Granite State of mind Video
I’m New Hampshire dirt…..so I gotta share this video, great video!
Granite State of Mind
President’s Day Saturday….and the effect of the media
“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”
– Willa Cather, author
I sent this quote; along with an email highlighting the positives we still have here at Acton Toyota to our Management and Sales Teams yesterday in an attempt to calm the nerves of our media beaten troops. Attitudes are strong and our goals are realistic….
It seems as we enter the afternoon of what is typically one of the 3 largest volume auto sales days in our store as well as the industry (at least in New England) that the buying public has chosen to wait it out a little more. Sure we are selling vehicles but despite our efforts to remain as close to “business as usual” having handled the available recalls for our inventory so we could deliver all of what we have, having processed customer vehicles quickly and professionally ,having advertised, staffed and acted like this is the start of our spring market it’s not what it should be. Sometimes despite the positive actions and great customer service we can be TEMPORARILY slowed due to overwhelming efforts made by external forces to “slow down the machine” so far the weekend gives the slight edge to the media…… if not this weekend we will bounce back stronger for weathering this storm, I’m sure of it.
Craig
Ben Stein: Sales Inspiration
ASIDE from some gardening and baby-sitting in my neighborhood when I was a child, my first summer job was in the summer of 1962, just before my first year of college. It was at Shoe Giant, a large discount shoe store in Langley Park, in Prince George’s County of Maryland, and I got the job thanks to a high school pal who also worked there.
The job entailed selling shoes. The shoes were tossed about in giant bins and some were stored in boxes. Once the customers had picked out the kind of shoes they wanted, my task was to find the right size, close the sale, write up a receipt with my sales clerk number on it and escort the customer to the cashier. (A pair of shoes there was rarely more than $10 — and was often less.)
I made not much more than a dollar an hour, as well as a small commission. I recall that my first week’s paycheck was about $70.
I did not stay at that job for long. Later that summer, my mother found me a job at the Civil Service Commission, where I sat at a desk and added numbers on an ancient Marchant machine with a crank, to find Civil Service health insurance payment data for various kinds of injuries and sicknesses. I hated that job, but I did it anyway. I missed Shoe Giant. I missed the drama of selling.
Even after all these years, and after many other jobs, my mind often returns to my brief stint as a shoe salesman. It was then, amid that tangle of sandals, sneakers, oxfords, high heels and brogans, that I discovered the ballet that is sales. Forever after, I have had a deep respect for selling and for salesmen and saleswomen.
Sales — when done right — is more than a job. It is an art. It is a high-wire act. It is, as Arthur Miller immortally said, being out there “on a smile and a shoe shine.” It is learning the product you are selling, learning it so well that you can describe it while doing a pirouette of smiles for the customer and talking about the latest football scores. It is knowing human nature so well that you can align the attributes of your product or service cleanly with the needs and wants of your customers.
At its best, selling is taking a doubt and turning it, jujitsu style, into a powerful push. Selling is making the customer feel better about spending money — or investing it — than he would have felt by keeping his wallet zipped.
I have special memories of people who have sold brilliantly.
In 1976, when I moved to Los Angeles, I desperately wanted a Mercedes 450 SLC, a car that was — even in used form — far more than I deserved or could afford at my entry-level, highly tenuous work as a scriptwriter. My salesman at Mercedes-Benz of Beverly Hills, Larry Anish, listened to my objections and simply asked, “Don’t you believe in your own future?” Of course, I bought the car.
Many years later, an insurance broker came to call on my wife about disability insurance. I scoffed at him and told him how incredibly unlikely it was that a healthy woman like my wife would ever be disabled. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what we think, too. That’s why it’s so cheap and pays so much if she does get disabled.”
I bought the policy, and when my wife did get temporarily disabled, it paid off magnificently and we needed it.
When in doubt about any aspect of human interaction, I always consult the best salesman I have ever known, Barron Thomas, real estate and airplane salesman extraordinaire, and occasional writer, who could sell oil to the Saudis.
In particular, I’ve come to love insurance sales representatives. After many years of skepticism, and despite many warnings from consumer “experts,” I have come to believe that you can rarely have too much insurance, and that whatever insurance you don’t have is exactly what you will wind up needing. The fact that so many people in insurance sell you what’s good for you, even when smart alecks are telling you not to buy it, makes their work extremely impressive. I wish I had paid more attention to them.
People who work in sales often sit next to me on airplanes, which are my true home. In “Death of a Salesman,” Arthur Miller also wrote: “A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.” Those who are in sales are always aware that the next sale is behind the next door, and they are always great companions. They are where the rubber of production meets the road of consumption, whether in a showroom or a studio or on the phone or calling you at home. When the recovery starts, they will be the ones making purchases happen.
Lawyers and doctors and dentists and politicians and accountants and actors — all of us sell something, every day and every time we meet someone. For me, it all goes back to Shoe Giant, 47 years ago, and I wish that every 17-year-old I know could have that experience. It takes some ability at sales to believe in your own future, no matter what that future may be.
Ben Stein is a lawyer, writer, actor and economist. E-mail: ebiz@nytimes.com.
Story borrowed from the New York Times.
Time is the most expensive part of the deal
Time is Everything
It’s always easy to know who is going to be happy and who is going to be mad when selling vehicles today. Time is the most important factor in 90% of all vehicle transactions, you either make productive use of someone’s time or you waste it. I get to see lots of customer survey results and time has the largest impact on customer’s feelings. I see comments daily that are either great or not so great but all relate to the time involved in some point of their purchase either being respected or wasted. In the information society we live in today it scares me when salespeople fail to acknowledge the research time customers invest before ever calling, emailing, or venturing into a car dealership. As the second largest purchase decision most people will make in their lives car buying is not only time consuming but also a stressful event for most consumers. It should not be up to the customer to make sure that time spent with a salesperson is productive; this is the job of the salesperson and the dealership.
As not to make this a gloom and doom post, there is hope for most salespeople. It only takes a few things to make sure that a customers time expectations are met. First and foremost it is the salesperson’s responsibility to make sure they set realistic time expectations throughout the vehicle buying process. There are many unknowns to a customer when buying a car so they more we work to make sure they understand the process involved as well as the time needed the better. Too often I see salespeople take otherwise happy customers and make them angry simply by not setting these expectations upfront then continually throughout the buying cycle. Information is everyone’s friend and needs to be treated as such.
How long someone waits for finance after what they consider finishing their buying process tends to be one of the biggest places to either make or break a great experience. This is a necessary part of the transaction for car dealers, although sometimes viewed as a waste of time to customers, especially those not needing to finance their purchase.
Being prepared for someone’s vehicle delivery is an important piece in the time puzzle. Nobody wants to show up at a dealership expecting their new vehicle to be ready to go only to be let down by the vehicle not being ready or their salesperson not explaining features properly. Things like programming Bluetooth phone connections or Navigation setting can be a big plus on the productive use of time meter.
Well, this post has taken up some time…….hope it was productive.
Craig
Great YouTube Video
Here’s the type of creativity that lies within our people when we just look for it……..
Love this video, amazing job Tom Downing!
Managing and Motivating: 5 Ingredients
I got this information from a Brian Tracy newsletter I recieve daily, https://www.briantracy.com/ take a look you just may learn something.
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October 17, 2009
Managing and Motivating: Five Ingredients
By Brian Tracy Thousands of employees were interviewed about what they considered to be a “great place to work.” The answers they gave were different from what the managers expected.
First Ingredient
The first ingredient of a good job was “challenging, interesting work.” This is work that kept the employee busy and involved all day long. Second Ingredient
The second ingredient was a feeling of being “in the know.” A good job was defined as one where the employee felt that he or she was fully informed on what was happening in the company. The employee felt like an insider, like an important part of a larger group. Third Ingredient
The third ingredient of a great place to work was a “high trust” environment. This was defined as a job where a person could feel free to do his or her best and to make mistakes, without being criticized or fired. When employees felt that they were free to make mistakes with no punishment or hostility, they enjoyed their work much more, became more creative, and worked more effectively with other people.
Fourth Ingredient
The fourth ingredient in a good job was a caring boss and friendly co-workers. Often, the human environment was more important than anything else. People like to work in a place where they get along well with everyone. The happier they felt their work relationships, the better they worked, the lower the level of absenteeism was, and the more productive they were. Fifth Ingredient
The fifth ingredient for a good job turned out to be good pay and opportunities for promotion and advancement. To the surprise of many managers, the issue, of pay was number five among factors that constituted a good job or a great place to work. Psychologists have found that a certain level of pay is essential for people to feel comfortable with their jobs, but above that level, it does not have much motivational impact. It is only when pay is sub-standard or below what would normally be expected for such a job that it becomes a de-motivating influence.
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eLectrified Inventory Management
Digitized eLectrified Inventory Management
As I sit at the airport waiting to fly to vAuto for a user group meeting on stocking effectively, I realize the tools that have become necessary to thrive in today’s online-based economy. I’m writing this post on my Mac book while wirelessly connected to the web so I can appraise vehicles from the blackberry calls from buyers at various locations viewing used vehicles. I have a run list for an auction tomorrow in my backpack so I can preview it before today’s call to go over vehicle conditions. I have already received my Autotrader alert for private party sales (also via blackberry) within my area so I can hopefully add a few extra vehicles to our hard to keep full, turning 16 times per year used vehicle inventory. After my third call today from people trying to sell me rental vehicles I text my boss to let him know that I think we are due for a break on the artificially inflated values of said rentals.
Why, other than to tell everyone how tech I am is this relevant to anything? Maybe it isn’t but I know as someone who is old enough to have been doing this since getting a beep on my pager and making a phone booth call was a high tech way to buy a car, that technology moves quick and those that take advantage have advantages. I can remember when my boss as a buyer had this advantage by having a separate computer system complete with monthly fees and setup charges that would allow us to view auction results without looking at printed books. I can remember when me sending an email meant I would give the “internet manager” an email address and what I wanted to say and he would magically transport it via the interweb. Man do I wish I would have grasped sooner what I couldn’t live without today.
Technology is and has been around for some time and is only getting better each day. I hear stories from technology vendors about Owners, General Managers, General Sales Managers and the like making statements like “We don’t believe in the internet” and I laugh as those of us that do move on to further success even in a economy said by most to be frightening. I took the time this morning to catch up on some reading online at DealerRefresh’s Technology Forum it’s great to have this information so readily available. I’m happy to see the technology providers talking about user-friendly mobile applications, as a blackberry user it becomes so easy to know a little about a lot when it comes automatically into your pocket.
I look forward to the day when our sales staff of seasoned veterans as well as new school technology focused salespeople can share skill sets effectively. When the two worlds can become one it will be amazing to see what we can accomplish
Reputation Management vs. Reputation Creation
Reputation Management vs. Reputation Creation
For the last year or so reputation management has become a hot topic within our industry. For me this has looked like car dealers with less than great reputations looking for a way to overcome the negative perceptions of consumers, without having to go through the real work of offering a customer forward process. I am fortunate to be at a dealership that although semi famous for “reputation management” as the dealerater.com dealer of the year for the last 3 years, what we work on is reputation creation and marketing not management.
For me reputation creation is a much larger commitment than simply responding well to unhappy customers or gathering some select reviews that project a reputation that may or may not match an overall vision. Reputation creation is doing things right as well as doing the right things. Taking care of customers everyday whether they have a computer or not, working hard to earn someone’s entire vehicle purchases instead of closing hard to sell them 1 vehicle. Reputation creation needs to be backed by owners, general managers and sales managers and must be everyone’s goal. Reputation management can be somewhat effectively handled by 1 person with a computer and carefully planned emails.
We are currently being put to the test on both reputation management as well as further reputation creation. In the wake of the C.A.R.S program we find ourselves with the gift and the curse. The gift of extra car sales has found us with the curse of being understaffed as well as confused by how the government was really going to handle the approval process. Well by now anyone reading about C.A.R.S or participating in the program understand the frustration on both the consumer side as well as the dealers.
Time is the biggest factor in how happy someone is in any transaction in today’s drive thru, need it now, on to the next project world we live in. We understand this and strive to set realistic expectations and then exceed those expectations. With the government’s information online saying dealers would be paid on C.A.R.S deals within 10 days and then not meeting those rules this placed us in the unfortunate position of taking up too much of and in some cases wasting people’s time. Combine this with the large amount of business in the short timeframe and now you have customers having to wait three to four times the normal time frame it takes to purchase a vehicle. It doesn’t take long to figure out that even a dealership with a great reputation for putting customers first can now be placed in the defensive position of ‘reputation management” rather than the offensive world of “reputation creation”
Although I’ve enjoyed the gift of the money involved in selling 250 extra vehicles in a 45 day time span…I’m not excited about the curse of having to rebuild the confidence of the 600-700 people that may have the misconception that how business was done during the last 60 days at Acton Toyota of Littleton is a correct representation of our vision.
