When should a manager step in, what should they say, and how do you do it without burning trust? In this episode I sit down with trainer (and ex-sales manager) Stuart Wallbanks to break down “second-facing” the right way – why it must feel organic (never “before I can let you leave”), the quick “first-face” intro that makes later manager conversations effortless, and the exact language that keeps deals (and relationships) intact.
We cover praising your salesperson in front of the customer, using authority without ego, and simple word-tracks like “we work within a market” that reset expectations fast.
If you’ve been buried in reports, this is your nudge to get back on the floor and enjoy the bit of the job that actually moves the needle.
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
Time, welcome to the Selling and the Motor Trade podcast in Association of Car Without. The online car-changing destination. Together we share tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department, and generally put more profit into your department, dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett, or some of you might already know me as Skippy. First thing, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi, welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Today I'm joined again with Stuart Warbanks, and we're going to talk about all things second-facing, double-closing, call it what you want. So Stuart, welcome back to the podcast. Hi, Simon. Listen, I wanted to talk about this because when I first started as a sales manager, too many years ago now, my boss, it just kind of ran into me and said, if you want to make a big difference, make sure you speak to every single customer before they leave the dealership, no matter what. If you want to make an impact in the dealership, every telephone and query phone up and speak to the customer yourself afterwards. Today, every digital inquiry, I'd want to make sure that it's dealt with the right way. But Stuart, I don't know if that happens. Do sales measures, business managers, transaction managers, are they speaking to every customer every time before they leave? Well, should they speak to every customer before they leave? Yeah, it's another one of those questions where there's no right or wrong answer. Having done two years back in dealer at management level, sort of starting a few years ago, I've been in that situation. So speaking in the real world, ideally, yes, you'd love to speak with every customer, first face, second face, the reality is, and please management team out there, you'll either appreciate this or you'll hate me for it. But we're kind of glorified admin. We've got so many forecasts to do, and so much for pulling to do, and we've got stock meetings and so much to do. So they're physically aren't enough hours in the day to be as in control of the sales processes we would like. Again, you could argue that the best place for a sales manager to be sat would be out in the showroom so their eyes and ears on the road. But again, the demands of the job doesn't necessarily always make that convenient. So the situation that I find myself in was you've got your trust and management team that you manage, and ultimately, you know who needs your help the most, you know who typically you can trust. But you should always inspect what you expect. So I'm thinking of a particular brand manager who was brilliant at his job, and 90% of the time, he would be absolutely fine functioning by himself. But we'd still check in with him, or I'd still ask his line manager to check in with him just to make sure he wasn't caught in any corners. Second facing, you haven't mentioned first facing, I think that's just as powerful. If we could every time, absolutely. Is it feasible? I'm not so sure. Yeah. Yeah. The amount of reporting and everything we have to do from when I was a sales manager. Now, I've only ever been a general sales manager, not the head of business or something like that. So I love what you're saying. You need to manage your managers and get them to do what they can. But I've got to say that as a sales controller, a showroom manager, we do need to inspect what we expect. And one thing I will say, sometimes sales managers say, I haven't got the time to second face. And by the way, I live in the real world. I know that we're in dealerships all of our life. We see what happens. But sometimes I'd say, you haven't got time to second face because you're not second facing. Now, I know that sounds a bit mad, but this is what I mean. You've got Billy. You've got Jenny, okay, that you need to go out and second face. The first time you do it, you realize that they qualify to one car. Okay, we haven't got the qualification right. And you're not doing a second face. You're almost starting the sale from scratch. And you spend all your time trying to start over again. But I would urge you to start second facing. Because when you do that, the next time Billy or Jenny comes to you, you're going to know, ah, hold on for a second. Their qualification is wrong last time. So when they say, can I have evaluation in this car, before you jump in to put your evaluation hat on, you might say, whoa, hold on for a second. Tell me a couple of interesting things about your customer. Hey, what's about that particular car that got their attention? Listen, are we showing them the right car there? Because actually, there might be more car than actually the budget can stretch to. So then that's one part of it. You'll realize that you've got a weakness there. The other thing I love to say there's dirt is when you start second facing, and you come out and say things like, but Mr. and Mrs. customer, we work within the market. We don't create the market. When you come out and say, hey, listen, that's not feasible. How flexible can you be? And it works. You're building and you're gending. Use it themselves. They sell the car and then we don't need to second face. So yeah, can we do a hundred percent of the customer 100% of the time? I don't think it's feasible. But don't use that as a cop out. Just such a what you've just said, we always tell everyone we work with if we're in your business and you would like us to second face, it gets to do it. We enjoy it. And from my experience, a gas to do that more often than you'd expect. And it's funny, when I go and second face a customer and I just introduce myself that I'm from the from the head office part of management team, I keep it generic. I see all the sales execs kind of trying to get as close as they can like. I've got these incredible like words of wisdom that I've never imparted before. And I don't know if they're impressed or totally deflated when all they hear me say are the things that we talk about and are training exactly the things that you've just said. We don't create a market. We don't work within a market. But how powerful is that? Just to save the opportunity. So if you're a manager, what an opportunity for you to remind your team of all of the right words and praises that we can be using. Some people listen to this though, and this might be the elephant in the room. They might be rusty. I mean, they know how to sell cars. They're in that position because they were generally good at selling cars. Okay, that's how it works generally. Okay, but they might not have done it for a while. Could there be people listen to this podcast thing or hold on? Isn't my credibility shot if I go out and speak to a customer and I can't sell a car? Could that be a danger? I think it's completely normal. I'm pretty certain whatever profession you're in, if you had somebody of the same profession, even more so if you managed them, what you do your job. So I'll share this with you. It's rare we're in the same room at the same time because our lives are so busy all over the country. Well, there's no doubt if you happen to be in a training room when I'm delivering, I'm very conscious of it, and I'm probably even more self-aware and critical of myself than I would ordinarily be. If that makes sense, because someone who knows my job is listening to me do my job. And I'd like to think that everything here is absolutely on par. So I think the challenge I see with sales managers that they probably have got rusty, it might be years since they actively sort of did the process, the road to a sale start to finish. So that puts a little bit of pressure on them when it comes to closing the sale. But I think the pressure comes from the fact that they've got typically one of their team that they manage watching them perform or not. And I think it just unnecessarily it puts extra pressure or the management team for extra pressure on themselves to perform. And we tell all the managers that we work with. If ever that you resonate with that, just have a word with us. We can do it in quiet. You know, upstew at Simon, Andrew, Darren, I see the volume in second-facing. I don't do it as much as I would like. I feel a little bit rusty, but I don't want anybody to know. Let's have half an hour and a hour and a coffee, and we can have a chat and we can give you some tips. Well, actually, I'll go one search further. I think sometimes salespeople learn more when I get it wrong than when you get it right. And I have no problem saying, I've stopped that one up, didn't I? What should I have done? Because you know what, there is no way that I can close every customer every single time. If we could do that, I would be sitting there talking to the sales people. Do you know what, it just doesn't work that way. And I think there's nothing wrong saying, hey, listen, this customer's not closeable. I am certain that I've burnt some customers because I've tried too hard with the eyes. Look at me to try and sell a car there. When the real world, if they weren't looking at me, I would have backed off a lot earlier. But I promise you, they learn more. I don't think that I do it. Before I ever go out in second-face, I grab the sales person and say, right, you know your customer and I do. This is what I think I'm going to say. How do you think it's going to work with your customer? Okay, you're lying public. So you come to what I'm going to say. Right. I'll tell them what I'm going to say before I go out there and do it. So they know what to expect. And please, sales people, if you want your manager to come out in second-face, stay there with them. So you can hear what they're saying because I promise you, a customer will try it on if you're not there as a sales person. Now, people who listen to this can see you're almost laughing there. But don't customers try it on? Billie said I could get that amount. They absolutely do. There's two things I'm quite passionate. One I've already touched on. The best management team, the most profitable business is typically where the managers make space for second-facing. What they also prioritize first-facing, just that soft, gentle, hi, welcome to such and such. I can see Simon's looking after you. My name's Stuart. I'm one of the management team here. If there's anything I can do for you today, please feel free to knock on my door and ask. I'm thinking of a particular sales exec, Amy, who was absolutely brilliant. And she would force that first base. So the management team, we were all equals. We'd all help with any part of the job that we could. So there were occasions I could hear Amy's heels over the showroom floor getting louder and louder. And I'd know she'd be with a customer. And I might be in the middle of a report or something. I'm thinking, oh, Amy, please not now. But then she'd be there. Stuart, I just want to introduce you to Bob and Sue. These are my lovely customers. I told you about earlier. They'd come into luck at the RS3. I've explained that you're one of the great, one of the people on the team that's really going to help do a great job finding the market value for their car. So it put me in an uncomfortable place where I had to prioritize talking to Amy's customers. It's brilliant. And you know what, she forced that. The second face was just a natural event because I've already had that. It's great to meet you. The RS3, water car, if I remark it for a car, I'd love to think I could stretch myself to that vehicle. Look, Amy's brilliant. She's one of our top teams. So go and enjoy that drive. Don't enjoy it too much. And I'll see you when you get back. It would almost be rude to not second face having had that conversation. Again, managers out there listening don't hate me for this. I have said to sales execs, but my boss just doesn't want to second face. He just doesn't like it. So you use the Amy technique. What are you doing? Use the Amy technique. Walk them over and say, hey, such and such. I just want to introduce to my customers. I've explained that what you do is and put them in your comfortable position while they've had to make time for your customers. And from experience, the second face will just happen. And what Amy's doing there to make sure the four square is stacked and ready when she comes back from the domestic drive, you have to not sit there to the back of the queue there. I love it. Absolutely. I've not heard that one before. I really like that technique. The second one I'm really passionate about and I was on the customer side of the desk a lot of years ago looking at an Audi. 21st put the TFT dash in the TT and I thought it looked incredible. So I went to look at a car and the sales exec came out with the four square. And I liked the car. I clearly didn't like enough to buy it because I didn't. And I used the famous old words. Thanks for that. I'm just going to go home to think about it, which was quite genuine. The sales exec said word for word, steward, before I can let you leave, I've got to go and have a word with my boss. He'll want to come and talk to you. And I remember reacting quite, quite badly to that. I can almost focus on the before I can let you leave. And I said something that looked quite politely, whatever conversation you need to have with your boss is absolutely fine. That's your prerogative. But I'm not going to sit here while you have that conversation. I will be in touch. And I talked to delegates about that. And he got my God, you were so rude. I actually don't think that I was. No, before I can let you leave, that isn't what second-facing is about. We're not forcing the customer, nailed to a chair that we've got to control over what they can and can't do. Yeah. Yeah. So true. So true. I was just thinking before, I want to go back a little bit about the Amy thing because it just went to mind. Sorry. Yeah. It's just we have to talk about Kevin Conley, okay, great advocate of the podcast. Kevin, we're going to get you on the podcast one day. Okay. You know that. And he will be coming on it. But I used to, the guys used to call me the coffee boy when I was a general sales manager because I would go and make the coffee side. I how I is is building looking after you. Okay. Is Sean looking after you? Right. Let me teach you right with coffee there. Just so it's that first face. And Kevin said, goodness me, did you just make that up? Did someone tell you that? No, he said, my father used to always make the coffees all the time. And Kevin Conley, west of Ireland, okay, runs a great business there. And I believe to this day, he still like makes the coffees. He talks about how his father does it there. It really does make a huge difference there. Is that that first face? So, when you come in second face, it's not this, who's that person in the corner that's stacking the up? Who was that person there? We're on their side. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, really. Yeah. So something else. So I manager that likes the idea of this. Listen, get in contact with Stuart, Darren, Andrew, myself there. And we'll talk you through a framework. But the first thing I want to say is you need to praise the sales person in front of your customer. Okay. You don't want to come out here. Hey, listen, I'm the man with the calculator. I'm going to let you know if you have this car or not. Okay. I'm the whole decision maker because you might inadvertently damage the relationship between your customer and your salesperson. Because we know that people buy people. And I always know when I've done that, where customers bought the car and the customer phones up about changing the delivery time, the cherished plate transfer, or want to change the color of the car. If they speak to and ask for me, not my salesperson, I've inadvertently damaged that relationship. So I want to turn around and say, hey, listen, first I got to tell you Stuart's working really hard for you. He's in there beating me up. He's getting me phone a few more independent buyers. He tells me I'm hoping to keep your payments to X amount. He tells me I'm hoping to get Y amount for your car. Is that right? Okay. You've got to praise your salesperson. And do me a favor, managers. Don't be little the salesperson in front of the customer. In fact, even behind it, I tell you what, the amount of time that you come out as a manager with the word boss behind your name, you've got more clout. You can say exactly the same thing that your sales person said. And it'll work for you. Well, it hasn't for them. It's not because you're a better salesperson. It's not because you've got more experience. It's just because of the fundamental of comparison. Okay. One person said the market value in cars 14 and a half, they need another expert to see if it's a good deal or not. If you don't second face or double close, they need to find that another expert from another dealership. If you come out and say exactly the same thing that your salesperson said, it's worked for you because your second person said it and you've got the clout of boss behind your name. Do me a favor. Please don't use that as a means to stroke your own ego. See how I just sold that car there? See how I got that extra money? That's why I'm doing what you're doing. One day you'll be half a good at this meeting. Please don't do that because it's just not true. But it does work because you've got more clout. And again, Stuart, a little secret, what we do at Symco Training introduces at Stuart Simon from Head Office. It has even more clout there. And we know that. Of course we use that. We're not silly. That really does help. Yeah. Just to reinforce what you've said, I've heard that with friends and family. Did you get a good deal? Absolutely. I got the boss out of his office. I made sure I paid the minimum. Even to the point, and I find I know businesses that operate like this because the sales manager can genuinely be busy and not able to second face. Does it have to be a manager that second faces? But you have senior sales that you know and trust that you've brought you up with. So true. And you get them to second face. Now, there's a little bit of theatre there. We'd never lie to the customer. We'd never deceive them. The customer will assume that you're in a senior position or a management position. But yeah, if you've got sales exactly, you could put it up with it. You trust to second face your customers. I know retailers, well, that worked really well. I know I want to go back to time there. But when modern car dealerships, there is lots of management. Sometimes there's almost too much management. Okay, sorry, don't take that the wrong way. But I do believe that sometimes if we make the time, you're going to get more bang fee bucks. That's where it's going to put money into your deal. Here's my little way of trying to convince the sales manager to get out and second face every single customer. Too often I hear this conversation in dealerships. And this is 2025. This is August. And this still happens. And I was in a client, wasn't last week, it was the week before. And you might know the scenario. His salesperson says to the customer. So what you're saying is, if I can pay your 14,500 your car, you'd be happy to go ahead and secure that car. And you'd be happy to leave me 2,000 euros or dollars or pounds to secure the car. Yes. Great. Let me go and check with the boss. So 14,500. Great. Hi, Mr. Sales Measure. They really want 15,000 to their car. No, no, no, see if I can get for 14 and a half. Okay, I'll try. Great news, Mr. Customer. I can give you 14 and a half. Let me tell you, managers out there, sometimes your top salespeople are working harder on you than the customer. And by the way, I don't blame them for doing that. I think that your top salespeople could they're smart. They've just worked out. It's easier to work on you than them. I promise you, you just need to go out once or twice and say, hi, Mr. Customer, my salesperson tells me, hoping to get 15,000 your car. Is that right? No, I said 14 and a half. I promise you, you'll only do it once. You don't have to say anything. It's then just a, you know, a salesperson knows, don't pull that trick with me. Don't try and pull the wool over my eyes there. I know that happens in more and more dealerships where people are paid just on the bonnet of the car, just on the nomad. Don't forget the profit there. And those salespeople working harder on management than they are. I've been on the receiving end of that. You know, come on, boss, can you just, I need this one. I'm on the way from Target. You know, you could have puppy dog eyes. They'll try all sorts. And you do as a manager, think, if you're trying this hard, not the inside to a customer, please can help your business. I'm only one from Target. But the principle is, yeah, how hard are they working with a customer in a professional transparent way, which, you know, we train the word tracks to do that. We're not talking ever about burning customers. But are your sales team already equipped with the word tracks and the confidence and the ability to have those conversations before they come and talk to you? Now, we have a framework on how to second face, how to double close. Or when you're at stalemate, for when down the road is cheaper, for when people want to go and think about it, we have all those frameworks there. And again, reach out and we can share with you those frameworks there. But if you're worried about what to say, here's what I'd say. Say exactly what you want a sales person say to your customer, say things like, hey, listen, that's just not feasible. How flexible can you be? Not we can't do it for that. What would you buy that? Say things like, hey, we work within a market, we don't create the market. Okay, well, things like there might be a little bit of room to move or there might be a gesture realistically, what we hope to get in your car, what 14 six, 14 seven, something like that. If you use those same things, your sales person will listen to what you've said, they'll hear what works and they'll regurgitate it. You see, my view is our sales management, they should be the trainers in the business. And there's we go in and we train salespeople. But actually, we spend most of our time to try to train the managers, because if we spend the time with the managers, the managers then should be the trainers in the business. So again, if you want the framework, reach out to us. But use the things that you're using, apparently, and make sure you don't shortcut the process. Okay, I know why you're busy. You got that report that you need to do. You got the scream of a customer you need to get back to. But if you shortcut the process, what's our sales person going to do? It's the right view. Let me go and do it. Hey, listen, sure, you're a manager, listen, this, what other tips would you give for an effective double closed second phase? I never know what to call it. Double closing up. So my two passions around the subject are the first face. And the second one I touched on was how we introduce the manager, I think is key. So you arrive, we train the framework. I don't really want to touch on it, because unless we had a whole separate podcast to explain the science behind it, it wouldn't make sense. But I'll just summarize by saying that the manager second-facing should be organic. It should be natural. It absolutely shouldn't be before I can let you leave. The manager, and this is what we'll talk about on another podcast, and we do in our training, the manager will become aware that the customer wants to think about it. And there's a way that we demonstrate that and we train that. And the manager needs to take it upon themselves to make themselves available. That's the right time. Yeah, so true. So true. Well, listen, today it was just because of what happened a couple of weeks ago. And we thought we'd do a quick podcast on this about managers. We're urging you to try and get out, get away from the chair, go and speak to the customer, because I'll tell you the last thing I want to leave the listeners with. It's a fun part of the job. Isn't it that way? You do the deal. Get away from those reports. Yes, I know the reports are important. Yes, we know that we absolutely do. I tell you what, it's the fun, it's the buzz of it. That's why you started doing what you're doing. So get back to do it. That's why I want to leave the listeners with anything else to leave them with. Sure. The thing I was thinking now, wasn't it's free beer? Whenever I closed the sale for any of the team, it was that's a pint you it was never I closed it. You couldn't because that's not how we operated for them. It's definitely and anyone listening who I may close the sale for in the future. It's definitely a pint. Listen, thank you very much for that. And I'll see you again next time. 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.
