Retention begins with attitude and ends with training. Simply put, if your head isn’t in it, you lose. The car business, for better or worse has always been a business of negativity. The LEADS are weak? You ARE Weak!!!! That was the motivation.
If you want your staff not to be “weak”, train them properly, role play, share your knowledge. Make them better. Unfortunately, most managers do not possess the time or talent to train. Can the dealer afford to take your best managers off the floor to train the salesstaff?
By the way, do you know what we mean when we say “Training?” Training isn’t just presenting information to a group of dead faces. Training is a four step process:
- First you explain,
- Then demonstrate,
- Then observe and then,
- Correct.
The process never changes. If you just explain, you are short changing your staff by three steps. They will NEVER improve.
Knowledge is not power. It is the use of the knowledge that is powerful. We just cannot put words on a board and magically expect a group of “professionals” to take it to heart. We need to show them that the information presented will make them better. Having knowledge and not to utlize it is worse than not having the knowledge. That is why we have profession trainers. They not only have the knowledge, they can translate, show, train and correct so your staff will no longer be weak, and neither will you.
Want to retain, then train… Your thoughts?
I was working at a dealership in Miami and everyweek the General Manager had a “training session”. He talked at us for an hour and then we left, wondering why did we have to sit there for an hour. We were all pumped up, but we didn’t (couldn’t) do anything with that energy. Everyweek, week in – week out. Until they fired the GM and got a new one who did the same exact thing. We didn’t get better, the store did the numbers they did and we all wondered why we were working there. What what said makes sense. But it is like hitting ourselves in the head. We can only change ourselves. What do we do when the system stinks?
That’s right Bob and like the Blogger was saying putting the knowledge that most dealerships and managers have into practice is key to success.I know this, if I owned a dealership in this economy I would look to take full advantage of it right now…let my managers manage process and have an outside vendor such as AutoMax train my people ALL THE TIME!
Spot on Craig. The dealers only say, “What is it going to cost me?” When they need to say, “What value are you providing me with?”. What value can be placed on a well trained staff, functioning on all cylinders, where it costs “x” initial dollars for x to the third results? Gee, putting the several hundreds of thousands of additional profits aside (and yes those are the numbers) you will have a happier, more productive sales staff. Strangely enough, when there are positive thoughts in a productive dealership with happy people, those thoughts can expand just as quickly as the negative thoughts in a poor dealership. After all, when is the best time to sell a car? That is why Automax is the most requested recruiting and training company in the Automotive industry. (And, may I add, you are not just for greenpeas anymore, but for everyone who want to improve. That is what professionals do!)