How to sell more cars in 2023

recorded live in the How To Sell More Cars town hall 12/7/2022

with guest Andrew Schultz from Theory of 5 University

for more free car sales training subscribe to the car sales podcast

Transcript:

Terry Lancaster 0:07
How to sell more cars Hey everybody, welcome to the How to sell more cars podcast. This is the big addition in the year December 7 Is today we're everybody's had the Christmas crunch going on. But we're here to talk about how to sell more cars in 2023 head I've got a couple of guests here with us today including a longtime sales trainer and and consultant and mentor Andrew Schultz. He's going to join us in just a second. Duck MacGyver just got almost two dads from Canada for just a second there, but I wanted to I wanted to give you what I think are the most important most important things and I'm gonna give you three things that I think every dealership needs to be doing right now to get ready for 2023. So with the idea in mind that the old Chinese proverb that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the second best time is today so we don't need to wait till 2023 to get ready for 2023 but we need to start doing some of the things that maybe we should have been doing more of all along. And number one for dealerships and I'm gonna get back where the mics mics in the room we have one specifically for salespeople. But for dealerships one most important things that I don't see a lot of us doing is Andy wants to see more than activating their employees as evangelists. It's got 100 200 300 employees, they've all got three or four things on Facebook and Instagram. They're all kids are in school. Like you get these huge built in evangelists for it's not your sales team. I'm talking to everybody. Just before about about activating that sales team motivating them using using some of your marketing dollars to motivate that sales team Goldman Sachs marketing knowledge and motivate everybody, everybody in the building. They're there to put them to use and that starts with giving them a an employee experience that they can help to they can't wait to tell everybody about. The second thing is your customers. Engage with the customers engage with your customers engage with business, we all love conversion sales, which kind of database you get people who do business with you for a long time and maybe they bring the car in to get serviced. They bought their vehicles. They know you and trust you and you hope and pray that they come back but we want to call seven times more to bring a new customer in the door than it does to maintain that so we need to engage more with him with with more marketing directly to them. direct mail for car dealers directly to our database email directly to our database activities and messages directly to our database because that's where there is always and number three this is this is the long tree. This is the thing that should have been started 20 years ago, because it's not an immediate thing it takes a little while that pays off pretty big if you can get it down and that search engine optimization car dealerships SEO working on that long post developing those websites, a lot of money to get people to visit that website. You pay a lot of money to show up at the top of Google paid search you know want to invest a little bit of money and showing up in search for free except it's not for free because it's work when you get a start. So that's the three things with the dealerships for the for the salespeople, to say anything. You have to make sure that everyone in your life build a dangerous to your life and that starts with making sure that everyone in your life knows that you sell cars. And more important than that the flip side reverse of it. Make sure everyone you sell cars to is the new standard on you don't need to check in. You don't need to check up with him if you're already in their lives if you're showing up. Just cause that's that's where the that's where the magic starts. Andrew How are you sir? Welcome aboard. Andrew is a longtime Mitsubishi trainer. He's now with the theory University. He helps salespeople and businesses create a life without leaving and still have a chance to live a life they create a business to give them an opportunity to live their life. Andrew,

How to sell more cars with Joe Girard's Rule of 250

Andrew Schultz 4:39

how are you? I'm doing great. Sorry. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Terry Lancaster 4:43
How you're more than welcome Telly let's let's start with you how to sell more cars in 2023. Once you did,

Andrew Schultz 4:49
I'll tell you what, it's real simple in my mind. It goes back to what Jeffrey Gitomer said, Jeffrey Gilmore, who wrote the sales funnel said customer satisfaction is absolutely worthless, right? He said it's worthless. Now when you think about that you said what do you mean it customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer Loyalty is priceless. And he said if you're not wowing your customers, and you're not getting your customers to refer customers to you see close they can't stop talking about the way you treated them and the way you sold a car and what they love of Apple, then you're missing out on a huge opportunity. If you were saying earlier, right? The car business is a heck of a lot easier if you work smart. So one of the things that I learned a long time ago from a guy that sold a few cars and he was in the Guinness Book of World Records now I want to throw out a little challenge. He was in Guinness Book of World Records for selling the most cars to anybody of all time. Who was that guy?

Terry Lancaster 5:55
Mike, you know the answer.

Andrew Schultz 5:57
You got Joe Girard, Michael, big thing. You got it. Now he had a rule in his book. Michael, if you remember that rule, you'd be one of the few people that got both of these questions right? In the 30 year sales career that I had so what was the rule that he had?

Unknown Speaker 6:20
Thing about while Joe with clients these days are hanging in your filing cabinet absorbs sloth

Unknown Speaker 6:32
out a bottle of whiskey and mustard anyway. So

Terry Lancaster 6:37
the Johari Window I remember is so Joe Girard say that again, he never sold a car in his life. He so Joe

Andrew Schultz 6:45
Girard. Yeah, that is very, very true. He sold Joe dropped the Joe's rule was to one equals 250 and what Joe meant by the end, one soul satisfying dream client could equal 250 potential customers. And I can tell you, you can point to any franchise they owe to Mitsubishi, Honda it doesn't matter. You point to the franchise and you show me the number one sales consultant I'm gonna ask one question, what percentage of customers do you have to repeat? And that number one salesperson is gonna say 70% They don't take fresh anymore. They don't live off the door. They have their own client base and they absolutely have their name and that client base in front of their customers and they do some things that I have five things I have five tips, the theory of five, five to every right. Number one, connect with your clients. Teach your clients how to sell the car for you. How did he introduce you to their prospective clients what I mean by that is just training your client on how to interview Hey, if you wouldn't mind I would like you to introduce me to your client. So connect with your clients number two know their behavior style. Know their behavior style. We have four behavior styles. I mean, people understand the behavior type of their client that goes a long, long way and then I say listen with your eyes. That's a little different. Listen to the ears. Listen with your eyes, because we don't communicate with words and tone. We communicate with them. So watch the customer's body language, watch your client's body language then I say use a picture. So seven system. So there's six things that people really care about when they're buying a car. And it's called patience with a tip the P is performance. Know what the performance are looking for A's appearance. Some people by appearance, see as confidence. Some people won't buy a car unless they drive it and sit in it. So that's very important to the economy and value. Some people will never with electric cars and hybrids. And things like that. Know the economy values. The benefit of reliability and warranty. Know what your warranties are the reliability and sec. Yeah half the new safety features inside out upside down. And the last one were the Pacers D is technology. If you know your current technology is better than your customer. It's sad sometimes people walk into the dealership we know a little bit more about the technology when I say that the salespeople really really know your technology. Know what the hybrids are know what your electric car ranges are, know your technologies. Well, your customers will those products they're going to start talking about so that's

How to sell more cars on social media in 2023

Terry Lancaster 9:45
part of what I got to the very first one to to connect with your customers. Connect with your customers and train them to to be able to refer you in the way that is most likely to generate business. So tell us what that is. Why What steps do we need to take with the new customers? So make sure we're on the tip of their tongue? Yeah,

Andrew Schultz 10:07
I used to tell people listen, I'm not a salesperson. I'm a I'm a certified sales consultant. And I'm going to make sure that your client gets treated the right way. I'm going to sell them the right car. I'm going to spend the right amount of money. So I'm going to make it really easy for you. I am not going to try to sell them something they don't need to do like the way you were treated. So do your family you know, that might be looking for a Mitsubishi in the next month. If you can introduce me to that I would greatly appreciate that. And that's it. Just connect with the clients the future clients with your courage. And sales people don't do that on a consistent basis. They sell the car and they they deliver the car but they're a kind of a little lacks and asking the client to introduce them to other clients. Who doesn't really well real estate agents. Real estate agents are always looking for a referral. They're always looking for somebody to sell houses. But in the current business, sometimes we only do that as not so connect with your current clients to connect with the other 250 people that day. Now that's that one equals 250

Terry Lancaster 11:26
Yeah, that does one equals 250 and two drugs day and 1970s. I'm noticing that Facebook and Instagram. So 250 Maybe a little on the low side right now.

Andrew Schultz 11:36
While the app I have 5000 Facebook friends, so just think about that. You know, connect with your customers on Facebook. Asked the client Hey, would you mind doing a little testimonial for me on your Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn account? Would you mind just taking a photo with me and you made your view I'll take a photo of you with the card that he posted for you. So connect with your client based on how they want to be connected. So if the client is on Facebook, great. They're so really good. You're, like you said stay in our life during their social life. Their social media life, right?

How to get more referrals in 2023

Terry Lancaster 12:19

Yeah. 100% first thing in the morning with a fetus. For their head hits the pillow. They're scrolling the phone, so you can be on there. And I think a lot of it is we're expecting referrals and salespeople. So most of them are never going to ask for anything other other than the ones who are they start with Hey, man, once you send me some of your friends, I'll give you 100 bucks or something like that. But the way you phrased the question is is the emphasis who do you know? Who do you know who in your life is looking for a vehicle right now? And maybe give them some some pointers to people you go to church with people, people, you people you go to school with people you work with? Who in your family is going to be it's gonna be mad because you got a brand new car and FBO who specifically might be looking for supporters as elusive or which while in their mind they look they're sort of falling away and never be able to come back to I should refer them to much less ever actually.

Andrew Schultz 13:20
Yeah, absolutely. I you know, I know a lot of sales consultant system the Euro send out for Christmas or holiday cards. Right? And I used to tell my guys you can do that. You can do that. But I'll tell you what's even better. So if you have a client that has a car for a year or two, send them a little bow touch on I'm telling you that client is going to get that little box open that up and thank you for from now until the cows come but more importantly, he's going to go to his holiday celebration. So whoever gets with myself, send me a little bottle and punch up. I was really interesting. Do something that browser client sent me something that's really going to be more beneficial to you. No, I say give to get get to get right.

Terry Lancaster 14:13
You got anything you want to add to the conversation? Any questions? No, I

Michael J Smith 14:19
mean I love that idea that you know, it costs about nine Boggs. So I mean I was one thing that I'm doing the math exam people are like how all the clients from junior year, but you know something I've been thinking about lately is putting a little bit of each mission away. So

Sell More Cars in 2023 with Birthday and Christmas Cards

Andrew Schultz 14:47
I'll give you I'll give you a tip for that. You don't want to average you know most of the top selling sales results in sell about 200 cars five years and spouse cars. But out of that 1000 cars what I used to do like I used to have a old five or older men that roll events. I'd have a red yellow green dot, the red dot and somebody I'd hover over the yellow dot somebody was on the fence. They weren't really referring clients to me, but I like them. They like me. I'm gonna stay in touch with green dots. They were the Go Ducks. They were people that were referring cars to me. They got bottles of ketchup. I would spend my money wisely, spending money and I help the people the most that will clients that that will really wanted to work with me now I did I sent cards in the red, yellow and greens I send everybody Christmas and birthday cards. But those those people were special that were referring people to Me sent them blue bottle

Terry Lancaster 15:52
advisory evangelists. That's that's just what I'm saying that it takes it takes it takes a lot of know like and trust people to do business with you. But it takes an enormous amount of luck and trust for them to refer business to you. So if you can find those people who are willing to refer business to you know like you and trust you enough to send you to their mother in law. Has anyone ever been to near the end of her mother in law? It takes her mother in law that you gotta you need to reward that behavior that gets the behavior gets rewarded, gets repeated as a as a fundamental rule.

Andrew Schultz 16:29
Absolutely. You know, I also have short sales. I used to ask them, how much are you paying referrals? Because if you're not paying a lot referrals, first of all, secondly, it's a great way to track your repeat referral business. So if you're really tracking or repeat, you are going to have an opportunity to sell a lot more.

Terry Lancaster 16:58
You're going to you're going to have that list. Absolutely. Let me let me ask you this because I'm in the middle of Tennessee and it's the craziest thing, but bird dog fees are illegal in Tennessee.

Unknown Speaker 17:10
Yeah, I'm sending out a follow up touch up. Yeah,

Terry Lancaster 17:13
yeah. So what do you do? What do you do there? Same as what you send them the bank?

Unknown Speaker 17:17
Yeah, I'm some pain and you have a gift card and you give them a gift card.

Terry Lancaster 17:21
You know, it depends on how good your lawyer is, but everything's what you can get away with. It depends on who argued and how the judge feels that day. Yeah, you know, charges but the real

SEO for car dealers

Andrew Schultz 17:30
thing that people really want is great service. They want a great delivery. They want a sales consultant that knows the car upside down. Let's say that the the manufacturer came out with some kind of a change in the radio system, some kind of a change in the app. Maybe they upgraded the customers will let him know. Hey, listen, we changed the app. Now you can set the air conditioner heating system. You come into the dealership, I'll show you how that works. And we have a new remote start system. You know, I know it's getting a little chilly in Tennessee. You may want to think about giving that as a gift to your husband or to one of your friends that may be looking for that special gift to give someone we used to sell send out a little card with the top 10 accessories to gift the Christmas. It was a great way for the Parks Department to sell some of their their accessories but more importantly the salesperson could be in front of with a suggestion to their client to give a gift to the husband or wife that's driving the car. So you gotta be a little creative with that kind of stuff. But

Terry Lancaster 18:46
as I mentioned, SEO is beginning so there's a great SEO blog post for next year. Is it the number one good thing but you know tip 10 break down parts for the big red holiday gets reports from everybody. Absolutely. Absolutely. We got about five minutes left to go while Andrew I want to I want to ask you this because I know with theory of five you guys are the five is five different areas of life and and let the work life balance how it gets tossed around and I don't really like that term because I don't think like that, but you guys are. You're you're about making sure that you you live a full life in every area of your life as we go into the holidays and as we go into the new year. We're in sort of a lot of salespeople listening how can they make their life better so that they can make their sales? Well, I'll

Andrew Schultz 19:34
tell you one thing for sure that person I learned along the way is looking at somebody doing something that you respect or you admire. Let's say that maybe you need to lose, you know, 30 3040 pounds and you see that guy that's at the dealership or one of your clients or one of your customers he's in great shape. So you might say hey, would you mind mentoring me? I want to get myself in shape like Uj because that's what Corcyra zero death first pass you know somebody at the gym, would you mind mentoring me and weightlifting, I want to really get fit. So find other people to be coach and mentor you. That's why I have Andrew Schultz mentor coach, because I've mentored people in those five areas of their life and I teach people how to become coaches to help coach people. So my tip is that sales consultants tried to do everything themselves some wow and introduce yourself to the five neighboring dealerships the number one sales result that some of those dealerships network with other top sales professionals. Don't try to do everything alone. Wow. Try to find a mentor or coach a spiritual mentor. A business and finance mentor. A you know if your marriage is you know, if you're having problems with your marriage, go try and find a mentor or someone to mentor you. Good, good place to start with being a purchasing theory advisor but there are some excellent, excellent tips. We also have it in a PDF version. You can download the PDF and I'm sure if any of your listener listeners send me an email, right theory of five university@gmail.com and just put my attention I'll send that in the free ebook and PDF.

Terry Lancaster 21:35
Just reach out because I remember this conversation with Crusader Kings on podcast a couple of years ago right after we came out. So there are a lot of managers in the car business and other businesses do random ones in the car business and I know the mentor who will look you in the eye and tell you you know I don't necessarily want my salespeople to be to be all down I want them to be open I want to be in debt so that they work harder I want them to be struggle a little bit I'm here that Jimmy cheeseburgers and fire and and Red Bull and fireball at their desk as long as they're closing deals and sometimes they close more deals more desirable sitting at their desk. So how does it come into the bottom line, which is what a lot of people are going to end up doing. How does it make more money?

Sell More Cars in 2023 by creating happy employees & happy customers

Andrew Schultz 22:21
No attorney I think that's old way. I really do. I think the new modern dealer and the new modern manager understands that if he invest into that asset if he looks at that sales consultant as an investment and invest in that young man or young woman and invest in their health and and invest in their training and invest in keeping them balanced. You know, an unhappy employee or employee that doesn't have a good solid foundation is not going to be a long term employee. That's short term thinking. I think long term thinking if you will I work with the Faulkner organization fell off. And I can tell you that their turnover was minimal, minimal and minimal turnover. When you've worked with that company, you stayed with that unit leave that company why because you were treated you were treated fairly. And they invested in training, they invested in the right pay plan. They invested for the right time off and they wanted to make sure that you are healthy. Well dream employee and when you do that, I think your sales speak for themselves.

Terry Lancaster 23:40
I think that's how you sell more cars in 2023. Happy employees create happy customers and the employees and the customers, whether it's the rule of 250 or the rule of 5000 this year, they've all got friends, they've all got family and they all drive cars. So treat everybody like a king. You got anything you want. Anything last words out the door.

Michael J Smith 24:07
I just want to say thanks so much to you guys. Andrew. It was tremendous talk tonight. And I'm sending that email right now. Michael, you look at

Andrew Schultz 24:21
it. Yeah, we'll send you the PDF, my friend. Enjoy it. You have any questions. I'll put my phone number in there for you.

Terry Lancaster 24:30
Andrew Schultz for the theory of five Michael J. Smith. Thank you for tuning in. Andrew, any any last words and demeanor out the door? You know,

Andrew Schultz 24:38
I just think that if you just do the right thing for yourself, for your family, for your customers. You can't go okay, just do the right thing. Do what's in your heart that you can go That's right

Terry Lancaster 24:52
Be nice. Be nice, work hard. And Merry Christmas, everybody. I'll see you next year.

Who the %@#! is Terry Lancaster?

I help car dealers and salespeople sell more cars, make more money, get more reviews, more referrals, and more repeat business by building deeper, stronger, more authentic relationships. I’ve worked with thousands of dealer principals, managers, and salespeople providing proven strategies for making the cash register ring.

Over the years, I've helped thousands of dealers sell millions of cars by putting the right words in the right order to tell the right story. How can I help you tell yours?

I've been told my #1 best selling car sales book How To Sell More Cars has is "like crack for car dealers," but it's a lot cheaper.

I’ve been featured in Automotive News & Forbes, spoken at the NADA national convention and from the TedX stage, and came in second place at my Eighth Grade debate championship.

Winner Winner. Chicken Dinner!

In my personal life, I've survived Cancer... twice. I've had a gun held to my head and a knife held to my throat. I've been inside a building that was hit by a tornado, onboard one boat that sank and two planes that I was sure were about to crash. 

I lived through three teenage daughters and I've been married over 35 years... in a row!

When I'm not battling for truth, justice and the American Way, I spend most of my free time, like every other middle-aged, overweight, native southerner, at the ice rink playing hockey.