For the past 15 years I've worked in and with sales teams and it seems every team is the same...

 

Group 1 - The top performers - always earning the big bucks and smashing targets

Group 2 - The poor performers - more than likely on the way out

 Group 3 - The average rest - just doing enough to make quota and earn enough to get by.

It's not a bad thing necessarily for your team, as even world class sporting teams have a mix of the 3 groups of performers, but the challenge is when you have a poor performer or average performer, but you know they have the potential to be great, how do you develop their skills and belief so they flourish into a top performer? 

In this article I'm going to give 5 (of many) activities that the top sales people in car dealerships across the world are doing right now to maximise their selling potential.

I'm a firm believer that being great at sales is about learning the language of Sales. Just like learning another language, the language of Sales needs to be learnt and then practiced consistently. If you make cold prospecting calls, outbound follow up calls, or take inbound phone calls, you need to practice your phone techniques. Additionally the top performers practice their questioning techniques, overcoming objection techniques and closing word tracks. To be truly great at sales, this should be done daily.

I've been seeing this evolve over the last 5 years, but personalised video is massive! Whether it be using FaceTime calls when your customer can't come in to walk them around the car, or pre recorded 6 position sells, video greetings and testimonial videos, the top performers are using video to reach clients like never before. It doesn't have to be a Hollywood production, just press record!

Sales is about persistence, whether that means overcoming objections or continually following a client up when all seems lost. The top performers know that when a customer says "no", they are actually saying "I don't KNOW enough to make a decision". Keeping consistent on being persistent without being pushy and manipulating is the key to being above the pack.

For the past few years I've been encouraging dealers to have their top 5 questions all salespeople ask their clients to best understand their customers before proceeding to the presentation. If we are asking smart questions, we get the answers from our client that help us tailor our sales process. This might sound basic, but the top sales people I see today are asking the best questions and knowing most about their clients.

Their is an old saying, "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail", but still I walk into dealerships today and many salespeople don't have a thought out plan for each day, and many don't even use a diary! I'm a firm believer you must reverse engineer your success every day. If you want to sell 1 car for every 1 day you're at work, you better have a plan to have up to 15 quality conversations everyday. If you don't, you're only dreaming of that goal. Top sales performers have a daily prospecting plan, follow up plan, marketing plan and appointments ready to make each day a success.

Top performers aren't born, they are found, trained and equipped with the right resources.

As a special offer, I want to equip you with a resource to help you and your teams become top sales performers. 

If you haven't heard, I've just written a new book, 100 Days of Sales Greatness and I want to post you a copy for free! I've got a limited number available for this offer, so visit http://100daysofsalesgreatness.com to get your FREE COPY TODAY!

Great selling!

Dave Benson