Sean Gardner of the Joe Verde Group says the biggest threat to dealerships isn’t competition from digital dealers, it’s their own undertrained salespeople.

Brick-and-mortar dealerships are facing a growing threat from digital-only retailers, and the gap is widening. Carvana and its competitors are moving into new-car sales and even into the traditional franchise-dealer space. Dealers who want to stay competitive need to look inward, starting with the people on their showroom floor.

Joining us on this episode of CBT Now is Sean Gardner, Instructor and Sales Trainer at the Joe Verde Group, who says competition from “vending machines” isn’t the biggest threat to dealers; it’s their own undertrained salespeople. He says three core skills set great salespeople apart from digital dealers: a winning attitude, holding the price, and earning the close.

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Step Zero: All about attitude

Gardner’s first focus is the selling process itself: building rapport, identifying the customer’s needs, selecting the right vehicle, and delivering a strong presentation.

But even before that process begins, Gardner says there’s a crucial step most salespeople skip: attitude. He calls it “Step Zero.”

“Everything starts with your attitude in selling. It’s the heart of selling.”

Gardner says the bottom 80% of salespeople have excuses. Slow sales traffic, too much competition, or too many people on the floor. The top 20% think differently. A salesperson in a store moving 250 cars a month does not have a traffic problem, he says. They have a decision to make: “Of the 250, how many do you want your name on?”

Hold the price

The average salesperson loses nearly $900 the moment a customer asks about price, Gardner says. It’s often the first question a customer asks: “Can you come down on the price?”

“The average first immediate discount given by a salesperson, when they just try to answer a price question, is $844,” Gardner says. From there, the problem compounds until you’re giving up over $2,000 by the time you get to closing.

Too often, Gardner says, salespeople give in before the conversation even gets going. Knowing how to handle a price question at every stage is worth three to four extra sales a month at a higher gross.

Earn the close

The third thing Gardner says salespeople need to improve is the close.

“75% of all salespeople only know one close,” Gardner says. “If there’s any way we could get the figures agreeable on this truck, is there any way maybe we could earn your business right now? That’s their only close.”

That works some of the time, but it leaves a lot of room for the customer to object with things like: ‘I’ll let you know,’ ‘I need to think it over,’ or ‘we’ve got to shop around.’

Knowing how to handle those objections effectively is the key to closing more deals. The way you get there, he says, is through sales training.

Add it all up

With pressure from online dealers and direct-to-consumer sales growing every day, dealers can’t afford to have untrained salespeople, Gardner says.

“Salespeople who sharpen their process skills close four more deals per month, that’s 48 sales a year,” he says. “Sharpen price handling skills and add another four to five a month.” At the end of the year, that adds up to about 100 additional cars sold per salesperson.

For dealers who will spend thousands on an ad campaign but not invest in sales training, Gardner is blunt, “You deserve to be outsold by your competition if you’re not training your people.”

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