Picking up where we left off, we discussed in the previous newsletter the warranty administration position and "execution" of the position's duties and responsibilities.  As with any employee it is extremely important to outline what you expect from this person and what should be accomplished on a daily, weekly and monthly basis and have the employee sign and accept these responsibilities.

Recently a service manager and parts counterperson shared with me two separate topics that really kind of hit home.  The service manager explained an experience he had at a prior dealership where there was "no" accountability for open repair orders and to make matters worse there were open repair orders dating back to "DECEMBER 2010" He found out there was a huge disconnect in communication and follow through between the warranty administrative employee, accounts receivable manager, office manager, and service manager.... to the tune of $380,000.00!!  Apparently it wasn't deemed necessary to hold an open R.O. analysis meeting once a week!!

The parts counterperson mentioned that one of the downfalls he had experienced recently, was no concrete job description for a shop dispatcher position and no one reviewed his efforts, inspected his performance or trained him to carry out his tasks.  The dealership dissolved this position a couple years ago and now wants to re-attempt to move this employee back in this position.  After discussing this situation with his supervisors and the employee, there will be training, a written description of his job, and periodic inspections of his efforts.

These are two "real life" examples that put an exclamation mark to what we are trying to eliminate from happening with any of our employees especially the warranty administrator.

The 3 videos in this month's newsletter continue to define or outline if you will a "Warranty Administrator" duties and responsibilities.  The descriptions of these responsibilities are not just limited to what is mentioned and quite frankly should be discussed in depth pertaining to your dealership's policies and procedures.

Many times we think of this employee's position or environment as just  a "warranty order shuffler" in a "back office" somewhere out of sight and out of mind.

As mentioned previously this employee has too much dealership responsibility, ($$$) not to have some type of daily review and training.  I will breakdown moving forward what it means to "Maintaining Relationships with the Customer and the Manufacturer", "Particular Administrative Tasks" and "Complete any Available Training Opportunity," On many occasions I come across a warranty person that has tremendous impact on the dealers fixed operation's bottom line due to superb execution, pro-activeness and a teamwork mentality who is a "real value creator"

Is this your warranty administrator??

 Warranty Administration

 

"Happy New Year"

Execution

Meanings:  Implementation, performing of something, carrying out of legal provisions.

These are just a couple of definitions of execution according to the dictionary.  This is something we attempt to do everyday in our dealership and more specifically in each department.  Lack of execution and communication typically lead to disaster, such as loss of volume, profitability and even customers.

For 2012 I would like to focus on each department, and in taking a step back, recognize what we need to focus on to assist our employees with better execution and carrying out their duties and responsibilities to eliminate the above mentioned disasters.  Yes we may even have to train them more effectively by means of outlining what it is we expect from them on a daily basis, and more importantly share with that employee the basis for measurement and inspection of their duties and tasks.

I want to start by outlining duties and responsibilities of our warranty administrator. Unfortunately this employee is forgotten and left on their own in most cases.

Many dealerships have difficulty with the reimbursement process of warranty claim administration. Most often this is due to a lack of training, high personnel turnover, confusion over policy, and poor documentation. As a result, transactions go uncollected, get tied up in receivables, and are not compliant, which may lead to costly chargebacks.

Since a substantial amount of the dealership's money is generated through warranty administration, timely processing of warranty transactions, and, consequently, speedy payment depends greatly on the performance of those involved. Warranty administration is more than simply submitting repair orders. Dealerships should have an experienced individual who is responsible for collecting valuable warranty dollars while maintaining compliance with the various manufacturers' policies.

Take a look at your staff's experience, workload, and priorities. If your dealership does not have a devoted, well-trained, and capable warranty administrator, your warranty operations may not be getting the attention it deserves.

With that being said lets review the first 3 videos and get some ideas as to defining what the warranty administrative person is responsible for.  And of course the key to these duties and responsibilities will be the implementation of what you want accomplished in your dealership!!

 

It's that time of year - budget/forecasting time. Have you done yours yet? If so, what improvements are you forecasting?

If you haven't made any plans for 2012 yet, don't worry, you still have time. Why should you even do this? Simple - if you don't know where you're going, any road will do! You must believe that you can make a difference in what you do. You have to know that extra effort will produce better results. 

Let's talk about how to achieve forecasts.

Detail, detail and even more detail. The more detailed you are in a) your forecast and b) how you are going to achieve your forecast, the better chance you will have of attaining it.

So don't just say you are going to increase your business by 10%, go into detail as to how you are going to achieve the increase. Do you have the tools necessary to make the increase - do you have enough people to help you make the increase? What are you gong to do differently from 2011? You have to do something different if you want better results - the better results won't just happen! 

Salespeople - your detail should equate to the number of people you need to get in front of to make the requisite number of sales. Then you need to detail exactly how you are going to get in front of those people - think about service departments, prior customers, referrals, your own circle of influence. What are going to do in 2012 over and above what you did on 2011 to give you more opportunities to do business?

Managers - your detail should include what your team needs to do to make the improvements. Do you have the right number of people to service more customers? If not, when and how are you going to recruit? What type of training do you need to provide to both your new recruits and your current team - they won't improve on their own - it is your job to help them become more successful, so what exactly are you going to do differently better? 

Tracking - once you have your forecast set, now split it down to 12 monthly forecasts - depending on where you are, this will require a little work to weight the months accordingly. Now you have monthly forecasts that you can track your performance against.

Here's the deal - most forecasts are forgotten about until the end of the year - nothing is done throughout the year to ensure forecasts are hit. You will have a far greater chance of hitting your forecast if you track your performance often - the more often the better.

Attainable - make sure you set a forecast that you can hit - if it is too far out there, it will have a negative effect all year long - make it attainable, realistic and make it mean something to attain.

If you would like to see an idea of tracking tools, let us know and we will gladly e-mail you some electronic reports to use.

Share your forecasts/goals with others that can help you achieve them - managers and co-workers. You are part of a team - use the team.

Use your forecasts to make something happen - believe in the forecast and do everything in your happen to hit it - make it so that missing the forecast is not an option - you will succeed!!

 

When we work in the same place every day, quite often we don't see or notice how good or bad the first impressions we project to our customers.

There are 3 basic ways our customers contact us:

In Person

Via the Internet

On the Phone

As I task you to do in the video, take stock of how your customers are received at your dealership - check each method of contact.

Here is what you should inspect:

What does the customer see?

What does the customer hear?

What does the customer smell?

Your customers should experience the very best you have to offer, as you only get one chance at this first impression.

Look your absolute best - both facility and dealership employees - rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10.

What are you saying to your customers? Say it with a smile, be enthusiastic, make your customers enjoy their experience.

If you want an outsider to measure any or all of the above, let us know - we can do this for you. 

Watch all 4 of the videos in this blog - David Foco, Vice President, talks about how to keep our customers coming back.

Research has shown that customers will buy their next vehicle from the dealership they last used for service - if it was in the last 90 days, they will do this a whopping 72% of the time!!

It isn't a matter of whether you want to do the processes David talks about, this is a necessity if you want to sustain your business. Don't delay in following his advice, and don't hesitate to reach out to David personally with any questions - e-mail him at:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Now watch the following video:

Number 3:

The thought process, as you see with David's videos, is to involve all departments - the more people involved, the more likely we will be to keep our customers satisfied so they will keep coming back. 

Now watch the video below on a couple of word tracks: 

 

I am sure that many have you have tried to prospect in the past, and in fact some of you may well have a great routine that you use now to continually cultivate business.

What we are talking about here is the kind of prospecting that will produce results - both short-term and long-term. It is essential to get, and keep, your name out there. The ideas talked about in these 2 videos are proven and effective. They are examples of what the top salespeople around the country are doing. 

Managers - do you struggle to get your team to prospect? Maybe they need the tools to be effective - help them develop a company facebook page for themselves (John Q. Salesperson ABC Dealership). This facebook page should be strictly business - no selling though, just information that your customers and potential customers would find interesting. "How To" videos for example, along with video testimonials from customers. Post newsworthy articles about your dealership and product lines.

It is widely known that recipients of e-mails much prefer to watch a video than read e-mail content, so appeal to this fact by sending video e-mails, personalized so the recipient will know they mean something to you. 

Once you have watched both videos from me, watch the video at the end - this is an idea from a salesperson at a dealership we work with in Canada - simple and effective. He is not selling anything except himself and his dealership, and adding a little fun. 

 

This month David Foco talks about the power of benchmarking and tracking - on a daily basis. I know many of you have measurements in place and use them to help maximize your departments' potential.

I also know that many of you look at these numbers a little too seldom - maybe just once or twice a month. If you were able to see critical measurements each day, it would allow you to make necessary adjustments quickly, giving you the power to have a positive effect on your financial statement.

Closing ratios are typically looked at to hold salespeople (in both fixed and variable operations) accountable, yet after decades of working in this industry, I have yet to find 2 dealers that measure this benchmark the same way. So what is the industry norm? I don't believe there can be one, nor does it really matter.

If you look after  the activities that have an effect on the closing ratio, then the closing ratio will take care of itself. 

How is the meet and greet?

What about the interview?

Is the product selection the best it can be?

Are your people giving "wow" feature/function/benefit presentations every time?

These are just a few examples of what you should be measuring. If all the steps to a sale were being done correctly, every time, your closing ration will go up. If you were to rate any manager or salesperson on closing ratio, all they will do is to stop logging customers so this ratio looks good.

So, install a simple, daily report that can measure all these things. As David says in the videos, please feel free to ask us - we will build these reports specifically for your dealership and it won't cost you a dime. You will be surprised with the critical information they will provide you to help you keep your month on track.

Please make sure you watch both of David's videos on fixed and variable operations.

 

Watch the first video below on steps 2 and 3 - Who You Represent & Product 

The 5 Ingredients to a Sale (Part 2)

The first part of this article covered the first ingredient in detail, so this part will cover the remaining 4 - who you represent, your product, the price, and time.

Who You Represent

This ingredient is quite often missed, as we quite often assume (wrongly) that as we are talking to a particular customer, it must mean that the customer is happy with the company - why else would the customer be in contact with me?

In every business, there is competition, and with competition comes comparisons. Your customers will want to compare your company (who you represent) with other companies selling a like product or service. You need to be able to sell your company to your prospective client.

So how is this done?

Remember the main steps to a sale as outlined in the first part of this article? Which of these steps is the best one to highlight your company?

The answer is: Service and Parts Tour.

The best way to incorporate this vital element is to flow directly from the trial close. For example, if you have just completed a world class feature/function/benefit presentation of your product (or service), and asked a question like: "so, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is that you want to go ahead with this now, where are you? Your potential may answer: "well, subject to the price being right, it could well be a 10". So now you can follow up with: "before I get you some great numbers, allow me to share with you the most important reason so many people do business, and continue to do business with us here at World Class Business."

Then take them to your service and parts department. It is important to not only show the facilities, but your team of people who work there. In some industries, your clients know that it is not just a matter of if, it is a matter of when they will need to use your parts and service operation. They need to know that they will be looked after when this happened. They also need to know who will be looking after them, so introduce them to the team - edify them to your client. This will make both parties feel good about who they are dealing with.

After the tour and the introductions, you may something like this: "Mr. Customer, I don't know if that was important to you, but it sure would be important to me knowing that I have someone like (Jimmy) looking after the investment I was about to make."

This one step will set you apart from your competition. The reason - your competition is not doing this - they are all about selling the product and not the business!

So what do you do if your industry is such that you don't have the ability to do a service and parts tour? Maybe you go to where your clients are rather than them coming to you. Well, how about taking a "Why Buy Here" book with you? This is normally a 3 ring binder with plastic sleeves in, holding documentation about your services and business. It could contain copies of letters from satisfied customers - an "evidence manual" if you like. You could include photographs of the parts and service team - make it personal. If any of you would like help in putting something like this together, please contact me. You could take it a step further by filming your team and your facility and either play it or e-mail it to your client.

Product - As I said in part 1, this is probably the easiest of the 5 ingredients to master.

The reason I make that statement is that you will normally have the product you are trying to sell right in front of your customer. If you are in the service industry, you typically will have your presentations well rehearsed in order to either satisfy a concern or create a need and want to purchase.

The main steps to a sale for this ingredient are the interview, selecting the product or service, and the feature/function/benefit presentation.

If the interview is done correctly, you will know what your customer is looking for, his or her rough budget, and their "hot buttons". Hot buttons are benefits, and normally come in the form of safety, performance, appearance, comfort, economy and durability.

Once you find out these hot buttons, you can now tailor your presentation to match what the customer wants.

Remember this - customers will normally buy what they want - this may not necessarily be what they need.

Our job as salespeople/advisors/consultants is to help customers to buy. That is different from selling. Let them know about our product or service, give them options and allow them to make an informed decision.

Price.

The steps to use to sell the price of the product are:

All of them!

Why? Because very rarely is a sale about price. It is all about value. If a customer does not see particular value in your product or service, then in order for you to still make a sale, you will need to cut your price.

Where will customers see value? They need to see it in you first and foremost , so make sure you follow the guidelines I went through in part one. You need to make sure you select the right product or service to present to the customer - something to fit his budget, and more importantly, something to fit his wants and needs - this is where the interview and product selection come into play.

The feature/function/benefit presentation is hugely important in building value - remember that customers buy benefits, not features, so make sure you don't talk about a feature without talking about what that feature will do for your customer.

The service and parts tour, or your evidence manual will build value too - the more value you build, the less important the price becomes.

Once you have the value built to match the price - you have sold this vital ingredient.

Time.

Why is time an important ingredient?

You have to sell your customer that now is the best time to make this purchase. You do this by talking about any specials or sales you have going on at the moment. You need to create the sense of urgency - this could be done by explaining what could happen if your customer put off the purchase until a later time - how much could it potentially cost? Customers are more afraid losing something, so use this fact to create urgency.

I was in a car dealership a couple of weeks ago, and the dealer tried a different marketing campaign. While they didn't get the response out of the targeted campaign, they created a sale atmosphere - put balloons out, asked walk in customers during the meet and greet if they were here for the sale, and stressed the importance of making a decision during this event. The atmosphere created at least 6 sales that probably would not have been made otherwise. The customers were sold on this being the right time.

To recap - you need to sell yourself, the business you represent, the product itself, the price of that product and the fact that there will never be a better time than now to make this purchase.

If you miss the sale, look back to see which of these 5 ingredients is missing - it will be one or more of them.

Watch the video below on steps 4 & 5 - Price and Time 

 

The 5 Ingredients In A Sale 

 

Most salespeople have been trained on certain steps to a sale. It may have been a 10-step selling system, maybe a 12 or 13 step selling system - they are all pretty much the same, as selling really hasn't changed since the beginning of human life - when Eve was sold on taking the apple from the serpent.

The main steps to a sale are as follows:

Meet and Greet

Interview - build rapport - investigate

Select a product or service

Present that product or service

Demonstrate that product or service

Trial Close

Service & Parts Tour

Trade appraisal (if applicable)

Negotiations

Close

Let's now discuss the ingredients.

There are 5 ingredients that every sale must have. In other words, you as a salesperson must sell these 5 things. They are:

You - you must be able to sell yourself first and foremost. Not many people will buy what you are selling if they don't buy you first. Yet if you sell yourself, a lot of people will buy whatever you are selling!

Who You Represent - Why buy here? You must be able to sell your customer on buying from your place of business. There are other vendors out there selling similar products with similar prices, so why should buy from the company you represent? A professional salesperson will honestly believe that they are representing the very best company in the field, and therefore believe in that company. Selling that company then becomes easy. If you don't think you represent the best - change companies!

Product - You need to be able to sell the product - this is probably the easiest of the 5 ingredients - use the presentation step in the steps to a sale above to do this. As with your company - if you don't believe you are selling the best product, do something about it.

Price - If you can't sell your potential customer on the price of the product, go back to the product itself - have you done the best possible presentation of the product? Remember that customers buy benefits, not features. Build value in the presentation and demonstration stages to help sell the price.

Time - Customers need to hear that there will never be a better time to buy this product or service than right now - you need to sell them on this fact by creating urgency.

I am going to discuss each step in more detail - this blog will cover the first one, and the others will be covered in more detail in a subsequent article.

You.

Your customers will judge you initially using 3 of their 5 senses. They will look at you, smell you and listen to you.

So, how do you look? Did you shave today? Do you need a haircut? What do your clothes look like?

How did you look when you went on that very important date with someone you wanted to impress? What did you do to prepare for that date?

Here's what I think - you went to extreme lengths getting ready, chose your clothes carefully, asked other people for their opinion, showered, shaved (guys as well!), clipped fingernails, ironed clothes (yes, that contraption that plugs into the wall and hisses), polished shoes and put on some "smell nice".

Why did you do that? Because you were trying to sell yourself - that's why! You knew that the person you were hoping to impress was going to look at you and assess you. You knew they were going to smell you and assess you. You knew that they were going to listen to you and assess you. You also knew that in order for any relationship to develop, you needed to pass these tests, so you went all out to impress. Anything less just wouldn't do.

Here's what else I think - you don't go to these lengths each and every day for potential customers. Why? Probably because you think you are a good enough salesperson that you can still win your customers over without having to go to so much trouble. You see we are a lazy bunch, us salespeople. We like to do as little as possible in order to gain as much as possible.

What would happen if we made the very best first impression every time, every day, without fail, no exceptions? Are you willing to even give it a try? What is the worst that can happen? Absolutely nothing different than now, right?

How else can you sell yourself? Use the steps to a sale above - the first couple of steps are crucial. You must conduct a professional meet and greet - introduce yourself, allow the client to establish eye contact with you - maintain a sincere smile - have a firm, professional handshake - control your voice.

Conduct a professional interview/fact finding/rapport building session. Allow the client to do most of the talking - the more they talk, the more they will like you. This is not a time to sell, it is a time to allow the customer to get to know and like you. This needs to be a conversation like you are talking to a friend - not an interrogation.

Work hard on selling yourself - all the ingredients are important - I happen to believe that this is the most important of the 5, you sell yourself and the world is yours.