In this episode of the podcast, Herb and Charity discuss their frustrations with the stigma surrounding the car industry and the need for better skills in sales. They emphasize the importance of understanding customers’ needs and solving their problems effectively. The conversation highlights the shift in the car industry and the need for improved leadership and accountability. Herb argues that it’s crucial to let customers express themselves fully before providing solutions. He believes in asking relevant questions to understand customers’ needs and presenting suitable options. Both Herb and Charity emphasize that active listening and effective communication skills are essential in sales.
Highlights:
Despite its positive aspects, the industry suffers from a negative reputation that deters people from pursuing it intentionally.
Even in 2023, some individuals within the industry perpetuate negative behaviors that contribute to the stigma.
The charity points out the lack of accountability among leaders in the car industry. Herb and Charity discuss the need for a shift in leadership practices to address this issue.
Keywords: automotive dealership, car sales, customer experience, salesmanship, selling, conversation, training, dealer, managers, senior salespeople, listening, finish sentences, customer conversations, problem-solving, communication skills, interview skills, personal development
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â°Highlights:
00:00 Introduction
06:16 Is Sales Manipulation
11:33 All Communication is Transactional
25:11 Guest: Christian Charvet
53:47 Interviewing for Employee
01:03:43 Next Five Years
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Transcript:
Intro 00:00
Welcome to the show. We hope you have a blast. Thanks for making time for the dealer pod. Another business leader is a penny for you to say no regular conversation at that dealer.
Herb 00:12
What up? Welcome to another episode, of the Dealer Talk podcast. This is your host, Herb Anderson. So glad you’re able to join us today for another exciting episode. Let’s check in with our CO hosts Miss Charity Ann Farber clapping their voice What’s up, kid? How are you doing?
Charity Ann 00:42
That’s pretty good. How are you?
Herb 00:46
I’m doing great. You just got back from your podcast convention in Las Vegas. Yep, I was at how’s that DL shirt
Charity Ann 00:55
in? It’s good. I learned a lot. I did. I did.
Herb 00:59
Did you meet Lance Boughs?
Charity Ann 01:03
No. I didn’t even go to see him speak. Can you believe it? I got distracted by the nerdiest thing and I forgot about Lance Bass. If you all got distracted talking about Star Trek,
Herb 01:19
oh my god. If he only knew that you liked the Backstreet Boys and were not in sync,
Charity Ann 01:25
and Star Trek,
Herb 01:26
Star Trek more
Charity Ann 01:34
It was great there were some fascinating podcasts out there. This one is where he trains management skills using a Star Trek episode.
Herb 01:49
He said what?
Charity Ann 01:53
He trains management skills and the use of a Star Trek app.
Herb 01:57
I see it I can see that. Yeah. You know, when you have to take on intergalactic challenges. The earthly ones are kind of pale in comparison. Yeah.
Charity Ann 02:12
And then he consulting company where he uses different things like Star Trek or Harry Potter or whatever, to train management skills, depending on what the company wants to learn. Cool.
Herb 02:29
What is it? What’s it what’s the name? Let’s let’s give them a shout out come on, you don’t remember? I don’t think I can do that. On YouTube.
Charity Ann 02:50
Starfleet Starfleet Leadership Academy. Well, that’s,
Herb 02:53
that’s different and creative. I like it. Does he do it for the automotive industry?
Charity Ann 03:00
He had two podcasts. So that one and then one where there’s this cult classic TV show called Babylon five.
Herb 03:11
Yes. Are you there? No, I’m just usually determined and focused.
Charity Ann 03:17
There’s a cult classic. Were called Babylon Five that he’d never seen before. So his friend and he watch the episodes and then talk about the episode afterward. And apparently, he’s got like a ridiculous following on that one of people that are just waiting for him to find out the next big thing and the TV show. That’s a good idea. We should watch a TV show and just
Herb 03:49
know about it after you hear my question. I’m trying to bring this back to the automotive industry dude. No, like, does he do training for four?
Charity Ann 03:59
That was probably when you were frozen.
Herb 04:03
Exactly.
Charity Ann 04:06
I don’t know I need to I need to learn more about audio. Why? Can we just hire somebody to learn more about audio?
Herb 04:17
It’s probably not a bad idea. I mean, I did send you to the podcast convention so that you could learn but do you want to know what I learned about audio? Elf lf l a few s
Charity Ann 04:28
LUFS LUFS. L U of L UF s. I spent an hour taking notes with the notes had a ton of question marks. To which point they finally just said I have no idea.
Herb 04:44
Yeah, but last week, you didn’t know what LUFS were.
Charity Ann 04:46
I didn’t know a little EPS was an acronym. Right? Exactly. So
Herb 04:50
we’re learning progress kid. Look when I first started I used to have a cardboard box around my microphone video So I mean, this is like we’re, you know, we’re leaps and bounds here.
Charity Ann 05:06
There’s a thing called the mic technique. Did you know that?
Herb 05:12
I’m sure.
Charity Ann 05:16
And, if you’re in like, production or TV, then everybody knows what mic technique is. And then you want to know what else I learned about the podcasting convention? What podcasters don’t know how to sell.
Herb 05:33
Why were they trying to sell your stuff?
Charity Ann 05:35
Well, cuz it was a convention. So they had like, a, a floor with all of their products. And it was. It was funny.
Herb 05:47
Okay, give me an example. It just was
Charity Ann 05:49
it just didn’t compare to Nada. Like, they’ll tell you about their product product, but nowhere at all during the entire conversation, would they ask you to buy their products?
Herb 06:06
Well, okay, so let’s play that for a second. Because we do have a trainer on for today’s session. So today’s session, after all? Is that a is not selling your product, a good way of selling? No, is it potentially that they’re passionate, so passionate about their project, and their product, that they just want to tell people about it and educate them, and in the process of doing so, they make other people interested in wanting to try their product in there. And therefore, that’s a way of selling.
Charity Ann 06:44
During that process, you should be able to pick up on the cues that the potential customer is giving you, which enables you to progress the conversation in a way that gets you a sale if you don’t know how to do that. So yeah, just to kind of pick up on those cues.
Herb 07:05
I disagree because that implies trickery. Right? No, it doesn’t, it does. Like you just said to yourself, well, let me break it down. You’re you’re saying you’re waiting for the cues of the person to insert your pitch in there. Right? So you’re you’re intentionally looking for a hole to to put your to sell?
Charity Ann 07:28
Absolutely disagree. It’s just a different form of communication. The way that you and I the way that you and I have a conversation, you know when to speak based on what
Herb 07:42
my paws are going about speaking here, we’re talking about selling,
Charity Ann 07:46
I know it’s okay.
Herb 07:48
Well then explain it. If it’s now what I just said, explain it. I am explaining okay. What you’re saying speaking, I know I’m talking about I’m very specific,
Charity Ann 07:58
I’m walking you down I am walking you down a path. So go down the path with me you know, when to communicate with me like when to answer my questions, when to interject your thoughts based on cues right? The pauses the tonality of my voice. So, a lot most of the speech like the majority of communication is done verbally, right.
When you are selling you are using a language you are learning you are utilizing the skill sets of communication on a more conscious level than most people utilize their communication skills. That’s why people who sell are often considered to be manipulators because we’re just more conscious of the communication that’s going on between two people than others. I can pick up on the cues that suggest that you want a new coffee without you actually having to say I want another coffee because I know what it does that manipulates the situation.
Herb 09:12
Yes by your own definition,
Charity Ann 09:14
oh my god, what does it manipulate? Linear?
Herb 09:18
If you’re doing it intentionally Keishon No, that’s we’re talking about selling we’re not talking about communicating the end goal is for you to buy my product
Charity Ann 09:28
all selling and that the end goal of selling is understanding communication and the psychology
Herb 09:33
You are confusing two things I’m not talking communicating and selling are not the same thing and people get this mixed up all the time selling at the end of the sales, somebody bought something either you bought my product or I bought your no but somebody walked away with something. Communication and selling are not the same thing. What you said earlier was your statement was that you’re you when you’re selling you’re looking for places to invest in certain salesmanship. Right? Okay, nice. My argument is, to me, that implies trickery, I think a better approach.
And listen, I’ll say it, I’ll say it publicly too. I like the 10 or 20 Steps to the sale, whatever it is. Now, I think that that’s forced salesmanship. And I think that there are a lot of issues in the automotive industry because of that. Back in the days when we were, we had an inefficient marketplace, it worked perfectly. It kept control, the customer didn’t know anything about the deal about the car about cost, none of that. So it worked beautifully. Now, it creates so many barriers. salesmanship, or the best wave of salesmanship, is discovery, hey, we’re having a conversation, you tell me what your problem is, and I try to solve it. You know, if my product doesn’t solve your problem, then why am I even pitching it to you?
Charity Ann 10:55
Conversation is just two people communicating with an end goal in mind. And that, if the end goal in mind is the transaction, doesn’t that No, I mean, arguably, everything is transactional, or the relationship between two people whose souls are interconnecting to each other. That’s a personal relationship, an intimate relationship, a love story, on whatever level, most relationships are not like that, like the majority of them are transactional, every single conversation that you’re having with a brand new person is a transactional conversation. It’s just a matter of whether or not you know that you’re transacting.
Herb 11:38
But you’re getting out of the scope of the argument. No, no, I am, we are talking specifically about salesmanship, which implies a product or a service that you’re going to buy. I don’t care about deep soul connection and looking profoundly into your eyes. And that’s now what we’re talking about.
Charity Ann 11:58
And I’m saying it is all about Yeah,
Herb 12:01
selling, of course, that’s all it’s all communication. But this is direct selling, which means I want you to buy my product, and I want you to buy my service. That’s exactly the point that we’re arguing here. Everything else is outside of the scope of the argument. And in that argument, your your statement for me, I think that a lot of people, get those two things mixed up, which is a mistake, and to that type of mentality towards salesmanship implies trickery.
because you’re purposefully looking for a way to insert yourself into that person with your product or service, you don’t even know if I need your product or service, you don’t even know if it can help me in any way, shape, or form. I’m just selling you my product. You know what I mean? And there’s and if you are a master manipulator, like you mentioned earlier, then it’s very easy for you to get people to buy your product, and that that have no need for it. It’s more effective to have a conversation with somebody, figure out their issues, discover their problem, and then see if you can solve their problem with your solution. And if you can’t move on.
Charity Ann 13:12
That’s what I’m saying. Weirdo. Sometimes,
Herb 13:17
no, that’s not to say yes. You’re not what you said at all.
Charity Ann 13:21
Yours is transactional. It’s still transactional, you are still trying to figure out what they want. And at the end, you are offering your services that if it makes sense, yeah. Does it work if you don’t offer it at the end? So if you have a conversation in which the two of you just chit-chat about all of the things that you need, and then you’re like, Okay, thanks, bye, then you did not progress it toward transactional, that is a skill you have to know. So you offer a solution.
Herb 13:56
So I’ll give you I’ll give you a perfect example. When I first went became an autotrader. Rep. You go you go for weeks to this thing called jumpstart in Atlanta, you go Monday through Friday, they fly you back for the weekend, and then you’re there again. And you did that for four weeks, and they drill and trip prep you, they tell you, they teach you all this stuff. And then they’re like, Okay, they release you into the wild, go sell. Right. And that’s one of the things they always would say in the class is like you got to ask for the sale. You got to ask for the sale, you got to ask for the sale.
And so I did that I went out and I knocked on dealerships. And I was asking for the sale and I was getting kicked out of stores left and right. When I became when I started to listen to my clients, I started to discover how the product helps if it helps at all. I walked away from so many deals because it didn’t make sense. Because it did what the customer wanted. Either.
They were thinking that if they got on Autotrader they were going to sell 50 cars or 100 cars and if they did they were going to cancel. I walked away from so many deals that didn’t make sense because it doesn’t fit the discovery conversation and didn’t lead to a deal. And I never asked for business. Whenever I do discovery conversations, the client asks me for the their client is telling me, let’s sign up. Let’s do this. Because I’ve listened to what they’ve said. And I discovered their issue. And in my talking about that, they see that I understand their problem. Sometimes I discover things that they don’t even know or issues. So I don’t I don’t believe in that philosophy. Well,
Charity Ann 15:29
I would say that the one thing is, if you’re getting drilled, ask for the sale, ask for the sale less for the sale, that’s the basic level one, sales training, then you’ve got to learn when to ask for the sale. And then you’ve got to learn when to like what you’re talking about as high-level salesmanship. When we’re talking about podcasters, at a convention, who don’t know how
Herb 15:58
we talked about, we got
Charity Ann 16:06
These two different things, there’s high, but the basic framework of a conversation is still the same, it’s transactional, that is the basic framework. And if you don’t understand that, then selling. You’re just working off of talent like it’s the difference between being talented at something and really frequently understanding what you’re doing
Herb 16:32
see, to bring it back to the car business, I hate that stuff, those steps or roads or whatever, because it makes the customer feel forced to buy. And that is the big, huge mistake. Sit down with your customer, sit down with your customers, and ask them questions. They may be coming in for a sedan, and in reality, they need a truck.
Charity Ann 16:57
Again, that’s that’s high-level, you still have to start with the script herb, you still have to start with the script. It doesn’t
Herb 17:05
Why do you have to start with a script for why but was to sit down and have a conversation with another human being and figure out what their issues are and what they’re after and what they want, and then fit your solution into that’s way more effective,
Charity Ann 17:21
because even Mozart had to know what the keys were first.
Herb 17:27
Yeah, but you gotta they gotta be the right keys. Pushing the customer down this funnel process just so that you can tell your manager Hey, I went through all the steps. So the sale, right is not selling.
Charity Ann 17:39
And then that’s when we get into salesmanship. Versus I work at a car dealership, I have a job as a car guy, like, do you want to be an all all-reader? Or do you want to be a Joe Schmo who sells five cars a month and then gets fired?
Herb 17:54
All the read up sits sit there and tell meet and greet and consideration and objection handling? No, you he sits down and he helps people?
Charity Ann 18:04
And where do you think all arenas started?
Herb 18:08
Right, but he wouldn’t be all the rage. If you would have stayed in that mindset in that in that path. Just because you start wrong doesn’t mean that you can’t fix it. I mean, look at the example that I gave you, or ask for the sale, you gotta go in there and ask for the sale. Now, dude, you gotta go in there and figure out the problem and help people out and they’re gonna ask you to sell them shit.
Charity Ann 18:29
But you cannot even hear that if you weren’t consciously aware of it. And those are the scripting and the steps to the sale. They help you to become consciously aware of those.
Herb 18:43
I disagree fundamentally with that it’s completely wrong. It’s completely backward thinking. It’s like going to the doctor, and then your doctor is there like reading the script. Hi, how are you doing? No, that’s not what a doctor does. They say
Charity Ann 18:59
exactly what a doctor does. They Oh, yes, he
Herb 19:02
died. He asked questions. What are your symptoms? What are you feeling? What’s this? What’s the other right and then since
Charity Ann 19:09
those questions are a series of questions that’s exactly what it oh my
Herb 19:14
god, you’re taking you’re twisting that is this is that’s not scripting. What we’re what I’m talking about scripting step one, greeting the customer. Step two, do this. Step three, do that. And then you go to your manager, and you got this guy or this customer on the be-back bus. And then your customers like your managers like well, did you walk them through the steps? Like fuck your steps, man, help the customer out. You can see I’m clearly passionate about
Charity Ann 19:49
an argument like this.
Herb 19:51
We’re not arguing No, we’re not listening. This is a perfect setup because now we’re gonna have a neutral person come in and where they’re going to solve the issue. So I just disagree. I think that especially just to keep it in the car business, I think they were doing it wrong. Like back in the day it worked beautifully. Right? The customers didn’t know, they just didn’t know now that shit makes customers feel uncomfortable.
You know how many people I’ve asked about their buying experience. And it’s one of the things that they hate. They hate the customer that the salesperson gets up and leaves, they hate that they have to the customer, they keep getting handed off from department to department. That’s because they hate the degree and they they hate all the steps and all the bullshit. And then some salespeople go as far as to say, Well, I have to do this because as part of this, the steps, my steps to the sale,
Charity Ann 20:46
that I hail, there are two different issues right there. First of all, like, how many times do you have conversations in which you say, What do you mean, you didn’t get the customer’s last name? What do you mean, you didn’t get their phone number? Like those are just basic frameworks for basic conversations that people don’t even okay, that when I’m training, this is the way that I explain it. You have certain expectations that are part of having a conversation that you’ve been taught since the time that you learned your first word.
Your parents literally said, when you go up to somebody, and you want to make a friend, you say, Hi, my name is Charity, will you be my friend, that’s a script. But we learned those from such a very, very basic, very, very young age that we don’t even realize, we’re we’ve ascended to the next level of communication. And when you come into something like a sales job, you need to take a step back and look at those steps to a conversation again, so that you could consciously know what you’re doing. So that you know how to improve. You might have this
Herb 22:04
Yeah, that is not, that’s not that is incorrect. That is incorrect. Because by nature that’s going to guide you through a path of thinking about the steps. And if you miss a step, it’s going to throw you off your game
Charity Ann 22:18
originally. Yeah, that is that is a birthdate it will
Herb 22:23
mistake. If you have a genuine conversation with your customer. If you genuinely connect with your customer on a human level, and you hear their problems, and you hear their concerns, I guarantee you, I guarantee you that you will not forget that person’s name. Because you’re gonna associate his issues with that person it’s going to be it’s going to be a deep connection. It’s going to it’s going to be a better connection than trying to go through these stupid steps. It’s ridiculous.
Charity Ann 22:52
That’s because you just naturally know what the steps are. And so you’ve never had to stop and think about them. But when you’re when you are working with entry-level people, you have to teach them the steps.
Herb 23:07
But that’s that’s what that’s my whole argument with this with this point. It’s a mistake to teach that because by nature, instead of teaching them the right way, you’re teaching them stuff that’s antiquated, outdated, and it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work.
Charity Ann 23:22
I disagree. I don’t think it’s antiquated. I think it’s just I mean, are the steps to the sale antiquated some of them probably. But communication is antiquated?
Herb 23:33
No, but we’re not talking about communication we are that’s exactly what we’re talking about. No, we’re talking about forced communication or guided communication, which is completely different. What is effective communication?
Charity Ann 23:48
You asked me this all the time. What Okay, so
Herb 23:51
publicly here? What is effective communication? I
Charity Ann 23:54
never remember what it is for the effective communication,
Herb 23:57
isn’t you telling people what to do effective communication is you finding a way for the other person to do what you want them to do. That’s, that means it in a certain way, and they don’t get it? You can’t change them. You have to change the way how you say things.
Charity Ann 24:13
You have to change. Did you lose them?
Herb 24:16
You know what I’m saying? Like that is effective communication.
Charity Ann 24:21
That is, you hear us arguing?
24:24
I did hear you guys arguing. There was a home for a minute. It’s it’s my wife on this podcast.
Herb 24:34
She’s excusing my dog in the background. No worries, no worries.
Charity Ann 24:39
Do you remember the first time that I was on the podcast and my dog barked and you told me that was a cardinal rule of podcasting?
Herb 24:47
I know. Yeah. So I’m breaking it. Hey, Chris, what’s up, man? How are you doing?
Christian Charvet 24:53
I’m doing well doing well. Very nice to meet you. I appreciate you taking the time to have me on here.
Herb 24:58
Likewise, likewise, we’re gonna have a really good conversation already, we have a debate that you’re going to settle for us. So you’re walking into the right the right time here. But we kick things off with an intro. So tell us about you.
25:11
Um, so I mean, started in the car business about 20 years ago, started out washing cars, and ended up leaving the car business and going to the bank side of the car business. I worked for Chase, Chase, auto finance, actually for the bank side of the car business. And I was recruited by a dealer that I was helping, while I’m still dear friends with to this day, and he said, I listened to them how much you making, working at the bank. And at that time, I was making about $43,000 a year, which was great. I had a child at an early age. And he said to me, Hey, do you know you can make six figures selling cars? And right away, I was like, you know, eyes opened up, I was like, Wait a minute.
And he said, if you take care of people, the way you take care of you’ve taken care of me, you’ll be very successful in the car business for a second. And it’s been like the key to how I’ve been successful. So he recruited me into the car business. And it’s funny, I ended up going to another dealer. I didn’t actually go to his dealership because it was kind of out of my way. And I kind of forced my way into an interview at a dealership in Manhattan. A person asked me and said, hey, it was it was a Lexus dealership. And he asked me, have you ever sold cars before? And I said, No, I haven’t.
And he right away, went to get up and kind of said, You know what, go get some experience at a Nissan Honda Toyota dealership. We only hire managers here. So it’s pretty weird, because back then, in order to do sales, you know, in a highlight or a luxury store luxury brand, you had to have management experience, you had to be like a sales manager in another dealership. So all the salespeople had managed experience. nowadays. I mean, you know, you can, you know, if you’re good at you know, I’ve taken people from Target Best Buy, you know, Raymer flat this stores and I put them into positions, right?
So, I said to him, Listen, I’m a, I’m a supervisor at Chase, auto finance, I know the car business, if you help me and teach me how to sell, I think I do well, and kind of fought my way in. And the gentleman who interviewed me was still a dear friend to this day, and he gave me a shot. And I was intimidated. I walked into a dealership, not knowing anything about cars, or you know, or the car business. I remember the first time I heard triple net, or tissue, right, my manager said to, my manager said to me, he goes, Hey, this, this deal is that tissue. So make sure you close this up, right? And I’m like, okay, and I’m walking down the hallway back to my customer. And I see one of the guys I’m like, what the hell this tissue mean? And he’s just, I mean, you can’t go any lower, like you’re at the bottom.
So there was no training back then it was almost like, Hey, you kind of figure it out on your own. And it’s, you know, I noticed that there was kind of like a gap there. And I did very well in the car business, I moved up pretty quickly. And I went out to manage some pretty cool stores from Lexus to Mercedes Benz stores, I was given a great opportunity by my General Sales Manager of mine. He took a shot on me, and I thank him every time I see him, and I’ve been blessed, I love the car business. I’ve been fortunate to have a pretty cool career. And I left the car business to start a training business for the car industry because I thought there was a kind of a better way. And I wanted to kind of always say, when you reach a certain point, you want to send the elevator back down, right? No, I love that.
Yeah, and see if we can help some people in the car industry be successful and have great careers. And if you do it the right way, it is a great business. Unfortunately, you get people that don’t do it the right way, right? And we kind of caused some hurdles for ourselves that I don’t think we need to have. So I started the training business, right when the pandemic started, like right before the pandemic, and like nobody was investing in training, people shutting their doors, actually, right. They were closing.
Yeah. So it was tough. It was tough. But um, in August 2020, I had a dealer call me he goes, Hey, are you doing training? And I said, Yeah, he goes, I’d like to talk to you about and I said, he was located in New York In New York, also. And I said I’ll be there tomorrow morning. 10 am. So we’re lucky lucky enough to sign up with him. And it was a 90-day contract, and then we went on for two years. So it’s pretty cool. That’s pretty cool. From there, we kind of grew it and now we’re doing some pretty cool stuff in the training space, where it starts out kind of leadership, I’m sorry, sales training, but we quickly realized that it’s leadership training that most dealerships need.
Herb 29:40
So it’s no, that makes sense. I’ve talked about that on the show. Like oftentimes, you know, when we do these sessions, these training sessions and I’m not a trainer, I’m a consultant on the digital and data and stuff like that, but what I’ve noticed is that we set these training up at the stores and then Hmm, the managers never go to the transaction. And I’m always like, What in the hell is going on here? How can you make sure that the training is being used and applied and hold people accountable, if you don’t even know what the hell they’re training on, it makes zero sense. So, like, I rather train the management and never train the salespeople. Because if the managers know the stuff, and they’re buying into the philosophies in there, they’re gonna, they’re gonna, that’s naturally going to come down, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t get that, that whole thing,
30:29
it’s just speaking about this, I did a, I was a dealership, and the dealer group brought me in to do some sales training. And I think that for managers, and not one of the managers was in the training. And we did two separate sessions. So it wasn’t like, you know, we just pulled people of color, we left half the team on the floor. And afterward, it came off their list. You know, I wasn’t any manager in the training. So we were watching the floor. All right, you need for managers to watch. You know, it’s like a Tuesday afternoon, right? So it was one of those things, it’s, it’s, um, I think it’s a lot of hate to say is, it’s a lot of has to do with ego, right, we get to a position in the car business.
And I’ve always said, you know, leave the ego out of the car business. And we’ll, we’ll all do a lot better, right? But it’s, we get into this, almost like, you’re like a guardian of your space. Right? I’ve heard people say, Well, you know, if I train them, and they get really good, then they’re gonna want my job. My thing is, if, if I have 10 people on my sales team, and I’m training everybody, what are they going to do? Promote everybody? Right. So I’m not looking just to train, you know, we do an evaluation, one of the things we do is we do an evaluation, how to evaluate your team and make sure you’re, you’re hiring the right people for your team. And I think if you really pour into your people, and you take the time to train and train with them and do additional coaching, and you care about your team, and you care about their success, the store as a whole does better.
32:08
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Charity Ann 32:33
your management team says things like well, if we train them, then they’ll take my job, the underlying is one, I don’t want my employees to progress. And I don’t want my employees to know that they how to progress or that they can progress. You’re, you want that as your culture. That’s, that’s what we want.
32:58
It’s unfortunate. And I see that we do it, as I said, we do an evaluation of we teach leaders how to evaluate your teams, we teach a program called remarkable leaders, where we actually give them a sheet where they can analyze and assess their team’s kind of needs and weaknesses, right. So basically just giving them the list them by name, and then there’s give them a grade and you sit down with them. First, you do it individually. And then you sit down as long as a team of leaders or managers in your team. And you kind of go over why you graded somebody. So it’s a performer B performance see performer D performer.
And you kind of talked about like, Hey, I rated that guy a D, but I rated him a B, then you have the conversations, why do you? Why do you do that? But if you’re reading everybody, let’s say if you’re reading someone, and everybody’s kind of writing him a deep performer, you want to have a conversation, right? You want to say, Okay, why one? Is he a deep performer?
Why is he the performer? And have we given him enough training that we can move him up? Or two? Maybe he’s not the right fit. And the question is that point why is he still here? Right, so we asked this question, and the question you asked, you get in a group with your leaders if I knew what I knew now what I hired him today, him or her today. Right? So if you ask yourself that question, and the answer is no, I wouldn’t hire them today, then why are you there? Okay. So either manage them up or manage now, but you have to make a decision. Right? And you come up with,
Herb 34:20
let me let me expand on that a little bit. Because it’s something that’s been on the kind of on the, on the, in some ways on the forefront here at the show, because we got some stuff, you know, if you have your experience, and you can, you know, take that on to a group or a dealership or whatever, make it better. That’s fantastic. I think that one of the things that I’ve always promoted and talked about here on the show is that I feel like this I’m on the like I said marketing and data side and I always get calls from decision makers on like, How can I spend more money? What campaign can we do what mailer Can we send, and I’m always like, none, train your people.
Right? Just train your people because you can You can shut all your marketing down if you have good people and good processes, but you can’t have fantastic marketing and no people no process that it will never work. And so my question is, if you are a person that was in that is in the automotive space and you in you are doing unethical things, and then you leave the space and you come back as a trainer, is that even something that is a? Like, what is your take on that? I just, um, so some of these trainers that are out there, man, I don’t get it. They’re the practices that they’ve done bad things that they’ve been a part of. And now they’re coming back into the space and trying to train people. I don’t understand why that even happens to decision-makers. It’s like, they don’t even notice that stuff. I don’t get it.
35:48
Well, I you know, it’s I’m not here to obviously judge anybody. But, if you’re not ethical, it’s going to show up very quickly. Some of the training we do is compliance training. Also, I’ve gone into dealerships where they just didn’t know they were doing the wrong thing. Right. Right. Some people are doing some things that are underhanded. And at that point, myself as a trainer, I’m going to make a decision if I want to even be affiliated with that dealership, right, if, you know, I don’t want to be associated with dealerships who are you know, being sued by the Attorney General? Like, it’s just like, yeah, I rather I’m good. I’m good. Yeah. So um, yeah, exactly. No, but it’s true. You know?
Some people, you know, have learned from their experiences. That’s one thing, right? If they kind of said, You know what, I’ve done things wrong. Listen, I don’t believe in judging anybody. But if they’ve, if they’ve changed their mindset, and they can take their space looking at like, like a Jordan Belfort, right, like, you know, Wolf of Wall Street kind of guy. He’s doing tons of sales training now. But I don’t I haven’t been through training, but who knows, as far as like, how he pitches it? And Is he is he teaching a way to say, Hey, this is the way to do it, and do it right, I’ve already done it. So here’s how I would do going forward if I had a chance to do it over again. So that’s, that’s how I would kind of approach it.
I’ve always been the type, you know, coming from Chase, right, I was working at Chase auto finance. When I was a supervisor in the customer service department, my mother had my business card on her on refrigerator. You know, she was excited, she would tell her friends Oh, my son’s an executive at Chase like I was. And when I went to leave the chase, when I went to leave Chase, I told my mother, hey, I’m gonna go work at as a car dealer, I’m gonna go sell cars. My mother’s like, I’m gonna be a car salesman. How am I gonna even tell my friends like, it was almost like she, you know, she’d rather you know, other, you know, jobs, going from a manager chase to a car dealer.
car dealers never had this great reputation, if anything, had they had a really bad reputation? Nobody, nobody grows up wanting to be a car salesman. And I told them, I said this, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to be knowledgeable, upfront, and I’m gonna be honest. And if I can’t be successful doing that, then I’ll leave. I was in I was in my early 20s. And she’s like, you know, what goes for my mother was it was in sales for one of the largest shipping companies in the world. And, you know, she said, You know what, go for it. And I’m very fortunate. My brother, mate, my younger brother is also in the car business. We’ve had great, great, great careers. My the first client ever to sell a car to he still calls me when he needs a car. So that’s awesome.
Charity Ann 38:42
And that’s the kind of quality that I mean, you said, Nobody goes into the car business intentionally. And I think that that’s something that Herb and I are very actively trying to change that rhetoric within the community because it does, it changes lives. And not just for the people who work in the automotive industry, but the people for whom there’s a direct correlation between overcoming poverty and transportation, direct correlation.
I just read a study yesterday that was talking about if you live in, an inner city, for every year that you live in an inner city, the chances your income goes down by 1% As an adult and transportation, reliable transportation is the key to that. And so people within the automotive space, we just stumbled into it. We have the opportunity to change lives. And it’s high economics. And instead, so many people within the space choose to choose dishonesty. And suspect behaviors when we could be honorable, intentional ethical people. And when we have honorable, intentional ethical trainers, then we propagate positivity and not negativity?
40:17
Absolutely. I think a lot of that comes from, like you said, who gets into the car business. Or let’s call it let’s go back a little bit and who kind of got into the car business? Right? It was people who, you know, I guess it wasn’t something you planned for, but you ended up in the car business. So yeah, back then the car industry had a kind of a CD kind of, you know, connotation to it, right? And now, what happens is those people continue to train people that were in the business, you know, if, when I got hired, they said, Alright, go sit with so and so like, you know, he’s one of our top guys go sit with so and so. Or the top guy was way too busy.
So they put you the second or third type guy, and, you know, he would tell you right away, oh, yeah, the car business used to be a good racket, you know, and, you know, you’re sitting there as a young person, like, hey, excited about this job, and didn’t have any formal training. Right? So they put you with somebody here, this guy is either telling us like, how terrible customers are, and all you know, he bad mouth customers, and what happens to your expectations, as a person, you start saying is up, like, wait a minute, did I make the right decision, and if I’m going to be in this business, I have to be shady to do it. And that’s not the case.
You know, if you really care, you know, I have a son, and my son early age, my son’s now 26 years old. At one point, he went into the car business. And I said to him, I said, if you really care about helping the customer achieve their goals, the money will follow. But if you’re just changes chasing the money, you’re gonna, you’re gonna be taking apps off the showroom floor for the rest of your life. If you really, you know, look to like, help the customer buy a car, find out the needs and concerns, do an incredible Meet and Greet know your product better than anybody else. Be honest and upfront. As if you don’t know the answer, I just met a young gentleman. 21 years old, he was a valet.
And he was he, you know, they asked me to talk to him. This is a dealership that I’m training. They said, Hey, we have this guy. We just pulled them out to the showroom floor. Can you speak to him for a couple of minutes. And, you know, he had a suit on and he was excited about you know, they introduced me to him. And he’s coming out of the out of the service drive. And I introduced myself and his eyes are wide open. Like he was nervous. He could tell us like his first day on the floor. And I said, You’re excited. He goes, Yeah, I’m excited. And he tells me because I know more about these cars than anybody here. That’s why they moved me into sales.
And I said, Use this to your advantage. The fact that you don’t know anything is great but explain to the customer, hey, when it comes to the car, I know more about these cars than anybody else in the showroom. As far as the sales side, if I don’t have an answer for you, I’m going to make sure I work harder than anybody else in here to get you the answer and get you the right answer. Now, to me, when you’re honest and open with people, people can tell. So that’s going to be his, um, Katapult. In the car business, I always thought that if you’re honest and upfront and you’re sincere with people, they can tell if you’re shady, and you’re kind of, you know, then you find yourself a customer leaves, and then you’re calling him to follow up.
He doesn’t even answer your phone call, you know, and you start asking yourself like, oh, and you tell yourself, Oh, that guy was just a waste of time. Meanwhile, that customer bought a car. And the question is, why did he buy it from you and even give you a shot? It’s because you didn’t build a relationship and the customer picked up on something that was there that you may not notice that you’re giving off. So if you do it, right, it’s an incredible, incredible industry, just to give an idea. I’m a GED student. And I have, you know, I don’t have a college degree, and I’ve run some of the largest Mercedes-Benz dealerships in the country. So it’s, I’ve been fortunate and like I said, the car business is an incredible avenue to build a great career,
Herb 43:51
ya know, that? I, you know, I’m in, I’m in that same vibe. And like, I want to go back to what charity said, like, one of my biggest pet peeves is the fact that there’s not one person that I’ve ever interviewed or talked to, that’s gone into this business intentionally. And it sucks. It just, it sucks, because it’s such a great industry. I mean, cars now are like computers on wheels, you know, the level of technical of technicality and the level, of knowledge base that you have to have to either fix or sell these these cars is insane. You’re running millions of dollars. It’s a retail operation that costs millions of dollars. It has such a huge impact on your local community. I mean, it’s got all these pluses, right, and yet people want to stay away from it because of this damn stigma. And then all these install today 2023 There are still people in the business that are doing things to perpetuate that and it drives me insane. Yep. 100
44:59
When the good,
Charity Ann 45:02
the accountability for the factor just blows my mind or the lack of accountability,
45:09
as leaders in the car business, I mean, there has to be a shift somewhere as leaders in the car industry. And believe me when I tell you I think there is more good than bad, right? Oh, yeah, for sure. Especially nowadays, you know, it’s starting to, you know, switch, especially with all the technology. And I think people do see the benefits of the car industry. And I, just a couple of days ago, I had a client or client reach out, and she said, Chris, I need your help. I’m looking for a car. And she’s a lifelong BMW driver. And she wanted to try something different. So she goes into an Audi dealership. And this is a terrible story.
We tell him all the time. And she walks in with her daughter and asks her to test drive a car, she has an appointment to test drive the car. So she goes in, she checks in salesperson comes over and she goes, Oh, you want to test drive a vehicle? Great. He goes, Can I have your driver’s license? She’ll be sure he goes. And your husband is your husband here with you. And now he doesn’t he goes on and on. We just like to have all parties present before we go into a test drive. All like decision-makers. And she looked at him and said, give me my driver’s license. I’m leaving. How about that? She was referred to me by someone who knows me. She called and he said called Sky Christian. And I helped I put up with a dealership to help them with the car. But can you imagine that in this?
Herb 46:34
Let me ask you something to interject. This goes directly to what you and the charity were arguing about in the beginning. Do you think that the whole party is that? Isn’t that potentially part of their road to the sale? Procedure?
Charity Ann 46:49
Okay, I just that was he’s fishing. Oh, but
Herb 46:55
I mean. written down somewhere, there’s probably a document if that. Insane, I don’t get it. Like,
47:10
I understand your point. That’s a good point. What was he anticipating or assuming the close? And you know, just Was it an honest question right from now? Now, here’s the thing, right? Perception is reality. In the customer’s mind, that may be the case, but the way the customer presented it to me, it was not the case. Right? But the customer’s perception.
Herb 47:29
Now Now let’s let’s flip that story. Same scenario that you presented, and I’m the salesperson and I start to ask her questions. All how do you know what dropped? What drove you to it? What made you choose us for your visit today? What are you looking for? What what you know, tell me about this. Tell me about that. I see you have a kid you have more children, like the space is important to you fuel economy and just ask questions, right and figure out what her problem is, and then present her two or three solutions that can solve that problem. Is that person going to walk out of their hell no. But because it’s written down somewhere at that dealership both parties need to be present. And if you don’t follow this, and I’m the at the tower, and I come down, and I find out that you’re working a deal without the husband there, you’re gonna get yelled at. It’s just stupid shit, man. I’m sorry, pardon my French, but I don’t get what is going on with these things. It just doesn’t make sense.
48:23
Well, that again. You know, that’s a great point. Because if I asked a salesperson, right, what happened with that customer, you probably give me some sort of story like that. Right? I hope, I hope.
Charity Ann 48:34
But that’s a training thing. That’s not That’s not what we were talking about. We were specifically talking about communicating. Versus you said that when we use scripting and things like roads, the sale that is
Herb 48:51
this trickery, what it is manipulation, and I was
Charity Ann 48:55
saying it is not there just basic communication skill sets.
49:00
I think it’s an outlet, if you use it as an outline, I can understand both sides of what you’re saying. I’m feel like I’m you know,
Herb 49:05
yeah, that’s what we’re saying. It’s a good thing. Because he’s at a party here so
49:12
so I use it as a guideline, but let people trust their judgment. I tell people all the time, you know what’s right and wrong, like you can you’re probably doing some things that that are taught in sales subconsciously right, but you want to kind of use it actively. But in that case, you have to have some tact right some ability to assess a situation and I guess, not anticipate the next step but kind of let the deal happen right by asking some questions up front and then saying, Okay, fantastic.
Like you said, you know, I see you have a child, mind you, it was a two-door convert Are you know, what are you driving now, if she just had the BMW You start finding us, in fact finding questions and don’t start to assume the sale too early. And that’s what a lot of, I’d say senior salespeople do is they start to, before the customer can even finish the sentence, they know where to go with the sale, they know what the next step is going to be. And they go to that before the customer even takes them there. And that also causes a problem because the customer doesn’t feel like you’re listening to him, you may be 100%, right? But you don’t you don’t feel that the salesperson is listening to you when you’re the client feel
Herb 50:29
the customer feels like you’re driving them to think that they don’t want to go through
50:33
how many times as a salesperson, you know, and the customer had a conversation, the salesperson goes, Oh, well, you know, I have six months left on my lease and they go, Oh, we can get you out of the vehicle early. Don’t worry about that we have a program right now. And the customer didn’t even finish the sentence. Let the customer and I tell this to the whole time. Even if you know where the customer is going. Let the customer finish the sentence, pause and say greet sometimes then information, you’re not even going to, you know, follow up on it, you may just hold it in your backpack for a little while and maybe bring it up later on and say great, no problem. I understand you have six months, six months left on your lease, that makes my job so much easier.
Let’s just get to know the car. Let’s just find out exactly what you need, and what your concerns are, let’s just make sure we find the right car for you and your family. Once you’ve done that you’ve done the test drive, you don’t need to be concerned you’ve done the walk-around presentation. Later on when you see the customers like you know, all right, yeah, this is the right car for my family. And you could bring up hey, you know what, there’s a program right now pull ahead program where we’re able to get you out, you know, three to six months early. Let’s see if you qualify for that. You don’t always have to, you know, shoot the answer out. As soon as the customer mentions a problem. Sometimes you have to hold that information back a little bit.
Charity Ann 51:42
Right. But that’s not just, I mean, shooting the answer out at the wrong and not letting people finish their sentences. That’s not as bad as salesmanship. That’s bad communication.
51:52
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Imagine in a relationship, right? When me my wife, I’m talking, and I’m not letting her finish her sentence. But I think I know where she’s going with it. It’s you’re not listening. Like that’s her, her mind says, but you’re not listening to me. So you have to let people finish. And again, it’s basic communication skills is huge in any type of sales, whether it’s car sales, whatever, you
Herb 52:14
know, for sure, my thing with my thing is my big pet peeve and argument. The with this whole thing is that I understand why it was done that way, I understand that. Back in the day, customers didn’t have any information, and the dealer had all the control, right? And so if you have a system, then anybody can do it. Right? If you have, you can bring anybody in and put them in that chair. And if they follow the system, they’re gonna get pretty much similar results, I get all that. But that’s not the world we live in now. And we shouldn’t be just putting people there because they fog the mirror, right? Like, we got to hire the right people, people with skills, people that are to have a certain skill set, and
Charity Ann 52:59
certain skills, a certain desire to become better,
Herb 53:05
right? And not put them down this, this, this, this old antiquated thing that doesn’t fit the world we live in today, it’s much more efficient for you to have a conversation with the human being and figure out what their issue is, and then solve the problem that they have. Figure out the problem that they don’t even know that they have, how valuable is and the customer is going to end up telling you to sell them. So not the other way around. I just I don’t know, man, it’s just I get super passionate about this stuff. Because it to me, it’s like, super, it’s like common sense shape. Right? And then I get a call from from from clients being like, hey, where can I spend more money on my on my marketing campaign? It’s like nowhere, dude. Put that unit to training your people?
53:47
Absolutely. Um, it’s like, interviewing it’s, it’s, it’s well, I met with the dealer a couple of years ago. And it always stuck out in my head, when they called me in to come in for an interview. And I met with one of the managers. And I sat down with the person and he right away just started talking about himself and how he and I did little, you know, so how’d you get in the car business, and right away, he just kept going and going and going and going. And we sat there for about 3040 minutes, I probably said a total of 10 words the entire time. He turns at the end, he goes, You know, I think you’re gonna be great for this position. And I’m like, he doesn’t know anything about he never even asked me about my background. He just started talking. But I kind of pulled his ego into the whole situation, right?
And it goes into the like you said the training and being able to interview and having those interview skills like I asked questions on interviews. What books or audio Do you listen to for personal development? You can’t fake that answer. You can’t fake this if you’ve got to do it or you don’t. And I’ve had interviews get very uncomfortable where you know, salespeople who were in the car business a long time you asked him that question You see, like the little bead of sweat dripping down there like, um, you can’t fake that asking questions I used to work years ago, I used to work at Delta Airlines, right? So one question I would ask is, all right, so I’m going to give you a scenario, I want you to tell me how you would handle this, right?
So you work in the baggage claim, okay, and a client comes over, and you see she’s got tears in her eyes. And you find out that she’s flying in for her wedding. And she comes up to your counter and says, Hey, my wedding dress did not come off the carousel, and her wedding in the next day or so. What do you do? And how do you handle that situation? He said, I tried to calm her down, and then we go look for it. Okay, great. They tell me all the things that they would do. And I said, okay, but now you get a phone call that the dress was ruined. It was run over, it was trashed, it’s ripped and shredded? How do you now talk to their client and explain to them that their dresses are going on? What do you do to help the client?
And you see people actually, like, don’t take a second to think about and they come up with these different scenarios, I help them buy a new dress, I come up with these different scenarios, asking questions like this in an interview, or is going to help you understand the person’s mindset. Right and understand their problem-solving ability, and their listening ability, right? So if if you don’t hold very good interviews, and unfortunately, we hold interviews, out of necessity, meaning, you know, you don’t have enough salespeople on the floor, so you need to hire right away. So what do you do, you lower the bar, and you get somebody in the chair, right?
Instead of cold, I like to do it, I was always hiring I used to, I used to make an appointment for interviews, like BDC made them for sales. Like I want someone every day coming into my showroom, my salespeople would come over and like, who was that? And I’m like, it’s an interview. And they go, Well, all our desks are full, I’m like, we’ll figure it out. And my thing was, I’m always looking to better the team, right? And this goes back to evaluating your team, if there’s someone that needs to be replaced, or it’s not, not the right fit for your store, you have to make decisions, but you have to be prepared to make those decisions by having good candidates in line. So again, going back to interviewing, if you’re not asking the right questions, you’re gonna get the wrong people in your store. And unfortunately, that’s gonna affect the entire team.
Herb 57:15
Yeah, no, no, I agree with that. 100% I think that’s one of the things. That’s one of the things that cause the stigma that we have, in my opinion, is that will dealers, leadership at dealerships will hire anybody, just anybody to do sales? It’s nuts to me, I do not get that at all.
57:33
I had a dealership tell me that I just need bodies. Yeah, I just think the more
Herb 57:37
I have, they’re gonna fire themselves, like I need 50. Because five of them, six of them are just gonna fire themselves. And, you know, they’ve been they keep that thing.
Charity Ann 57:46
And then they justify bad histories. Like, well, you know, oh, their background check came back. Horrible. But somehow we justify that and hire them anyway.
58:00
How about dealers who don’t even do background checks? Like me, it should be difficult to get a job in my store.
Herb 58:06
Yes, exactly. Should should be like a coveted position that not. We know. When you
58:11
build a culture, like high performance, you know, we have non-negotiables where, hey, you know what, this is how we operate. You hold people to high standards, your standards dictate what you’re going to get. And what happens is we you know, I had one of the stores, I was training, they had a gentleman there that was doing 40 cars, you know, 20, anywhere from 25 to 35 cars on top sales performer. And he was, I’m sorry to say he was cancer in the store, hit a bad attitude, he would tell managers to tell off the manager. You know, one day he wanted to leave early, they had a small sales team. And one person had called out another person’s day off. And he goes, I’m gonna head out early today, I got some stuff to do. And the manager this is the general sales manager says, You know what, today’s doesn’t so and so called out sick today. I’m short-staffed, I need you to stay and he goes, figure it out.
Charity Ann 59:05
Oh, my gosh, that makes me angry.
59:10
The next day, I got the phone call about it, right? The next day, I’m there for training. And I come in and they go, oh, now I’m talking to the owners with the General Sales Manager. And they go, Oh, don’t be too hard on me. It’s okay. You know, it was slow Anyway, YESTERDAY. I said, Oh, you think I’m upset with him? I expected this from him. Yeah, this is not a surprise that he did this. I’m surprised you guys are allowing that you allow it. That’s, again, you get what you tolerate.
Herb 59:41
Right. You have to stop this is this is a big problem in our industry, man. We have to stop promoting people and giving opportunities to bad employees just because they sell cars is so it’s so dumb.
59:56
We ended up letting the gentleman go And everyone on the next month, everyone in the team, the eighth car guy, that’s 10 cars. They also have more cars. They didn’t miss a beat in Mississippi, and we spoke to them, we said, listen, salsa is not here anymore. And yes, he was the top guy in the store, but things are not going to be tolerated the way they were before. Now you all have the opportunity to benefit from the here’s what we need from you. We need the phone calls, we need the follow-up, we need to make sure you’re following the process the right way. We need to to every single deal, right, I want to meet every single one of the customers that comes in the door. Nobody leaves out here. So everyone benefited from this move. The store did not miss a beat.
Herb 1:00:41
Yeah, yeah. And you know, the other underlying benefit of doing something like that the the message that it says to your employees is humongous. Either way, right? Absolutely. We tolerate that. Then it says it sends a message to your entire employees. And if we don’t, it sends a different message. Right. And I think that that’s, that’s one of the things that we miss as well. When we put up with stupid stuff like that, how do I tell the employees that they don’t matter? Absolutely, that’s what it says
Charity Ann 1:01:11
in the book, Extreme Ownership, he talks about it where they were, and where he was training. I think they were in buds, and they were all carrying boats on their heads. And there were two teams and one team was number one every single time. And then the other team was there was last every single time, the guy that was last kept complaining that his team wasn’t doing well. And so they flipped the leaders. And the guy that was on the first team, they put them on the back. And that team immediately became this competition for the first time. Yep. Because it’s, it’s all about how you lead. And it’s about taking because this is Extreme Ownership, taking ownership for that on every level, not just me as a leader, but like expecting everybody that I work with to take ownership for their stuff. And then my managers and my leaders need to be able to take ownership of their shit as well. That’s how we get that. I wish
1:02:14
they had this here I have a workbook for the training that we do. And one of the things that we say is one is job descriptions, right, especially for leadership, people who are in leadership positions. The job description says start with I so I blank, take responsibility for the sales department, whatever department it is, take responsibility for the sales department. I am responsible for everything this team does and does not do. That should be the first line of every job description. I am responsible for everything this team does and does not do whether they win or they lose, I’m responsible for it. When you look at it from that aspect, right? And you say, hey, you know what, everything is my fault. If you look at it, that’s how growth happens. But when you say well, it was SO and SO SO and SO dropped the ball on that I don’t we don’t get any better from that. I don’t get any better from that.
Herb 1:03:07
Right. The other thing from that mindset, too, that I really appreciate, and it’s kind of like the motto I live my life by is that it gives you control. When it’s your fault. You can fix it when it’s somebody else’s fault. You’re screwed. Absolutely. Right. So Christian anyway, man, dude, listen, I’ve appreciated this conversation. I’m you know, I hope you the listeners are not I’m not yelling, folks. I’m just passionate.
1:03:31
I didn’t think you were young. So
Herb 1:03:33
thank you so much for doing this. There is one question that we ask everybody that comes on the show. And that question is where do you see the automotive industry headed in the next five years? And why?
1:03:43
Um, the great question. So I see going more towards as far as the customer experience, obviously, everything’s digital, right? We’re customers, we have to there are platforms out there that are helping customers buy cars more easily through digital platforms. If we don’t make some changes quickly, and the customer experience aspect and the sales aspect of it, I think you’re going to see go towards that Apple-like genius bar type of situation where the customer comes in, and there’s a product specialist that shows him the car.
There’s, you know, maybe a couple of managers there, they’re closing managers and they’re saying, hey, you know what, here’s the number on the car, you know, you know the vehicle you want, you know, the product you want, here are the numbers in the vehicle, you know, you have a little bit of wiggle room, whatever the case may be, or they do it on the phone and they come in and they say alright, you know, here’s my QR code. I’m here to pick up my vehicle and they go that’s, that’s the cars and spot 8234 and so on.
So it’s going to show you the vehicle. We have to we have to get better at the customer experience aspect of it. There’s buying a car should not be difficult, and unfortunately, it is Why do customers hate shopping for cars? They do. Nobody is excited about going into a dealership to buy a car and it should be an exciting experience. And it’s, it’s a lot of it is that the history and this stigma of the car business, but a lot of it is us and how we don’t look at it as leaders and owners.
I tell leaders time and owners of dealerships to be a customer in their own store, right, every now and then order apart, call up from another number, and try ordering apart for a car and see how it goes. You know, call and make a service appointment, see how it goes, look at your inventory online, look at you know, go through the cars and look through the inventory as an owner and be a customer in your own store. I see stores that you go to their meet the staff page. And there are no pictures or some of them have pictures for their salespeople. They’re there aren’t there anymore. We have to get better at improving the experience for the customer or else we’re going to see some huge changes in the way people do business with our stores. Do it I
Herb 1:05:54
love that. I love that. And I typically don’t do this after the five-year question, but you just touched on some one point that drives me absolutely insane. And that’s the experience conversation. We’re so good at talking about the experience. Everybody knows that experience is the thing yet nobody we all do the same shit. It’s the same recycled stuff you can go to 10 dealerships it’s pretty much the same process, which it’s just that’s not an experience. It’s replicable it’s not an experience. We say break the script, right? Yeah. It’s so easy to do right now the dealers that do it, which are which there are some dealerships out there that are doing it, right, dude, you can tell it’s different. You know what I mean? You could just tell you can feel it, you can go on their website and it feels different. upsell. Yeah, that’s a great one, man. I loved it. Anyway, thanks, everybody for tuning in. That’s all the time that we have for today. And as usual, we’ll talk later
Intro 1:06:54
we only hosted concerning the vendor LexisNexis we also did a judo market. We inspected with our DT vendor management.
1:07:05
Now more than ever, businesses need more efficient sales. That’s why 1000s of dealerships trust for us to help with things like automated inventory, email updates, and ensuring all of your leads get into the CRM. To try four eyes for free. Visit four eyes.io/dealer talk. That’s four eyes.io/dealer Talk