Where have all the cowboys gone?

That was a great song from the ninety’s right? Well maybe not such a great song but it was the song played over and over and over. For some reason on my way to the dentist this morning this song popped in my head because I’ve really been wrestling with the fact that the cowboy commission get it done salesperson of old, I don’t mean to slamming jamming high pressure guy, I mean the actual “I will work for commission because I believe I’m a great salesperson and I would rather have unlimited potential plan some average salary” guy is nowhere to be found any more.

I feel like I’m getting old when I say things like this but it’s just a fact: back in my day, we had to sell to survive. I remember cutting my teeth in sales at 18 and sometimes having weeks with no paycheck before I actually learned how to prospect, close, and listen to the customers want and needs. I remember an $88 commission check before I learned WHY I needed to have a solid process for selling and prospecting and follow up.

I definitely understand that for many people, working on a commission only basis is quite frightening. Heck, I’m a business owner which means I’m 100% commission too! It’s especially frightening for those people who have never actually had a career where the only way you earn a living is if you sell something.

I remember a time when we interviewed a person to try and find a “learner” and quality communicator because those of us who knew how to lead also knew how to find and train top talent. We also took responsibility for the success and failure of every person on our team.

Those of us who have been in the car business for more than 15 or 16 years remember the days of getting a very small draw, that was a loan from the dealership so that you could get enough gas in your car to make it to work next week, and then getting a commission washout check at month end.

I will be the first to say that there have been so many fantastic changes in the car business over the past two decades that it is truly a better business as a whole and it gets better every day. I also have to say that I feel our reliance on technology and tools have cost us the most valuable resources we’ve ever had: great sales people.

Technology didn’t do it, we did. As managers we got lazy, and rather then keeping our training current and learning how to grow ourselves and outstanding sales professionals, we just started hiring people that knew the technology world and figured they would learn how to sell by watching OEM videos or something. If you look at today’s sales person versus the guy 20 years ago it’s completely a different picture. In a good way, the picture has changed to someone with typically looks more professional, someone who isn’t standing outside smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of coffee while waiting for customers to come on a lot.

In a bad way however, today’s “lot lizard” is now an “office lizard” who takes the time to learn the product, and to learn about technology, but still doesn’t understand the road to a sale so they sit behind a computer waiting for a lead’.

Today, the average sales person doesn’t understand the psychology of communication, heck, most of them don’t even understand the difference between closing and objection handling.

Now, at the risk of sounding like Joe Verde I’m going to ask a question, who’s fault is that?

If a sales person doesn’t understand the road to a sale, we have to ask ourselves who should have trained them? If a salesperson doesn’t understand how to ask good questions, and more importantly WHY they need to ask good questions, who’s fault is that? Who was supposed to train them?

There is a reason that the salesperson of today is mostly afraid to work on commission.

It’s because they would starve to death.

Let me say this, it’s not their fault, they are only as good as their manager.

Now, before all of you sales managers get angry, it’s not necessarily your fault either, you’re only as good as the person holding you accountable as well. Does that mean owners, general managers, it’s their fault? Rather than play the game of blaming someone else back and forth let me give some quick tips that will help us bring back the POSITIVE qualities from yesterday’s sales professional.

1. Managers, we have to start caring more about our sales people, then they even care about themselves. If we don’t push them to be better, most of them won’t push themselves. Unfortunately, in many cases today, they are not being pushed when they’re in school, they are just being processed through a system. It’s up to us to show them what it is truly like to have someone I care about you enough to force you to improve.

2. Managers, we have to re-educate ourselves on selling. Before I was a sales manager, and even after I became one, many of the sales people joked about the other managers in our dealership and how none of them could go out and sell a car anymore because they spent so much time behind the desk. As leaders, we should be able to lead by example. This means we should be able to overcome objections that arr thrown at us, we should be able to walk in the service lounge and prospect a customer, we should be able to walk a salesperson through a sale efficiently and comfortably. As a manager, we should focus on being a leader, and leaders continue to learn. Are you truly a leader? Are you truly a learner? Someone smarter than me sad you aren’t a leader until people want to follow you. Do your salespeople want to be like you?

3. Train your people! You should be there number one trainer if you are there leader, but let’s face it, many of us out there are not capable of properly training sales people. If that is the case, please be smart enough to recognize that and outsource some quality training. There are literally hundreds, probably thousands, of training companies available to choose from. If you been in the car business more than 5 years you know there are a couple really good quality ones that teach solid process. At the end of the day you are responsible for the training of your people. Their success is our success, if we don’t care enough about their success to train them, who is going to?

4. Hold them accountable for their actions. When you train someone how to do something, and you test them to make sure they know how to do it, you have to set realistic achievable goals and hold them accountable to their activity goals. Reward them for success and retrain the areas that they must improve. Accept no excuses. Many of us won’t fire poor salespeople because deep down we know we never trained them how to be great.

5. Finally, take responsibility for everything since you are the boss. If they suck, you hired them, so it’s your fault. If they suck, you trained them, it’s your fault. If they are not living up to their potential, it’s your fault, because you didn’t care enough about them to push them to their potential. Finally, overall, if they are not successful, and their family starves to death, and then go bankrupt, it’s all your fault because you hired them and did not give them the training and support that they needed to be successful. Of course they won’t ever be confident enough to trust that they can make a living on commission if they’ve never been trained fully to do the job right.

If we want to get real sales people back on the sales floor, we have to start by acting like true leaders first.

Helping the best get better,

Mat Koenig

Founder & CEO

KonigCo LLC

www.konig.co