Scared to Second Face?

This week Stuart Wallbanks, one of our own consultants joins us talk all about sales process, the key to sales success and training.

Stuart started hie career in Platts Longton, before working with Reg Vardy and then moving on to training.  He explains in his view what makes a good trainer, sales person and manger.

We discuss how some sales mangers can get fearful of second facing a customer, as they haven’t kept their sales skills fresh, but it can be very easily rectified.

Here are the highlights:

{02:42} Reg Vardy

{07:37} Paul Cummings

{10:25} Credibility

{14:40} Process and Rapport

{27:26} Buying a Rolex

{33:52} Scared to Second Face

{45:25} Erase Negative Language

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 and welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Today I'm joined with Stuart Warbanks. Now Stuart and I annoy each other for a long time and I think he is one of the best trainers in the automotive industry.

So Stuart, welcome along. Simon, thank you. That's a very complimentary introduction. Well, I mean it actually otherwise you wouldn't be working for some co-droneing so I'm going to have to say that. So Stuart, for people who don't know you, tell us a little bit about your background. How do you get started in the motor trade? A lot of people have met Fallon to it really. It wasn't a career choice. I was in my late teens, I was a window cleaner. I lived by myself just kind of trying to make ends meet so I didn't have a lot of money. And my little Mark II Fiesta, a little A plate, I remember it fondly. You hadn't started one morning and the engine block had frozen.

I hadn't been enough coolant in it and the car was a write-off and I couldn't really afford to replace it without selling the window cleaning round. And I had this bright idea that maybe I could get a job that kept me indoors and provided me with a car but in my late teens who's going to give me a nice new car to drive around. And then the light bulb hit maybe if I sold cars. I'd get a company car. So you're 18-19 at this point? Yeah 19 just about to turn 20. So I applied at a dealership's not there anymore called Platt's Garage in Longton Stocantrent. They were originally Fiat Melthromaino and I started and I got a I was very lucky actually because I started with Elthromaino.

So I was lucky enough to drive at 156 and then a 147 which back then was so it was quite a car. But also now actually as an 18-19 year old compared to window cleaning. Absolutely. So yeah, I cried cadets. That's given my age away but more than two and a half decades ago and started in sales. A little bit of fleet sales. Okay. And then after a few years, I moved to Reg Vardy which for me in terms of career was a great new Cuz Vardy's and I'm sure many of the listeners remember or know of Reg Vardy but remember Reg Vardy evolved a huge deal of a group predominantly up north and they trained you really well.

They really invested well in the staff which paid dividend really for the rest of my career and I started as a fleet manager for many years before I went back into retail. It's amazing how many people have been through Reg Vardy's and still talk about what they learned back then and even on this podcast. The amount of people that come through that Reg Vardy regime. They really did punch about their weight at the time didn't they? Do you know what? PLCs you hear mixed reports. A lot of PLCs we work with, you know, do a great job of looking after the staff out of automotive and automotive. Some not so well but Vardy's always had a great reputation when I speak to, you know, people my age or our age that they reflect fondly of Vardy's.

The Nangrid Square, a little credit card that we used to carry, listeners that work for Vardy's will remember that well. Do you know what? A lot of those phrases, if I could, would you please tell me know all of that stuff? It's still widely used today. Yeah, it is. Paul Cummings, I think did a lot of training there and Paul Cummings definitely come up with that. Great trainer. I spoke with Paul at the Australian Automotive Dealers Association a couple of times now at their conference there and it's a great educator in the motor trade. So this really separates the true motor traders though. Do you remember the first car that you sold? Do you know what?

I was thinking about this. I remember the favorite sale I ever sort of took a customer through and that was one of my earliest sales. Well, no, I can't remember the very first car. I certainly remember one of the very first one. What happened? A couple came in who happened to live in a small market town where I live, sort of a half hour drive away from the dealership and we're looking for an Alfred Mayo and they came in at around about 9.13 in the morning and they were still with me at 6 o'clock in the evening. Now, some of that could have been my inability to close but it was more than the fact that they knew they wanted a 156.

They were just really torn on spec because we're going back to sort of pre-internet just about. So they'd gone through the brochures, we've gone through the colour chart on the wall. We kind of pulled out the different examples of leather. So they just wanted some advice. They took many, many hours to spec. What ultimately was my dream car. It was beautiful red leather, dark grey metallic. It was of a lot to you too. So it was the top of the range. It was the 140 brake diesel which back then 140 brake in the diesel was really impressive. Yeah. Five cylinder engines. So it sounded great. Went wild. And what was really lovely about them actually.

It was such a good experience for all of us as a thank you. They brought me tickets to the RAC rally as it used to be called back in the day and invited me and my wife around for dinner. So thank you. So I must have done a good job. Yeah. This is, we always say there's three sales in any sales. So yourself first, the product second and then the deal and the numbers. You've clearly sold yourself well there all day just to be invited around and clearly they knew you're into cars at that stage. Clearly to give you tickets the RAC rally they knew that and you by the way, people who don't know Stuart, he is a car nut.

I've got to say within some go training he is our one of our biggest car nuts. I've got to say he absolutely still loves him. To this day you still love cars don't you? Cars on bikes. Yeah. I've been a bike license for 25 years. I still ride. Just spent a long time on the other month. So as a biker, that's a bit of a dream. Literally 2000 miles around the TT circuit over a couple of summers. That's been quite good. So listen, when you're in the industry, you're selling cars or maybe you're a manager. Is there anyone who stood out as a big influencer on your career? Was there anyone that was almost a mentor towards you in those early days?

Honestly, the first dealership I worked for, there was no training and we speak about this for delegates. My first day was, was it still all styrene? Yeah, it's still styrene. There's the diary. Yeah. There's a phone. You can sell me five or six in your first month. That would be brilliant. Crack on. And that literally was my induction and you sort of learned on the job, which made the transition to bodies really interesting because their approach was completely different. They really wanted to develop you and help you to be the best that you could be. And you mentioned Paul Cummings, actually, and he was the first person that I ever spent time with that really talked about mindset.

And he had this idea, which seemed a little bit odd to me. And it was this idea of writing a letter to yourself, telling you what you wanted to achieve. And he actually asked, does anyone in the audience, so this was a management training session, all the managers were involved, is we all went up to head office. So there's a couple of thousand others. That sounds too many, but it's a very large number. And I remember that the gentleman's guy called Nick Page, who was one of the regional directors for bodies. It was my regional director back in the day. And he put his hand off. And he had clearly done training before and followed through.

And he'd written a small letter to himself, telling him, he was great at what he did. This is what he was going to achieve. And I remember that Paul Cummings rewarded him with a trip out to his ranch over in the States, which kind of really set the term that Nick Page was someone I looked up to, the regional director, clearly operating at high level. And this idea of mindset and a can-do attitude, not just because he won a trip to the States, but clearly that was working for him. So kind of thinking about how I set myself up for the day, that was new to me about them. Yeah, OK. So you're in the management side of it, and I'm always interested.

Why does someone like you and I? You've got a great job. You're a manager working for a great company. Why do you decide, you know what, I don't want to be selling, I don't want to be a manager in this department anymore. I want to go and teach people how to do it. What's your motivation to get into the training side of it? I was very fortunate to fall into it. It was never something I'd considered. I had an interesting upbringing with my nine and granddad. They were very religious, which I'd seen through that point in my life. We were taught in public speaking. I'd never considered to use that in any sort of career path.

My then partner was a trainer and suggested that, you know what, you've got a real good knowledge in a motor trade, quite passionate about it. You have a history and a skill in public speaking. On paper, at least you'd make a good trainer. You're fun to give and let go. And naturally, my reaction was, because I was doing retail at the time, was where you do get your Saturdays and Sundays off, right? So I've got nothing to lose. And yeah, just sort of threw myself into the deep end. So listen, you've seen lots of trainers over your time. Okay, poor companies, you mentioned there before, your partner at the time was a trainer from what I understand.

What separates the good, the bad and the ugly? From your point of view, what makes a great trainer? For me personally, credibility. So you would need to have total confidence in what your sharing works. For me, you needed to have practiced it, you know, explaining to someone what they should do is completely different to actually doing it for yourself and realizing it works. So credibility that you would never ask anyone to do or train anyone to do something that you couldn't do yourself. Now, I've been fortunate. I've worked with many exceptional trainers over the many, many years I've been doing this from all different backgrounds. And the vast majority as I say are really good trainers.

You do still come across the ones that I know you talk about, those that can do, those that can't teach sort of mentality. But I think credibility and the ability to build rapport, because when we have a room of 10, 15 delegates in front of us, we've got a whole mix bag there of people in terms of skill set, background, what they believe works for them. So being able to share ideas that everyone in the room can buy into and at least encourage them or convince them to see if it could work for them before they make the decision that it wouldn't. I think the ability to build that level of rapport and the credibility are the differentiators.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I agree with that. And I want to get you through now. We're seeing lots of new people coming in the motor trade. And yeah, I say the younger, it tends to be the younger men. Okay. And I'm sure ladies might do this as well, but they see the Jordan Belford, the woofer Wall Street. And they go, oh, that's where I want to be. It's a great movie. Oh, wham, bam. Thank you, ma'am. They see the Darrows at some of the, these online gurus. Okay, that you're going to be driving a Ferrari next week. You're going to make millions there. I just want to get your views on some of those. Is that approach right in the motor trade in 2025?

That's a tough question to answer. So an element of that, sure, that level of confidence and self belief will carry you a long way. I think the film you've mentioned is fantastic. I'm not so sure that some of the people that portrayed as heroes actually are. But I think about it. So I started to train, would have been about 15 years ago. And back then it was all about closing. It was all about salmy of pen. You know, as you saw in the phrase. And I guess my speciality back then was the ability to close to the language to use different types of clothing. But over the years, and as long as maybe three, four, five years ago, that sort of transition now into it's all about the customer.

You know, and we know that if you look after a customer and really make them feel special, thank them for their inquiry, thank them for their visit, make sure that you are doing everything that you can do to help them make an informed choice. You look after the customer from experience, everything else tends to look after itself. So I think there's a combination. I think that the customer focus that we have first and foremost is really important. We've got to make sure that that customer becomes an advocate of our business. That they wouldn't just buy a car from us again, but they would recommend us to their friends and family. I think if we've achieved that, we've clearly done a good job.

Behind that, go back to when I was when I was new all those years ago, I had no training and I got by. I wasn't the best sales person, but I was, you know, I did a good job. And that was the ability to build before. I just get on with people. I just got on with people. They felt that they could trust me. They could trust me. I followed through on my promises. And because of that, I sold a number of cars. I also work with people who weren't particularly great at building before. They weren't necessarily nice people. I certainly wouldn't have encouraged my grandmother to buy a car with them. Yet because they followed a set of rules, if you like, they use certain words and phrases at certain times.

They did really well. And what I found is those that the real high achievers, those that did excellent, your top sort of 5%, combined the two, they've got all the right words and phrases to use at the right time, while having the ability to be transparent, to be truthful, to build before. It's the same, isn't it? That people buy from people they like, not sure that's strictly true. I think people buy from people they trust. Am I not like you, Simon? But if I truly believe that you're acting in my best interests, we're probably going to have a deal, aren't we? But if I trust you and I like you, then that's kind of the holy grail, I think, in my world.

So, in answer to your question, I think there needs to be that combination first and foremost, it's customer first, making sure that they feel that they're having the best possible experience while the sales executive is using the techniques, the process, the words and phrases that we know work. Yeah, I think you've summed up perfectly for me. And I just get a little bit worried sometimes where you see the break movie, by the way, Wolfus Ball Street. And I'm sure there's lots of good techniques. But again, we see this is 2025. Back when he was doing it, they didn't actually have the internet. If you upset someone, it's going to be hard for them to tell 250 million people.

You upset someone in a Wexford island. Very quickly, they're going to tell everyone in that town, hey, don't be going buying from Boltons because they really upset me. And also back then, again, I mean, the Wolf of Wall Street, they were ripping people off. He went to jail and great movie. But let's look after people now. Anyone can sell one car. We want to sell them the second, the third car, their family and friends cars. And it's that great service. Now, having said that, sales techniques work. I don't want to be the other side of it and build all the rapport and they love you so much. But then they go and buy from someone else who just says, do you want it?

So it's a good that for you. So I really do believe that sales process does work. You're right. We were talking before we started the podcast about an old colleague of mine, Richard. And if I can share that example, because I think it sums up really, really well. So Rich was was one of the top salespeople. And he was one of those people that absolutely had the technique, but also was a genuinely nice guy. People just want him to him. And I'd never really made my business to watch him or listen to him. He was just a great salesperson. I wanted to emulate. But I did notice I'd be working for Stoke Citroen at the time, Reg Vardy, that when it came to closing with all his customers, he'd always put his hand out over the desk and ask for the business.

So that's just £179 a month. Please may I have your business today? And I heard him do it once and I thought, that's really direct. I find that a little bit blunt that surely a lot of people are going to be put off by a salesperson that puts their hand out, expecting you to shake it in return and says, please may I have your business? And I asked him after that particular, I said, I said, Rich, that closing technique used on that couple. I've got to say, it feels a little bit direct. I'm not sure that's as effective as maybe you think it is. And he said, Stew, I've just spent two hours with them.

I said, yeah, I said, actually, no you have because I've kind of been watching and listening. He said, no, no, don't get me wrong. That's not an issue. He said, but for two hours, I have answered all of their questions. I've given them as much help and advice as I possibly could. I didn't just take them on one, but I took them on two test drives to make sure that the car was absolutely the right for them. He said, we work on sort of a self-employed basis, don't we? Now, by that, we were paid a very low basic back then. I don't have £8,000 from men, but it might have been a touch more. Certainly wasn't enough to live on.

True commission-based. He said, so for two hours, I've given my time to that couple to help them buy the car that's right for them based on the information that they've given me. And ultimately, in those two hours, other people have come and gone that I know I could have sold a car to, pointed to one of the sales execs. It was closing the deal that wasn't a particularly strong sales exec at the time. And Rich pointed to that individual and said, well, look, he's just selling a car. If I'd got into those customers first, I definitely would have sold them a car and made more money. I said, what's your point? He said, my point's really simple.

For two hours, I've done the very best job that I can possibly do. Don't we think I deserve something in return? Don't we think I deserve their business? I said, when you put it like that, absolutely, he said, so there you go. I've earned the right to ask them for the business. And that's what I'll do with every customer. And all the way through my career, Rich was always one of the top salespeople. But I love what you said there. He earned the right to ask for the business there. So many times you get salespeople, they'll see Rich do that. They'll try it where they haven't earned the right. They haven't gone on that demonstration drive.

They haven't qualified properly. They haven't trialed closed effectively there. And then they do it and think, but doesn't work. It doesn't work at all. No, no, no, he earned the right to get away with that. Yeah. And he did. It was interesting. I remember the conversation quite vividly. I said, you just said, please, ma, have your business. And he said, no, no, no, I didn't. I said, please, ma, have your business. Okay. Yeah. That makes a difference. Well, you're right, Rich, Rich followed process. You know, I thought a part exchange appraisal, a great sort of demonstration drive, you know, all the great things that we know and train. And you're right, either. The right to get something in return for his efforts.

Yeah. Listen, people like you and I, we spend our life in dealerships. And we often say that we do a lot of R&D. And now a lot of people call R&D research and development. We tend to call it Rob and duplicate. If there's a good idea there, we go on Roblet and duplicate it. And this is a good idea. You know that we spend more money on training our consultants than what what our dealers do. We go out to NIA conferences, where we're always training and trying to learn as much as we can. So consequently, you go on to lots of dealerships. Okay, you see the good and the great dealerships. In your mind, what separates the good from the great?

What do the great do? That's a really good question. Inside, we talk about this sixth sense, don't we, that is a name for it, but you walk into a dealership. You did. You get that feel. You do, don't you? You kind of walk in and you, you, you know what, you know what that morning meeting was like, let's say that, but you kind of know what the, what the mentality about dealership is. And without doubt, the best performing dealerships tend to be where the staff, the sales execs, and those and after sales are working as a team. When you have a business that's full of individuals, you know, the sort that would superglue your phone to the desk so you couldn't answer entirely.

That sort of thing. Well, there's always a bit of fun like that and a great dealership. I think those that have a team mentality, I'll give you an example. I was in a dealership down south and the sales manager there had pretty much abolished the morning meeting. It was a very brief, let's just talk about, you know, basically customer first, what have we got going on with our customers today? And he relied more heavily on a checkout meeting, just something that we talk about. And what that did was it freed up a lot of time in the morning when the after sales department are out there busiest. It's, I've always found out that nine o'clock in the morning, we're in an office talking about the everyday stuff when there's a whole list of a whole queue of customers waiting to put their current service.

And the particular sales manager encouraged that the sales executives at that time of the day would go and talk to the service customers and make them coffee and just chapter them. And you know what, it's that sort of dealership that makes the difference where they are absolutely putting the customer first. And it's one business. There isn't this invisible wall between sales and after sales. Like historically, it was always been, it's all about looking after the customer. And we know from experience, when you're making a coffee for an after sale, for a service customer, or someone who's waiting for part, and you have a bit of a chat with them, how many times do you end up selling a car anyway?

Yeah, yeah. How often do they say, what's the car? It's true and half year old car. I could sell that in a heartbeat. Okay, it just happens, doesn't it? It happens. Now playing Devins advocate, more and more customers start in their car buying journey online digitally. We know that the research shows it's what's it up to 24 hours, I think someone told me the other day in a conference, research people do before they walk in phone in or email a dealership. Even that figure there, I think it could be more than that. Now I know some people don't. But because of people starting their people know more about the car than what we do sometimes.

The sales process, the road to a sale, is it still relevant in 2003 5? Yeah, 100%. As much as ever. And there's a reason that the sales process hasn't changed in thousands of years, let alone two years or a decade or so. I think the difference is go back to my days of selling Alfa Romeo. Sure back then, they had probably, I can't remember, visited Audi Mercedes Benz, Saab, as it was back in the day. That arguably was one of my biggest competitors because a little bit of a niche brand was sold. And they come in and gather all the brochures to go back home, to do some reading, to make some more of them choices, to narrow it down.

So our job back then was to sell the car because ultimately that the internet wasn't there to do that for them. The fundamental change now is to simply find out what selling the customers want to themselves. Something I picked up from you the very first time I listened to you do look at the road to a sale. And I thought that just hits the nail on the head. Arguably the customers done my work for me. All I've got to do is ask, so why that particular car? Why that particular spec? Why was that important to you? And ultimately the customer isn't just telling you what their hotspots are, but they're kind of re-selling the car to themselves.

So in some ways, I think our jobs got a little bit easier. Now some sales like Jack's might disagree with me there, but looking at it positively, I think an informed customer. Yeah, an awful lot of our jobs have been done. Yeah, so true because that feature dumping still happens now. Don't take it the wrong way. Manufacturers training courses, and we do then, but so much of it, they focus on the car because let's be honest, that it sounds people that need to know about the evening technology and they need to know this new stuff that's coming along. The technology in modern car, there's so much on it. And sometimes we find that good old fashioned sales process is just not happening.

And again, the road sale, yes, we still believe that. It might be old hat. You might call it different things. Okay, however, we do need to find out what selling people have done for themselves before they get to us. And what's about that car put on your shopping list? And why specifically that feature there? And gently take it away from them. They will just send their reasons warning it. Of course, that's when they're silent to themselves. But it still means we plug that into the process. Can you sell a car without a demonstration? Of course, again, we all have. I'd argue why bother? Because so isn't so much easier to sell a car after we've raised the desire in that car?

Absolutely. Yeah. I'm a fortuitous that I've nearly always had a company car. Certainly in the last few years. So my latest buying experience was a new motorbike last year. And I'd already made my mind up. I thought that this particular bike, the one ended up buying, was the one for me. And the dealer encouraged me to take it out for a test ride. And I don't think I'd done more than half a mile before I absolutely knew that was the bike I was going to be buying. Nothing will ever replace that. So you're right, people will start their journey online. In some cases, they'll finish that journey online and we won't have the opportunity to interact with them very much.

But as much as we can, let's get the customers in front of us. Let's get, you know, bumps on seats, steals the deal. I'm not a big fan of all those old adages, but you know what? That's definitely more than it still works. Yeah. That's so true. But also, we can't forget that buying a car is still emotional decision for people. We need to tap into that emotional side of it. You told me a story about when you're Jacob, your first boy was born. And you were celebrating, it's not the right word, but you wanted to buy yourself a nice watch, okay, to mark the occasion and something to pass on to Jacob. Can you just tell us, tell the listeners about the story and how you were wowed when you bought that watch.

It means, as you remember my stories better than I do, I thought about this for years. Yeah. So I don't have anything to hand down to the next generation. So when we found out that my wife was pregnant, for some reason, I thought about that, you know what? It'd be really nice if I had something that I could pass down. I've been in the most trade. It's always been about the watch. I wore an Apple watch to me that, you know, does everything I could possibly need? But many people that I know and I've trained, it's about more often than not the Rolex, depending what level of management you're at might be the petech, but I'm certainly not at that level.

So I thought, you know, I've really liked to own a Rolex, certainly not to wear every day, but to wear for special occasions. So when I hand it over to my son, it isn't just there, she does watch, but it's got, what's the word for history? It's got provenance, hasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So I had kind of my mind up, I was going to buy a Rolex and I went into the Rolex dealer and the lady that dealt with me to this day is probably one of the best sales persons I've ever had the pleasure of dealing with. And so she said, you know, welcome to this particular jeweler, how can I help you? Think about buying a watch.

She said, how great, you know, what what research have you done? So I'm thinking about buying a Rolex. So she told me up to the second floor, which was their Rolex boutique. And she said, Stuart, what other watches do you have in your collection? I don't have a collection of watches. I've got my Apple watch. And we were sat down and she laid back in a chair and smiled. She said, I'd be fascinated to know your story. I said, what do you mean? She said, I know when my customers come in and buy their first watch from me, well, that's interesting to me to come back to that. She said, there's always a reason, there's always something that's happened that's made my customer think today's the day I'm going to start my collection.

So I shared with her what we've just shared, you know, my wife's pregnant, my little boy will be doing sort of six months or so. And I'm really thinking about investing in a watch that ultimately will be something to hand down to him. She said, ah, she said, that's fantastic. She said, and you know what, I meet a lot of my clients for the first time when they're in exactly that same situation. They're partners pregnant and they're thinking about investing in their child's sort of, what's the word? It's not so much futurism, but it's just something to pass down. It's so... Yeah. But she said, Stuart, if you don't mind me saying, you've really missed a bigger picture here.

I said, really, what's that? She said, you've only thought about passing this down to your son or your daughter. She said, but Stuart, this is a Rolex. This watch will last generation after generation after generation. So when you hand it down to Jacob, that'll be a magical moment. This will be here's your dad's watch. But if you're not thought about when Jacob hands it down to his firstborn, and then it'll be, this was your granddad's watch. And then the generation after that, this was your great granddad's watch. She said, Stuart, today you're just buying a watch. You're starting a legacy for your family. And honestly, I nearly fell back off my chair. I couldn't get my credit card out quick enough.

It's not quite that simple with a Rolex as you know. There was no doubt that, yeah, you know, I've absolutely made the right decision. And what's more, I'm definitely going to get this lady to find the watch that I wanted to buy. Yeah, again, she's not selling a watch there. Is she? She's absolutely selling. She's got the question. We would say, what's about that car put on your shopping list? She's asked exactly the same thing about in her words is what we say all the time there. Find out what selling people have done to themselves before they get to us. And there's no doubt when you analyze that, which, you know, doing a job that I do in the moment, I'm hearing the language that she's using back and see she's got either by complete fluke or with some great training.

There's a great sales process in there. But I didn't feel like I was being processed. That experience to this day will always be, you know, one of the best I will ever experience. But if I just go back to the language she used, when my clients buy their first watch off me, when my clients are beginning their collection. So she's already setting the seed there. I'll be going back to her to buy another watch or maybe another watch. It's really clever. But again, so clever. She's telling people that people do go back to her because she looks after every single time. Okay, it's not like I sell them one. It's not the Jordan Belford. Wambam, thank you, ma'am.

On to the next, is it? It's completely different there. I think in that example is the perfect example of someone who is combining two things I talked about earlier, clearly got a great process. I don't think she's ever stumbled across that. She has, she's been very lucky. But she owns a great process. She knows what questions to ask. She's using the correct language. But it felt completely genuine. You know, I felt like she had a real vested interest in my journey of why I was buying the watch. And again, when you combine those two things, the knowledge and the ability along with the rapport building and personality, I'm sure she's very successful. It felt genuine, probably because it was genuine.

Yeah. And that's the real key to it, I think. I think it is. So listen, let's move up a bit. Okay. And sales manager, okay. Lots of people listen to this podcast that might just be stepping into their first role as a sales manager, okay, and thinking, what do I do? What do I manage? Where do I start? Can I ask you, if you were starting in a business as a sales manager, what would you first focus on on your first 90 days? To not answer that question directly, the first thing that came to mind from experience, my own experience, going back into the retail world and the management position, and therefore having real close experiences of people around me, when you move into management, don't lose the ability that you have.

So those are going to sales management, typically, sold a lot of cars. And you'd think therefore, they will always have the ability to sell a lot of cars. But we know through experience that management is quite different to life on shop law, so to speak. And in my training career, I've met many transaction managers, business managers, sales managers, heads of businesses who have totally lost the ability to second-face, to sell a car. And I think my experience is some sales managers become fearful of second-facing because they've been replaced as another great salesperson behind them doing the job that they used to do. And we know when we've been asked to go and second-face and close a deal, people gather around like we've got these incredible sort of golden words to share.

And because we are always putting that circumstance or that situation, we maintain our ability to second-face and close a deal. But I'd say to any new sales manager, don't ever underestimate the importance of speaking with the customers, having the confidence to go and second-face and close a deal to help your team out if necessary. And if you get to a point where you've been in a management position for many years and you know that you'd rather not second-face because you don't want to lose face, just reach out. We can in confidence have a one-to-one, might only be an hour or two, where we can help you. And the techniques that they once had will still be there, but just need to freshen them up.

I love what you said there. They don't second-face because they don't want to lose face. And we get that with trainers all the time. And something I know with you all the time, I get the phone calls that I remember one Peugeot dealership on the South Coast. Did you sell two cars on the day? And I had a phone call from the dealer principal just raving about you. And there's a bottle of wine or two for you that I had to give you next time because of the cars that you sold. You're right. I do know what, just for transparency, you're very close. It wasn't actually a sold car. No, that's not true. We were delivering prospecting training.

Okay. Then we had to sell guys and we'd do a half-day session so the team was split into two. And as we do, I said, well, I'd like these are some data because I'm going to share with you best practice. And then I'm going to demonstrate it. And by no means are we perfect. Like we, you know, not every call that we make resonates with the customer. And sometimes we fluff the lines. We, you know, we're not perfect. But sure, I've got to stop you. Sometimes doesn't work better when we fuck it up. I really think it does because sounds for you. Yeah. Hold on. If he got it wrong, I can do it. And by the way, I promise you help.

And the other thing, if I'm in your dealership and I'm doing some prospecting or following up a customer and speaking to a customer, you watch the phone gets heavy for me because I get nervous. Yeah. Okay. I shouldn't admit that as a trainer, but I do. And you know what, because we're human. So here's what happened. They got me the data. And I put my phone on loudspeaker. And these were customers who recently been in for a service. And we hadn't capitalized on the opportunity while they were within the business to have a conversation. But at least at this point, we were trying to, you know, play catch up. Now, Simon, there's a lot of lock here.

This doesn't normally happen. The very first call I made live in front of seven or eight delegates. Question for you to fail sometimes. There's always one. Yeah. And said the phone and I made an appointment for the very next day. And they did go on and sell that person a car, which is where you've got the car sell from. And exactly the same thing happened in the afternoon. I couldn't believe my luck. I did training. I got the data as I looked. The look I had this morning was incredible. The very first customer I spoke to had a really good conversation. They were really excited to come back down because, you know, their car is exactly what we were looking for stock.

And you know what, it could be a win-win because I've also got a car in mind. It would be perfect for them. I said, there's no way I'm going to have that much luck again. And sure enough, the very first call I made, the customer answers, they appointed for later in the week. And the feedback was that both those customers did indeed show. And they sold a car, which is one of the bottles of champagne with pastel on to me. So thank you. But do you not just shows though? It's knowing what to say and just doing it. Just picking up the phone and you know, it's a Jordan Balfa thing, isn't it? Just pick up the phone and dial.

Simple as that. Yeah. Now listen, this is the shameless plug for our first 90-day sales training program. So listeners were used to me using this all the time. Okay. But is there anything you learned in your first 90 days of selling cars that is as relevant today in 2025 as it was when you first started? It goes back to that word for me. Credibility, transparency, honesty, never over-promise and under-deliver. I've been guilty this. We've all been guilty this. If we sense a sale, we get a little bit excited. We get a little bit carried away. We start to probably promise or offer a little bit more than what's actually feasible. So yeah, slow down, don't rush.

I mean, that would be key. Certainly if you're inexperienced, we tend to speed up as we get excited. We speed up if we think that we're sensing a sale or stay to the process, stay calm and make sure that everything that you're promising the customer, you absolutely can deliver on. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Absolutely love it. Listen, you still clearly have a passion for the motor trade. You've been a trainer, you've gone back into the retail world, you're back into training now. Going back and I love the idea that you were back for 18 months, was it? Yeah, Cofid was a, as for many of this, and certainly the business owners listening will empathize with that.

That changed my life monumentally. And so the decade or more, I've been self-employed very swiftly. Well, in just the case of a couple of phone calls came to an end and it took a while to resurrect, you live through that yourself. And so through that time, I went back into employment and in that time, yes, I've just spent 18 months working for Bama-Sole Jackson's on the island. Great company to work for. I don't superb experience. Tough, very challenging, just because it's a fairly affluent island, doesn't mean for one second that it's without its challenges. But it was really good to have the opportunity to practice what I'd been preaching for a long time. And it reminded me that while I was there, a chap called Neil, who was instrumental, ultimately, in starting me up as a trainer, he was the person that gave me my first opportunity with PSA.

He went back into a business, has had a business. He turned 50. He got a bad back and decided that the miles didn't we do in the car up and down the country, he could no longer do. And he'd been in a dealer for several months. And I said to him, I said, Neil, I'm fascinated to learn all the stuff that we train. Does it actually work? You know, right now, right here, right now. And his answer, I experienced for myself on the island, and it's absolutely correct. He said, Stuart, everything that you're training absolutely works. The reality is when you're in a business, ultimately, numbers and profit, kind of the most important thing, and now, customer experience, which we've touched on.

He said, so what I've learned is you can't do all of the things that you want to do all of the time. That is unrealistic. He said, but to have that sort of suite of of words, phrases, ideas to cherry pick from means that, yeah, do you know what? I'm finding it that my team are being very successful doing what they can when they can. And I kind of thought about that a lot on the island man. There was a lot that I wanted to do that I couldn't because the customer didn't give me opportunity. They wouldn't allow me to steer them in a particular way. You know, I fundamentally, we know we can prove that we should be doing the part exchange of praise or before we do a demonstration drive.

That works. Sometimes your customers just won't allow you to do it. They've got their own process and there are times for just after flex, but doing as much as we can, having the knowledge and the confidence to do as much as we can when we can, pays dividends. And we always talk about understanding the psychology behind the techniques is more important than the actual words. Because if you use our words, words, words, you might sound like a cheesy Australian, a cheesy Northern, a Southern or whatever. But if you understand the ideas behind it, the psychology behind it, you don't have to use our cheesy words. You can use your own cheesy words. When the customer wants to just drive the car first, great.

But if we understand that, we haven't had a chance to find out what they like most, what they would change about their car. If you know that I still need to be asking those questions beforehand, that's the important bit. So when you drive the car, you can sell the right car, the right customer at the right time. So I do believe we need to be customer centric. It's a great word that's been around lots. But you still don't understand the psychology as to why this would be the way that we do it. The utopian way, the perfect way. Yeah. It's one of the things that for me has made our job even more interesting over the last four or five years is the psychology.

We've kind of moved on from this is what works. But we for ourselves, Simon, Sinek, why? We've really looked at why people behave the way that they do. I also find when you share that with our delegates, this doesn't work because it worked for me or it doesn't work because it worked for a mate of mine back in the day. Here's the psychological evidence why this is best practice. I find that's a really powerful learning tool. But it's kept my enjoyment of the job because for us, we're always learning. It's that R&D, isn't it? We're always hearing new ideas and new ways doing things. So it keeps us fresh. Yeah. I think that's what we need to be as fresh as we can because the world is changing.

However, people haven't. People are still people. I think that's the constant all the time. Now, listen, I'm going to put you on the spot. If you could share just one tip, one idea, one technique that either a sales measure, an after sales measure, a service advisor or a salesperson could go back and put in place today right now and sell red or amber work, sell paint and fabric, sell a car, put more profit or get a salesperson and do what they should do. What one technique do you want to leave? You all put me on the spot for their third or fourth time. For me, one of the things that anyone for themselves or as a manager for their team can implement that will have the biggest effect is language.

So this is something that was drummed into me many years ago. There's not good and bad. There's good and there's less good or there's good and there's opportunity and really raising negative language is really powerful. It's powerful when you're trying to develop your teams as a manager. It's really powerful with customers. I'm afraid I can't do that, Mr. Customer, because that's really negative. I'm afraid. People don't like to hear no. People like to hear solutions. They don't need a light to be told, have you considered it doing it this way as opposed to, no, I can't do that. So just look at your language. How do you communicate with your teams, your customers? And we talk about this heavily in road to a sale.

There's a reason that we use a lot of negative language. Our whole psyche, back in cave Mondays, the way that we survived was by being pessimistic. What's the worst possible thing that could happen? Because if we prepare for that, everything else should be okay, right? And through that, I'll just give you a quick example. This is one I share with people in training. My name, we're used to say things like, should you get out of that tree, you'll fall and break your neck? Or should you get away from the water, you'll fall in and drown? Should you get away from the road and bust or hit, you know, bust or run over you? It's never run over by a boss.

I never drowned and I never fell out of a tree. But that's probably because my grandmother put the fear of God into me, that, you know, the worst possible thing that could happen. And I do it with my boy, you know, he's nearly turning forward. And because you don't want them to fall into danger, you sort of educate them, but the worst thing is always around the corner. And through that, our attitude, our language tends to come from a negative sort of pessimistic angle as opposed to a positive and can do. So just really look at that. Look at the words and phrases that you're using. Nothing's bad, nothing's broken. We sell cars, we're not brain surgeons.

There's going to be good and there's going to be less good. You know, there's things that we've done brilliantly today and tomorrow there's going to be opportunities. I love that. On the first trainee course you sat on with me, you said skip like a trainee course, but I'll tell you, you can't ask a customer. So anything you don't like about your current car. Okay. And that's an I took on board from you many years ago. And you're right. Has everything improved anything you changed? You're absolutely right. What don't you like about your current car is, you know, one of those age old, you know, if you say to a delegate, what's your top 10 questions to ask?

What don't you like about your current car? What the question is looking to achieve is brilliant. The challenge we're saying to a customer, what don't you like about your car and first that they made a mistake buying that car in the first place? So we'd simply change that to there's anything you could change on your current car. What would it be? Wow. Do you know what I wish I had more space because we had another baby and blah, blah, blah. So yeah, there's an example of using positive language. I love it. Listen, I've really enjoyed that. Okay. How do people get hold of you? What's the easiest way LinkedIn? What's the easiest way to find you?

LinkedIn, absolutely. I think that works for all of us. Stuart.wallbank.s, that's in co-training.co.uk. All of your listeners are confident we're connected with you through LinkedIn through some co-training. So you'll find me that. No problem. And again, reach out to Stuart. If you're one of those managers, say, give us some ideas on how to second face a game, Stuart will speak to you on the phone. He'll talk to you and give you some ideas. Certainly. Stuart, it was great to have you on the podcast. Thanks, Simon. Enjoy that. Thank you. 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.