Pub. 8 2019-2020 Issue 1

24 San Diego Dealer WHY DEALERSHIPS NEED CENTRALIZED TRAINING CLASSES A ny dealership that considers putting together training classes really needs to answer two questions: • Will the dealership benefit from providing employees with training classes? • Can that training be donemore effectively within a regional area than is possible within a single dealership? Training is obviously a good thing, but think about some of the benefits of training. Employees like having the option of training. This is especially true of millennials, who are eager to learn new things so they can advance, but all employees feel better about work when they know they have opportunities to gain new skills. If the job market is tight, dealerships are better able to attract employees when they offer training. Employees will need that training. Customers today walk into dealerships bet- ter-informed than ever before. In fact, most customers have spent an average of 14 hours doing research on what they want to buy before they even visit a dealership location. A sales person who knows less than the customer is not going to inspire confidence, and will therefore be far less likely to be able to reach sales targets. What dostaffmembersneed toknow? Tostart, of course, employeesneed tounderstand the needs of the industry itself, which has to be updated every year and is currently experiencing huge changes that will influence the market in unforeseen ways during the comingdecade. This is a changing industry that has a great deal of innovation. More specifically, employees need a firmunderstanding of the following: • A comprehensive knowledge of the current makes and models, and an under- standing of what makes each one the right choice for a specific customer type. • Information about the available options for each car. • An understanding of the vehicle’s certifications. • Proof points for the vehicle’s price. Being able to show a potential customer that the offered price is a fair one is invaluable when competing against other dealerships. • The best way to deal with any applicable compliance issues. With those requirements inmind, think about the sales people at any given dealership. More than three quarters of dealers have hired people without any automotive sales experience at all. Approximately two thirds of dealers have hired peoplewho had sales experience, regardless of whether their experience was in the automotive industry. Training is not any more optional for a professional dealership than it is for any other professional organization. The knowledge that a good sales person has is specialized, complicated, rapidly changing, and takes time to learn. When you consider what a professional sales person needs to know in order to perform the work they do, why would any rational person think selling cars is unskilledwork that can be done by just anyone? Youwouldn’t hire someone off the street, without the necessary credentials, to argue your case in a court of law, to operate on your heart, to play a violin concerto with a symphony orchestra, or to cook aworld-class dinner. You should have the same approach when it comes to training sales people. A first-class sales person is always By Susan Morgan