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Best Way to Get Acquainted with Auto Dealerships?

CarlosSousa

Green Pea
Oct 16, 2016
7
3
First Name
Carlos
Hi all,

First of all, I recently joined DR and I am impressed by how helpful some of the posts have been…Great insights!

Second, I have been working in the trucking industry for years (both at the OEM and dealership level), but have recently joined a company that sells to auto dealerships...I have found many similarities between these two industries, but there are definitely key differences that I still need to understand!

My big challenge – I am a strong believer that you need to 100% understand your customers and their pains before you attempt to sell anything...I did this in my previous job by randomly reaching out to people in the industry, listening to them, and even offering to work at my customer's businesses for free for a day or so...all for the sake of better understanding their needs, wants, and pain-points, expecting nothing in return. This worked great and helped me create a long-term relationship with them.

My question to you all - What do you think is the best way for somebody who is "new" to this industry to get acquainted with the in and outs of auto dealerships? How would you start if you were me?

Thanks in advance.

Carlos
 
Great question! I think the idea of hanging out a dealership for a day is probably a good way to begin to understand what goes on on the front lines. We had a lady that did this about a month ago and it was clear from the start that she had been forced to do it by a superior. She didn't show interest in what we did and just talked about how much she already knew based on one Tahoe purchase she had made.

This may sound negative but it's not: Don't expect most dealer people to be like these you see on Dealerrefresh. There may be one person from each dealership that thinks progressively and openly so if you go in thinking that we are the majority, you may be in for a shock.

Best of luck!
 
I think Ricky nailed it. I've worked on both the dealership and vendor side and always amazed by how little "working knowledge" most vendor reps have of their customers dealerships. Kudos to you for reaching out to learn.

On the other hand, though, keep in mind what Ricky said about some of the more close-minded folks you will meet in stores and do not let it hamper your enthusiasm or need to sell your product and help your customers sell cars/service. You will come across that desk manager that swears his success comes from balloons, popcorn and Sharpie stick figures on a four-square and what you are trying to accomplish is not the magic pixie dust he is looking for. Don't get me wrong, you can learn from this guy....just don't quit what you're doing and spend all your time in the balloon room.
 
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Ricky, Adam,

Thanks a lot for your responses. This is great information - I have already started experiencing this first hand. Can clearly see the wide range of skills and interests in the industry. Overall, I have been meeting some awesome people to work with. I look forward to keeping that up.

Thanks again!
 
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The comments listed are definitely a good way to get a handle on dealership operations.

You also mentioned getting a better understanding of pain points (which sometimes a person might not be so keen to talk about).
This is kind of an oddball direction to go, but vinadvisor blog (http://vinadvisor.net/blog) talks about dealer struggle a lot—employee churn, customer dissatisfaction—and how to fix it. You can ignore the company promotion in the blogs and just focus on the data about pain points.

Hope that helps :)