97 Brands Fighting for The UK Next Year. What Should Dealers Be Talking About?

Selling In the Motor Trade is closing in on 300 episodes, and Simon Bowkett wanted to mark it properly. That means a thank you to everyone who has listened since the early lockdown episodes, and a question back to you about where the show goes next. Along the way he shares the numbers that put the milestone in perspective, including the fact that only 6% of podcasts ever reach 100 episodes and fewer than 1% get to 300. He looks back at the guests who have made the biggest impression, from US sales trainers to dealer group leaders here in the UK, and he is honest about how the topics have moved on. Agency has faded. Chinese brands, a crowded franchise market and replacing oil revenue have taken its place. Then he opens the floor to the audience.

• The story behind the show and why it started in the first lockdown
• Podcast statistics that put 300 episodes into perspective
• The guests who have stuck with listeners, from US trainers to UK dealer group leaders
• How the trade’s biggest questions have shifted since 2020
• Chinese brands and a UK market with around 97 badges competing next year
• Replacing oil revenue as service departments look further ahead
• Why competitor trainers are welcome on the show, and the rising tide argument behind it
• How to suggest a guest, a returning guest or a subject, and what you get for it
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Simon Bowkett, or Skippy to plenty in the trade, is the founder of Symco Training and the author of Words That Sell Cars. He has hosted this podcast since the first lockdown, interviewing sales trainers, dealer principals and industry leaders from the UK, the US and Australia. This episode is a solo, and it is as much a thank you as it is a plan for the next 300.

Worth a listen if you follow the show, then send Simon a message on LinkedIn with the name you want to hear on it next.

About Symco Training:

Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon’s words ‘real world’, it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.

To find out more visitwww.symcotraining.co.uk

Hi and welcome to another episode of Selling in the Motor Trade. In partnership with Kizana, improve your margins with real-time, data-driven, retail valuations backed by the largest rule of data set in the UK. There are an evidence-based guide valuations for main dealers, car suit markets and independence. Along with Simco Training, where we took about training in the real world, what's happening in the market today, not 10 to 15 years ago. Together, we're going to share tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service and parts operation and generally put more profit into your department, dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Boca, or some of you might already know me as Skippy. Firstly, I just want to say thank you for the people who died right from the beginning of this because we're past 250 episodes now and interviewed so many great leaders in the motor trade. Thank you for taking the time. For people who are new to this, please ask and just subscribe. You can't believe what it does to the algorithm and gets this podcast out to as many people in the motor trade as we can. Hi, and welcome to another episode of Selling in the Motor Trade. I'm really excited to say that we're coming up to 300 episodes in the Selling in the Motor Trade podcast and the people have been around for a long time. I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. It's one of those things that we started in the first lockdown. You see, as running a sales training company, our business almost topped overnight in that very first lockdown. I had time on my hand and I'd always thought about starting a podcast. Now, we'd already written a book, Words that Sell a Cars. Thank you for that. That had been published probably, I don't know, six, 12 months beforehand and funny enough, it's still going really well. It's one of those things in Amazon. It just keeps ticking over and over and over. But a podcast was something I was keen to do because I got hooked into early on the Diary of a CEO's podcast and I knew it from right at the beginning when he was doing it in his broom cupboard, Stephen Bartlett. When he actually used to say, what do you say, something without further ado instead of ado? I remember right back then, I thought, I like the idea of a podcast for the motor trade. Now, guys, there's some great podcasts in the motor trade. There was a motor trade radio and I love what Curtis does there. It's really, really good. But it's more about news and who's bought, who and what about this, what about that. And the idea of this was always to share tips and ideas on how to sum more cars, make more money and prove the service department. But actually, I've got some stats through here and some people say thank you, but then also, where do we go from here? So stick around because this is where you'll get involved. Now, here's some of the stats that 29,000 podcasts, 29,000 podcasts have started every single day. That shocked me. Actually, 47% of podcasts never make it past three episodes, not 300, which is quite nice. 6% of podcasts reach 100 episodes. And Rob, who is the person who's brilliant at doing all of our editing and so forth, he's given me a lovely plaque when we hit 100. I thought, what a lovely touch. Rob, I didn't realize that only 6% of podcasts actually make it to that 100 episodes. So that makes it even more special and thank you for that. But actually, the number of episodes that reach 300 is less than 1%. So guys, this podcast is a less than 1%. Thank you for the audience. It's so nice to have that audience there that's been following it for such a long time. So you know who you are. I just want to reach out and say thank you so much. I really, really do appreciate it. But then also, for you guys who have been around from the beginning, or maybe you've just got this, this podcast is all about sharing tips and ideas on how to somewhat cars make more money. So it's over to you. When you get to 300 episodes, I'll level with you, getting interesting guests. It gets harder and harder. And by the way, I think we've had some great guests over the years, okay, from the American side of the pond, Dave Anderson, you've got Tommy Gibbs, Tony Gibbs on use cars. If you use this podcast, you go and listen to what Tommy talks about with use cars and not just stop turning how he talks about sell-by dates on each car, some really, really great stuff there. I mean, David Martin voted one of the best speakers at the National Automotive Dealers Association. I think eight times in a row. Jennifer Suzuki, I love her stuff there, some really good stuff there. You've got Sean V. Bradley, there's so many other people are Joe St. John's from America. And that stuff has always gone down really well in the UK side of this. Now this started as a UK podcast because we can't stop who dials into it where it goes. We have more and more people now listening in UK and Ireland. That's where we're based. That's our market. Being Australian, we've got more and more people listening to this and again, some of the podcast interviews from Patrick Tessier, a good friend of mine, the first person from Australia I put on this, a friend, Chernobyl, again, he's a mate, but some of the stuff he talked about, he runs a brilliant account-based account-sy firm in Australia, but James Bortman. This is the head of the Australian Automotive Dealers Association and he was sharing with us. When agency was the concern, I think it's fair to say, and what was happening with Mercedes Benz and what was happening with a court case out there, he was right in the centre of that. In fact, after that, what's you people reached out, James come to the UK and he met up with lots of people there to talk about their experience and what's actually happened there. Then you've got people over here. We've got Mr. Hanlon, John, thank you so much for this. We've reached out to lots of other people before and John gave me a cheeky little text and said, oh, great, you like all these people like Dash Gupta and Peter Smyrman there and Gavin Hyde's there, but you never mentioned me. David Peele now retired at the time was heading up Peugeot, went into Dealer World there. So many great interviews, but at 300, guys, I'll go reach out again. I'll reach out and ask, who do you want to hear on this podcast? Listen, this happened recently, Grand Potts from Eden. What a brilliant interview that was and what he's doing with the IMI there. But who do you want to see on the podcast? So this one I'm going to ask you to do. Send me a message. LinkedIn is probably the easiest way. Reach out to LinkedIn and say, hey Simon, or Skippy, I'll tell you who I'd really like to see. I'd like to see the managing director of XYZ on there. I want to see what they're doing, what they're talking about. But also, if you know someone there to reach out there and talk about what this podcast does, I'd love that to get more and more people on the guests. But more importantly, I'm not just showing you not the guests. More importantly, we're at the time with 300 episodes in, who needs to come back? Okay. Who do you want to hear again, okay? On this podcast, because lots of things are changed in 300 episodes. The motor trade has changed significantly. When we started, I mean, every second guest want to talk about agency. That's not really been in a conversation and dealerships for a very, very long time, okay? Lots of guests are now, actually, maybe we need to be talking more about what the Chinese are doing. And we need to be talking about actually some of the Chinese brands coming in there and what they're actually doing there. So I want to ask you a question. Two things. Who do you want to see back on the podcast? And who else would you like to see on the podcast? Also we're torn. When we interview people, okay, they go down really well. Look at how the data, when we actually just talk about tips and ideas, they're the ones that actually get more traction because people like to, and I'm guessing they share it with people in sales meetings and management meetings and have a listen to this idea and buy them it. Go and do that. Where is sales training company? Now, of course, we started this to promote Simco training, okay? And I've got to say it's done really, really well for that. Hey, why would I still be doing this 300 episodes in if it didn't? Okay. So it has been really, really good, but it's, it is all about sharing tips and ideas. So I know some of you guys that will just sit and listen to all the free content all the time. So the way you train us out there, we've had lots of trainers on the podcast, okay? A lot of people say, why would you have some of your competitor trainers on the podcast? Well, my view is quite simple. In a rising tide, all ships go up. And I've never been one of those guys to say, oh, I'm worried about this idea and keep it to myself. And maybe we should do, okay? Maybe that would make me a better business person. But I honestly believe, if we just share tips and ideas, we get enough people picking up the phone saying, hey, can you come and talk to us about our service department? We really do need to replace oil sales. We know we're going to have to replace that in the future. I want to start thinking about that now, not down the track there. We get those calls, okay? In fact, Mr. Peter Smythe, that was an exact call a couple of weeks ago. So we get enough calls there, but actually, what else do you want to see on the podcast? So here's what I'm going to ask. I want you to reach out to me. On LinkedIn, that's the easiest way, okay? It's Simon Bokett, that's B-O-W-K-E-W-T. Send me a direct message there. If you want, give me a call, okay, WhatsApp's probably the easiest way because my phone's off lots. It is plus 447-949-240-550, and reach out to me. My email is a nice simple one. It's Simon at simcodetraining.co.uk. And just tell me, who would you like to see on the podcast, okay? Oh, by the way, if you are another trainer, by all means, we love you to come on here. That's not a problem at all, but it will be about sharing tips and ideas, okay? Giving back, Colin McAllister, great fan of the podcast. Colin's been on the show so many times, not asking for anything in return. He is one of the best sales trainers I've seen in the motor trade. He works for a dealer group, okay? He's not trying to sell his own stuff or anything like that there. He just has a genuine passion for the business. So if you're a trainer like that, by all means, love if you come along. Suppliers, if you want to come on and talk about your product, listen, of course, we're a business, we charge people to come in and talk about their products on that one there. Of course, that's how it works. But you know what? Make sure it's not a sales pitch. If you've got an idea, you're a supplier, and you want to talk about how the business is going, where it's going, we'd love to talk about it. But please, please, please, if it's just a sales pitch, which sometimes they have been, I promise you, they just go into the bin. In fact, we had the marketing director of a company recently and the interview, I said, it's not going out, okay, because it was a sales pitch from start to finish. So actually, as long as it's not a sales pitch, because we see the data, people switch off. So this is what I want you to do. Who do you want to see back on the show again? And also, who else would you like to get on the show? I'm going to say, if you know these people and can reach out and get them on the show, we'd love the contact and the introduction as well. But also, what about these solos? What other ideas are you looking to get out of this? So I'm talking about sales managers, after sales managers there, okay? Are you looking for how to replace the oil sales in the business? Because in your country, what, 2035, something like that, you can't sell ice cars or internal combustion engine cars anymore, it's going to be all EV. Is that going to happen? I don't know. If you want to talk about and kick around ideas, how to replace that oil revenue, we can talk about that. Is it actually, what's happening with the change in the motor trade, okay? In the UK market, that's where we're based, something like 97 brands are going to be presented next year. Are you the ones that have a traditional brand? And you're worried about how to compete? Are you the guys that actually have one of these new brands and one of the, how long is it going to be sustainable, okay? What ideas do you want to talk about, okay? So listen, do me a favor, send that along and I'll tell you what, as a thank you, listen, we'll send you through a free book or we'll set you up someone on our sales fitness sales program for free because it's, I really do appreciate the audience and listen, come up to 300 episodes, thank you, thank you, thank you. I really do appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. That just leaves me to say that all details of this episode and other episodes on the selling in the motor trade can be found on our website simcotraining.co.uk. Go there to get a copy of our book, Words That Sell Cars. Go there to sign up to a free trial of our sales fitness online sales training program. Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bokett through LinkedIn, thank you.