There are twenty-four hours in every day. Twenty-four hours equals to fourteen hundred and forty minutes. The difference that separates the successful from the unsuccessful is the action taken (or not taken) in those hours and minutes. One way to increase the productivity at your dealership is to put maximum effort into helping and monitoring salespeople with their daily action plans.
While at dealerships across the country, I am always amazed at the large amount of traffic watchers sitting around waiting for that next customer to wander through the door. How many salespeople does it take to monitor the floor? I recently pulled up to a dealership and witnessed five salespeople sitting in a row watching the traffic go by.
Salespeople and managers alike are to blame for the waste of productive time in dealerships. Most salespeople have never been shown how to manage their actions to maximize their productivity because most sales managers were probably never taught this skill, either. The automobile business practices on-the-job training. The problem is that salespeople learn bad habits and tend to repeat these actions.
When I ask salespeople if they believe in the 80/20 rule (80% of their results come from 20% of their actions), they almost always agree. In other words, 80% of their day is unproductive. If salespeople were just 40% effective in their day, imagine what would happen to the sales at your dealership. Your dealership can experience exponential growth in sales if your salespeople begin to plan and monitor their actions daily.
Salespeople should be shown how to write a daily action plan. These action plans can be done either manually with day timers or with computer software. A salesperson should be required to show a daily action plan in one-on-one meetings with a sales manager. The action plan should be broken down into hourly segments. Each hour should contain one major focus: phone follow-up, mail-outs, monitoring the floor, etc.
The follow-up systems should be monitored daily and managers should make follow-up calls in front of the salespeople to show them how it can be done properly and to let them know that the managers are interested in follow-up and will be checking daily to make sure it is done.
Goal sheets should be reviewed daily to see if the salesperson is on pace in all of the productive categories. If the sales manager monitors and coaches the salesperson daily about the number of customers seen, demos, write-ups, closes, and deliveries, you will begin to see more results. Remember, innumerable studies have shown that merely measuring performance will increase performance.
A prioritized to-do list should be included with each salesperson's action plan. The to-do list should focus on actions that create business. So often, we all tend to focus on things that keep us busy. Managers need to coach salespeople on what actions need to be taken each day. We all need to ask ourselves, what creates business? If a salesperson is currently selling 10 vehicles a month, what actions are creating those ten deals? Just as important is, what actions are needed to move beyond averaging just ten deals?
Sales managers can create a more productive and happier workplace by spending more time managing salespeople rather than managing only deals. The salespeople create the deals. If we begin to work with them every day on their productivity, deals will increase at a rapid rate. Sales managers can create more productivity by getting out from behind their desks and going to the salespeople, rather than waiting for salespeople to come to them.
Can you name any successful business that allows its salespeople to sit around waiting for business to come to them? A manager typically spends a lot of time working on inventory, advertising, recapping deals, and other clerical functions. Not one of the aforementioned functions will produce as much results as working on the productivity of your salespeople. I believe that many sales managers are embarrassed to actually manage their salespeople. They are afraid that they will get negative feedback and that they will lose their salespeople. They must manage from strength, not weakness. If a salesperson would leave because a manager is attempting to do his or her job, then you do not want that salesperson anyway. If a salesperson is currently productive, you need not spend as much time with that person as you would with your middle-of-the-road salespeople. This process of working with salespeople should always be presented in a positive manner rather than a negative one.
Have your sales managers make a list of what their day consists of by the hour. Do this for a couple of weeks and see if they can create a plan to rearrange their day to be more productive. Leaders always lead by example. Your salespeople will like the extra attention more than you think, and this will eliminate some major fears about coaching your salespeople. Make those 1,440 minutes count and watch your sales grow.
Mark Tewart is President of Tewart Enterprises, Inc., a sales and management training and consulting company working with dealerships internationally. Mark is also a keynote speaker and seminar leader. If you have specific questions or require more information about this subject, please check the appropriate box on the reader response form on page 3. mtewart@dealeronline.com