Tradition dictates that families gather to pay thanks for the good things in their life on this day. For many of our citizens the day is just one more day of hunger and pain. CNN just announced that there are 16.7 million American children that are classified as persons who go hungry every day. There are groups and services all over the country trying to feed and take care of the have nots. Most of us are just trying to get by and care for our families while a small group of people defend our shores and feed our homeless.
This should be a day of thought for all Americans to get involved in their communities and their local services.They should get their local government and business to think of the whole and not their vested interests. Thanksgiving should be everyday in America, we just need to pull together as a society.
Saab dealers knew of the chance that GM would wind down Saab if a proposed sale to Koenigsegg AB went sour. Still, dealers say they had every indication the deal was progressing smoothly.
Dealers had signed termination agreements in June that said General Motors Co. would wind down Saab and terminate its dealers if a sale fell through, unless another buyer wanted Saab, said Michael Simon, general manager of a stand-alone Saab store in suburban Chicago.
“The way that it was set up was the same way as the Saturn agreement,” Simon said, speaking of GM’s failed sale of Saturn to Penske Automotive Group Inc. Penske backed out on Sept. 30, and GM is now winding down Saturn.
But everything seemed to be going smoothly with the Saab sale. Dealers say brand representatives … From Automotive News>> story
From Automotive News Published: Nov 24 4:29 pm U.S. Eastern time.
What makes the difference between a consistent productive sales person and the rest of the pack?
First you must have leadership from the management team in support, training, sales tools and accountability. Sales persons must have drive, personality, and ability to listen, a process, and technology and follow up skills to the sale and after the sale. Above all a sale person must be able to translate what the customer wants in feature to benefits. Many sales persons sell features and not the benefit of that feature to the customer.
I asked one of my sales persons to role-play and do a walk around, which we filmed. Rosanne a new sales person played the customer, while Richard played the seasoned sales person. Her questions were about safety benefits, child seat anchors, mileage consumption and the price. Richard started on the safety benefit of five mile an hour bumpers and then proceeded to go over every feature like a robot. It was clear when we reviewed the video that he knew every feature but only mentioned one benefit. He did not listen or retain what she wanted to know. He was instructed to treat it like a real up but never got her last name or contact information. It was a lesson for all the staff about what not to do.
This happened in 1983, and it is when I decided that using technology had a place in the automobile business. At the same time I started using computers to follow up and calculated deals, it was the beginning of AutoRaptor. The letters CRM had no meaning for car people even though customer follow up via paper was a common practice. We were using NADA Sales Track, which was my introduction to the world of data management. The Management team created structure and a process using the current technology. Marginal sales person got better and good sales person became great sales persons. It was a team effort to bring out the best in each sales person. AutoRaptor is not just a CRM, it is a process.
| GM posts $1.2 billion loss, says it will begin to repay U.S. loans Chrissie Thompson and Jamie LaReau |
| DETROIT — General Motors Co. posted a $1.15 billion loss during the third quarter following its exit from bankruptcy and spelled out plans to begin repaying $6.7 billion in U.S. loans. “We have significantly more work to do, but today’s results provide evidence of the solid foundation we’re building for the new GM,” CEO Fritz Henderson said in a statement. The “managerial net loss” was for the period of July 10, the day GM exited 39 days of court protection, through Sept. 30. For the full quarter a year earlier, GM had an operating loss of $4.2 billion and a net loss of $2.5 billion. GM also said:
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I was working in Illinois in 1979 at a Lincoln Mercury dealership. The store was on the corner of a main intersection, fifteen minutes from downtown Chicago. There were bus stops on each corner with benches for the commuters to wait for their buses. Those commuters were called bus ups. With time to kill, they would wonder in to kick the tires and talk to the first sales person they could find. Needless to say the sales staff would run and find a way to avoid the bus ups who outnumbered the real buyers. The sales persons would grab a lot person and have him show any car to the bus ups. This would usually happen when management was not around or tied up with you know, whatever management does.
One day a sales person instructed a lot boy to take a bus up for a demo ride. It was an hour before anyone noticed that the car and the lot person had not returned. I received a call that we have a problem, missing car and an employee. It took me an hour to get to the dealership and in that time the police had been notified that we have a missing car and that a employee might be kidnapped. If you think anyone owned up to how the lot person got in this predicament, think again. The hours flew by as we went about the day waiting to hear good news.
Finally late that night the police recovered the car and the employee. The employee related what happened, it started out as demo ride as described; first stop was the home of the bus up, to pick up his girl friend. Since the lot person was getting paid by the hour he just went along for the ride thinking that it was good business to keep the up happy. From one bar to the next they drove, drank, enjoyed the day and then crashed the car. It was at the accident scene that the police made the arrest. You can’t make this up. I wish I could say the bus up bought a car, he did not or make restitution for the repairs.
If there is a message, sales persons should take all ups for demo rides and get the ups license before they leave the dealership. This story can make you laugh but there are stories that end in tragedy. Make a copy of the ups drivers license, leave it with the manager and use the same demo route all the time.
NOVEMBER U.S. SALES
November sales rate will at least match October, Ford analyst says
DETROIT (Reuters)- – November’s U.S. auto sales will at least reach October levels, Ford Motor Co.’s chief U.S. sales analyst said on Friday.
The light-vehicle seasonally adjusted annual sales rate reached 11.2 million units in October, the industry’s best performance in a year — excluding August, when the government’s cash-for-clunkers incentive program boosted demand to a 13.7-million-unit rate. Maintaining October’s levels would beat November 2008’s 10.3 million units of demand.
“I think that we won’t fall backward from October. How much November might advance from the October level it is too early to say,” Ford U.S. sales analyst George Pipas said today to the Automotive Press Association. “What I’ve seen so far is good enough that it suggests to me that we are not going to … >> story Published: Nov 13 3:31 pm U.S. Eastern time
How does the average dealership train their staff in the selling process? Formal training is thought to be expensive and time consuming especially with a rotating sales force. The newbie is assigned a desk, told to read brochures and industry literature for a day and then take the next up. Do you tell your new sales persons to watch and learn from the seasoned staff on how to sell? Is there a structured sales process with measurement for production and accountability?
If this is the way you operate, stop and think, it could be the reason you are not succeeding. Establish a sales structure, set goals for each person that is assigned to sell cars. Conduct formal training off the showroom floor, role-play and film the process for review by all involved. If you are still using paper logs and up sheets look to technology to streamline your sales operation. Technology will give you the tools to measure your sales performance as well as increase you sales and profitability. If you do not have a trained sales staff or a positive training program in place then technology will only fail under the weight of poor management and acceptance of poor performance.
It sounds simple to train your staff to follow certain guidelines but it is not. Look at your current guidelines that have been established under many different managers with different approaches. Have you heard the comment on your floor, we can’t do that John said, “that is not our policy”. John died 20 years ago and we are still doing what John said. Rethink what you are doing and make changes that will have the biggest impact now, and be flexible and change if what you try fails or underperforms.
I have attended NADA conventions as a dealer and an attendee since 1983 and have experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly. Good ideas must be executed in a manner that the end user can see the benefit immediately. Not all technology works as described and can be a costly and culture shock when the smoke clears.
How can a dealer know what technology they should purchase that will improve their operation? Is it an application that his staff will benefit from, will it reduce costs, increase sales, increase efficiencies, and provide a better experience for his clients? Can one piece of software accomplish all and be a silver bullet. My answer is no. A dealer needs to be realistic in his due diligence. Nobody does it all.
I always ask my prospective clients what are you trying to accomplish. It is the first step in understanding the solution. If you agree that everything starts with the sale then having an application that focuses on sales is your starting point. Service, and Parts have a different mission and require their unique approach. Break the process down, Internet, Showroom, Phone and how you want to handle the individual steps and match that to the application. Now add owner retention and then service interaction as it pertains to increase new and used car sales.
Step by step from a paper world to a digital, compromise is all part of the equation. Think of your current sales structure and how you can become digital without losing the positive ways your sales staff conducts business today. A good application will have a small learning curve, spending resources on a application that needs hours of training and policing is a good way to lose sales, your eye is off the target.