When I ask dealer principals and sales managers if they have a sales process on their showroom floor, many will give me an incredulous look and an indignant response: “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 the philosophy behind the steps. And when I ask several managers within the same dealership to list their dealership’s steps to the sale, they will come up with different answers. This generally leads me to believe that, while many dealerships may like the idea of a sales process, they’ve either strayed away from it or are not totally committed to it. 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sales and/or closing ratios is a lack of adherence to the dealership’s sales process and/or one that has become outdated.
Here’s an example of a typical current sales process:
1. Meet and welcome your customer
2. Counsel / qualify
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 often agree on many of these basic steps to the sale. They really haven’t changed significantly over the past 30 years. How each step is executed, however, is another matter altogether.
Questions to ask yourself
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 can probably 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 is a sub-step of step 2, ‘counsel/qualify’. Others suggest that it should occur after the demonstration drive and only after the salesperson has gained a firm commitment to purchase or lease. Again, managers within the same dealership may have very strong opinions based on their own experiences and successes.
Applying the format of WHAT, WHEN and HOW for each individual step clearly illuminates the differences in thought within a management team and identifies why there might be a lack of adherence to the sales process. When you dissect each step of the process with your team it will highlight possible differences of both opinion as well as execution.
If your team is not absolutely unified in its execution of your sales process, it will quickly become watered down and non-existent. Salespeople will commonly look for the chinks in the armour as an excuse or rationale not to follow the sales process.
Team-building exercise
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 a highly productive manager’s meeting, gather all your managers (including business managers) and:
1. Ask them to write down the specific steps of your dealership’s sales process – however many they may be.
2. Ask each manager how each step to the sale is to be performed in the dealership, using the format WHAT, WHEN and HOW.
For some detailed questions on which to base such a managers’ meeting are listed below.
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. It’s important to ask yourself: “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. The act of delving deep into your sales process can sometimes be unnerving and very unsettling but dealer principals, general managers and sales managers must stand united in their belief and desire to ‘stay the course’, document, train, re-train and enforce the sales process.
Developing and updating a dealership’s sales process
Gather all your managers (including business managers) together and:
1. Ask them to write down the specific steps of your dealership’s sales process – however many they may be.
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 for each step of the process:
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, such as: “We still want to shop;That’s not enough for our trade;What’s your best price?”
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?
In discussing thes questions and establishing or re-establishing your sales process, be sure the practices you adopt are not roadblocks to the sale. 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!” Or they will decree that they will never give out numbers/pricing unless they have a firm commitment ‘today’ along with a 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.
“We’re not a free appraisal service!” Of course you are! That’s often how we engage the customer to consider a newer vehicle. We sometimes forget that while giving out numbers or appraising a vehicle according to the customer’s wishes may sometimes backfire, hundreds of customers may have done business with us for those specific reasons – a willingness to give numbers, our transparency and ease of doing business.
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Comments