Changing Your Dealership’s Approach to Business Development

For the first time since California’s shelter-in-place order back in March, automotive retail expert David Kain is back on the road visiting and consulting Joe Cooper Auto Group through the Coronavirus recovery. What’s interesting about the pandemic experience is that it is regionalized. In Oklahoma, where Joe Cooper Auto Group is located, the virus count is very low. They weren’t faced with a lot of the business development challenges that popped up in states like Michigan, New York, and Florida.

Early on, this group created a video platform where all of their salespeople do walk-around videos which played particularly well to their audience. This approach allowed for social distancing while still engaging with the consumer. David also worked with them on shared screen interactions using FaceTime and other tools.

“Every operation is starting to nuance their approach to business development,” says David. “So we’ll use this dealer group as a case in point. They really focus on getting the salespeople to become internet salespeople and work with the leads that way, but then they tuck in their business development team to be the safety net and overflow team.”

These two bodies working in tandem and collaborating closely is the way of the future, David believes. This leads to many advances in a dealership’s orientation as a sales team. Writing good text messages and writing good emails are skills that all team members should have. Parceling out tasks based on individual strengths is the way of the past. Blending these processes will be essential moving forward.

David is the president of Kain Automotive and host of Kain & Co. every Thursday right here on CBT.