Good afternoon 12 o’clock on the east coast, brandon hardison president champion strategies for another edition of hardison’s tips.
Live we bring in the best experts in the field to give you some advice, whether you’re a sales consultant or whether you’re a manager, and i hope, there’s some managers out there listening, because the only way you can get better if your people are getting better today, We’re so honored to have with us all the way from new jersey – and i know they just came from a little hurricane action there, a gentleman i’ve been knowing for years.
He is a bdc expert, so stan how about telling the folks who you are what it’s all about before we get to the questions all right, so my name is stan share, i’m the founder of dealery training and i’m also currently, the general manager of dealer retention Services where we uh outsource bbc opportunities uh, we handle sales service, uh, equity, mining and uh interim lead management, as well as sales training, recruiting and business development center training, and i’m actually in the business 17 years i got in the business.
Brandon actually was my trainer when i first started selling cars back in 2003.
Well, we we have a little.
We have a little freezing up problems here, so i know some of the people probably didn’t catch.
Some of that.
So i tell you what let’s just get to the questions, because that’s what they wanted to hear and you are in that bdc space.
So let me ask you this stan.
What do you think are the current trends as you see it going into dealership bdc operations right now as we speak.
So i see i in my opinion, and so this is from what i’m seeing now.
I think bdc is more important than ever uh with digital retailing tools going on with the fact that people are trying to avoid going into the showroom uh, some of them.
Of course, some people are trying to do everything online.
They they go online for their virtual test drives.
They do all the research they pretty much have their mindset on what car they’re looking to purchase and they’re looking to do things over the phone and if they do come into a dealership, they want it to be a quick process where everything is set up for Them so i think that the communication aspect of bdc is more and more important nowadays.
I feel that the training that bdc’s need to have is a lot more different, not just set that appointment up and you know just get them in.
We need 50 appointments on a saturday.
I would rather have 20 quality appointments of real deals.
Walking in than having 50 bodies show up and just you know, go through the motions and not deliver the right experience.
Huh.
Okay – i i can concur with that.
So let me ask that now and thank you for that answer.
In your opinion, how is digital retailing changing the landscape of internet sales, so i love digital retelling and i think it’s a pleasure for me to have been in a dealership for the previous year.
I was in a store for a year and i left the back in march for the pandemic kid and um.
It was actually a game-changing experience for me because we worked in a really progressive store with really progressive tools and we were using tools like roadster and a bdc that was doing close to 70 units a month with most of it being done through roadster um and In any given month, we would do two to three new car deals which release deals through a digital retailer, where the customer sends, in the credit, app works out their numbers.
We print everything out.
We make an appointment, they come in, they pick up the car.
That was a very small percentage, obviously of how many deals are actually being done this way, but i did start to see a small pattern of every other month or so a couple deals tripling in, but i did use it more as a tool to get the Customer in the showroom because it was a good negotiating tool – it’s nice to be able to put in the customers zip code where they register the vehicle.
It’s nice to be able to have all the incentives tied in and to be able to have that conversation.
You know, mr customer, how much money are you looking to put down oh 2500? Okay, how many miles a year? Would it be 10, 12 or 15 000 miles a year? They tell you by the way.
Are you currently a honda owner or are you switching from another brand? What are you currently driving in your household and you put all that stuff in you know? By the way, are you currently a first responder you put all that stuff in and then boom there comes release payment.
There comes everything there comes.
Your cap cost your tax and you have a normal conversation.
Instead of trying to avoid giving numbers, you have a normal, intelligent conversation and then, if the customer wants to negotiate that deal which is tough to negotiate because it’s a pretty aggressive deal, then you move to a sales manager that can jump on the phone to that Deal deliver the phone you know, sharpen their pencil a little and make that deal get a deposit make the appointment deliver the car.
I think that that’s the way digital retailing is used, for, i think it’s more of a tool to keep a conversation going than it is uh to just sell cars.
I don’t think we’re 100 there to complete transactions, but it’s certainly a tool to help bdc agents.
Sound more than just a robot, you know: when can you come in? When can you come in gotcha now uh that sparked something? Well, okay, can’t hear me.
Can you hear me now? I cannot hear you can’t can’t hear me at all there you are.
You got me now there we go.
Okay, here’s the question based on what you just said with that uh a whole lot of dealerships that i have gone into.
It seems that once the bdc agent or bdc manager has confirmed an appointment, the escalation, whether it’s to the desk or whether it’s to a sales consultant is escalating.
A lead appointment to actually getting somebody on the floor seems to be a problem up in the dealerships.
You deal with, for how do you handle that? So here’s what’s interesting, we all know the story of the house mouse right, there’s always that salesperson.
That sells a lot of has been at the dealership a long time that management just feeds them all.
The deals um the store i came from does just that um, you know out of 15 people, there was always two or three that were getting the majority of deals, and there was always that that um complaint that the sales people had.
Oh they’re feeding this person that deal and i’m seeing that in some of the virtual pcs we’re running to i’m always seeing that you know i work with a dealership that has 10 sales people and it’s always the same too they’re getting you know when we send Them the lead and say hey: this person wants better numbers, they want to do the deal and it always comes down to okay.
I got this person handling it and it’s always because of the trustees, because they know that their costs they’re going to handle the customer better they’re more proficient, and it’s also the seniority and politics of course.
So i do see that happening a lot um.
You know going back to my old days in dealerships.
I do remember you know if i’ve been a nissan store, that we would only give those deals to five people, because they were the most professional ones that the higher closing ratio um, which i think was a lot more fair.
But i do think the dealerships need to train everybody, and i mean everybody on the sales floor to be able to understand.
You know the shopping pattern.
You know, i feel like a lot of these tools come out, but they don’t train huh.
Now now i’ve lost you.
Can you hear me sorry, i lost you there uh yeah.
I can hear you.
Can you hear me? Okay, oh continue, i’m sorry, okay, so yeah yeah.
So so basically the training needs to happen.
I feel, like you know, when we have these recruiting companies going in and hiring sales people and spending a week in the store training.
I feel like the the road to this still needs to be different.
You know i feel like they need to touch up on what it used to be and what it should be.
Now i feel like you need to understand that your customer is going to be calling and they’re going to be, even though walk-ins are going to be looking at all those tools.
You need to understand your admins.
com and your true cars and how to look at a website, and you need to be able to show how to look at kelly blue book when a customer wants to do a trade appraisal.
When you’re trying to evaluate that in the process – and i feel like a lot of people – still don’t know that because sales management doesn’t teach that that’s one of the things that i bring to cable now, when i’m training sales, people and bdc’s is i’m teaching them On the my, i call it forward thinking consultative selling because you’re using technology to actually help you sell cars, excellent and that’s a perfect segue into the next question i had uh.
Is there any other type of training methods that you feel that should be used for continual growth in this aspect of the dealership? Being the bdc i feel like every month, the dealership needs to focus on a different topic.
You know just the roads of the sale on loan could be nine ten months worth of training, because every if, if you put your people on a training program, yes initially you’re going to train them all your steps to the road to the sale so that they’re Selling cars, but if every month you just drill one step after another, they become better and then a year from now, maybe they become superstars.
Maybe then you can movement after i or make them a closer in your store, but because they know all the steps.
It’s just a lack of training now with the pandemic, going on with the fact that we probably can’t get dealers to pay the high daily rates for my services, we’re starting to offer zoom training for a couple hundred dollars a session where we can actually create a Program, i’m working on uh doing something for a dealer, a group in texas now for a referral where we’re going to be actually training, their bdc and their sales staff through webinars.
It’s a lot more cost effective and i think it’s going to create more opportunity for that need in the future huh.
So if i’m hearing you right based on what stan sees that these weber, knives or distance learning is going to be the way of the future because of the covet yes and here’s the thing i can get on a webinar with your store, for instance, and if You’re, let’s say you’re using dealer, socket or event solution.
I can quickly delve into your crm with you, one-on-one and actually go through.
Your leads actually pick up the phone call the customer and go over training opportunities.
I can go through and see what you’re missing your crm, whether it be maybe you’re, not text messaging, your customers enough or maybe your emails need changes.
You know all these little things i i feel like um, you know.
What’s here is garbage and garbage.
I feel like things like that, um, even going in to a call tracking system listening to calls together and then asking a group of people.
Hey stan paul.
You know we are having some some major wi-fi problems, um all throughout this, and so that’s that.
That’s all right, i mean it could be from uh down here.
It could be from up there.
But but let me do this before i, let’s okay uh tell us what you got going.
How can people hear more about what you gave me one thing talking about that texas dealership, but but just uh.
How do people find out more about you? So there’s a couple ways to find out about me so uh you can visit two websites dealer.
The word the letter e and the word training dealer train dot.
Com.
Uh is my website for my training business um.
You can reach out to me my phone number, seven.
Three, two 732-925-8362.
You can reach out to me.
We can discuss some opportunities uh for growth for your dealership.
You can also check out our other website, which is dealerretentionservices.
com and that is our equity mining, outsource, bdc, firm uh, which, by the way, i failed to mention uh we’re also getting into buy your pay here.
Um, i actually have a little bit of experience consulting by your payroll dealerships and uh we’re doing some partnerships now, where we’re going to be potentially working with a couple of buy here, pay here, dealerships which is a whole different animal from what we’re doing selling cars.
This is more about generating a quality credit application which then goes to under run inside of the dealership and they’re the ones approving the buyer, pay-per-loans and helping sell those cars, and so we’re getting into that territory, which i’m really excited about.
So, essentially with me, you have a couple different things.
You have training recruiting and you have outsourced services, whether it be for sales and service for dealerships and buyer pay here lots as well as independents.
I i i like that.
I like that.
Well stan.
I tell you what yeah i’ll say.
Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now now i can yes, okay, let me just thank you for coming uh, sorry for the problems that we had we’re gon na have to do this again, uh with that okay, but you have a great day you be safe, not only from The uh storm you just had, but with the covid you know, stay healthy, be safe and we’ll be back to you later.
Okay, stan.
Thank you.
Okay, everybody else out there we’ll let you get back to what you need.
I need to get back to my training class, so brandon hardison for artisans tips once again, as always in parting, you go out and make it a champion.
Take care.
