We are very pleased to interview Matthew Elwell co-founder of Elite Closing Academy. Matt discusses his journey from door to door sales to starting his own training company.
Closing is obviously an essential skill to anyone in sales, and great closers are like anyone who is a master of their trade, they do the basics every time. We look at when to start closing and how to earn the right to close.
Some great tips for anyone in sales.
Here are the highlights:
{07:28} Learning from the All Blacks
{20:18} Don’t lie to your customers
{28:46} Elite closers move slowly
{38.13} Selling and closing are two different skills
{41:03} Earning the right to close
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 and 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 already know me as Skippy, I will start by saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Bit different today. Today I'm joined by Matt Elwell. Now Matt Elwell, a first come across from a lady called Jed Dankens who helped us with our book Selling and the Motor Trade. She said, listen, you've got to go and speak to Matt at some point. I went and have a look at Matt, got his book there, start with the clothes. I said, great, we need to get Matt on the podcast and talk about maybe not just the motor trade but selling in general. So Matt, welcome aboard to the podcast. Good morning, mate. How are you doing? The book is called Open with the Clothes, but I'm happy to start with. I'm going to get that right to start with. Listen, you speak in the motor trade guys, so we'd have to start off with, thank you. What was the first car that you had, Matt? Mate, firstly, I am the world's light. When it comes to cars, I'm not your man, I'm so rubbish a car. I'm into people and experiences. So I'll probably just turn the whole audience off. My first car was an absolute banger, a little old blue polo that made me mum shared and I used to sell photocopiers and do cold doer knocking and also Birmingham years and years ago, about 11 stone ago. And I used to drop me mum off in the little old banger and then carry on to Warsaw. And the number of times it didn't get me there, it was unbelievable. What I love is you won't turn our audience off at all because we always say on the podcast, this is not a selling business or selling cars, it's a peaceful business. Yeah, I'll get to your brand new sales people come in and motor trade all the time and say, hey, why do you want to be on the motor trade? I love cars. It's almost like, this is not like a target car. It's kind of boring me now because I've been around them so long. OK, it's one of them things. I think I don't know if this controversial or not, but I get this heck of a lot where people say you've got to be like, you've got to know the product inside of how it's to be amazing at sales. And the truth is, of course, it's going to help to have good general knowledge and stuff. But we have specialists within organisations for the specialist stuff later on. But when it comes to selling, it actually doesn't matter really what you know, does it matter as what the person that's looking to buy knows initially. And I think a lot of people get that the wrong way around. Every industry, I mean, Google has been invented now. The average customer does, what is it? It's not like 30 hours of research before they walk in phone in an email. Why are we just saying, hey, listen, what's about that car they put on your shopping list? What was that car they caught your attention there? Yeah, and I think why? It's a why isn't it? I walked into a showroom, a car showroom about three and a half years ago. And for the first time in my adult life, I actually wanted a specific make a model of car. And I'll tell you why. I speak in public and one of the ways I'm able to share my information is, you know, it's an audience season and that's really helped us build out a company. And I used to move around Great Britain quite a lot and use the car, my own car, to drive around and would use it for like business and, you know, that two or three hours in the car on my own, I could get a lot done, actually, on hands free and, you know, talking to prospects and building relationships, all that kind of stuff. So I was happy to drive around. And I thought, you know what, if I'm going to do this amount of driving, you know, like most people might, I'm like mid late 40s. And I've got a few, I've got a bad back and I've got a bad knee and a played rugby and all that kind of stuff. I was like, you know, I am going to get a really nice, comfortable vehicle so that I can move around and do some business. So I walked into the showroom and literally, I did my research, like you said, I don't think it was 30 hours, which probably, like, yeah, I want that one. So I've organized all my finances and I know what I'm doing. I've worked out. I'm going to do it. I walk in and I said to the guy, I said, I love that one. And he went, no, I wouldn't have that one. Lovely. And I went, no, no, that one. I love that one there, right there in the middle. And it was the perfect color. It was brand new. It was every that one. Now he said, people like you, you don't, you don't want that one. I said, when you say people like me, what do you mean, exactly? And, you know, I'm a little, you know, I like to fly the flag for the slightly bigger man, you know, I'm a bit tub. I'm thinking, is he referring to me being a bit big or what's he talking about? You know, people like you. And instantly, my back's up now. I'm like, I'm a dude. I'm so confused. People like you, people from Birmingham. What does he mean? What does he mean? Yeah, so I'm sort of checking myself in the mirror and thinking, well, have I got some on my head? I'm a injured book. Was he? So I said, no, no, I've checked out. I want that. He went, no, no. And I can't say the model out because it will be. But let's just call the model that he was recommending XYZ. He went, no, no, he said, you don't want that one. He said, people like you need an XYZ. And I was out. I was like, I'll leave it. And I just walked out. Wow. And did you get that from a different dealership, the one you actually want to go? He is a reason, right? So, and look, maybe this is one of the reasons this is not an accusation. While certain, why certain businesses are maybe a bit lazier than I can afford to be when I'm selling my products and services. Like, there just isn't enough competition. I couldn't go anywhere else to buy it. Well, I could, but it would have massively inconvenienced me. And I also, maybe the guy was just having a bit of a bad day. So it was local to me a lot of our locally. So I did actually go back twice. And I still bought the car off somebody else. So I don't know if he was on commission, but if he was, he lost it. Yeah. Yeah. I go say it's in the motor trade. After COVID, there was a real supply issue. You couldn't get cars, the semiconductors and so forth. And the sales process, Matt, unfortunately, went out the window because the sales process was kind of like a Rolex watch. If you want one, you've got a beg for one. OK. And it's the arrogance was there. And it's like, sir, you want that? If not, I've got four other people want to. Yeah. And what's happened is the the motor traders changed now. The fan, the whole of semiconductors, we go get back to basics and slow the process. They are. And it's what we put that day in day. I just want to say something really quick as you really sparks, but I love that. And what I love about it is this I'm a rugby man and a love sport rugby cricket. I watched the all blacks train years and years and years ago. I watched the rugby club. I was a young man and the all blacks greatest sporting institution. There is surely on the planet. These guys are like revered around the world and they work to like really high values and standards and they're amazing humans, right? Great sports people. They represent their nation. It's awesome. So I'm watching them and I'm I'm expecting them to run round throwing things out the back of the round and over the head and all that. No, they turned up like a machine and just did the basics like at pace. I've never seen anything like it before in my life. I was like, we do that grid at work at rugby club. We do that, we do that. But we don't do it like that. And I remember that was when I first learned that like the the the philosophy that masters never don't do the basics. Yeah. Like if you're a master at something, you just do the basics every single time. And I think, you know, I know you and I share many philosophies that are similar. And, you know, when it comes to a professional sales person or somebody that's got a team, you're the leader of the team, I'm going, how about we just get everybody doing all the little things really well and then just allow the humans, human interaction, the connections, the, you know, trust the fact that the buyers got loads of information and allow all that stuff to happen. But just do the basics really well. And I think I have to say, the reason why we've got training companies is because not enough companies train their people to do the basics in sales. It's so true. Listen, anyone listen to this, who's brand new, listen to what Matt's saying, be brilliant at the basics in a sales process. Get to know your customer. There's three sales on yourself. So yourself first. Okay. Don't worry about the car yet. Open people up. Get to know them there. I'd be brilliant at building rapport. Be brilliant asking those questions. Great questions. Open people up there and just be brilliant at the basics. And also managers, listen to this, be brilliant at the basics. We all know that the number of demonstrations we do improves the number of cars we sell. Don't try and sell the car before you've raised the desire in the car. Those days are gone. Be brilliant at the basics, which is so, so true. I say it's my same all the time. I go, look, if you, if you were brutally honest with yourself, I go, like, what the last 10 times you did business with somebody, if you just spend a few minutes and think about across the board, what were the trends? What were the little things that have to happen? What were the little touch points? Like, what were the conversations that need to happen before somebody's like, yeah, I mean, it's all good. Let's go. The process that you can repeat is where all the hard work happens as far as I can tell. And then the exchange of contract really should be sort of elegant, transactional, like that. That's just the little bit at the end that, you know, if you get in all the process, you're doing something wrong, not you. Yeah, of course, yeah. The deal should be well and truly done by that stage there. You can't close something that hasn't been opened up properly. Listen, I want to know about your, your starting into the world of selling. Okay. So you told us a little bit about photocopies. Is that right? In Wolverhampton? Is that where you start to cut your teeth in the world of selling? In Warsaw. Do you know what? I think actually it was before that when I was 11, I wanted to earn money and I got a job on the milk ground and the local milkman is a guy called Johnny Webb. He's like really old fashioned, brilliant traditional milkman. And he used to pick, he used to started around at 1.15 AM and to be finished at 6.15 AM. Now, when I first started working for 11, I used to help on a Thursday and Friday afternoon, collecting empty bottles and all this kind of stuff. And as I grew, I got a bit older. He gave me the responsibility. He gave me a little brown satchel with some cash in it, some notes and then in the front like some 10 P's and 20 P's and 50 P's and 1 P's, like little brown satchel. And I had to collect the milkman on Thursday afternoons and Friday afternoons. And it was actually for a young lad, it was such a great life skill because I learned two things about money. Number one, the raw was, he used to call me math. He used to say, look, math is the raw. He said, you've got exactly 40 pounds float. He said, and if there's one penny missing at the end, I'm knocking out your wages. Now, I only got five pounds a week. So if I was 10, pretty sure, that was quite a lot really, wouldn't you know? So the first thing I learned about money was like, you know, straight away, I could sense he'd obviously been, you know, had bad experiences in the past with people stealing him. So that was interesting. But the second interesting thing was particularly men. I know this is a bit of the generalisation, but some men weren't really mean to me. Like, I'd go over and say, good evening. I've come to collect the milkman, and they go, how much is it? And I go, you know, and they'd have like a theme with the number. They already know, you know, five pounds, 15. And they go, I've only got a fibre. You could chop the 15 in. Yeah, I know they're going, no, because I'll have to pay for that. No, no, you're fine. Go on, just knock it off. No, but actually it's really difficult because it feels a bit of conflict, doesn't it? And like, you know, you don't want to upset your olders and all that. But it really taught me like a great lesson about how humans can be around money and finances. And I think that was the start of me being fascinated with communication and like tone and body language. Just the whole thing was pretty critical to me and interesting to me. And then I got my first job. My actual first job was cold-corning, sound like the cemetery where in Birmingham and I was so crap at that was unbelievable. 150 compliments slips a day. Right. I think I lasted about 17 or 18 weeks. Okay. It was awful. But you know what? Again, you know, I think they say, some of like Peter Kay is a great comedian. You know, he used to go and work in the pubs and clubs of the north of England and get things thrown at him on a Wednesday night. So again, that was my baptism really. And where you cut your teeth on it. It often amazed me. I've always saw the motor trade. So I started when I was 17 years old. So I don't know any other industry there, but I hear stories about people selling gas door to door and knocking on the door to door. And I tell you what, learning resilience, learning that some will, some won't, so what next. It must be a great, great way to learn. And having the bill report very, very quickly there. Yeah. I tell you what I know really quickly is the less talking you do at the beginning, the better. So you've got to get the other person talking. And that's actually, although it was a really difficult experience, what I worked out quickly was if you can ask an absolute banger of a question. You can get, if you can get a question in really quickly that's got the best interest of the prospect at heart. And if you can get like out of their brain, what they can see, you can get them talk about their image, the image they've got of the product or service or the result that they'd get. It's a game changer. I'm sure everybody listening to this, who studies selling and communications to already knows this. But the word prospect, I don't look into the word prospect not long ago. And there's two, there's the whole prospect in the diamond and gold industry and mining and all that. But the other thing that it means, I think it shows up in, I think it was 16th century English, if I remember rightly fact check man. But it kind of means the summary of the word prospecting or prospect means mental image of something in the future, which is interesting, isn't it? But it's like, you know, the prospect that just starts talking and like being sick on your shoes, they've only got to say one thing that you're not thinking or you're not visualizing because you're not the expert and they've lost you. So actually when you realize the skill is to add them, what result they're looking for like you said early, what are you trying to achieve, how do you think we might be able to help you and literally start talking. If you can do that, and I learned that when I was knocking doors, I used to say things like, you know, at first I'd pile in, I'd be like, are you interested in lady's energy? Where? No, go away. And then I quickly realized that wasn't going to work. And I'd be like, hey, I really need a bit of help. I'm like, yeah, what do you need? And straight away, that already has got a different energy too, hasn't it? It's all then sort of going, what do you need? It's just different. And I flute this, you know, I just flute it. So then I'd be like, look, when it comes to health and wellness of your female staff and in particular, the hygiene in the female toilets, who is responsible in your organization for purchasing any of the products or services you have for that. And just straight away, it's a question and you're into a dialogue. And that was a big learning for me. Well, listen, before you started the closing academy, I want to get to that later on and what your motivation was. It always fascinates me. What people do you think? Let's go out and teach people how to do it. But before then, were there any mentors, anyone that you looked up to when in the world of selling that you thought Bob or Jenny really I've learned a lot from them? No, I've never heard of any mentors. I think one of the words that gets banded around is guru. Never heard any of those things. So the main person that I learned, my two great bosses, and they were completely different in the photocopying world. One was a guy called David Thompson, just passed away recently, sadly. And he was very much what I would call an old fashioned sales person, features, advantage, benefits. And he was getting to something that I sometimes hear now that the spin selling and all that kind of stuff, massive. And he was like circle back around and go back in and all that. And that was him. And there were so many positive traits in there that I was able to pick up. There was also the late night drinking, like turning up smelling a booze, all that, all this stuff that I knew wasn't good. And that was him, right? The other guy was the guy called David Hodgson. And he also sadly passed recently, 81 years old. Now he was a people person. He was relationships, wonderful communication, great memory. Like whenever he was asking questions, they weren't disingenuous. They were designed to really understand you. And that was so for me, I had like a brilliant communicator, an amazing human being, somebody who cared about other people, genuinely interested. And somebody who got great sales skills and that combination really stood me in good stead. Also my dad and my brother in our time bathroom churro were completely opposite. So my dad was the engineer that's the Tyler, the technical guy. And often, and this again might be controversial, I'm not trying to upset anyone, it's a bit general, but often the person that's really technical can make sales quite difficult because the technicalities should come when the person's purchased the solution. And I'm only saying like never solve anything during the sales process. My dad got that bit, a bit wrong, but what he was great at was he had knowledge and he had good information and he cared about customers. So that was good. And then my brother on the other hand was like, you know, much more dynamic, really visionary. Like he was a designer, so he could imagine what it looked like for you really. And again, I often found myself somewhere in the middle. So those four men definitely sort of helped me find my own little thing in the middle of all that, I think. Yeah. This is a shameless plug for our first 90 day program. And we often say that the skills we learn in our first three months, good and bad, lasts us for the rest of our career. Okay. If that's in selling, I imagine if you're going into any other career, what you learn right from beginning lasts for a long time. And ask is there anything that you learned in your first 90 days when you were selling either in photocopiers there or maybe the door to door stuff. Yeah. That is relevant today to someone who's just starting in the world of selling. Don't bullshit. Yeah. Like don't fucking bullshit because the problem is like if you, you just said, right, we live in an age now where there's so much information out there. It is unbelievable. We have to remember this though. And the information that is out there is not an order in sequence. So to a master or, you know, to someone that knows our industry, you can get the bits of information and pull it in the order in sequence. If you're the end user and you've just got this big blob of information, you can't because you're not a master. So like we do live in a world where there's information and we have to trust the fact that we search engines and things like that at customer base, people that are looking to buy have done and have got lots of inflation. Right. So when they turn up to the salesperson, he's absolutely critical. That salesperson doesn't screw it up and doesn't say things that are not true. Over exaggerate. Try and like, try and technically sell somebody onto something without understanding that human being. So the number one rule, and I learned this in the Tylen bathroom showroom, I haven't got enough information for me not to try and wing it when I first started. So I just, I was winging it and I kept getting caught out. I was basically just bullshitting the lion and saying shit that wasn't true. And I quickly worked out that if you're going to do that, you screwed. And also there's no values in that. There's no integrity in that. It's not fun to be at work and feel like a fraud. So I decided I'm not doing it like that. And I, the first thing I did, mate, was I said, look, I'm never going to lay a title. I'm never going to mix a tub of adhesive. It's not me. I don't want to do it. I want to sell it and I'll sell the services and run the business. So the very least I can do is spend the next few weeks of months learning from our skilled craftsman. And I labored for some of the lads. I've got up up five, six in the morning, I mixed the adhesive, but I didn't want to. But I just wanted to learn the language and I listened to my dad on lots of questions. And I gave myself a seven out of 10 knowledge of the products and services and then made sure that when somebody moved towards me, I'd actually got a sales process, which is like number one, find out what they want, find out what they need, find out what they're trying to achieve, find out why, like all of that kind of stuff. And then taken through a set of questions to get to a point where they've got no questions left and you can give them a choice of you can experience the service that way, that way, what questions have you got? And I think for anybody listening to this, if you've got a team, if you're a leader, if you're an individual selling motor vehicles or financing or whatever it might be, if you're blagging it and winning it, you will get crowned at. Yeah. And I just want to say, anyone can sell one car. We don't want to do that. We want to sell people their second car, third car. That's where people treat their own business within a business in the car sales world, because it is. And it's actually the people make great money in the motor trade. They sell one place for a long time and you don't get that by bullshit and people. Well, the bloke who ended up selling me my car after my bad experience, we've bought four more since then. And the one who did sell it to me found out, why do I want the car? And it was a business reason. So he was like, great, I'll get it. And then he asked me a few more questions. And he found out my wife needed a new car. We got two young kids and we traveled quite a bit and asked me about the spec and where we're traveling, all that kind of stuff. And then we bought another one for my wife. In the back of the car that my wife bought were present to both my children. And they were presents that were relevant to answers that my wife had given about what my kids like. Yeah. And of course, my wife was like, she didn't care about the car. She's like, wow, like, he was really attentive and he's listened to my answers. And then we bought two more things after those two. We bought another two. And in fact, I've got a new car on the driving electronic one that I just bought off the same people three weeks ago. People by people, we say it again. That's five vehicles. Yeah. In three and a half years. And that's what you need. You don't get that by bloke-shedding people. You really don't. In fact, I want to get your views now. And we got lots of young people coming into the motor trade. And we always say, hey, why do you want to be a motor trade? Oh, listen, I love cars. I love cars. It's like, no, this is a people business, not a car business. Yes, of course, cars are vinyl products. I don't know if you loved tiles, did you, Matt? OK. A little, it can't be that. It's that people side of it there. That's there. So I want to get your views on. I get lots of people saying, ah, the wolf of Wall Street. I love that movie. Oh, I want to be here. Jordan Belford, he's my man. And every time I say, really? Come on, let's think this through. He made his money out of ripping off people. He made his money out of ripping off pensioners. OK, it was grandma's granddads. OK, selling stocks. You've seen the movie in the stocks that were really, really bad. He earned 100% commission on what he was selling, grandma. He worked in an environment where there wasn't Google reviews, trust pilot surveys, and did it in America. But there's what? Two and a half. Sorry, 250 million people. He's not doing it in Birmingham, where you upset someone in the Audi network, in the vehicle park, you can upset them forever. And is there a place for the Jordan Belford? Great movie, by the way. But is that representative real world selling in your view? Well, I don't know. I think, as far as I can tell, there are definitely, and I think Mr. Belford's definitely one of them, where I've read his book, and there is some phenomenal information in there. No question about it. Look, to me, it's all about motives, and it's all about values. So I can't speak on anybody else's behalf. But from my point of view, whenever I'm in a sales conversation, the number one principle I have is that it's not my job to get them to buy. Like, I'm going, I'm the conduit. I'm the professional salesperson that can answer, ask, guide. I say myself as a guide more than anything else. So I'm not trying to get anyone to do anything. And I think that's, to me, that's a really important core value. I'm like, look, if I can help you, and you genuinely are looking for some assistance, I'm your man. And if you're not, I'm cool. I can send you to somewhere else. And I think that's one of my guiding principles. And again, I'll say it to anybody who's listening. Like, it's not your job to get someone to buy. If you're trying to get someone to buy my view, you're doing something horribly wrong. I think you've got it the wrong way around, because at some point, there's going to be a bit of conflict. And I'm looking for everything that's non-conflict. I'm looking for collaboration. I'm looking for powerful conversation. I'm looking to gather information before I decide. And that's the key thing, like think the bomb disposal expert. The bomb disposal expert doesn't just turn up and start ordering people around and do this to that. And just before we do anything, what do we know? What's the situation? Tell me everything. Tell me everything we've got first. And I think, from my point of view, I know there are loads of amazing trainers and other people out there that have got their own philosophy. But that's my philosophy. And that's why I teach it. Yeah, I just think even Jordan, what he would train now, is not there. I'll throw a few things with him. And it's great for the movie, great for the book there. But in this day and age, is that really what we want to do? It goes back to we want to sell people not one car, their second or third, the fourth car. Yes. So Matt, you've seen lots of really great salespeople. Any time you've trained them, you've worked with them. What are some of the character traits now that really separates the... Well, the great from the good? Yes, it's interesting. I think, well, there's a few character traits that separate the great from the good. Some of the things I've already said. Like, you could just tell straight away when you're dealing with a pro, because they don't talk. They ask great salespeople, great communicators. They ask great questions. And you notice it, you know, the salespeople, you walk into a show in the salesbook. Thank you. Good morning, you're like... Here we go. As opposed to somebody that's got, you know, I always say elite closers, like they move slowly. They're committed to listening, they're committed to understanding, they're confident, structured, organized. They're not all over the place. You can just notice that you're dealing with a pro. I think that's the... That whole sort of thing is obvious to me. I think the other thing is that commitment to actually understanding the other person. And again, like all of us that listen to this podcast, and there's loads of viewers and listeners to this podcast, although I well done, Top Work, like we all know that when the other person in a sales conversation generally appears to have your best interests at all, not the whole, how's your family, how's the dog, build rapport, bollocks. I'm talking about, right, come on, what do you need? How can we help? What do you need from us? What are you trying to achieve? What results are you looking for? Like if you can go there, again, what I notice is buyers do have buying patterns and we're nervous. And I always ask this question in my life, a lot of trainers, like like show me an elbow if you're on Zoom or just wave at me in the audience. If you've ever had a terrible sales experience and everyone's like, you know, there's a lot of crap out there, isn't it? So I think the thing that separates great sales people, great communicators out, are all those guys in principles. And a high skill set, you know, it's so obvious when you're dealing with some of those well-trained, there are line-down values, they're not trying to do you over, they've got your best interests that are, there's a simple obvious process. It's when it feels natural and that's when, you know, that's where the best results come. Yeah. And so I want to dig into why someone like you and I goes from the world of selling and decide, right, I want to start my own business. Okay, what happens? What thought process happens there, Mike? Well, for me, I'm quite happy to share this. I had a small family business for 16 years and for the first 12 years, my brother and I and my dad had a shared vision on the business. And we actually ended up renting out, we long story short, we bought a piece, long story longer actually. We bought it in 2005 and I'll go with it garage. And we used to rent a time or showroom of somebody else, right? So we bought a piece of land, not this old garage down and we built a 5000 square foot two storey, all singing an all dancing showroom, we invested in the business. It was a massive investment, you know, it was a massive investment. And many of the dealers will know what I'm talking about, like a beautiful big showroom in the, in the South Birmingham, small family business. It was a massive investment and 2008, there was something called a credit crunch. Oh, yeah. And well mentioned a needle of the credit crunch. This is a time for the younger listeners on here. The banks went bust and said about it was. So, like that happened to us in right in the middle of that recession, we were investing. Anyway, long story longer, we traded through it. It we did really well. And we entered into a discussion with a large supermarket chain and eventually we negotiated a 20 year lease for two thirds of that building approximately. And my Tollum bathroom showroom with my brother, my dad, we had quite a few staff and fitters. The operation reduced in size is by two thirds. And we got this amazing rental contract. As we speak, we sort of 12 years, nearly 12 years. In fact, 12 years tomorrow into a 20 year lease for the, for the things, which is really good, you know, solid business decision. So around mid thirties, we downsized and the business was profitable. It was all working. But I just fell out of love with my business and I hung in there for ages and, you know, people were saying to me, oh, you know, you've got great life. But inside I was absolutely dying. I was bored shitless. I wasn't being challenged. I was blaming the world, the arts board. And then I realized I was the problem. So without being too morbid, my uncle got blessed him. He retired after 40 years as a dentist, wonderful man. He left South Africa, a fought against apartheid in the seventies. And he's a great man. And he came here with nothing to the UK and he built this amazing dentist business in my aunt. And he really worked hard and he, you know, it's a very wealthy man when he retired and he died like within 12, 13 weeks of retiring. And he died of a really aggressive brain tumor. He's a great man. Peter Winterboy's name was. And I watched him pass really quickly. He was fit. He didn't smoke. He didn't drink. He was the marathon runner. He was a spiritual man. He was a man of God. He was he was a peaceful person. And this terrible brain tumor got, got old with it and it killed him really quickly. And he passed me so much dignity and grace. He was such a great person. But I can remember thinking at the time, if this happened to me right now, I was about 36, 37. All I could think of was what would people say about me and all I kept coming back to was that I didn't add up to very much. I got a change. I need to do something else. So for me, my leaving the family business and doing something else was really quite a profound moment in my life. And my brother bought my shares out about a trading company. And that gave me a bit of freedom to not have to rush to make any decisions. And I started after a few months, I started doing just a bit of consultation here and there. And the first person I consulted for, he had got a small team of salespeople, four people. And they were doing quite well, turning over nearly a million pounds here. And he just said, look, I know you are your local person. You've got this business. You're doing a bit of consulting. I'm interested to know what your experience could bring my team. Now I was really nervous because I didn't know whether what I'd learned in the retail industry would be transferable. And his industry was completely different. And it was totally transferable. He basically got a lot of people that were on the brink of buying, but didn't really have a process to exchange and to close out things. Very good at selling, but not very good at closing. So my framework that I hadn't really created then is my information. I taught it to his team and things went really well, really quickly. And to be honest, Simon, what happened to me is because of the person that employed me, is really well connected. All of his people were going, all of his peer group were saying, wait a minute, you're flying at the moment. What's changed? And then he said, well, I've got this consulting in. And that was it. It was a flu, really. And then people were looking for my information and my little consultancy business went like that straight away. And that was the start of it for me. And I never really set this training company up to train individuals. Initially, it was really just to get paid some consultancy fees and see if I could transfer someone not my knowledge. So it was a bit of a fluke really. And then, you know, long story longer, my first client has a world and his name's Nick James, puts on live events, teaches SMEs. And that's how I started this training company, really. No, it's since grown from them. You know, we teach teams around the world, philosophy, but that's how it started. Yeah, can we get some specific thing? You said that his team was very good at selling, but not closing. There's lots of measures resonating with this because Matt, we're in a situation we can love people up on that Audi Q5 and that's the one they want. But there's what 130 other Audi dealers they can get it from. And we see lots of people struggle with the closing. Can you give us some specifics on what you teach about how you took his team from great at selling, but not at closing? What coaching, what advice do you give them? Yeah, good question. So I think, you know, firstly, to recognize that selling and closing are completely different, two completely different skills. You know, one is opening and one is closing. And they're the opposite, which, you know, the clues in the name really, the complete opposite. So again, you know, if you've got a team of openers, rapport builders and questioners, brilliant. At some point, you've got to stop asking questions and start exchanging contracts. And knowing when to do that is the second keeper in sports, like acknowledge they're different and then understand the time to stop selling and start closing. And the key thing, actually, the time to exchange a contract is when there are no questions left. That's the key thing. And most people don't have that skill. So most people are trying to close to early when they have an under eye. Like, you know, you just mentioned, I think you said an over Q5. It doesn't have the car, whatever. Yeah. So when somebody walks into the car showroom, like, we all know that they can buy it online, we all know they can get it cheaper somewhere else. We all know that somebody will undercut us. So like none of those statements are reasons to not continue the conversation. So somebody says to me, I can get it like cheaper as well. You're done like you can't like a lot cheaper. So now we know that other than the money, give me five reasons why you're going to give me a chance to do some business with you. Again, it's like we're looking for micro commitments. We're looking to find out other than just the race of the bottom on the finances, what else they're looking for when purchasing a car, what how important is aftercare service to you, how important is this comp like this now, how important is this, you know, like, you've got to find these things out because we all know that somebody somewhere can do it for less. So the buyer knows that too. And I think, look, the last thing on this is if you let somebody walk out the door that has shown massive interest, has shared all the information that's highly qualified, that has interacted and literally is in a position to make an informed buying choice. If you don't turn your courage dollar and find a way of elegantly asking for the business in an non-confrontational way, then what happens is you're going to watch buyers that should have bought with you, walk out and it's having the skill to ask any closing question, having earned the right. Yes. It's about timing, it's about respect, but it's just about asking the question. It is absolutely earning the right to do that. You need to make sure the car is right before we get the numbers because to me times we're trying to close people on the numbers and we're not even sure if that Audi Q5 is going to do the job they want, do they prefer the X4? You're going to make sure we've sold the car before we get the numbers. And it's all about the numbers, you're in trouble. Well, Matt, listen, just thank you so much for that. Hey, listen, here's a copy of Matt's book. I can't believe I've pronounced it wrong before. I've actually got to hear my hand open with a close. So listen, I urge you to go and find Matthew Elwell, okay, on LinkedIn, okay, or go and get a copy of Matthew's book, open with a close at Amazon or wherever you can find it. Listen, thanks again. 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 Sal's Fitness Online Sal's Training Program. Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bowkett, food linked in. Thank you.
