Corporate Trainer

[mhambaum]

Greetings everyone,

This is my first post to this forum. I've been an active contributing member with the Shop Management Forum of iATN (International Automotive Technicians' Network) for nearly 10-years and I just learned of this network today, from an iATN post of all places.

The timing for me in learning of this network is "interesting." You see for the past 10-years I've provided management training, marketing, and consulting services to the aftermarket - independently owned service/repair operations. However, this is all about to change for me, and leads to the purpose for my posting here.

I have just accepted a position as a "Corporate Trainer" for a DP who owns four dealerships. How this came about is rather interesting and relevant to the questions that I have for you as a group.

I contacted this dealer (and a few others) to see if they were interested in my training and/or consulting services for their service departments. When I started my firm almost 10-years ago I contacted a few dealers, but they blew me off. As a trainer/consultant I guess I wasn't big or majestic enough or something, even though at that time I had 14-years of dealer experience combined with 9-years working with dealers at the OE level.

In any event, I thought why not try again. To make this already long story shorter, one of the DP's called me. We spoke on the phone for some time and I met with him at one of his stores for several hours. Following his review of my credentials and our conversations, he offered me a position as his Corporate Trainer for all four stores. Now here's the thing, in addition to training and coaching his service operations, he wants me to train and coach sales. I've never sold a car in my life!

During our talks we discussed sales quite a bit. And while I don't have any experience selling cars, I do have experience buying them and the DP was very interested in my critique of the traditional sales process. He thinks that my lack of sales experience, or perhaps more accurately my lack of bad sales habits, will make me a better sales trainer. We'll see I guess. I suppose for the most part selling is selling and I am an accomplished service sales person, so...

What made me want to post this here was reading some of the other posts discussing dealership culture as it relates to fixed operations versus variable operations and the tradition for GM's and DP's to emerge from the sales side as opposed to the service side. While I'm not a DP or GM, as Corporate Trainer I answer only to the DP and will have influence over the entire operation - service AND sales. I suspect that it's rare for a guy with 30-some-years of service experience and NO sales experience to be offered a position like this in a dealership. This would seem to buck-the-trend, but thats the kind of DP this guy is and why Im excited to take on this job (and a little scarred too).

So heres the thing, I'd appreciate any words of wisdom and advice any of you seasoned dealer folks would like to pass along.

I will be working the hardest in service at first, as this is my comfort zone, where I have experience, and where I can produce results. However, I'll have to engage with sales somewhat right from the get-go. I'll need to be working on a game plan and strategy. And just to be clear, I have no intentions of being the proverbial bull in a china shop. These sales folks will know out of the gate that I don't have experience in THEIR area. However, I'll make it clear that Im no pushover either. My objective is to develop a relationship with the sales staff. My intent is to be a facilitator and help direct their efforts in productive ways. I expect to learn as much from them as they will learn from me.

So again, any words of wisdom and advice will be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

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Mark D. Hambaum

[This message has been edited by mhambaum (edited 07-26-2007).]

[jimmuntz]

Try this-

http://www.dealersedge.com/acatalog/Dea ... nager.html

[Lhansen]

Sounds like a fun position! One suggestion, contact the manufacturers representative of the various brands you will be associated with and get to know them and that brands training requirements. Make sure you have a valid log on to ALL the training sites for each manufacturer. There is a wealth of knowledge out there that can guidr you in your success.

Have a great time!

Linda

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Linda Graham Hansen
Auto Dealer Focus
www.autodealerfocus.com

[calgm988]

Sounds like an interesting opportunity. I suspect that you'll meet a tremendous amount of friction in your new role. Since you don't have any sales experience, and sales people by nature aren't very interested in investing in themselves (20% are - 80% aren't) it should/could be a daunting process.

I suggest you rely on your known skills. Help them understand it's a culture change. Be reminded it is a "culture change". Every day sales tasks can be and are tedious in nature. Sales people struggle with the knowledge of their customers and the internet. They need to be lead and shown results before they believe it. Go out and buy books about our sales business. Go to seminars yourself. Talk to customers and lastly, talk to the most successful sales people in your group. Put them into a focus group and ask them to "paint the perfect automobile sales person". It not only will lend credibility to your training but will help sell them on you.

Lastly, and I don't mean to sound disrespectul to your DP, but make sure he's sold on the idea and committed to achieving regardless of timelines. DP's tend to change their minds with the blowing times of slow business. You don't want to spend all your energy and time on this only to have your "training dept." become a casualty to cost cutting!

Good luck. There are always resources out there who are willing to help.



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"focus on the purpose, not the outcome."

[partman01]

If you can overcome the "US VS. THEM" mentality that is all too common in our business you will have a fairly easy time. Most of us tend to forget sometimes that a dealership is ONE TEAM and not a sales dept.,service dept., etc. Try to get everybody to understand that all depts. have to work together toward a common goal(taking care of the customer). This is probably the biggest hurdle you will have to jump. Good luck and let us know how it works out!

[maddog]

Good Luck Mark! Remember one thing. Sales training and experience is not the whole equation for success. Training in attitude, personal developement and people skills are as (if not more) important than sales experience and proccesses. I suggest have them all read Dale Carnegy while your working with the fixed team.
Here is some more good reading:
Fish! Sticks (Fish!) by Steve Lundin

The On-Purpose Business: Doing More of What You Do Best More Profitably by Kevin W. McCarthy

Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson

Whale Done! : The Power of Positive Relationships by Kenneth Blanchard

maddog

[Richard]

Required reading for all dealership managers should be Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars. by Patrick M. Lencioni

http://www.amazon.com/Silos-Politics-Tu ... 0787976385

I got "Death by Meeting" as a semi-joke for our DP, and borrowed it to read myself, and was amazed at the insight. The leadership fable style might turn off some people, but I really liked it.

[mhambaum]

Thank you all for your tips and suggestions - very helpful indeed.

[scotstrong]

One form of legitmate resistance you might get from the fixed departments is the "mandatory" training from many manufacturers about current model year product knowledge. Many manufacturers have gone with a "trend" to try and make virtually any employee who has contact with the customer an "expert" on all the bells, whistles, performance data, option packages, variations, etc of their product each and every model year. Most in the fixed departments view this as a misguided philosophy at best.

For every parts counter person, service advisor, etc. to have this knowledge is "admirable" in theory; yet truly has little or zero real-life application. Customers rarely turn to these people (rather than the salespeople) for this type of information. In the rare instance where this might come up, the personnel involved are serving the customer far better to refer them to the true "experts", the sales staff. Attempting to answer such questions at the parts or service counters usually leads to additional questions that we end up referring them to the sales staff for anyway.

To call parts and service employees "certified" merely because they have taken these sales-oriented product "courses" is very much a waste of resources, and quite frankly misleads the public. When we couple this with little or no "mandatory" actual true-to-life "parts" training or "service advisor" training, the employees affected are understandably resentful and disenchanted about being forced to become "vehicle salespeople". It is all the worse for multi-line dealers that do not have dedicated people for each individual carline. For parts and service personnel to have to go through a pretty significant number of hours to be "certified" in three or for carlines (with no one manufacturer giving a hoot about the requirements of the others) is quite cumbersome and time-consuming.

No training is completely worthless; yet training that truly has very little opportunity to be put to real-life use is hard to defend the value of.

Bottom line: Try and concentrate parts and service training on items that truly affect their job and daily duties; as opposed to a basically worthless "certification".

Scot Strong

[partman01]

Well said Scot. Bravo!