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Posted June 15, 2011
Managers! If you want your team to succeed, help them Fail Perfectly…
When we go to a baseball game we lean forward in our seats when the team’s #1 hitter approaches the plate knowing we stand a good
chance of seeing an exciting hit. The funny part of this is the best hitter normally fails to get on base 70% of the time. Fortunately, this does
not discourage him from using perfect form, timing and concentration. The best hitters have learned that the real key to getting a hit is to
perform perfectly each time they step to the plate. By doing so, if the pitcher happens to be out of sync you can really do great things with
your bat.
When you think of the best of the best Internet Operations the success measurement most often quoted is close rate. Leading Internet
Dealers habitually deliver close rates in the 15 – 25% range, which means their equivalent failure rate is 75 – 85%. Great managers
understand just like great hitters that the best way to succeed is to respond perfectly each time. This is the true essence of achieving great
results with the Internet and even if the customer throws a curve, the best Internet Salespeople still find a way to engage and sell the
customer eventually.
Coaching and Technology
We’ve found the best method for manager’s to coach their teams is to be better oriented to the dealership lead management than their team
members. Too often we find that sales managers are resistive to using CRM / LMT technology on a daily basis to supervise their teams
process completion and communication tactics. This is a big miss and makes it difficult for your team to perform perfectly each time. No
one enjoys having someone stand over them all the time while they are working but we’ve found most ultra successful Internet teams have
a remarkable amount of daily oversight by their sales managers or general managers. If I know someone is watching me I generally give a
better effort. Maybe it’s just me, but I suspect most humans feel similar.
Given that the best performers generate failure rates in the 75 – 85% range when it comes to Internet close rates one has to figure that poor
performers could really benefit from deal by deal interaction with their managers. A retro method we recommend for dealerships that has
proven to drive up sales and profits is to simply print out the lead and walk to the desk and get coached prior to calling or emailing a
prospect. Once the rhythm is established and trust is built, it is easy to move back to using the CRM / LMT to save time and then you can talk
by phone or in person without having to print out the lead.
The technology is really simple to use and in short order we find most sales managers keep the CRM / LMT open all day long so they are
aware immediately of fresh opportunities. We’ve seen some of the most resistive managers eventually become the best teachers on how
to use the CRM / LMT.
Management Curiosity
We’ve found that once sales managers get a taste for how effective their guidance can be in gaining appointments and sales from online
prospects they really get charged up. If you are a manager and you are just curious about how all this works and want to prepare for the
future where most clients will start the deal online simply sit down with your team and have them do a little show and tell. Ask them to teach
you how to read the lead, where it came from, what kind of comments and questions they had and what approach they plan to take. My
guess is that you will coach them right away on a strategy or tactic you think might work. Before you know it you’ll want to look at every lead
as a sales opportunity and you’ll be asking your team to respond perfectly. The net effect will be perfect responses that will generate more
gross and a bigger paycheck.
Give it a try and I am certain you’ll end up being one of the best of the best.
David Kain
Managers! If you want your team to succeed, help them Fail Perfectly…
When we go to a baseball game we lean forward in our seats when the team’s #1 hitter approaches the plate knowing we stand a good
chance of seeing an exciting hit. The funny part of this is the best hitter normally fails to get on base 70% of the time. Fortunately, this does
not discourage him from using perfect form, timing and concentration. The best hitters have learned that the real key to getting a hit is to
perform perfectly each time they step to the plate. By doing so, if the pitcher happens to be out of sync you can really do great things with
your bat.
When you think of the best of the best Internet Operations the success measurement most often quoted is close rate. Leading Internet
Dealers habitually deliver close rates in the 15 – 25% range, which means their equivalent failure rate is 75 – 85%. Great managers
understand just like great hitters that the best way to succeed is to respond perfectly each time. This is the true essence of achieving great
results with the Internet and even if the customer throws a curve, the best Internet Salespeople still find a way to engage and sell the
customer eventually.
Coaching and Technology
We’ve found the best method for manager’s to coach their teams is to be better oriented to the dealership lead management than their team
members. Too often we find that sales managers are resistive to using CRM / LMT technology on a daily basis to supervise their teams
process completion and communication tactics. This is a big miss and makes it difficult for your team to perform perfectly each time. No
one enjoys having someone stand over them all the time while they are working but we’ve found most ultra successful Internet teams have
a remarkable amount of daily oversight by their sales managers or general managers. If I know someone is watching me I generally give a
better effort. Maybe it’s just me, but I suspect most humans feel similar.
Given that the best performers generate failure rates in the 75 – 85% range when it comes to Internet close rates one has to figure that poor
performers could really benefit from deal by deal interaction with their managers. A retro method we recommend for dealerships that has
proven to drive up sales and profits is to simply print out the lead and walk to the desk and get coached prior to calling or emailing a
prospect. Once the rhythm is established and trust is built, it is easy to move back to using the CRM / LMT to save time and then you can talk
by phone or in person without having to print out the lead.
The technology is really simple to use and in short order we find most sales managers keep the CRM / LMT open all day long so they are
aware immediately of fresh opportunities. We’ve seen some of the most resistive managers eventually become the best teachers on how
to use the CRM / LMT.
Management Curiosity
We’ve found that once sales managers get a taste for how effective their guidance can be in gaining appointments and sales from online
prospects they really get charged up. If you are a manager and you are just curious about how all this works and want to prepare for the
future where most clients will start the deal online simply sit down with your team and have them do a little show and tell. Ask them to teach
you how to read the lead, where it came from, what kind of comments and questions they had and what approach they plan to take. My
guess is that you will coach them right away on a strategy or tactic you think might work. Before you know it you’ll want to look at every lead
as a sales opportunity and you’ll be asking your team to respond perfectly. The net effect will be perfect responses that will generate more
gross and a bigger paycheck.
Give it a try and I am certain you’ll end up being one of the best of the best.
David Kain
Social Horticulture…Farming for Social Media Success
We live in an interesting world these days and one where we have very little patience to allow things to develop naturally. In the car
business, this is especially true. Most dealers and dealership employees want things to happen today! Buy Now! Trade Now! Sell
Something Today! As a result, the current natural growth pattern occurring in Social Media is equally intriguing and frustrating for dealers.
Whenever I talk to dealers about planting the seeds for future results with Social Media the common reply is “Nobody’s selling cars on
Facebook yet so why worry about it.” That’s certainly a practical response and one I would have given when I operated our family dealership.
Why waste time on Social Media now for a sale that may never come when there are cars to be sold today. We even teach in our process
training that the right strategy is to focus most of your time and effort on the prospects that engage us with a request online.
Planting the Seeds
I still feel this is the right approach, yet I recognize clearly that it’s time to plant the seeds for an Automotive sales and service Future,
integrated with Social Media Marketing at the core. My own children have me convinced that their buying habits and communication paths
will be strongly influenced by Social Media. We like to share with our clients developing their Internet and BDC operations that they need to
get ready for Social Media Marketing because it will happen “slower than we want, yet quicker than we are ready.”
We learned how to do this in elementary school
In our elementary school each year the teachers in the 1st grade would always have their class plant a bean seed in a cup each spring so
the class could all experience the moment when the simple little seed became a live plant. I remember my own frustration when I planted
my own bean seed, added water, put it in the sun and a few hours later there was still not a plant. The next morning I checked again and the
next day and the next and still no bean plant. How frustrating.
Like the rest of my classmates I would sit around and complain that this was not worth the effort because it was taking too long to produce.
Sounds a lot like how we feel about Social Media in dealerships. We create a Facebook page, maybe Tweet a few time or write a few posts
on a blog and expect someone to lay down and buy a car. Just like it was important for our teachers to keep us focused on preparing the
soil and watering each day, it’s up to the Dealer Principal and General Manager to encourage their team to keep at it. Add a post everyday,
make it valuable to those who “like” you and before you know it you’ll one day have a buyer, and then two, three and it will just take off.
Do it yourself and enjoy the fruit of your labor
If you feel like me that there are so many options that it can be overwhelming consider the Crawl, Walk and then Run model. You don’t have
to be all things to all people immediately. That’s why I don’t like the full service Social Media offerings in the market. They don’t have the
genuine perspective that comes from a dealership owner, manager or employee. We see this with eNewsletters. When a Dealership
writes their own articles and overrides the pre written, generic content they have a high click rate. This is what we are noticing with
dealerships that write their own content, even if they miss a day or two in between. The comments and likes are much greater. You don’t
have to crest out in a month. This is going to be around for a long time so you’ll want to be measured and produce results ongoing.
Red Bull and Just Chill
A lot of this rush to get to the top of the Social Media Mountain could be a symptom of our Red Bell, high-octane culture. I was really glad to
read today about a new product offered as a counter to the caffeinated jolt…it’s called Just Chill. Made from natural ingredients (sure) that
allegedly sooth the nerves and help you relax. I think that’s the lesson I am trying to get across with this article. Be less Red Bull and more
Just Chill. You’ll eventually have large Social base to engage and sell to for many years to come.
Hope this helps you put it in perspective. We can always help if you need some guidance to get things going. We like to teach you how and
let you grow your own Social Circle…that way its genuine, it’s effective and you’ll enjoy it for years to come.
David Kain
We live in an interesting world these days and one where we have very little patience to allow things to develop naturally. In the car
business, this is especially true. Most dealers and dealership employees want things to happen today! Buy Now! Trade Now! Sell
Something Today! As a result, the current natural growth pattern occurring in Social Media is equally intriguing and frustrating for dealers.
Whenever I talk to dealers about planting the seeds for future results with Social Media the common reply is “Nobody’s selling cars on
Facebook yet so why worry about it.” That’s certainly a practical response and one I would have given when I operated our family dealership.
Why waste time on Social Media now for a sale that may never come when there are cars to be sold today. We even teach in our process
training that the right strategy is to focus most of your time and effort on the prospects that engage us with a request online.
Planting the Seeds
I still feel this is the right approach, yet I recognize clearly that it’s time to plant the seeds for an Automotive sales and service Future,
integrated with Social Media Marketing at the core. My own children have me convinced that their buying habits and communication paths
will be strongly influenced by Social Media. We like to share with our clients developing their Internet and BDC operations that they need to
get ready for Social Media Marketing because it will happen “slower than we want, yet quicker than we are ready.”
We learned how to do this in elementary school
In our elementary school each year the teachers in the 1st grade would always have their class plant a bean seed in a cup each spring so
the class could all experience the moment when the simple little seed became a live plant. I remember my own frustration when I planted
my own bean seed, added water, put it in the sun and a few hours later there was still not a plant. The next morning I checked again and the
next day and the next and still no bean plant. How frustrating.
Like the rest of my classmates I would sit around and complain that this was not worth the effort because it was taking too long to produce.
Sounds a lot like how we feel about Social Media in dealerships. We create a Facebook page, maybe Tweet a few time or write a few posts
on a blog and expect someone to lay down and buy a car. Just like it was important for our teachers to keep us focused on preparing the
soil and watering each day, it’s up to the Dealer Principal and General Manager to encourage their team to keep at it. Add a post everyday,
make it valuable to those who “like” you and before you know it you’ll one day have a buyer, and then two, three and it will just take off.
Do it yourself and enjoy the fruit of your labor
If you feel like me that there are so many options that it can be overwhelming consider the Crawl, Walk and then Run model. You don’t have
to be all things to all people immediately. That’s why I don’t like the full service Social Media offerings in the market. They don’t have the
genuine perspective that comes from a dealership owner, manager or employee. We see this with eNewsletters. When a Dealership
writes their own articles and overrides the pre written, generic content they have a high click rate. This is what we are noticing with
dealerships that write their own content, even if they miss a day or two in between. The comments and likes are much greater. You don’t
have to crest out in a month. This is going to be around for a long time so you’ll want to be measured and produce results ongoing.
Red Bull and Just Chill
A lot of this rush to get to the top of the Social Media Mountain could be a symptom of our Red Bell, high-octane culture. I was really glad to
read today about a new product offered as a counter to the caffeinated jolt…it’s called Just Chill. Made from natural ingredients (sure) that
allegedly sooth the nerves and help you relax. I think that’s the lesson I am trying to get across with this article. Be less Red Bull and more
Just Chill. You’ll eventually have large Social base to engage and sell to for many years to come.
Hope this helps you put it in perspective. We can always help if you need some guidance to get things going. We like to teach you how and
let you grow your own Social Circle…that way its genuine, it’s effective and you’ll enjoy it for years to come.
David Kain
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