Delving deep into the sales process

When  I ask dealer principals, and sales managers if they have a sales process on their showroom floor, many will shoot me an incredulous look of; “Of course we have a sales process!” When I then ask; “Is it documented, trained, re-trained, enforced and evolving?” the answer and tone is often quite different.

In many cases dealer principals and sales managers are hard pressed to share with me their dealership’s prescribed steps to the sale and philosophy behind the steps. Often when I ask several managers within the same dealership to simply list their dealership’s steps to the sale, they will come up with different answers. This generally leads me to believe that many dealerships may like the idea of a sales process, but have strayed away from it or are not totally committed to it.

When dealerships look for the “magic bullet” to sell more cars they will often throw more money at advertising to drive traffic, hire more salespeople or stage costly sales events. Nine times out of ten the root cause of declining sales and/or closing ratios is a lack of adherence to the dealership’s sales process and/or a sales process that has become out-dated. The following is an example of a current sales process:

1.   Meet and welcome your customer

2.   Counsel / Qualify

• Touch Desk
• Trade-In Appraisal
  

3.   Vehicle selection

4.   Vehicle presentation

5.   Vehicle demonstration

6.   Trial Close #1 • Transition

7.   Service Department walk-through

8.   Trial Close #2 • Commitment

9.   Make a proposal to your customer

10. Close the sale

11. Turn over to Financial Services Office

Dealer principals and sales managers can often agree on many of the basic steps to the sale. They really haven’t changed significantly over the past thirty years. How each step is executed, however, has changed.

When developing, updating or re-committing to your dealership’s sales process you need to ask yourself (and document) the following questions with respect to each individual step:

1 - WHAT is the objective of this step?
2 - WHEN should this step occur within the sales process?
3 - HOW should this step be done?

For example, when you apply this format to the first step of the sale, meet and welcome your customer, it’s very basic and managers within a dealership can come to agreement and compromise fairly quickly. However, when you apply this format to a step such as appraising a trade-in, it can become less clear. Some sales managers suggest that this step should occur after the demonstration drive and only after their salesperson has gained a firm commitment to purchase or lease. Other sales managers suggest that this is a sub-step of Step #2, counsel / qualify. Again, managers within the same dealership will often have very strong opinions based on their experiences and successes.

Applying the format of WHAT, WHEN and HOW for each individual step clearly illuminates the differences in thought amongst a management team and identifies why there might be a lack of adherence to the sales process. When you dissect each step of your sales process with your management team it will highlight possible differences of both opinion as well as execution. If your management team is not absolutely unified in its execution of your dealership’s sales process, it will quickly become watered down and non-existent. Salespeople will commonly look for the chinks in the armor amongst their management team as an excuse or rationale not to follow the sales process.

On the other hand, when managers disagree on the ‘HOW’ of each individual step behind closed doors, it can serve as an excellent team-building exercise to modernize the dealership’s sales process with the valuable input of ‘today’s’ managers. When managers contribute to the development and updating of the dealership’s sales process and ‘put their mark on it’ they are more likely to adhere to it. Remember, your sales process may desperately need some updating with the changing attitudes of today’s customers and the availability of unlimited information on-line.

As an experiment and highly productive manager’s meeting, gather all managers (including business managers) and:

1 - Ask them to write down the specific steps of your dealership’s sales process; steps 1-5, or 1-8, or 1-20, etc.

2 - Ask each manager how each step to the sale is to be performed in the dealership using the format WHAT, WHEN and HOW.

Here are some questions to consider:

1.  Meet and welcome your customer
          
HOW would you like this step done? Do you favour a specific word track?

2.  Counsel / Qualify
                
HOW would you like this step completed? Do you prefer that your salespeople
conduct the bulk of their counseling session while walking the lot or sitting down at
their desk? Does it differ if selling a used vehicle? Have you provided specific counseling questions that you would like sprinkled into the conversation? Are there questions that your salespeople should not ask? Do you want your salespeople to begin the appraisal process at this time? Do you want them to discuss the trade while at the customer’s vehicle outside? Do you want your salespeople to check in with their sales manager at the completion of this step; “touch desk”?

3.  Vehicle selection

Do you prefer that your salespeople go to the lot ahead of their customer to choose the vehicle, prep it and showcase it or do you prefer that customers simply tag along?
      
4.  Vehicle presentation
                
HOW would you like this step completed? Do you prefer that your salespeople complete a walk-around feature/benefit/advantage presentation? If so, is this to be enforced? Have they been shown how to do a current 2010-style walk-around presentation by managers or sales trainers?

5.  Vehicle demonstration

Do you prefer that your salespeople accompany customers on demonstration drives? If so, is this to be enforced? Have you created routes? Have you trained your salespeople on how to stage a highly effective demonstration drive?

6.  Trial Close #1 • Transition

Do you prefer that your salespeople begin the closing process during the demonstration drive? If so, what type of closes do you train them to utilize; traditional trial closing questions or transitional trial closing questions?

7.  Service Department walk-through

HOW would you like this step completed? Do your salespeople have training with respect to selling the dealership and its various features and services?

8.  Trial Close #2 • Commitment

Are there closing questions that you would like implemented that would match the demographic and culture of your dealership?

9.  Make a proposal to your customer

Do you want your salespeople to ask for an ‘offer’ or do you instead prefer they make payment-based proposals to your customers? Do you offer payment proposals without a commitment to purchase or lease ‘today’? How would you prefer your salespeople present payment options? Should they present both finance and lease options? How many? Should they present payment options to ‘cash’ customers?

10. Close the sale

Are there closes that your dealership has found effective in dealing with common
questions and objections? “We still want to shop.” “That’s not enough for our
trade.” “What’s your best price?” etc.

11. Turn over to Financial Services Office

Do you prefer that your Business Manager meet the customer via a formal introduction in the Business Office or should the Business Manager meet the customer at the salesperson’s desk? Do you have a preferred word track for the introduction?

When developing or updating your sales process be careful to approach the task with a completely optimistic attitude toward your customers. Too often managers implement very strict rules or policies within the sales process that are actually confrontational or out-dated. For example, managers will sometimes decree that they will never appraise a vehicle without a firm offer and deposit and will announce to their salespeople; “We’re not a free appraisal service!” Some managers will decree that they will never give out numbers/pricing unless they have a firm commitment ‘today’ along with deposit. The question is not whether these types of policies within the sales process are right or wrong, but rather why they were implemented to begin with. Too often I find that we make rules and policies within the sales process based on our worst customer experiences and outcomes versus our best. In other words, a crafty customer squeezed a ‘best price’ out of a sales manager, left the dealership and bought the exact same vehicle down the street for a $100 less. Angrily, a new rule within the sales process is created; “We don’t give out numbers!” Is this a positive addition to the sales process or a ‘roadblock’ that makes it more difficult for customers and salespeople to do business? Look for all the various ‘roadblocks’ in your sales process. “We’re not a free appraisal service!” Of course you are! That’s often how we engage the customer to consider a newer vehicle. Yet, sometimes we forget that by giving out numbers or by appraising a vehicle according to the customer’s wishes we may have had hundreds of customers that did business with us for those specific reasons — a willingness to give numbers, our transparency and ease of doing business.

The act of delving deep into your sales process can sometimes be unnerving and very unsettling. Developing or re-committing to a dealership sales process requires tremendous discipline, constant maintenance and periodic tweaking. Dealer principals, general managers and sales managers alike must stand united in their belief and desire to ‘stay the course’, document, train, re-train and enforce the sales process.

We can always learn from each other. I invite your feedback at any time.  cschulthies@wyemanagement.com

Chris Schulthies is the president of Wye Management. Wye Management trains salespeople, F&I managers, sub-prime managers, used vehicle managers and sales managers throughout Canada and the United States. Wye Management also develops national training programs for OEM’s and suppliers. Chris speaks at industry conventions and 20 Groups.

« Back to the blogs page