Good afternoon 12 o’clock eastern standard time on the east coast, brandon artisan president champion strategies for another edition of partisans tips and we’re waiting for our special guest.
All the way from america’s heartland christian youngren and he’s got some great, some great things to share with you.
He happened to be on with richie bello a little while back and i had an opportunity to bring him on so it’s lunch time, i’m doing a class, i know he’s doing a class.
So what i’m going to do is bring him up and we can see.
Well, can you hear me chris? Can you speak? Could you say something chris? Can you hear me chris, okay, we’re having a few difficulties, cannot get him up, but we’ll work on that and see if we can get him.
What we wanted to uh discuss and talk about today was something that every sales person really forgets about, and that is the product presentation walk around the product presentation walk around is one of the most integral things.
If you ask some high gang questions, and now we want to get those questions addressed before we take them out for a demo ride and we’re going to try, it again looks like christian.
Can you hear me, sir? I can hear you and i can see you.
Oh wow, he can do both yeah, hey glad that you can give up some of your time uh.
We do this as hardison’s tips just quickly because i know you’re busy, i’m in class, but we try to find the best of the best that we can around the country.
So we’ve had somebody from iowa that great state we’ve had somebody from idaho we’ve had somebody from louisiana.
We’ve had somebody from boston, so we just tried to go so i know we’re back in the great state of iowa and i spent some time there.
But just quickly, can you just give the uh customers and the sales people managers that thirty thousand foot? Who you are, why you do it? What you’re into sure you got it brandon, thanks for having me on, for starters, um real, quick, just been in the business since 91.
Like a lot of people, i graduated from college um upon graduating six months after i graduated.
They really do want those student loans.
So they came knocking on my door asking for that.
I thought i was going to go work for some fortune, 500 company and work my way up.
The ceo, you know, maybe unseat you know some some league iacocca or somebody big like that.
But unfortunately it just didn’t happen that way.
So i started.
Selling cars worked.
My way up, selling cars did finance, did sales manager for 10 years.
Then i worked my way up to general sales manager, all at the same chevy dealership right here in moline illinois, illinois iowa, we border iowa, so we’re right.
There um they’re right with a stone’s throw from us, and so then, after that i got into training with some with cars.
com and with a large dealer group, uh gurley leap, 23 different stores, i managed or trained their iowa platform, and then i decided here in in November to start kaizen, automotive, consulting, which is my own consulting group, our main, that’s really my background.
The main thing we do is recruiting training in cult and coaching, so we call it rtc.
We recruit the sales people, then we train them for you, but then we think it’s imperative that we continue to do one-on-one coaching with them throughout that first month, role-playing with them um after they’ve got some real-life experience.
So that’s really where we uh feel that the training – that’s where it really sticks.
Is that part.
Okay, beautiful appreciate that now you said a couple of things in there, because here’s where most dealer principals, general managers or even front-end managers, don’t really get it and that’s about the human capital uh.
If you remember, if your breathing start monday uh not really taking their arms around somebody who made a career change and then they wonder why we have this revolving door and they think it’s not them.
They think it’s well.
He wasn’t a salesperson anyway.
Can you address? Maybe to some of the people why it’s important to do the processes that you and your organization does when you’re trying to find new talent? Yes, it’s it’s a for starters.
I really believe that good sales people are made not born uh they’re made not born.
You may have some qualities, let’s face it, being able to establish rapport, be able to talk to people in from the prince to the popper and having that ability to be able to identify with people and be empathetic.
That’s a skill that not everybody has, but it can be taught over time, so some people naturally will feel hey i’m for sales, because i’m good at those aspects.
However, it’s really about following the process.
It’s it’s about it’s a process.
It was put together for a reason: um it’s no different than baking a cake or, since my grandma made killer chocolate chip cookies.
Okay, if i tried to follow her killer chocolate chip, cookie recipe by memory, i’d probably do pretty good.
But let’s say that i was following it by memory and i put in the flour i put in the sugar i put in the chocolate chips, but i forgot a key ingredient like the butter yeah.
Would my cookies taste like herbs, of course not, of course they’re.
Not going to taste the same, so the point is, is that success has been made or invented, and we know some of the things over all these years.
What we’ve been in the car business since the 1900s, so the automotive business has been around for so long and yeah? There’s adjustments, but let’s not leave out key ingredients.
So there’s a process, that’s a structure.
Sometimes the situation will dictate you deviating a little bit not from the structure, but in how you present each step.
However, the main steps the foundation always means the same.
The bottom line is: don’t forget the butter in those cookies.
Don’t forget the butter and the automotive sales process? I i i like the way you put that because uh i talk to many managers and for some reason they forget that that person listened to what they said, decided in their mind that okay i’ll take this leap of faith as far as a career change.
But then, once they have them inside the dealership on the showroom floor, they turn into jacqueline hyde.
They don’t spend any one-on-one time they don’t manage by walking around even before or after your shift, hey christian.
How did it go today? What can i do to make it better? They they forget that these people are brand new and they’re trying to put all of this together – and you know as well as i do on their drive home with their significant other at home.
Did i make the right choice? Is it going to get any better than this, and then they wonder why we have the turnover that we do well.
You know you’re right so that first month, whether it’s any job, but it’s like drinking water through a fire hose right.
I mean it’s all coming at you, so quick product knowledge, the particular dealership type of of paperwork.
Some dealerships have the sales people fill out.
All the trade information, some don’t um how to use the crm.
What the expectations are.
The selling process itself objection handling negotiation, bypassing lot objections that keep them from even getting on a demonstration drive.
That’s why the one-on-one coaching so imperative, but but not even stopping there.
It’s really one-on-one time with the salesperson, so whether i do the one-on-one with them, but you know i can do the one-on-one to help them with the skill development and hold their feet to the fire on.
Maybe some word tracks that you want them to learn.
Um and how to handle those types of things, however, the sales manager, what they want to do is have that daily one-on-one, and i know it sounds good in theory and a lot of times.
You think, how can i find another half an hour in my day? It doesn’t have to be a half an hour; sometimes it can be.
Sometimes we used to do something at the dealership.
We’d call extended one-on-ones and short meet one-on-ones.
The many one-on-ones was opportunities activities results.
So how many opportunities did you have yesterday? I waited on three people.
What activities did you get them to? Well, i got three of two of them to a presentation and demonstration and i got one of them to a write-up and i did sell a car.
That’s the result.
So let’s go take a look at those other two people that didn’t purchase, let’s figure out what’s going on with them, what happened in those situations? How did you leave it with them? Well, they didn’t even take a demo drive because they ran out of time or we worked some figures with them, but they wanted more further trade.
Well, maybe we get another manager involved.
Maybe we’ve got a wholesaler here that can take a look at it, but i think that’s where it’s imperative, because again, as you said, you talked about this jacqueline hyde, they’re, really hoping for a mentor and a mentor is hard to to go up and ask somebody If you’ll be their mentor, but if, when you were talking to them at a as a manager trying to convince them to come into this business, there was part of them that felt.
Like you know.
If this guy becomes my mentor, i can make this work.
I can do this and then, when you start here, she starts to see that that’s not going to be the case.
That’s when that conversation that you said about with him and his wife on their way to dinner.
That’s where that starts to come up.
So i would agree with you.
I think that you know whether it’s a 30-year veteran or a three-day new person, the one-on-ones important.
However, it’s even more imperative for that three-day person.
Well, i’m i’m glad you put it on the head with that.
We got some folks.
Uh on the west coast, uh richie bello is saying hi because he’s out there doing some business and we have a 20-year veteran from uh alexandria, louisiana walker, honda holmes.
Checking in with that just wanted to say that now one thing that we both have in common, since we did some research on each other certified pre-owned.
I spent some time with ford.
I hear you spend some time with nissan.
What’s one great thing that maybe these sales people that are listening now wondering when is their manufacturer gon na have better allocation with all the right trim packages there? Why should they be looking at a switch vehicle which is a cpo and both of us know why? It’s the best, but what’s one of the advantages you tell your people about certified pre.
As you said, a lot of advantages, but the one advantage i really like is they’re purchasing, really peace of mind.
Um they’re purchasing peace of mind is what they’re purchasing and it’s hard to put a value on peace of mind.
Okay, it might mean something different to you than it means to me.
Um, i would say peace of mind can be priceless.
I mean we pay for peace of mind.
We maybe don’t want to do physical damage insurance for our house, but you know what we know that ten thousand twelve thousand dollars in one day for a brand new roof is a lot to swallow on our budget.
So therefore we purchase that we hope we never have to use it.
So i mean it’s really kind of crazy.
We pay this premium each month for our home insurance, hoping that we’re never going to use it because we want peace, but we have what we really want, which is peace of mind.
Well, the cpo is the same.
You’re purchasing this vehicle you’re going to pay more for this vehicle than you do for a normal.
Let’s say that we’re looking at a chevy impala certified pre-owned vehicle versus a non-certified pre-owned, very similar you’re, going to pay more for the certified prion because you’re paying for that peace of mind.
And so that’s what i like the most about it um, and it also gives you another.
It gives us really a third segment.
So you’ve got your new.
You know when i first started, you had your new and you had your used.
Well, now you’ve got another segment, it’s the in-between segment and it’s got.
There’s got to be something to it.
Brandon i mean it keeps growing every year it just grows and grows you know, and and so there’s got to be something to it.
Consumers have to like that peace of mind and in our transparent society, with everybody’s invoices out there hanging for everybody, everybody’s prices out there ability for customers to go in and find out about negotiation.
All these types of things it just lends itself so well with this transparent society.
We live in now to have that certified pre-owned vehicle.
So really, if you think about it’s, not super surprising, it’s growth over the last five ten years.
No, no! You hit it on the head and i talked to gm’s and i know you do and talk to service managers and they simply say that one’s against the other because of silos, one department’s against the other uh.
The reason why i don’t like the program is because the turn takes too long.
The technicians got all these points to go through and we wanted to get the vehicle with some pictures, get it up online.
So the customer all types of excuses.
I say because if we assigned – and this is what i tell people assign a champion between the used car manager and that service technician – to make sure that everything is on spot, so we can cut down that turn time and get it to the front line.
So consumers can take advantage of it with that, but it’s the best thing that’s going, but i know we’re getting short on time, but i got got ta bring this up.
Talk about this uh thing that you do with your psychology thing.
What what? What are you researching so? What you’re talking about brandon? I appreciate you bringing that up.
So one thing i didn’t talk about on the top is i have a youtube channel christian youngren and on that youtube channel, what we do.
Our main focus is on automotive skill development.
So learning word track.
Skill development are secondary.
Is we teach you how to close deals with the psychology of sales and then, finally, we do dealer vendor product and service reviews.
So an example of one thing i love is how psychology affects the sale.
I mean, let’s think about it.
We’ve got people that are coming in to purchase a vehicle.
They need to be buy.
A vehicle 99 of america wants to drive a vehicle before they buy it.
They want to see a vehicle.
I mean people need that they don’t like coming into dealers, they’ve ranked it in the past between getting a root canal and being sued.
So it’s a process.
They don’t like.
So when you do things you don’t like a lot of times.
You come in and say things that you don’t really mean, or you do things you don’t really mean you’ve got all these concerns.
On your mind, these unfound sometimes um unspoken concerns.
So i find it very interesting how psychology is so so prevalent in automotive sales.
So let me give you an example of some of the things that we teach.
So we talk about the reciprocity rule, so there’s a reciprocity rule.
Reciprocity rule is very simple.
It just means, if i do something nice for you, you’ll do something nice for me: there’s physical and then there’s emotional reciprocity.
I physically lend you something.
So you go ahead and you you borrowed my tools and so now you feel compelled to to loan me.
Your lawn mower when i ask or there’s emotional, where i gave you some time and let you cry on my shoulder about your boyfriend or girlfriend and vice versa, right right, right reciprocity can help you in sales as well.
So let me tell you about a famous study: that’s really cool! That shows the power of reciprocity.
So there’s a famous study done on restaurant servers.
So what the study wanted to do was see if a gift would increase the amount of tips that a server would would get whenever they presented the gift, so what they did was they had the server present the guest with a mint after they brought the bill.
They’d bring the bill, they’d, say: hey folks, um, here’s the bill and then here’s a mint for everyone.
Well, when they give them a mint tips, increased three percent now you’re saying big deal, not a lot right now.
Here’s the kicker, though, when they went ahead and said: hey for we’re going to give i’m going to give you guys two minutes when they gave them two minutes.
It actually went up to 14, not bad increase, but here’s the kicker and here’s where it’s really cool.
Where it really comes into play, if the guest excuse me, if the server went to the table, gave them the bill, put the mint down and then spun around turned on a dime like they were getting ready to walk away.
But then they came back and they looked at the table and they said you know what for you fine folks, here’s an extra mint and they gave everybody a minute tips went up 23.
So 100 bill.
You made another 23.
That’s that’s amazing.
So the reason it works is because one it’s unexpected number one.
Actually somebody has to start it.
So that’s the first step is somebody starts it.
So the server gave that person the mint it was unexpected.
They didn’t expect that second mint and then lastly, it was personalized because maybe they ate a bunch of food with garlic, so it’s kind of nice to get that mint now so again think how you could apply that in the automotive business, if you had a guest That you knew like to go mudding on the weekends with their jeep and they came in for a gift, maybe send them a gift for a referral or to send them a gift just for the purchase.
Maybe you send them a complete detail with a little note that just says hey.
I know you like to go mutton, here’s something that can help your car look nice or your jeep look nice after one of those weekends where you go muddy and then you just go hey, enjoy and then now it’s personalized and they’re gon na feel compelled.
Maybe not to run right in and buy another car, but i bet you they give you a shot at the next time, they’re in the market for a car.
I like that.
I like that now how about repeating where they can find that information again just in case they they didn’t grab it.
So where can they find it? The name that you see right on the screen? Christian youngren’s, my name, so it’s christian, youngren uh, it’s at the uh youtube christian younger’s, the channel.
The name of my company is kaizen automotive.
Consulting but again you just would go look up.
Christian youngren, youtube channel and i’ve got a host of uh videos on there.
For you to look at so i’d, appreciate you leaving me a comment.
If you go look at one of those and supporting me, but it’s free it’s! You can watch them as many times as you want.
If you want more information about it, the the one-on-one coaching go ahead and send me a direct message outstanding now before i let you go and before i get back to my class here since you’re on that illinois iowa border and i’m here in the east coast And we’re both dealing with this uh covet situation.
What’s one of the issues that maybe you as a best practice has found out where consumer confidence is still there because all of us i know around the country, some dealerships are struggling, we’re consumer confidence for sales and service they’re just shut down, but there’s is there Any one thing that you advise, or any one best practice that you see that dealerships are doing to keep the consumer confidence up.
Well, obviously, what you need to do is you need to to have you need to pretend, like that, you’re cleaning the showroom and that you’re putting things in place for the guest that is the most for lack of a better word paranoid about getting the virus or The most concerned, because there’s going to be a lot of people as you know that aren’t as concerned as others.
So if you prepare for the one that’s the most concerned, then you know then you’ve got yourself covered for everybody else.
You should be able to cover your for everybody else, but even more importantly, it’s just keeping your head right.
Keeping your attitude right, that’s going to be the most important! You know my what i would tell you is stay away from the news first thing in the morning when you wake up and right before you go to bed that subconscious mind is so malleable and susceptible to suggestion at those times that just don’t do it start.
You have to know what’s going on and understand, what’s going on in the world, i get it.
You got to know if your kids are going back to school or if you’re going to homeschool them again, but but you know, maybe get yourself in a better spot.
First, mentally feed your brain with positive things, whether it’s tony robbins or a video from from from you.
I know you do motivational or whoever it is.
Do that feed your mind with positive thoughts? The first 20 minutes in the morning, the last 20 minutes before you go to bed.
I think, if you do those things you’re going to find that the covet doesn’t bother you quite as much as it had in the past outstanding.
I i will take that so gang once again uh.
I hope you picked up on at least one because christian, if you were listening christian gave you a few things that really talk about so one more time.
How can they find your youtube? It’s uh christian youngren! That’s the youtube channel just put in christian youngren and you’ll, find it and uh go ahead and watch any of those videos like i said if you’ve got any questions or info just go ahead and reach out to me, you can reach out to me at christianyoungren.
Gmail.
Com i’ll talk to anybody at any time any hour of the night.
I just want to try to help people be better car sales people outstanding.
We do thank you for your time, because you’re on central time, i’m on eastern time, but we’re making it rock and roll every day, so everybody out there, as always in parting, you go out and make it a champion day all right.
Thank you.
