Automotive News Canada - July 2020 - 5

SPONSORED CONTENT

Re-hire your Sales Team to the Appointment Culture
What are the
skills needed for
your sales team
to thrive postpandemic?

SALES LEADERSHIP
Insights & Selling
Strategies
with a customer. They need to be organized,
managing their time and their customer
contacts. They need to be innovators,
finding new ways to enhance the the online
and offline purchase experience. They need
to have strong phone skills, as the phone
continues to be the strongest link between the
digital and physical showroom. They need to
have a customer service orientation, with a
willingness to serve the customer.

By JEFF WILLIAMS
President & CEO, Absolute Results

Our world has drastically changed over
the last four months. Virtually every dealer
leaned out or laid off their sales staff during
the pandemic. Now that markets are opening
up, they have a unique opportunity to re-hire
their team. Dealers are asking questions like:
How will business look, post-pandemic?
Which sales staff should I bring back?
How many staff will I need?
How many staff can I afford?
Perhaps there is an even more important
question...WHAT ARE THE TOP
SKILLS NEEDED FOR THE SALES
PROFESSIONAL OF THE FUTURE?
At a recent Sales Leadership online session
I asked top dealers this exact question. Here
were their answers: They need to be
tech-savvy, skilled at interacting digitally

Wow - what happened to closing skills or
the ability to hold gross profit? Our world
certainly has changed.
The big challenge comes when
we look at our pre-pandemic
sales roster. How many of our
top performers have all of these
five skills? Not enough!

It matters less which sales professionals you
bring back and more what kind of culture you
bring them back to. Do dealers bring them
back into a reactive culture where they wait
for customers to show up? If that's the case,
they certainly don't need as many staff.
The key is not only to re-hire the sales staff
who have the right skills and potential to
grow, but to bring them back into a pro-active Appointment Culture, where they
are responsible for creating daily selling
opportunities. An Appointment Culture
of service where dealers are willing to "go
to the customer". An Appointment Culture
of preparation where they
plan and work in advance
for each customer appointment...and are passionate
about delivering a high-value customer experience.

IT'S ALL
ABOUT YOUR

CULTURE

Is the answer to hire a totally
new team? Of course not. We
all have many good people, and
some excellent people. But we all know that
yesterday's skills alone won't be enough.

The good news is that top sales performers
are typically very resilient and adaptable, and
even they know that the world has drastically
changed. Dealers also intuitively know which
of their team have the greatest capacity to
adapt and learn these new skills. But knowing who to hire back is not the full solution.

So, let's go deeper and ask
an even more challenging
question... WHAT ARE THE SKILLS
NEEDED OF A SALES MANAGER
TO CREATE AND SUSTAIN THE
APPOINTMENT CULTURE?
Historically, sales managers have led from the
authority of their position, and much of this
authority came from industry information
that was so closely guarded. Their leadership
style was to "direct and correct". They spent

March 1 was 100 YEARS AGO
Everything has changed. Prepare your team for the future.

COMPLIMENTARY WEBINAR FOR AUTOMOTIVE NEWS CANADA READERS

Developing the
Appointment Culture

Growing
Retention

Delivering a High-Value
Customer Experience

45
MINUTE

COMPLIMENTARY WEBINAR
* Max 16 participants per session with interactive dealer Q&A.
* Downloadable webinar training resources.
* Early access to post-pandemic whitepaper.

the majority of their time as "fixers", managing inventory, structuring deals for profit
and supervising the activity of their sales
professionals.
So many of yesterday's operational functions
have been automated, with
more automation coming. It's
not the "hard
skills" of appraising a trade
or structuring
a deal that will
Sales managers
win and secure
who rally their
the customer or
sales team every
the sales team
day to fight for
of the future.
appointments are
Rather it's the
the rainmakers of
"soft skills" of
the future.
coaching and leading.
Successful sales managers today are learning to "inspire activity", rather than "direct
and correct", and they are active on the showroom floor, leading their team and modeling
how to connect, demonstrate value and create
a high-value customer experience.
They focus on activity first and results second, because if they can inspire appointmentmaking activity, there will be no shortage
of selling opportunities. They establish a
daily cadence of accountability for appointment- making and selling activity. Every day
counts towards the success of the sales team.
Training also becomes a crucial component
of the Sales Manager's daily activity. The
manager's willingness to learn new appointment-making skills and to serve customers
sets a powerful example for the team to
follow. Manager's celebrate team members
who perform and in doing so, note that the
success was the result of following the right
process.
Sales managers who rally their sales team
every day to fight for appointments are the
rainmakers of the future. Having spent 24
years in the retail auto industry, I have never
known a sales manager who was fired because their team had too many appointments.
The Appointment Culture also simplifies the
recruiting process. The lazy or opportunistic
salespeople, and those unwilling to change,
won't be attracted to the disciplines required
to succeed. However, for those willing, there
is a clear path to success.
For dealers with an Appointment Culture,
their success becomes intentional rather than
accidental, as every day their team is focused
on creating and maximizing selling opportunities. When their teams can create enough
appointment opportunities every day to be
successful, dealers will be positioned to deliver a high-value customer experience, growing
their sales TODAY and TOMORROW.
Scan to read the
full article and
download the
e-book, "Three
Keys to the Reset"

http://www.ABSOLUTERESULTS.COM/100YEARSAGO

Automotive News Canada - July 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Canada - July 2020