Six Ways To Increase Dealership Sales 25% Without Adding Expense Part 1

Any dealer can increase sales 25% within 90 days through Total Opportunity Management. Total Opportunity Management is a process that provides dealers an efficient and cost effective way to maximize each and every sales opportunity. This is accomplished through all six sources of business: phone-ups, floor traffic, internet, repeat, referral and new business. By incorporating Total Opportunity Management into your daily routine, you can begin to see an increase in sales immediately. Let’s go through the first three so that you can get started today:

Total Opportunity Management – Phone-ups

Any dealership can sell more phone-ups by training the skills on how to master the phone-up and by having their lead distribution travel rates managed daily. An example would be, if a salesperson took 20 phone-ups this month but only sold one, then they shouldn’t be taking another phone-up until the manager has certified that the other 19 opportunities have been maximized. Sales and BDC people that take phone-ups should have a standard of performance (i.e., an 18% delivery ratio) that they are held accountable to. Phone-ups, especially with salespeople, should be treated as a privilege not a right. People that don’t meet standards of performance should be suspended from phone-up activity until that standard has been met.

Total Opportunity Management – Floor Traffic 

The easiest way to guarantee your dealership a higher closing ratio from your floor traffic is obvious! Go to a managed floor, a rotating floor. I know many of you are still sold on an open floor, but you’re wrong. Give me 10 minutes of your time, and I will convince you otherwise. So when it comes to a managed floor, I’m basically talking about an up system. With an open floor, salespeople run the floor. With a managed floor, managers run the floor. Which group do you think would put you in the best position to sell more cars? Rotation should be based strictly on closing ratios. The higher percentage that you sell, the more ups you get. The less percentage, the less ups. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how easy it really is to raise your closing ratio by having your better closers taking more ups than lower percentage closers. And please don’t get fooled by the 18 car a month salesperson that you think will sell you more cars with an open floor. I’ve seen too many of these in my time. They sell 18 cars but take over 150 ups. That’s not an 18 car a month salesperson that’s a FOUR LEGGED NINE!

There are at least a good ten great advantages of having a managed floor, and there are ZERO advantages of having an open floor. Let me give you three of those advantages. With four people hovering at the front door on Tuesday morning, do you really need crowd control? If it was a managed floor and they knew at least three other people would be taking an up before they did, then they could be doing what they were supposed to be doing in the first place. They could be calling back unsold opportunities along with working their daily plan with their CRM: There are reasons why 95% of all CRMs are greatly underutilized. Next example, the easiest way to dramatically improve sales without spending any money is to install a proactive culture within the dealership. I’m talking about a culture where we all learn about how to sell cars instead of waiting for people to come in and buy them. With an open floor, you have ZERO chance to create a dealership culture like that. With a managed floor, you have a 100% chance. Lastly, an open floor creates an insecure paranoia amongst salespeople. That if you’re not at the front door waiting for the next up, then you’re not going to sell anything. Today’s sales staff are underworked and underutilized.

Total Opportunity Management – Internet

When it comes to the internet, there is more to it than response time. Are you getting them off the screen and on the phone? And getting them off the phone and into the store? You have to manage the lead distribution travel rates just like phone-ups. Again, if you’ve given them 15 leads and they’ve only sold one, stop giving them leads until they sell the other 14. A minimum delivery rate should be in place with a consequence for non-performance. A consequence should start with cutting the leads off until they meet that delivery ratio or a manager has signed off on the other 14 opportunities as being unsellable.

Whether its phone-ups, selling more floor traffic or selling more internet leads it will always come down to three things: how you train them, how you manage them, and how you hold salespeople accountable to a standard of performance. This is just the tip of the iceberg. In next month’s article I will disclose the other three solutions and give you a step-by step strategy that absolutely, positively guarantees any dealership a 25% increase in sales. In the meantime, feel free to call us at 800-999-5277 for a free 15-minute dealership analysis.