Car Dealership Managers Could Learn a Thing or Two
“Don’t blame salespeople if the managers are weak,” says DrivingSales’ Jason Volny.
LAS VEGAS – Many car dealership managers got to where they are today because they were good at selling vehicles. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to manage people.
Some top dogs go astray there, says Jason Volny, national training manager for DrivingSales and a former dealership manager.
“People don’t quit companies, they quit managers,” he says, citing a survey indicating 75% of employees resigned over issues a good manager could have resolved. But a typical manager’s response? “I’m too busy,” says Volny.
He’s not putting all the blame on the shortcomings of department managers. Often behind those is a dealership’s failure to train managers in the first place.
Volny offers this scenario: “You make a high sales performer a manager, usually on Friday when the previous manager quit. And what’s the new manager do? He follows the way the old manager did it.
“Selling cars came naturally to high performers, but don’t assume they know how to manage. Don’t blame salespeople if managers are weak.”
Volny says he wants to challenge the status quo, improve modern customer experiences and inspire a counterintuitive evolution of brand perception.
Part of doing all that revolves around “creating leaders, not just managers,” he says. “We need to change the way managers are trained and paid. We need a process that helps them get better as leaders.”
That includes making them management trainees before they become actual managers, he says here at a DrivingSales Executive Summit session entitled “Plan to Train or Plan to Fail: Your Sales Managers Must be Sales Leaders.”
He cites other ways to make managers better:
Evaluate and train regularly. Volny says in his 15 years as a dealership manager, his employer never sent him to a training-related automotive event.
Find and focus on individual skills. “Find out what they like to do, and then have them do that.”
Look for the right temperament. “Don’t just promote someone because they know how to sell cars.”
Change the pay plan. Rather than reward solely for sales, factor in 30% of compensation for achieving human-capital goals. “It’s not just focusing on selling more cars, it’s on keeping more employees.”
Studies indicate the turnover rate among dealership salespeople is more than 70% a year. Volny speaks of a dealership that staffs 60 salespeople but loses about 20 of them on average per month.
That revolving door creates a vicious cycle of its own: Dealers are reluctant to invest in training salespeople because of the high turnover, but that’s driven by their lack of training.
Despite their apparent dispensability, car salespeople play a pivotal role, with 47% of surveyed car buyers saying the most important factor in their purchase decision was that they liked the salesperson.
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