This episode is a recap on three important points: Know Your Game Plan, Know Your Numbers and Know Your Business.
Elise Kephart takes us through her start in Starbucks, and the importance of having a game plan when you contact a customer.
We also hear form John O’Hanlon on how critical it is to know your numbers and your business.
Then Colin McAllister reinforces the importance of selling yourself first, then the car then the deal.
Here are the highlights:
{01:49} Starbucks
{04:15} Game Plan
{09:28} Know Your Numbers
{11:56} You are in control
{14:31} Sell Yourself
About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon’s words ‘real world’, it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visit
www.symcotraining.co.uk
Welcome to the Selling in the Motor Trade Podcast, an association with Symco Training. This is the weekly podcast where we share best practice tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department and generally put more profit into your dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett. As some of you probably worry, no me as skipping. I will start with saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi and welcome to another episode of Selling in the Motor Trade. It's my pleasure today and actually I've been really looking forward to this interview for a long time. It's a lady called Elise Kephart. When I first came across her, she was known as the YouTube diva. I was at the National Automotive Dealers Association and there was a guy called Jim, Jim Ziegler and I thought Sean mentioned her as well. Sean Bradley was talking about this lady called the YouTube Diva and she was working at the time I believe in a Honda dealership in California. They were talking about what she's doing, how she was personally brand herself and I thought, wow, I love the idea of what she's doing with video. Let me tell you, Elise Kephart now runs her own sales training organization in the United States. I'll get to you. She knows her stuff. There's the old cliche, those who can do, those who can't train but let me tell you, following Elise on social media, I know she is someone that will take the call in the sales department. She'll go out and second face and she actually knows what she's talking about. Listen, Elise, I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast. Thank you for having me. This is really exciting. Starbucks. Yes. Was that a good grounding for you? Because again, you're not direct sales, but you're speaking lots of customers, angry customers, you got to calm down. Anything really, was it a great grounding for you? You're also dealing with customers. I always had the opening shift, so you're dealing with people that have not had their caffeine in. But yet they're up at 4.30 in the morning, like at 5 in the morning, right, when you open, on routine. And I remember at that age, I was wondering, gosh, what do these people are always like here every morning? They have things very specific their way, like they're drink, right? Now like a place where I'm at in my life, it's almost like I'm on the other side of that. We're like, I need to, I'm there at routine. But I take it in perspective of it's a great company where it teaches you hard work and a lot about, a lot about just, I mean, one of the reasons I think Starbucks is so successful is because they have a recipe, whether it's their culture, their employee culture, right? Or their drinks, whatever they put in their drinks, right? To get people to coming back. But one of the things that you learn is like, obviously, and depending on where you live, there could be a Starbucks within a mile of each other, right? Yeah. And then you go to a person that's like waking up at the crack of dawn to do whatever they're going to do for their day and they've got to have their coffee. Like they have two or three choices sometimes, like what Starbucks they're going to go to. And it's all within the same driving distance and the prices are the same, right? And the drink recipe is the same. But like, what is going to trigger that person to go to one of three Starbucks choices within the same driving distance? Yeah. Right? And it's the experience. It's the people. It's like, that's the core part of it. Yeah. When everything else is similar, right? And so that's kind of always taken that with selling cars or what I do now is I want to be the company or the one that people choose to go to. Yeah. I mean, I have it down in my head and I broke it down before the phone call. I have 12 scenario. I broke it down before I did this. Like, you know, I said, there's 12 reasons that I'm crossing my fingers on that don't happen when a customer picks up their phone. And I kind of went through just a quick summary of them. And sure enough, the first cuts, the one chance it's like Eminem like live, right? And the one lady that picked up was one of those 12 scenarios, but it's kind of like an asterisk to it because it's the objection of, I'm at work right now. Can you call me back? Right? Yeah. And it doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that I'm crap. They said that I'm done on this phone call. It means that I have one chance to move past the subjection properly. I can't like, you know, dance with the same objection. I mean, I can't, if a customer says no, if I move past it and they still object to it in the same way, like I'm at work, you know, then it's better for me at that point to hang up. So for sure enough, she said, oh, yeah, that's right. But I'm at work right now. Can you call me back? And it was like, oh my gosh, it was crazy because by, I mean, at the end of the call, I still got the appointment, but it was all down to like literally that much of a, just a math game almost for me the way I break it down. I love that. But if you make enough calls and I know that if you make enough calls, you know what the maths are, what the numbers are, you know, you're going to get people who was going to say one of those 12 things, you know, the objection. And if you know the objection that's going to come up, you know, I have deal with it before it comes up. You got that game plan, right? And I almost, you know, one of the things that I really dove into over the last, probably since the year 2020 up is the psychology of a text message, you know, to the point where in the same way that we have reasons for what we do face what we say or the psychology of what we do face to face selling or phone selling, breaking down the psychology of a text message to where you can get a text message to where at the end of the text message, the customer saying, yeah, hey, it's cool to call me. And those 12 scenarios pretty much like all out the window, right? But they're not going to tell you, take me off your list. Yeah. If a text message, they just said, like, hey, yeah, cool. It's cool. Simon's to call me, right? So it's almost like you, you, it's almost like this extra little category of when you get engagement over text or email. Are you training on the right process? Do you know how to make it? Can I just? Yeah. I just want to get you views of it. For me, text is better than email now. Emails are adorable. Emails go into spam and junk and a text, it's just there. I mean, you and I before this, we text one another few times, done because you know, you read it straight away, done, give me four minutes, not a problem. I'm here. You get on when you can. I'm walking to another episode of selling in the motor trade. Today, I'm joined by John O'Hannelland. And I'm really excited to see John here today because I've followed him on social media for many years. I know a little bit about what John has done from the outside. I bumped into him at the National Automotive Dealers Association. He made my day by walking past me and said, ah, the podcast man. And John Smythe was with you from memory. And I had to say, ah, John, you're coming on the podcast. He said, of course I would. I'd love to. So John, welcome aboard. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Sam. The only thing you missed out there was we were both in Dallas. We were in Dallas. It's not a bad place to meet someone for the first time, is it? That is true. Although I love the N88 conference. I'm a sucker. 22 of them I think I've been to now, 23, something like that. And I just always amazed me that so many times the American market seems so far ahead of what we're doing. But sometimes so far behind. That's how I find us. Yeah. I think you're right. But when you look at what you've got on the East and the West, some really, really advanced thinking that does lead to our thinking over here, then there's so much in terms of the rest of the country. You do actually think really? Are we still talking about this? Yes. You know, it's meant to be. So true. And I always love to go to real dealership visits whenever I'm out there. And what they talk about in the shows and what happens is often two different things. Yeah. But they have huge skill businesses out in the huge business. This is a shameless plug for our first 90 days sales training program. We often say that the skills we learn in the first three months, good and bad, last is for the rest of our career. Can I ask you to think back when you still as an accountant there before you went into Ridgeway, is there anything that's important now that you learned your first 90 days, that's important for someone starting now in the business? Yeah. And, unashamedly, I still talk about the numbers and actually knowing your business, you've got to know your numbers. And whether that's for a sales exec, knowing how to stack his deal. So we don't know how much money you're making a car, how much commission you are. And it's the same in terms of the workshop or perhaps we don't control the margins, then become busy fools. And then it's having that capability of actually not only knowing where you are, but then beginning to learn to do the forecasting, because that's when it gets much more exciting as a manager in the business. And that was some of the disciplines I was able to bring and enhance because we did have some good tools in Ridgeway. A lot of the guys were ex-hardwell, which had some really good PLC disciplines. Now, if we can take some of those PLC disciplines and then enhance them with a culture that's a little bit softer, but much quicker decision-making, then you begin to get to a very place. So yeah, absolutely. Know your numbers. Know what you've got to do. Because if you know your numbers, know what you've got to do. It allows you to see where your efforts, where your focus, where your priorities have got to be. And that will make every part of what you do every day a little bit easier. Yeah. Can I ask you as well, if you're time for Grant Thornton, does anyone stand out as a mentor? The reason why I say that? I started when I was 17 years old in the motor trade. I was one of these cadet salespeople, which of course is 12 months of washing cars, making the teas and coffees. But I had two mentors that really stood out. And it's Tony Island. And lastly, it was Mike Carney. And I always said, what were Tony doing this situation? How would he deal with that? And I always, even now, I'm going to be 50 this year. I sit back and think, hold on. How would Tony Island have dealt with that? I'm dealing with a staff member, the car park walk, dare I say, that's so many different things. Is there anyone that really stood out for you as a mentor earlier? I think, you know, I've mentioned Mark Cummings, who was the lead partner in the Australian Grant Thornton and more dealer services, who actually just took me aside and said, John, I think you've got a bit more about, yeah, what are you doing? Why are you sort of gently plodding? I've got to history of your what borders up. I was actually, what could we sit down? We'll go write your business plan and you go back and present it. And actually, what reinforced to me at that point was actually, you control what happens in your world. A few allow things to happen around about you. Things will happen, but it might not be for your benefit. And actually, you've got to go and grab it. You know, the oil goes to the noisy wheel. And it's actually, but it also showed me how I had to, you know, how I could actually make the argument, do the presentation in a way that would allow me to do that. And that was a first time on the scale of sponges from your eyes. And that's when you realize that you can make things happen. Yeah. Hi, and welcome to another episode of Selling in the Motor Trade. Today I'm joined by a man called Colin McAllister. He's the training and development manager for the John Clark Motor Group. I can only say this because I'm married to a Scottish person. But one thing you might need for this podcast is subtitles because he's got the most Scottish accent I've ever heard. I've got no idea how subtitles is going to work on a podcast, but if you listen to this on YouTube, maybe you'll be right. Colin, welcome along. Thanks, Simon. Yeah, I always introduce myself in a lot of those south and see, I'm from Glasgow, so you all have funny accents. And I had a cracking team. I was at Mazda one time at River Bridge House doing a presentation. It was actually the most money I've ever owned in a single day. And I had 38 of these regional managers for Mazda in the room. And I said, you know, so if something, I use a glass pigeon as home and you don't understand, feel free to ask me to translate. I'll be fine. So this girl's sex a hand up. And I said, yes, and she, excuse me, can you translate into the Greek? Oh, she's actually heard in Milo, Ilanica, Pauli, Cala. She's just a graphic Greek. No, unfortunately, I don't speak Greek. And after that, nobody said a single thing all day. They were like, this is our future for car salespeople, motor trade. Absolutely. And I think 100% of the future for car salespeople, you need to embrace the technology. That's what's going to make you value. As the marketplace becomes more and more transparent, you know, so you're on the web and there's this golf and there's that golf and there's that golf. What's going to make it stand out is you, the dealer you're from, I call it Provenance. So for me, you know, it's when you're looking at whiskey, you're always looking for a whiskey's provenance. So when you're looking at a car, then I always train people when, you know, whatever they're doing, but they're responding by email, whether they're responding by phone, whether they're responding by video, it's the first thing you need to do is set provenance. So it's the provenance and the dealership itself. You know, so, you know, we are John Clark BMW. You've been here in Aberdeen for 40 years as BMW is so representative. And so you're adding the value to John Clark. And I'm calling the car, so I've been with the group for nine years. And this is what we're doing as a family, so I'm adding value to me. And then the final thing is in this car, what an absolute cracker you have picked. This is a locally sourced car. We sold it. We've serviced it. We fitted every single part to this vehicle. It's 100% BMW. What you probably don't know about Aberdeen is that we are 89 miles away from the nearest motorway. Don't tell the car because it doesn't know what you can do 70 miles an hour. So it's been driven all around Bankery and Decide, but it's never seen a motorway. And all of a sudden I've just put value on that SV plate that's on the car, you know. And just don't go think that will start to make my stand out from the one that's in Derby or New Castle or, you know, wherever it is for that national bike. I love you say that. We always say there's three sales in any sale. You go sell yourself first, the product second, and then the deal. And that's exactly what you're doing. 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.
