Digital Dealer - February 2019 - 48

S A L E S & VA RIA BL E OPS: F ixe d Op e r a tio ns Continued from pg. 46

ADVISORS ARE NOT ADMINISTRATIVE-PROCESSDRIVEN-PAPER-PUSHING-CLERKS....NO, NO, NO. THEY
ARE REVENUE-GENERATING, PRODUCTION-BASED
PROFESSIONAL SALES PEOPLE!"
advisors for selling preventive maintenance services.
Have fun with it. Pay $5.00
for each service sold and
start a Century Club for
those advisors that sell
over 100 services a month.
Give them a $100 bonus
each month that they earn
Century Club status. How
about an additional $100 for
the first advisor to hit 100
maintenance services for
the month?
Advisors are not administrative-process-driven-paper-pushing-clerks....no,
no, no. They are revenue-generating, production-based professional
sales people!
You wouldn't tolerate a
car salesman who wouldn't

sell cars, right? Then why
on earth would you tolerate
a service advisor that won't
sell service?
There are only two things
in life: knowing and doing.
That said, let's unpack this
further. Training precedes
knowing. Accountability
precedes doing.
Forgive me for stating the
obvious, but don't expect
your advisors to sell maintenance if they haven't been
trained in the art of selling.
Selling skills, overcoming
objections, and closing the
deal are learned behaviors.
You can't send someone to
training once and call them
trained; sales training must
be ongoing. Your service
sales team must routinely

A DV E R T IS E R S IN D E X
ADVERTISER

PAGE

Advanta Star................................ 33
Kelley Blue Book........................ Back Cover
Manheim/Inventory Solutions...... 3
National Pavement Expo.............25
Playback Now............................. 47
RFID ........................................... 5
VinSolutions.................................Inside Front Cover
The index to advertiser page numbers is published for reader convenience. Every
effort is made to list page numbers correctly. The listing is not part of the advertising
contract and the publisher is not responsible for errors or omissions.

48

FEBRUARY 2019

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

practice, drill, and rehearse.
Countless business
studies have shown that
people do more and perform at a higher level when
there is an accountability
structure in place. Everyone's production increases
when they know you are
watching. (Obviously, I
don't mean that you should
stare a hole through them
every minute of the day,
but direct observation for
a few minutes every day is
good.) When an employee
knows the boss is looking at
their numbers, guess what?
Their numbers go up.
The opposite is also true.
According to Dave Anderson, some people complain
about the money they don't
have from the work that
they don't do! They do just
enough to get by. They
could do more, but they just
don't want to. Heaven forbid
that the employees learned
this attitude from the boss!
Basically, they have learned
that no one above them
cares, so why should they?
In closing, here are some
characteristics of a healthy
sales culture:
 Clear Goals and
Expectations. If nothing is
your goal, you're sure to get
it-nothing.
 Training, Mentoring,
and Coaching (not screaming, ranting, and cursing).
Management by fear and intimidation is not leadership.

 Practicing, Drilling,
and Rehearsing. The
greatest sports heroes and
teams never stop training
or improving. The world's
greatest musicians never
stop practicing.
 Marketing and Merchandising Tools. Equipping
your service sales team
with menus, multi-point
inspection forms, tablets,
videos, processes, and
point-of-sale materials to
help them close the sale.
 Accountability Structure. Don't overthink this.
Decide your top three or
four revenue-producing
key performance indicators
and monitor every tech and
advisor every day.
 Celebrate Milestones
Publicly. Celebrate and reward your parts and service
team when they knock it out
of the park one month. Publicly award top achievers
who meet their numbers.
Fixed ops is first and foremost a sales organization.
Make it a priority in 2019.
You can do this.
CHARLIE POLSTON is an
Automotive Customer Retention and Profitability Consultant
with BG Products, Inc. Charlie
has been with BG's Fixed
Operations Division for over
36 years. He has trained over
7,500 dealers, managers, and
technicians - and has been a
frequent workshop leader at
NADA's annual convention.
EMAIL: cpolston@bglsi.com
http://www.DIGITALDEALER.COM
Digital Dealer - February 2019

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