Car sales training boils down to one thing: closing the deal. And no matter how well you’re doing, the competition’s always working to knock you off the top of the hill. Every team has its pain points, and it’s all about coaching up weak spots and emphasizing strengths to stay at the front of the pack.
Unfortunately, no matter how much experience you have, the car sales game will continue to evolve. Dealerships need every edge they can find, and as more customers are picking up the phone instead of walking onto the lot, that means pivoting sales tactics to meet the changing times.
It’s a tall order for GMs who are already stretched thin managing the business, and getting the best car sales training from a partner with in-depth industry experience is critical for keeping your people on top of their monthly goals.
Unify the Message, Unify the Experience
No matter who a customer gets on the other end of the line when they call your dealership, they need to get consistent answers and a familiar brand experience. The best car sales training ensures that everyone presents a unified front while making room for your best salespeople to use their skills.
Pre-written scripts are a great way to ensure your dealership’s unique brand is always present for every customer. When they’re written by industry insiders who know how to train a sales team to use them correctly, scripts have some amazing benefits:
- They keep everyone on message and moving towards conversion.
- They minimize unnecessary chatter and digressions that leave potential opportunities on the table.
- They provide a solid roadmap for all employees to navigate pushback and common questions.
- Scripts ensure your dealership delivers a consistent brand message.
- They provide a safety net for less-experienced employees as they develop their sales skills.
The best car sales training agencies will also tailor the scripts with specific language for each employee through active training so they always sound natural on the phone. There are many levels when it comes to writing and using scripts, and you’ll want a partner who understands how to use them in the automotive industry inside and out.
Embrace Mentoring
There are a lot of training programs out there that provide one-and-done sessions that leave you feeling good… but don’t deliver the bottom-line results when the numbers finally come in. You’ve definitely seen these before: a presenter lectures your team for two hours, shakes a lot of hands, and then heads off to the airport, never to be seen again. Hardly the best car sales training!
Like it or not, deep learning takes time and mentorship. That means providing individualized training, analysis, and feedback over several points of contact to ensure that weaknesses are identified and new strategies are implemented. After all, sales don’t happen in the conference room—they’re nurtured over the phone with real customers.
Look for partners who will work with your team on a regular basis to coach them using real-world examples pulled from their daily work. Training should be efficient, direct, and supported with concrete language and advice that can be implemented right away to start driving numbers.
Check the Training in the Workplace!
Good coaches don’t just attend games and practices—they scour the tapes for key moments that can be the difference between average and outstanding results.
In the automotive industry, our game tape is mystery shops. By posing as actual customers, mystery shoppers experience your business exactly as a regular customer does. That means they can deliver detailed reports based on interactions that often include valuable insight from in-the-moment questions no survey can anticipate. Coaches can use that data to identify specific changes and opportunities team members can use to improve performance on future calls.
Mystery shops are a critical piece of the best car sales training programs, and no serious coaching agency works without them. Of course, the most effective coaching agencies go a step further: they do the mystery shops themselves, then follow up to confirm training fundamentals are being applied consistently.
Don’t Settle for Second-Rate Training
Teaching is a relationship, not a single appointment. The best car sales training simply doesn’t come from fancy weekend conferences, internet videos, and one-off trainers who are out the door the minute you sign their check. It’s nitty-gritty, hands-on work, and you need an agency that will form a relationship with your employees and develop their skills one teaching point at a time.
Phone Ninjas is the preeminent coaching agency out there for your team. We offer the best car sales training in the business, and we know it works because we’ve been winning on the balance sheet in the automotive sales industry for over five decades.
We offer a comprehensive training program that integrates with your team for quick, efficient learning and improvement. After a 90-minute initial session, we write scripts that are perfectly suited to your business model and work one-on-one with associates over time until they’ve got them nailed. And to ensure the training is working as intended on the ground, we mystery shop your team and use the results to coach them up to even higher levels of excellence.
To show you what the best car sales training looks like, we offer two free mystery shops that will give you a taste of what we can do for your dealership. Give us a call—we’d love to chat and set up a demo!
As the Vice President of Phone Ninjas, Chris delivers leadership, coaching, and mentorship to 55 team members providing software sales and phone skills coaching. He fosters powerful partnerships and collaborations with leaders across various business sectors, establishing expectations, communicating vision, and escalating performance to maximize productivity and effectiveness.
