You might have the best tools in the business, be selling the most sought-after vehicle in the industry, and have the location all other dealerships would kill to have. Without one vital piece of the puzzle, though, you’ll never rise above mediocre. What’s that key piece? Training. If you don’t have a method by which your staff can follow, a way of letting them know what to do when any situation arises, you’re going to make all the progress of a dog chasing it’s own tail.

Blaise Alexander Subaru of Williamsport, Pennsylvania knows full well the value of competent, consistent and complete training. I recently spoke with General Manager Jay Kilheeney and General Sales Manager Jeremy Baker about where they were, where they’re going, and what it takes to not only survive, but to thrive in challenging times.

Fran Taylor: Jay, describe your dealership’s sales picture.

Jay Kilheeney: Well, I took the store over in March. At that time, the store was doing anywhere from 25 to 30 deliveries per month — on a great month they were doing 35. We did 91 last month, and we’ll do 100+ this month.

FT: That’s great! What’s making the difference?

JK: Training. I knew from experience that it was what this store needed. In 1997, a partner and I bought a dealership — Jay Kilheeny Ford Lincoln Mercury. That store was in bankruptcy at the time, doing the same numbers — 20, 25, 30 a month. We decided we needed experienced training. In about 12 months, we took the store to averaging around 125 deliveries a month, and in about 20 months, we were averaging 175+. I believe an outside trainer with experience can definitely see things differently. Training and everyone watching DVDs is the secret.

FT: What steps have you taken to put this into motion at Blaise Alexander Subaru?

JK: Staffing was one of the first things we had to look at. We’ve got a lot of long-term employees, but when we took this store over, it only had a couple of salespeople, because they were only doing a couple of deals. They had one sales manager and one F&I manager, so immediately I had to get salespeople. Finding people who have the potential to be great salespeople is almost like finding a diamond in the rough. And it’s not just putting the customer in the car and making the sale. They’ve got to be able to be sure that when a customer leaves, they’re 100 percent satisfied, because customer satisfaction is tied to every aspect of our business; you’ve got to be able to get people who can do that.

Finally, I was able to hire a young sales manager, Jeremy, and I went out and hired five brand new guys — one guy was front desk at a tire shop, one guy worked in a mall, one guy was an insurance man. I hired one kid who worked in my clean-up shop who had a work ethic like I’ve never seen, and I felt that he had some potential – in my career I’ve had a couple of guys I’ve had that sense about, and this kid is one of them. I paid a lot of money for intense one-on-one training for him for a week, and in 10 days he delivered 17 cars.

FT: What are some of the areas this new sales crew focused on during training?

JK: There are a couple of things. Customer satisfaction is crucial today, and it’s controlled from the desk. The smarter salespeople get, the fewer cars they sell. What I mean by that is that as soon as they get away from the basics, their chances of selling more cars seems to decrease. One of the things our training talked about was the basics –starting at the desk, making sure the salesperson did the demo drive, did the service walk, got the worksheet information, did the walkaround, and so on, every single time. As soon as we think our salespeople have done it, that’s when they don’t. Training is so important – we train every single morning for a half hour using this new program. We review the customers from the day before and we talk about the basics with a daily training schedule. A different salesperson speaks every day. We talk about the importance of follow-up and our awesome new prospecting system. No dealers around here have it, so it is extremely effective for us. My guys have gone from being “green peas” to understanding the importance of doing the same thing every time without exception. We install in all our guys a “no fear” attitude. We offer a good product, and we stand behind what we sell; if we make a promise we’re going to fulfill it. We don’t look at every deal like it’s a commission, but we’re entitled to make a profit. We just looked at it this morning – last month, our average grosses are up about $900 a copy on the front end, and about $320 a copy on the back end.

FT: Jeremy, how did the sales force take to the idea of training?

Jeremy Baker: At fi rst, like anybody who thinks they know too much, they threw a little barrier up; however, once they actually saw it in action and saw it work, and saw how it affected their pockets, they’ve been really receptive and open to it. They do it 100 percent of the time, because they know it works. The fi rst deal the trainer worked was a $4,400 gross that caught everyone’s attention.

JK: The absolute most important thing for any training or program that’s implemented is that the managers are committed to make this work. If Jeremy didn’t buy in, I could write a check for a million dollars for training and it wouldn’t work.

JB: You’ve also got to inspect what you expect. You can tell someone to do it all day long, but you’ve got to make sure they’re doing it. You put processes into place, but you’ve got to make sure it’s getting done. Our trainer helps us get this done every single month, and will be back.