Ziegler Supersystems, Inc Automobile Dealership Success Plan

Sales Manager Training - F&I, Menu Training - Automobile Dealership Consulting - Dealership Support

"Just a Little Something to Think About"

by Anthony Hall

Dealer Support Manager

Dealership's spend thousands and thousands of dollars monthly on advertising to generate walk in traffic - hoping to achieve projections for the month. We take a shotgun approach at selling, thinking if we put enough customers in front of our sales people, we will sell the amount of cars we need. "It's a numbers game" as all the advertisers say. It worked for them, but is it really the most effective way to spend your dollars?

We all know 50% works & 50% doesn't!

The advertising generates the "traffic" only to put "customers" in front of sales people, who through lack of knowledge & skills may blow out the perceived "tough" customer or the "shopper" to get to the "lay-down". Ask yourself: Is this really what you want? How often is this the case?

How many real opportunities were lost because of a salesperson's missed perception, lack of knowledge, & more importantly, lack of skills?

Here is something to think about. How much did you spend on advertising in the last three months? Divide the dollars in advertising by the amount of cars sold. This gives you the dollars per car in advertising cost.

Let's say for the purpose of this exercise the dollars per car in advertising is $250.00 per car based on $50,000 in advertising. Now, let's take $10,000 of the budgeted advertising dollars and divert those dollars to training the sales people and sales managers.

What does this do for you?

Training your Sales People, Sales Managers, & F&I Managers allow for better control of customers, better word tracts, in-depth customer interviews, selection of vehicle, presentations, negotiations, more "now" sales, less "shoppers", and more prospecting (ie: Sales People creating business) which more than compensates for lost traffic. The Personal Ownership demonstrated by the sales people & managers in selling automobiles makes up for any money diverted to training.

Now let's say that training increased your front end gross average by $400.00. Multiply that $400.00 by 200 cars. What does that do for you?

You've done the math! Advertising dollars work, but not indefinitely! Training dollars can work for a lifetime!  What is a more effective way to allocate your budgeted dollars?

Anthony Hall

Dealer Support Manager

Contact us at 800.726.0510