Category: Dealership Training

Categories
Dealership Recruiting Dealership Training

Tips for Keeping Your Top Performers

Amber Hash, RecruiterAccording to the 2014 Dealership Workforce Industry Report, dealership employment grew 3.4 percent and topped 1 million people last year, with median weekly earnings of $976. However, turnover is still taking a toll on dealership overhead, with an average rate of 36 percent.

As you re-evaluate your operations going into 2015, you are probably asking yourself how to address turnover in your dealership. After investing time and money into recruiting, training, and ramping up your employees, the last thing you want is to lose that investment to high turnover.

Maintaining and retaining a staff of high performers always starts with recruiting. When identifying the type of person you want for a given position, set up a model that extends beyond experience and education and considers the qualities, work styles and strengths of Top Performers in the position for which you are sourcing candidates. Then stick to that model during your candidate selection process.

Ryan Musgrove, Director of Training, EFG CompaniesHowever, in order to truly woo Top Performers, dealers need to think beyond how much they are willing to pay in commissions, to how they will provide a career path to recruits. For today’s job seekers, the opportunity to advance is just as important as their paycheck. A good career path does more than simply list off the hierarchy of job roles in your dealership, but also clarifies benchmarks and career goal metrics for employees to be considered for promotion.

Once you’ve hired quality talent, cultivating and retaining your Top Performers becomes the primary objective. This process begins with providing your team with the tools to succeed through training and mentoring. The most successful dealerships are those with a culture that encourages education and mentorship, and fosters a community where your team members support one another.

If you have a person placed in a position where they are not succeeding, consider whether they would fit better in a different position or if more training and follow-up is required. For those that are succeeding and providing the dealership with significant income, don’t get “sticker shock” when you see their commission check.

The number one reason why good sales managers and F&I producers are recruited out of a dealership is because their pay plan was changed, resulting in less take-home pay. When creating your job descriptions, determine a pay plan for each position based on percentages you are willing to pay. Then stick with that pay plan when your people succeed. If an F&I producer is taking home a fat check, that means the dealership is making that much more.

Lastly, take account of the work/life balance of your employees, especially if you are looking to hire young talent. Generation Y has repeatedly stipulated that they want to be a part of an organization that is about more than making money, and that provides a good work/life balance. According to NADA’s 2014 Dealership Workforce Study, dealerships are seeing an increase of Generation Y employees, which they attribute to across-the-board cuts in dealership hours, as only 13 percent of dealerships surveyed schedule sales consultants to work more than 50 hours.

While this might make you cringe, think about productivity in a different way. Numerous studies have demonstrated that employees who live full lives tend to also be the most productive employees. Work/life balance does not have to mean complete flexibility for every employee, but rather tailored to individual dealerships and their respective cultures. Good work/life balance programs have the potential to:

  • Increase employee retention
  • Improve morale
  • Reduce absenteeism
  • Increase engagement and productivity
  • Decrease stress and burnout

With almost 40 years of experience in automotive retail team development, EFG Companies knows how to cultivate a culture of success within your dealership. Our recruiting services team has conducted extensive, proprietary research to identify core qualities of Top Performers. With our Top Performer Profile, our recruiting experts can match individuals whose personality characteristics and work style will make them successful in the retail automotive space. Meanwhile, our training services team goes beyond traditional methodologies that temporarily fuel sales teams without changing culture, behaviors and attitudes for sustainable benefit. We are a team dedicated to identifying and changing behaviors to transport teams into Top Performers. Find out how today!

Categories
Dealership Training

Is Your Training Investment Paying Off?

Steve Klees Blog HeadshotHow often have you heard the following statement?

“I paid for my people to go through training. While sales were up the first week out of the chute, we’re now back to our previous levels. What a waste of money!”

Structured training can be an effective means of improving sales performance, however just as any investment takes research and planning, so does training.

Before sending your team to any training course, it’s important to evaluate the effectiveness of the training model and whether it pairs well with your current performance culture.

In your research, ask how the instructors measure the success of their program:

  • Do they measure satisfaction and participant reaction?
  • Do their participants retain the stills learned in the classroom?
  • Do they evaluate behavior before and after the program to determine behavioral transformation?
  • Do they provide measurable business improvement metrics, like increased sales or product penetration rates?

Lastly, it’s important to take those business improvement metrics and compare them to the cost of the course to forecast the potential return on investment.

In order to ensure the dollars you spend on training is an actual investment, think of training as a performance culture shift for your dealership. The strongest training courses always include personalized follow-up as well as dealership management buy-in. Before the course begins, discuss the current situation within your dealership, develop goals for measuring success, and discuss how managers can reinforce the lessons learned in the classroom. After the course ends, you should expect you’re a representative from your product provider to visit your dealership to evaluate your team’s success, provide a re-fresh, and even, if necessary, work with your team as they complete sales to provide a refresh on what they’ve learned.

The fact is a training course is only as effective as the dealer who implements it. In order to truly reap the benefits of any training course, be it sales or F&I, the dealership needs to reinforce the skills learned in a classroom setting.

Sending your people to an offsite course and then plopping them back in the same environment as before is a sure way to negate most things they learned. Instead, evaluate how you can evolve the dealership performance environment to foster your team’s growth and success once they get back, as well as other support positions that are also a part of the sales process.

In addition, after you’ve sent your team through a training course and everyone is on the same page, consider putting in place a mentorship model where more seasoned staff continue to provide guidance to new recruits. It is also important to set achievable benchmarks to measure each team member’s success as well as actionable steps to improve performance.

No matter whether you send your team to an offsite course, or have an instructor come to your dealership, the skills learned in the classroom setting need to be reinforced in the dealership in order to generate successful results.

With almost 40 years of working hand-in-hand with dealerships, EFG Companies has perfected a specialized training model that goes far beyond typical sales training events that fuel sales teams temporarily without changing dealership culture or team behaviors and attitudes. Find out how our expert trainers can put your team on the fast-track to profitability.

Categories
Dealership Training

Don’t leave your service drive out of your sales cycle!

Contributing Author: Steve Roennau Vice President Compliance EFG Companies
Contributing Author:
Steve Roennau
Vice President
Compliance
EFG Companies

What is synonymous with General Motors and Toyota? Recall, right?

Four years ago, Toyota underwent a recall crisis on par with General Motors today. Now, Chrysler is also under investigation for faulty ignition switches. Are these the only car manufacturers who’ve felt the strain of a recall crisis? No.

In the 70s, Ford issued a staggering 21 million vehicle recall for its infamous “park-to-reverse” automatic transmission defect. In the 80s, Audi dealt with its own unintended acceleration defect with a series of car recalls for its 5000 model that nearly drove it out of the American market.

Do consumers still buy these cars? Yes.

In fact, according to General Motors, the ignition switch recalls have had no significant impact on new model sales. What does this mean for dealerships? Opportunity!

No matter their reason for visiting the service drive, when consumers bring their vehicles back to the dealership, there is an opportunity to convert those customers to a new car buyer. In fact, the more times a customer returns to a dealership for service, the more likely they are to make their next vehicle purchase with that dealership. Between 2010 and 2012, the percent of customers who were converted from used cars to new cars increased from 17 percent to 19.3 percent. As consumer income continues to increase, this rising trend can also be expected to increase.

In order to truly maximize this opportunity, dealerships can make small adjustments that create a big difference in capturing a greater share of wallet from this lucrative audience:

  • First, address your waiting area to ensure cleanliness and its appeal to both men and women. Remember that at least 50 percent of your service drive business is women, so double-check to ensure that available amenities are appealing to both audiences. In addition, outfit the waiting area with information on F&I products and monitors tuned to dealership and OEM videos.
  • Focus on making a good and lasting impression on new service drive customers by ensuring the service managers are adequately trained. Do they have a courteous and professional demeanor while providing efficient service?
  • Keep returning customers coming back by focusing on providing a positive experience each time they return to fortify the relationship.
  • Lastly, keep customer records accurate and up-to-date. Either the service manager can verify the information when first approaching customers, or the receptionist can when processing payments.

It’s that simple. Yet, many dealerships overlook this significant opportunity. With OEMs focusing on customer retention, dealerships need to fortify their service strategies both in sales and in their service drive. But, the customer experience doesn’t have to end when they leave. With accurate information in their CRM, dealerships can establish a contact campaign based on several different criteria including:

  • whether the customer is a recall customer or a regular service customer;
  • whether the customer is new to the dealership or returning; and,
  • if returning, how often they return and the age of their vehicle.

Rather than relying solely on the sales force approaching customers waiting for service, dealers can capitalize on customer retention by focusing on customer service and implementing a communication campaign designed to turn service drive customers into sales prospects.

In today’s market, the road to the sale is rarely a straight line. With almost 40 years of insight into the consumer mindset, EFG Companies knows how to turn your team into Top Performers. Along with our intense training curriculum and client engagement, our expert trainers can provide a full service-drive analysis, focusing on the efficiency of the department and their sales volume. EFG’s consultative approach to marketing equips dealerships with the consumer insights and marketing tools needed to increase store traffic, drive customer loyalty, and differentiate their business. Contact EFG to get started today.