Author: Jennifer Suzuki
In January, it will be 22 years since I started focusing on selling cars. The dealership phone calls have literally saved my life – not an exaggeration. Getting into the business of selling cars at 18 without a family, home, car, or future had me scared and hungry. The 40 sales dudes were pros, and catching up outside wasn’t as easy as I thought.
As I answered the phone ringing on day 3, I discovered this is where the leads are! They’re not in the heat outside (LOL). I built my business off the phone and worked my way up using a dealership phone sales strategy. I was recruited into a corporate role and tasked with building cradle-to-grave Internet sales teams in 28 stores. I continued to refine the sales process for Internet leads, sales calls, follow-ups, and even service to boost lead conversion for car dealerships.
Today, I am the CEO of the first internet sales training company in automotive. Leading weekly dealership classes, I dial into staying relevant and learning better pathways to take calls so we can get appointments and sales. I work on automotive sales calls every day.
Here’s What I want You to Know:
Sales calls are the lowest-hanging fruit.
When you need more car deals, just know they call you every day—someone is bound to pick up. How they handle the call will determine your outcomes. Managers who pay attention to the call process can make more sales and meet daily numbers.
Managers tell me they do not train or coach on-call handling, rarely listen to recorded calls, or evaluate with their team. Taking the initiative to improve on automotive sales calls is the perfect opportunity. You have very little if any, competition.
Those answering the calls sound irritated that the customer called them. The low energy is giving, ‘I don’t care if you buy or not.’ A lack of questions means no engagement, connections with people, or sales control. You know how that goes. People actually say, ‘No, we don’t have that car anymore,’ as if people don’t statistically switch cars in the process of buying. These calls cost no less than $350 per call!
So, why isn’t there a bigger focus on the sales process for these calls?
Today’s desk managers often steer clear from this because they themselves haven’t sharpened the knife in a while. We avoid what we are not comfortable doing.
Salespeople today are of a new gen and avoid confrontation at all costs. When callers hit them with objections and they are not skilled, they drop the ball. This new gen is also more open to text so that a sales call can turn into a text convo very quickly and often leads to nothing because you need to sell people on you, the dealership, the process, and even the brand. All things considered, a focus on the phone process will sell more cars today.
Here Are a Few Tips:
1. Get a Recorded Call
If you don’t have a call recording, message me, and I’ll send you to my site to get an edited one.
2. Set Up Call Evaluation
Get flip chart paper and write “Call Evaluation” on the top. Draw a line down the middle to create two columns: “Strengths” on the left and “Weaknesses” on the right.
3. Prepare for the Evaluation
Get your speaker ready and turn the volume up high. You want to play this call with your team.
4. Initial Playback and Pause
After about 30 seconds, hit pause. Ask your team what their strengths and weaknesses are. Use different colored pens to show differences.
5. Engage with Questions
Ask questions to get everyone involved. How did they sound when the call picked up? Did you like the questions? Did they work for him?
6. Continue Playback for More Feedback
Play the call again and ask the team for more feedback. What did they like, and what didn’t they like? Write everything they say down, even if you disagree.
7. Focus on Sales Goals
Remind the team that this is a sales call, and the goals are to build a relationship and secure an on-time appointment. These outcomes must tie back to the feedback given.
8. Highlight Strengths
Once you’ve completed the call, use a different color marker to circle the strengths that you want your team to follow. Explain why these behaviors stood out and why they should be emulated.
9. Address Weaknesses with Solutions
Move on to weaknesses. State the weakness, then ask for the offset or solution. Use a new color marker to start writing down solutions. Each weakness should have a corresponding improvement strategy. This provides an opportunity for coaching and further development.
This activity gets your team talking about solutions and working together to make a better call plan. The idea of our sales training for dealerships is to build a team and find ways to do better.
You are moving in a better direction now. Smash those phones!
About the Author:
Jennifer Suzuki has 25+ years of experience in the automotive industry including dealership sales training, NADA Show speaker, guest instructor at the NADA Academy, and State Association initiatives. Suzuki founded e-Dealer Solutions, a training solutions company that focuses on improving dealership processes from sales to management.
Suzuki also is the host of “Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki,” an automotive sales and service podcast sponsored by Lotlinx. Created for dealers, managers, sales teams, and anyone in the automotive industry who has a desire to obtain information that will propel growth, lead the auto industry, and invoke progressive strategies.