirm that appointment. I'm not scared to repeat that back to you because I want you to know.

Right.

Sometimes we're even scared to ask for last name. How many of you guys have a CRM that just says Bob Chrysler?

Yeah, we've all seen that.

It's first and last name guys. People have them just ask for them and most of the time they're like, they wouldn't give it to me. Did you ask? Well, no, they didn't volunteer it. Sam.