Sometimes, a small fix in your sales process or technique can make all the difference in your dealership’s bottom line. Unfortunately, many management teams in the automotive industry are ill-prepared to identify solutions in the post-pandemic economy, where traditional sales skills and strategies have fallen to the wayside.
On this episode of Inside Automotive, host Jim Fitzpatrick is joined by Jim Ziegler, retail automotive veteran, speaker, and president of Ziegler Super Systems. Ziegler has helped thousands of dealers, sales professionals, executives and managers across the industry boost profits and improve efficiency by providing in-depth training and sharing his immense knowledge of sales tactics and strategies. He is also the Dealers Choice Diamond Award Winner for Sales and Management Training. Now, he discusses his new book, “The Sales Managers’ Forum” in which he reveals the key steps to ensure your sales process is prepared for the changing automotive landscape.
Key Takeaways
1. Ziegler wrote his book to re-equip dealers and sales professionals with the leadership skills and communication tactics necessary to sell cars. During the COVID pandemic, many retail automotive teams lost the sales knowledge and capabilities they once had.
2. Managers are often poorly trained and fail to have full oversight of the dealership’s sales process. Dealers must prioritize continuing education for their leadership teams.
3. Dealers often cut deals to meet the bank’s conditions rather than prioritizing their own business. This results in lower payments, revenue and profit.
4. Managers must be aware of every deal in progress as they happen. By supporting their salespeople throughout the entirety of the sales process, dealership leaders can ensure their team is operating as needed to boost profits and sell more cars.
5. Some dealers ignore training, leaving their staff and management teams to figure the sales process out on their own. To prepare for the post-pandemic economy, retailers must ensure their employees are fully equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to serve customers. For many, this means returning to the basics.
"I have spent more time teaching managers how to be managers than [anything else]. It's amazing because you're not the salesperson's pal; you're their supervisor. You used to be one of them; you're not one of them anymore." — Jim Ziegler
