Most dealers and managers will agree their employees are their greatest assets. I like to equate the following simple formula to show how important this is: Customer relationship management equals employee relationship management.
You can walk into any dealership and immediately determine the personality outlook of the employees, which, in turn, permeates to the customers. Do the store and its people radiate a comfortable, secure and confident environment, or does it radiate the haphazard, crazed approach? One of the primary reasons for the latter is that the people are not given enough positive attention and they are not trained well. Your store does radiate one of these two. The question is, which one?
Let me give you an example: I was strolling through a potential new client dealership recently, which consisted of multiple rooftops in close proximity to one another. I began at one store and was interviewing random salespeople along the way. My question to the salespeople was this: “What do you feel the dealership could do to make you more successful at what you do?”
The most prevalent answers were:
“Well, we sure could use some training.”
“They just hired me and no one has trained me yet. I have never sold cars and the sales manager told me to talk with the other salespeople to get a handle on things.”
“I wish I knew what our processes were from day to day. One day it is this way and the next day it is another. I am just not clear as to what to do.”
“Managerial involvement. The managers don’t seem to want to take the time to help me succeed.”
Training was at the top of the list mentioned from both seasoned sales professionals and newbies. Next, I visited with the general manager and inquired as to how things were going. Of course, I had to ask him the simple question: “What do you consider your greatest asset to be?” He replied: “Our people.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, that’s simple, if they don’t come to work we don’t sell cars.”
Next, I asked him how much they spent monthly on advertising. He responded saying $80,000 a month.
I then asked him how much they spent on training their people. His reply was zero.
“Why zero?”
“I have too many irons in the fire.”
Wow, zero – and your greatest assets are your people? That’s kind of like investing in a million dollar beach or mountain home and letting it wither away without any maintenance. Just let it crumble before your eyes and it, in turn, paying you back by depreciating its value so you will ultimately lose money. That just doesn’t make good sense to me. The “too many irons in the fire” rap is a flimsy excuse for either not knowing what to do or being too ignorant to understand its importance. Maybe the dealer just doesn’t want to invest in the solid promotion of people. Mark my word; it will cost you 20 times more not to train your people than to train them in good sales processes.
There are studies that indicate if you hire someone, don’t train them and they leave within 120 days it could cost you upward of $50,000 to $75,000. How, you ask? By losing customers from your lot because salespeople don’t know what to do, damaging your reputation because of their frustration being taken out on customers, administration time required getting them on board, employment advertising costs, managers spending unproductive “maintenance fix-it” time instead of doing productive tasks, and creating a morale problem to mention a few. Lots of money has gone down the drain. And, if you would have just invested a small percentage of the ad budget, this person could be contributing to the overall growth of the store instead of making it go backward. One fellow explained not training people like this: “It’s like going fishing without a hook on the line. Sure, we got the line wet, but we weren’t able to reel anything in.”
Upon speaking with another dealership about the lack of training being commensurate with its high attrition problem, the dealer immediately told his GM to get out all the old training programs and boring videos and start training again. That just won’t do it anymore. Today’s auto landscape has changed dramatically. The consumers have changed as well, and using those tired “old school” training methods will most likely do more harm than good. New training methods are here; so use them.
OK, so if our people are truly our greatest assets, why don’t we treat them like that? It is time to consider carving out a conservative 5 to 10 percent of your ad budget and begin to invest in your greatest asset – your people. That newspaper ad will be in the garbage tomorrow, your radio or TV ad may be switched to another station at the commercial break, but your people will hopefully still be there. Doesn’t it just make perfect sense that if you have an asset, you should want to make further investments toward its appreciation enhancement? I think so, and so do many others. You see, any dealership can replicate money and compete on capitol expenditure (like advertising), but no can replicate the skill sets of your employees.
Your ISM needs continuous advancement in the new technologies and communications skills. Your salespeople have to know the new 21st century ways to communicate and handle objections. How about phone skills? Wow, you mean people call before they come in? Yes, they do, and the closing ratios can hover around 40 to 45 percent when processed properly. Train them in the proper techniques and you will see your asset begin to soar. Re-focus now on getting good training for your assets before it is too late.
Good ERM will render good CRM – and a whole lot more.
Chuck Barker’s experience ranges from an executive with a Fortune 200 computer corporation to the automobile business. He has held positions as business development manager, sales manager, acting GM, ADP executive regional manager specializing in CRM and his own current company, Impact Marketing & Consulting Group, LLC, located in Virginia. His firm delivers CRM process strategies, 21st century CRM sales training, CRM e-business deployment and CRM management leadership workshops. More information can be located at his web site: www.impactgroupcrm.com.
