- Apr 28, 2009
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- Jerry
I’ve read a lot of stupid articles by people claiming to be automotive gurus, but this one is the biggest piles of crap I have yet to read: https://www.dealerrefresh.com/stop-wasting-money-phone-training/#more-23450
I equate this to a doctor telling you that you have cancer and then suggesting you go home and smoke some more cigarettes.
Notice the sponsored tag on the article. This is merely a stunt so the author can drive traffic to his list of trusted and recommended vendors that dealers should be using. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he’s being compensated to do so.
Now, let’s address these ridiculous comments about phone training. I can honestly tell you that phone training does work! What doesn’t work is phone training that is not supported from the top down. I have seen dealers who started with a 20% appointment ratio and watched them get to 80%. It’s not magic, it takes discipline, commitment and execution to achieve these results. Those not willing to put forth the effort should probably take the advice from the article listed above. But hey, why make more money when you’re just doing average. Let’s throw more advertising dollars at the problem so you can drive more traffic to a shitty process. Want growth? Do a better job managing the opportunities you’re currently mismanaging. When your process and implementation is perfected, you’ll maximize your advertising spend, thus creating true ROI.
Below is a look at real results from a client that understands how to answer the phones. On the left I have blacked out the names, but I can promise you these were real results from a real dealer who is crushing the phones! We monitored and coached 18 real customer calls during the month of October. This dealer appointed 17 of the 18 customer calls me monitored. That's rock star status right there!
View attachment 3348
Guess how much this dealer spent to train these Phone Ninjas last month? I can tell you I am probably not charging enough, because it was only $540.
Time for some basic some math. Let's say the average dealer spends around 50K/month in advertising and generates 300 phone leads per month. A dealer appointing 20% (and that's where most of them are when they start with Phone Ninjas) of those leads is going to sell right around 21 vehicles based on a 70% show rate and 50% close rate. I am not going to use the ratios from the dealer above since they are an outlier account, but I will use the average for dealers who have been with us for a while. That's a 60% appointment ratio, a show rate of 60% and a close rate at 50%, well that's 54 units per month. That's an additional 30+ units per month. Figure $1500 per vehicle and that's an additional $45K in revenue per month. Why wouldn't you drop $540 to train your staff? And these phone skills get transferred over to internet leads and follow-up calls on unsold traffic.
Call me and I'll show you real results! Follow our process and you will see the ROI. Or you can take the advice of this person who appears to have all of 2.7 years of experience in a dealership. And in my opinion, if he were managing a dealership, he would be one of those guys who calls me after a few months on the program and says to me, "We're going to need to cancel the training, we can't get the salespeople to do it." No shit, that's because you're the F&^#ing problem. A real manager wouldn't let his/her salespeople tell them what they will and won't do.
RANT OVER!
Jerry Thibeau
CEO Phone Ninjas
585-749-201five
I equate this to a doctor telling you that you have cancer and then suggesting you go home and smoke some more cigarettes.
Notice the sponsored tag on the article. This is merely a stunt so the author can drive traffic to his list of trusted and recommended vendors that dealers should be using. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he’s being compensated to do so.
Now, let’s address these ridiculous comments about phone training. I can honestly tell you that phone training does work! What doesn’t work is phone training that is not supported from the top down. I have seen dealers who started with a 20% appointment ratio and watched them get to 80%. It’s not magic, it takes discipline, commitment and execution to achieve these results. Those not willing to put forth the effort should probably take the advice from the article listed above. But hey, why make more money when you’re just doing average. Let’s throw more advertising dollars at the problem so you can drive more traffic to a shitty process. Want growth? Do a better job managing the opportunities you’re currently mismanaging. When your process and implementation is perfected, you’ll maximize your advertising spend, thus creating true ROI.
Below is a look at real results from a client that understands how to answer the phones. On the left I have blacked out the names, but I can promise you these were real results from a real dealer who is crushing the phones! We monitored and coached 18 real customer calls during the month of October. This dealer appointed 17 of the 18 customer calls me monitored. That's rock star status right there!
View attachment 3348
Guess how much this dealer spent to train these Phone Ninjas last month? I can tell you I am probably not charging enough, because it was only $540.
Time for some basic some math. Let's say the average dealer spends around 50K/month in advertising and generates 300 phone leads per month. A dealer appointing 20% (and that's where most of them are when they start with Phone Ninjas) of those leads is going to sell right around 21 vehicles based on a 70% show rate and 50% close rate. I am not going to use the ratios from the dealer above since they are an outlier account, but I will use the average for dealers who have been with us for a while. That's a 60% appointment ratio, a show rate of 60% and a close rate at 50%, well that's 54 units per month. That's an additional 30+ units per month. Figure $1500 per vehicle and that's an additional $45K in revenue per month. Why wouldn't you drop $540 to train your staff? And these phone skills get transferred over to internet leads and follow-up calls on unsold traffic.
Call me and I'll show you real results! Follow our process and you will see the ROI. Or you can take the advice of this person who appears to have all of 2.7 years of experience in a dealership. And in my opinion, if he were managing a dealership, he would be one of those guys who calls me after a few months on the program and says to me, "We're going to need to cancel the training, we can't get the salespeople to do it." No shit, that's because you're the F&^#ing problem. A real manager wouldn't let his/her salespeople tell them what they will and won't do.
RANT OVER!
Jerry Thibeau
CEO Phone Ninjas
585-749-201five
