Why the Desk Manager Fails!

Why the Desk Manager Fails, In the Car Business!

Now I’ve been a desk manager myself and can honestly say I’ve failed at this plenty of times.  I just try to understand what I did wrong, so I don’t do it again!  In order to not repeat history keep these things in mind next time you’re trying to help your sales professionals convert a sale:

1.     Do a proper interview! The interview should look something like this:

a.     Is your customer here? – reason why I ask is, order of importance.  If you have more than 1 deal your desking, you can put the sales person on hold who doesn’t have a customer in the store.

b.     Did you test drive your customer?  I am a believer in “the feel of the wheel makes the deal”. If they aren’t able to sell them on a test drive take a turn and see where the disconnect is.

c.     Did you get the vehicle appraised?  It’s important to identify the trade early on.

d.     Did you get a payoff?  Make sure you get an accurate payoff.  Remind them that they’re not just pretending to do a car deal – this is a real car deal.  The easy sign they didn’t get an accurate payoff is it’s an even number!

2.     Don’t overthink the deal or be the bank!  I’ve seen far too many sales managers want to become the bank and start “dissecting” the credit.  Just submit the deal.  I’ve “salvaged” more deals just because I took the other 2 seconds to submit it.  (If you’re running a dealership where you still box close – I feel for you.  You’re probably losing about 25% of your deals just because of this.  What’s scary is it might be more.)

3.     Don’t be afraid to turn the salesperson.  If it’s busy get a stronger salesperson to take a turn.  I understand your salesperson may get mad but it’s not personal.  Half is better than no deal.

If you can stick to these 3 basic fundamentals you will convert more sales and help your sales team sell more cars in the game of cars.