Most salespeople wait for the dealership to hand them customers… then wonder why they’re stuck at “average”.
In this episode, I’m joined by Ali Reda, one of the highest-volume salespeople I’ve ever spoken to, to break down the mindset shift that changes everything: you don’t “work for the dealership”, you run your own business inside it.
Ali explains how he builds trust through community work (so customers come looking for him, not “a price”), why he refuses to sell from panic, and how he’s built a small team that generates its own customers without touching dealer-provided walk-ins, phone-ups, or internet leads. We also get into what dealers and managers need to change if they actually want elite performers to flourish.
Episode highlights:
If you’re a salesperson who wants more repeat and referral, or a manager who wants your best people to stop getting boxed in by process… this is for you.
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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 visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk
Welcome to the Selling and the Motor Trade Podcast, an association with Symco Training. This is the weekly podcast where we share best practice tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department and generally put more profit into your dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett. Now, some of you probably already know me as Skipping. I would start by saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Yeah, you're seen as... We all like to have the expert as in, if you need help with plumbing, you're going to speak to George. George will talk about, hey, listen, I need help with a state agent. That's the person that's going to help me with my latest bitelet property or whatever there. Ali's going to be sending the guy help with cars. With that, are you recommending to a customer that, hey, you need to go and buy that Toyota? I think that's the right one for you. I imagine you are sometimes if that's what's required. A million percent, of course, absolutely. My job is to solve the problem, not create a new one. My job is to solve your problem. If your problem then says that you should be buying a Toyota, then I would advise you, hey, maybe that's a better idea for you today. Of course, you try to keep it in the circle of friends that you have, so you should have a contact at Toyota or a contact at Chrysler. You can keep that person in your inner circle and you're just not letting them go and they're out there free for all. Of course, have that circle of trust with other people in other industries. I'm not competition with them at all by any means. There's enough to go around for everyone, but it does mean sometimes saying, now is not a good time. It does mean that, hey, interest rates are not really in your favor based on your credit score. Why don't you do these few things for your credit and come back and see me in 30 days because I'm not selling from scarcity. I'm not concerned about that person never coming back. I know that's harder said, harder done than said because our job is not to let people leave the dealership and not take a car. When you get to the relationship type selling, again, you're protecting this person and you're not creating a new problem for them, then I have to clean up later. I'm protecting myself in essence because when they come back, I can't say, oh boy, man, what happened here? They're going to be like, you did it. Is that what they're going to say? You lose credibility over time. That's why it's important to have control over your deal at some point you want full control. I wish managers wouldn't listen to that so many times in the UK, I'm sure it's around the world. We weld a customer into the car. We get them into it, and the residual value goes up, the mileage goes down. Who are we kidding? Two and a half years down the track, we're never going to get the person out of that car, but it's today to day to day. They're not looking for tomorrow. You said a phrase. It was at the NITA conference that you're not building a 30-day period. It's not a monthly building. You're actually building a career. Can you talk me through that mindset? Yeah. I adopted this whole term that I have no beginning and I have no end. We use that in our Pinnacle Society, which we could talk about a little bit too, but I have no beginning and I have no end, even though our industry measures our performance in 30-day increments. The dealership's like, oh, what have we done in 30 days? We have quotas. We have this 30 days. My career is not measured in 30-day increments. It's measured in a career. Just because I start over with the monthly count every month, doesn't mean my career starts over. It doesn't mean that it's hero to zero every month. I have a consistent career going. Whether I sell them on March 1st or April 1st or May 1st, it's fine because it's a career and it's ongoing. Again, we're not selling from scarcity. You have to adopt that mindset that I have no beginning. I have no end because I'm not trying to just live for today. I want the longevity of it. I need a career out of this. This is not a job. It's a career. It's something that you're building a business. It's a continuous cycle. It keeps going. The more years you sell, the more you should be selling. If you're not, there's something wrong in the process and the way you're doing things. The more years you have in service, it should increase year over year. There's no reason for ever to go backwards. Isn't that that mindset where people do? Over here, a 200 club would be a decent salesperson. 200 a year. We're talking about that. Now, Ali, that's not a month. That's 200 a year. That's a decent salesperson. I hit the 200 club and that would be considered a decent salesperson. But again, if you're 200 a year for 15 years in one store, where are the customers that are coming back again and again and again? Correct. Something is wrong. You've got to take a hard, long look at what you've done, how you've done it, and why it isn't growing. It's just a mindset. You have to adopt the mindset of, I'm running a business within a business. This is my storefront. This is my store. I come in, I turn on the light, customers are coming in to see me, and that's the business that I'm running. The dealership is providing to us all the tools that we need. The building, the cars, the phones, the internet, the computers, everything. Not the customers. But not the customers. You provide the customers. Not the dealers. That's the difference, isn't it? Correct. If you want to be average, then you allow the dealership to provide your customers and you'll get average results of 12 cars a month, which is what they. Industry says 10 to 12 is average. Based on waiting on dealer-driven opportunities, doing nothing outside the dealership, it's what you're doing outside the dealership that makes you an elite salesperson. It's just sitting there waiting for the next one to come and relying on the dealership to provide these customers coming in. All of us have the potential of getting out and creating this business. If you open up your storefront and you're relying on just normal traffic from the dealership to come in, of course, you're going to get average results. If you're out there doing the things that you're supposed to be doing, if you're engaging, if you're putting yourself out in the community, if you're giving back, if you're doing social media the proper way, those things are going to drive people into your business. Stop thinking. Those people stop thinking that you work for the owner. You work for yourself. You're self-motivated. You're sales professionals. You got to get out there and create this business to come in. It's crazy because they'll get a referral, they'll get a repeat customer, they'll get a community customer and they'll say, wow, that was the easiest sale I ever had. We made more profit off of this customer and then like Amnesia, they just let it go. It was by accident. Be intentional. There's a reason why that was the easiest sale you had. It was a reason why you made more profit off of that deal. Be intentional and break it down and figure out where they came from. Why did they come see you? How did they get there and analyze it? We call it deal autopsy. You got to break that deal down and figure out what went right. Same when you lose a deal, break it down and what went wrong. Don't just be oblivious to it and be like, oh, no, that customer was just being a jerk and they didn't want to buy from us anyways and a day later they're buying somewhere. Don't be oblivious to these things going on because there's clues in there you just got to look for them. Can I go back to Jerry? Jerry seems to be your first mentor that you learned. You're going to go together. Jerry must have been building his own customer relationship management system. If he's retired, I don't know his age, but I'm guessing this is before you had computers and CRMs, what was Jerry doing to stand touch with the customers? Was he actively reaching out to the customer saying, had strong review car? You've had it for two thirds of the way through your finance agreement. Is he just staying in touch with them and hoping they come back to him? What was he doing? It's so crazy because you're right. There was no CRM. He was when he retired, he was 55 and that was 15 years ago. There was no real strong CRM. There was no him calling all these customers to come back. It was crazy to think that, but the customers wanted to stay engaged with them. The burden was on them because they're like, I'm going back to Jerry. I would never trust anybody else. In their mind, there was no other options. How did he get that trust? What did he do? It was community service. It was all community service. I would go to him to a function and what's hard in the car sales is breaking the ice. Tell them people, I sell cars. I'd go to him to a function and people would gravitate towards him. They would be coming up to him and, hey, Jerry, what's the deal of the month? Hey, what's this suburban going for? What can I get this car for? He wasn't even mentioning the word car. He wasn't even saying, I'm Jerry, the car salesman. He was Jerry. He wasn't the car salesman. He was just the person that he loved them. They loved them. He knew that they were going to take care of them. They were engaging. He wasn't trying to break that ice and saying to them, I'm here to sell cars. Here's my cards. The intention wasn't that. It was that he was there to support whatever the function was. People were coming up to him and that burden was on them. It wasn't really on him. That's where all these people started coming back. Now, of course, we want to stay engaged with our customer base and you want to do that because now with social media and internet and accessibility, everything is online. People's phones ads pop up. It's very important to stay engaged with your customer base. When you build that loyalty, not just brand loyalty, when they build that salesperson loyalty to what you offer that person and the community, people are what they want to come back to you. I have so many people come to me and say, I've been dying to buy a car from you. I couldn't wait to get a car from you. They're coming to me saying that. They want that service and they want to say, I got a car from Ali. It's an amazing feeling and I'm so grateful and I let them know how grateful. I always tell them, you have thousands of choices and you chose us. I don't take that lightly. I'm extremely grateful for that. We thank you. I want them to feel that gratitude back. Ali, can I ask you, what do you measure other than just results? Other than profit? Is it profit? That's the question I need to know actually. What do you measure other than just the results on a weekly monthly yearly basis? No, it's just been intentional. It's serving. It's given back. Of course, we're very profitable. In the long run, the more cars you sell, the more you're going to make and the manufacturer looks at volume, the dealership looks at volume. We too look at volume and we just know that the more volume you're going to hit the bonuses, you're going to hit all your levels. We're extremely profitable in that sense, but that's not the driving force. We're there to serve as many as we possibly can. To continue growing, now in my career, I'm not chasing cars. I'm not chasing cars sales. I'm building a small team of people that work under me that are salespeople, which again, to people who think about it, there's a salesperson in the dealership that hired a salesperson to work for them. Most people will be like, oh, that's crazy. My dealership will never allow that. Mind it, it didn't either until I asked. No, it does. It's just eight. Let's try it for 90 days, right? Yeah, but it was 90 days. It was literally the first time I went to the owners, I'm like, hey, I want to hire a salesperson that works under being, they're like, you want to do what? They're like, what? You don't even have time now. How are you going to do that? I'm already doing 100 and some cars a month. They're like, you barely have time. I'm like, no, but I really feel like I can mold this person to become a better salesperson than what we normally have through the process. The one caveat I had told them, I said, but it's not going to cost you guys a penny because this person is, my attention is for them not to take a single dealer-driven opportunity. They're not taking phone-ups, phone leads, internet leads, walk in. I'm going to hire somebody that's going to take none of this from you guys. And I want to organically build them through the community. And again, I'm like, we'll try it for 90 days if it doesn't work fine. And so we did that. And I finally found Carlos, the longest salesperson that I have worked for me now. And from David 1, he owned a pool company. From day one, we were talking about learning the business, not really selling anything. I'm like, let me just put you on a small salary. And I want you just to learn the business. I want to put you in a training for three or four months and just get you familiar with how to do things and get you out in your community. Let them know that you're here to protect them. Let them know that you want to engage. And from that moment, Carlos was 100% relational. 100% relational. And to this day, five or six years later, he's still 100% relational. No work in inquiries. No email inquiries coming in. No phone calls coming in. Zero. Zero, nothing. He didn't even work on the dealer. From the dealer. Yeah, from the dealer. Yeah. He didn't even know how to turn on the computer. He was like, I don't know how to turn on this computer. And he was like, just, I'm like, don't worry, we're just going to get you engaged. And he was a perfect person because he was already involved in soccer and he already knew some of the stuff in his community. So I'm like, this is perfect. That's the entry point that we needed. And we built his business organically through his community. And the most Carlos sold the 64 cars in a month. He's averaging 50 cars a month today. And he's, again, 100% relational. And of course, I had to get him through the process and change his process throughout his every level he hit. We re-tweaked and changed things for him and I had to get him an assistant. So I became a manager, which I don't want to be a store manager. I've gotten opportunities and I've gotten requests all over the country. And I'm like, I'm not interested in being a manager. Salesperson has the best job in the house, but I became a manager to a small team. And that I love. And I take more pride. I promise you more pride. And I hug my salespeople and I'm jumping under heads when they do something amazing in their success than any numbers that I've ever hit because I'm seeing these people flourish. And I'm seeing the seeds that we've planted flourish and changing their lives and their family's lives, which is truly amazing. And I've done that now. I have four people that work for me now and every one of them is amazing in their own right. And I think it's fair to say that their numbers aren't your numbers on the record. No, they're not their numbers. I just know some people might be sitting there thinking, ah, I'll be speaking to others. No, no, no. Good statement. Yeah. Yeah, my 130 a month is separate than Carlos is 50 separate than Mike's 30 separate than Mira's number. So it's they're all they're all separate. So it's like the way they're probably 200 and 40 230. Back to that measurement stuff. I suppose it's the consultants. It is coming out now. So when you start Carlos off, Mike offers something like that and relationships. So they're not waiting for people to walk in. Okay. They haven't got the service department and speaks to those customers there. Or are you what are you getting these guys to do? Yes, out to the community. What do you measure? Are you measuring how many leads are coming in to start with? What do you measure to get these guys started? Yeah. So we're first getting them engaged in their own customer base, their own friends, friends and family. So we're trying to reach out to your own friends and family. Then we find out if they have a niche like Carlos's soccer club or you know, if somebody is involved in the police department, because their family's part of the police department. So I engage them into the police department. I have them going around to local businesses, given them certificates saying that we have a program preferred buying program with the local business that we set up for your business. And that person is the program manager of that preferred buying program. So I have them knocking on doors in the community. I have them reaching out to people that they know their own businesses saying, hey, would it be cool if we can offer your employees X? And that person's like, yeah, of course, I would love that. And we presented to their owner and he presented to his employees saying that I've worked out this program for you at Les Stanford. You guys get preferred pricing free oil change drop off a pickup car washes, whatever you want to put on there. And we're offering these in our community to each one of them. And again, I'm not forcing them to come in and sell 10, 15 cars from the beginning. I let them know we're planning the seed. It's going to take a little time to get us going. Once we get going, we're good. And you know, so organically, organically, we're building each one of them as they grow. And the more years they sell, the more it's going to grow. But you're looking at their strengths and you're as a manager, you have different roles. You have different roles for different salespeople. So you might be a manager to one. I might have to wear the hat of coach to another one. I might have to wear a hat of a trainer to another one. I might have to be a partner with another one. So I have to understand each person's strengths. The one thing I have learned as a manager is I can't assume that they know what I know. I can't assume that because most time salespeople are like walking into a manager's office kind of, I don't want to give you this deal because I know I'm going to get yelled at. You know, I got this deal and this customer said this and I don't know if I should say that in the manager then yells at them and they go running off and don't never want to come back wrong. It's the wrong way to do things. So you educate them, you tell them that, hey, even if I have to tell them 10 times, again, I can't assume that they know what I know. So because if they did, they would be in my position. And I want to get them to that position where if you do it properly and have a salesperson that works for you and you go through these, you're a manager, you're a trainer, you're a coach, you're a partner, when you get to the partnership, you don't have to engage as much, you don't have to do all the things that you were doing when they were when you were a manager to them. You don't have to babysit them the way you did. So they're evolving over the years and then your interaction with them is a little bit less because now you're just a partner, you're there to move roadblocks and obstacles and you're not holding your hand the entire time. And then like Carlos doing 50, I don't really have to get involved in all 50 of his deals anymore because he's self-sufficient. He can do 90% of it on his own. And I'm there as a support person. And each one of these people, I'd like to get them up to those goals. And then maybe I could work three days a week and then I kind of reap the benefits of this team thing. And that's kind of the idea of where we're going. But as a manager, don't assume these salespeople know what you know. They don't and you need to educate them. What I love about when you're coaching and training, we're on a training company. So we have so many of these young kids come out and kids are so patronizing, but it is. And they say, hasn't I seen these guys from the Wolfa Wall Street, Jordan Belford and these, this trip to get the customer across the line and that one there and how do we do this? And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. It's not about that. Anyone could sell one car. No one wants to do that. We want to sell people the second, the third, the fourth car. That's where it's at there. And I love when you're, because as a manager, you're a trainer. It's the same job. You are just training. Correct. Absolutely. And I love it. It's not about closing tricks. It's not about this little, it's not that at all, is it? And I just want to get you views on because the internet is full of and these people come on the course and say, ah, I got some of this technique. I've seen that technique and you're going to do that and you're going to hypnotize them into a car. Oh, yes. It's that how could you remember? Do not change who you are. People want to do business with you because of who you are. That's why we're all different. Some people might be more drawn to Carlos versus myself versus Mike versus Mo. Like, so, you know, don't change who you are. And in this industry tries to change you because your sales manager says, go back and say this. Well, you can go back and say what they're intending on saying in your own vocabulary and your own language. Don't go back as a robot or on the phone and you're reading a script. I remember early in my career when I would answer the phone and people would literally say to me, are you in sales? And I'm like, yeah, they're like, well, you don't sound like the last person I talked to. You don't sound like you're in sales. I wasn't reading off or anything. I was talking to them and laughing and joking and, you know, just being my normal self because that's all I knew how to be. So as a manager, when you tell a person, go say this, go say it like this and you want them to verbatim what they said. It's never going to come across properly. They're going to fumble it. It's going to sound awkward. It's going to sound sales pitchy. So, you know, I always tell you, you know, here's what we have to offer. Give them the numbers, figure out what they want to do. I want them to say in their own vocabulary and then you can educate them if they say something wrong or if there's a better way of framing it, but you can't force somebody to say something they don't really want to say. You know, go back and tell a customer, just the best we can do in that tone. Like the guy's slow walking back to his desk thinking, oh my God, how am I going to tell this customer that? And you know, the framing part of it comes off awkward. And you know, again, just be yourself, be yourself and just say it the way you want to say it and be frank and be transparent because of all the information that you think you're hiding, they already have. You can get any type of information off online. Those are, they have all the information before they even get there. So again, caught up in a lie or something that may not be true for, you know, not being transparent and explaining it properly, you know, could get you in trouble. Yeah, anyone can sell one car. You got to sell yourself first because people buy Ali, people buy Carlos. That's who they're actually buying now. And I got to say, the tricks and trade and what else we believe in process? We believe that you have to do certain things there, but it's, it's not about, it's not about tricking people's air. It's building that database. And which brings me on to the thing I hate in the motor trade probably more than anything, but back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, get out of my way. Let me speak to that person there. Can I get there? I suppose from your customers there, they're going to prefer the process anyway because they know you. They've bought through with what other cars are. They trust you. The process is built then and it's like, that's going to happen. I want to get your views on the back of all because some of this now is saying, yeah, no, Ali, you don't get it though. I'm not allowed to say anything to the customer without going to the management manager, then I'm going to my business manager, then I got to walk back out there. If you're two things, if you're, because you went through that start with, okay? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. But also I want to, what advice you have for that person is having to go through that back and forth. But more importantly, what would you say to the manager that's making the people go to that back and forth? Should we not be just giving ourselves people more trust, more autonomy, allow them, given the guard rails to operate in? I want to get your views on that. Yeah. The veterans, the veterans, they need to give them that leverage. They need to take off the guard rails and allow them to be themselves and allow them to do a little bit more so they can flourish because far too often the dealerships do hold your back because they say, well, we don't do that. We don't allow that. But again, it's not a law that says that somebody put that rule in place for a reason, but those rules could be looked at again and you should, you should have exceptions for exceptional people. There's no doubt about it just because you do it for one person doesn't mean you have to do it for everybody. That's not how it works. And it's okay to Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan to shoot more shots because their odds are they're going to make more shots than everybody else and they've earned that right. So for those people, give them the leeway, give them the little leverage, allow them to try it for 90 days. If your numbers fall, if they fall, if something falls off, you reanalyze. It's not a big deal. You go back and you try, go back to the draw board and write it up again. For the early beginners, I told those people to master that process, figure out the manager and how they like things done. The manager is trying to guide you in the best way they can. So figure out what manager is up with. They're not bad people at all. That's what they need to. Yeah. Look, you and your manager have the same goal. It's just how you get there, right? The goal is to sell the person a car to offer them a vehicle and to be profitable in the same sense. So the goal is the same, how you get there might be a little different. So it's okay to work with the manager that you are a little more drawn to, that you feel like it's easier for you to work with and you understand them and they understand you more, but master that process and frame it in a way where it benefits you. So when you go to your manager, that means having all the proper information. That means you can't go there and say, I need a payment and don't have a down payment of what the customer wants to put down or don't have an idea of mileage or don't have an idea of what the customer is actually looking for. You tell the manager, I just need a payment. They just want a payment boss. They don't want nothing. They just want a payment. They want to leave. It doesn't work that way. So master the process of getting as much information as you possibly can, gather all the information, go to your manager so they can make that the best educated decision and then how you present it, master that, figure out what works for you. And a lot of people wing it, they wing this thing. They don't really know what went wrong. So take notes afterwards. If you're able to record what you're doing without customers, so again, you have to make sure that it's illegal or yourself, if you can record yourself through this process and go back and listen to it, then you can critique it and say, okay, well, I didn't really like how I said this, but maybe I should have said it this way or maybe just came across wrong, maybe it was a little more arrogant, maybe I could have been softer. Certain things like you have to sharpen these things up, it's practice. Does Michael Jordan need practice? Did Kobe Bryant, did Tom Brady, did these people, the best in the world? Guess what they have? Coaches. They have trainers. They have practice. They practice these things over and over and over again until they master it. So as a new person, you have to practice these things to get better. You have to figure out what could I have said, do a deal autopsy, figure out what went wrong, what went right, what felt wrong. So you understand how to become better and sharper and faster. You know, coaches have coaches. Why does Phil Jackson, one of the best coaches have a coach? It's because there's always somebody that can train you and help you do things better, but you have to practice. What does Ali Rida have Daimeen as a coach still? I mean, and of course you wrote a book together. The book is called How to Sell 100 Cars a Month, is that correct? Yep, yep, you got it. Yeah. How do people find that? Well, there's a couple of people on Amazon today. Where do I find it? Yeah, Amazon. You could get it. There's a free download at Auto Trading Academy. You can go to write to Daimeen's website, Auto Trading Academy, and there's a free download there. But you know, that book is really cool because it's just the basics of selling. It's just the basics of learning, relational selling. It's a very quick, easy read, but it sums up the industry on how you can get to those levels. Again, I'm a believer if somebody did it, everybody can do it. I'm not sharper than you. I'm not smarter than you. I have a great work ethic. I have an open mindset that I believe more is possible. And still today, why am I trying to get more? Why am I trying to do that? Because I feel like more is possible and there's always a better way of doing things. That's it. That's the belief system that you have to unlock to get to those levels. Otherwise you just get stuck in the run. So what do you do with Damien and Jonathan now? So when you're doing coaching with these guys there, okay, are you asking how do I get to the next level? Is that what you're doing? Is it mainly mindset at the stage? It's not qualification questions. I'm sure you're not. Damien's asking you how to qualify a customer properly at this stage. Correct. Correct. No, no, it's just how to grow business. It's mostly, you know, we're looking at five-year plans when I talk to those guys. They're just brainiacs and they understand to see things differently than a salesperson or a player can see things. And now it's just, hey, in the next five years, what's our goal and how do we start planning to see today? So in five years, we could be where we're trying to achieve. It's not like, what am I going to be doing tomorrow? What am I doing next month? It's planning ahead. We're literally years ahead of planning. So if I want to build this team and I want to eventually, you know, I'm 52 years old as well, and if I want to work less or if I want to figure out what's my future plan, like I want to plant these seeds today, so I have that strategy in place. Well, it's something I just didn't really think about until then. You're working on dealerships. So clearly you've put a business within the dealership. There's other salespeople working for the dealer. Right. There's other people around there thinking, Ali, you must be in that part of the business. You've got your five officers all set up there. When you see the other salespeople there, what mistakes do you see them making? You must see them. You must see the same mistakes. They're not picking on these poor people. They don't know any different, right? Yeah. No. And so the question is, what mistakes do you see on a daily basis there all the time? And do you get frustrated? I feel like saying, I want to go and help Jenny there to do it right there. And I do. And I do. And sometimes they will come to me and say, hey, can you help me with this customer? I'm kind of stuck here. And I will go in and help and close. I love helping my coworkers. And we have an amazing culture and amazing coworkers there. Some of them are just happy where they are, which I did frustrate me at one point because I'm like, you see somebody doing something and you know you could mimic it, but some of them are just happy where they are. Some do mimic what I've done. Some of them are getting out in their communities. They are doing better. We have very successful salespeople at our store because of that. Other people just look at me like, oh, he's just Ali. He was born with it. He was born that way. I was born into the dealership. Oh, hold on. Like they didn't see it a lot. They're so lucky. Yeah. He's so lucky. He's just, Ali, everybody just comes in, but they don't see the wheel turning at the bottom and they don't see 20 years ago. They just feel like it's not attainable. Some people just don't believe it. But majority of them do better because of it. Majority of them, I am Jerry to a lot of them. I am Jerry to Carlos. I am Jerry to Mirana because I've seen what Jerry's done and I've passed in that torch down and I like passing it forward because I've been so blessed in receiving these things. And a lot of the people at the dealership do follow the blueprint and the path that I've set. And they're all successful because of it. But it's at the end of the day, it comes down to work ethic and how much do you want to do? And at the beginning, it takes work. It takes a lot of work to build it and nobody's going to do that work for you. Your mom, as much as she loves you, does not come in to do that work for you. You have to put in the time, the blood, sweat and tears. You have to pound the pavement. You have to get yourself out there. I know at six o'clock sometimes you just want to go home and watch TV and relax and you're done with the days, tough day. Or you can go to a community and have a good time and engage. So choose your heart. Which heart do you think is better for you? I mean, they're both hard. It's hard not to do it and it's hard to do it. So how much do you want? For me, I feel like there's so much more that we can be doing. And I'm not saying work yourself to death by any means. I'm not saying that. Did you do that to stop? Did you feel you did that to start with? You have to put in your time. Yes, everybody does. You have to put in your time. I mean, you wanted this. You strive to get this. You strive to be a successful salesperson and you want this for you. But you have to put in the time. Same going back to professional athletes. They practiced. You see them on TV because that's what you're watching. But you don't see all the other stuff that they went through. And I brought far American football player one time said, he goes, I get paid to practice and I play for free. Yes. And that was so amazing to me when he said that. He goes, I get paid to practice and I play for free because he loves the game. He has passion and all the money that he gets paid is because of the hard work that he put in so he can be on TV so you can see him play. And that's the same thing for us is we have to put in, we have to, we get paid to practice and the sale is the fun part. Yeah. Yeah, so true. Listen, lots of deals in wrapping up soon because you're timing. I just looked at the time there. Thank you so much for this time. I've really loved this conversation. But lots of deals listen to this podcast. And again, I'm going to put myself in your dealer's shoes. He must love this because he's not having to spend the same amount on advertising. He's not having to spend the same amount because if he's got Ali and what you're producing, he's got the other people watching what Ali's doing. Do you have any advice to the dealer listeners? Maybe you're a, I don't know, Kevin Connolly, listen to this in Ireland in Galway. Yeah. I'm thinking, Hey, I want my sales people to be selling sort of numbers there. What advice do you have for that dealer? I'm sorry, and they are just now eating lunch, listen to the podcast. It's so true. It's so true. It's so true because, you know, what's amazing, these podcasts, thank you for putting on this, by the way, because, you know, these shows and things that you're doing and giving back to the industry and helping people grow allows us to share our wisdom and the things that we've done and the trials and errors and allowing people to follow the blueprint. And somebody's done it. Success leaves clues. Why not follow these things? So thank you for doing everything that you do and sharing the spreading the love out there. But, you know, at any point, at any point, my dealer could have stopped my entire career. And I want that to sink in. At any point, my dealer could have said no to a lot of things that I've asked for and not allow me to grow. And it's up to the dealers to understand that you have the potential of giving your sales people this empowerment of growing and growth so they can be partners. And my dealer, Mr. Stanford and his brother Paul and Gary Stanford at the time, God bless them because they seen the potential. And Paul told me one time, he says, we look at you as a partnership. We're not looking at you as a salesperson and you are business within our business and we want to help you grow. At any point, they could have just said no, we don't allow this and they would have inhibited what I could have potentially did and just asking for myself for permission to do certain things or move in obstacles or saying I need more inventory or anything that I've ever asked. And the workshop and cleaned and all of that. Paul, you're doing that must be some road. It's a lot. Yes, it's a lot. But it's a revenue for them. They get more for the prep department. They get more for service. They get more for a lot of things that the finance department, everybody benefits. But God bless them for being able to see and understand that if we empower this young man that we could build something big and they empowered it and they allowed it. Because at any point, they could have just said, we don't allow salespeople to do this and we don't want to build this one person up to this level. And they could have squashed it. And it would have been very difficult for me to get to where I'm at if I had to battle owners and managers and pulling teeth and asking for things. God bless them because anything I've ever asked for, they were willing to listen. And they said collectively, we can come up with an idea. All right. Well, we can't exactly do it this way, but why don't we try this or why don't we? They've never shut it down and just said no. And all the owners out there and the managers out there, I urge you to listen if somebody has something that they want to do and you have a salesperson that has potential that they don't even believe in. It's your job to make them believe in it. It's your job to say, hey, we believe that you can do more. But what happens is we go to the person doing five and six and we're spending $650 on advertising and we're spending all this money trying to get this person to eight when your 20, 30 car guy can easily get to 40 and 50 a lot easier than getting these guys from eight to 10. So embrace it. I encourage it. I say, take the time, take the be patient with them and allow this person to flourish because again, it benefits the entire store when you get somebody to this level. And it takes good mindset on both parties as well. But without them, I promise you Simon, I probably would not be here today having this conversation. The whole relationship selling, I would just say that dealers owners are dealer groups. It's what you do, the way you sell anyway. And what you've built there is the same as what these people own, these dealerships are doing anyway because they're going out to the communities, they're getting people coming in. They're not going through that road to sell demonstration drive this. They get the finite stuff done. They speed up the process there. They take out the roadblocks there. The top salespeople in dealerships everywhere are doing that anyway. And sometimes I feel as an industry, we put too much roadblocks into the sales process there. Yeah, we're just like, oh, he's already going 30. He's good. I love he doesn't need my support. Just leave him alone and not thinking that there's more growth. But there is more growth. There's a lot of growth out there. Yeah. I won't fish with this. Your legacy, sir. Okay. You saw more cars than anyone I know. So but let's go back from the customers. There is a barbecue five years down the track. What do you hope they'd say about Ali and your business? And what would actually break your heart to hear from someone? That's a tough one. That's a good one. I would hope that they say that I've served them proudly. I would hope that they say that I was a role model to the community. And for me personally, I would hope that I leave this industry one day better than I found it. And that means giving back. And I want people to say that, hey, you know, we are better because we've interacted with this person at some point where he's helped me out or at a single mother that was down on her luck. And she's telling the story of how, you know, that I or my team helped her get over the hump in life, not just in car sales, but allowed her to, you know, take her kids to school or get to work. It's back to P P when they had that. If you got taught to tell us that's the pain in the problem. Yeah. What's the problem? Where's your pain point? Like it's it's people saying that and, you know, you know, then the the the one day will break my heart. Nobody said that, you know, oh man, you know, I never had the opportunity to buy a car from him for some reason or I never had the opportunity to interact with this person because, you know, you know, I love interacting with people and I love hearing their story and I love hearing things, you know, that they've done in this industry has has allowed me to meet so many amazing people over the years that I would have never gotten to meet. And it's been such an amazing, you know, heartfelt for myself to be able to interact with all these people that I met over the years. And, you know, to me, that's one thing that I'll take with me forever and just just the amount of amazing people that I've met. I said that quickly about the P P E because when COVID-19 was on, I heard about how you had supplies, you found out supplies, you had so many contacts there. That wasn't just that. Ah, if I get this P P equipment to these people, they're going to come and buy a car from me down the track. That was just definitely a let's reach out and let's just give if you give, it'll come back in the mountains. We did. And we loved it. And I loved every second of that. Yeah. Yeah. You quickly on the leaving, can you quickly tell people what you did with the P P H? This was well, because it's five years ago. Yeah, good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. But man, people at that time were just so much uncertainty and I had so many of my customers were nurses and doctors in the medical field and they were struggling and they couldn't get the protection that they needed. And I was able to secure some of these three on masks that we needed and they desperately needed. And I was hearing of these nurses wearing these masks for a week straight and they were being exposed. And so I reached out to some resources and I was able to get a bunch of masks and I paid to form out of my own pocket. At that time, I didn't even ask the dealership. We weren't even open at the time. And I asked the dealership, I didn't even ask the dealership for help with it. And I paid for them and I got them. And rather than post it, I looked up all my customer base that were nurses and doctors and the people I knew and reached out to anybody through group texts. And we personally hand delivered these masks to people's homes. And the outreach and what we got back out of it was just so heartfelt and welcoming. And people were crying. We dropped off a mask and they would be crying over a mask because there were so many uncertainties and they were scared to go to work and nobody knew what was going on. And it was just so amazing to be able to give back in that form and not ask for anything in return. We were just generally concerned about their health and their safety and we were able to give back and we continued that for a while. I was able to continue getting them the protection that they needed. And people still tell that story now, which is amazing. But we did it for the right reasons. Of course you did. It wasn't. It was not, hey, this is from Les Stanford. It was literally me knocking at times not even saying what it was or why we were just saying, hey, we're just dropping off masks. Is that true? So true. People are saying that, well, I'll do that because I'll buy a car down the track and I'll put in there a flyer and I've got this deal and that deal there. But you know, there'll be some of those people who got that mask. They're not sitting there saying, you know what, Ali's going to be 10 bucks a deer on this Chevy. Yeah. But you mean what goes around comes around. It's, yeah. It wasn't. It was kind of lost every minute of this. Thank you so much for your time on a Saturday. It's just been absolutely brilliant. So for people to reach out to you if they find you on LinkedIn as probably easiest way to find out, Ali, and go on the book. Yeah. LinkedIn, you'll have to sell 100 cars a month. Okay. That's right. Damien Surname. Can you give me it is? Yeah. Auto Trading Academy. And then it's Damien Boudreau. Okay. And you can reach out to Jonathan Dawson or myself or the Pinnacle Society. So that's a training group that we set up for high achieving salespeople. You can reach out there Facebook. I'm all over. So yeah, yeah. Jonathan's been on the podcast twice. He's amazing. It's amazing. Absolutely amazing. Yeah. Ali, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate your buddy. Thank you so much for having me. Lots of fun. That just leads 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. Okay. 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 Bowkett, food LinkedIn. Thank you.
