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The Automotive Software Jan 5th, 2021 Article

7 Things You Are Missing Out on by Not Overtraining Your Team On How To Pitch A 1st Pencil...

And Why...

AVAILABLE CLASSES

By Philip Cheatham Jan 5th, 2021

Deals: This should be obvious. The obvious shortcut is hiring professional closers that we believe are already skilled. This is the go-to process outside of having a real process to teach what you want being said to your customers. You can already decipher which one I favor. It's the one with the up-front heavy investment, that takes a lot more time and work. It's also the much more profitable strategy. It's also the strategy that will make sure you get better year over year consistently and in a way you can predict and track...
Gross: This should be even more obvious. The big one here is that all our stores are a little different. I know we all think we have hardest customer. In reality we all do have a different dealership. We need to grow by learning our customers. We do this by sharing with each other whats happening at the table. We do this by refining and fine tuning a 1st pencil pitch. Hopefully we have one we are teaching verbatim and then allowing for additions over time. Hopefully we are looking at one another's results each morning.
Skills: We get skills by practicing. Nothing beats the real world. However, we bring the real world into role-playing. If we do this each morning, we get better a lot faster. Without practice, skills take much longer to develop.
Comradery: If you aren't training a 1st pencil pitch you want being said to each one of your customers, then your closers are hiding what they are saying from each other in most cases.
Leadership: The best way for people to get you to follow them is by consistent help and proof they have your best interest at heart. A great way to do this is by practicing your 1st pencil pitches endlessly. It will sometimes be hard, eventually you will be your teams Mr. Myagi.
Knowing where your teams skills even are: You don't know whats being said at your tables if you aren't putting your guys on the spot every morning to pitch a pencil to you. You just don't. The examples are endless. For example: Even your best closer you know knows how to close, has days they shouldn't be at work. Find out in the morning.
Teachable moments: If you don't know whats being done. How can you know what you need to teach?

Deals: This should be obvious. The obvious shortcut is hiring professional closers that we believe are already skilled. This is the go-to process outside of having a real process to teach what you want being said to your customers. You can already decipher which one I favor. It's the one with the up-front heavy investment, that takes a lot more time and work. It's also the much more profitable strategy. It's also the strategy that will make sure you get better year over year consistently and in a way you can predict and track. It will make sure you can hire green peas and move them up predictably, instead of relying on hiring an old dog with tricks you didn't even teach. This is unfortunate advice, but green peas are your best hires once you have processes. If you know how to teach anybody to pitch a 1st pencil properly, the way you want it to be pitched in your store, then you will also want to move up your salespeople that show potential into your closer positions. You won't want to hire randoms unless you really don't have anybody to look at which is rare, but I won't deny can still happen, occasionally. Normally, when you are teaching a 1st pencil pitch to your closers and role-playing every morning in your Make-A-Deal Meetings, you will inevitably have salespeople that already learn the store pitch before you even move them up. I of course teach a pitch thats been refined over a decade now, and I recommend it being refined further in every store that uses it. How to refine it is important. It gets refined by thinking about what your closers say the objections they couldn't overcome are in your daily Make-A-Deal Meeting. This is how we do next level things in our dealership and are eventually able to track and predict our growth in deals and...
Gross: This should be even more obvious. The big one here is that all our stores are a little different. I know we all think we have hardest customer (haha). In reality, we all do have a different dealership. We need to grow by learning our customers. We do this by sharing with each other whats happening at the table. We do this by refining and fine tuning a 1st pencil pitch. Hopefully we have one we are teaching verbatim and then allowing for additions over time. Hopefully we are looking at one another's results each morning in our daily Make-A-Deal Meeting. This is the same as practicing Free-Throws. If you know how to pitch your 1st pencil and shut up, its because you've practiced it. If you have guys saying incredibly stupid things like "this is just to take your temperature," thats because you aren't training on your 1st pencil. This is where all that money the manufacturer says your competitors are getting isn't getting picked up by you. You can train on 1st pencil with each person asking your customers for commitments inside your dealership for an hour a day and you could still do more and predictably watch your growth improve for years. Start today, please. Your gross can be predicted by the amount of times your closers have to come back to the desk. We train onto 1st Pencil everyday with each other about what happened yesterday to make the average time smaller and smaller. And yes, over time. We get better at this and it takes us less time to train our new closers. Wow! Quit the shortcuts, please.
Skills: We get skills by practicing. Nothing beats the real world. However, we bring the real world into role-playing. If we do this each morning, we get better a lot faster. Without practice, skills take much longer to develop. With practice, we gain confidence and reflexes. Analogies are endless. I don't think I even need to harp n this point at all it's so basic. Are you doing daily 1st pencil role-play with your staff that asks your customers for money? I'm just going to leave that there.
Comradery: If you aren't training a 1st pencil pitch you want being said to each one of your customers, then your closers are hiding what they are saying from each other in most cases. If you turn this around by placing them all in a room and making them pitch a 1st pencil to you and overcome role playing objections, your team will quickly start trying to help each other instead of hide their closing skills (haha).
Leadership: The best way for people to get you to follow them is by consistent help and proof they have your best interest at heart. A great way to do this is by practicing your 1st pencil pitches endlessly. It will sometimes be hard, eventually you will be your teams Mr. Myagi. Eventually, when your team is reflexively crushing objections after you never gave in to them asking "can we just skip today?" They will remember you made them get that good. They will see what you did there. You are no longer their 'boss". You are now the guy they would pick up and carry if you needed them. You gave them tools and skills on purpose that they will have forever. They know that. You did it by making them do what they didn't want to do at the time.
Knowing where your teams skills even are: You don't know whats being said at your tables if you aren't putting your guys on the spot every morning to pitch a pencil to you. You just don't. The examples are endless. For example: Even your best closer you know knows how to close, has days they shouldn't be at work. Find out in the morning. This is the example for the guy that does know whats being said without consistent 1st pencil roleplaying. You are working harder than you need to, first of all. Scheduling this activity makes it expected, so your team can prepare for the training everyday. It slaughters on the spot training you may be doing as a very efficient manager somewhere. You know I'm talking to you. Imagine scheduling this everyday and making them rehearse your pitch and role-play yesterdays objections. Its 10x your best work. It's organized is the only reason. If this is you. Do the meeting/training now, you will get the results you've been working so hard for much easier and quicker. If you aren't this guy, you need this meeting even more obviously. You have no idea whats even being said to your customers, which brings me to...
Teachable moments: If you don't know whats being said and done at the your tables... How can you know what you need to teach? What are you even shooting at? This is a no-brainer. Start the meeting by ordering a single 1st Pencil Training Course with me and getting a customized 1st pencil for your store. Now you have something to teach to your closers in your Make-A-Deal Meetings. Now you have something to rehearse and role-play. Now you know what your guys sound like. Your guys help each other because now they know where the other closers skillsets are. Now you have an infinite amount of teachable moments to develop skills, make more gross, know where your guys are at, increase their skillset from there and become somebody they will follow to the end of earth, let alone say what you ask them to, to your customer.