Good Sales Managers Guide Their Team Members To Be Active Listeners

As one of the best Automotive Groups in the nation, we at Jim Ellis are not perfect but we are engaged. Just this month as we continue to go through realignment at many of our stores there are staffing, CSI, process and other issues. In the years past we called this “growing pains” however, it is only in the last 15–20 years that a distinct field called “knowledge management” (KM) has emerged. KM is based on the premise that, just as human beings are unable to draw on the full potential of their brains, organizations are generally not able to fully utilize the knowledge that they possess. Through KM, organizations seek to acquire or create potentially useful knowledge and to make it available to those who can use it at a time and place that is appropriate for them to achieve maximum effective usage in order to positively influence organizational performance. It is generally believed that if an organization can increase its effective knowledge utilization by only a small percentage, great benefits will result.

It all starts with being good listeners; it is one of our Jim Ellis Promises because we know that not being effective listeners can cost us a sale, a service customer, low CSI’s and bad reviews. This past week our sales team members and managers attended a lease awareness class to reintroduce or erase old concept thinking about leasing in hopes that we as a group can educate our guests and earn additional sales. The facilitators for the class kept speaking about listening, conforming and seeking additional help from the business managers. Working as a team is all we should be working towards with our sales process and we need you as managers to enforce, remind, ongoing one on one’s and even role play if necessary to stay the course.

If your sales consultants are not skilled listeners, their sales will suffer – there is no doubt about it.

That is because guests do not want to feel like they are being sold to. Instead, they want to feel like their concerns are being heard and want to connect with a sales consultant who can address their needs, wants and desires when investing for a vehicle. Simply put they would like to work with a consultant whose main goal is to meet their needs.

Active listening happens when your sales consultants listen and respond to their guests in ways that build trust and mutual understanding. For active listening to occur, a sales consultant must concentrate on and comprehend what the guests is saying, respond thoughtfully, and remember what has been said.

When a guests feels like your sales consultants are actively listening, they will be more likely to buy because active listening builds rapport. Plus, active listening helps sales consultants overcome barriers in the form of negative salesperson stereotypes, like being someone who talks more than he/she listens or someone who is only interested in meeting quota and making money.

Here are some more reasons why active listening is a critical skill for sales consultants:

·        It helps sales consultants overcome objections. When a sales consultant listens more than he/she talks, they will be better able to understand all of the guest’s objections. This makes it much easier for them to uncover, address and overcome those objections.

·        It helps sales consultants overcome initial resistance from guests. When sales consultants begin a call, they may hear the guests say that they do not need help or do not have time to talk. In that case, the sales consultant can use active listening to open up the conversation and show that he/she is there to help resolve a problem that the guests is facing.

·        It helps sales consultant close sales. Of course, the benefit of active listening is that your sales consultant will be most excited about it allows them to achieve a higher level of sales success. Active listening works this way because it allows the sales consultant to close a sale without coming off as pushy or offensive.

Our Jim Ellis Sales Process, after the welcome by the sales consultant is an (EMI) early managerial introduction. It is followed by a good “Hi-Gain” questioner conversation with the guest and ends with a re-cap by the sales consultant in order to confirm that the sales consultant was listening. The sales consultant comes to the sales managers and shares what the guests needs are to select the proper vehicle or Used Car Manager, New Car Manager or FSM may want to investigate the guest’s needs further.

Once the first pencil is ready to present, if sales consultant feels that they need a FSM to present the pencil to the guest, a good hand off can be done in order for the sales process to be successful and profitable.

Mike Power (Director of Finance), assured all of the sales consultants attending the leasing awareness class that the FSM’s will be ready and available (If they are not conducting business in their offices) to assist the sales team members.

So let’s see if we as an automotive group can build on this week’s class by applying Knowledge Management (KM) and earn some additional unit sales today. That will only happen if you have been listening to what I was saying in this message.

“Make It A Champion Day”