Employee Keepers

Hi All,

Attached are the forecast spreadsheets for October. The old addage you hear me quote for ever,

“If they are not selling they are not working!”

Minimum effort will not get the job done today. I am convinced, based on recent activity in Hutchinson Kansas, LNCJD/Mazda, I and the sales staff found there is opportunity out there, you just have be very disciplined to find the opportunities.

Russ Singleton,GM at the above location contacted me on Monday this week and 3 of the 5 deliveries made Saturday were from our appointments made Thursday/Friday.

As I have always said, it is appointments, appointments, appointments, appointments. What does you appointment analysis look like for the month of September? Who made less than 20?

That is a minimum acceptable benchmark, period………..

Are you getting the Delivery Survey collected at delivery for other vehicles (see Attachment)

You have the next 3 month to get a minimum of 600 contacts to your owners per salesperson, to cover the challenge months of Jan., Feb., and March. also, see the attached phone script.

As always, thank you for using my products and services.

Don Prendergast

Prospect Development Corp.
1900 East Lakeview Ave.
Pensacola, FL 32503-5780
Mob. 850-380-1061
Fax 850-469-1249

SERVING PRESTIGE AUTOMOBILE DEALERS 30+ YEARS BY REFERRAL ONLY
PS. I will post the forms he refers to very soon.

This is a copy of a typical email Don Prendergast sends out to his clients on a regular basis.
Don is the man who showed me the car buisness in 1983.
If you ever need help in these interesting times, call him at the number below. You will not find a more able cosultant in this buisness…anywhere at any price.

Donald Says:

Hi All,

The below copied, came from this mornings Automotive News Digital.
Recently I have re-addressed salespeople performance! They have to contact your owners and all un-solds on the guidelines established when you started using my services. I have said repeatedly, they can’t sit and guard your yard on limited inventory.

Please have all of the non-producers (less than bring their File Box to your office and show you they are contacting your owners! Those that have CRM run the contact report and have available when they come to your office. Please do this before the end of September. This will set the stage that it will take an all out effort to hit marginal numbers the last quarter! Are they taking care of your money, or, are they hoping you will spend more and more and more while they sit idle!

Sept. sales could be lowest in 28 years
Chrissie Thompson
Automotive News
September 21, 2009 – 12:01 am ET
September’s light-vehicle sales rate will fall to 8.8 million units, the consumer auto site Edmunds.com said. That would be the lowest rate in nearly 28 years, tying the lowest figure on record.
After the cash-for-clunkers program boosted August sales to their first year-over-year increase since October 2007, demand has plunged. In at least the past 33 years, when comparable records began, the U.S. seasonally adjusted annual rate has dropped as low as 8.8 million units only once, in December 1981.
U.S. sales fell to 13.2 million units in 2008 from 16.2 million in 2007. The slide continued, with demand ranging from rates of 9.1 million to 9.9 million units in the first half of this year.

All articles still stop short of the 5 million manufactured in 1980 and 1981, when interest was 21%……….

As in the past, are they turning in the 2nd 3rd vehicle report, this is where you are going to get your future Used Cars for sales and service enhancement. Please make this mandatory, tie it to bonuses! they will understand.

Please give consideration to Owner Repeat Sales Incentives for the last Quarter. 5 per month gets…….10 per month gets….. 15 per month gets…….20+ gets the real big bucks!

As Always, thanks for using my products and services.

Don Prendergast

Prospect Development Corp.
1900 East Lakeview
Pensacola, FL 32503-5780
Mob. 850-380-1061
Fax 850-469-1249

SERVING PRESTIGE AUTOMOBILE DEALERS 30+ YEARS BY REFERRAL ONLY

On an unrelated topic.

I just had a guy tell me one way to e-mail him was his phone number.com.

Which begged the question. How did you do that?

He just registered his cell phone number as a domain name on Go-daddy and pointed it to his email server.

Thought I would pass this along, because it’s a great way to give someone your e-mail when you are having a phone conversation with them.

They probably already have your number captured on caller I.D.. Just tell them to add a .com to it.

You can usually get coupons at registration services that make it cheap…like under $5.00 per year.

Let us know what you think

Curt

So many people have been asking me about this lately, I thought it would be a good idea to make it easy for you to view. Here it is. Talk about changing a culture…

P.S. if you see a little red x in the upper left hand corner of a white box instead of a picture, put your mouse pointer on it and right click and select “view or download picture”

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
William James

Need we say more?

Have a great holiday weekend. Then get that unfinished “stuff” handled!!!

Curt

Here is a little something from the front page of the Automotive News today
“The UAW says it has reached a tentative new contract with General Motors and the U.S. Treasury Department aimed at helping the automaker restructure. The terms include reworking $20 billion in debt owed to a UAW-administered retiree health care trust known as a Voluntary Employees’ Beneficiary Association, or VEBA, the union said in a statement today.”
I never thought I would see the words U.S. Treasury Department in the same paragraph as UAW and General Motors. But that brings something else to mind. What do you think about the marriage of big business and big government? Write a response, we would love see your opinion.

It is not too often that you have seen an article on this blog containing a movie, but when it comes to prospecting, or sales, or leadership…we all have “frogs” that we need to gurge…if you get my meaning. If not, you will after the “flick”.
The movie is really short and to the point, like a minute and a half (I know how busy you are!!).
So, just click on it an enjoy. Leave a reply and let me know how you liked it.
Ask me about John Richardson too.

P.S. if you see a little red x in the upper left hand corner of a white box instead of a picture, put your mouse pointer on it and right click and select “view or download picture”

I would like to thank Joe at Saturn of White Bear Lake for this one. I had occasion to be up in the greater Minneapolis area yesterday and it was my good fortune to run into one of my former students, Joe. We took a few minutes to catch up and I asked some questions as to how he was doing. While Joe is rather new in the automotive sales business my hat’s off to him for the studious approach that he takes toward his profession. He graciously took some time with me to explain how he was keeping up with not only his product knowledge but also the incentives, interest rates, rebates and the like.
I had to run off to a meeting with Joe’s boss and upon returning saw Joe busily being a student at the customer contact center.
It occurred to me that Joe was probably new enough in the business that he still could use some direction as to the activities that will make him a consistent, sustainable and healthy income. So I gave him a suggestion (unsolicited as usual). Pull five deals of customers that you have re-contacted after they have not purchased and the re-contact did not produce a sale, said I. Then, meet with another sales consultant and develop word tracks that you can use to make another recontact with each. Now, here’s the most important part, practice those words by role-playing with your partner.
Two points here:
Most of us are more than willing to practice new techniques. Unfortunately most of us also consider the practice field to be our showroom and the people that we practice on our customers. Never practice on your customers!!!
Practicing with a fellow sales consultant makes you and the sales consultant better at what you do. I know of no better way to hone your professional reflexes. So that when you are face to face with the customer, you will say and do the right things that will lead you and your customer to what you both want… a sale. Yes, trust me, they want to buy and get on to owning that vehicle just this much is you want to sell and get on to spending your commission check.
It goes back to what we’ve talked about previously. “It’s what you do when you think you have nothing to do that will make you all the money in this business”.
That little exercise that Joe and I discussed, will probably take him 20 minutes. Do you think you could of the 20 minutes in sometime yesterday that help you and a partner hole in your skills?
Thanks Joe, great to see you again,
Until next time
Curt

Tell them… they will forget
Show them….the will remember
Let them….they will understand

Think about how this applies in Sales, demo drive. Service, walking the vehicle at write up. Leadership, everything you do with your team.
Are we “letting” often enough. Are we on the look out for new opportunitiew to “let”.
All three have to do with leadership if you think about it.
What do you think.
Let us hear from you.

Until next time

Curt

Nice. Tia Saturn of West Palm Beachwill ask her customers to describe a typical day in the live of their vehicle. This could either history as in their present vehicle or future as in the vehicle they are in to purchase. The power behind this technique is that of non threatening conversation. You are having you customer talk to you about something that is personal in a non-personal fasion, just by how you frame the question…..hey, come to think of it asking someone to tell you a story like that is not even a question. Using this technique allows you to avoid the interrogation “blues” that we all want to avoid at this stage of the sales process.
Thank you, Tia
Happy selling, Curt