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9 Ways to Add Value to Your Service Experience

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If improving your CSI score means going the extra mile, then make sure you do! These tips, when practiced with consistency, will have a measurable impact on your income. Guaranteed.

  • Make sure your guest WIFI password is posted in the waiting room and very visible.
  • Ensure complimentary beverages and snacks are fresh, full, and easy to see.
  • Have your express team or porters vacuum the front floor boards, clean windows, and wash cars.
  • Keep customer facing areas clean and free of clutter.
  • Ensure invoices have clear explanations of the complaint, cause, and corrective action!
  • Install interior protection coverings and remove them in front of the customer so they know you did it.
  • Top off fluids and correct air pressure levels in tires.
  • Be sure to tell the customer all of the extras you provide, point them out, and discuss any questions or concerns they may have about those complimentary services!
  • Call and thank them after the visit!

What we want for you and your dealership is to be a profitable, happy, winning culture. CSI scores are influenced heavily by all of these factors and we hope you can use these simple tips to build winning (profitable) cultures on a daily basis!

Also, this is an invitation to join our Car Motivators Facebook Group which is an exclusive group of industry pros that are making a positive difference in retail automotive! https://www.facebook.com/groups/coachingthecarbusiness/

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How Committed Are You?

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By Sean Kelly

Think of the last conversation you had that didn’t go so well. Maybe you left the conversation frustrated, or a feeling drained. Maybe you’re a manager and you were trying to correct or improve one of your people. On the other hand, maybe you’re an employee and you had a conversation with a client or supervisor, and the discussion left you feeling anxious but you can’t quite put your finger on why. After analyzing thousands of ineffective conversations between managers and employees, and employees and their customers, one of the main reasons conversations are frustrating for one or both parties is lack of commitment.

The Enemy is Ambiguity

The most subtle way people skirt commitment is with ambiguity, and ambiguity is the opposite of clarity. I define clarity by knowing who, does what, by when. An uncommitted person will try to avoid taking responsibility for the next action item and avoid being the “who” themselves. Let’s  look at how salespeople do this subconsciously when asking for referrals.

“Here’s some business cards, and if you know someone who needs a car, I’d appreciate it if you’d send them to me.”

There are two “who’s” in this example, and neither are on the salesperson! The customer has to decide who is the buyer, even though they’re poorly trained on how to identify this. The customer is “who” has to do the work once a buyer is found. What does a committed salesperson do differently? Answer: “Who’s next in your family to get a car?”

Here’s how a frustrated and uncommitted manager avoids the “who” and creates vagueness in a sales meeting:

“Why aren’t you guys doing what I told you! You know (Insert activity) is part of selling cars!”

Very seldom do blanket statements apply to everyone on a team, and mass punishment erodes trust. If you want to maximize motivation, get buy-in and drive bigger results you’ll need to take a different route. Because a manager needs each player on their team to respect each other for their competency, and the team must respect the competency of the manager leading the team. How competent is a manager who is constantly yelling at their employees about how incompetent they are?

When the manager isn’t specific about “who” needs to improve, they are correcting with ambiguity and which won’t change anything because there’s no commitment from the manager. This corrective growth opportunity has simply become a complaint session.

Let’s Talk About the “What”

Commitment around the “what” can be a powerful thing. A culture that lacks commitment seeks every opportunity to do as little as possible, just enough to get by. Let’s think about the cost of this in the modern day marketplace. From one to five stars, what are your customers expectations of service? Most people say FIVE. In reality, if you just meet their minimum expectation which is five star service, how do you stand out? In order to make the impact necessary to get the transaction, and create a loyal advocate for your business, you’ll need more commitment to the “what” than the bare minimum.

How does a salesperson who avoids the “what”, sound like in an uncommitted reaction to their

managers request around prospecting to generate their own business.

“It’s the dealership’s job to bring in business, not mine.” OR “I’ll think about doing something.”

The first example is blatantly committed to doing nothing, the second has committed to nothing. In reality, the only thing we can be clear on here, is that in both of these examples there are no “what’s”, and with no “what” we have no commitment.

Revisiting the non-committal sales manager avoiding the “what’s” may sound like this.

“You should be (Insert activity).” “You need to (insert activity).” “You need to start (insert activity).” End dialog.

Exactly “what” are YOU going to do here Mr./Mrs. manager? We just don’t know.

The shrewdest of the non-committals take advantage of the law of diminishing intent. The law states that the longer someone waits to do something that they know they should do, the lower the likelihood becomes that it will get done.

Enter the “When” Aversion

Let’s go back to the ambiguous referral ask by our commitment lacking salesperson, note the use of the word “If” instead of when. “IF you meet someone who needs a car, please send them to me.” Now, the uncommitted manager and equally under committed employee’s uncommitted interaction.

Manager, “Hey you, let’s get those past due CRM tasks done.”

Employee, “I’ll get to it when I have time, boss.”

Manager, “Ok…”

We can see in this all too common interaction that the employee has not committed to when they will start, and have this done by. In fact, they gave a conditional response. Should they have time, only then will it happen. Unfortunately, the problem perpetuates because the manager hasn’t committed to the employee, or the accountability it takes to lock in time framed expectation.

Words Matter

When it comes to coaching, I’ve learned every single word carries a lot of weight. The words you say have profound implications on your level of commitment. Reflect on your language…

“I may“ means you probably won’t. “I’ll think about…” means in the future, you will think. This couldn’t be further from taking action. “Sometime soon I’ll”… does “soo”n mean the same thing to you as it does to me? To me it means 10 years from now.

“Maybe…” Am I better off trying to get rich betting at the roulette table?

“I should…” but you won’t, because when you should-on yourself, you’d rather self-shame and accept defeat.

“I might…”

“One day…”

Modeling Commitment

Employees will behave in the way they see their managers act. If you’re a manager and you want committed employees then the commitment has to start with you. They don’t see commitment when the entire action plan is solely on their shoulders. They don’t hear commitment when it’s always their

fault. They don’t feel commitment when there is no deadline, or scheduled follow up for accountability from their manager.

Change: “Make more calls” into, “Who will you be calling today and do you know where to find them in the CRM?”

Change: “You need to set appointments” into, “How many appointments are you trying to set today, and what coaching, scripts or training do you need from me in order to achieve that goal?”

Change: “You should post on social media” into, “Lets stretch our comfort zones today and make some social media content together. What will we post today that will help us grow?”

Change: “Do your CRM tasks” into, “What’s getting in the way of you getting caught up in your CRM tasks? When will you be caught up by? How do you want me to hold you accountable to that?”

Change: “Start asking for referrals.” Into, “Walk me through your referral ask process so we can come up with ways to make it more effective right away for you.”

Once you start to take your commitment and that of your employees to this level, you will realize they’re never being lazy, unmotivated or in a slump. They simply fear change, don’t have the ability, and/or don’t see the value in doing it. Instead, bolster commitment with collaborative discussions where co-creating action plans is the norm.

Remove ambiguity, have honest positive impactful dialog, Create committed employees by committing to them in your efforts and energy. This will help you ensure those straining, stressful, draining dialogs’ vanish. 

You will find commitment removes anger, frustration, fear and generates momentum because there’s mutual buy-in. This all leads to trust, competency, ownership, and a mindset of accountability. And think of it like this, a business’s only job is to make commitments and then meet them. If that isn’t happening from you, it won’t happen inside the culture of your business. If that’s the case, then how can it happen on the outside, with your customers?

6 Reasons Why Selling Tires Needs to be a Priority for Your Store

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6 Reasons why selling tires needs to be a priority for your store

My grandpa always said you should always spend extra money on the things between you and the ground. Shoes, tires, beds etc… Those investments will have the biggest positive impact on your life in general! 

  • A Chrysler survey long ago found that over 70% of people that buy tires will buy their next car from the dealer that sold them those tires
  • Only 1 in 5 of your customers even know you sell tires and the number one defection point is tire shops.
  • Pulling the wheels allows you to inspect brakes, steering and suspension components more closely; who do you want performing that inspection?
  • Everytime a customer has their vehicle in another shop, they get a taste of going somewhere else. 
  • New tires are the single most effective way to improve a vehicle’s performance and ride comfort. Who is providing that quality of life improvement for your customers?
  • Assuming customers only want the cheapest tires is a limiting belief! Demonstrate the value of purchasing tires from your car dealership and they won’t shop around: free road hazard coverage, free tire rotations for the life of the tires, free multipoint inspections, car wash, etc…

Please let me know how well these strategies work! We’ve seen tire sales jumping and these tips work. We’re in the age of the used car, and passenger car tire replacements are up 7.3% this year. Where are your sales?

Coach Eric Pfister at your service!

Want more tips? Happy to help: https://rb.gy/un5vp
Or call me: 812-223-3644

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How to Coach Around Limiting Beliefs

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Ensuring automotive leaders achieve great results through people and tech with a unique approach to people development!

July 3, 2023

Limiting beliefs are indicative of closed minds. In the current automotive retail landscape, rapid change is inevitable. Open mindedness is critical when considering new technologies and processes that can lead to greater success.

No manager enjoys dealing with limiting beliefs, and I’ve coached hundreds of automotive leaders across the country! Limiting beliefs are frustrating for managers because they feel like their employees are making excuses, being lazy, or don’t want to grow.

This blog will teach you what a limiting belief is, and why a limiting belief exist. In addition, you will learn are the three biggest mistakes a manager makes that MUST be avoided when handling limiting beliefs. Since limiting beliefs work against progress, and the last thing you need to do as a manager, is make your job harder by trying to fix limiting beliefs the wrong ways. Finally you will learn some tactics on how to coach employees around and overcome limiting beliefs.

I decided to write this blog to support managers and their people. Because as a result of limiting beliefs, managers often give up on trying to drive positive change in their people, or give up on the employee altogether. So let’s dive in and define a limiting belief.

The coach Keith Rosen defined a limiting belief as a SCAM… a Story, Con, Assumption or Mindset, that is holding someone’s success back.

Here are a few real-world examples of limiting beliefs, that as a dealership manager, I was able to address and overcome through coaching:

–        Mike the sales rep – Wouldn’t T.O. (Turn over unsold customers over to a sales manager) because the managers were always to ”busy”.

–        Tim the sales rep – Wouldn’t send videos because he thinks he looked dumb on video.

–        Karl the internet sales rep – Believed his internet closing was low because he gets “bad leads”.

Let’s examine each and determine WHY it’s a limiting belief.

Mike is conning himself and his managers into believing that he actually tried to turn customers over. Also, because managers always look “busy” he is using that to avoid the T.O. when in fact the managers would almost always prioritize a showroom customer leaving without purchase as top priority.

 Tim is telling himself a story, based on his own imagination and perception. He didn’t have any customers telling him he looked dumb.

 Karl had a poor mindset about internet leads, and this poor mindset came from poor results which came from a poor approach to lead handling. In reality, with proper follow up, he could close around 15%.

 Why do limiting beliefs exist? Only by understanding this, will you be able to coach around the limiting beliefs.

 Activities lead to results, and our brains decide in an instant if the result is a good result, or a bad result. If good, our brains reward us with certain hormones like serotonin. If we get bad results, our brains punish us with stress hormones like cortisol. After that, we try to duplicate the results our brains decide is good, and avoid the negative results our brains have decided as bad. The fear of negative input, causes people to avoid the behaviors or actions their brains have linked to the negative output.

 From our experiences, we are always seeking cause and effect relationships and when we’re not certain that a specific cause created a result, our brains will try to fill in the gaps. These gap fillers are known as assumptions!

 In short, limiting beliefs are formed from both our rewarded experiences, negative feelings about situations, our fears, and our assumptions about our world.

 AVOID these approaches when handling limiting beliefs.

 Here is what NOT to do, when an employee shares a limiting belief. This is critical because in any interaction with an employee you are either BUILDING or ERODING the relationship and employee. Here are some of the ways we erode an employee when addressing limiting beliefs.

 The first way is to go on the attack. When you go on the attack, you are pushing against their beliefs, and when you push against someone it’s their natural reaction to push back. Push back often leads to frustration, escalation, and conflict. At the end of the day, none of those help the person overcome their limiting beliefs.

 The second way, is to become sarcastic or passive aggressive. Passive aggressiveness is indirect, and as such, the employee doesn’t have a chance to learn what they need to change.

 In addition, this type of demeanor lowers employee confidence, saps their motivation, ultimately sarcasm negatively affects the morale of your team.

 The third way, is to ignore the limiting belief all together. This is the easy way out, and it’s not uncommon for a manager to take the path of least resistance. That being said, think of a limiting belief like a weed growing in your lawn. The longer you let it take root, the deeper the roots go and the harder they are to eliminate. Let too many weeds grow in the lawn and the entire lawn dies. By ignoring limiting beliefs, you will allow them to further solidify.

 It’s time to get introspective, when you have an employee with a limiting belief, which of those three unfavorable ways do you find yourself most often reacting?

How to handle limiting beliefs. Now that you know what a limiting belief is, why they exist, and how NOT to address them, it’s time to learn HOW to coach around them.

Step 1: Instead of attacking, you must care and recruit. If you’re a coaching client of Car Motivators then you likely already know how to get “buy in” around difficult conversations, and how to recruit. If not, then here’s a quick guide. Just remember, you can’t win a war with a one person army. In the first five seconds of any conversation, people pick a side. Either they fight alongside you to achieve a common objective, or they go on the defensive and fight against you.

Here’s how to build a recruitment statement. First ask yourself this question, “What’s in it for THEM if they change for the better?” If the answer is something like, “Increase chance of promotion.” Or “Increase in sales and profit” then that’s your recruitment statement. Simply add, “What I want for you…” to the front of one of those positive outcomes. Finally, add “Is now a good time to discuss that?” after it.

Recruitment statement example: “What I want for you is to have the best chance for getting promoted. Is now a good time to have a convo about that?”

Step 2: Instead of sarcasm, ask open ended questions and seek to understand their perspective. You can’t solve for an issue if you don’t know WHY it exists, no different than you can’t solve a limiting belief if you don’t know how it arrived. Some example questions you could ask are:

1.     Where is that belief coming from?

2.     What got in the way of you doing that?

3.     What outcome did you get when you tried?

4.     How did you do it?

5.     What was your approach?

6.     What else have you tried?

7.     How long did you do it for?

 Step 3: Instead of ignoring, help eliminate their assumptions and give them a new story to replace their limiting belief. Then ask action-oriented questions and commit to driving change. One of my favorite sayings in coaching is “If they build it they own it if they own it they act on it.” Your goal is that they come up with an action plan that will give them the opportunity to let go of the limiting belief and form a new one that helps them and the business succeed.

1.     What changes do you need to make to get a better outcome next time?

2.     What else can you try?

3.     Walk me through that approach.

 Finally, commit to the plan. Remember, your employees will only ever be as committed as you are. This means you need to schedule a check in, follow up from this coaching conversation, and support them as they adapt to change. When people make a change, or try something new they often run into the pain and failure that comes with growth! This is when they’re most susceptible to revert back to their old ways. It’s critical that you as their leader supports them as they transition into their new approach, and mindset in order to eliminate their limiting beliefs.  

1.     When should I check in on your plan to see how it’s working out?

2.     How do you want me to hold you responsible to your commitments?

3.     What can I do to support you around this plan?

In this blog we covered at a high level, how to identify, get buy-in, and coach around limiting beliefs. This is a chapter in Sean Kelley’s upcoming book on Leadership and Coaching. Sean is an #1 Amazon Best Selling Author, and CEO of Car Motivators: The automotive leadership development company. If you believe leadership development and business coaching could take your company to the next level, text Sean Kelley anytime at 314-323-8234 or email him at Sean@carmotivators.com

 

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TOP 10 ways to Increase CSI/CX Survey Scores & Customer Satisfaction

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TOP 10 ways to increase CSI/CX survey scores and Customer Satisfaction

1) Greet the customer within 30 seconds or at least acknowledge them immediately!

2) Mention the survey early and let the customer know it is YOUR report card and not a reflection on the brand or their happiness with their vehicle.

3) Build rapport and get to know the customer. It’s harder to destroy a friend with a bad survey.

4) Use your disposition list to find customers with surveys sitting in their inbox; call and ask how their vehicle is or how that meeting they were talking about went, then ask for the survey!

5) Increase your survey count to help bury those bad surveys by growing your email capture rate. Get the email addresses and update them!

6) Increase the value of servicing with you! Vacuum front floor boards, clean windows, and wash their car. Top off fluids and get air pressure EXACT. Tell the customer ahead of time and then deliver!

7) Install seat protection, floor mats, and steering wheel covers in front of the customer and then remove them during the active delivery… If they know you did it, they will appreciate it!

8) Ask the customer for their preferred method of contact and when they expect an update and then deliver! 

9) Make sure customers know what is going on, follow the quarter-time rule or 10-2-4 rule unless a customer states otherwise.

10) When you have to get back to someone, tell them the exact time you will. Instead of an hour or two, say you will return their call by 2pm. An hour to you when you’re busy will breeze by, but to a customer in your waiting room, it’s an eternity.

 

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Limiting Beliefs that Hinder New Car Sales People

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Limiting Beliefs that Hinder New Car Sales People

At Car Motivators, we love the opportunity the car business gives to hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country. And while we are more known for taking the top-performing sales professionals and automotive leaders to an even higher level through coaching, we also enjoy helping out new people, often referred to as “Green peas” by industry slang. We all started somewhere, right? Yet with all this opportunity, so few who get into selling cars in the car business make it more than a year in their profession. The greatest things that hold them back, are of course the same things that hold any of us back, what I call limiting beliefs. A limiting belief is a story, con, assumption, or mindset that will prevent success, hinder growth, paralyze, and hamper performance

This blog is to honor our commitment to supporting aspiring automotive professionals across the country and the dealerships that would give those Americans an opportunity. Specifically, this blog is designed to help new to car sales professionals identify and eliminate those limiting beliefs that would hold their success back. This blog will also arm you sales managers with some of the coaching questions that as one of the top sales coaches, I’ve used to help new sales pros break through barriers to sales success.

With no further delay, here are the limiting beliefs:

“If I just had my business cards, I’d start selling cars.” 

This one is a big concern! It’s like new salespeople believe every business card handed out is a car purchasing voucher that prospects will bring back to their dealership in exchange for a vehicle purchase.

The reality is: Business cards are dismissal slips. Handing someone a business card is the path of least resistance taken by someone fearful of asking for a prospect’s contact information. And let’s not forget, it’s the year 2023, and there are far more efficient and effective ways to exchange contact information. Instead of business cards, create a contact of yourself in your contacts list and name yourself “(Your Name) (Make You Sell) Car Gal/Guy.” Thus, “Sean Kelley Hyundai Car Guy” would be the name of my contact. When a customer asks for a business card, instead tell them you were tired of customers losing your card and that it would be best for them to have your contact saved in their phone. And if they forget your name, which most will, they can just do a spotlight search for “Car Guy/Gal” and your name will pop up. Here’s the best part, when you send them your contact, now you’ll have their phone number too.

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: Who were the last few people that gave you a business card? Can you pull those cards out right now? Where are those cards right now? How much value then are they for the person who gave you the cards?

Enabling Belief: “I will be courageous enough to always exchange contact information, and schedule follow up with everyone I meet. Because business cards don’t sell cars, and my customers won’t line up to buy them without me building relationships with them.”

Business cards don’t sell cars, but exchanging contact information and following up with prospects does.

“The most important thing I need to learn is the paperwork/software.”

When I hear this one, it takes all my power to hold back the cringe. I’ll take a deep breath and remind myself, “Sean, they don’t know what they don’t know.”

The reality: While paperwork and software are a small part of selling if you don’t know the steps in the sales process, and why you’re leading the customer through each step in that process you won’t have to worry about doing much paperwork. Nothing is more important than learning the steps in the sale process and the WHY behind each one. Here’s a tip for learning paperwork, sell yourself a car. I mean, you don’t have to buy one, simply write yourself up from start to finish as if you were buying a car. As you’re doing so, simply label each piece of paperwork with a #, 1 through whatever in the order of writing it up. In this way, you’ll have a little paperwork guide you can keep on your desk and use when you learn how to sell someone something!

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: Let’s say you could get the paperwork side of things down in a couple of hours, what else would you need to learn for you to succeed in this career?

 Enabling Belief: “I understand there is so much more to learn than paperwork, and I will devote an hour each day to learning, starting now and going on forever.”

To maximize success at selling cars months or even years after you’ve learned the paperwork, you’ll still be working to learn the sales process, learn the common objections and their solutions, learn your product knowledge, your competitor’s product, learn the phones (inbound and outbound), learn how to engage and sell to service customers, how to network with local businesses, learn how to market yourself on social media. 

“I’m good at talking to people, so I’ll be great at selling cars.” 

That’s the equivalent of saying, “I can stack bricks well, so I am a great architect.”

The reality: Having a big comfort zone is an advantage in the car business, but the specific words you use are a key aspect of your ability to sell. There are plenty of very nice, phenomenal conversationalists that struggle to hit their sales objectives each month. Instead, learn the key questions that must be asked to assess a customer’s needs and wants. Learn power phrases to address customer fears and objections. Seek out the people who are top performers selling many customers, generating all the repeat and referral business, and learn what they’re saying, and equally importantly why they’re saying it.

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What’s the difference between a casual conversation with a stranger and a selling conversation with one?

Enabling Belief: “I will use my words wisely, and master myself to master the language of sales!” There are no free words in sales. Just like martial arts have different degrees of black belt, sales is a language and very few people have the raw talent to start as a black belt in sales. 

“I need to hide the fact that I’m new to car sales from my customers.”

It’s reasonable to have this fear because customers do value expertise, product knowledge, and process understanding when looking for the right sales consultant to help serve their needs. That being said, before you go hiding that you’re new to the business, there are even more important factors that need to be accounted for.

 The reality: Car buyers also have a fear of car salespeople who aren’t transparent, honest, or downright lie. Ask 100 customers, “Would you rather work with a salesperson who isn’t transparent/open and honest with you or a new car salesperson who doesn’t know everything yet?” What do you think the answer is? If you are new, it won’t take long for customers to figure it out. A great way to build trust is to be vulnerable about your fears. By telling a customer you’re new, you are gaining instant trust. This will allow the customer will reciprocate and be honest about their car buying concerns and want to work with you more!

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What do you think most car buyers’ perception is of “Car salespeople” in general? How would being honest with them upfront change that perception? 

Enabling Belief: Customers want honesty and transparency, as a new sales rep, give them that and they’ll give you trust. Customers want to feel in control while avoiding high-pressure sales reps, so what if you were honest with the customer, AND gave them a choice? After your greeting, use this phraseology, “Mrs. Customer, before we get too far into the sales process, I want to be completely transparent with you. I am new to this career, and you may ask some questions to which I don’t know the answer. That being said, my manager and coworkers are available to help me and I would love to continue working with you if you’re OK with it. Are you comfortable moving forward with me, or would you prefer I get you a seasoned sales veteran to help you today?” The ones that want a seasoned sales veteran, probably wouldn’t have had a great experience with you anyhow! The vast majority that continues to work with you start on a foundation of trust, which will help you sell and close more deals while permitting you to be new and ignorant. What a WIN?! “I will be honest with customers I meet, and give them the choice to work with me and not take it personally or fear failure if they chose not to.” 

“Asking for help will annoy people.”

Permit yourself to learn something new, would ya?

 The reality: Abraham Maslow concluded that all humans go through four stages of learning, anytime they are growing. Stage 1 is unconscious incompetence: you don’t know what you don’t know. Stage 2 is conscious competence: now you know what you don’t know, or can’t do. Stage 3 is conscious competence, now you get it! Stage 4 is unconscious competence, now it’s muscle memory and you can do it with your eyes closed. Most companies, managers, and coworkers who know that EVERY person must try, fail and learn until they are competent also understand that a new person is going to need help. The key word is “need” because without help you are likely to fail. 

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What could not be asking for help cost you? What could you gain from seeking help from managers and people on your team? If you could ask for help anytime, on any topic, what would you ask for help on right now? 

Enabling Belief: “Even though I am a solo contributor, we succeed as a team and my managers and co workers would rather help me than allow me to fail.”

This one is quite simple, ask for help and seek out support and your odds of success go up exponentially. Don’t ask and plan on a much longer and steeper learning curve that could potentially cost you your car sales job.

 “I’m just checking out the car business.”

Bad idea. You might as well update your resume and seek out other employment now.

 The reality: To maximize your success in the car business, it will take stretching your comfort zone, learning the language of sales, and doing things that only a fully committed human being will do. You must be fully committed to thriving in this business. Tony Robins talks about how the Vikings would invade habited islands. They would take their boats to the island, hop off with their weapons and basic gear, and then proceed to light their boats on fire, completely burning them to ash, before raiding the villages. This is because they didn’t want to leave an option for retreat. My buddy Jonathan Dawson, automotive sales trainer says “If you’re just checking out the car business, you’re going to check out of the car business.” And if you search #GoAllin, you should find automotive recruiter and trainer Anthony Santangelo’s profiles.

 I myself decided to turn down a corporate job at Enterprise rent-a-car, and go ALL IN on the car business and since then, I’ve been able to become a dealer groups top salesperson, get promoted through finance, used car management, general sales manager, been offered owner/partnership opportunities and now own the most successful car business coaching practice. And all while growing a wonderful family of five. Not bragging, letting you know it’s ONLY because I went all in on the car business.

 Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What could not be asking for help cost you? What could you gain from seeking help from managers and people on your team? If you could ask for help anytime, on any topic, what would you ask for help on right now?

 Enabling Belief: “I am going to take advantage of this car business opportunity like it’s the most important thing I’ve ever done because there is no back up plan. I believe if I give it my 150%, I will succeed.”

 When you don’t go all in on something, you won’t get all the results you could get. When you don’t get all the results you get, it is often the difference between success/longevity and failure/quitting.

“Product knowledge is useful so I can answer all my customer’s questions and teach them everything about the vehicle of interest.

Yes, product knowledge is important, and being able to answer customers’ questions helps, AND…

The reality: At the same time, customers don’t need to know everything about the vehicle, and over-educating them will cost you sales. On top of that, product knowledge is critical for so much more than answering customer questions. Product knowledge also helps you know which vehicle to sell a customer. Product knowledge helps you identify when the customer has picked out the wrong vehicle for themselves and there’s a better solution. Product knowledge helps you compare your vehicle to your competitors so you can prevent your customers from wasting their time at other dealerships. The last and maybe most important reason for knowing your product is that it’s literally and figuratively how you “build value” for your customers. Product knowledge can be lethal (in a good way) in the hands of the right salesperson and can be extremely detrimental to someone who doesn’t understand how to build value using a tailored walkaround with their product knowledge. Case and point, for a mother of 4 kids who are replacing a vehicle that was just in a car accident, daytime running lights create safety by making her vehicle more visible to other drivers 24 hours a day! But if you’re selling the same vehicle to a young single buyer, the same daytime running lights make their vehicle more visible and look great so they will turn heads. Same features, same benefits but different values for each type of customer.  

 Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What’s the value of having great product knowledge? How does product knowledge help you build value in yourself? How does a professional salesperson use product knowledge to build value in a walk-around presentation? 

 Enabling Belief: “I will learn product knowledge because it will first help me tailor my sales presentations to my customers, and second because customers appreciate expertise!”

 Use the same features of your product to build value for THREE different types of buyers, then you’ll know you know how to use product knowledge to sell and not bore your customers.

 To sum up, every one of us has knowledge gaps and limiting beliefs. Furthermore, when starting a whole new profession, we don’t know what we don’t know, and our brains have tried to fill these knowledge gaps with beliefs. Many of them will be limiting beliefs that could potentially hold our success back. Selling cars is one of the most fun and lucrative professions on the planet. 

There are massive opportunities in the automotive industry for both personal and career growth. All that being said, it is critical to identify knowledge gaps, limiting beliefs, and STAY COACHABLE! Because when reality sets in and you realize this isn’t as easy as you had assumed, you will want to quickly eradicate these beliefs and replace them with the right mindsets for success. And you can bet if you’re not getting the results you, or your company needs,  Car Motivators team of leadership, management, and sales coaches will be here to support you! You can find us in our closed 

Facebook group at facebook.com/coachingthecarbusiness or email me anytime Sean@carmotivators.com

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The Seven Limiting Beliefs That Hinder New Car Sales People

Limiting Beliefs that Hinder New Car Sales People

At Car Motivators, we love the opportunity the car business gives to hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country. And while we are more known for taking the top-performing sales professionals and automotive leaders to an even higher level through coaching, we also enjoy helping out new people, often referred to as “Green peas” by industry slang. We all started somewhere, right? Yet with all this opportunity, so few who get into selling cars in the car business make it more than a year in their profession. The greatest things that hold them back, are of course the same things that hold any of us back, what I call limiting beliefs. A limiting belief is a story, con, assumption, or mindset that will prevent success, hinder growth, paralyze, and hamper performance

This blog is to honor our commitment to supporting aspiring automotive professionals across the country and the dealerships that would give those Americans an opportunity. Specifically, this blog is designed to help new to car sales professionals identify and eliminate those limiting beliefs that would hold their success back. This blog will also arm you sales managers with some of the coaching questions that as one of the top sales coaches, I’ve used to help new sales pros break through barriers to sales success.

With no further delay, here are the limiting beliefs:

“If I just had my business cards, I’d start selling cars.” 

This one is a big concern! It’s like new salespeople believe every business card handed out is a car purchasing voucher that prospects will bring back to their dealership in exchange for a vehicle purchase.

The reality is: Business cards are dismissal slips. Handing someone a business card is the path of least resistance taken by someone fearful of asking for a prospect’s contact information. And let’s not forget, it’s the year 2023, and there are far more efficient and effective ways to exchange contact information. Instead of business cards, create a contact of yourself in your contacts list and name yourself “(Your Name) (Make You Sell) Car Gal/Guy.” Thus, “Sean Kelley Hyundai Car Guy” would be the name of my contact. When a customer asks for a business card, instead tell them you were tired of customers losing your card and that it would be best for them to have your contact saved in their phone. And if they forget your name, which most will, they can just do a spotlight search for “Car Guy/Gal” and your name will pop up. Here’s the best part, when you send them your contact, now you’ll have their phone number too.

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: Who were the last few people that gave you a business card? Can you pull those cards out right now? Where are those cards right now? How much value then are they for the person who gave you the cards?

Enabling Belief: “I will be courageous enough to always exchange contact information, and schedule follow up with everyone I meet. Because business cards don’t sell cars, and my customers won’t line up to buy them without me building relationships with them.”

Business cards don’t sell cars, but exchanging contact information and following up with prospects does.

“The most important thing I need to learn is the paperwork/software.”

When I hear this one, it takes all my power to hold back the cringe. I’ll take a deep breath and remind myself, “Sean, they don’t know what they don’t know.”

The reality: While paperwork and software are a small part of selling if you don’t know the steps in the sales process, and why you’re leading the customer through each step in that process you won’t have to worry about doing much paperwork. Nothing is more important than learning the steps in the sale process and the WHY behind each one. Here’s a tip for learning paperwork, sell yourself a car. I mean, you don’t have to buy one, simply write yourself up from start to finish as if you were buying a car. As you’re doing so, simply label each piece of paperwork with a #, 1 through whatever in the order of writing it up. In this way, you’ll have a little paperwork guide you can keep on your desk and use when you learn how to sell someone something!

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: Let’s say you could get the paperwork side of things down in a couple of hours, what else would you need to learn for you to succeed in this career?

 Enabling Belief: “I understand there is so much more to learn than paperwork, and I will devote an hour each day to learning, starting now and going on forever.”

To maximize success at selling cars months or even years after you’ve learned the paperwork, you’ll still be working to learn the sales process, learn the common objections and their solutions, learn your product knowledge, your competitor’s product, learn the phones (inbound and outbound), learn how to engage and sell to service customers, how to network with local businesses, learn how to market yourself on social media. 

“I’m good at talking to people, so I’ll be great at selling cars.” 

That’s the equivalent of saying, “I can stack bricks well, so I am a great architect.”

The reality: Having a big comfort zone is an advantage in the car business, but the specific words you use are a key aspect of your ability to sell. There are plenty of very nice, phenomenal conversationalists that struggle to hit their sales objectives each month. Instead, learn the key questions that must be asked to assess a customer’s needs and wants. Learn power phrases to address customer fears and objections. Seek out the people who are top performers selling many customers, generating all the repeat and referral business, and learn what they’re saying, and equally importantly why they’re saying it.

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What’s the difference between a casual conversation with a stranger and a selling conversation with one?

Enabling Belief: “I will use my words wisely, and master myself to master the language of sales!” There are no free words in sales. Just like martial arts have different degrees of black belt, sales is a language and very few people have the raw talent to start as a black belt in sales. 

“I need to hide the fact that I’m new to car sales from my customers.”

It’s reasonable to have this fear because customers do value expertise, product knowledge, and process understanding when looking for the right sales consultant to help serve their needs. That being said, before you go hiding that you’re new to the business, there are even more important factors that need to be accounted for.

 The reality: Car buyers also have a fear of car salespeople who aren’t transparent, honest, or downright lie. Ask 100 customers, “Would you rather work with a salesperson who isn’t transparent/open and honest with you or a new car salesperson who doesn’t know everything yet?” What do you think the answer is? If you are new, it won’t take long for customers to figure it out. A great way to build trust is to be vulnerable about your fears. By telling a customer you’re new, you are gaining instant trust. This will allow the customer will reciprocate and be honest about their car buying concerns and want to work with you more!

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What do you think most car buyers’ perception is of “Car salespeople” in general? How would being honest with them upfront change that perception? 

Enabling Belief: Customers want honesty and transparency, as a new sales rep, give them that and they’ll give you trust. Customers want to feel in control while avoiding high-pressure sales reps, so what if you were honest with the customer, AND gave them a choice? After your greeting, use this phraseology, “Mrs. Customer, before we get too far into the sales process, I want to be completely transparent with you. I am new to this career, and you may ask some questions to which I don’t know the answer. That being said, my manager and coworkers are available to help me and I would love to continue working with you if you’re OK with it. Are you comfortable moving forward with me, or would you prefer I get you a seasoned sales veteran to help you today?” The ones that want a seasoned sales veteran, probably wouldn’t have had a great experience with you anyhow! The vast majority that continues to work with you start on a foundation of trust, which will help you sell and close more deals while permitting you to be new and ignorant. What a WIN?! “I will be honest with customers I meet, and give them the choice to work with me and not take it personally or fear failure if they chose not to.” 

“Asking for help will annoy people.”

Permit yourself to learn something new, would ya?

 The reality: Abraham Maslow concluded that all humans go through four stages of learning, anytime they are growing. Stage 1 is unconscious incompetence: you don’t know what you don’t know. Stage 2 is conscious competence: now you know what you don’t know, or can’t do. Stage 3 is conscious competence, now you get it! Stage 4 is unconscious competence, now it’s muscle memory and you can do it with your eyes closed. Most companies, managers, and coworkers who know that EVERY person must try, fail and learn until they are competent also understand that a new person is going to need help. The key word is “need” because without help you are likely to fail. 

Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What could not be asking for help cost you? What could you gain from seeking help from managers and people on your team? If you could ask for help anytime, on any topic, what would you ask for help on right now? 

Enabling Belief: “Even though I am a solo contributor, we succeed as a team and my managers and co workers would rather help me than allow me to fail.”

This one is quite simple, ask for help and seek out support and your odds of success go up exponentially. Don’t ask and plan on a much longer and steeper learning curve that could potentially cost you your car sales job.

 “I’m just checking out the car business.”

Bad idea. You might as well update your resume and seek out other employment now.

 The reality: To maximize your success in the car business, it will take stretching your comfort zone, learning the language of sales, and doing things that only a fully committed human being will do. You must be fully committed to thriving in this business. Tony Robins talks about how the Vikings would invade habited islands. They would take their boats to the island, hop off with their weapons and basic gear, and then proceed to light their boats on fire, completely burning them to ash, before raiding the villages. This is because they didn’t want to leave an option for retreat. My buddy Jonathan Dawson, automotive sales trainer says “If you’re just checking out the car business, you’re going to check out of the car business.” And if you search #GoAllin, you should find automotive recruiter and trainer Anthony Santangelo’s profiles.

 I myself decided to turn down a corporate job at Enterprise rent-a-car, and go ALL IN on the car business and since then, I’ve been able to become a dealer groups top salesperson, get promoted through finance, used car management, general sales manager, been offered owner/partnership opportunities and now own the most successful car business coaching practice. And all while growing a wonderful family of five. Not bragging, letting you know it’s ONLY because I went all in on the car business.

 Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What could not be asking for help cost you? What could you gain from seeking help from managers and people on your team? If you could ask for help anytime, on any topic, what would you ask for help on right now?

 Enabling Belief: “I am going to take advantage of this car business opportunity like it’s the most important thing I’ve ever done because there is no back up plan. I believe if I give it my 150%, I will succeed.”

 When you don’t go all in on something, you won’t get all the results you could get. When you don’t get all the results you get, it is often the difference between success/longevity and failure/quitting.

“Product knowledge is useful so I can answer all my customer’s questions and teach them everything about the vehicle of interest.

Yes, product knowledge is important, and being able to answer customers’ questions helps, AND…

The reality: At the same time, customers don’t need to know everything about the vehicle, and over-educating them will cost you sales. On top of that, product knowledge is critical for so much more than answering customer questions. Product knowledge also helps you know which vehicle to sell a customer. Product knowledge helps you identify when the customer has picked out the wrong vehicle for themselves and there’s a better solution. Product knowledge helps you compare your vehicle to your competitors so you can prevent your customers from wasting their time at other dealerships. The last and maybe most important reason for knowing your product is that it’s literally and figuratively how you “build value” for your customers. Product knowledge can be lethal (in a good way) in the hands of the right salesperson and can be extremely detrimental to someone who doesn’t understand how to build value using a tailored walkaround with their product knowledge. Case and point, for a mother of 4 kids who are replacing a vehicle that was just in a car accident, daytime running lights create safety by making her vehicle more visible to other drivers 24 hours a day! But if you’re selling the same vehicle to a young single buyer, the same daytime running lights make their vehicle more visible and look great so they will turn heads. Same features, same benefits but different values for each type of customer.  

 Coaching question(s) to help challenge this limiting belief: What’s the value of having great product knowledge? How does product knowledge help you build value in yourself? How does a professional salesperson use product knowledge to build value in a walk-around presentation? 

 Enabling Belief: “I will learn product knowledge because it will first help me tailor my sales presentations to my customers, and second because customers appreciate expertise!”

 Use the same features of your product to build value for THREE different types of buyers, then you’ll know you know how to use product knowledge to sell and not bore your customers.

 To sum up, every one of us has knowledge gaps and limiting beliefs. Furthermore, when starting a whole new profession, we don’t know what we don’t know, and our brains have tried to fill these knowledge gaps with beliefs. Many of them will be limiting beliefs that could potentially hold our success back. Selling cars is one of the most fun and lucrative professions on the planet. 

There are massive opportunities in the automotive industry for both personal and career growth. All that being said, it is critical to identify knowledge gaps, limiting beliefs, and STAY COACHABLE! Because when reality sets in and you realize this isn’t as easy as you had assumed, you will want to quickly eradicate these beliefs and replace them with the right mindsets for success. And you can bet if you’re not getting the results you, or your company needs,  Car Motivators team of leadership, management, and sales coaches will be here to support you! You can find us in our closed 

Facebook group at facebook.com/coachingthecarbusiness or email me anytime Sean@admin

Strategy vs Tactics: Approaching Achievement With Military Precision

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At 2:04 pm on January 2nd, 2023, I received a text message from a multi-millionaire client I’ve been coaching for the last four years. 

It read, “…After a record year in both volume and gross and outselling the top sales consultant in my dealer group by over 100 cars, I know I can still grow. When you are in town next, let’s make sure we sit down and develop some new ways I can grow my business to sell even more cars this year.“

As you can surmise from the text, he is a very successful car salesman. Since it’s the new year, an excellent time for reflection, I began thinking about the reasons for his success. I want to point out a very subtle, yet essential factor required for people to reach their fullest potential in business. And that subtle factor, my friends, lies in your ability to find the right balance of Strategy vs Tactics. 

Think about it: This particularly busy KIA salesperson outsells his nearest co-worker by well over 100 cars a year. Yet, he still understands the importance of pausing his daily tactical efforts to strategize with his coach.

There is a critical difference between officers and enlisted people in the military. Officers strategize and decide the objectives (goals) based on a 30,000-foot view of the battlefield, while the enlisted people execute the strategy (mission). Additionally, enlisted personnel only initiate the mission after creating an execution strategy known as a “battle plan”. Can you imagine a country ever winning a war, let alone a battle without this level of planning and coordinated implementation?

In reading this article, I want you to understand the difference between strategy and tactics so you will better understand how much time you need to dedicate to strategy in your routine if you are to reach your potential in business.

What is the difference between Strategy and Tactics?

Simply put, strategy is planning, and tactics are execution. Average performers and underperformers will execute accordingly, and naturally, the results of their activity (good or bad) position those actors in the appropriate position. 

On the other hand, one thing top performers have in common is that they start with the “end in mind”. In this way, they know what they want the outcome to be (visualization), and since all things are created twice, first in our minds and then in reality, top producers are much more likely to end up where they want to be. Why? Because they know where they want to go before they embark on their journey, they’ve already materialized it in their minds before manifesting it in reality.

Included in the strategizing process is the identification of the necessary benchmarks to hit enroute to the destination (goals), the consistent behaviors necessary to achieve that goal, and finally, the purposeful actions necessary to get the ball rolling. The next step is tactics and execution.

To Reach My Potential in Business, What Areas Need a Strategy?

Well, that depends on your position within your business. If you’re a business owner, you need a specific strategy focused on every aspect of your business. Suppose you’re a middle manager, there will be strategies necessary for your specific areas of responsibility. Suppose you’re a front-line sales employee and want to reach your fullest potential, and aim to become a multi-millionaire selling whatever it is you sell. In that case, you will want to treat yourself like you are your own business, and carve out time for strategizing every aspect of your daily behavior. In addition to supercharging your efforts by adding a personal coach to help you strategize effectively, there are eleven areas you want to consider creating a routine around strategy for:

  1. Vision for Success
  2. Goals/Benchmarks
  3. Leadership
  4. Managing
  5. Marketing
  6. Lead Creation
  7. Sales
  8. Money
  9. Customer Service
  10. Technology
  11. Your Routine

Peruse each area of business strategy and the few coaching questions I’m providing for each category below. Then, ask yourself, “How could creating a strategy for each of these elements positively impact my business?” If you have some good answers for these, then there is an opportunity for you to improve your likelihood of success by strategizing in these areas.

  1. Leadership – Who will work for you? How will you motivate them? How often will you need to meet with each person on your team? What skills will you need to teach them? How will you get your team working together? What products and services could add value to what I do? 
  2. Managing – What expectations must be set, and with who?
  3. What metrics will I need to measure success in each area? How will I hold myself accountable? How will I hold others responsible? What does excellence look like? What is the minimum performance? 
  4. Marketing – What do I want my brand to look like? Who is my target market? Where can I reach them? What appeals to them? What problems do they have? How do I help them solve those problems? What are my marketing goals, and do they align with my business goals? 
  5. Lead Creation – What does a qualified lead look like? How will I convert awareness to interest? How will I ensure interested people can raise their hands for me? 
  6. Sales – What is my engagement strategy for a qualified lead? How will I convert? What skills do I need to master to be more effective in sales? What is the maximum value of each client? Where do I need to adjust my approach to maximize the value of each opportunity?
  7. Money/Financials – How can I reinvest in my business this year? What are the best investments I could make? Where can I better steward my own money? Does my financial strategy align with my business objectives, or am I trying to save my way into a profit?
  8.  Customer Service/Experience – How do I stand out from my competition? What makes my service/product worth more than my competition? What do my customers complain about? How can I remove those complaints? What is my client retention compared to my peers? What are my customer’s expectations? What changes will I need to make to my process to exceed their expectations?
  9. Technology/Software – What tools are at my disposal that I need to utilize to their fullest? What systems are antiquated or out of date? Which software creates more drain/busy work than adding return on investment?

How Often Should I Strategize in Each of These Areas?

That’s a great question that varies based on your vision, goals, where you are today, and how fast you want to get to your destination! That said, I’ll share my routine around business strategy that’s helped my team and me build the top coaching practice in the car business, Car Motivators. 

Strategy Session Type – Frequency – Duration

5-Year Vision Planning – Every five years – 4 Hours

5-Month Benchmarks – Every five months – 2 Hours

5 Week Goals – Every five weeks – 1 Hour

Leadership – Every Other Month – 3 Hours

Marketing Strategy/Content Plan – Annually – 4 Hours

Lead Creation – Quarterly – 2 Hours

Sales – Monthly – 2 Hours

Sales – (Weekly Pipeline Reviews) – Up to 1 Hour

Money/Financial Planning – Quarterly – 3 Hours

Customer Service/Experience – Quarterly – 4 Hours

Technology/Software – Every 6 Months – 2 Hours

Managing – Monthly – 2 Hours

Update Personal Routine – Quarterly – 4 Hours

Coaching with my Coach(s) – Monthly – 2 Hours

After reading this article, do you think you’ve been spending enough time on strategy? What areas will you need to strategize in to reach your potential in business? What low-value tactical activities will you need to let go of to make room for strategy in your routine? Now it’s time for you to get tactical and execute on manifesting your strategies. Feel free to send me a message and let me know where you will start! 

You can reach me Sean@CarMotivators.com or via text on my cell phone 314-323-8234 anytime.