AUTO SALES TRAINING PROGRAM FOR DEALERSHIPS
Do You Have The Right Sales Staff?
In some dealerships, the sales staff training is basically a brief orientation and an introduction to the well-known steps to the sales. Many times, this orientation does not answer the staff’s questions, especially the new blood, on how to become a successful sales associate and consequently to bring more sales and profits to the store.
Another training technique adopted by some dealerships is a two or more day staff training with product knowledge being shared. While it is crucial for every sales associate to know the inventory, the training alone does not prepare the sales staff to close the sale.
Of course, it is a well-known fact that the auto sales staff turnover is generally high, and the cost is significant because thousands of dollars are spent monthly in the advertisement to bring prospects to the showroom, but untrained sales staff often let them go without at least obtaining their information.
In today’s economy, hiring screened and well-qualified people for your organization is critical to your company’s success, because saving time, effort, and money in recruiting are very important.
Fast Sales Training Center can help your auto dealership to be more productive and profitable by finding the best employees without the usual downtime, hassles and delays at a low cost.
We prepare all our trainees before we place them to work, making sure they learn about the philosophy of business and what their managers expect them to do and produce. We equally train and coach our trainees from the first interview to how to properly address each customer personality including the most common forms used in the unique dealership environment.
So, let us prepare new hired and refresh the experienced sales associate for you.
Why Do You Need Auto Sales Training for Your Employees?
Bad hires cost dealerships millions of dollars a year and struggling with hiring is a normal process for dealerships both small and large. It’s one of the greatest challenge dealerships face. Turnover costs dealerships money in several ways: inexperienced sales staff showing lack of continuity with customers; and, ultimately, lost vehicle sales.
How big of a problem is it for the industry? It’s half a million a year for the average dealership. It’s billions of dollars for the industry, and it is not getting better.
Managers who experiment with new ways to attract the right people, start to look for help with the task and experiment with new approaches will improve retention and lower turnover.
The potential for improving sales and customer satisfaction through better sales staff has more automakers paying attention to dealership staffing as well. But this is ultimately a dealer problem, and it’s up to dealers to solve it.
The question is, how can dealerships and keep their sales staff?
If dealerships focus more on training their sales staff to be the type of person better versed at meeting the customer’s needs vs. just negotiating the best deal for the dealership, more employees are likely to stay at the company rather than jump to a rival dealership.
DO YOU REALLY KNOW HOW MANY PROSPECTS VISITED YOUR SHOWROOM LAST MONTH?
Can you answer these questions?
- Do you know how many potential buyers who visit your showroom daily are being logged?
- How many of them are being introduced to a Sales Manager?
- What kind of follow up is your sales staff performing?
- Is your Special Finance Department getting deals funded in a timely manner?
- Does your F&I department seem to have more than their share of complaints?
- How well does your title work flow through your D.M.V.? How much up-selling are your service advisers doing?
It is imperative that you know and identify what deficiencies you have in your dealership. Once you can identify some of the areas that need changes and improvement, you can then start putting together a training plan using Fast Sales Training Center’s different online courses to eliminate those deficiencies.
Every employee should be a part of Fast Sales Training Center training program. No job is so insignificant that it should overlook training.
SALES TRAINING IS AN INVESTMENT AND NOT A COST
Training is a key to a dealership’s success — and it extends beyond new hires and salespeople. Training should be a core part of any dealership’s culture. Training is important for promoting from within, developing managerial staff from lower ranks.
Providing an internal training program, should be mainly for new and senior employees using the best method of online training and complementing it with hands-on training through the weekly sales meetings.
By understanding this new approach to reduce sales staff turnover and to speak the millennials language, Fast Sales Training Center developed many online courses that cover various topics throughout the entire dealership sales operations.
The main reasons to invest in sales education for your team: to improve your number of units sold;
Dealerships think training is expensive because they don’t realize that it is more expensive to not to train because it generates lack of productivity, lost opportunity and the increasing expense of new hires.
What does training really mean? Does it mean that you as the dealer have to personally conduct it?
No, of course not. Because Fast Sales Training Center was created by people who have been in the auto sales industry for over a decade and understand the dealership philosophy and routine. We created and developed our online courses using the showroom language, taking the burden away from the sales managers.
HIRING MILLENNIALS
For a while, industry watchers were concerned that millennials (the generation of children born between 1982 and 2002) wouldn’t even buy cars. Now, the millennial issue that dealerships are coping with: retaining them as employees because the turnover among millennials is a concern.
Millennials want to make an impact in the workplace right away. They want a defined career path, flexible schedules, and consistent pay plans. Because their standards differ from those of previous generations, dealerships should strive to understand and work with millennial’s preferences to prepare for the future of auto retail.
They are naturally open to challenging the status quo. Dealerships that learn about millennial’s standards and values are more likely to keep them around long term and effectively train them in auto retailing.
Millennials want to know what’s in it for them. They ask about how they will grow. Millennials have a high sense of urgency. They are used to being able to get information quickly, so they can be impatient, and expect a lot of feedback and a high level of engagement.
Training is the key from the first day so they understand how the dealership works and what is expected from them. Video training that visually shows them what they need to do their job is the best approach because millennials are visual learners.
Dealerships should prioritize educating millennials on long-term opportunities and to know what to do when they meet a new customer. The best strategy to keep millennials: keep them engaged!
Is My Dealership Too Small For Me To Be Worried About Training?
If your dealership is proportionally structured, size shouldn’t be a factor to you. If you manage a small store, you should have one sales manager working with four or five sales associates. If you have a bigger store with five sales managers working with twenty sales associates, you still have the same ratio of sales associate per sales manager. In both situations, training is crucial for your goals to be obtained.
Will This Work?
If the entire management is committed by applying the expected effort, and applying all the techniques taught, then showroom traffic will work and your monthly sales will surely increase.