Negotiating can be done in a professional manner that can increase customer satisfaction while helping to protect both parties’ interests.

Let’s first look at some of the problems that give negotiating a bad name and then look at the solutions. A lack of training in negotiating in the automotive industry has put sales people at a disadvantage. Usually, a sales person is taught how to negotiate in a learn-as-you-go method. Although all learning must be accomplished by doing, some preparation has to be done to make the learning experience more effective. All sales people and managers should go through a course on basic and advanced negotiating. Assuming that sales managers can automatically teach your sales people to negotiate professionally is asking for trouble. How did the managers learn to negotiate?

Sales people should be taught the expected procedures. I like to call these routing procedures. Routing procedures will define everyone’s responsibilities, from the moment a customer is greeted until they are delivered, including the necessary paperwork and who initiates what. Included in the routing procedures are items known as, black and white items. Black and white items are the things that should never vary at your dealership. These items are to be defined by your top management and can include such things as not quoting discounted prices on the lot or never low-balling on price.

Another source of problems in negotiating is the misuse of traditional negotiating techniques. The “higher authority technique” is a technique of always deferring to a higher authority for a decision. The technique is a solid negotiation tactic that has been run into the ground by automotive people. Having your sales people run to the manager more than once or twice in negotiations is a crime. Not giving the sales person any latitude or decision-making capability in negotiations leads to the yo-yo effect that creates mistrust in the sales person and customer.

When is the last time a sales person in your dealership was taught what to do when a customer asks for a lower down payment, lower payment, higher trade values or a reduction of the sales price. Most veteran sales people in dealerships all over the country could not verbally and written give you at least three or four steps to each one of the above objections without having to think or blink. How many objections in negotiation are there? Most objections fall into only a few categories. Have your sales people role played recently on those objections and the potential answer to them? Example: “Mr. Customer, we would be happy to lower your monthly budget $50 a month. Did you want to go 60 months instead of 48, or put $1,500 more cash investment, or look at the car with about $50 a month less in equipment, or look at a lease/Smart Buy program? Which would be best for you?” Whether you like my words or there are some others you prefer is not as important as having a way to handle the objections and practicing them over and over until the sales people know their negotiating skills.

“He or she who prepares the most, wins the most.” A large part of negotiating is knowing when and how to negotiate, as well as being prepared for all situations. The tragic death of John Kennedy Jr. might have been prevented with more preparation. Although negotiating may not be life or death for a sales person, it can feel like life or death to a sales person that wants to help his or her customer and doesn’t know how.

The following are few simple negotiating techniques:

1. Flinch - always flinch at any proposal or counter proposal.

2. Split the Split - When customers offer to split the difference, offer back to split their proposal again. Example: $3,000 apart $1,500 split offered $ 2,250 your counter

3. Bracket proposals - If your desired gross profit is $3,000 and the customer offers you $1,500, propose back as much above your desired profit as they proposed below, example: $4,500 gross would be the same $1,500 amount above your desired gross, as they had offered below. Most likely they will offer to split the difference and it also lends credence to your offer.

4. Give/get - Try always to get something in return for giving something. This will stop the customer from nibbling and eroding your gross. If you don’t use give/get, you will not only give away all your gross but will also create a shopper.

Everyone negotiates everyday. Whether it’s on vehicles, houses, relationships or pay plans etc., everyone negotiates on things we sometimes didn’t even realize we had negotiated on. Somehow people walk away from negotiating things other than automobiles feeling extremely positive about the process. Why? I invite you to ask how you would feel negotiating at your dealership and what you could do to make it better for the customer, sales person, manager and dealership.

Every year at the National Automobile Dealers Convention, the exhibit hall is full of Customer Relationship Management and Business Development Center companies displaying their wares. Dealers spend massive amounts of money in a frenzy to buy the “magic button” CRM or BDC solution for many reasons. Unfortunately most of those reasons aren’t valid. Putting great tools in the hands of below average people with below average processes and little to no accountability equals a waste of money.

Let’s look at some of the underlying reasons why dealers buy these tools. Dealers see their dealer friends, fellow twenty group members and competitors buying these tools and feel the peer pressure to “keep up with the Jones’s.” Dealers start reading trade magazines and attending programs where a lot of the conversation is around customer relationship management and feel the force of momentum around this subject.

Unfortunately, I have been in thousands of dealerships across the country and can say without a doubt that in the majority of dealerships, between 80-90% of CRM’s or BDC’s functionality is not being used. Great technology and great tools alone do not move a traditional dealership into the new age of selling. In most dealerships with CRM tools, incremental sales and service numbers are not improved and massive amounts of money are being wasted.

In almost thirty years in the business, I have witnessed the majority of dealerships putting massive amounts of time, energy and money on acquiring new customers and giving only lip service around the importance of existing customers. All research, data and plain logic shows that putting the emphasis on your existing customer base first will reward you more than any other single thing you can do.

I conduct interviews with dealer’s everyday and it’s hard to find a dealer who actually knows what their dealerships repeat sales numbers look like. Almost none of the dealers I interview can tell me what their sale to service retention percentage is. Very few dealers can give a detailed explanation of their CRM process and how it is carried out and even to what degree it is carried out. Embarrassingly, very few dealers can tell me specifically and convincingly why a customer should buy from their dealership versus their competitors.

The traditional entrepreneurial dealer focused only on push driven sales approaches is dead. Dealers have to be better business people than ever before. Gone are the days of being successful in spite of you. The margin for ignorance and operating error is slim.

Bury your old dealership and operating approach as you know it. Take the time to step away from your dealership and evaluate what you are doing versus what needs to be done. Evaluate the 4 P’s of your business – People, Process, Product and Positioning. Evaluate all the tools and technology you use and the effectiveness of those tools and the way they are being used or most likely not being used. You must integrate people and technology together into a cohesive sales and marketing process.

Many dealers will need to come to the conclusion that they will never be able to set up a traditional process with people carrying out all the functions they want them to. Most of your salespeople and managers are not capable or willing to do all the things you want them to do. The truth for those dealerships is that they never have and they never will. If this is your dealership, you may have to let go of your ego and design a process with job descriptions that can actually succeed. You may decide to remove some of the traditional functions and narrow the focus of each person on your team. I have often heard dealers say, “I expect my managers or salespeople to do these things.” In return, I always ask the dealer, “Do they, and if so how often?” Most of the time, the answer is either no or very little.

It’s very clear, gone are the days where a dealer can accept that expectations are not being met. You must either improve your people and accountability of those people or completely redesign your dealership with processes and benchmarks that can and will be executed and monitored. I invite dealers to stop playing victim by blaming your people for not executing. You hired them, you set up the process and you created the accountability or lack of it. Therefore, it’s your responsibility and your job to fix it.

To receive a F*REE Special Report titled “New Generation” and a series of articles around The Death of the Traditional Dealership” and “The Death of the Traditional Salesperson” email me at info@tewart.com with “New Generation” in the subject line.

Mark Tewart is a sales and automotive industry expert. Mark is also a professional speaker, trainer, consultant, entrepreneur and author of the best seller, How To Be A Sales Superstar. Mark is a member of The National Speakers Association and The Authors Guild

Do you feel like you are missing out on something? Are you confused as to what the next step is in making your dealership successful? It’s a different ballgame than it was even just a few years ago. The traditional dealership is dead and you must bury it to prosper in the future.

For years the car business could be a very forgiving business. There was room for a lot of error in a dealership and yet a dealership could still be profitable. Those days are gone. Dealerships cannot be run in only a “seat of the pants”, entrepreneurial fashion anymore. To be successful dealerships have to be measured intensely in four areas - People, Process, Product and Positioning.

People - You must choose a path that works for your dealership philosophy. You must recruit people on a full time basis based upon want, not need. The leadership of a dealership must have a written and executed game plan for recruiting that utilizes online services, job fairs, colleges, tech schools, high schools, web sites, micro-sites, social media, newspaper, mass media and more.

Each dealership needs a detailed plan that includes a) interview questions, b) number of interviews c) personnel trained to interview d) testing methods for potential job skill match e) screening methods f) follow up methods g) initial and ongoing training methods for new hires

Process - Each dealership should have a written and executed process for every part of the dealership - sales process, internet lead process, marketing process, service process, parts process, manager process, used car inventory process etc. As an example, the selling process must be reviewed to make sure it is up to date and matches today’s marketplace. Most sales processes being used today were created in the 50’s and 60’s and have changed only slightly. Meanwhile, for the customer, everything has changed. Information gathering, overall knowledge, shopping process, volume of choices, expectations, value perceptions, lessening of brand loyalty are all things that have changed dramatically.

Every dealership needs to review their process based upon TLC - Think Like a Customer. What are you currently doing in your dealership process that lessens customer trust or ease of shopping/buying. Most dealerships are living in the stone-age when it comes to something as simple as the meeting and greeting of the customer. Nothing in your current process is sacred and the mantra for many things should be “just let it go.”

Product - The days of “Stack’em deep and sell them cheap” are over. Your new and used inventory must be monitored daily using analytic systems and technology that measures not only your inventory but others and market conditions. Many dealers have fought using any type of turn system even though simple mathematics proved you would be better off doing so. Well, the tide has turned again. Turn systems by themselves are now outdated and can even lower your dealerships ROI without other factors involved. Each vehicle is an investment just like a stock or mutual fund and must be analyzed, bought, priced, marketed, sold and eliminated using several conditions. Just saying that you have a 45 day turn system is not good enough anymore.

Positioning - Gone are the days of running display newspaper ads and waiting for traffic to arrive. Your dealership must have a dealership strategy that combines market positioning. Selling vehicles based upon price only will not create long term success. Successful dealers will no longer be able to delegate all of their marketing to an advertising strategy without educating themselves on the marketing and positioning aspects of their dealership.

Dealers will have to massively educate themselves on things such as, direct response marketing methods, copyrighting, multi-step campaigns, integration of on-line and off-line methods, social media, continual customer relationship building strategies, and sales to service continuity programs and retention. Dealers will learn that many advertising agencies do not understand any of these things and simply create lousy to mediocre production and buy the media. Without a well thought strategy using intentional congruence with all of the above mentioned factors you cannot be successful in this and future marketplace.

In the last year, I have asked hundreds of dealers the following questions:

#1 - What are your overall sales to service retention numbers and percentages beyond a first free oil change?

#2 - What are your number of inactive customers and what percentage is that to your overall customer base?

#3 - What is your planned and executed strategy for a continuity program to keep your customers for sales and service?

Here is the sad result. Out of hundreds of dealers, only one knew the answer to these questions. I continually find that dealers and managers do not really know what is going on in their own dealerships and are not doing anything to educate them to change that.

The reality is that the future belongs to dealers who educate themselves more, execute better and understand the value of speed in today’s marketplace. The marketplace of today and the future will continue to be very unforgiving with little room for margin of error, inattention or being slothful. The traditional dealership is dead but the exciting news is your new dealership is waiting to be born.

For a free special report titled “10 Things You Must Do At Your Dealership To Be Successful” email me at info@tewart.com with 10 things in the subject line.

The traditional dealership is dead but some have not had their funeral yet. It seems as though as much as some things change in the auto industry, as many things stay the same. Every week our trainers observe things in dealerships that look and feel like the 1960’s.

Let’s take a look at some things still commonly observed in dealerships that are outdated and should be changed.

1) Manager towers – High towers built for managers where salespeople go to get their proposal figures. The common reason for these towers is to create a good observation point of the inventory for managers. What these towers signify is demeaning to salespeople and adversarial to customers. These towers create a manager haven for never moving and an air of supremacy.

Solution: Tear down the towers. Look around your dealership and ask yourself the following question. “What do I see that looks like it’s from the 60’s?” Please tear it down.

2) The big green sharpie deal proposals. These proposals scream of adversarial “you vs. me” negotiations. The figures seem less real and more of just a thought.

Solution: Use printed or screen proposals with full disclosure

3) Manager TO’s at the end of a sales attempt – For those of you who may be new to the auto business, a TO means a turnover. Old school selling means the salesperson turns over the customer to a manager when he/she cannot CLOSE a deal. Often, the new salesperson is berated for not turning the customer to the manager. The reason is the new salesperson feels as uncomfortable as the customer with this process.

Solution: Manager/Coach/ Team Leader is actively involved in the sales process from the greeting of the customer. The new focus is to OPEN the relationship so the sale can be closed. The days of sitting behind a desk and screaming at salespeople to bring a deal are dead. Managers will be hybrid sales coaches, assistants and information providers that involve the sales process, deal process, F&I assistance. No longer will the manager be expected to save a lost deal but will be involved throughout the process with the emphasis on creating not on saving. You manage things but you lead people.

4) Seat of the pants used car inventory management. – The days of the guru used car manager who knows all the hot cars, market figures for every car on the market, what the correct appraisal is on every trade at and what every other dealership is doing and managing the used inventory strictly by feel, is dead. The truth is that person never really existed. It was a myth and a fairy tale. Nobody and I mean nobody is that good at what they do.

Solution: If you do not have a used inventory philosophy, system and technology to assist you then you will forever be making mistakes that are in today’s market very unforgiving. You must use your learned knowledge combined with inventory technology and up to date market data to be relevant in the market. The shocking truth is that the 90, 60, 45 or whatever day turn systems used strictly by themselves are also outdated models that not only do not work, they create problems. Your goals are high sales, profit, ROI and yield, not just turns. (More on that subject in future articles)

5) A staff full of professional “Do it all, salespeople” – This one can actually still be accomplished but very, very few dealers actually do the things to recruit, hire and train the right people to make this happen. If you have never done this before, you will probably not do this in the future. Don’t kid yourself. Running a help wanted ad in the newspaper, interviewing candidates without a pre-thought out plan for recruiting, interviewing, testing, screening, training and ongoing development is not trying to develop a staff of professional salespeople.

Solution: The solution for many is something most do not want to hear. For most dealerships, you will never put the amount of time, money and energy to set up a high level approach to getting and keeping great people. It’s just a fact. The solution is to create a process that involves heavy involvement with team leaders, assistants and technology that narrows the scope of your sales staff. Most dealerships are hiring average to below average people and expecting them to do a myriad of things they are not only not doing, but not capable of doing. Worse yet the managers are not showing these people or inspecting the process to make sure it happens. If you are honest with yourself and this description fits your dealership, then you must try something different. The long term health of your customer base and dealership depends on this.

I invite you to take a moment today and before you get busy with the everyday tasks to take a strong look at your dealership and what is being accomplished or not. Be honest. Are you fighting battle you have never won? Do your salespeople, managers, processes and dealership reek of the 60’s and 70’s? It may just be time for a funeral.

Have you made the commitment that automotive sales is your career choice? Unless you commit, it’s impossible that you will take the necessary steps to create the business you desire. Long-term thinking in addition to short-term goals are keys to continued success.

When you first enter into a sales position, 80 percent of your time is spent acquiring customers and 20 percent of your time is spent maintaining those customers. Eventually, with the right efforts, that model should be reversed. Eighty percent of your time should be spent maintaining your customers and 20 percent to acquire new customers.

You face a paradox of time management in building your business. The paradox is that you must work in the business and also work on the business. When you are face-to-face with customers you are working in the business but no matter how busy you are, you must find time each day to work on the business, as well. Working on the business includes marketing, prospecting, follow-up, networking, delegating, automating etc.

Insurance sales people, real estate sales people and sales people from many industries continually think and act on building their business. However, in the auto industry the majority of sales people seem addicted walk-in traffic. Eliminating this addiction is the key to long-term success.

Lead Generation = Dollar Creation. Begin to build multiple streams of leads by building a marketing web. List every way you presently acquire leads such as walk-ins, phone prospects, be-backs, referrals, repeat customers. Then begin to list new ways you could begin to acquire leads and how you can strengthen or add to your existing methods of generating leads.

Do you presently have a software program for following and managing your leads? Not the dealerships program, your program? Don’t trust anybody or anything to manage your most important resource - your customers.

Secondly, do you have a set follow up strategy? How often will you follow up? How will you follow up. What rewards will you give, and what special offers will you provide to bring them in for service? That creates the Law of Familiarity and Obligation leading to repeats and referrals.

E-mail follow-up and marketing is essential. Automate your follow-up using technology. E-mail, Autoresponder e-mail and Sequential Autoresponder e-mail are all ways to follow-up and add value that can be done while you sleep or on vacation. Video e-mail and personalization are keys to making a connection, removing the impersonal nature of e-mail and adding the wow factor.

All sales people need their own personal Web site. The site should include sign-up forms that collect e-mail addresses. The site should be personalized with your picture, family picture, your own personal story, rewards for visiting the site and helpful information for the customer. Your Web site should include an audio introduction link.

Do your business cards look like 99 percent of others sales people’s business cards? Don’t use a picture of a car, use your picture or caricature. Business cards also need the sales person’s Web site, e-mail address and slogan. Put a call to action on your cards for the customer to come see you, call you or visit your Web site.

Maximize traffic by creating a be-back CD. Create a CD that you give each customer who does not buy and invite them to play it on the way home. The CD should include information about you, your dealership and product that would benefit the customer. Include testimonials and a reward for the customer if they come see you.

Create coupon swaps with businesses around you. Visit a local restaurant and offer to build their business on their worst traffic day of the week for free. You can build their business by creating a coupon with an offer they approve and then pass these coupons out at work from the cashier, receptionist, and all departments to every customer who enters your dealership. In return ask that the restaurant pass out coupons from you approved by the dealership with a special offer to come see you.

Once you start the marketing web it will grow and take on a life of its own. Building a business first requires long-term thinking and a commitment to the industry as a career. When you commit, you have already created a business, only its shape is unfinished.

Cincinnati, Ohio—March 31, 2009— Tewart Enterprises Inc and Mark Tewart is proud to announce it has been named the recipient of an Award in the Sales Trainer category of the Auto Dealer Monthly 2009 Dealers’ Choice Awards.

“It takes outstanding products and services, support and value to earn one of these awards, said Harlene Doane, editor of Auto Dealer Monthly. “Mark Tewart and Tewart Enterprises Inc should be very proud to be recognized by the dealers they serve in this manner.”

Also, Mark Tewart’s new book “How To Be A Sales Superstar” won this year’s Sales Book Award as announced by Sales Gravy Magazine.

The Award Process

This is the fifth year Auto Dealer Monthly has recognized the most highly regarded vendors, suppliers and finance companies in the retail automotive industry, as voted on by dealers and dealership personnel. The survey provided dealers and their employees the ability to offer their collective selection of the top providers to the retail auto industry.

Overall, 55 awards were given out to 45 companies, all chosen by dealers and dealership personnel. In 20 distinctive categories of products and services, nearly 15,000 votes were cast. Ratings were gathered on the performance of the product or service, as well as the customer support and service provided, and the overall value compared to cost to the dealership.

About Tewart Enterprises Inc

Tewart Enterprises Inc. was founded in 1993 by Mark Tewart. Tewart Enterprises Inc. assists companies in dramatically improving their sales and profits. Tewart Enterprises Inc. is a training, consulting, speaking and products company that works with multiple industries including the automotive industry.

About Auto Dealer Monthly, LLC

Auto Dealer Monthly is the day-to-day resource for automotive dealerships of all sizes. It is known for offering business solutions to dealers by providing information necessary to make wise decisions regarding products, services or process changes in daily operations. Auto Dealer Monthly is also the publisher of Auto Dealer Monthly magazine and Special Finance Insider magazine and the creator of AutoDealerPeople.com.

Contact:

Jaclyn Moreland

307 East Silver St. Lebanon, Ohio 45036

888 2Tewart / 513 932-9526 / 513 934-4588 fax / info@tewart.com

www.tewart.com / www.marktewart.com / www.marktewartlive.com / www.howtobeasalessuperstar.info

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I am getting sick of the press comparing our current economy to the Great depression. My mother and father grew up in the Great Depression. I have known many people who grew up in the great Depression. I have spoken to all of them at length about that time and have read quite a bit about that period as well. The one thing I am positive about is that our current recession is not even remotely comparable to the Great Depression. Maybe by some stroke of bad luck that will occur but I really doubt it. The comparison of today’s economy to the Great Depression is an insult to the people who lived in that era.

Last weekend, I took my son to Dave and Buster’s. For those of you that have never been to a Dave & Buster’s, it’s a huge indoor game and entertainment emporium. Parking was hard to find. It was an hour and a half to eat in the rather large restaurant and all the games were packed with lines at least three deep on each one. We had to go to the restaurant at the mall down the road to eat and it took forty five minutes to even eat in the bar area. The mall was packed and all the stores around it were packed as well. Folks, I think I am safe in saying there was nothing like that in the Great Depression. The weekend before, I went to the movies and it was packed. Last night I watched the University of Cincinnati and West Virginia Basketball game and it was sold out. None of these places and entertainment are cheap. Somehow images of Oklahoma and the dustbowl don’t come to mind from this economy. I understand people and companies have been hurt. However, most of this has come about becasue of living in a cocoon of comfort and largesse.

The one thing I am sure of is that in down economies more opportunity and seeds of wealth are planted and created than at any other time. All businesses large and small will have to act small. When I say small, I mean they will have to be nimble and adjust to the market. Surviors will create new products and services and add on or delete others. The old style of creating a successful business and living with one static model is over. It was never a good way to do business and now it’s virtually impossible. Improvise, educate and motivate yourself and all those around you.

True wealth in business is the ability to recreate business and wealth at will. Can you do that? If not, you had better get busy or you will not make it. My son’s third grade class class is learning about food chains in science. Where are you in the food chain? You must work everyday to run faster, be stronger and have so much value that you cannot be eaten. You must rise up in the food chain. The world of business has it’s own food chain and it’s just as deadly and fair as nature’s food chain.

Mark Tewart, author of “How To Be A Sales Superstar - Break All the Rules and Succeed While Doing It”

www.marktewart.com www.marktewartlive.com

I recently returned from the National Auto Dealers Convention in New Orleans and thought I would update the world on the state of the auto biz. At the convention I spoke on four different days and also had an exhibit there as well. The association reported attendance was down by 30% but I don’t believe that to be true. My guess was that it was down 75%. I have spoken at NADA many times and it is always to standing room only. This convention my engagements were only 1/2 to 3/4 full and it was the same for the other speakers as well. The convention hall was down quite a few exhibitors but there were still a ton of exhibitors and massive money was spent on exhibiting. However, the traffic in the expo hall was dramatically down with a couple of days being almost non-existent.This was true even on the days that President Bush and Clinton spoke at the convention.

There was a lot of good news though. The people at the convention were serious about not only surviving but thriving. The people who attended the convention were not there to party as sometimes is the case. Between 25-50% of attendees at my speaking engagements and the traffic at my exhibit were international. The last few years has shown a huge interest from other countries in learning more about the auto industry. My workshops had attendees from the following: Italy, UK, France, Germany, Portugal, Netherlands, South Africa, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Spain and Countries throughout Asia to name a few. I guess I better start learning other languages.

On a personal note, the weather was roughly 70 degrees in the day and low 50’s at night. Perfect considering Ohio was having a blizzard while I was gone. That always makes my wife mad when my timing is great. I ate more than my fair share of Gumbo, Boudin, Etoufee, Jambalaya and Red Beans and Rice. Being a lover of Blues, R&B, Zydeco and Jazz music I was in heaven in New Orleans. I always love to visit there and the music alone makes me feel awesome.

It was a great trip and I have already had a lot of business come from the convention. Many people felt like it was not a good year to go and I felt just the opposite. This was THE year I wanted to be there. That brings us to a great point. Don’t look to the masses for direction. They are almost always wrong. Don’t look to quit when others do. In fact double your efforts, your marketing and be very nimble. Be willing to add to, delete from or change your business model on a dime.

Le Bon Ton Roulez! (Let the good times roll!)

Mark Tewart, author of the best seller “How To Be A Sales Superstar” - go to www.marktewartlive.com to get f*ree bonuses

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