Andrew Wakelin, Regional Operations Director of Stellantis &You, returns to continue his interview and discuss how to ensure your dealership is successful in an agency model.
With electric vehicle targets on everyone’s mind, we also look at strategies to help you on your way.
Lastly Andrew shares his wisdom, on recruiting and staff motivation.
Here are the highlights:
{03:10} Customer Satisfaction & Service Plans
{06:57} Preferential Treatment
{09:15} Electric Vehicles
{18:11} Recruiting
{22:17} Going the Extra Mile
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 with saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Okay, so moving along then, the Motor Trade going forward there, I want to touch on the A-word agency. I know that when we're recording this, because again, some people go back to podcasts and they're benchless and jail out. So, Jaguar Land Rover has just publicly said they're not going to go down the agency sales route. I know lots of other manufacturers are the brands that you represent, I believe 2025. Have I got that right? They're looking at agency 24 and a year. 2026, I think. 2026. I think for the Stellantis brand or the first of the Stellantis brand, it has been delayed. It was going to be sooner. Okay. Do you believe that the agency is inevitable? It's coming. We need to get used to it. Or do you believe that some manufacturers might say, well, hold on, if JLR is not doing it, let's go back and have a look at it. I'll give an example. Honda have publicly said they're not doing agency. But when you look at them selling their electric vehicle at the moment, it's agency, everything in name. They've not called an agency, but lots of. So the question is, is it inevitable in your views? And if so, what do we need to do as dealers to prepare ourselves for it? I think it's felt inevitable for some time. And as I say, we've certainly had delays along the way. And we are, Stellantis and you, we are brand owned dealer group that I work for. So it's certainly well above my pay grade. So I'm going to do what will happen. I think it feels inevitable. But then I've sat in a few meetings along the way, trying to prepare for it. And it almost sometimes feels like there's things that just, there's that much that we do that, you know, the brands always say that they make the cars and the retailers are the experts in selling. And I firmly believe that's the case. They're going to make them, you know, as a manufacturer, as a brand, and we're going to retail them, as I said before. As I say, it's probably an inevitability, but there's a lot like you said, a lot of brands decided against it now. And I can understand why, because I think there's a lot of things they forget that we do in the background, even as to plus, you know, finance settlements. And, you know, there's lots of little intricacies that they don't think of. Yeah. What do we have to do to prepare? Look after our customers as best we can. We've got to have the best customer satisfaction, reputation. All our reviews have to be great. Nope, then. And you've got plenty of them because that is what's going to then differentiate us from the competition, isn't it? You know, suddenly the price is the same wherever you go. Of course, there's still potentially a path exchange that could differ slightly, open down maybe. But if, again, if it's full agency and that it takes in the path exchange price as well, then perhaps again, that's also another thing. So yeah, it's definitely customer satisfaction, is what we're going to have to ensure we're good at to attract the customers and keep the customers. And indeed selling service plans. You know, and locking and retaining customers in now so that when we do, you know, if we are, if and when we are, agency, they're still locked in to come into us for us to still keep impressing them. Of course, service plans. You're right. You're the first person to talk about that with agency. Service plans get started locking people in now. It makes a lot of sense, actually. Listen, people listen to this podcast in Canada, America, Australia, South Africa. They might not know St. Lawrence's and the brands that you cover. What brands do you look after in the the whole Atlantis range? Okay. Well, I still aren't this from a, you know, we're, we're Peugeot, Citron, DS, Fiat, Jeep, Alfa Romeo, Abarth, and then you start to go more worldwide, Dodge. We've got, that does a lot. Mezzarashi in there. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got, it's FCA and PSA with then obviously the American brands coming in, Jeep and Raman Dodge. So yeah, it's a big global entity now on a huge, a huge company. And yeah, our group as in St. Lawrence's and you in the UK are covering pretty much all of them from a UK perspective. Obviously, not the American brands. Well, we've got Jeep. So some of these, I don't know what you call them, Andrew, these mega sites. We have Peugeot, Citron, DS and then you're having Fiat, Abarth and there. Are there plans? Are you able to say that? I'm not sure if you can talk about that or not. But are there plans to build more of these, what do you call mega dealerships or not? Atlantis houses. Okay. Other name for them. And I think, yeah, I think like any businesses, whether you're privately owned or big corporate businesses. But if you've got a fairly big footprint and you can put more of your brands under one roof, therefore helping share costs, then I think that's inevitably something that can happen as long as you get the coverage right. And as long as you get the geography right so that your customers don't have to travel too far because of course, if you get past a certain travel time, then you're in danger of people not coming to you. So yeah, I mean, we've started to do that with some of our sites. And I'm sure again, I'm not a part of the full plans, but there'll be more plans along the way to potentially have them joined where we can. Yeah. I suppose economy, the scale of economy makes sense to put them there together if you can do that. A question I don't know the answer to having never done this, but working for a manufacturer owned and we owned deal with group, does that create a lot of different pressures? I suppose the two questions, do you get the pressure where they need volume? So you guys are told that there's a whole lot of cars need to be registered tough. Get on with it. Do you get the inside track? Is it easier sometimes because you don't have to do the deal operating standards that other people do? You've worked for both sides. Do you find what's the good, the bad, the ugly of working for an OEM owned dealer group? I think well, I mean, there is certainly no preferential treatment, Simon. Can I just say from the outside looking at them, we would always say, oh, yeah, back in Robins Day, oh, Robins Day days, I bet they get all the good cars. I bet their targets are lowered. But people tell me that complete opposite. I think the pressure, I mean, obviously when you're a private operator, you can control it a little bit more and push back if required, you know, no, no, no, but there's probably more pressure in a lot of it because we're expected to be ahead of the private network from a customer satisfaction perspective and we want to be. But we've got the same pressures. It's absolutely the same pressures. And yeah, I mean, sometimes we end up with having to sometimes try and push harder, I think, to do a bigger, better performance. But yeah, you know, no, no, no, no. But if you're a father's harder on his son, then maybe someone else, I don't know if that's maybe the right analogy, but they may be harder on you because you have to be seen as doing it right for the private capital investors. Yeah, actually, yeah, because we've got to try and try and, you know, we are the proof that as to what can be achieved and what should be achieved. So yeah, there is a clear-nanny pressure of that. Yes. I'd love to now get your views on where 2024 were in April. What's going to happen between now and the end of the year? And I'm going to say that for people outside of the UK, listen to this, our government has said that electric vehicles have been pushed back to 2030 to 235. It's told a lot of the general public that EV vehicles may not happen. However, the government has not taken off the target that the manufacturer has to supply and is at 24 percent, I think, of the vehicles have to be electric. So I want to get your views there on what's going to happen now with these electric vehicles. Are the manufacturers going to hit the panic button? I'm going to see more and more deals with EV vehicles between now and the end of the year. I flew over Bristol Port recently and it was full of cars. I mean, the supply issue that we had two years ago as well and truly gone. So I want to get your views on EV vehicles, what's going to happen with supply between now and the end of the year. And deal is listening to this, what they should be looking at in your view. Well, I think certainly I've been saying to my teams, my general managers, together last week. And it's a constant conversation, isn't it, for everybody? Because that's what locks the money now. So we've got to get to a certain percentage to maximize the earnings. And certainly my focus and our focus as a team is we understand the importance of it as ops directors. We've read that down and we, in our general managers, understand the importance of it. Our sales managers definitely know the importance of it. I'm just not convinced that our sales execs are as behind it with the conviction we need them to be. I think you hit the nail on head, though. Yeah. And we can't sit on the shoulders, but I think we've got to ensure that, you know, it's not when you're making the switch. It's, we've got to be telling them it's time to make the switch. Yeah. And it's now time to make the switch and we've got to, you know, with ranges being better now. And we've got much better ranges on these cars as they come out now. We've got much better setups in terms of being able to charge them. People are now getting to know the apps and what they're about to find the charges and get on there. But we've got to make sure that our teams, our sales execs and our showrooms, you know, you're almost one. Big signs hanging off the building, don't you? We, you know, we are electric. We, you know, you're really, you know, if we were, if we need 20% plus 24%, well, then our showrooms need to look like that. Yeah. You know, if, sure enough, if we were, if we were BYD or we were a Tesla, that's all we've got to offer. So, you know, we, their salespeople are fully averse on electric. So we're getting there, don't get me wrong. And I don't want to do a disservice, but I just, I just think, you know, we could do, you know, most of our, some of our sales execs have only been selling cars since COVID. Yeah. From that order, take perspective, not a lot of them have sold before, or very few of them have sold before when we really had to try. Yeah. And when you work out for finance penetration and in converting them from cash, you know, those skills, sometimes we've forgotten that we haven't taught them those skills. He's what I'm trying to say. So true. So true. With electric and the belief has to be from the top down and the place has to look electric. And, and yeah, and get them driving them, you know, you sell the X, etc. Yeah. And that's just electric, but it's not that it's the skills after COVID. You didn't have to be genius to sell a car after COVID. It was shelling peas there and little things like prospecting, going through the dead money. Mr. Customer, this is what you're going to have to spend any car over the next 12 months. It is the tires, the X, the Y, the Z that's coming up there. And I can get your new car for X amount. We haven't had to do that. And I sometimes forget and we say, right, guys, go on, let's get on prospecting. But they've not done the account reviews. We've not done the you do the maths. We've not done the hanging chance we could buy you a car off you because they just haven't done that. They started after COVID or they got us going to use the word lazy. And that's a disservice to people in the industry. I don't mean that. I don't believe anyone signs up for the hours we work in the motor trade. If they're naturally lazy, they just haven't had to do it for a long time. And it's not just EV. We've got to get back to slowing things down. So yourself first, the car second, then the deal. We can't just sell the deal, the deal, the deal. We've got to get back to, can I say good old fashioned basics? Yeah. And coaching, and it's hard job to do it, isn't it? And it's hard job to make sure that we've got the teams doing what they should be doing. So yeah, but it's vital that we that we really keep pushing on with with the electric factor. Definitely. Yeah. Now also, gap. Gap is, I don't know, is it going to come back? My theory is again, people listen to this in other countries. The financial conduct, sorry, FCA in the UK has not stopped selling gap, but they've found they put a pause on us. We're not allowed to sell it from what six weeks ago now. Was it seventh of February? I think it was seventh of February. And they're analyzing, are we allowed to sell it? My theory is that it'll come back. We'll be allowed to sell it. But I don't think I says a dealership will because the amount we can sell it for won't be worth the risk if we get it wrong. That would be my view. So I have two questions of that. Is that your view similar? And if it is, how do we replace gap? Because there must have been a big old hole there that you need to replace as a regional director there. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I do agree with what you've said there. And I think the only way we can do it is by focusing in on the other products that we have. So you protect, or purge your protect, or sit from protect, or super guard, whatever. We want to call it your cosmetic repair, insurances, warranty. And then again, service plans and everything that goes with it. We just have to, we just have to again adapt, as I said before, as an industry, we're very good at it. And we kind of, whatever you thrive, as we just deal with and we get on with it. And I think that's what we've done. And we want two products per customer from a new car perspective. And we still look at that two products per customer. That's your target. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And one to 1.5 products on a use car customer. And you kind of just, you know, you just got to push for that in the right manner. And again, we know that comes down to offering 100% of the products, 100% of the time to 100% of the customers. And you know, and if we do that, then you shouldn't feel the pain. It's easy to say, but as we focus harder and harder on it, we are slowly managing, not slowly, we're fairly wealth nicely starting to plug that gap. Interesting work there. Yeah. Like big gap. Yeah. And then we are. And it's, yeah. And I agree with you. I think, you know, yeah, maybe we will get it back, but will it be as lucrative as it was possibly not? Yeah. OK. And it's like the supercard you mentioned there and all the life shines. Well, there will ceramic coating nowadays. They're a lot better than maybe the products that you and I fitted when we're both watching cars, Andrew. And it's there really are so many other options out there that we need to. But I guess interesting. And I think gap is one of those things that I like the product. I think it is a good product, but I just don't know if it'll be worth our reward. Won't be worth the risk of getting it wrong. In fact, I can see lots of people going away from all insurance products and offering more guaranteed warranty type products with the smarts and that. But be interesting and see what happens in that one. So now in wrapping up, then, what advice? And this is two different questions. What advice would you have to someone's styling mode of trade? Your son comes to you and said, Dad, I want to go into the motor trade. Would you say, are you mad? Don't be so stupid. Go off and work somewhere else. Would you still recommend this industry? And if so, what advice would you give to someone who's maybe listening to this podcast and just come into the industry? Yeah, absolutely recommend it. I think it's what I do. I mean, to be honest, I think, you know, the way I have appointed sales execs for the last five to 10 years is through is through selection days. Simon, where I don't look at a CV, I get best part of 30 people together. We're in a hotel. We've got a big one big venue and we invite them there. They turn up and we set them tasks, group tasks that they're all day. And we will them down as we go through and we end up offering jobs on the day. And, you know, certainly I can look at the team at Manchester that I've a few months ago, I just come out of and more than half that team came in that way and are selling 20 cars a month each. And because they come in with no preconceived ideas, you know, they do it exactly how you want it to be done. And you grow your own. You're not employing other people have been there. What else? You're high for attitude and the rest we teach, don't we? And, you know, all I can say is that anybody that wants to get into it, you know, what a career. And certainly, Stellantis, where we are, Stellantis and you, you know, I mean, I mean, we do majorly actively promote from within. And, you know, I've already I've got, I have a point in the general manager that was a sales manager for me recently. And, you know, and it's something that we do. We do want career minded people, you know, one of the people that I took from one of those training, one of those selection questions, three years ago, has now been promoted to a DS concierge position in Manchester, running that department, that whole department. And that's given us a lot of positive energy in terms of that brand and pushing it forward. And the difference that's made, A, because we've got somebody totally focused on it. And B, because it's the right person. It's huge. We've sold more of that product in three months than we did all year last year. So, so yeah, so it's get behind it, I guess, if you want to do it, come and do it, because it can give you a career. Somebody once said to me, you know, your lifestyle will go like that. If you, as we've said before, if you just keep doing the next job before you get it and putting yourself out there and putting everything behind it, it is good fun. Where else can you earn the kind of money that we do? And like I say, a career is right there for you. It's it's it's enjoyable. And yeah, I don't know. I've told people what to do there in terms of what they should what the best thing they can do is. I just tell you, get behind it and embrace it and just listen and learn and ask questions. That's all you can do in anything that you want to apply yourself to, isn't it? Someone told me years ago and I think it's still true. It's the highest paid hard work or the lowest paid, easy work. When you come into, you can make it in the motor trade, especially in the sales side of it. You can be what you want it to be there. Now, now listen, Andrew, there's going to be lots of people listening to this who are your current sales measures after sales measures, part service measures that want to make that step to general manager want to go on to do what you've done. What advice do you have? And now, bear in mind, they might be listening this and they might come into you, knock on your door and say this. But if you have got that after that service measure, that sales measure, who wants to take the step to a deal of principal general manager ahead of business, what advice would you have for them? How do they make that step? I think, thankfully, we have a very, very good sort of one-on-one program where we do appraisals individually very, very well with this company. So they get that along the way because all the tasks are set out and all the points that they need to be achieving are there and what's expected, everything's there. But again, it's the same advice. Do the next job before you get it. You know, and it's down to us to recognise it. And certainly general managers as well, you know, as a general manager, I would be fully, you know, I would give the empowerment and the autonomy and let them make their own decisions. And if they got it wrong, I'd still bat them, but then I'd talk to them afterwards about it. And just say, you shouldn't have liked this, this and this, but I'll back the mistakes that they might make along the way because sometimes you've got to get it wrong before you get it right to learn and learn quickly. But these guys know what they need to do. And that's the, as I said, that's the good thing of this company. We've got a succession programming list that works very well. And they'll often come and ask for, you know, extra bits to do. And that's what it's about, isn't it? Almost want to do yourself out the job, Simon. That's it. That's it. Well, listen, thank you very much. How do people get hold of you? What's the easiest way to find you, Andrew? Usual methods. I'm on LinkedIn. And then obviously emails, you know, and I might just be on Facebook at time or two. Yeah. Simon to then. Well, LinkedIn is definitely the way to get old. Listen, I really appreciate this conversation. And if someone really wants to talk to Andrew, we can learn about Formula One. I think you're the associate on that. And the conversation will go off in a lot of different directions. This podcast would have lasted three hours if we started talking about a Ferrari and what's going to happen there. But listen, I really enjoyed that. I just leave and say, thank you so much for your time there. I really do appreciate it. No, thank you. Thanks, Simon. You appreciate it. 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.
