WHY
DO I LOSE SO MANY SALESPERSONS? As a former GM/GSM I have asked
myself that same question a thousand times. And like you, I have tried
everything possible to retain good people and recruit others. I tried in-house
training using sales managers to no avail. That takes them away from the job
they were hired to do. I eventually began using contract sales trainers like the
majority of major dealers have also done. I saw no difference, in fact the
attrition may be even higher with those recruited and trained by contract
trainers.
So I asked the question again:
Why can I not hire and keep good salespeople? Let me ask you another
question. Have you ever sat through a full week of classroom training with a
class of green peas, monitoring what the “expert trainer” teaches and the
promises he makes? I have. And I have sat in a day at a time on several
other occasions. You know what I found out? I was the problem. It was me who
turned my future employees over to a stranger with no idea what he was telling
them.
As far as selling skills and procedures, trainers
weren’t teaching them much at all. Sure, they ran through the worn
out “ROAD TO THE SALE” a couple of times. I expected that. Its just memory work.
But the majority of time was spent on three subjects having nothing to do with
what a prospective salesperson will encounter in a sales career.
Number one is the obligatory war stories. All
trainers feel the need to impress the newbies with how great they are and how
many sales records they broke. The war stories eat up precious hours of training
time. Oh, don’t forget about how many dealers want to hire the trainer and
offer them half of the dealership if they will just come back. Sure!!!
Second is empty promises and unrealistic income
expectations. Everybody is going to make $100,000 a year. Sales trainees are
told how easy it is to sell a car, and how rich they will become by the time
their friends are just graduating from college. They are told how badly they are
needed because dealers just can’t hire enough sales people, so sales managers
will bow and scrape when you walk through the showroom. Oh, it’s a wonderful
world of opportunity. This tactic is used for the first two days for one reason
only: (Third,) to convince the poor trainee to scrape up about $595 from
relatives or credit cards to pay the trainer. “The dealer will pay you back in
90 days” (if you jump through enough hoops,) is the next part of the fairy tale.
Poorly trained and disappointed when the big bucks aren’t
seen in the paychecks, the disillusioned green pea just fails to show up one
day, and we wonder what happened. What happened was; he never had a chance. He
was programmed to expect too much.
Mr. Dealer/GM, we are not that far off. We can fix this
problem. It just requires a little thought and a trainer with the talent to
teach the truth and motivate. It requires a passion on the part of the trainer
to help people be a success. A trainer without that passion is just a con artist
trying to get through to Friday. All he wants are the checks. That means he has
to find someway to fill the week and look busy. It requires a command decision
by the dealer to stop allowing weak trainers to steal from, and lie to, your
class. The students are probably already in financial trouble by virtue of being
unemployed in the first place. Then we add gas to the fire of financial anxiety
by extracting another expense. We allow the trainer to con them into paying the
fee, (because he is not strong enough to ask you) which takes up to two days of
valuable classroom time that could be better spent. Again, we wonder why so many
don’t make it. Aren’t we smarter than that?
I am asking you to allow me to show you a better way.
It’s a common sense and realistic way to recruit, train, and motivate with
honesty rather than false promises. It’s a method of teaching that explains
every pitfall and at the same time offers solutions to overcome them. And it
will hire and train what you call “KEEPERS” You will retain a higher percentage,
and you will not have to hire so often because you are growing good sales people
that know what to expect, and expect to have some problems along the way. Rather
than leave in disillusionment, they will know where to go for help when they
encounter a problem. It’s all part of our training and the 12-month follow up
program.
May I show you just a little of what we do, and
explain what a sales candidate can expect from your dealership, and “The Sales
Coach”? I guarantee you; you haven’t seen anything like it. And I guarantee you,
you will approve. It just makes sense.
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