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Sean Kelley

Humility Sells

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We all know the stereotypical top earning sales associate is a highly confident individual. He or she is capable of walking into a room and wowing their potential client with their powerful presentation and demonstration. Then like some unstoppable force, they are unable to take no for an answer. This sales professional confidently discovers and overcomes their prospective buyers objections with ease. This impressive feat to an average or new sales rep, is an every day occurrence to the superior selling guru. But where does real confidence come from? Once a sales rep is a “top earner” within their organization, can they continue to grow and improve with all that confidence? Is there a better way to sell than to be 100% confident ALL the time? I believe true confidence comes from humility. I believe there is no ceiling on what one can accomplish in sales if one is humble. I also believe selling with humility will get you further than selling with over confidence. 

Humility helps top sales associates make big money for many reasons. The first of many being that a humble person is not a “know it all”. A great example is how a sales rep with humility knows that every lost sale is a chance to learn from their mistakes and become better at their job. The number of sales that are “lost”, in most cases outnumber the “closed” sales. A truly humble sales associate will not dismiss a lost sale as, “The customers loss, they were idiots for not buying my product or service.” or “I did everything right, they just weren’t ready to buy…” nor will they create some other assumptive explanation to soften the “sting” on their ego after losing the deal. The sales pro with humility looks at each lost sale as an opportunity to ask themselves,”What went well?”, “What could I have done better?”, “What will I try next time to create a better outcome?”. The most humble of them all, will even go as far as too seek the truth by asking the client exactly WHY they lost their business. Sure, it hurts a little bit to discover your only human and made a mistake. However, if you can be humble and learn from your mistakes, you will make them less and less, which will help you to sell more and more. Over time, the humble seller who seeks to improve from their mistakes wins over the overconfident “I can do no wrong!” sales person.

Yet another great example of selling with humility is when your able to say to a client, “Great question! I have never been asked that before, I am going to jot that question down and get back with you. When do you need that question answered by?” You appear honest and humble, vs someone who has ALL the answers ALL the time, in reality they may afraid to say “I don’t know.” Have you ever been tested by a customer? Where they ask you a question that you felt they already knew the answer, in order to see how you handle the situation? What if you try to “B.S.” your way through one of these tests, your customer will smell that “B.S.” and walk away very fast. Being humble is being able to say “I don’t know.” in a way that makes you sound professional, and gives you a chance to follow up in a way that satisfies the client!

Pretty much everyone agrees that today’s market is changing at an unprecedented rate. Is what you are selling today, the customers you are selling too, their methods of purchasing, and the processes used to make the deals, different from 5 years ago? 1 year go? What about 6 months ago? Chances are the answer to this question is “NO, many things have changed!” If that is the case, then a little humility towards ones scope of knowledge, goes a long way in growing, honing their craft, and staying ahead of the competition. The product and service one is selling, along with the knowledge of your clients, their needs and wants, and all the processes that come along with sales must all be mastered and remastered again when things change. Humility in this part of your life will help you keep abreast of important changes, and stay on the cutting edge of your chosen sales career. Your learning and growing, as opposed to that “know it all” who has ceased learning because, “I have seen it all.” mentality has taken over. That all too common sales rep can look forward to career stagnation, lower earnings, less than satisfactory ratings from clients, client retention loss, or even being passed up by a newer, more willing to learn sales up and comer!

Humble sales professionals are not afraid to ask for help. Two heads are better than one right? Its the same reason why a computer with a “Dual core” or “Quad core” processor is better. Its because when you add more brains, you add more thinking power. No one, and I mean no one, has all the answers all the time. Through collective reasoning and brainstorming with a co worker or manager, you can solve more problems. Solving more problems in sales means one thing, selling more: selling more means making more money. So the next time you are about to lose that deal, the next time you are unable to get that prospect to respond, or the next time you catch an objection you just cant seem to overcome. Instead of trying to be that super hero, one man/woman sales army, just ask for help! If asking someone for help assists you in saving 1 extra deal per week, per month, or even per year, how much extra earnings does that make you and your company? Does making more money for your company and yourself make you look bad, or does being to cocky to ask for help and losing sales because of it? Humility Sells.

Sales people with humility are much more thankful than their less than humble counterparts. They are grateful when their manager takes the time to train, or coach them. They are extremely happy when a customer chooses to buy from them instead of the competition, and they make sure their valued client knows this. This appreciation oozes from them in a way that says to their manager, team, company and customer, “This person cares.” This humility shows that you have a greater purpose for what you do, other than the self serving reason so many people say they sell for, “To make big money.” Conversely, the other sales rep who in their mind believes, “I deserve this sale because I did so much for the customer.” Probably doesn’t value the customer or the deal. The one who feels they are owed the referrals from their clients, probably wont get any. The sales rep who thinks they are entitled to that next promotion, when they have done little or nothing to earn one in reality vs their co workers, probably wont get it. Even if this entitled sales associate did receive the deal, the referral and the promotion, they would not be grateful upon receiving any of them. If you are humble, you will be grateful for any opportunity given, any extra attention, and any referral from your customers. This gratitude will be a magnet for more sales, more positive attention from your supervisor, and more referrals from your customers.

Confidence is great and is an integral part of a strong sales career. I am not telling you to sell scared, or be meek when selling. However, knowing when to turn off that ego and be humble is equally important. Being able to look at yourself and your customers with true humility is every bit as important as sheer confidence. Always seek to improve, always ask for help when in need, always be thankful. Humility sells!

Hero to Zero!

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In sales, we have a saying when the new month rolls around. It’s often murmured when our accomplishments from last month are erased from the board, and you get the joy of starting all over again. We say, “Hero to zero!” as we brush off last months efforts and return to the grind.

I believe this phrase came about because of the all too common, “month end hangover”. So many sales people leave it all on the floor, so to speak. We work so hard the last week, or last few days of the month, we wear ourselves out! It’s no wonder when the first of the new month rolls around, sales often slow down for a few days. After sprinting across the finish line in a mad dash to complete the race, there isn’t much energy left to stand up, and start it all over again the very next day. 

As successful sales people know, every minute of every day counts. We should certainly not kick back, relax, and rest on our laurels. That’s the mentality that spawned “Hero to zero”. It reminds us that we shouldn’t be tempted to pat ourselves on the back, or celebrate our success from last month. Last months completely finished after all, right? None of the success from last month carriers over into this month, correct? 

Wait a minute… What if last months success still has meaning today? What could be possible if you as a sales representative, could reinvigorate your drive to sell and your motivation to make deals? What if you could hold on to that positive attitude and confidence gained from crushing those goals? What would happen if you carried that momentum into the first week of the new month? 

Before you go cracking the whip on yourself, and start minimizing, or even forgetting about your recent success with the “hero to zero” mentality. For the love of God, take a minute and reward yourself for a job well done! Buy yourself or someone in your family something nice. Do yourself a favor and buy a professional back rub at a local spa. Treat yourself to your favorite meal at your favorite restaurant. Do something you’ve always wanted to do, but never give yourself the time to enjoy. This can actually pay dividends towards hitting your next months sales targets: here is how.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary “Operant Conditioning” is when “the desired behavior or increasingly closer approximations to it are followed by a rewarding or reinforcing stimulus.” 

What does this mean for you? This means if the desired behavior for a salesperson is reaching and exceeding goals through selling, then by giving yourself rewards or “reinforcing stimulus”, you will actually condition yourself to succeed AGAIN! That’s right, you increase your chances of success, your confidence, and ability to reach and exceed your goals next month simply by rewarding yourself for a job well done! So make the conscious decision to not only feel GREAT about accomplishing your objectives, but purposely give yourself a reward for your efforts. YOU DESERVE IT! 

So the next time you crush those goals, and on the first day of the new month someone tells you, “Forget about what you did last month, its over!” Or “Hero to Zero! Time to get back to work!” Ignore that advice, and instead ask yourself, “How should I reward myself for a job well done?” You deserve the treat, just like anyone else who makes an awesome accomplishment in their career or life! 

At my car dealership we had a record November this year. We exceeded our lofty goal, and on top of that, smashed last years sales by over 20%. I’m going to go to work today, and I will begin the hustle for sales all over again. However, I will reward myself by giving my wife and children a fantastic Christmas this year! Also, I think I’ll get myself a cool new winter coat to celebrate the success. I may even plan my December reward now, for when we as a team, exceed our new goal for the fresh month!

My question for you: How are you going to reward yourself or your team for a job well done last month, in order to recreate and condition for success again this month?

About Sean Kelley

Sean works with car dealers to achieve great results through their people and technology. Sean has extensive diversity in leadership ranging from Special Ops combat veteran, general sales manager, company owner, and a tech company executive. Sean will help your people find purpose, create a growth mindset, improve self-accountability and effectively develop your teams through his unique, customized approach to coaching. If you are interested in exceeding your goals and building an inspirational leadership team, email Sean directly: Sean@carmotivators.com or Get Started For FREE With Coach Chat

#coachingthecarbusiness #drivecoaching #thisistraining #coachingexcellence #winningcultures

Going All In

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Writing an excellent blog is easy if you follow a few simple rules. It takes a bit of practice, it’s true, but the benefits are immense.

Here we go again, Aimee Smith bringing you the second blog I have written for Car Motivators! First, I want to take this time and thank each of you for all the feedback and support my most recent blog received. I truly appreciate it. Today we are going to talk about a choice we can all make regarding effort, going all in or folding! For some people going all in is a simple mindset to adopt. Others have many reasons, or excuses, for not doing it. Then there are those who flat out won’t do it. I am going to help get you to the point where you are comfortable enough to put all your cards down with complete confidence, and go all in.

I compare this to a game of poker. You have the cards you have been dealt at random, right? Now, it’s time to decide. You can throw a few chips in, which means you bet you could come out on top, but you’re not 100% confident in the hand you are dealt. You can fold! Simply put your cards down and walk away. No harm no foul. You have wasted no chips, other than your first bid. In this instance, I would consider that to be your time. Finally, you have another choice, to go all in! Put that poker face on and put all your chips in. When you are giving it everything you’ve got for a fact because you are doing all you can, this is a special kind of commitment. When you commit like this, the odds often increase that you will come out on top and win that round! Round being the key word there, because going all in on one round and winning, doesn’t mean that is where you win the game, or where we stop. The game continues. Going all in should not be a one-time thing. This is a mindset you can adopt every single day that can make a massive difference in your success. Now, I want to help you get to that point, so I will share some tips and tricks to help you get there!

We know each day in the automotive industry brings new challenges. There are always unique obstacles you face which you need to overcome. This is where it becomes crucial to not fold, and go all in. It is no secret that the industry has evolved into a completely different beast than we once knew. Social media and digital marketing have taken over! Most of your customers are shopping and doing hours of scrolling and research to find the best price. They are not driving from dealership to dealership to see what pretty balloons are out or who has the best pink or yellow stickers on windshields. They know what they want, and they know what price they want to pay. This is game time. This is when you make your decision, will you will fold or put it all on the table?

Going all in here means several things. First, be transparent. Prove to them the reason why your price vs value is the best. Show them the after-purchase programs you offer and what sets your dealership apart from the competition! More importantly, show them why they should buy from you. What sets you personally apart from the competition? Do you want them to be safe and happy without breaking the bank? Are you the one who is a product expert who will make sure the buyer is fully informed? Are you the low-pressure salesperson who is always mindful of their customers needs? Next, build trust with the customer by explaining the process to them up front! Show them how you will take care of them and their family by sharing testimonials from your happy sold customers. Going all in with the tips above will prevent many of your customers from coming to your dealership stressed out and exhausted. When customers do come in and you show this one customer this kind of service, they will come back again. Their families and friends will call you. If you’ve gone all in for them, they will go all in for you! They’ll even post about in on social media, if you ask. Do this every time with every customer and you will not lose. Don’t fold, put all your chips in and be confident.

I will wrap this up with a few more pieces of advice. Be willing to adapt and change your methods. If you are not comfortable with going all in on something, talk to your manager. In addition, there are many other resources available to help you such as online training, mentorships, coaching, webinars, forums, blogs, vlogs…etc. Going all in also means investing in yourself. Going all in means you step out of your comfort zone and sell your customer the way they want to be sold. Talk to your customer the way they want to be talked to. Disclaimer: Going all in does not mean you will get every sale, every time. That’s ok! I can guarantee that nobody expects that of you. Regardless, going all in is both confidence, and commitment. Even if you’re faking it until you make it. Get your poker face on and no matter what is going through your head when your customer has dozens of questions, price comparisons and test drives, don’t let them see you sweat. You know the vehicle, and the value you bring! You’ve invested in yourself and know the process your dealership has set in place to help you succeed! You know the road to the sale. Your managers and co-workers support you. Go all in, you’ve got this!

Fall Sales Slump? Not For Long!

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What a great time of year fall is! The time of year when parents are knee deep in their children’s school activities, and their kids 1st quarter grades. Sports fans are focused on baseball playoffs, and the football season is starting to heat up. The weather starts shifting from hot and dry to cool, windy and dreary. Night starts coming earlier and earlier causing people to hunker down in their homes a little sooner each day. On top of all that, lets throw in some show stopping elections to really enamor people. All of this adds up to a fairly large probability, you could be in a slight fall sales slump. After this year, some sales people are even thinking “Fall” is named after falling sales!

Even though misery loves company, this article isn’t about giving you excuses to be in your slump. My goal is to help you and any fellow sales compadres, break free of the ill fated downturn, early and often, this fall or the next, whenever or wherever one may occur. So let’s get your mind out of the gutter and refocus your intentions on sales success! 

As mentioned above a “slump” is merely a state of mind. Before we spring into action we have to change your mindset. One great way to do this is to REMEMBER WHERE YOU COME FROM. You are undoubtably more successful now than you were years ago, at the start of your career, or at the beginning of your college years…etc. When my Army enlistment ended, I had just came home from Operation Iraqi Freedom 1. I used all the money I had saved while overseas to put down on a house I couldn’t afford on an ARM Mortgage (you have got to love the housing bubble of the early 2000’s). I had a part time job at Best Buy selling TV’s. My brother that was supposed to be helping me pay half my bills decided to party like a rock star and ended up moving out to pursue other things. I was engaged to my lovely fiance and accidentally knocked her up. To put the cherry on top, on my way to work one day I wrecked my car. As you can tell, things were going just great for me back in 2004 – 2005. I was broke, behind on my bills, and going through a lot of problems!  

Looking back on this struggle, makes me realize how strong I am, and that no temporary little drop in sales for a few days can stop me! Wherever you are in your journey through life and career fulfillment, if you remember where you came from. You will be able to tap into that same inner strength that helped you get through those very difficult times in your life. Remembering where you came from will help you realize this little “slump” your in now, is simply an ant hill to stomp on, laugh at, and continue on your journey to success. Don’t stay messed up in the head over a little sales slump. If large mountains couldn’t stop you before, why would a small downturn stop you now? 

The next thing to do in order to get your mind right, is to count your blessings and BE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT YOU HAVE NOW. After wrecking my car on the way to work at Best Buy, the dealership I stopped at to buy a new car from, ended up hiring me as a used car salesman. Within months I was the top salesperson, and a year their first internet manager. Within a few years I was in finance, and soon after I was assistant sales manager. I worked my way up from there and eventually moved on to even bigger and better things. Now I get a rush out of running an entire new and used sales department at one of the top Hyundai dealers in the Midwest. I dabble in rental and investment properties on the side and I am also enjoying my own private coaching practice where I love helping managers learn how to be true leaders for their team! I am happily married to the same amazing woman I accidentally knocked up back in 2004. She has the choice to work or to be a homemaker. We have three wonderful children that I couldn’t be more proud of. I have an amazing team of sales professionals that work with me at my dealership and great dealer owners that look at us as partners more than employees. Along with the best client base a dealership could ever want. When I look at everything I have to be grateful for, I realize how important everyone in my life is. I want for you to do the same thing, count all your blessings both BIG and SMALL Then you will have the fuel that you need and the positive attitude it takes to liberate yourself from the mental bonds of the sales slump. 

Another great way to shed the frustration of temporary under achievement is to TAKE OUT YOUR FRUSTRATIONS in a healthy way. Every fall or winter, as soon as things start to cool off, I remember my favorite sales meeting of all times. My sales manager handed everyone a pair of protective eyewear and said, “Follow me were going on a field trip!” We walked out back behind our car lot to find a red Eagle Talon sitting behind the building with a sledge hammer next to it. The next 30 minutes was spent taking turns smashing it to pieces. Let me tell you something, we sold more cars that week than we had in the last 3 combined! Everyone had fun and got to vent their frustrations on that poor little car. We got to remember how fun a sales career can be. To vent their frustration some people lift weights, hit a punching bag, go for a run, or even sip a glass of expensive scotch! The bottom line is, doing something to relieve the pent up stress and frustration is not only healthy but may reinvigorate your motivation to sell your product or service. 

Fear or anxiety can be one of the biggest obstacles to a healthy selling mentally. Sometimes one tough customer, or one bad day, is all a salesperson needs to send them into a negative feedback loop that halts all productivity in its tracks. You’ve been there, you have seen the salesperson that returns to that mindset month after month. If they spent as much time trying to acquire their next customer as they do telling everyone how worried they are about being able to make a commission check, they would probably make more now than when things were swamped a couple months ago! We’ve all heard the saying, “When times get tough, the tough get going.” Not to say we don’t work hard when things are going well. This phrase just points out that, instead of sitting around and being paralyzed by fear and anxiety created by slower more challenging times, tenacious people do something about the situation. It’s ok to feel the fear and experience the anxiety, but USE FEAR AND ANXIETY AS A WHISTLE, A STARTING LINE GUN SHOT, THE CRACK OF A WHIP, TO CAUSE YOU TO SPRING INTO ACTION! When you treat these feelings as your mental barometer, telling you it’s time to get to work, the increased activity will soon create business. The business will create income, and the income will cause these feelings to subside. It’s time to turn it up a notch my friends and get to work! 

UNDERSTAND THE LAW OF LARGE NUMBERS. The law of large numbers describes the result of performing the same action a large number of times. “According to the law, the average results from a large number of trials should be close to the expected value, and the more times a trial is completed, the closer to the expected value it becomes.” -(Paraphrased from Wikipedia). How does this translate to crawling out of a sales hole? I’m glad you asked! If you know you close 20% of any client you end up in front of, and you wait on 10 people in a week, and no one buys from you, then you may have just had a string of bad luck. However, take 8 weeks, 6 months, or even a year worth of your closing statistics, you will find that you still close at that 20%! What this means is, just because you’ve had a few people in a row that haven’t purchased at your normal closing rate, doesn’t mean that it will continue forever. Stick to the process that you know works, wait on more clients, call on more clients, and the sales will eventually happen at your normal closing rate. It is that simple. You may sell your product or service to the next 4 clients in a row! Don’t get discouraged by a few people that walk!  

Along with the law of large numbers, a great thing to understand is your ability to CONTROL THE CONTROLLABLES. So many sales people spend so much time worrying and stressing about things that are out of their control. I have news for you, worrying, stressing and discussing things you can’t control is an absolute waste of time, and energy and only feeds into the negative feedback loop that is a sales slump. Feeding something WILL cause it to grow! So let’s talk about things you can control and things you can’t. You can control your attitude. You can control your activities and actions. You can control your thoughts and emotions. If all this is true, which I’m sure you agree it is, then that means, you can have a positive attitude, and spend your limited time getting after it, follow up, prospecting, and doing the other activities you know you need to do to sell something! You can’t control the weather. You cant control the market. You can’t control the election. If all this is true, and no matter what we do, these things will just happen in the way they will, then WHY spend time worrying about them? Instead ask yourself, “How can I use the current situation to find a customer or make a deal?” Control what you can control and focus on only that to break through that sales lull like a real champion! 

Falling behind where you want to be for the month can be very frustrating. Trying to sell anything while frustrated can be very challenging! It’s almost as if frustration is a cheap cologne or perfume that clients smell a mile away and avoid it at all costs. I recommend washing that frustration off with a fire hose. No seriously, though, freshen yourself up to remove your frustration. FRESHEN YOURSELF UP to get back on the sales bandwagon! Go get a new hair cut, buy a new suit or dress, iron those clothes, shave that beard, get a mani pedi, trim the nose hairs: Sorry if I grossed you out! Just do something to make yourself look sharp and feel better! Grooming yourself will make you feel like a million bucks and will reinstate that confidence you used to have back when selling was as easy as A B C. Now that you have freshened yourself up, time to act confident! SMILE, even if your not that happy! Simply walking around with a grin will cheer you up, as well as those around you. Walk briskly like your busy, even if your not. When moving from your parking lot to your desk, move with a purpose to get the blood flowing. When you do get to sit down with someone focus on making great eye contact. I’m not much of a cook but here is a recipe for a sale: a newly freshened up you, mixed with some strong energy, add a large friendly smile, stir in a large cup of confidence and a dash of eye contact. No sales slump stands a chance against this delicious selling cookbook! 

When your down, it seems like nothing will go your way. The appointments aren’t showing, the deals are backing out, the sales pipeline seems empty. It seems that the chips are down and the cards are stacked against you. You may ask yourself, “What have I done to deserve this?” Well Captain negative pants, instead of asking that question, why not ask this, “What could I do right now, to deserve better?” I’m not one of those superstitious people who believes in “Karma”. I do; however, know for sure, that when you DO SOMETHING POSITIVE TO HELP OTHERS, it creates a feeling of well being and confidence unlike anything else. This confidence and feeling of self fulfillment will transform the negative state you are in, into that of an uplifting, caring and compassionate one. This is a new and positive state that others, especially your potential prospects, clients and co workers will take notice of. The sooner you create this internal growth and cultivate the feeling that you get from helping others, the sooner you will be able to move on from your temporary sales meltdown! Some ideas to create some positive “Karma”, help a new person in your office with their paperwork without asking for something in return. Buy someone you don’t know lunch. Wash your parents car for them. Buy an elderly person or single parent in your neighborhood a bag of groceries. Help the author of this article aerate and seed his lawn… You get the picture, just do SOMETHING positive without expecting anything in return, and you will get a lot more than you bargained for in return! 

Everyone knows the definition of insanity right? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. When your in a sales slump, you must GET OUT OF THE SAME OLD ROUTINE AND STEP OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE! That means it’s time to try something NEW to create a sale! If you’re like most of us, you have an idea that’s been sitting on the back of your brain collecting dust. Its easy to put good ideas on the shelf when business is good. Why wouldn’t you, “Don’t fix it if it aint broke.” They say! Well, I’m here to tell you, if your in a sales slump its broke, so what better time to try out that idea that’s been sitting on the back burner. In an enlightening one on one coaching session, one of my up and coming sales people was trying to get his sales and revenue up to where he wanted it. I asked him, what new tactic had he wanted to try out, but had not yet tried. He told me about his own website where he could generate subprime leads. He even told me that he had started creating the site, but didn’t ever publish it. He was waiting for it to be “perfected”. Together we broke through the barriers holding him at bay, paralyzing his growth, freezing his idea, and he let her rip! He is sure glad he did, and so am I! His site is growing his business and its gaining more momentum each day. Giving him sales he would have never gotten simply by doing what he had always done. What do YOU think you should try but haven’t? What do you KNOW could help you sell, but are too fearful, uncomfortable, or nervous to do? What’s the worst thing that could happen if you try it? What is the BEST thing that could happen if it works? I believe you know what you need to do… 

You know what the most successful people in the world have in common? They have “Habits” that make them extremely successful. Don’t get me wrong, EVERYONE has habits, the thing is, not every habit helps you become successful. So what ARE the habits of a highly successful sales person? I guess that depends on what you sell. That being said, here are just a few examples of habits a highly successful car salesperson does on a daily basis. They show up to work on time, dressed professionally. They listen to all their voice mails, and respond to emails asap. They watch the lot for floor traffic while simultaneously prospecting on their phone or computer. They post cars on various social media sites and other sites. They grab any incoming sales call they can as soon as they hear the phone. They follow up with unsold prospects regularly and often. They ask permission to be pushy and close a deal. They talk to customers in the service drive every day, and attempt to create business. They call all their old sold customers, make sure they are happy and find out who’s next in the family to get a new or used car. They help their sales manager when he needs it, because the know he will have a “cheese deal” for the useful sales person over the one that avoids helping around the lot. They block time each day for prospecting or cold calling. These are just some of the habits that make a car sales person successful. Doing any of these things once in a blue moon will not generate the results you want. A habit is something you do every day, or regularly, regardless of external conditions. So now I must ask you, what habits are you currently doing that are NOT generating sales or results you want? What habit could you begin doing today, that could have a profound impact on your career or sales numbers RIGHT NOW? DEVELOP A NEW HABIT TODAY THAT WILL HELP YOU SUCCEED! 

Why does a new sales rep that just completed sales process training land a deal, when a veteran in a slump can’t close a paperback book? Is the veteran weaker than circus lemonade? NO silly! The green pea is just following the basics, simply because they don’t know any better and the basics work! Getting back to the basics is one of those things that, if you’ve ever played baseball, they teach you. Especially when you go through a streak of at bats that end up in a bunch of strikeouts! One thing that’s easy to lose sight of in sales is the sales process. Isn’t that ironic? That’s because, while law of large numbers can be our friend, it can also be our enemy. If you get a bunch of easy customers in a row, or “lay downs” as some like to call them. You can short cut your way through the sale, skipping half of the steps and still make a deal. This is all fine and dandy when the market is up, businesses are busy, and the law of large numbers is working for you. However, as soon as things slow down OR your lucky “lay down” streak ends, you WILL find yourself in the slump of all slumps! You have to GET BACK TO THE BASICS OF THE SALES PROCESS, and that means understanding that the only short cut is that there are NO shortcuts! Review the sales process with your manager. Make a little index card to check off the steps as you work with your next client. Write down which steps you short changed or skipped out on entirely on your last 3 customers. Just get back to the basics, in order to get back to selling! 

I know being in a sales slump can be very mentally taxing and make you wonder why you ever got into sales in the first place. However, following the steps above will get you through no problem! If you need help, please don’t hesitate to email or call me anytime, I am here for you and I absolutely love helping fellow sales people get back on track and put those rough times behind them! Remember, you’ve been through worse and came out ahead before! Remember all the blessings and great things going on in your life! Use the fear and anxiety to spring into action. Take out those frustrations in a healthy way. Freshen yourself up and present yourself with the utmost confidence. Do something good and positive and good things and positivity will come back to you. Change your routine and pick up a new habit that will help you sell, and step out of your comfort zone to do it! Control that which you can control and do not worry about the things you can’t. Get back to the basics and sell like a green pea. ALWAYS REMEMBER WHY YOU DO WHAT YOU DO, it’s not just for the money. Is it for your family, your kids, to help others, to be successful and fulfilled in your career? No little slump is going to stand in your way, not today, not this month, not ever… NOW GO SELL SOMETHING!

About Sean Kelley

Sean works with car dealers to achieve great results through their people and technology. Sean has extensive diversity in leadership ranging from Special Ops combat veteran, general sales manager, company owner, and a tech company executive. Sean will help your people find purpose, create a growth mindset, improve self-accountability and effectively develop your teams through his unique, customized approach to coaching. If you are interested in exceeding your goals and building an inspirational leadership team, email Sean directly: Sean@carmotivators.com or Get Started For FREE With Coach Chat

#coachingthecarbusiness #drivecoaching #thisistraining #coachingexcellence #winningcultures

Failure Is an Option!

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In 2003, I was sent to the Middle East as an Assistant Team Chief on a Special Operations team. I found myself living on an oil refinery in the sweltering desert just outside Mosul, Iraq. In an attempt to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, we would run missions at all hours of the day and night. One of our missions was to learn about our target audience, then create and deliver information to that audience. Through leaflets, newsletters, radio, and loudspeaker we kept citizens of various cities informed of progress and plans toward rebuilding a better government and infrastructure.

While waiting to kick off a mission, it was not uncommon to wind up sitting in a Hummer for hours with a salty Sergeant First Class, Vietnam veteran type named SFC Willard. He had been a teacher in his civilian life and he quit due to disagreements in the curriculum. One day he was telling me about the lies public schools were telling our children. In his opinion, the biggest lie of all was, “It’s OK to fail, as long as you try”. I remember him passionately spouting off, “Failure is not OK, failure is NOT an option, and effort is irrelevant!”

Though I admired Willard’s conviction and drive to succeed; when I really thought about it, I realized I had failed multiple times in my life. A lot of my failures were in my control, but some circumstances of the failures were totally out of my control! Out of fascination around his beliefs and sheer boredom, I decided to make a list of my failures. The list was quite large, the volume immense, yet still I was moving forward towards my goals. This fact contracted the statement, “Failure is NOT an option.” Why?

When I started my executive coaching, employee development, and consulting business, I found it shocking how many professionals had some degree of atychiphobia, or fear of failure. If I had experienced that fear myself, it may not have been such a mystery to me. Since I possess the team building leadership strength, “positivity,” I often see the silver lining, and potential negative outcomes are not my focus. In addition, having inventoried the failures of my past while sitting in the desert, I had learned how great it actually is to fail.

Quite simply, I had to help people overcome the paralysis that the fear of failure causes. I started looking back through all my coaching files, trying to discover the reasoning behind the fear of failure, and discover a solution anyone could apply. The answer came to me after finding my old list of “failures and lessons learned” in a box of things I brought back from Iraq. The solution was also there in all the action plans my clients had used to conquer this challenge. There are three things we need to understand about failure to make it a viable option.

Before we cover those three realizations, let’s take a trip down memory lane and do a little exercise. First, inventorying the failures and even reliving the worst failure accomplished was a necessary first step. Yes, I said accomplished! Write down every failure, screw up, mishap, mistake, goal you missed, and challenge you did not rise to meet. Sounds depressing, right? Don’t worry, it gets better! Now, reflect on what you have learned from each of these mistakes and write that down. Finally, take the biggest failure with the biggest lesson you learned and move it to the top of the list.

Each individual I’ve coached that has been plagued by the fear of failure had several things in common. First, when they relived the greatest failure in their lives, they had all gotten over it! Each of them had also learned a valuable lesson from the failure. When asked, every one of these people felt they are better off today for having learned from that failure. In fact, the bigger the mess up, the bigger the knowledge gained, and the more passionate they were around the change was result! This passion makes it easier for them to communicate this solution to others if willing to share the experience. Essentially, bigger failure means better ability to communicate and lead others to avoid these specific circumstances.

Finally, they almost always acknowledge that upon reflection, the worst failure on their list wasn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things. that big failure, their other, lesser screw ups and lessons learned, they wouldn’t be the person they are today.

Let’s recap how failure helps you improve in everything, especially your career!

  1. Failure is the only option, sometimes!

Everyone makes mistakes and everyone fails at some point. If you lie to yourself by saying failure is not an option, get ready for a never ending string of let downs. There is no hiding or running from the fact that you will fail at something. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can give yourself a little grace and forgiveness, which helps you move on faster! Don’t be so hard on yourself, you’re probably beating yourself up worse than your, boss, coworkers, or family members. Remember, it’s almost never as bad as you think it is at the time. Since we can’t stop it – roll with it or better, anticipate it with a well thought out contingency plan.

  1. You can utilize your newfound knowledge, bestowed by failing, to create new positive outcomes!

Ensure that you leverage failure to teach yourself a valuable lesson that you’ll never forget! Write down the failure. Then, next write down what you have learned from it. When faced with the same challenge next time, decide what you will you do differently. When you see someone else facing the same challenge, share that lesson that you have learned with others to help them succeed.

  1. Failure has helped shape who you are today!

List your top five personality traits. Are you friendly and outgoing? Are you hardworking and dedicated? Are you organized and punctual? Believe it or not, your failures and your observation of the mistakes of others, have helped you strengthen these attributes. If you list the things you’ve been a part of or witnessed which have caused your personal beliefs to be what they are today, many of those things will be failures. Once you realize failure has molded and shaped some of your greatest characteristics, the sooner you can break the chains of, atychiphobia.

The chains of atychiphobia are:

  • Hesitation to try new activities or ideas
  • Refusal to step out of one’s comfort zone and grow
  • Never setting challenging goals or reaching for new heights
  • Expecting too little of ourselves
  • Expecting too much of our coworkers, companies, and family members

Don’t take this article as a license to not prepare, execute, or give something your all. I simply want for you to embrace your failures; because to be candid, failure is bound to occur at some point. Use this information to improve yourself, share those lessons with others, and look forward to your next failure! You’re going to adapt and overcome challenges because of all the screw ups you have made. Look forward to everything you will accomplish from your next failure!

About Sean Kelley

Sean works with car dealers to achieve great results through their people and technology. Sean has extensive diversity in leadership ranging from Special Ops combat veteran, general sales manager, company owner, and a tech company executive. Sean will help your people find purpose, create a growth mindset, improve self-accountability and effectively develop your teams through his unique, customized approach to coaching. If you are interested in exceeding your goals and building an inspirational leadership team, email Sean directly: Sean@carmotivators.com or Get Started For FREE With Coach Chat

#coachingthecarbusiness #drivecoaching #thisistraining #coachingexcellence #winningcultures

Enthusiasm Sells!

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Whatever you sell, you probably already know that the more enthusiastic your prospective buyer is about your product or service, the better chance they will pull the trigger immediately. You may also know, the enthusiastic customer may also pay more than their less than excited counterpart. With enthusiasm being such a key component in a buying decision, as a sales person, you probably want more enthusiastic buyers, right? So the question then becomes, how can you as a sales professional inject enthusiasm into a clients emotions during their shopping experience? 

The first thing you must understand about creating enthusiasm in your customer, is that enthusiasm must be transferred from you to them! That’s right, for a customer to become excited about making a purchase, you as their sales associate have to be excited about selling to them. This means in reality, enthusiasm generation is much more about how you approach your sales process, and behave during customer interaction than it is about your customers behavior. Allow me to walk you through a surefire way of creating an excited buyer, who is ready to pull the trigger, molded from a seemingly emotionless client. 

Start at their level, and bring them up with you. 

If you subscribe to mirroring and reflecting while selling, then you understand that you should mimic the customers body language, expressions, tone of voice, tempo of speech and any other attribute you are able to. This is a great way to allow your customer to feel comfortable around you. This phenomenon occurs because we are naturally drawn to people that are similar to ourselves. When first meeting most prospects, their guard is up, and they are on the defensive. Thus, you must come in at their level of enthusiasm. However, if you match that attitude and mentallity throughout the entire sale, you will not generate the enthusiasm needed to create a buyer. Your mission is to slowly raise their level of excitement by slowly raising yours. If their level of excitement when they meet you is a 3, you don’t want to start off at a 10. If they are really excited to meet you, then you will need to start off where they are. Get that enthusiasm up quickly to match theirs. Regardless, after you greet your customer, bring your enthusiasm level theirs, mirror and match, but begin raising the energy as soon as you are able. You aren’t able until you find out more about the clients needs. 

Discover their wants and needs to build excitement. 

You can be excited about your product or service, but to express your excitement about the wrong feature or benefit is a waste of enthusiasm, and will have little effect on your customers level of interest. Since you want your enthusiasm to rub off on your would be buyer, it is important you get excited about the correct features. What are the correct features you ask? Quite simply, only the ones that matter to your customer! In order to find this out, it is imperative that you ask many open ended questions. Fact finding, investigation, and discovery will allow you to find out what is important to them. Once you have found out all the important hot buttons and uncover the true buying motive, this is when you may begin slowly turning up the enthusiasm. Here is a practical example of this enthusiasm generation method. You asked, “What is most important to you in a business partner?” Your customer responds with, “The most important thing were looking for is a company’s ability to work around our schedule.” Later on, during your presentation, you smile, raise your tone of voice and begin using gestures, “Remember when you said you wanted a company to work around YOUR schedule? Get excited, because I’m about to show you how well we do that!” You as the salesperson should be excited, because you are expressing your ability to give your customer exactly what they want! So get pumped up about fulfilling your customers needs and you will get THEM pumped up about buying from you! Enthusiasm sells.  

What is their version of enthusiasm? 

Try to build excitement in the way that is comfortable for them. There is a simple and subtle method for discovering this. During your rapport building, this is when you pay close attention to their reply, actions, and tone. Ask a few rapport building questions that allow someone to open up a bit about their personal or professional lives. While they are doing so, you are observing. Watch for their level of excitement, watch what kind of body movements they make. How much do they smile? How fast are they talking? What happens to the tone of their voice? This is their version of enthusiasm. Later on, when you are presenting and you want to get them excited, you can begin raising their enthusiasm level in the same way they got excited during rapport building conversation. Here is an example of such an activity. You ask, “How did you end up in this line of work?” They reply, “Oh man, let me tell you, it was a long road, I had to try 4 different companies to figure it out!” Lets say they don’t crack a smile but they pace around a bit and make big arm movements, their voice also gets louder. When presenting the features and benefits, you wouldn’t smile to much but pace around a bit and make those similar arm movements and raise the volume of your voice while pointing out the features and benefits that matter to them. Even say “Oh man, let me tell you, your going to love this!” Give them THEIR version of enthusiasm to allow them the ability to get excited and remain comfortable while you crank it up a notch!

Be confident in your presentation, why is it PERFECT for them? 

Now that you know exactly what they are looking for, and how they like to get excited, you have the responsibility and the RIGHT to get excited during your presentation. Anyone can do a mundane demo of their product or service, with no pizazz. However, it takes a special kind of sales person to ramp up the excitement and have your customer on the edge of their seat by the end of your sale process. Now is your chance to begin transferring excitement from yourself to your customer and begin turning things up a little bit at a time. When you say things like, “Remember how you said, X feature was important to you? Here is WHY I am showing you this product, these benefits are exactly what your looking for!” You have to be energetic about what your showing them, because they ARE going to buy from you. They are going to buy from you because you are solving their problem, tailoring your presentation to their needs and wants, and expressing these things in a way that makes sense to them. Your confidence in this allows you to be excited, and them to soak it all in. 

Get yourself excited! Body language, behavior, and attitude. 

There are many ways to crank up the enthusiasm. Body language is huge. Standing there with your hands in your pockets while you talk, or just as bad, stiff at your sides, creates no energy. However, when you flail about like a wacky inflatable arm flailing tube man, people can’t help but become wrapped up in your presentation. When you look at your customer in the eye, point directly at them and say, “You need this because…” With certainty, that’s the body language that shows pure confidence. From a customers perspective, anyone with that much conviction must know what they are talking about. Asking what many people in sales call “Yes questions” while nodding your head, will also get the customer on your side and generate enthusiasm. A yes question is something like, “You can see the value in that, am I right Mrs. Customer?” While nodding your head with eye contact and extending a hand. You will have them nodding right back with you in agreement. This body language shows confidence, and enthusiasm. When someone feels that all their needs are met when making a purchase, they are often willing to pay more if they are excited about the buy. Big enthusiasm, big profit! 

Use tone of voice and speak in a positive, helpful, contributive way. 

Speech is another way to increase enthusiasm. Speak a little faster, and a little louder, as well as raising the tone of your voice as your presentation goes along. I’m not saying sound like a chipmunk on crack by the end of your presentation. I just want you to understand, using varying tones and volume to have different effects at various points in your presentation can make a massive impact in a clients buying decision. If you want to makes someone feel special, like they are getting “inside information” then move in and speak in more of a whisper. If you want the entire group hear and feel your message, back up, turn up the volume and spread your eye contact amongst the group your presenting. Don’t disparage your competitors products. Doing so actually makes your customers level of enthusiasm drop, because negative speech actually transfers negative thoughts towards you and your product! So instead of telling your client, “That product down the street is a P.O.S. its not half as reliable as what im selling.” Try saying it like this, “We want our customers to have worry free ownership, so we have made a product that is two times more reliable than the competition!” Can you actually FEEL the difference in the two messages? One creates excitement, one makes you enthusiastic, the other makes you sound negative, grumpy, and even jealous of your competition! 

Enthusiasm is the least talked about, but one of the most important parts of a sale. 

Overall, enthusiasm generation is reliant on your behavior, attitude, client awareness and mentality. You don’t want to start off with over the top excitement, and pour it on the entire time. Instead you want it to start off like a small snowball at the top of a mountain. Rolling that little snowball down the slope until it creates a big ball of excitement by the close of the sale. Discover the best method for enthusiasm generation that applies to your customer. Next find out the best way you, your product, and service can help them or solve their problems. Get excited about presenting the right things in the right way. Start raising the bar on the excitement by using the right speech, body movements, actions and words. Stay positive and confident throughout the entire sale. When it comes time for the customer to make a decision, the excitement that you have transferred to them will no doubt have a large impact on their decision! You will have had more fun because getting yourself amped up can be quite entertaining! Not to mention, enthusiastic people are generally passionate about what they do. Show me a sales person who is passionate about selling their wares, and I will show you a highly successful sales professional. When its all said and done, using enthusiasm to sell, you will have more buyers, more commission, and more fun while working. Always remember my friends, enthusiasm sells! 

About Sean Kelley

Sean works with car dealers to achieve great results through their people and technology. Sean has extensive diversity in leadership ranging from Special Ops combat veteran, general sales manager, company owner, and a tech company executive. Sean will help your people find purpose, create a growth mindset, improve self-accountability and effectively develop your teams through his unique, customized approach to coaching. If you are interested in exceeding your goals and building an inspirational leadership team, email Sean directly: Sean@carmotivators.com or Get Started For FREE With Coach Chat

#coachingthecarbusiness #drivecoaching #thisistraining #coachingexcellence #winningcultures

Dealers 3 Biggest Problems and Solutions

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DEALERS & GM’s: Are you facing any or ALL of the following market challenges and other than working harder, you aren’t quite sure how to conquer them?

  1. HIGH COST OF CUSTOMER ACQUISITION
  2. PROFIT MARGIN COMPRESSION & PRODUCT COMMODITIZATION
  3. SHRINKING CUSTOMER LOYALTY

What I share in this article is not theory or speculation, its factual. The inside information you are about to read has been proven out by dealers we coach. Because my company coaches dealers who have conquered high cost of customer acquisition, compressed margins, and shrinking customer loyalty. I share this with you because as their coach, I’ve seen and experienced their successes first hand. At Car Motivators, we care about the showroom floor and the people who work on it. Therefore, I want for you in reading this, is to experience the same success in overcoming these challenges. In this way, your dealership and people can continue to thrive in the car business!

To many leaders, overcoming these seems daunting and hopeless! Many dealers feel like they are playing a game and the chips are stacked against them. GOOD NEWS: This is a game, and to win you only need three things:

  1. OFFENSE
  2. DEFENSE
  3. PLAYBOOK

The offense is the way that you market to and attract buyers. First, go on the attack and DE-COMMODIFY your dealership! You only have ONE competitive advantage, and it’s your EMPLOYEES. Every employee at your dealership has direct AND free access to thousands of potential buyers. Start using marketing platforms like #Teir4Marketing and apps like #NextSale. Because this technology will keep your people in front of people who can and will buy from them. Stop doing the same thing as every other dealership! That’s buying a bunch of cars, pricing them with no margin, and marketing the “deals”. For the reason that it is attracting only best price, in-market shoppers who are price-driven transactional buyers.

When you can make the full transition to these modern and effective methods for attracting customers, you can expect two results. First, you will attract more customers that your employees enjoy selling. Secondly, you will be able to lower your marketing spend extensively, and thus improve the cost of acquisition. Regardless, you will want to continue your current marketing campaigns along with these tactics. Because it takes time to reach a tipping point when business generated through these new means is enough to replace your high-cost low return traditional marketing spend. Most noteworthy, this tactic helped Sansone Jr 66 Automall become the most efficient dealership in his 20 group, over the course of five years.

The defense is two-part, the first being the customer experience, before, during and IN BETWEEN sales! Start by differentiating yourself from your competition by understanding the customer experience starts before they arrive at your dealership. Technology tools like DriveCentric A.I. can engage with customers in record time, 24 hours a day through the right communication channels. Add a personal touch and improve the pre-arrival experience by sending personalized videos to each opportunity. At Car Motivators, we advise our internet sales departments to “Treat the pixels like people”! As a result, we have two Toyota dealerships who have well over 80% engagement from internet leads each month, talking to 30% more leads than the average dealer, because they use these techniques.

Salespeople must adopt the mindset that every customer is a 30-car buyer. Stop treating customers as if they are a single transactional sale because if you sell like a kiosk, you can be replaced by one. There is no “after sale” follow up with this new mindset; there is in between sale relationship development. The in-between sales experience for a customer should happen digitally leveraging tools like CRM, social media, video, and with in-store on-site events, charitable acts, and community involvement.

The critical second half to the defense which will shield you from the three challenges above is the employee experience. The reason is that a better employee experience creates engaged employees. Engaged employees are more motivated, accountable, productive, and remain with your company longer. When you multiply the effects of these engaged employee attributes across all employees in your organization you multiply results. These employees stay on the team longer, and employee retention means customer retention.

To improve the employee experience, start by having a robust onboarding process that ensures employees have a foundation for success. Stop throwing employees to the wolves without training or tests for competency because this almost always provides failure. Continue developing people through aspirational performance coaching, even after they have been trained, and understand their job.

This combined improved customer experience and employee experience is a defense against commoditization which will ensure that you build customer retention.

Finally, it’s time to discuss the playbook. Because every great team has a coach with new and exciting plays that ensure the unit performs at a high level and outmaneuvers the competition. When you look at the business side of this analogy, the right activities happen in the right way because there is a coach observing from the sidelines. In the car business, the playbook consists of several things: A process for vetting, deciding upon, implementing, and revisiting new procedures, tools, and technology. A method for holding people accountable. Leadership competency and understanding of the latest industry best practices that drive results.

You can start by working with leaders and employees to brainstorm around new ideas. We suggest involving the entire team in developing this growth mindset. You can discuss which ideas if implemented, would have the most significant impact on business. Try sending your managers to a conference or two. You could visit a top dealership in your region for a day. Another strategy is to join a 20 group. A cheap and simple way for ideation is simply to read a few articles with industry best practices on dealershipnews.com or drivingsales.com. After these activities, have each employee share their favorite idea and choose the best one to implement. Furthermore, create a game plan as a team, ensure everyone commits to activities and time frames. Furthermore, build reward/recognition programs for results, and accountability processes to ensure everyone conducts their commitments.

Another opportunity within this bucket is to develop a process for coaching up underperformers. In this way, the right people stay on your team, and people who aren’t a good fit move onto something better for them in a fair and efficient manner. This playbook if appropriately implemented, will help you quickly add technology tools and processes in the right way. Weaving these activities into the fabric of your teams’ routines are critical to your bottom line. More importantly, it will help you remove unproductive and unprofitable tools, processes and technology faster and with less wasted effort and frustration.

At a high level, we have discussed three of the dealerships most significant challenges: shrinking profit margins, lower customer loyalty, and commoditization of our cars. Throughout the article, I shared what you can start doing, stop doing and continue doing which will help you overcome these challenges. Above all, if you’re thinking, “These solutions are not what I had hoped for, this sounds hard. I’m going keep looking for a magic pill.” Then I challenge you to look at any championship sports team. Because they don’t become champions by simply wanting championship results. Nor did the championship team take performance-enhancing drugs suddenly crushing their competition and winning it all overnight.

Rather, it takes long term consistent training, coaching, and using the right tools. Combine this with taking on new modern best practices, a mindset of accountability, a clear vision, and a desire to win. Then go on the attack with a blitzkrieg offense and enhance your dealership’s brand by marketing your people. Set up a staunch defense with industry best customer and employee experiences. Develop a great playbook that ensures personal growth for every player and leader on your team, continuous improvement, a mindset of ownership across the board. Remember, you too can overcome these three challenges and set your entire business up for future success!

Could YOU succeed in sales?

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Sales is one of the most rewarding careers on the planet! Some who could be fantastic, high earning sales people never even consider it as a career. Maybe you were told by your parents, “Work for hourly income, sales commission is to irregular.” so you never gave sales a second thought. Many others by happenstance, end up in a sales role, but may not cut it and end up going broke.

To help you determine if you could succeed in sales, I would like to share something powerful with you in this article. This is a list of traits that some of my colleagues and I have determined to be the true heart of a sales person. The necessary traits for true sales success. If you possess some or most of these traits, and are not in sales, I strongly urge you to do research into selling for a living. If you’re currently in sales, and you’re lacking any of the traits below, I have good news for you, these traits can be practiced, and trained to help you improve your income and client satisfaction!

#1 You’re able to make a great first impression.

The old sales person cliché still comes to mind for many Americans as soon as the job title “Sales Associate” is mentioned. Images of shark skinned suits, slicked back hair, and fast talking car sales people are the first thing that pops up. This is not what consumers want when making a purchase, be it product or service. People make many judgements about others within the first thirty seconds of laying eyes on you. If you are able to greet a perfect stranger with total confidence, win them over fast and often with a firm hand shake, a friendly greeting, and warm smile. Next, if you can break down any barriers they may have in opening up a dialog with you, then you are able to make a great first impression. Sales might be for you.

#2 You desire to make money and work on commission.

This trait doesn’t necessarily mean your greedy, but working for salary or an hourly wage is a turn off to those who could really succeed working for commission. This desire is inherent in those people who laugh at a yearly salary and think, “I can make so much more than that with my work ethic, dedication, and skill set.” If the thought of punching a clock is dreadful to you because you think you are worth more than that, then commissioned sales could help you achieve your financial goals.

#3 You enjoy dealing with the public.

Being a people person really helps. A true sales person authentically enjoys listening to people, asking questions, solving others problems and helping people feel happy. Not to say an introvert can’t succeed in sales, but the fact is, if you truly enjoy being around people, you have a key trait it takes to succeed in sales.

#4 You are highly trainable and coachable.

Have you been on a sports team in high school or college and just loved the heck out of your coach? Were you able to reach new physical heights because your coach was able to teach you and inspire you to succeed? Did you have a teacher or professor who worked with you to accomplish what you thought was impossible? Do you love asking for and receiving advice from others? Do you enjoy reading self help books or even searching the internet for answers to questions? If a pattern of things like this occurs in your life, then you are probably highly trainable and coachable. If you have this trait, and you find the right sales manager to work for, who is also a great trainer and coach, you could be propelled into the stratosphere of sales success, which by the way, could easily mean six figure earnings!

#5 You are process driven.

Most companies that have an entire team selling their product or service, also have a tried and true sales process, a roadmap so to speak, for each member of the sales team to follow. If you are process driven then you do not like to start a task without instructions on how to complete it. If you are process driven then you like to follow a recipe when cooking instead of just winging it. A process driven sales professional will learn and stick to the sales process of the company, instead of trying to freelance and reinvent the wheel.

#6 You are proficient with technology.

Todays market is full of social networking programs, sites and apps. In addition to this companies have complex CRM (customer relationship management) software used to track sales and follow up with clients. Being able to manipulate this technology in order to connect with potential prospects, and cultivate your business gives any sales person a huge advantage.

#7 You have a good attitude and sense of humor.

Unless your selling something that is very highly desirable, and practically free (think canned Soda), and most of us aren’t, then you will probably lose far more sales than you close. Some products or services even have a less than 3% close rate! That means a lot of rejection, and a ton of potential negativity. If you have the heart of a sales person, then no amount of lost deals will really trouble you for long. Negativity and setbacks roll off people with this wonderful sales trait like water off a ducks back. If you can laugh off a tough situation with ease and come out the other side better for it, then the sales challenges you could face probably wont bother you either. Having a perpetual truly positive attitude is a very strong benefit when in a sales role. On the other hand, if you dwell on negative situations for long periods of time, if it takes you long periods of time to recover mentally when things don’t go your way, selling could be a rocky road for you.

#8 You are empathetic.

Have you always been able to tell when something is bothering your parents or siblings? Do you take notice when a friend or even a total stranger appears happy, or depressed? If you have the ability to feel what others are feeling and sense what they are thinking by the tone in their voice, facial expressions and body movement, then you are highly empathetic. When working with people, and attempting to get them to buy your goods, its not about you its about them. So being able to take notice in how someone feels, when they aren’t in agreement with what your presenting, or when they are truly excited about what your demonstrating is a critical sales ability that many people in the career field would kill to have. If you can do this, and haven’t thought about selling, shame on you! Strong sales reps must pick up on these signals and ask what the customer is thinking to bring fourth any objections. Which brings us to our next trait.

#9 You think quick on your feet.

Throughout most any sale, customers will present objections. There are hundreds of possible objections, depending on what you sell, and the ones your clients have must be acknowledged and overcome. The ability to think quick on your feet means you are able to listen to these potential hurtles, quickly figure out a good solution for your client and continue on the selling cycle. If you are a quick thinker, or a fast and effective problem solver, your skills could be utilized to help someone with a purchase!

#10 Flexible schedule.

One potential turn off for many who wish to enjoy a lucrative sales career may be the hours. To truly reach your maximum income level a flexible schedule is fairly important. You must be available when your clients can come purchase. I’ve seen many sales people refuse to stop in on their day off when a high value client of theirs is wanting to make a big purchase. Being there for your customers when THEY are available can make the difference in your paycheck, or even your entire career. For me having a stay at home wife has greatly helped my career, because when I need to go to work to meet with sales reps or customers, I have that ability rain sleet or snow, day or night, 7 days a week! I’m not saying you will work 7 days a week if your in sales. I just want you to know that being able to close a deal at almost at any time, can be very beneficial to a sales professional. If you have lots of free time and want to get into a high income, high payoff, fast paced but sometimes demanding career, sales may be for you!

After reading this, if you have the traits above and haven’t thought about a career in sales, you probably need too right away. You might be, selling yourself short! (See what I did there?) If your in a selling role already, then I challenge you to rate yourself on the skillset above. Figure out opportunities for improvement and work on those traits that did not come inherent to you. Doing so could help you could reach new heights in your selling career!

Best Source for Career Advice

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Within the sphere of influence that revolves around your career, there are many resources you may leverage for improvement. Among these resources are the people you interact with. Gathering and leveraging their input in order to find ways to improve your skills, capabilities, mindsets and attitudes, is critical to reaching your full potential.

Today, Kelley Coaching and Consulting interviews Nick Horvat, National Retail Account Executive of Sprint. Our goal: To help you determine your best resource for career development, and personal improvement. 

Is a Supervisor Your Best Source? 

While you should tap into your leader’s experience and knowledge to grow, surprisingly, your best performance coach may not your supervisor. It’s true they were able to work their way up and someone believed them good enough for the next level. Certainly, they should help to guide you and offer ways to improve.

Nick Horvat says, “When asking for feedback from your manager, be open to what you

hear. You may not always get the feedback you want or expect.”

There are a few reasons why you should not put all your professional development eggs in the basket of your supervisor:

  • They could have an agenda. Your success it their success as well. As a result, your direct supervisor generally pushes you to do what they want in order to create their version of success. Are they really seeking to understand what you want to improve?
  • There may be communication barriers. Are you able to openly discuss things with them? According to a survey by Staffbay, out of 15,000 employees polled, 87% did not fully trust their boss. Without trust, true growth through coaching may be hindered. Along with lack of trust, other barriers may include; time constraints, company policies and process around training, or past negative experiences.
  • They may be assuming what you need to work on. Where are they gathering data to help you improve? Are they looking at metrics that could be skewed or not based on reality? Information from your supervisor, along with solid coaching around improvement areas can certainly help. Yet again, most supervisors will tell you what to fix and how they think you should best fix it. Without regular observation and targeted development around specific areas of improvement, assumption based training may not generate the desired results.

Is a Third Party Coach Your Best Source?

You will gain a lot from a third party coach. I, myself am a business coach and help company leaders from many different businesses reach their objectives. I also hire my own coach and have seen much of my success through this type of development. With a third party coach, the agenda of the supervisor doesn’t exist. In this case, the coach is generally more effective at seeking to understand and help. You should certainly have a third party coach help provide that necessary outside perspective.

Horvat says, “A third party mentor has always been a best practice I use. Someone 

outside your company allows for unbiased opinions which potentially

brings new ideas or skills to the table.”

Thus, third parties are excellent resources for performance increases in any aspect of business. However, there are several obstacles around use of a third party coach that may hinder improvement if not addressed up front. Be mindful of these two potential roadblocks: 

  • They may not understand your job role or businesses IQ. A great coach will learn a lot about you, what your trying to accomplish. Together you will co-create a plan to help you get there, and even hold you accountable in your plan! The part they may lack, is their ability to know the true ins-and-outs of your job role. Over time, a coach will learn this, but initially they may not be able to make suggestions that are directly related to specifics on your job. They must be skilled at facilitating your ideas into actionable plans to improve.
  • They may not have seen you in action. A coach will listen to things from your perspective and generally see things through your lens. This means they also potentially share your blind spots. If this is the case, potential solutions could be missed. Role-playing with your coach may help, but overall, real world observation and participation makes a difference.

Are Coworkers Your Best Source of Advice?

Your coworkers may offer great insight into what your doing well and what you can improve upon. After all, they get to see you in action and are often either in direct competition with you, or are part of your team. You can also observe and imitate the top performers among your peers to help yourself better succeed.

When it comes to seeking assistance from coworkers, Horvat says, “As a manager, I suggest writing down three to five people you trust and respect in your business and seek out their input on a regular basis. You will gain insight on what works for them and bounce ideas off of them before introducing change to your team.” 

Though your coworkers can definitely help you, there are still a few reasons your peers might not be the best performance coaches for your career development and improvement:

  • They may be biased. Are they concerned you’re trying to outshine them? Sometimes, coworkers can put up a guard when they fear you could outperform them. In this case, you may not receive the best advice. 
  • They won’t hold you accountable. A supervisor or third party coach will usually help hold you accountable for your action plans and career development. Your peers are usually worried about ensuring they get their job done, and will not necessarily follow up or help hold you to your commitments for improvement.

Is it Your Clients, and People You Serve?

This, often neglected, resource is a never ending well of information, ideas, suggestions, and accountability. The people you sell to, service or serve can be your best performance coach.

Horvat tells us, “If I had to pick one of the four choices to receive feedback from to grow my career, I would choose the customer… I know that if I’m taking what my customers tell me and applying it to my day-to-day role, I can build a business because I’m listening to what drives my business.”

The people we serve are extremely important coaches for several reasons:

  • Your improvement is in their best interest. As selfish as this sounds, everything people do is based on receiving a payoff. So what’s in it for them in helping you improve? If you’re in sales, the transaction will better for your buyer if you improve in your role. Thus they are willing to help you improve, (especially after the transaction). If you’re a leader, your team will be better off if you improve in your role, thus they are usually willing to help you improve. If you’re in the service industry, your growth will directly improve the services you provide for your clients, thus they are probably willing to help you.
  • They have seen you in action, and have directly engaged with you. When you want to help your child work on a baseball swing, you get in the batter box with them. Review the basics, then watch them swing. As they do they swing, you point out ways for them to improve.

Observation in this way is the best way to point out areas for improvement. In the same way your clients or staff members have worked directly with you and are well aware of what they enjoyed about you. They have also witnessed your processes and behaviors, and know what you can work on.

How to Leverage Your Best Source of Career Advice

We believe those we serve are our most abundant and impactful source of information on areas to improve. Read the surveys they complete, if there are online reviews for what you sell, read the good and the bad to learn. More importantly, start off by asking them in person, upfront, to help you improve by paying attention during the interaction:

“Customer (or team member) I am always wanting to improve in my [process, management style, sales abilities] so that I may better serve you as your [manager, leader, salesperson, customer service rep]. Throughout our time together, would you be willing to pay attention to what I do best and where I can improve? Then later on, could I ask for your opinion on this to help with my performance?” 

Here are some questions you can ask regularly, or after each engagement, or salesale, (whatever frequency makes sense for you and the people you ask), that will help you identify what you can do to grow in the most effective way:

  • How would you describe [me, my products, my services] to your friends and family?
  • What did/do you like best about my [process, sale, product, management style]?
  • What did/do you like the least?
  • What is one area I could change, add, or remove that would help make this better for you?
  • What did I do to meet or exceed your expectations?
  • Where did/do I not meet or exceed your expectations?
  • Do you have any other suggestions? Or Is there anything else?

We highly suggest diversifying your career performance advice input channels by seeking out great coaching from many angles. By all means, seek input from your supervisor or those above you. Ask your peers what they think you can do better. Hire a business or career coach to help you see through a different perspective, lend support, and build on self accountability. Just remember, the people that are observing you closest and have the most to gain from your improvement are your clients, or the employees that work for you. Actively seek their input and utilize their ideas to best improve your performance.

About Sean Kelley #thecarbizcoach

Sean works with car dealers to achieve great results through their people and technology. Sean has extensive diversity in leadership ranging from Special Ops combat veteran, general sales manager, company owner, and a tech company executive. Sean will help your people find purpose, create a growth mindset, improve self-accountability and effectively develop your teams through his unique, customized approach to coaching. If you are interested in exceeding your goals and building an inspirational leadership team, email Sean directly: Sean@CarMotivators.com or Get Started For FREE With Coach Chat

#coachingthecarbusiness #carmotivators #thisistraining #coachingexcellence #winningcultures

Are Your Service and Sales Departments in a Civil War?

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To be recited to the cadence of the pledge of allegiance: I pledge allegiance to the mission, of the United departments of my dealership, and to the jobs that rely on each other. Mutual success, under one partnership, communicably, adding value and dedication for all.

I call it, the Car Motivators pledge of dealership department alignment!

You need every person in every department of your dealership to understand the strategic direction, you are trying to take your company. When they know the direction and are excited to be a part of that vision, you have alignment! This is one sign of a #winningculture. Sometimes this alignment is off within each department. More often, when you take cross functioning departments like sales, service, parts, training, office, BDC, and marketing, things are even more skewed. This can get extreme and cost your dealership a lot of money. The office team can feel completely left out in the cold when it comes to processes and procedural changes when they should probably be the first to know. Sales departments complain that it’s the offices’ job to save the dealership money by finding ways to not pay salespeople. When these misalignments occur, you are bleeding profit. This is because disengaged employees directly impact turnover, productivity, and performance.

There are many ways to unite many departments and many amazing benefits to connecting each one. For this article, we will focus on service and sales. Here are a few things that you can do as a senior leader at your dealership, to unite these two cross functioning departments. The goal is to have your people putting the company first before self-interest and ultimately take profit margins to another level. This can be accomplished through a high level of team cohesion and alignment!

End the civil war between service and sales.

The all neglected service walk. Why do employees of dealers skip this all to important step? Most of the time, employees don’t see value in it for themselves. While its often-true sales will make the first sale and service makes the rest, salespeople aren’t thinking that far ahead. They want to sell a car right now, and anything beyond month end may not be worth spending time on. I ask sales teams at dealers I coach around the country, “What value do you see in doing a service walk with your customers?” I get the same answers almost every time, even from senior leaders. They say, “The service walk helps us begin a service relationship with the customers and ensures service gets business.” They see this as value for the dealership, but not necessarily for the salesperson. If they do perform this step its often because you or your OEM force them to with through paperwork. In short, they’re doing a service walk out of compliance rather than a commitment to the entire teams’ success. Often even ignoring how it affects their success because the payout is far in the future. The further in the future the reward, the less desire to act because the reward looks smaller. If you can create an immediate reward for this activity, it will generate buy-in. Another reason employees tell me that this doesn’t happen to the extent or should, or with the impact, it should have on sales is because salespeople say, they don’t want to bother service writers. Finally, and this is a big warning sign of a service and sales civil war, is when salespeople are fearful of how a customer will be greeted when they take them to service! This means there is guaranteed hostility between the two departments, that must be hashed out.

First, let’s create a WIIFM (What’s in it for me) For the service writers AND salespeople.

What if both sides were on the same team and wanted an amazing service walk for every customer? What would it mean for your dealership?Car Motivators recommendation: Build the team cohesion by pairing a group of salespeople with a service writer. Discuss openly in these groups how the service writer could add value to the salespersons’ process by meeting these customers! When the salespeople know who they should go to, and these people are now working together with the way they know that leads to success you can eliminate the barriers that may prevent a service walk.

If the service writer is trained on how to behave, specifics on the engagement with said customer, and the salesman knows that this improves their immediate closing ratio, they are more likely to do it. The service writer should know that when a salesperson brings someone back to them, that they will reap the service business if the deal is closed, and must treat the interaction as such. Saying something helpful like, “Your lucky to have Sean as your salesman, he always takes care of his customers, you’re in great hands! I’m looking forward to servicing your new vehicle for you!”

What gets measured gets done.

For maximum accountability, start measuring which team has the highest sale to service walk numbers and ratio to sales. If your service writers are logging the opportunities that went through the service walk process, now you can compare closing ratios for service walk vs non-service walk deals. Prove to your people this step gives immediate results. Find out which service write sales teams are not meshing well, and uncover the challenge. This will help everyone function more cohesively as a unit. One store I work with by measuring these metrics, uncovered the service writers were frustrated by after sale “we owe” work. As a result, this was preventing a good service walk! By addressing the issue on the sales side and tightening up some processes, we saved the store money in after sale we owe work and allowed for sales and service to work better together.

Other tips for uniting both departments.

Overall there are many other ways that you can end the civil war between service and sales. You can have your sales department give a “pit stop” to each customer. Now the customer can stop in for a free post-sale inspection, fluid and tire pressure check. You can have service share a service retention metric on each salesperson, so the sales team can have line of sight to long-term opportunities. Service can communicate to sales with scheduled customer service visits for their sold customers so that the salesperson can ensure they talk to their customers each time. One of the many leadership lessons I learned in the Army is that people appreciate the recognition. Create a unit citation or award that you can give to each service and sales team that reaches objectives or sets records each month.

To sum up, you can achieve some great results by having these two departments align and work together. This can be integral in taking your dealership to the next level. Make the service walk introduction extremely valuable to the salesperson and customer. This ensures that your salespeople start doing the service walk after the demo drive and before the write up each opportunity. Sell it to them by asking your sales team, “Should you introduce your fiancé to your family before or after your marriage?” The answer is before, why do the service walk after the proposal? You’ve lost an opportunity to woo the customer over and make closing the sale even easier by demonstrating how confident each player in both departments are of each other. Come up with creative ways for the two departments to work hand in hand. Integrate both teams into the process and show each employee the value of this teamwork, by measuring the results and how they affect each player on the team. You will close more sales, increase service retention, and help create a #winningculture at your dealership.

Car Motivators works with car dealers across the country to customize real and relevant training that everyone at the store wants and needs. By coaching excellence into each player on the team, we create an ongoing sustainable process for developing and growing sales among your top performers. We help our dealers align to a unique cultural vision, value proposition, and ensure this vision becomes reality when we create winning cultures that impact your results. Your managers can leverage the tools you already invest in, and the people you already have to increase both profit and sales without working harder. If you are interested in achieving these results, you may email Sean@CarMotivators.com or Get Started For FREE With Coach Chat

#thisistraining #coachingexcellence #winningcultures #leadershipdevelopment #sales #servicedrive #culture #automotive