Danielle and John are friends. They met while selling cars at a family-owned dealership where they each worked for several years, creating a good customer base and enjoying a decent income and lifestyle. Then one day, the owner of the dealership announced that he was retiring and had sold the store, and the new owners were bringing in their own team. Danielle and John were about to be unemployed and suddenly needed to find jobs elsewhere.
After searching for a while, Danielle went to work at ABC Motors, and John accepted a position at XYZ Autos. Both were new car dealerships in the same city and both represented the same OEM.
At ABC, Danielle’s new manager, Tim, spent time with her to make sure she understood what was expected of her, and what her responsibilities consisted of. She was trained on all the tools that dealership offered, and when finished her knowledge and comfort level was evaluated by Tim. Tim then asked her what her sales goals were, and helped her develop a plan to achieve them. They spoke regularly about her progress and her challenges and Tim assigned training to bolster her strengths and shore up her weaknesses. He coached her when she became discouraged, frustrated, or angry. Danielle was very happy and asked Tim how she could become a manager. Tim laid out specific things she needed to accomplish. Certain training requirements, certain performance benchmarks, and agreed to mentor her in the process.
Meanwhile over at XYZ, John hit the floor running. After watching all the required OEM videos and getting certified, he did what a salesman does. He was very successful at first, but then hit a slump, and couldn’t figure out what was wrong. His manager, Joe, started riding him about his lack of performance, telling him that he needed to up his game, and made him sit and make phone calls out of the CRM to orphaned customers. Joe did not work with John on his scripting or approach, he just said – Do It! After a period of time, John became frustrated and began to look for another job.
If you would like your store to be like ABC Motors but don’t know where to start, or how to implement the change, we may be able to help, Give us 15 minutes to find out if we are a fit for your store.
Mike Ashley