In this week’s episode I am chatting with Ian Parker – Ian began in the motor Industry in 1983 at Central West Ford selling new Fords and Used Cars in Orange NSW Australia.
By 1989 Ian had established Ian Parker Motors in Orange starting with only 9 used cars on 800sqm block, and 2 staff.
Ian Parker Motors grew into a leading dealership in the Central West where everyone shopped for a quality used vehicle ~ with a quirky little jingle “Ian Parker Cares” which is still remembered today!
Now Ian runs a successful automotive coaching business – https://ianparkerinternational.com/
We discuss the changing face of the motor trade over the last three decades and discuss what has changed , but crucially – what fundamentals are still present in practice now.
This is a 2 part interview – part two to follow in a couple of weeks!
Here are the highlights:
(01:55) Ian’s beginnings
(04:10) There’s your desk and phone…sell cars!
(09:08) Building relationships
(13:51) Sell yourself first
(18:27) Hungry for information
(26:01) Fixing the issues
(34:17) Online vs face to face
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 inspiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom.
We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon’s words ‘real world’, it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visit www.symcotraining.co.uk
Welcome to Selling in the Motor Trade, an association with automotive management and symco training. This is the weekly podcast where we share best practice, tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department and generally put more profit into your dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett, or some of you might already know me as Skippy. Firstly, I want to say thank you for taking the time to tune in. Hi, and welcome to another episode of Selling in the Motor Trade. This time we're going down under and I'm speaking to Ian Parker. He's the owner, the founder of the Auto Academy. Now, first, Matt Ian at a National Automotive Dealers Association conference too many years ago.
We're sitting in the international lounge where if anyone knows that and he was out there with his partner, I was out there with MMY wife and we just hit it off. Two Aussies in a foreign country, halfway around the world there. We've just stayed in touch for a long time because we're other sides of the world but we both pretty much do the same thing. Ian, I just want to say hello and welcome aboard and thank you for coming on to the podcast. Hey, Simon and thanks for having me on your podcast. It's a pleasure to be on here. Listen, everyone listening to this, I just want to say thank you again for everyone who is sending comments, for everyone who is actually sending out to all the people in the dealership.
This is going out to 5,000 people every week now and it's just taking off. So again, please do what you have to do. Like it, send it off, send comments out there. We just want to get this out to as many people as we can because remember it's all about sharing ideas, tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, make more profit in the motor train. So Ian, tell me, how did you get started in the motor train? That was a long time ago, Simon and probably half of you at least has not been born then. So I actually started in industry in 1983 in a place called Orange in New South Wales, Central West New South Wales.
It's freezing cold in winter, so it's probably like England. It's really nice in summer. So I started there as a training salesperson. I actually applied for a job in real estate. How old would you have been back then? Back then, I would have been 22. So I'd cut my teeth at Coles and then I'd call Supermarket and I'd left there and I applied for a job at a real estate agency and at a car dealership they sold forward. The real estate agency told me I would never make the in sales so I couldn't get a job in sales so I thought that's okay. And then the car industry, the car dealership gave me a job and actually read me and said, you're actually our second choice if you still want it.
The first choice guy was experienced but he went off and opened his own spare parts business. And if you want to sit down, that's great. When can I start? They said, you know, start on Monday, I think. So that was August 1983. Do you love it when they say you're our second choice? Just to welcome you along. Yeah, okay. So I didn't know what I was going to say. Well, if I'm second, that's it. I thought, I actually, I think I said to the guy because I actually knew the sales manager that interviewed me because in my early days when I was at school, I used to sell ice creams and confectionery at the movie theaters in, because one of those boys helped me.
Yeah, yeah. The things, right. And he used to come and buy some stuff off me and he just said, I just want to tell you that because I didn't want you to find out later. And I said, the only problem about making me second choice is you'll regret it because I should have been first when you see what I'm going to do for you. Yeah. You had the confidence back at 22. Yeah. So that's where it was. So I don't, I just, it was an interesting time because back in those days, as you remember in Solomon, we were fully trained before they put you on the show and floor. The day I started, it was there's your desk, there's your chair, there's a phone, sell cars.
Thank you. And that was my training. No, no, the training now is printing off a business card. Our good friend Patrick Tessie says that all the time. That's the training that happens. Print your business card. And I would say, Patrick, business cards, I don't think they even print them anymore. It's all digital. It's not that. It's true. So listen, I asked all the time because this separates the real motivators for me. Do you remember the first car you sold? Actually, I do. It was about, I think it was about a week or 10 days after I started. And as I said, it was August 83. So in, they actually had on the show before the last of the V8, 4.9 V8, Fairmont Geeis, right?
Yeah. It was in dark blue metallic and it like was nearly into 12 months old and they hadn't sold anyway. I ended up selling it to a couple at under local hotel. So that was my first car that I sold. I thought, and because, you know, I was new, I didn't know too much and whatever the window price was and, you know, they had room and it negotiated. And my thing was, well, that's the price. That's the price. Because that's, that's the price. I've sold this old stocker and, you know, it was, I can't even remember what the gross was, but it was all everyone was doing hands. It was, it was great. I, they sold an old, the oldest stocker I had and boo, they made money out of it.
So, but, yeah, isn't that so true? Now, listen, overage stock, we haven't had in the motor trade for a long time because of semiconductors and wiring looms and getting used car stock through Europe has been hard work. But in normal times, isn't so true. The brand new guy always sells the overage car. Because he doesn't know it's overage. And all the other guys have been walking around it for the last six months, 100% Simon. And the thing with it is what, what I used to train my salespeople with that the only people that know what's overage is you. The consumer doesn't know. So if you have the same intelligence and consumer, you'll sell it to them.
Yep. Yep. That's so, so true. But, but also the experienced guys walk around it because I think there's no profit on that anymore. It's all gone out the window there and always, always happens. So do you remember when you're back selling any day that stands out, any week that you thought, yeah, I've made it now? Yeah, there was a couple of times with a couple of demos we sold, but I had another dealer principal had a an XE fan on gear ESP. So that was the sports version of those vehicles. And it was the one of the turbo versions that Ford brought out the time. Sorry, it was a, it was just a fuel injected ESP family gear.
And he actually put a turbo on it and spent all his money on it like tricked it all up and had it for three or four months, a little bit of three or four turbos and the thing was like, no one liked it, put it on the show in four. And, and I ended up selling that one Saturday morning. And, you know, that was another one of those days that, you know, all the senior guys, as you would say, because there's only a few months after I started, they were all, I'm not selling that. That's a, you know, that's this type of car. You know, a dog or I'm not, I don't want to know about it.
You know, and, you know, I had some people come in that had a gentleman come in that was a business owner in town and he looked at it, fell in love with it, loved all the things about it. And I sold the term. And again, you know, the, the deal of principal thought, man, this is great. But like, you know, he's got rid of this old stock, that old stock. And to me, they were just cars that had to be sold. So, you know, you've got to work out if there's a profit in it, I'm going to sell it and I'll make a profit out of it. So you made $2 out of some, you made $200 out of it.
Yeah, I love just listening to some of the brands. You said, well, forward, sorry, some of the models and what if it's making me homesick, making me feel very old now. I started in the, the Holden world, Tony Island Holden. So it's, OK. Yeah. And so I read in blue was always the thing over there. Wasn't there? Yeah. Always the thing. So yeah, you're making me homesick. So listen, this is a shameless plug for our first 90 day sales training program. And we've got two trainers here, but we have a program called the first 90 day program where we often say that the things you learn in the first three months of your business could and bad last with you for the rest of your life.
And I know I'm still doing things that Rex King taught me all those years ago when I, Mel Deese taught me all those years ago when I started in the business. So can I ask you, is there anything that stands out for you that you learned in the first 90 days that is as relevant today as it was all those years back back in 1983? Yeah. Look, a couple of things were I was always focused on the relationship selling. I was always about building relationships with customers. I was all the belief that, you know, they buy from people they know like and trust. And, you know, I used to see some of the senior guys go in and they try to crunch people and everything.
And I just keep building relationships with people. And, you know, I had people come back buying cars after cars from me. And you know, it's time went on and I opened my own dealership. You know, their kids were coming and buying cars off me. But probably an example that I you, the real story that happened to me, it was about, I think it was a, I was late 93 early 94. And I remember this like it happened yesterday. There was a gentleman that's coming in. I was, I was pretty cock sure of myself, I suppose in some ways like, you know, cause I'll sell some cars was doing pretty good. I've only been in industry for a few months.
And this gentleman walked in, he would have been in his probably late 50s. He wore a tweed jacket, very well dressed type of guy. And I could, you know, I know him like I knew, you know, where he lived, he owned a property in Oberon. I saw the name of the property and he walked in and I walked out and I said, I'll get a make, can I help you? Our show when I walk out on the yard was all glass. And you wouldn't believe the dealer principal and the financial controller was standing the window looking at him as I walk out to talk with his wife. And I've gone out and said, can I make how I can help you?
And anyway, he got his finger out and he drove into my chest. I am not your mate. I've never been your mate. Don't ever ever call me your mate. We are not mates. And like I've gone from figure I was, you know, King shit to turn island to. Yeah, yeah. And you're 22 years old, right? Yeah. And I've gone. And you know, okay, so I had two options and I could have put the tar between my legs and walked off and thought, I've really burnt this or I'm going to sell your car, me and we are going to be mates and we're going to be the best of mates. So that was my two choices, right?
So challenge. That was a challenge. So I apologize to him, right? And a very long story short, I sold him a car. It was a yellow XE Falcon S pack with base trim. I sold him that car. And back in those days, you would have remembered that these men, there was things called men's clubs. I mean, today we call men's clubs is where they women's run around the polls. But back in those days, where are we going with this? So back in those days, they used to have these men's clubs where the men were going. Yeah, they were going to reach Scott smokes cigars, sitting big leather lounge chairs, and there was only the men were invited.
And there was always the world to do guys would go to those clubs, right? And I remember there was one in orange, it was one in Bathurst. Anyway, so this guy, we sold him a car. I sold him the car. I turned him around, sold him the car. And he said, I want you to deliver it to the address. He said it's the men's club in Bathurst, blah, blah, blah. So anyway, I'm thinking, wow, I've actually not oversold you a car, but you're inviting me to wear all your friends at the men's club. So I've rocked in there to deliver the car. And he's introduced me who I was and I was his friend. Yeah.
Right. So we've done all that. And as I said, he owned property in Oberon. And back in those days, like I used to do a bit of shooting and things like, you know, a bit of fun and that sort of thing. I could invite him down to his place under his property. Right. And I sold him another four cars or five cars. And we were mates in the end. We were good friends and to turn around. But the thing with it is that as a young salesperson, I had two options here. I could have went one way and walked away and lost all confidence or you got to back yourself. Yeah. And you got to know that, OK, if I stuffed up, I got to fix it.
And I did a fix a quick and turn it all around, which is what we did. See, I just love stories like that. I remember Rex King. So one of my first mentors, sales manager, Tony Island Holden. And I remember I would have been 18, something like that in 1718, something like that. OK. And I went out again. This was a cane farmer, sugar cane farmer. And I went out to his place and tried to do a deal, try and sell him a Commodore. And afterwards, I couldn't get there. Couldn't get him over the line there. So Rex said, OK, let's have a look at what are you done. And he's going through the process.
Had you got good rapport with him? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, good rapport. I've talked to him really well and the family's there. I've taken the car to his place. There, he's not coming and seen me. And Rex said, no, you've not sold yourself. Remember, Simon, three sales in the email. So yourself first, the product second and then the deal. So Rex, no, I definitely sold myself even off of me a beer. He said, oh, good, good, good, good. Did you have the beer? And I said, no, I didn't because I'm on a provisional license, Rex. I can't have the beer. And I tell you what, he rips trips off me. He said, what? The man's offered you a beer and you're not taking one.
You're not. Listen, if the man off is you smoking, you're not smoking. You're now a smoker. OK? Now the man's offered you a beer and you're not taking it. Listen, he's a sugar cane farmer. If you're out there, you're going to have five sugars in your team. Do you understand me? OK, I'll do this. I can't have a drink. Now, guys, listen to this. They were different times. OK? Yeah. You don't feel like you're going to smoke with a cuss rip there, a smoker. But I suppose the point he was teaching me there is you go sell yourself first. You go get along with the guy there and I tell you what, different times there, completely different times.
But he was a great mentor for me in the business. There's two people really stood out for me. Mel Deeth, a guy I know Mel will listen to this still. And Rex Keem. There's those two people that really helped mold me. And they took an interest and did it. Did anyone do that for you? When you're 22 years old, did anyone did you look up to and say, right, I want to emulate them. I want to be like them. Look, I probably the original sales manager that hired me, who went out, he was only there for a couple of months and went out and out his own yard. So I sort of was, you know, probably the fact that I got a start with him.
Yeah. Then there was another sales manager that was there for a couple of years. He had some good habits and some not so good habits. I took his good habits and he lies in. But interesting enough, when I started in 1983, there was a guy in the US that was just starting to make a little bit of a name for himself called Grant Cardone. You know, right? And, you know, we've met. But so I started following his stuff and I still to today, you know, and that was a guy that I listened to a lot. I turned the Americans and more fondant. Yeah. And and I was he fired it because they sort of, you know, how it was.
But yeah, so, you know, that was probably one of the guys that I listened to a lot. You know, listen to his back in those days, I would take smoke. The cassette tapes for the people who are under 20 listen to this. That's how we used to transport music in the olden days. Okay, cassette tapes. It's quite funny. On this podcast, the regular listeners will know that there's been so many people that we've interviewed where Grant Cardone has started with and where they've gone on with me called Tom Stuka. So Tom Stuka, Grant started with Tom. And it's so interesting talking about the story about how they started, what they did and where they went from there.
It's really, really interesting. And it's also back there. Joe Verde, some of the guys will remember the Joe Verde, cassette tapes. Again, Rex Heen. I remember watching. In fact, I'm going to go older than that. Did you ever come across a guy called? They was Tom Stiles go training. I remember Rex had these videotapes and I had to go and watch these videotapes for hours and hours. And whenever I got something wrong, I'd be marched over to the training room. Right. Watch the video again. Watch it again. He just drummed it into me. And I might have his name wrong, but it was definitely go training. I think the videotape was from the 70s because he had a huge big wide brown tie on.
And he was going through the sales process again and again and again to get into me. I might have that name wrong there, but. Yeah, I'm not sure of the name, but there was another guy and I bought two cassette tapes and they were double sided. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It was an Australian guy and he was really dry. And I can't think what his name was, but I would have his tapes in the car. I'd be listening to him over and over again. And I remember one of the things which you know, you got to remind people of that the deal is not done until the tail lights go over the curve. Yeah. Yeah. That's sort of stuff that I used to speak about in those days.
But I can't think of his name. And I don't even know, you know, over all these years where those tapes are gone. But it was just a just a couple of people like that that you sort of listen to. And you still, you know, follow and conscious of today. Well, listen, I'm going to say people listen to this who are just starting to motor trade, listen to Ian, listen to myself, how we were so hungry for information. We bought stuff ourselves. We're out there. I remember always buying books and I was so hungry for it. And again, if you listen to this podcast, you're probably one of the same people. OK, you're hungry for that information.
And you've got a toolbox of ideas on how to sell stuff. We always say no one wants to take tools out of your toolbox. You just want to put more tools in the toolbox. So you've got the right tool for the right customer at the right time and keep buying more tools, put more tools in your toolbox because you know what? There's a guy called Neil Perron. Sorry. And we said, listen, you can cut the grass with a hammer if you tried really hard. You'd get there. That's maybe not the most efficient way of doing it. OK. It might be more efficient to do it with a streamer or a whippersnip. I back home. OK, then it might be more efficient to do it with a lawnmower.
Then it might be more efficient to do it with a ride on. Just get more and more efficient there to get to what you what you need to do. And so listen, Ian, I'm always interested. How does someone like you that started selling cars get into running your own sales training company now in Australia? What are the steps that you went through to get there? Well, I truly interesting story because I had dealerships in orange, had a few franchises there. We sold that business, you know, I wait or I'm nine. And then I went out training. So going back for a sec, someone listened to this. There's lots of people listening to this. I think, right, I want to get my own dealership at some point.
How do I do it? Is that still achievable for a sales manager listening to this now? Is the investment too high? How did you get into owning your own dealership? I'm always interested. What are the steps that you went through? All right. So what I did was first of all, I started as a trading salesman, worked my way up to use car manager. And then I was the general sales manager, the general manager of the Ford. And then at that time, we took on BMW, BMW dealership. So that was and then 1989 long story and I won't get into it. They sold that dealership and I had a choice of going over with the new owner.
Or I thought, I'm going off on 20 or 29. Do I have a goal of my own? So I set up a little corner block on the highway. Yeah. I put eight cars in June, 1989 to put eight cars on that corner block. I didn't know I was going to make it or break it, but I had a couple of job officers to go to work for other dealerships as a general manager. So I thought if I fall over, I'll just go and get a job there. Right. So I had an offering dove out on an offer. You had that safety net. Yeah. Had the safety net in Windsor. So I beg, borrow and install to get eight cars on this one, these 800 square minute corner block in June, 1989.
And in my first month, we sold 30 cars. Right. So then we went from there and we sort of built that business up. Then in 1999, by 1999, we were selling, we had on a three or a half, 4,000 square meters, we're doing 60 or 70 years cars a month. And then I started, I thought, I should have a go at getting a franchise. So the Honda franchise was available. So we, we applied for that and got the Honda franchise. I, I'd actually got off of the Mitsubishi dealership in orange and I knocked it back. And you know, you made some silly mistakes in your life, but I never looked back. I didn't take it.
So we took Honda and then a, and then a few years later, we put out of you. Okay. Right. Then I built purpose, build premises, you know, five, and then I sold every, you know, eight. And I went out, catching, consulting. So in those days, you could do it because it was a lot of easy to just grab franchises and bolt on and do all those things. I then went coaching consulting and ended up in business in Griffith that I was asked to come down and have a look at, it was in financial trouble. Long story short, I went into receivership. I worked for the receivers for a while and then we ended up buying into that business.
So I went up buying that business. And I said to my wife that, you know, this is the three or five year plan. And I'm not going to die in Griffith. We're going to make it work here, do what we've got to do. And then we sell it and get out. So we bought this business in Griffith, even receivership. We'd do it on a 15 or 16 cars had 38 on the staff. So every deal of work out and go, no one of them broke. And they had Griffith and Leighton. We had Mitsubishi, Kia, Ozuzu, sorry, Mitsubishi, Kia and Honda. And we put Ozuzu in before we saw it all for everyone. So we had four franchises.
And yeah, so we sold that business in 2015. So 12 months in, we were Mitsubishi Diamond dealer, which is one of five in Australia. And if I go back to my businesses in my dealerships in Orange with Honda, we were fully focused on the customer. And as I said before about relationship building and that. And we won, we were number one rural Honda dealer in Australia for about seven years running. And we won all the awards with Honda for customer service, customer relationships and everything else. So that's what we're all about. So we sold Griffith in 2015. By then thought I'd go into coaching and sold it. And I wanted to move to the Gold Coast, which is where we are.
That must've been when we first met them, because you just sold the business and hence your trip out to the an idea conference. Yeah, that's right. So we, so then we got involved with online training, had a look at it. You know, we bought a live in a platform, had a look at all that, got my hat around it. But it wasn't the answer for what we wanted. So my wife's a brains in our operation. She joined up to some tech heads and we built our own interactive online training platform in 2018. Then we spent six or eight months in the studio and shot over 5,000 minutes of video, broke it all down and dropped it on the platform.
And now we go out there and we can, we do do a do on site stuff as well as we do online. And we, you know, via zoom and things like that. And, you know, we coach the automotive industry. But interesting enough, we also probably about 60% of our business comes from outside the automotive industry from word of mouth. Yeah. From just different people that have said, oh, you've worked with so-and-so, you've done that. How can that work in our business? So we just adapted and the beauty with our program, all the chapters that we've shot are all labeled. So if I'm coaching someone outside the auto industry, I can open up mod four for them, but I just don't tick the automotive chapters in mod four.
So all they see is the generic sales training. So how much of what we do now, I'm a car guy from 17. I've been in the motor trade. That is where we're there's so much business for us in this world anyway. But how much of it is it? A lot of people say selling is selling anyway. I imagine lots of stuff that you see is wrong with the car dealership might be wrong with the the tile shop or the business the business sales operation. Am I right in guessing that? Yeah, I have to say, look, it's the same thing. You know what? It doesn't matter what business we coach. The issues I have is they don't follow up.
Our price is too high. Our products is. It's the same thing. It doesn't matter what you are, you ask any business I talk to. You know, they'll say, what's your biggest challenge into the salespeople or customers built me up on price? The business owner, what's the biggest challenge? They don't follow up and, you know, they don't prospect. They that's all the same. And all you've got to do is relate it and speak to them in their language about how you can fix their issues. You know, that's the biggest thing. I got to say, clearly on buyers, but I can say in the motor trade, we got some of the best salesmanship ever out there because it's one of the few industries you have to buy something and sell something as part of the same transaction and very other industries.
They do that type of thing there. I'll go say, I just think it's sometimes we get the, you know, the over here. It's called the Arthur Daley image of a salesperson. You know, mind of the Arthur Daley TV program. And that's everywhere around the world. OK, but it's I just think it's not fair at all because the professionalism that I see day in day out from South people compared to other industries. I think we're right up there. Sure. You get a bad experience everywhere. We've we've both had that trying to buy cars ourselves. But we have another industries as well. But Simon, you're right. And it doesn't matter whether it's car industry or outside the country.
All the sales people are professionals, right? I know you've got your couple of roads in there, right? But the biggest thing that makes the professional better is they just need the skills. If they've got the skills, they have the confidence and then they've become unstoppable. And if you can give them the skills to bring their confidence up, you just turn a really good sales person into a fantastic salesperson. And when I talk about that, like, you know, different people, I'm sure you've had Simon that have done your programs and things. We've had guys that have 20 and 30 year veterans that have done our sales coaching program. And I'm not trying to teach them how to sell anything.
What I'm looking for in those guys is if I can improve them with the five percenters, that's all we want to do. Because if they weren't good after 30 years, they wouldn't be doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Hang your gloves up for good. Get out the rig. You're going to get hurt. Yeah. So what we're doing with those guys is we're looking at the five percenters. And if those guys tell me after they've done our done some work with us, that they might say, I used to use that years ago. I don't know why I forgot it. It's a great idea. Or I wish I had an owner about that when I started in the industry, because you don't know everything.
I'm still learning. I'm sure you're still learning and we're all finding little gold nuggets as we go. Yeah. And, you know, the thing that I find with what I do, when I pick something up that might be outside the order, I would just try and think, how could I relate that back to the auto industry? Or if I've got stuff in the auto industry, how could I relate that into that industry or that industry? Yeah. OK. So let me tell you, then, and I'll ask you, sorry, I should say you're coaching lots of people all the time. OK. Is there anything that separates the good from the greats? Is there any character trait that you think, hold on, that's why they're right at the top of their game there?
Anything stand out for you? Yeah. They they invest in themselves. And I don't just mean dollars. I mean time that they do the training. You know, we see that and, you know, they just whether it be our training or they're always looking at ways to better themselves. They're always looking for ways. How can I stand out from the crowd? What what can I do to make me different from everyone else? And they're just they're listening and looking for those one per centers to make them stand out. And that's what that's what takes you from great to fantastic. Yeah. And listen, with your programs, do you get salespeople that are signed up for it? The dealer principal said, right, you're going through this program and they don't bloody bother with it.
They don't do it. Well, out of all the people we've put through in five years, I've had three that have got to mod 15 and we've got 16 modules and then they've gone a while and now nothing. We actually put them through a selling skill assessment before they come on. We then interviewed them. And I asked them straight, are you doing this because you want to get better? Are you doing this because you do. Told you. When your business owner told you how to do it. Yeah. And the accountability to start with. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And then we get them to sign a commitment to success. So I asked them what are the three things I want to get out spending time with me?
And what do they want from me? And I'll I tell them I'm going to send them a commitment to success. I'm going to get you to sign it. I'm going to sign it all gets done digitally. And if you fall off the tracks throughout the training, I'm going to use it to click click your behind the back on track. And so basically we have and look, Simon, did you know everyone gets busy in life? OK. And I say to my clients that come on the program, we give you a week to do a module. But if life gets busy or things happen in your life, you sent me an email on Friday. You know, I've sent you an email and said, Hey, Simon, you know, mod five student at night, you send me an email back.
Say, I've been busy. I'll have it done over the weekend. I send you an email back and say, so I'm just not good enough. But if you send me an email and say, Ian, I've been flat out this week. I'll have it done by five o'clock Saturday night or four o'clock Sunday afternoon. No problems in well, Simon. That's all great. I'm looking forward to seeing it. All I want you to do is give me accountability of when you're going to have it by because then you've committed. You're not going to lie to yourself. You've committed when you're going to do it. So we work with people, you know, people going in, you'll leave. So we'll just say, OK, you're going to go on in your lead.
We'll just take two weeks off. We will deferring for two weeks. Yeah, of course, that makes sense. We've got to do that. So listen, I guess we met must have been 2015 then at that NADA conference. Listen to it before. I think it was probably six days. Because I was about June. We sold and six months off. So probably I think it was 16. Yeah. OK. And I've been to 21 of them now. I'm just a sucker for it. I just go and have a look at what's new. We talk about a lot of R&D research and development or Robin duplicates and Robin distributes. So and we always give credit to you. You got to listen to this guy from a Jacky B.
Cooper man from many, many years ago or David Martin. Go and listen to him. He's really good. What was your biggest takeaway from the conference from the conferences you've been to? Oh, look at the thing is, it's just a little different ways that people of how they present their training, whether it be service advisors, sales training, just different things like that. I'm just looking for the, you know, those little things that we may not be doing all the weekend, as you say, turn it around and put into our style that we think we can get results for for our people. And that's what I go look for. I just love the different workshops that I try and go to the different workshops that maybe I can't find much information online about that I think could enhance our business or not just enhance our business, but enhance the clients that we do with.
Yeah, I just, I'm a magpie. I go and have a look at everything out there and what's happening, what's new in the industry and what it's changing. So let's talk about this. And the markets change. When I first started selling as a salesperson, my job was almost like a teacher. Come and come, someone would come in and say, tell me about this car. What about that one? What's this? It was a the end Commodore. I think when I first started, okay. And it was like, it's a 3.8 litre V6 and what was it? A 3.6. I've got to go back and memory now. And they asked me all about the Calais and what's this got and what's got my job was a teacher.
But now we know people have done so much research online. They know more about the car than what our salespeople do. Now, I'm not saying it's right. It's just a fact because they've researched that one Audi Q5, S-line plus. And they'll ask your salesperson, is that the one that has the flux capacitor on it or not? And they'll know because that salesperson is meant to know everything about the whole Audi range. Now, I think they should do. Don't take that wrong. OK, they should know. But the customer knows as much more. Someone asked you, are we dinosaurs now? OK, what's the process going forward? Our salespeople are going to be there or are people are just going to go and click online?
Is there going to be straight from the mouse to the house? What do you think the future of the motor train is going to be? No, I don't think so. Look, I think there'll be some people that will buy online. I have no doubt about that. But I still think there's a place for salespeople in the auto industry. I still think people want to do face to face. And I know that an attack. I'm not sure where it is in the US. I think Honda in the UK with Honda. But there's some agency models happening now. Is that good or bad? I guess it depends whether you're the I'm not real sure whether it's good or bad.
If you're out of dealership, I don't think it's fair because they're losing all their goodwill, but we won't get into that. That's for another discussion. And we've talked about that a lot here on a different podcast there. So it's I'm glad you said that. It's for another discussion there. But it's an interesting space how it's going to change retailing. Yeah. But I still think they still need to have salespeople as such as well. And salespeople today to me have always been relationship builders. Because when that consumer comes in, whether it's an agency model or the old or the dealership model, they still will probably have a trading. They will still probably want to buy accessories.
And the consumer even today, you know, the agency models only just started in Australia, but they still will be thinking they can haggle and negotiate. So the sales person still got to have the skills and the confidence to be able to talk to the consumer and overcome those things. So, you know, I don't believe that every goal going on 100% and I don't believe that dealerships as in bricks and mortars will die. And I don't believe not in my lifetime. And I don't believe that everyone will buy their cars online. I, you know, I'm sure that people will buy cars online. I've no doubt about that. We we sold, you know, used cars and new cars online back in 2010, 11, 12, 11, 14, when I was in Griffith.
So and that's still going to happen. Listen, remote remote selling. We're not 17 years old. I remember driving a five liter V8 Commodore out to and on the way out to Mount Isa. And I don't know if the drive was something like five, six hours there. But listen, I'm 49 now. I would have been 18, 17, 18 years old there. That was a remote sale. What was the difference with that? Sure. The internet wasn't involved. That was a phone call, but we still got the OUDs traded. We stood subject to it being, as you said, sir, we've done the deal. It was all remote. And so it was happening back then. Yeah, 100 percent. Look, Simon, in my 40 years of being in the industry, the only thing that I believe has changed in my eyes is the internet without the internet.
Nothing else has changed. People go into dealerships, they buy cars, they trade cars. They buy accessories, they get them serviced. You know, sometimes they finance them, sometimes they get insurance there. You know, it all still happens with it's probably been refined a little bit. And there's probably cowboys that aren't there anymore. Yeah, but that's it. Yeah. No, no, yeah, but it's all good. It's all, you know, and I think it's a great thing. And it's interesting. One thing that I find interesting that, but I hear some sales trends say that, you know, it's all about you got to get them in. It's all about the speed and get them through the sales that customers don't want to spend all day in your dealership.
And I disagree with that. And the reason I say that is this, if you're giving them the world's best experience and they're enjoying everything, they won't be upset about being the dealership for three or four hours. The reason customers get upset about being in dealerships for three or four hours just have been treated like crap. If you go to a restaurant and you've had the world's best meal, the world's best experience and doesn't matter what the bill is, and you walk out feeling, you know, really full and you've had a great night and some great wine and everything. You don't care you've been there for hours. But if you walk out of that same restaurant, the meal was crap, the experience was crap, the bill was too high and you're there for three or four hours.
All you do is winch. You complain about it. How about it was a unit of a going back or in the restaurant, you're sitting there waiting for the bill to turn up forever or you're waiting. And that's in a dealership. When you said three or four hours, every part of me was thinking, oh, I'm one of the sales owners saying you don't want to do that when the customer's sitting there by themselves, two of them, thumbs, the salesperson's in there talking to the manager trying to get a price there. And the customer's like, what is happening here? Where are we up to? And we, I coach myself, people do not leave your desk. Every, every sales manager has got a mobile phone.
If you want to ask questions, you've got nothing to hide the account. Pick the phone up and ask your manager in front of the customer, grab your manager out at the desk and tell the manager everything where you're up to the customer. You hide nothing because you've got things to hide. That's when you lose the trust and report with your customer. You should be able to say everything in front of the, to your manager in front of your customer if you've been honest from the start. Yeah. Isn't that so true, actually, because you do see people sitting in a dealership by themselves, they're on the phone anyway. I promise you, I can see we buy cars, website on the other side of a showroom, on someone's mobile phone, because they're sitting there looking at it when they're sitting there, buy themselves all the time.
And the other thing, I think we've got to be so careful of the meet and greet and the qualification in, hasn't all of that happened before they get into the dealership now? Shouldn't we be knowing the customer? Because we know the inquiry starts remotely now, digital to phone. And we know, yes, we want to get them in there to give them the experience there. But that's where we want to know, hey, what was about that car that put it on their shopping list before they get to us? We want to know that they love the idea. It's got the flux capacitor in it. And when they hit 88 miles, sorry, again, people under 20, a flux capacitor is just one of DeLorean many years ago.
That was a great documentary many years ago on that one. Don't be going to look for that on your latest car. But again, we don't know that that's what they're interested in before they get to us nowadays. 100% and it's all about the right discovery question. So it's about finding out, you know, we spoke about this, you know, a lot of people talking about the road to a sale. Like the road to a sale was not in 70 today because we were information givers. We'd say selling camels in the test at 2000 years ago. That's when we sell the road to sales. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Prokley and back when I started, I was an information giver because there was no internet unless they read the wheels magazine or the motor traders lift out in the sun herald or something.
They didn't know much about the cars that were there. So they'd come in and if the car had 101 features, I'd tell you about 101 features because I assume, you know, nothing about the car. So I'm telling you everything. But today they've done more research and more homework on that car. No one times out of 10. Yeah. So what you're, you've got to make sure you've got the right discovery questions to find out what brought them into your dealership. What was it about the IZUZ to do, Max? Do they know all about the IZUZ to do, Max? If you've done all the research on it, find out all about that. And then you find out what their three or four dominant buying motives are.
Why they're there? What is it about the D Max? Right. And then you can hone in on those things. That's the thing. It was, you know, the full thing of discovery questions, but that's all that's important to them. Look, look at the mobile phone industry. Sorry, we got two trainers here, guys, but, um, and we'll go on this all day long. 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.
