Ali Reda is the car salesperson who sold 1,582 cars in 12 months, hit 32 cars in a day (twice), and talks through the exact model behind it, without living at the dealership.
He works Monday-Friday, doesn’t do weekends, and built a “business within a business” by going all-in on relationship selling, community presence, and a delivery process that removes bottlenecks.
Episode highlights:
How Ali went from “hair on fire” chasing fresh ups to having customers queue to see him.
The mentors and moments that changed his ceiling: Jerry Turfe, then Damien Boudreau, and the shift from “30 is elite” to bigger numbers.
What he had to unlearn to scale. Things like demo drives, manager back-and-forth, and that admin shouldn’t sit on the salesperson.
The “doctor’s office” process that lets him deliver cars fast, stay calm, and keep the customer experience steady.
Why social media only works if it stays local, and why “being present where you advertise” is the whole point.
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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. As some of you probably already know me as Skippy, I will start by saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi, welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. I am so excited today. I have Ali Rita with me. Now, people in the UK, let me tell you exactly who Ali Rita is. I met him at the National Automotive Dealers Association in Australia. And it was one of the sessions run by someone who has been on the podcast before. I just had to speak this guy because Ali sold 1,582 cars in 12 months. I think it was 2017. He sold 32 cars in a day, twice, and record breaking of 209 cars. He is the person who sold more cars ever in the motor trade. I just got to speak to him, get him on the podcast and talk about what he does, how he does it. I'm just so excited to get this much information on him again from Ali. Ali, thank you very much and welcome aboard. It's such a pleasure to be here. Thanks, Simon. I'm so happy to be here and it was such a pleasure to meet you at NEDA. Here's the first thing that struck me about you, Ali. Now I want to talk about the record and how you did it back in 2017 and all of that. But I really want to get into how you're doing it there because trying to get hold you for this. I thought this man is going to be really hard to hold us. He's going to be working for eight in the morning. He's going to be working at 10 o'clock at night. It's going to be seven days a week. But Ali, we're on a Saturday. You don't work weekends now, do you? Yeah, no, not at all. So I got a really good schedule. I'm very blessed to have it. But five days a week, Monday through Friday. And normal hours, I'm off by, we closed at six o'clock on three days and two days a week. We're up until eight and five days a week. No Saturday, no Sunday. Wow. So let's go back to the beginning. White cars. How did you get started in the motor train? White cars. That's so great. Actually, I was working right out of high school co-op. I was working for a company. It was an industrial shop. I worked my way up 10 years at this industrial company and a warehouse setting. I worked up into internal sales there. Then it was the two owners and then myself. I kind of plateaued there. I was doing decent, but I was 10 years. There was really no more growth because then the next step was the owner. A friend of mine was selling cars. He was talking to him. I kind of got sold on the whole. Car says, you can make $100,000 a year. I'm thinking at the time, okay, that's fantastic. This is something that I need. I'm like, it's one of those things where if he can do it, I can do it. I said, is your dealership hiring? My friend says, yeah, they're always hiring. Just come over and talk to the manager. I did that. At that time, ironically, I was also looking into real estate because I wanted to make a move. I knew I wanted sales. I talked to a realtor office as well and I talked to the dealership and I kind of fell in love with the dealership energy and the vibe. My friend was working there. I kind of made a little bit easy transition. He was leaving to go to work at a high line. He was a Chevy store. He went to go work at a high line. I had the interview fell in love with it and got sold on the, you can make $100,000 a year, which we'll talk about later is that absolute lie because they put a ceiling on it and they told me a story. It was one to get me in the door. From that moment, I kind of fell in love with it. That was back in 2001. Okay. So, 2001, so cars, you could have been a real estate agent as well. So, you've always been a people person then? Yeah, I knew at the time, it was about people. I didn't really look at the product. The byproduct was something fun and what I kind of liked to do and I was always into cars and fell a little more drawn into that atmosphere. It was definitely in any type of sales about people. Okay. So, have you identified yourself as a moment? Are you a salesperson? Are you a problem solver? Are you conscious? Helping people out? Well, something entirely different. Yeah. I guess that's a really good question. It's a good way to phrase it. What comes top of mind is I'm a servant and I'm a community member liaison and I feel like I'm a protector of my community and the people that are in it. So, I feel like more of a servant than anything. Of course, I'm solving problems all day. I'm not selling anything. An automotive people come in with an automotive problem and our job as professionals is to solve that problem. But understanding what the problem is is the biggest question of all and once you identify what the problem is, then a problem solver would be ideal but I'm definitely a servant to my community. Okay. So, it was 2017. You broke your record. Is that right? Yeah. Have I got that right? Okay. So, can you go back to the start of the career? Because clearly, 2017, you've got systems, you've got processes, you're not taking fresh inquiries anymore. You've built your own business within a business. But how did it start? It couldn't have started there. You must have started day one. There's your desk. There's the phone. Get out there. Talk us through that first month. What was it like to Ollie? Yeah, for sure. And I was kind of blessed in my career because the dealership I started at had a veteran named Jerry Turphy. And Jerry was just an amazing human and one of the car gods of my career that was placed in front of me that allowed me to witness somebody doing it the right way. And from day one, I would see Jerry would sit at his desk and here's a guy. He'd be laughing. He'd joke in. People would come in and see him. He'd be running the parking lot. He's not taking fresh ups and people would just come in and see him. And here's me running the parking lot, running across the street, I'm running over here. My hair is on fire. I'm trying to get a customer. And I'm like, going nuts. And here's this guy just calm, cool, collective, sitting as a desk. And I'm like, I want to be like that guy. Like, what is that guy doing that? He created this customer base that just come in to see him. So being early in my career, allowing myself to see somebody succeed in that manner allowed me to say, OK, well, I'm a firm believer that if somebody's doing it, you can do it. And it's duplicatable. And Jerry, God bless him because he would talk to me, he'd train and take the time out of his data to educate and give me some advice on what to do. And I quickly found out that this was about people. I quickly found out community was your biggest ally. And it was something that you needed to engage in. So then people would then want to come back and see you. And he was back then in 2001, nobody was really talking about relationship selling. It wasn't really a thing yet. And although he was doing it, I kind of gravitated towards his model of getting yourself out there, getting into the community, building the client's cell, building customer base, team, as Jonathan would say, Raven fan advocates. And first month in the business, I actually sold 19 cars, which I don't even know how I did that. We had good managers. We had a good store. I sold 19 cars. And of course, at that point, you're just hooked. And but I love that. I love the energy. Do you remember the first car you ever sold? Yeah. Yeah. It's just crazy. But the first car I ever sold. So I started, I was starting on a Monday. I was just hoping to open late on Thursdays. So I asked them if I could come into Thursday before after my work, my normal work, because I was waiting for my two weeks to expire at the previous job. And I said, do you guys mind if I come and just hang out and just kind of witness and watch and see what's going on? Because I had no idea what to expect. And the manager's like, yeah, of course. So I'm Thursday night, I come in there around 6.30 after work, and I'm just hanging around the showroom. And some guy approaches me and says, hey, I want to buy a car. And I'm like, I'm in training. I said, I'm not really starting. I'm going to start on Monday. It says, but let me find somebody help you. He goes, no, no, no. He goes, in that case, I want to buy a car from you. And I'm like, well, let me find out. Hold on once like it. So I go to my manager at the time. And I'll never forget this because I've kind of lived by this model. And I go to my manager, I'm like, hey, this guy wants to buy a car and he really wants to talk to me, he wants to deal with me. And I told him I'm in training. He goes, well, find out what he wants. And I'm like, OK, so that statement, find out what he wants was so pivotal and so important because all they have to do is get the information out of this person and figure out what he wanted and how we can put it together. And I sat him down and he, of course, pulls out the newspaper at the time and he pulls it out. And he's like, I want this ad. I want this price. And I'm like, OK, no problem. You know, it's like, right? A couple of things on go to the manager. Here's what he wants. He wants this car. This is it. Write everything down and we put it together. And that was the first car ever sold. And it was a prism at the time. It was just one of those little prism cars. And I'll never forget it because it was, find out what he wanted. And now, later, 25 years later, I'm still trying to figure out what they want, what the problem is. It's a little bit more entailed now by solving problems as you put it. But that was the first car ever sold and just amazing. And still to this day, I saw the guy cars. Yeah, I love it. And that's good. Absolutely. And the other bit I love about it. I'm 52 now. I started one of 17. So that's a too many years there. But remember, and your story really resonated because there's a guy called Johnny Starmer and the dealership I worked at and being the new trainee that cadet they called me. My boss would say, go on, help some of Johnny's customers. And he would have like dentist chairs waiting in front of his office and say, yeah, can I help you? And the amount of people, I would say, no, no, we'll wait for Johnny. Now, I just find Johnny and he had this loyalty. And it remind me of what you're talking about now completely different level. But for Johnny Starmer, he's just one place for a long time. It was his customers come back and bought from him every year. And that would just wait for him there. And it's amazing how we see those mentors there. And you definitely had that, didn't you? And that's before Damien come on. I'm saying you did some coaching with Damien. Did Damien come along later as a mentor? Yeah, no, Damien came along. Damien is one of my favorite people in the world, but Damien Boudreau. And no, he came in a little bit later and Damien was the first time we were kind of introduced to relationship type selling. And that wasn't until 2010. So it was nine, 10 years into my career when I actually met Damien. And at that time, the dealership I was working at, the Chevy store I was working at, this is why it's so important to stay put. Like you said, staying at one store accommodating to your client base, being accessible. It's so important to build a business at a store that you call home and somewhere where you see growth. It's very important not to bounce around and to go dealer, dealer, dealer, dealer, could you start over every single time? And when you find a home, and I say that when you find the right home, embrace it and build your business within. And at that time, thinking the world's going to end, GM was to undown some dealerships and they were winding down dealerships in 2008, nine and 10. And unfortunately, the store I was at was one of those stores that was winding down and GM was closing it. And at the time, I was still working with Jerry and I'm like, Jerry, man, this is crazy. This is horrible for us. And he's like, Ali, he goes, sometimes when you think something's bad for you, it turns out to be good. And sometimes you think something's good for you, it turns out to be bad. He goes, so you can't control it. He goes, embrace it and figure out what the next step is. And I remember that because he was going to, at that time, we were thinking, okay, where do we go? What's our next move? And Jerry and I were going to go together wherever we went. And then at the last minute, there was another Chevy store across town. And that's where I'm at now, Les Stanford. And that store closes in 2010. Jerry and I were supposed to move together at the last minute. Jerry's like, you know, Ali, I'm going to retire. He goes, I don't want to start over. I don't want to do it. He goes, everything, we went through together. He goes, this is all you know. He goes, so he kind of cut that umbilical cord and he's like, go, go do your thing. And he guided me along the way. And you know, it did turn out to be a blessing, like he said, because then we embraced it in 2010, June of 2010. I went to the new store a few months later, maybe within a year, I meet Damian. And Damian starts talking about, you know, he's in the seminar. It's really one of the first trainers that I've actually listened to and watched live. And another car got in my career with Scott Montgomery, which was the manager at Les Stanford, you know, Scott, signed me up for Damian Seminar. And the first time he's like, you know, I was trying to offer the seminar. He says, and you know, you got to go to it. This guy's awesome. And I'm like, no, no, no, I don't want to go in the seminar. He says, I'm good. You know, I got three deliveries today. I says, I'm not, I don't have time for that. He goes, no, no, you're going. And I says, come on, boss, I don't really want to go listen to this guy. I didn't know who he was. And he took the deals out of my hand and he says, you're going and forced me to go to the seminar, which was great by a sales manager to to understand that you can empower your salespeople to be better, to do more, even though as like a coach sees something that the player doesn't see the coach in that situation, seen it. And he says, you're going and he forced me to go and, you know, you must be you must be selling lots of cars. So he's not to he's not saying that new kids have to go. He's still saying, Ali, you even the same doing you still he seen that. Yeah. It's crazy because when my store closed that bill, wink, yeah, good point, because when the store, the first store I worked at, Bill Wink, Chevrolet closed down, I was, you know, doing 25, 30 cars. I go over to, you know, Stanford and I'm maintaining the same numbers. And their top guy there was like 18. So from from the moment I get there, I started in mid June, like June 15th. And then I won salesman of the month that month going into weeks in. And, you know, then the next month, of course, you know, it continued. And I was doing 30 cars a month at the time. So I was, you know, what they would consider elite and you should be able to write your own ticket and managers usually leave you alone and are not forced. You need to go with these things. So hats off to Scott Montgomery, because one of the greatest managers I've ever worked for. And he he's seen potential and in growth and saying, Hey, we can get you to the next level where our industry says 30's elite or industries lied to us. And they told us $100,000 is what you can make. And 30 is elite. And he's seen the potential of more. And, you know, I got blessed for that and forced me to go to Damien Seminar. So all the managers out there, you know, it's very important to see the potential and your salespeople from the bottom to the top because there's always room for more. And I go to Damien Seminar and he starts talking about, you know, these guys doing 60 and guys in other states doing 50 and 60 in relationship selling. And the first time I was actually introduced to that whole relationship model, and I'm like, wait a minute, I'm doing this. I'm doing community. I'm selling only to people I know not taking a transactional customers, only floorups, and I'm like, but I'm only doing 30. So how are these guys doing 60? And he caught my attention. And again, I'm a firm believer that if somebody is doing it, you can do it. Another person can achieve it. And I grabbed Damien after the seminar and I'm like, Hey, those guys, you're talking about are those guys real? Are they really doing those kind of numbers? Is it all being so? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, are they really doing those numbers? And he's talking about all the stuff that I'm doing. But I never put a label to it. I never knew that you can actually enhance it and do better and in community engagement, do better. And I just thought, you know, I'm 30. I mean, nobody really pushed the limits to that. No, and we're not we're not talking about social media and we're not talking about other people like this is, you know, nobody's really talking about just across the country. And he goes, yeah, they are. And I'm like, he goes, he goes, they're real. He goes, you want to talk to them? And I'm like, yeah, actually, I do want to talk to them because I needed to make this real. And I did. He put them on the phone and I spoke to the guy, Greg, and he told me he was doing 60. And I'm like, well, you know, there's something going on here. And Damien has an exercise that he wants you to write down what you potentially feel like you should be doing. And, you know, of course, after hearing somebody say 60, I naturally wrote down 60 because I thought, you know, babe, this guy's doing 60. I'm going to do 60. Mind you. So I don't think I've ever sold over 35 or 40, maybe at the most. Yeah. And Jerry at the time was doing 40s. And that was his max. So really, this is all that kind of witnessed. And I kid you not maybe four months, three, four months go by and I hit 60. And I hit 60 just doing the things that Damien talked about, more community engagement, more relational selling, being more intentional, all the little things that I had to tweak. And I call Damien. And I'm like, Damien, Damien, you're not going to believe it. He goes, I go, I hit 60. I hit 60. He's like, he goes, all right, that's good. He goes, what's your next number? And I'm like, well, I hit 60. 60 was a number. He goes, all right, but what's your next number? And I'm like, I really didn't think about it. Cause I thought 60 was it. Yeah. And this went on to my next number became 72. And I called Damien again. Then it went on what's your next number and it kept growing and it kept growing. I think I think when I finally hit like 90 something, I called Damien. He's like, all right, what's your next number? I'm like, you know what? I'm going to call my mom. I'm not calling you anymore because she's so happy. I'm like, she would be so happy. She would be like, all right, you know, this is like incredible. And here's this guy say, what's your next number? And Damien is a relationship started from that point and started working together. And he started coaching me personal coaching and one on one coach. And then he's had a huge impact on the things that I've done and accomplished. And always thinking what's next. So as a manager, as a coach, as a trainer. You know, they were able to see things that the players couldn't see or didn't believe in. And until that moment that I actually wrote down 60. So if people out there, you're listening and you have a number and you believe in this number, you write it down, you have to write it, you have to make it real. And until that moment that I wrote 60, Simon, I would have never, ever believed that that was possible. But the moment I wrote it, it became real. And I believed it and it shifted my belief system and my mindset on what's actually possible in this industry. And it kind of took off from that point. I'm going to ask, what did you have to unlearn to get to these sorts of numbers? Now, the reason why I say that, I, I seems through the presentation that you're sitting in a doctor's surgery and said, right, this is where I need to get more people in front of me to get to that next level. I need to change the way I'm thinking. I love the story about how you take people through your process. I really want to talk into that. I love the idea that there's not this back and forth, back and forth to the F&I manager and waiting there. You need to control that yourself. There's, there's taking all the blocks out of it there. I want to go back and ask because there's some sounds people listen to this. And in fact, I spoke to people this week about I'm getting early on the podcast. What do you want me to ask him? There's people out there who frankly, yeah, is he really doing that? And you've heard that before. I'm sure you've heard that before. Of course. So the question is, even yourself, what did you have to unlearn to see this as achievable? Was it speaking to other people who's done it or what was it for you? Yeah. So while people remember something that if you're doing a business a certain way and you're, in your, your averaging 15, 20, to do what I'm doing now, you are correct. It cannot be done. If you continue the same process as you're currently doing it at every level, things have to change. Your process has to change. Your mindset has to change the way you do things has to change. So, you know, when I'm doing, when you're doing 25, things are important, like demo drives and, you know, going to F&I and going back and forth to managers. When you get to numbers like 40, 50, 60, you have to start shortening things up. Demo drives are not as important anymore because I'm dealing with relational customers. I'm dealing with repeat customers that maybe are familiar with that car. Even a demo drive process has to change and may not be me going on that drive. At some point I had to get an assistant because I said that at 50, I was doing too much. I was, I was working the long hours. I was coming in early. I was staying late. So it wasn't sustainable to run a business in that manner. So then Damien and I said, okay, well, we need to get an assistant. So they can take off the little things off of my plate, just, just to fill out deal jackets to make sure that there's a driver's license, make sure that there's an insurance card, things that are important, but not important for me to do anymore. So I had to delegate. So getting the assistant would help me get to that next level. And eventually we got so busy that she needed an assistant. So I had to get a second assistant. Then we got so busy, I had to get a personal port that can run the parking lot, put on license plates, grab a car from service and go back and forth. And park a car for me. All these little things that took time throughout the day, we had to figure out how do we do it better? How do we do it faster? How do we move more efficiently without rushing the process? And so I had to unlearn things that the industry had taught us that were important. Like you have to do a demo drive. You have to do this. You have to do that. You do have to do that in a transactional world until you build the business to a point where you're ready for that next level. And that's why people are the naysayers that say, well, it's not possible. It takes me, you know, three, four hours for delivery. And I'm here for six hours a day and finance takes two hours to get my paperwork back to me and all these things that in their mind, they're trying to put the math together and it's not mathing, it, which is true. But you have to think differently and you have to start your process and the way you do things differently. And we talked about the doctor's office analogy and how I came up with that system that I do within my process that allows me to move faster. And I do remember that. Yeah. Can you just talk us through how this works? Yeah, for sure. So so what I did is because we were getting eight, nine, seven people at one time waiting in this waiting area and we had to organize it in a way where it wasn't chaotic and people didn't feel like you didn't know what was going on and you weren't in charge and you wanted it to be controlled. And my analogy was, OK, the way doctors offices do it is they have a waiting area and then they have multiple offices, six, seven offices that are separate. So person comes in, they get greeted by one of my staff or myself and then they go into a specific office, which is the first office, which is the preliminary office, which one of my assistants then is gathering all the information that I need. As you would into a doctor's office where the nurse comes in and say, hey, why are you here today? All right. Well, I got this cough and my chest hurts. And you know, won't go away and she's writing down the symptoms and my assistants like, well, why are you here today? No, I guess. So got three months left in my lease and I'm already 5,000 over my lid. And you know, the tires are bad and my car got hit and all the stuff that I need to know so then I can come in and make a decision the same as a doctor. Doctor comes in, pulls the file. She looks over and she's like, oh, Ali, sounds like you got a cold and you're cut, you know, you're coughing and you're not sleeping good at night. Here's what I recommend. And when did you ever question the doctor when she says or he says, here's what I recommend and here's what I think we should do. And here's what the solution is. And here's your options and the same concept. So then I would come into that office and I would say, okay, you know, a little small talk, you know, get, get, you know, just catch up with the person, offer a couple of solutions. Here's what I think we should do. And here's your options. And then once we figure out the solution, I can leave that office and go to the next office and do the same thing. You go to the next office to do the same thing and go to the next office and do the same thing all within five or eight minutes apart. And then my assistant would come back in and button it up. I don't have to do anything anymore because I've already solved the problem. And then from there on, then somebody else does the paperwork. Again, things that were not important for me to do, like paperwork, gathering insurance cards and such, but allowed us to deliver a car, maybe every 15 minutes back to back to back to back. And everybody was going through this process and it streamlined it very fast, very efficient, but never rushed because when you're in a doctor's office, you don't know what's going on in those other offices. There's chaos. Yeah, there's seven, eight offices, things are going on and nurses are moving around and there's so many things going on. And you're just sitting in this office and it's nice and quiet and calm and you don't really realize the wheels that's turning. And that's, that's how we've marked in. That's still the way I do business today. But again, you've, you've earned the right to do that because you've sold this, this relationship selling is so important because you've sold these people two or three cars before you sold there. The brothers and mothers, the sisters cars and said, that's exactly how the sort of because, and again, I listened to you on a podcast, someone else just doing some research for this that you hated the idea of a customer walking in and that that initial, like he thinks that I'm untrustworthy. And it can be hated that. I hated that. Don't be through this. And this is why you want to get it. I know. It's like, it's hard. It's, it's hard work. We're humans. We take a personal and I'm coming out and I'm greeting a person with great intentions and they're just looking at you like they're, they're like standing sideways. They're like, right in a run. They're like looking at you like, I don't believe a word this guy is saying. And you're literally telling the truth and you're, you're trying to be helpful. Yeah. And you get that stigma and you're just like, Oh, I hated that. I hated that. So you're right. Relational selling completely wipes it out. You don't have any of those objections. I don't, I don't even know the objections of today's world anymore because I haven't had to really face that as much anymore because the people are coming in. They trust you. They like you. They love you. Somebody, somebody's already sold them on you. If they're coming in for the first time, somebody has already told them all the great stories and how that you're trustworthy and they've already done teaching and they've already done all their due diligence before they got there. And it's so much easier. It's like selling to your mother or your brother or sister every single time because they're not really questioning anything that you're saying. You're collectively coming up with a solution for the problem that they're there. But it's so much better. And I promise you, my job is easier than 95% of the people out there in automotive because of this. I'm not facing any of these objections and it's fun. It's fun. It by your longevity. That's why we're saying it's so important to get into relational selling. At some point in your career, you have to transition from all transactional to relational and you do that through community. You do that through every customer that you have building relationships with them and their families. But it's very important to get to that point in your career. If you're four, five, six years into your career. Yeah. So someone listen, let's just start the motor trade. You still have to go to the grind to start with. You still need to get the right to get there. Yes. Yes. And you do a good point is I'm in real quick. A good point because you have to earn the right to get these exceptions. And exceptions are given to you based on your performance. So, you know, when the first time I had to go in, a lot of people out there are probably like, oh, well, my dealership won't allow me to do finance or my dealership won't allow me to take a credit app or my dealership won't allow me to pencil numbers. Correct. At the beginning, they will not, but you earn the right for these exceptions. If you're exceptional, you get exceptions and you do that by proven the amount of sales that you have proven the customers that you're bringing in are your customer based, your relational customer. They cost the dealership nothing to bring them in. They're spending all this advertising dollar yet you're bringing people in that that you know and they're coming in for you. So you earn the right to have these exceptions and you have to ask for them. They're not going to just give them to you. So for me, when I wanted to do my own finance, I had to go to them and say, listen, I need to speed up the process and I need to control as much as I possibly can. So I need to start doing the finance portion of it. I need to start taking credit apps. I need to start calling into the bank because it was bottleneck in our finance department and it was back in me up. So I was getting backed up here. So I had to figure out another way of moving through the process faster. And I asked for the exception of doing it. And I always present things for a 90 day trial. Well, try it for 90 days. If it doesn't work, we'll go back and there's no law that states you can't do it. So the people out there saying my dealership doesn't allow this. My dealership won't do this. It isn't a law. It's something that dealership chose not to allow, but they will make exceptions, especially for a 90 day trial. And Simon, I've never had anything in a 90 day trial go back. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. It's, it certainly was it. So again, the other thing, I was not even thinking with the numbers you're doing, you must be social media everywhere. You must be having so many people coming to you. But this is where I got it wrong because I suppose that's still transactional. That's still bringing you people, though. They may have seen your video there, but you still have to build the trust. Is it ever said most of your people that you've built in relationship selling is you spoke to someone else, you've been referred to someone. Have you built that database? Is that what you're doing? Yeah, social media is very important. Don't get me wrong. Social media is important to stay engaged. Social media needs to stay local. It needs to stay as local as you could possibly make it. And I mean, like in your backyard, like it needs to stay in your community and your city, you know, being popular in another state or another, you know, area that really people aren't able to come CEO and do business with you. It means nothing. You could become popular online for no reason and get nothing out of it. I see people with millions of views on TikTok, but they don't sell a car from it. So what is your goal? Is your goal to be an influencer? Is it to sell more cars? What's the goal and what are you trying to achieve? When you identify that and you do social media local? That means you're targeting your local groups, your local schools, your local community, your local police and fire station. People want to do business with somebody they know, not somebody they know of. So if I'm if I'm advertising at a charity event and I'm on social media and I'm advertising this charity event, there's 2,000 people I need to physically be there. People want to see me there. They want to see that I care about the things they care about, not just ask, ask, ask for business, you need to give back. You need to be engaged. You need to get out there and dealerships give out more money than any other industry that I know of and nobody attends these functions. They give money to the city. Nobody even attends. Nobody does anything. It's just a check and forgotten. You're not going to get business that way. So you have to pound the pavement. You have to put in your time. You have to plant the seed so then it'll flourish. You know, the old analogy of when's the best time to plant a tree? Yeah, 100 years ago, when's the second best time today? Yeah, right now. So there's no it's it's not too late. You plant the seed today and your future self will think be thankful for it. But you have to put in the time you have to be present where you advertise. Please write that down. You have to be present where you advertise. So if you're going to give money, if you're going to go read to students at schools, if you're going to give back to the high school football, you got to have to be present at those places. And that's how you build a brand name. You become the mayor of your your town. And then you do social media based off of that. And people then see your engagement and then they they want to do business with you because you become like a little superstar and you're little here in your in your city there and you're like, you know, like the mayor. People want to do business with you because of who you are and what you offer. Yeah, I suppose people listen to this on this side of the pond. We'll imagine you're in the middle of LA where you've got people absolutely everywhere. What's the town like? You know, is it huge? I might imagine. No, I'm a question. I know. I know. I know. So well, here's funny because because I'm in a town of 100,000 people. So it's not crazy big. I'm in the hometown of Henry Ford. Everything around us is owned by Ford. I'm I'm a Chevy store surrounded by five Ford and Lincoln stores. So I'm selling Chevy in the hometown of Henry Ford. So I'm battling Ford employees. I'm battling all the households of Ford workers and and we're selling Chevy's right in the middle of downtown Dearborn, the hometown of Henry Ford. So, you know, it's it's it's it doesn't you don't need a big metropolis place like LA or New York or you're not trying to appeal. You're not trying to appeal to that. You're appealing 100,000 people is more than I need for a lifetime or a whole career. I don't need more than 20,000 people as all you need as long as as long as the idea is here's the idea. The idea is not for you to know all 20,000 or 100,000. The idea is for all 20,000 to know who you are. And you do that by again, engagement and community engagement. I don't need to know every person. The idea is they need to know of me and what I have to offer. 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. Symco training.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 Bowkett through LinkedIn. Thank you.
