Cracking the sales code: it’s an enigma that keeps sales leaders, general managers, and dealership owners puzzling over tactics month after month. When sales numbers dip, you know it’s time to rethink your strategy. But the story of missed monthly targets is more than just the numbers.
Every dealership leader knows that training is the key to effective sales. For every missed target, there’s a diligent sales team member who can learn from it. If you’re grappling with how to help your team succeed, these car salesman training tips will equip you with proven strategies that can be implemented in any sales department at any time.
We’re breaking down two crucial car salesman training tips: masterful communication and smart goal-setting. These two not only teach your sales team how to sell but also give them valuable insight into their role in your overall sales strategy.
Mastering the Art of Communication
Whether your team is talking with customers via phone, email, or in person, they must be communication experts. Great salespeople engage every customer at the same level with the right script for the occasion. They’re not winging it; they’re like stage actors who have learned their lines. And while any good script allows for some improvisation through an associate’s natural sales skill, they’re never left without an effective answer for a customer’s needs.
However, even the best scripts require solid coaching to land. Here are some of the nuances that make the difference when you’re training salespeople for communication success:
- Active Listening: As any good salesperson knows, a script can be helpful but you can’t simply recite your lines and expect results. Encourage your team to listen more and talk less, and focus on what the customer says and how the script aligns with it. As the old saying goes, humans have two ears and one mouth for a reason.
- Personalize, Don’t Ad Lib: Each customer has unique needs and preferences, but you’ll rarely find someone whose objections are brand new. Even so, it’s vital to ensure prospects feel like the salesman is speaking to them and responding to their concerns in the moment. Highlight key opportunities to personalize content and provide guidance for crafting an individual experience.
- Effective Questioning: A strong script will include plenty of open-ended questions encouraging customers to share their interests, preferences, and needs. The answers give your sales team plenty of information to understand what they want, but they also build stronger rapport.
- Intelligent Scripts for Sales: At Phone Ninjas, we advocate using tailored scripts because they ensure clarity, consistency, and structure. Well-crafted scripts always keep the conversation moving toward a sale. By encouraging fewer awkward pauses and a more professional tone, scripts make your sales team sound and feel confident.
These car salesman training tips can boost the communication skills of your team, laying a firm foundation for hitting monthly targets. By focusing training on key content and messaging, providing guidance for a conversational and personalized approach, and making interactions more consistent, scripts empower sales associates with the tools they need to deliver consistent results.
Goal-Setting to Motivate Success
Sales goals are often the driving force behind a team member’s motivation. They make a sale to earn commission and salary. But while earning money is an incentive, it doesn’t necessarily instill pride in your team. Clear, actionable goals are a guiding light for your salespeople, giving them concrete milestones to tackle and tangible achievements they can feel good about.
Here’s how thoughtfully structuring your crew’s goals can keep everyone engaged and confident they can meet expectations:
- Regular Milestones: Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly milestones tell you and your employees how they’re doing. Did you hit that waypoint this week, and if not, what can we change to get you there? Milestones help your team envision their progress incrementally rather than as a never-ending loop.
- Audits & Mystery Shops: Nothing beats an outside view of your business. At Phone Ninjas, we offer free mystery shops to gauge performance and help you set achievable goals. Instead of basing extreme milestones on the ideal scenario, an external reviewer will show you the path to continuous improvement.
- Regular Reviews: Coaching your staff toward improvement is a constant process, and giving them bite-sized reviews each week will urge them toward the next goalpost. It’s about fostering a culture of accountability and a growth mindset.
- Personalized Goals: Seasoned sales leaders know that goals should fit the individual. This way, salespeople at all levels can focus on skilling up just a little more each time you raise the bar. If you set targets too high, it can make your team feel inadequate or frustrated.
- Reward Achievements: Recognize and reward accomplishments by offering incentives, like Phone Ninjas’ Perfect Score Contest. When salespeople earn a perfect score, we enter them into a drawing to win a six-day vacation (plus $1,000 spending money) to Hawaii! But the incentive isn’t just about the grand prize; it also showcases individual salespeople who’ve worked hard to earn their spot.
Coaching to Hit Monthly Sales Targets
These car salesman training tips will launch your team toward success, but only regular coaching can affirm their goals and urge them toward communication mastery. Phone Ninjas provides a tailored coaching program to help your team perfect their phone sales game.
From bespoke scripts to regular reviews, our comprehensive approach to sales training boosts revenue and maximizes consistency. Phone Ninjas’ unique Active Coaching system isn’t a fire-and-forget affair. Instead, we use weekly, bite-sized coaching sessions that keep your sales team’s heads in the game. Schedule a demo now to learn how we can drive better monthly sales for your dealership!
As the COO | Partner of Phone Ninjas, Chris delivers leadership, coaching, and mentorship to 55 team members providing software sales and phone skills coaching. He fosters powerful partnerships and collaborations with leaders across various business sectors, establishing expectations, communicating vision, and escalating performance to maximize productivity and effectiveness.
Chris is an innovation-driven business executive with over 25 years of experience delivering leadership to teams of up to 75 overseeing development, launch, and sale of website lead acquisition, reconditioning process software systems, and technology that support automotive dealerships across the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
