Be the Car Guy

We continue our interview Jono O’Byrne, Sales Director for Endeavour Automotive. 

Starting off with being a mentor and learning from Billie Jean King. Jono has also worked in a couple of different agency modules, so he shares the benefit of his experience.

We also look at how you move up the career ladder from sales to management, and making the job yours to lose.

Then closing with Jono’s top tip.

Here are the highlights:

{01:54} Billie Jean King

{08:40} EV Targets

{17:48} Value of traditional car dealer

{20:43} Agency with Volvo

{23:43} Best Customer Experience

{30:55} Sales to Management

{32:48} Energy is the currency

{34:08} Get your job on merit

{38:12} How tight is your sales process

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

Time, welcome to the Selling and the Motor Trade podcast in Association of Car Without. The online car-changing destination. Together we share tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department, and generally put more profit into your department, dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett, or some of you might already know me as Skippy. First thing, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi, welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Today it is my pleasure to welcome aboard John O'Bern. You've been a mentor to lots of other people. Can you share with me some memorable coaching or something you've done with someone that started maybe a junior person that's now a head of business somewhere there that you mentioned that before.

You'd love to take people with you. Love it, yeah. And do you know what? I see nothing better succeeding. And it's almost like when someone updates the link didn't you see that congratulate them on the new job and you go, ah, do you know what? Remember four years ago, five years ago they started at X and whatever, you see them on that journey. And you know, there's so many. I saw one recently, Jake, whether or not we took on as sales executive, he's now just been promoted in Waylands to, um, to group use car development manager. Nathan Brown is a guy who I took on as a sales executive in 2016 in South Oxford, Volkswagen.

He's now the general manager of South Oxford, Volkswagen. So that's gone completely full circle. And I believe with the right attitude, you know, it's attitude over aptitude with the right attitude. Anyone can go anywhere. And one, one bit of advice that I've always lived by and I first came across it on, I think it was on a podcast, maybe a couple of years back. It was Billy Jean King, you know, the former tennis player, you know, a real, a real inspirational person. And she said that the key to success sits in three different things. The first one is to be a problem solver. And I always agree with that. The person who solves the problem is the person who will rise and succeed.

Because if you come up with a solve, a problem solution and not, you know, not just sit back, go with it, attack it, find the solution instead of the problem. You know, you will absolutely move for because those kind of people are the ones who are the pioneers, they'll move forward and they'll want to succeed and have the ambition. So don't people just come to you with the problem? All the time, the problem all the time, you know, and it's almost like, well, think, think back. Could you walk? Could you've done different? Could you have attacked a lot different? So I always say solve problems. So problem solver. Second one is relationships are key. The people you know, the people you would meet over your career, the people who will help you along your career.

And I say that with so much, so much experience of it that, you know, from dealing with manufacturers, OEMs, people working alongside you, people working in every element of the motor trade, you know, building relationships is key. Because that's what gets us through. If you were the person who's enclosed, introverted, you know, not putting yourself out, because I get everyone's not going to put themselves out there. But make sure that you are working on relationships in some element, because you never know when you will need it. And people like people and people buy from people and things like that. And and keeping those relationships going, and what will put you on a path to success.

The final one is never stop learning. And I, I now find so in my new role in endeavor, I've got a site in Ramford, which from my door to door is about two hours, which is great. Because some people say, Oh, I hate, you know, traveling. I hate driving. I love it. Because it's the time where one, I can check in on people. I can catch up with people, make phone calls, see how you're doing. And it's not impacting my productivity on the dates. I'm just sat in the car. But two, I can listen to podcasts. I can listen to books. You know, we talked about one earlier on, I'm, I'm probably getting through one book a week.

And it's the time when, because when I'm at home, it's family time, it's family. And my, my other half has a rule that there's no telephone calls when I come home. When I come home in the evening time, the phone is put down, and the kids are a focus and we're eating it together. And the kids, I always do bed time. And that's my thing. And I want to make sure that I kind of don't miss out on that. So I get everything out of the way in the car and have my time where I can just listen to my podcasts in the car or have an audio book. The greatest invention to man is audio books.

You know, find the time to sit down and open a book is a challenge in what most people do. Well, we did the book club with Jason Cranwick. And this is how you reach out to us. And he's different to me. He always reads in bed at night. I don't. I'm in the car. I'm audio book. So he was holding up the copies of the books like unreasonable. Oh, I listened to that book there. And it's great. By the way, I was nervous to start with because I thought, is that really motor trade? But there's so many great stories there that are motor trade relatable. But I'm with you that the audiable is just it's so good.

And John, it just sits on because we talked about that training piece earlier on, right? Football players train every day. You know, we have leaders in our industry, in our businesses. What learning are we doing? You know, what what tips are we taking? Because there's so much free info out there, be a little tutorials online, audio books, podcasts, take those nuggets and, you know, take the advice and the people that you would murder, the people that you respect, because it's there. It's free. You know, and what works for them? It's some some of them might, but some of them might need her. So take bits, but never stop learning because we're on this planet, you know, for a short term.

And I love it. I've told about Tony Robbins. I've talked about audio books. I literally just love being switched away in the car with an audio book on. And, you know, like last week, and it can be so diverse. I read a book called the web betrayal about Irish gangland killings, right? It was Connor Island, the tennis player. And then the week before that, like you said, it was match of a kind of green lights. It's so diverse. But I always said, people never stop learning. There's something else that you've saved there. And again, please, manage this, listen to this pickup. And this might sound like a shameless plug for our training company. If it is my apologies, okay, but we run a training company.

And one of our successes, and other training companies, listen to this now, but pretend you've never heard this. But our real key is we run training courses like lots of other people. But the downside with any training John, is people they think they remember it for the first month, you train them in the first month. They forget at the second month, but the third month, they go back to doing what they've always done. Or in dealer world, they get sacked and moved on. And one of our biggest successes is, we drip feed the training in all the time. So what we do is we train them on a traditional course, like their providers are, but we just send them a video a day after every module, every training that we do for the next 90 days, which is five minutes long, and just dripped feeds.

And the way we look at it, imagine the information on how to sell an EV vehicle or upsell in service department. You've taken on a training course, for them to remember that is imagine your service advisor, your salesperson's mind is a sponge. You've got a glass of water, which is the information you want to get into their mind. If you just throw it at them in one hit, someone end up on the floor, on the ground and everywhere. But actually, if you drip feed it in slowly, that sponge is going to absorb all of it. And that's what you do. You listen to books all the time and you constantly drip feeding it in there.

Now, again, if you're one of our competitors, pretend you didn't hear that. But lots of people say, why do people remember so much of your training courses? I think that's our key. We don't just train them and forget them. Is that continual drip feeding of information that really works? And you're on your podcast as well. You come back, try the clothes, your back objection handling, different things that when you get five minutes, it just reinvigorates and re sparks and does it that way. So you've got the materials, which is great. Yeah, it's so sorry, if that sounds like a shameless plug, but it's not even yet. It was 2010 when I had training with you, so it's not even yet.

That's 100% genuine. So please, it's not a plug. Now, let's get into the motor trade specifically now. Okay, I really enjoyed that whole conversation, but let's get in the motor trade. I'm sure I'm going to enjoy this now. EVs. Yeah, okay. So, people listen to this in Ireland, Australia, America, the UK has a different challenge with the ZV mandate. It means that 24%, I believe it was in 2024 cars had to be 22. Sorry, in 24. It goes to this year 2025. It's 28%. Now, the government, I want to get your views on this. I don't believe anyone got the 15,000 fine in the UK. I think the government has now said, we need to look at 2035.

Is that achievable to go full electric? On the ground, what is this message saying to consumers? What a week to be asked about a question. Obviously, the Department of Transport has said there won't be issue in the fines because they saw a positive growth in the market last year. But like you just said, how confusing is it to customers? You've got this real push for EVs at the latter half of last year. People with substantial discounts, and manufacturers offering some great, great incentives to people to come on board. Then the government kind of said, oh, well, actually, we're not going to issue those fines. It's not really big on our agenda. We're going to change the actual road 2035, was 2030, go to 2035.

The big victims, I think of this, are the real early adopters who bought in the EV that were there from day one and said, you know what, I really believe in this. I want to do it. All this race to the bottom last year has just pushed them further, further, further into negative equity and has damaged the value of the vehicles that they bought because they were those pioneers and people who wanted to get up on this. It's going to make it even more challenging for them to continue that journey because I bet you, if you look at a majority of used cars out there, cars coming back two and three years old, they're probably in negative equity now because back in the day, there wasn't much discounts on EV.

I know from the manufacturers, I was represented at the time. To now, it's substantial discounts off. Then you have the people who are looking to get into it now and you're kind of seeing, okay, well, you know, people are saying it was going to be a big thing common, or maybe it's not going to be a big thing common. The government now, it's so mixed messaging. Then you've got tax coming in on EV vehicles from April. April, yeah. It's again, another negative connotation to try and get people on board. It's not helping. My other half has literally, so she would have been a bit of, I suppose, an EV skeptic. She was really small mileage.

She, look, she petrol EV is actually ideal for her, but she had heard, and my parents back in Ireland were, oh, EV is terrible, it's this and that. I put her into an EV in October. She loves it. I mean, she absolutely loves it. Apart from the fact that sometimes she forgets the charger, and that's my phone. Apparently, like everything, it was my phone. Well, she literally said, Oh, I should have done this before, because it's so convenient. We have the charger at home and it's great. It did take for me really to see her being so enthusiastic by intro, because given some of the mileage I have, it's not feasible for me earlier on.

Now with some of the high range vehicles come through, we've got a fantastic EX90 coming this month, actually. We've got test drives booked on that over the next couple of weeks, and it's a really great range. That opens it up to more people. But the government are not helping. We look at the call of the lobbyists looking for some grants to come back on. There's no sign of that coming. They're now going to start taxing people on EVs. It's just so mixed messaging, it's not helping. It needs to be consistent. We don't need to be supportive. And excuse me, 100% behind this, or else it's never going to take off. And so true about, you said, there's a state the older population, but my father-in-law is still thinking, well, electric vehicle, my wife's an electric vehicle.

And gang with, very similar, she does very low mileage for myself. I'm doing 25, 30,000 miles a year. I'm one cycle away from it. I want to do it. But just over Christmas, New Year. Again, my father-in-law is like, oh, but don't park it in the garage. Okay, because I'll catch fire, you know? And there's still this, there's, yeah, exactly. Yeah, this worry, this whole apprehension or even look, I was in our West London Volvo showroom just over Christmas. And I spoke to a guy similar to what you were saying. And he was saying, oh, do you know what? Look, I've made the change. He's gone. He's gone hybrid. So he's nearly there. But he was like, I don't know why I'm so concerned because we only do that one big trip a year.

And everyone always thinks about his one big trip. But I should be, you know, with the infrastructure and some plan. And it's fine. Don't worry about it. Why are we thinking about our car buying on one trip a year? Yeah, well, over the course of his four years or whatever it might be. But yeah, he's gone into a hybrid. But we need to, we need to really put a stop to those myths and those and to spell the whole piece of, oh, I'm going to run out of a run electricity. You don't. You charge it every night fully charged. It's like your mobile phone. Well, I've got 98%. There you go. There's a couple of stats that I love for part of our selling cars with a plug training program that we go through.

And we just let sales people notice we want sales people to have a charger at home if possible, because that really does help them to know what it is. But the amount of customers that are second time EV customers, that tells you everything. But two other stats I really love. In the UK, now again, people listen to this in Canada and Australia, my apologies for this one. But the UK, 63% of UK drivers, not population of drivers, have access to offsite parking, parking, so charging. Now that shocked me. But you think about London, there's a big old population there, but lots of those people don't drive. So actually, and the other stat is it's only three times a year.

The average EV customer charges away from home. It's those long journeys. So three times a year. But again, it's like having a state for the three times a year, you need to put people in. There will be people that buy the estate for three times a year. They need to use it. Okay. But it's just education, isn't it? Education on EV. But the government's definitely not helping. The government's definitely not helping. And I think we need clarity on that piece. And absolutely, we need some support because OEMs and retailers, we don't want to have to slash prices of vehicles to try and get them out, to try and hit a target that, like you said, is not even going to be enforced now.

The only people that are losing there are the actual manufacturers and the retailers. Yeah. Is it sustainable? And again, salespeople who are listening to this. We know salespeople listen to this. These are the people want to get on. But we know, think about the ID range. Someone's bought an ID range and they're trying to renew that customer. I mean, that's a challenge at the moment. How many of those are negative equity? And I sympathize it's hard work because when the customer bought that car, okay, interest rates, they had low rates. The part exchange prices went up was that 26 months in a row or something like that. Yeah. Those people are the ones who were queuing up to buy those electric cars from day one.

So they're the ones that were out there telling all their friends about the electric definition of how good it is. And now they're going to be thinking, Oh God, because I did, I did, I get that one wrong. So it's a real shame. But what is really encouraging is seeing some of these Chinese manufacturers coming in just for customers and taking my my own brand hat off at the moment, you know, because it's, you know, we've got some some great product BYD, a moda, and we've got some more retailers coming next year, etc. So there's some real, real good product common as well with electrification. So it's going to, it's going to help, it's going to make the manufacturers be a bit more competitive.

I think they have to. The traditional manufacturers, the fords of the world, listen, there's some challenges they've had there. They really have. And I've put that in the German brands as well. There are definitely some challenges with the Chinese coming. Well, just Chinese aren't coming. They're here now. Here, exactly. They are absolutely here and making huge didn't sense that market. Yeah. You look at MG's market share last year. You look at the think BYD were up 600% as well, you know, so real, they're making waves. But it'd be interesting to see what happens with the tariffs that you're putting on some of the Chinese manufacturers. I'm going to say I don't know if I'm a fan of tariff wars at all, but it's happening.

So watch that space. So why we're talking about the future? The future of a traditional car dealership. So John, I don't know what age your children are, but would you want like your father did? Okay, your father was in the motor trade. Okay. And he was happy for you to go into the motor trade. What about your children? Are we going to be the dinosaurs? Are they going to be traditional car showrooms or is it all just going to be online? So, you know, if you asked us that three years ago, four years ago, I think most people would say, oh, the future is going to be online. The traditional dealership is going to go and fall away.

You know, it's all going to be about customer service and like an agency piece with even use cars, we're just going to be handle the customer and do it all online. I think the big word for me is cinch. You look at cinch, who is the no-fath online retailer who have now just in the last 12 months opened up for physical showrooms. I think that itself sells you everything. The future is definitely going to be traditional in retailing from a physical showroom that customers want to come see, touch and feel a product. The problem, I think, is just with the value of the vehicle. You will get some people. I think there will be, as we move on, maybe in the next generation, people will be a bit more akin to online shopping.

But it's one thing buying an online jumper that you can send back and buying a car for 25, 30, 40, 100,000 pounds. It's such a big investment that people are so afraid to get it wrong or to get bitten, that they want to go and see. I think as long as the value of the vehicle is still always high, which it will be, there's always going to be a place for a traditional retailer. I have a client who wanted to buy a high-end watch, a used one. He was showing me this watch. It was on, I don't know, watch finder, one of these websites. He said, but I can't buy from there because I can't see it.

I can't touch it. I'd rather them. Now, again, it had all the same things we do. Seven days money back guarantee, send it back, and all the stuff there. But I'm thinking the man that he was spending on a watch, which is more than I could ever worry about. But again, it's similar price to a car. It's that same thing. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to... 100%. But it's even like the color piece. I'll use the color piece so much where we can send digital brochures online to all our customers. Customers love coming in and physically seeing the color because you look at gray. We have favor gray, tundra gray, different varieties of gray.

And when you send it on a PDF document, they look at it and go, ooh, I'd like to see it physically, actually, to be honest. So even just that piece, they want to come and still see it. There is different theaters on that and are different types of leather. If it's an apple letter, a ventilator, whatever it might be, they'd like to see that physically and touch it. There's always going to be a place. I think so. It's too much of a high investment for people to take the whole traditional piece away and just do it solely online. There will definitely be people who will. Oh, yes. There will definitely be a place for both.

Absolutely. So we can't ignore that market, but it's there. So listen, I'm keen to talk about agency now. And the reason why I'm keen to speak to you about agency is in the podcast. When James Vortman talked about agency going back three years ago, it was the episodes that got the highest views. Agencies almost not being a subject I've last 12 months. We've had people like Jayalar saying, we're not doing it now. I believe Volkswagen has pushed it back. I want to get your views because you were working with Volkswagen, who I believe was agency on the electric range. Correct. Okay. But now you've gone to Volvo, which is pure agency. So people who have got agency coming is agency, the work of the devil.

Okay. What's your experience being moving somewhere that's pure agency? So I think I'm well, I suppose, what's the word? I'm unable to speak about it because I've seen it on both sides. So I've got the I've had the Volkswagen piece, like you said, on agency on BEV vehicles. And the problem with that is you still have the whole city, you still had BEV. It was BEV we talked about the challenges just a minute ago about what was going on with that. So it made it a bit more even complicated even further. And the problem is when you're not fully in, people are almost reluctant. And this is not Volkswagen's talking in general. If you're not fully into it, I it's only part of the model.

You're not the systems might not be as strong. They might not have got the full weight of your investment. And if you're only going to almost dip your toe in it, whereas when I've come to Volvo, oh my God, talk and cheese. And I actually really, really love it. And what it does is it stops. It's because people are talking about profitability and dealer, dealer groups and things that have been being paramount. This stops it because the vehicle's price is the vehicle's price. The only differentiator is the person who's selling you the car, the group who's selling you the car. So ever more now customer service is paramount, because the vehicle is going to be the same vehicle regardless of where they buy it.

The choice the customer has is where they buy it from. So we have to step up. And also in terms of remuneration, no issues. They are absolutely fine. And what it allows us to do is it's a really seamless seamless transaction. The customer is involved. They can do it assisted with the exec or they can do it non assisted from home. But I've really just seen it. It's really slick. It's really done well. And yeah, I'm all far it's seen as in its full flow in the Volvo in the Volvo network. It's been really, really good and really encouraged. And I'm definitely a fan. I think as a dealer, I get all the revenge there for an OEM.

I just wonder, it's definitely a push market at the moment. I wonder how the OEMs are coming away from that because they're worried about on their balance sheet, all of these cars that they can push into us. So it'd be interesting to watch that space and see how many people the OEMs do they want to do that now or not. Or do they want the dealer to have that on their balance sheet? It'd be interesting to watch that one there. But from a dealer's point of view, love working with it. Yes, absolutely. Okay. So John, you talked about its customer experience is paramount in that agency world. And that makes all the sense of the world.

How do you ensure that your dealerships provide the best customer service? And I'm driving about the book that you got me to listen to. And I absolutely loved it. But what else do you do to make sure you get the best customer experience? So I think, look, first, first to mention, we've mentioned it a couple of times. One reasonable hospitality by Will Gudara. And anyone who listens to the high performance podcast, when it was on that, that's where I first kind of got to see it. And then I went and found the book after the top wow, it's amazing. Because Will was the general manager of One Madison Park, which was the, it was voted the number one restaurant in the world.

So the thing about, to get to that coveted title, there's a top 50 award every year. And there's probably not much splitting 50 to one. It's all about the customer and the food. The chefs are the best in the world. So the whole is lovely. It's all about the experience and how they look after it. And I'll give small little things like, I think we mentioned it the other day. When the customer will come in or someone had come to book a table, right? They would sit down and the waiter will get them seated. And he would ask them, what water would you like? Would you like still or would you like sparkling? If they said still, the guy would put his hand behind his back and put one finger.

If he said sparkling, he'd put two and straight away, there was a water attendant ready with still or sparkling within 10 seconds straight in the glass done, right? When they would also come, they'd ask, how did you come today? And I said, oh, we, we drove or we got the Metro or whatever might be in New York. And he said, oh, if you drove, where did you park? I said, oh, we've say just parked right on the street. Brilliant. Can I just get your red number, take that down. And every hour, someone will go out and put a quarter in the machine just to make sure that they're ticked. So what they didn't want is to have people in their time go, I better leave now and go and put my money in the meter.

I'm going to miss the starter or the main or whatever might be interrupting the whole experience. So it's little gems like that, little diamonds that we need to take into our industry. Because we see customers in service every day, we see 30, 40 throughputs in our after sales department, we see however many sales sales customers come through the door. So what can we tell you, how can we make that experience better? And there's the small little things. And look, I'm, I've been with Endeavour on a lot of a short, a short few weeks. So it's, it's absolutely number one on my agenda to make sure we do that, right? And there is small pieces that I probably won't leak out just yet that we're trying to, we're trying to do.

But there's some little nuggets that we want to make sure that people leave our business gone. And it doesn't have to be the 100 pounds, 200 pounds. It's small little gestures that make them think and after the fact, you know, so in, in, in unreasonable hospitality, every customer leaving in the nighttime got some overnight oats. So in the next morning, they had, they had overnight oats ready to, ready to eat for their breakfast. And they said, that's alone, because all the people used to Instagram. And it's a bit like the Starbucks. I don't know how true it is, but when Starbucks customers, they always go, why is my name wrong? People tell me that it's actually a strategy because they laugh at it and people put their Instagram and go, yeah, my name is not Simon with a YR, Simon with an S-I-M-O-N-E-R, whatever it might be, misspell.

You try to get John O'Spell. Oh my God. You know, funny story, when I started selling cars, Jonathan is, I'm actually Jonathan O'Bern. And it was George Corbin said, look, I think you should go Jonathan. It sounds more professional. And I said, I've not been called Jonathan since I was four years of age. It's John O. So yeah, but getting people trying to think John O'Bern and yeah, you know, the people have spelled my email wrong over the years. But yeah, but it was, it was a quark. You need to get people to remember you. And it's not remember you for the things that everyone else is there any you can do differently? And we talked about the, the, say, water plant a tree and, and, and knock at your car washed, you know, and, and plant the tree and I think that's something that was really cost effective, but really powerful.

So another thing that I did is, is that when we used to have a car leave, we bought a big massive bulk of love hearts, little packet of love hearts, and we'd stick them in the, in the ashtray. And just we, a little handwritten note from the general manager saying, hope you're enjoying your purchase. Look for a senior soon, John O'Bern, whatever it might be. And in, they might see it that day, they might see it in a week, they might see it in whatever it is. But it's something that made them giggle and it was a talk and find it. It was something that remembered us by, you know, and that's what we have to get to.

The customer service all about being memorable, because everyone will come and give them a bouquet of flowers and bullish, whatever it might be, a handover gift. It's how can you set yourself apart from everybody else? Do something different and be memorable? Be memorable and different. The key, I think that is key. And again, with this, I remember I picked up a car. Good to meet John O'Bern. This must have been 15 years ago. And in an Audi dealership could be longer. He came out and said, and there's a bunch of flowers. Now he knew I was in the industry. Okay. And he said, there's a bunch of flowers. I went, sorry, a bunch of flowers.

He said, I know Audi says we've got to give a 10 pound gift to everyone now. So that's what we do. I'm not here with my wife. This is a company car. Okay. I'm a man. You're giving me a bunch of flowers. Now, yes, I could go home and say there's from my wife, there from me. Yeah. Okay. Well, it was not put it missed. I'll tell you what that book, again, someone else recently between Christmas and New Year, a good friend of mine, Mr. Dave Gittens, he come back from a cruise. And on this cruise, someone must have swallowed that book because they're having great meals and five-star meals and all this sort of stuff there.

And he turned around and just flippantly said, you know what? It's not like the fish and chips and mushy peas though, is it that we get back as a joke? Yeah. And it's the same story as the hot dog story. Yes. They absolutely did it, John. So the next night, they had a small portion of fish and chips for everyone at their little table. Okay. And so mushy peas there. And they all just went, wow. Yeah. Absolutely. What did it cost them to do that? Nothing. But more importantly, managers, listen, this, what margin did they make out of that meal compared to how much of what we do on the motor trade? It doesn't have to cost you a lot, but the love hearts, it's simple little things like that.

That's, it does make a difference. We've had a few sales execs and we often had a phrase, right? Because it all stemmed from a customer road in. So we had a really good sales deck and our name was Anthony Baou. He was in Coolerton, Volkswagen. And I, his, his follow-up, he used to basically, he had such a great relationship with them. And he was a really, really great guy. And he used to ride back on. Great. Thanks for transaction. Love you to see. I hope you got home safe. Remember, I'm your car guy. So anyone you need, can send them my way. And I always remember be somebody's car guy, you know, be their car guy.

What have you done that they will say, you know what? Next time anyone wants, I'm coming to that person. Be the car guy. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Now, listen, people stepping into leadership. What advice do you have to someone who's transitioning to that role from a sales role? Okay. Okay. Well, actually, let me ask that in a different way. Yeah. Okay. And you'll be looking to hire senior managers in your group and you'll be looking for sales managers, transaction managers, business managers, whatever they've called in your business there. When you're hiring someone, what do you look for? Or to promote someone? Yeah, well, it's a, it's a good question, because I've always been told not to hire people like you, you know, because we always tend to sway towards people like us, because we see ourselves in them, we see the qualities in them and you go, that reminds me of me.

But you know what? Sometimes I feel it's a mixed bag of that. You have to see the qualities of, yeah, do you know what? They remind me of that. But you also, you want to see the qualities that are different to what you don't have, you know, you know, whatever it might be, there's, and I'm generalizing here. But I always think that look at the site you're hiring for, what does that site need? You know, is it a high-performing site? Okay, brilliant. It does, what's the sales team like? What's the, you know, what, what is the dealership like? Is it somewhere that's used to being high-performance and they've got big numbers? Well, then you need to continue that.

If you put somebody in who's, oh, yeah, well, you know, I'm, I'm a big kind of, uh, bit lethargic guy. Oh, I've done all right. I've had five different jobs in the last two year, but hang on, that's not going to fit. You know, you need to look at the job you're hiring for in the place you're hiring for and make sure it fits and, and make sure I always look at myself and think, you know what, if I went into that business, what would I do? And we always ask that what is your, what is your 90 days? What is your first 90 days? Look, what's your first 30 days? Look for, and you look for a little trigger points that you would think about as well.

And that's what I always say. And it can be, it can be hard to, it can be hard to get that because sometimes you always have to kind of drag it out of people. But I just like energy. And for me, energy is the currency in this moment in time. You know, like people who are go getters, people who want to do it and people who are, are driven will succeed because they'll find a way. And I, like I spoke about the Billy Jean thing, be that problem solver. They will find the way. And I, I always look for someone with energy and some with dynamic and someone who's almost even saying, you know what, the reason I want this is because I want to do your job.

And I love that ambition. The amount of times people said that to me, I often say, so where do you see yourself? What's what are you looking for? Oh, well, I'll do your job. I want to be a GM or I want to be that. And that's great because they're thinking next next level. And to think next level, they want to be succeeding in what they're doing in the next role. Because some people go, Oh, don't be talking about that. You know, I don't know why you're talking to. I need somebody for this job now. I think it's great. Ambition is key. And ambition is what gets people to the next level is what drives people.

And I, I, I, I've always had a piece, right, where you talked about it guys got Nathan Brown, right? And Nathan, I took him on sales like in 2016. And he's, he's obviously now a GM. But Nathan, I think was a transaction manager for like seven months. But he just got it. He was so process driven that, you know what, the next job will find you, you know, it does. The amount of people go, Oh, well, he can't do that job. He's not been doing this job for two years yet. It's on, but it's a, the most strange meritocracy. You are, you get your job on merit. Show us what you can do. And your job will find you.

And I always say to people, bring it, just, just bring the energy. Do the job before it's given to you is what I say. 100% agreed. And that's your best stress for ours. If it is an internal promotion, I'd always go, okay, brilliant. So you've come for the sales manager's job. In the last month where X has been working to notice, are we may not have had the, the, someone has left already. What have you done that showed us that that job should be yours? And if they can't re answer, if they can go, well, actually, look what I've done. And I've brought this and I've done that and I've changed this around. Great. You're living the role already.

Cause that's the best dresser or that's the best interview you'll ever have. Yeah. And, and I always say that's almost the hardest ones because it's now your job to lose because you are the front runner. You know, everything you do from now forward will get you the job, but having you don't do will make you lose the job. Yeah. Cool. Listen, I ain't wrapping up the few things I've got to ask. Okay. Cause your enthusiasm is infectious. And I absolutely love that. Okay. But two questions I need to ask and wrapping up there. First thing, how do you maintain that work? Life balance. Now you mentioned before your wife says, when you walk through the door, it's family time.

That's tough though. Is that when you're so passionate about the motor trade? Do you find it hard to switch off? Absolutely. And I think anyone, anyone in the motor trades who's successful and has done a good job in it, we'll tell you that because the biggest problem we have is we are always on. We talked about the internet coming. We talked about, you know, the internet is great because it means that our customers can sit at home on their sofa is at nine o'clock, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock and inquire on our vehicles. They can send in a complaint if they want to and it's great. But what it means is you are always on as well.

And it's a real tough balance because you get some people who say, you know what, I've taken my emails off my phone. I'm only during my workers. I've got my work phone. I've got my, I never had a work phone. I always should say that that's my number. That's that. I, I may have to put charges to mobile phones. It's too much for me. So yeah, all the call me on this one. This was not connected to the car. No thanks. I am. That's my phone. You can't tag me 24 seven and and Suzanne, my wife, she's so good. She wants the kids are down. Like last night I'll get the laptop out and I'll have a look through our fixed water trader.

I'll check prices. I'll, you know, check, check, see what's on there. Check to make sure that at and just small little touch points, you know, it's not constant. But I think to maintain a competitive advantage and to be high performance and to keep the next level, you have to go and evolve and beyond because it's like everything, you know, if you just do enough, you'll just get enough. And I think if you, if you do more, you'll get more. And I think that's the key for me. And it's, I'm not saying that's right because everybody's different. But for me, my, my way of doing it is making sure you have your time. And you know what, on the weekends, when, when you're made to be off, absolutely, do the time thing with the kids in the night, I do to stop with the kids.

And, you know, but I always like to check in. And I do keep my emails on my phone, rightly, or wrongly, only because I'm a bit of a control freak. And I feel like if I don't know better, I'm like, Oh, what am I not know about that? Or what's whatever? And it's more, it's, it's on my head, if I look at it, I don't have to look at emails. So it's up to me if I don't want, but I always say to people, have, have what works for you, because everyone's life is different. And everyone's work life challenges outside of work are different as well. You know, that doesn't make anyone less of a high performer to not have it, you know, if anything, it might make them great, because they're a bit more structured to under day than me.

But I always say work what works for you, you know, there's no, there's no right or wrong, you know, if you're achieving great things, and you do it by keeping a, keeping everything at arms length or being fully immersed and involved in a, that's great. You do you. Yeah. Yeah. And listen, I've really enjoyed this conversation. There's so much good advice for anyone starting off the motor trade, their first management's position. And this is going to be tough, because you've given some of your good ideas already. But if there was just one thing you wanted to leave the listens with, just one tip or idea that can go back, and they can put in place this week or today to help them improve their department or some more cars.

What would you like to leave people with, John? The thing I'd like to leave is, is your sales process. How tight is your sales process? Are your team in control from inquiry to the time the customer leaves at the door? Because I always say our leads and our customers are oxygen without them, we're dead. And we need to make sure that everyone is coming into your business and speaking to your, to your team, are getting the right service. Is it tight that when they come in that they're getting the video? Are they getting that experience that they deserve? And don't get me wrong, I've got businesses that are not perfect and I'm working on that.

But I would say that's the one thing that is, is that the sets everybody apart is that tight sales process and make sure you've got control, your management team have control, and that everybody who comes into your business, like you said Simon, when you inquired a few months ago, is dealt with and dealt with the way you'd want them to be dealt with. I've really enjoyed this today. So how do people get hold of you? Easiest way for me, Simon, I'm on LinkedIn, John O'Byrne, Instagram, at John O'Byrne, absolutely reach out and keep in touch. And yeah, my email address, John O'Dottleburner Endeavorautomotive.co.uk. And absolutely, if anybody wants to reach out, please do, I'd love to I'd love to have some conversations.

Great. Big bit. Pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thanks so much, Simon. 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 Bowkett through LinkedIn. Thank you.