You know all too well how little time owners and GMs have. There are barely enough hours in the day for everything a dealership needs, and that means training is often an afterthought. However, consistent attention to honing your sales team is vital for maintaining a competitive edge.
This is where an automotive business consultant can be your most important ally. They bring in fresh ideas, clear eyes, reinforce effective habits and strategies, and introduce solutions you may not have considered before. All while taking a heavy load off your shoulders.
Of course, the right partner will deliver more: they’ll take the lead in coaching your staff and create scripts that will reflect your marketing vision and current industry trends. If you’re struggling to find time for training, a great automotive business consultant can develop your training program and keep your dealership on top of their game.
Why Not Do Your Own Training?
Running your own training program is tempting, for sure. You know your business and your people better than anyone, and you want control over the process to make sure it’s being done exactly the right way. Besides, consultants can seem like an expensive alternative. Doesn’t it make sense to start your own training department?
Unfortunately, not really. Doing it well requires constant attention to detail as well as a professional teaching mentality. If you’re not able to do it 100%, then you’ll be investing
a lot of your time without good returns. On top of that, the training department you’re planning will drain your money and time like a hole in your gas tank while you learn the ropes. Unless you have a lot of spare time and cash to invest, it’s going to be a serious uphill battle.
The value of an automotive business consultant can be staggering compared to the cost of setting up an internal program. With your own trainers, the salary, benefits, office supplies and equipment, and management are all your responsibility. A consultant can drop in, coordinate with your business needs, and start delivering expert advice on day one without any hassle.
What Do You Look For In A Consultant?
When you’re looking for someone to train your staff, choose an automotive business consultant who is ready to do the heavy lifting. And just like weight lifting, it will take time to get the best results.
Most business consultants fly in and fly out in a day or two. This is fine for businesses that need basic sales training—but that’s definitely not you. You’ve got a great sales department that’s looking to come in first, not finish the race, and that means refining and mastering their skills.
That’s why your training partner should be establishing an ongoing coaching relationship that develops your team over time. A large group initial session or two is fine, but the best learning takes place in weekly, one-on-one sessions. If a prospective automotive business consultant doesn’t offer this, think very carefully before cutting a check.
Experience Matters!
And not just training experience. Your automotive business consultant needs to have worked successfully in the car and truck sales world to understand how to effectively train your team. In some ways “business is business”, but the automotive industry has a lot of specific ins and outs unique to the field. And with tens of thousands of dollars at stake with each transaction, you cannot afford to hire a generalist who may not understand the nuances of our industry.
The number one reason is that any automotive business consultant you trust with your training program needs to have a thorough understanding of real-world interactions that lead to real-world numbers. That means having a detailed knowledge of what works and how to follow customer needs. Once they analyze and evolve your tactics, they should conduct mystery shops of your employees so they can deliver individualized feedback they can reinforce in training.
A Track Record of Success
Nothing demonstrates competence so much as results. If you know what KPIs you’re hoping to improve through the training, you’ll know if your automotive business consultant is working out.
Phone Ninjas’ training program was developed by auto sales professionals with decades of success in the trenches. We routinely boost the average 20% industry appointment rate for our clients by 300-400%. And that’s just the first step towards boosting revenues—we understand that mastery is never achieved overnight, and offer a three-part formula for success:
- Remote or in-person initial group training to impart the basic information.
- A longer-term mentoring process where our Phone Ninjas spend time every week coaching individual members of your sales team. Each employee learns fast and gets personalized tips that will directly impact their sales numbers.
- We check the results of your team’s hard work with our own mystery shoppers, then follow up with shopped employees to celebrate success and improve deficiencies.
We’d love to demonstrate how we can help you! We’ll provide two free mystery shops to measure how well your phone and internet game is doing, and we take the time to get to know your business so we can tailor our approach to your business and people.
Drop us a line today and give your sales team the training edge they need.
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.
