How to Get the "Blank Stare" from a Salesperson

[damdifino]

I've started doing some training sessions with our salespeople to foster a stronger "digital feeling" among our sales staff. Added bonus: if I can successfully get these guys to start creating content for me, I should be able to improve our SEO.

Today's topic was basic, easy, things to set you apart from the average salesperson. I figured it would be necessary to understand the customer shopping process, so I lightly touched on ZMOT and the recent Cobalt study.

Overall, I feel the response was positive from the salespeople, but clearly some of them had no idea what I was talking about. I think one of them actually fell asleep at one point and I'm a pretty dynamic speaker - definitely not monotone.

Anyway, I decided to post this for some laughs and to see if you guys could help me with some basic "Internet Sales 101" training class ideas. I'm keeping the sessions short (30 mins) because I feel that they lose attention after that amount of time.

P.S. This is my first thread, so if I posted in the wrong forum, please let me know!

 

[damdifino]

It's Monday again and I did another training class with the salespeople. This time, I taught them how to use YouTube to record a personalized video response for their internet leads.

Overall, I feel that they had a positive response to the training and can see the benefit of doing these personalized video responses, but I don't know that they'll actually do the videos. Other than a blanket "a personalized video response is required for every lead," do any of you have success stories and/or input on how to get these done regularly?

I'm pretty new to the training thing, so any feedback is encouraged!

Here is the training material that I used. I created a "cheat sheet" for them to reference in the future.

 

[Jerry Thibeau]

Here's some added ammunition for you. Go to Phone Ninjas Member Login

Username: digital
password: dealer

Check out phone videos and internet videos tabs at the bottom. This will help with training. This free login will be available until end of November.

Good Luck!

 

[damdifino]

Here's some added ammunition for you. Go to Phone Ninjas Member Login

Username: digital
password: dealer

Check out phone videos and internet videos tabs at the bottom. This will help with training. This free login will be available until end of November.

Good Luck!

Thanks a bunch Jerry! I will definitely make use of this.

 

[ryan.leslie]

Hey Mike,

I think this is awesome and will surely pay dividends for you. I have a two quick suggestions:

Review for comprehension!

Take the first few minutes and quiz them on what you taught them last week. You might dedicate the first meeting of the month to success stories from the previous month's trainings. Help reinforce WHY this is important and your adoption rate will probably climb. Your most motivating success stories are going to come from within your team.

LEAN on your Vendor Partners!

Do you advertise with Autotrader or Cars? Ask them to prepare a quick 15-20 minute discussion for your team. Maybe ask them to bring a new idea or best practice to share. I used to really enjoy doing that for my stores when I was in a territory. How about asking your CRM vendor to prepare a quick discussion on how using the CRM makes the individual salesperson money? Your real partners will probably jump at the chance to help educate your team on their tools and solutions. I'm not sure if you are using Jerry or not, but he's modeling the kind of support you should get from your partners.

I'm pretty sure you are a DealerRater Certified Dealer, right? You are right on point talking about helping your sales team recognize that they are a brand within your brand. Can I help you drive home that message and share some wild success stories that other dealership employees are having with the staff pages? I can't be there in person, but I can certainly remote in if that would be helpful to you... Let me know what I can do to help you!

Ryan

PS. Hector's page looks really good below that Mike Tyson video! Is he asking his prospects to Google him? He should be... "Mr. Customer I know you have a salesperson from every dealership you've contacted telling you how great they are, will you do me a favor and Google me when you get home? I'd like for you to see what my CUSTOMERS are saying about me."

 

[damdifino]

Here's some added ammunition for you. Go to Phone Ninjas Member Login

Username: digital
password: dealer

Check out phone videos and internet videos tabs at the bottom. This will help with training. This free login will be available until end of November.

Good Luck!

Jerry,

Thanks for that. I already watched all of Elise's videos on your site and quite a few more on YouTube. She is awesome! Definitely a great catch for Phone Ninjas, so congrats on that. I already have a few salespeople amped up about doing video responses the way she taught. Those instructional videos are pure gold for any salesperson. Even the last little bit about putting, "Sent from iPhone" at the end of an email - that is genius!

Hey Mike,

I think this is awesome and will surely pay dividends for you. I have a two quick suggestions:

Review for comprehension!

Take the first few minutes and quiz them on what you taught them last week. You might dedicate the first meeting of the month to success stories from the previous month's trainings. Help reinforce WHY this is important and your adoption rate will probably climb. Your most motivating success stories are going to come from within your team.

LEAN on your Vendor Partners!

Do you advertise with Autotrader or Cars? Ask them to prepare a quick 15-20 minute discussion for your team. Maybe ask them to bring a new idea or best practice to share. I used to really enjoy doing that for my stores when I was in a territory. How about asking your CRM vendor to prepare a quick discussion on how using the CRM makes the individual salesperson money? Your real partners will probably jump at the chance to help educate your team on their tools and solutions. I'm not sure if you are using Jerry or not, but he's modeling the kind of support you should get from your partners.

I'm pretty sure you are a DealerRater Certified Dealer, right? You are right on point talking about helping your sales team recognize that they are a brand within your brand. Can I help you drive home that message and share some wild success stories that other dealership employees are having with the staff pages? I can't be there in person, but I can certainly remote in if that would be helpful to you... Let me know what I can do to help you!

Ryan

PS. Hector's page looks really good below that Mike Tyson video! Is he asking his prospects to Google him? He should be... "Mr. Customer I know you have a salesperson from every dealership you've contacted telling you how great they are, will you do me a favor and Google me when you get home? I'd like for you to see what my CUSTOMERS are saying about me."

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Ryan,

Thanks for the reply. I will start doing a quick review of the previous week's topic - good idea.

We are currently signed up with AvA and I am having them do a training webinar during the next sales meeting with our guys. I have reached out to Autotrader and plan to get with Cars.com. I'd welcome all the training that we can get.

One concern: Some of our guys aren't the most tech-savvy, so I would worry about information overload. I would really like to focus on one thing, get that down, and then start on the next thing. Maybe I can have Autotrader and Cars.com come in and echo me on video, just to drive the point home more. At what point should I be worried about becoming stale with the same message?

Right now, I feel that personalized video responses are going to help us a ton. Next, I plan on moving to phone training (especially phone ups and outgoing unsold follow-up calls). Jerry, I taped the photo of the Dos Equis parody in the meeting room (even with the bad grammar).

As for the CRM training, they are actually very good at utilizing the CRM. We are fully integrated with VinSolutions, so you really can't sell a car without utilizing the CRM. That is something we did right from the start - make it mandatory to utilize the CRM and stick to a "if it's not in the system, it never happened" mentality.

Yes, we are a DealerRater Certified Dealer and I would be very open to having you as a guest speaker during our training sometime soon. Thanks for the offer.