What if the difference between missing your targets and joining the top 1% of car salespeople came down to one simple trait?
Today, I’m revealing what truly separates the top 1% from everyone else.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
The single ‘hunger’ trait that determines whether you’ll reach the top 1% or struggle to hit targets
Why staying in one dealership long-term creates more wealth than job hopping every 18 months
The 5-step sales process every successful car salesperson follows (even when they claim they don’t)
How top performers get their ‘running shoes on’ to capture more leads than anyone else
The SPACER qualification method that eliminates time-wasters and identifies serious buyers
Whether you’re new to the motor trade or a management veteran looking to motivate your salespeople, this episode reveals the uncomfortable truth about what separates the best from those who struggle month after month.
I share real examples of salespeople who’ve built their own businesses within dealerships, regularly sell over 100 cars in peak months, and have developed the mindset that drives extraordinary results in car sales.
Key moments:
[02:30] – Why top car salespeople stay in one place for years (not job hopping)
[06:45] – Getting your ‘running shoes on’—the hunger that drives success
[12:25] – When top performers break sales rules (and why you shouldn’t yet)
[20:34] – The 5-step process that guarantees car sales results
[28:44] – Why ‘hunger’ beats product knowledge and talent every time
Join thousands of salespeople, managers and dealer principals who’ve transformed their careers and businesses by understanding what really drives car sales success.
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. What makes a great sales person? It's something I often ask guests. I'll speak to someone who runs a dealer group, works for the OEM, made your supplier to the motor trade.
And so often I'm intrigued by saying, listen, you're in dealerships day in, day out. Can I ask you what makes a great dealership, department, or what separates the good from the great? And it's always amazing what they come up and say. And everyone's has a slightly different idea. Today I want to give you my take on it. What makes a great salesperson? I tell you this because this week I'm in a dealership with one of the great salespeople. And we're talking about what the salesperson does. And I speak into a brand new salesperson. And we're talking about the sales process and what do you want to achieve this year and how we're going to get in there and goal setting and all that good stuff though.
I'm sure you do with your team. And this salesperson, new lad, okay? Turner said, yeah, but the top guy here, he doesn't really do a lot of that stuff. Okay, the top guy here. Actually, I don't know if he ever goes out and has a look at the customers trade in. Okay, the top guy here actually demonstration drives. I've seen him sell lots of cars without even bothering with the demonstration drive. He just speaks to him and like, it sounds like 20 minutes later, 15 minutes later, sometimes five minutes later, he's just done another deal of that. Where did that come from? And I hear those conversations all the time. I went, ah, hold on for a second.
That salesperson's earned the right to get away with some of that stuff. Actually, eight years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, when he sold those people their first car. So one of the things I want to say to you, if you're a salesperson, listen, wondering, okay, what do I need to do to be great? Let me tell you, the salespeople earn really good money in the motor trade in the main. They stay in one place for a long time, forever, and have their customers coming back and speaking to them again and again and again. Goes the grass is not greener. Too many times I see. And this is for it. If you're brand new in the motor trade and you're starting off thinking, right, how do I earn good money in motor trade?
This is a great career. Don't be that job hopper. Don't be sitting there every 80 months, two years and saying, let's go to the next place, next place, next place. You know what? People will always try and poach top sales. People top talent. But actually, how often is that salesperson on top salesperson? Because they've been there for a long period of time. They often have, but also there's something else. And I'm just thinking some of the people I've got a salesperson I dealt with that has his own Porsche 911 GTS. He's right at the top of his game. Okay. There's another salesperson I'm thinking of. She's one of the best salespeople I've ever met, actually, in Ireland and an Audi dealership.
I'm thinking about in Land Rover, there's a deal group we work with. There's a particular person who's now had a business. There was a great salesperson there. Oh, actually, there's a Volkswagen dealership in Rektion, one of the best salespeople I've ever met in my life. I'm trying not to give names here because everyone's going to know everyone might work out who these people are. But that particular person now runs the business there. But he was one of the great, great salespeople. Okay. And what separates the good from the great? This is my two cents worth. Okay. Number one, they know where they're up to all the time. You ask any top salesperson, hey, what are your results like?
They will tell you how many cars they sold last year, how many cars they sold this year, how many they've got to go, what they've got on the on the process, what they want, they know the score. So often I go and speak to a salesperson who's struggling. I say, how many cars do you sell last year? How many cars do you sell last month? I promise you, sometimes they don't know. Haven't got a scooby-doo. You think, what? You don't know where you're up to? You don't know how well you've done until the pay packet comes out. Guys, you just got to know the score. And that comes back down to how hungry are those people?
Could you imagine a game of cricket now for my American friends listening to this? Crickets are a game that we Australians and New Zealanders, South Africans and of course the British play. This is the game that can last for five days and it's still a draw at the end of it. But actually, how long would that game last if they didn't keep school? How long would a game of golf last if you didn't keep school? Tin-pen bowling, okay? You didn't count how many strikes you got and where you're up to compared to the other person. Number one, keep school. Nowhere up to you because that motivates you. Here's the second thing I know is about these top salespeople.
In fact, of those people I've just mentioned, those five, they're six there, okay? And by the way, all of those were earning really good money, serious money in the motor trade, okay? Well, I'm truly above average. But so many times, if you'd phone that dealership, they're the ones that took the call. In fact, there's one place, okay? In fact, I think I can mention a Rita now because she's gone off to have babies, okay? And if you know who Rita is, I'm just going to call out her. Great, great sales person. But they have receptions in this dealership. They hang times you phone the dealership and she's taken the call first. I've been there when first in the morning, she's there before anyone else and she's speaking to Jeff, the manager at the time, say, where the leads, what's here, where we're up to.
It's that hunger. So these top salespeople, they get their running shoes on. There's a salesperson not Honda dealership, okay? I've got to tell you about. He would phone the dealership. He's the person who take the call all the time. And by the way, so many times I hear other salespeople winching about these top salespeople. Well, it's all right for Billy. He gets all the inquiries, okay? And they almost want me to speak to management to say, stop Billy, speak to inquiries. And I'm like, fuck off. It doesn't work like that. Get your running shoes on. Why don't you get to the phone before anyone else? Why don't you come in earlier, okay, than anyone else?
Oh, in fact, I'm going to tell you, Mike Byrne. Hello, great friend of the podcast and all of the show. Mike had a salesperson, really good salesperson. But this salesperson went off the boil, okay? And he was working one particular dealership. I won't give away the names of the dealerships and all this. It wouldn't be fair to say. But he's working one dealership and this guy was one of the top salespeople for this dealer group. He was the salesperson of the year. They have a challenge so often, and his name are on the trophies, lots and lots and lots, okay? He left this particular dealership and he went to a another dealership and his sales dropped.
Now, of course, he went to this other dealership because it was closer to home. Now, his sales dropped significantly. Of course, a lot of it's because he didn't have his database. Remember, I said before, you've got to have your own database in one place and just stay one place forever and ever. But we're kicking around some ideas about why it dropped off and it kind of dawned on him. This dealership that he was working on, we won all the awards and was there for a long time. He had one of those crap journeys where he's going to be stupidly early or stupidly late, okay? Because the traffic, if you left a little bit longer, the traffic would build up there and get to work really late or sit in the car for, I don't know, hour and half, two hours to get there.
Or he could come in nice and early, okay? And it's more like a 45-minute journey. He took that option. In fact, he was the guy that opened the dealership up, okay? He'd get the keys, he'd put all the barriers down, he'd open it up. And of course, when he opened up, all the service customers would come in because the salesperson naturally would, his routine was to get himself a coffee, sit down the customer waiting area, okay? Open up the paper, by the way, if you're under 30, there used to be the way we used to get news was on this piece of paper, the newspaper. He'd sit there and read it. And very little when people come in, he talked to him, yeah, he hadn't dropped the keys off, yeah, no problem, what car is it?
At dawn, he said, and man at times, he said, come on, Marion, it must be time for you to change the new car. John, what are you in that for? Dave, what are you in that one for now? You need to get a new car. He said, how many of your deals actually come from that? Even if he sold these people a car or not, okay? He went to the new dealership. This new dealership was a lot closer home. He didn't ask to come in earlier. He said, I'm not doing my coffee chats anymore. I'm not speaking to these people, okay? So number one, if you want to be a great salesperson, make sure you get your running shoes on.
Speak to the people. You can't sell cars taking cars to the body shop. You can't sell cars taking cars to the cleaner, okay? Tony Island, my very first real boss, I'm going to say, okay? There's a man called Mel Deeth, but Tony Island Holden in Townsville, North Queensland is where I really learnt a lot of my trade. Tony said to me, Simon, you can't sell cars taking cars to cleaner. I was always really busy. I was helping out. I was moving cars around everywhere. I'd get to the end of the day. I was exhausted. I felt like I'd achieved a lot for the business. And I probably had had achieved a lot for myself. Actually, top salespeople, how often are they a little bit darassette, selfish?
Now, I'm not talking about Nick and other deals. I'm not talking about not helping out with everyone else, not pulling their own way. But actually, they look after number one all the time for us. So actually, you sell people. I want you to be a bit selfish. And also, there'll be lots of people maybe listening to this, talking to a certain business, the trainees, okay? And you'll be tasked to take the videos of the cars, take the photographs, move the cars around. Yeah, of course you got to do that. And so many times I hear people whinging, and they winch to one of our trainers saying, well, why am I still having to move the cars?
I'm going to have to do this. I have a sneaky little whisper in there here sometimes. I say, you can't move the cars if you speak into a customer. You can't take cars to the body shop if you speak into a customer. Okay, don't be going and doing the lunch run all the time. If you speak to a customer, you can't do that. Get your own issues on, speak to the customers. Okay, now again, you're still going to go through that pain, Barry. You're still going to do what you've been told to do. Okay, what else makes great salespeople? Do they follow that process? Hey, I'm going to be controversial. I'm going to tell you, I see lots of great salespeople out there.
They shortcut the process. They skimp on things. But honestly, I do. And brand new salespeople, you'll see that, okay? But please don't forget what I said before. They've earned the right to shortcut that process because they learn over years what they can get away with. If you're new on the career, don't shortcut because I got to tell you, not another great salesperson I tell you about. This person in a plate change month in the UK. So from a showing audience, listen to this UK, they have a plate change where every march in September, the number plate gets changed on the car and identifies the age of the vehicle. So many times people want to change in a plate change month.
And this salesperson will regularly sell over 100 cars in a march in September. Okay. And the new salespeople look there, how this salesperson prospects how he speaks to people on the database. And I go, no, no, no, no, stop, stop, stop there. There's no way you can do it like that salesperson. Because I promise you, the phone call often goes like this. Hi, Mary. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's Simon. Yeah, just like, you know, now's the time. Yep. Yep. I think so. Yep. We can get you into it now's the time. Listen, what time and Saturday you want to come in? What will you think of this time? You want to go for a blue one or a black one?
Now, of course, I'm half exaggerating, but quite close to that sometimes. Because again, he's earned the right to get away over that long time before. Also, he's done a prospecting call with Mary two or three times before and saying, Mary, I don't think now's the right time for you to get in the new car. Listen, let's wait till September. Let's wait to March. I think that's going to be the right time for you. Let's do it then. Okay. He could get away with that. Okay. But anyway, back to that process. These short cutting. Yeah, you will see some of your top sales people short cutting. But there's something else I want to talk about there.
There's a piano player. People are going to like send me messages here. I'm not sure who it is. The person's passed away now in the UK. I think it was Les Dawson or something like that. Someone's screaming at their radio at the moment. But this guy would play the piano really badly. And he would, it was almost like a comedy sketch. But actually, you would say all the time in interviews, you got to know how to play the piano really well to be able to play it so bad. He could get away with doing this comedy sketch there because he knew how to play piano so well that he could actually play it so badly and still get a tune out of it and was still the right punch liners for jokes all the time.
In fact, a very good friend of mine is man called Bob Pula. Bob Pula is 83 years old now. He has been an aerobatic British champion. He is a legend in the aerobatic world in aviation in the UK. He still flies to this day some crazy flying sequences which will have any pilots heart in the mouth. What he does is this drunk flying routine where he turns up at an air show. Someone gets on Pula and says, oh no, there's a drunk man there. What is he? Security, go and get him. He pretends to jump in this plane and he dries it. No, he doesn't. He tacks out this plane and he takes off pretending to be drunk or a person who doesn't know what they're doing or a novice or something like that and he flies it up and down and does stall turns and almost flies into the ground.
I tell you what, if you know anything about aerobatics, if you know anything about flying and you're watching what he's doing on a plane, let me tell you, he knows how to fly really, really well to be able to fly at that bad. And that's the other thing with top salespeople. You need to know sales process really, really well if you're going to know winter short cut. But here's the funny thing, if you're new in your career, I still don't think you need a short cut at all because when you're really dig in to what that top salesperson does, when they say, oh no, I don't have a road to a sales process. Great, tell me through what you do.
They ask lots of qualifying questions. Okay, they make sure they build rapport with people. They find out lots of information about their car earlier on. Okay, they may or may not raise the desire, but they definitely talk about comparison value, scarcely urgency, the four fundamentals we have about on our training courses. When they put deals in front of people, okay, they definitely, definitely ask for the business every single time. Okay, what else these top salespeople do? They've got their run shoes on. They're hungry. They stay in one place for a long time. And in fact, by the way, what's these top salespeople? Do they actually want to go on to the management process? Do they want to be a business manager, a sales manager, a transaction manager?
Inverably, yeah, some do. Okay, invariably, we always have the conversation saying, well, actually, you know, your pay is probably going to go backwards before it goes forward. And so many times, these people say, I don't know if I want to do all that goes through all the stress of that having to deal with all of the bells and whistles the OEM makes us go through. I don't know if I want to really do that. Okay, because I learn more money. And there's nothing wrong with just having your own business within the business and sell lots and cars there. Okay, make lots of money there. Some of these people, they don't really want to be that management.
And in fact, would they make a good manager? I guess they brought me not. Okay, what else makes that top salesperson? Yeah, they build rapport. But now, having said that, there's another salesperson I know in the leasing world. Okay, this salesperson is a definitely punctures above his weight. We listen to his calls regularly. I think, how the hell has he sold a car? He doesn't build rapport. He doesn't really get along with the customer that well. Now he's not rude. Don't take it wrong. But tell you what he does. He puts lots of effort in. You dig into the numbers there. I speak to more people than anyone else. So often you'll get people at the coffee machine talking about the football game last night.
They'll be talking about going out the back and having a vapor cigarette. They'll go and have coffee breaks two or three times a day. Okay, sudden attack of diarrhea. But this particular person, you have a look at the volume they put in. He takes more inquiries in this place than almost anyone else I know. Someone else who I've lost contact with this salesperson, okay, he's gone off and done lots of other things. I hope he's well. But he has his paper clips. This particular person is in the same industry to be fair. He just worked out how much he wanted to do for that week that month. He worked out to do that how many times he needed to speak to people.
How many times he needed to put quotes in front of people and had his little paper clips. It started off in the morning with his, I don't know what the number is now, but he's 35, 40 people. He had to make contact with that day. And every time he did, he gave his little paper clip. He'd take it from one pile to the other. One pile to the other. That was his process. That's where he worked. He began to see how it's knowing the numbers. He knew the numbers where he's up to. Okay. In fact, let's flip it around. What makes that poor salesperson? Complete opposite to all of those. Okay. Now, if you're a manager, listen to this and think, okay, I've got that poor salesperson.
How do I start turning around? Guys, selling cars, it's super, super simple. It's just five things. What you got to do is you got to speak to the people. It's number one. Number two, qualify them properly. Number three, you need to put a bum in a seat, the right bum in the right seat because you're qualified and properly. Number four, you need to put a fully deal in front of every customer every time. Okay. Now, what do you mean by fully stacked deal? If you've been talking about your paint and fabric protection products there, talk about them and offer them. If you've been talking about PCP, finance, PCH, okay, HP, let's make sure we put a deal in front of every customer every single time.
You've been made so many times that cash customer says, what APR is that? Okay. Because of course they're not cash. If you're offering value added products, which is your tie-in ally insurances, maybe you're going down gap, maybe your dealership's not there. They talked about those things early on. They put a deal in front of a fully stacked deal in front of every customer every time. And the last one, okay, they ask for the business. So if you were ever struggling, if you're a salesperson struggling, okay, now we talk about the saddoms and the miters. The miters touches when everything touched turns to gold and you're on our roll. If you spell miters in reverse, it's saddoms, okay?
So when people in the saddoms and they've gone off the boil, so to speak, our trainers, we always try to look at those five things backwards, okay? Hand on your heart, we grab the salesperson, say, are you asking for the business every single time? And this is why I wanted to have this rant today. Because this dealership that I was in this week, okay, I'm speaking to a salesperson. We're doing one of our sim checks where we say, come and sell us a car from start to finish. It's just such an eye opener. This guy's going to be great. Really super super impressed with him. He sounds are not where they should be. And going through the sim check, I was thinking, this makes no sense.
He's got lots of things really, really right. Great rapport building. Of course, there's lots of things he could have tweaked there. We'll come out right at the end when we put the deal in front of us and the closing question, just that she will secure that for you. She'll go ahead with that. Should we get that ordered for you? Well, hey, did you want to do that over the 36 months? There's more comfortable for you over the 48. And did you want to pick that up next Thursday? Friday'd be better for you. Or maybe a summary close. Ladies, gentlemen, salespeople, listeners, managers, salespeople, raise kitty kids. Ask for the business. Ask for the business when you've earned the right to ask for the business.
Two way, on my rant there, five things. Speak to people, qualify them properly. Put a bomb in the seat, a right bomb in the right seat. Put a fully stacked deal in front of people and ask for the business. So if you're struggling as a salesperson, straight away, ask yourself, are you asking for the business every single time when you've earned the right to do it? If you are, look at the next one. Are you putting a fully stacked deal in front of every customer every single time? Have we still got scraps of paper? Okay. Listen, Joseph Johns, okay, another fan of the show being on the show there talking about how we need to present deals, auto fires their system in America.
It's just one of lots out there. But we need to make sure we're professional the way we put a deal in front of every customer every single time. Next one, bombs in seats. You know what? Whenever I was down in the saddoms, I just doubled the length of my demonstration drive. It's such a simple thing to do. You see, if you double the length of your demonstration drive when you're in the saddoms, it takes you out of your comfort zone. You stop talking about the car because you're on those things that are talking about. You start talking to the customer building some rapport because there's three sales and any sale you don't sell yourself first, the product second, and then the deal.
So many times, I hear top-top salespeople, it sounds like they've just sold the deal, the deal, the deal. But actually, they've sold themselves and they've sold the product well and surely beforehand. Now, we're only hearing the last bit there, okay? If you just try and sell the deal with that, getting the first two bits right, I think you've got more chance than you're bomb on the moon than you actually have of some of those people look out, okay? So bombs in seats. Really simplification here. If you want to focus on selling 20 cars this month, where's your 40 demonstration drives, okay? Now, I'd prefer to do a bit more science with that. We talk about how many demos you need to do for you to get to where you want to be.
But listen, real a thumb, if you want to, by the way, send me a direct message grant. We'll give you a lovely calculator that can work out your business plan for you if you want. Sales managers reach out to us, okay, and we can get that to you as well there. But keep it nice and simple. If you want to do 20 cars this month, where's your 40 demonstrations? You want to do 40 cars this month? Where's your 80 demonstration drives? You're going to have to do, okay? Now, again, is that changing because of remote selling? Of course it is. But remote selling, the demonstration drive, is that see it now video. That's where you're raising the desire, okay?
So look at both of those on that one for me there, okay? Next one, have you qualified properly? Now, qualification is, it's a big one. Don't be trying to sell on someone a car, which is, they've got no chance to buy, okay? Now, qualification on our training programs, we talk about four key parts, okay? We talk about qualifying the customer's spacer. That's an acronym for other customers, insurance safety the car, performance, practicality, aesthetics, comfort, economy reliability, efficiency of the car spacer. We talk about qualifying the customer's man. That's an acronym for money, authority, needs and wants, okay? We talk about qualifying the different type of customer, okay? Are they a lion, a puppy dog, a snake or a mouse, okay?
And again, go back and have a look at the podcast, speak to us. We'll talk about identifying the different type of customer. But then we also talk about the fundamentals. Now, these fundamentals, if you've not sold someone a car, or actually a house, a sales training program, okay? Anything, a computer, a flash watch, okay? Four fundamentals need to be satisfied for anyone to buy anything. They are comparison, value, scarcity and urgency, okay? Comparison, value, scarcity and urgency. So that's that qualification. And the last one, because where am I? We work backwards on those five things, is speak to the people. I go tell you top salespeople, they do that in abundance. Guys, a bit of a rant today there about what makes a top salesperson.
It's hunger. They're not always the most eloquent speaking people. They haven't got that product knowledge to an ins of their life. Yes, by the way, all that stuff is important. But let me tell you, it's hunger, hunger. They never give up. They want to speak more people because they're hungry. They keep following up that customer because they're hungry. When the customer says they want to think about it, they try and find out what they want to think about to overcome that objection because they're hungry. They want it now. Ladies, gentlemen, salespeople, sales, they've owned us of businesses. Hunger is what makes that great salesperson. So you know what? You as a salesperson, are you hungry?
Do you really want to sell that number of cards? Do you really want to earn that amount of money? You see, everyone could have a six-pack. But I don't think everyone wants to put through the effort required to get the six-pack. I really do believe if you're listening to this, you've got this far in it. You could be the top salesperson in your dealership. But I don't know if you'll want to be. It's the hunger really separates these top salespeople. Anyway, that's about it. It does up for this rent. And I'll see you next time. That just leads me to say that all details of this episode and other episodes on the selling in the Motor Trade can be found on our website simcotraining.co.uk.
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.
