Hello to you,
I am a salesperson who has struggled finding qualified leads. Today I am reliant upon foot traffic, phone calls and internet leads.
We have a good inventory of hundreds of vehicles. Few people use the CRM, almost none as much as I do. I have some flexibility to "market" vehicles on the internet but have no marketing budget.
We use Eleads as our CRM. I am trying to mine our CRM for old customers who are not attached to a current salesperson.
Two questions to start:
What do you recommend I do to generate qualified leads?
Is there any service that will find me buyers who will take a cut of the deal if I can close them?
Thank you
Good Morning,
I believe there are areas where more effort can / should be focused in a dealership to increase your monthly sales:
1. I will start by saying relying on the front door is probably the least effective in setting yourself up to sell a car on any given day. I am not suggesting ignoring customers walking in, everyone of them deserve a "million dollar greeting" but chances are a majority have already engaged with the dealership online somewhere prior to visiting but we all play a part in ensuring their online experience continues to the showroom experience.
2. Inventory to sell is a huge plus and having a CRM is gold if used correctly, I always say when it comes to a CRM system, if you put garbage in, you'll always get garbage out. Managing your CRM database effectively is a forum discussion in itself but kudos to you for believing in it and using it daily.
3. I believe there is so much potential every single day sitting in your service department. Many of those customers have already done business with the dealership, perceived they got a good deal and liked their experience or they wouldn't be back there for service in my opinion. If you don't have a system to show you the next day service appointments, I would get with your management and make it known you would like to work the service department in the mornings and if you had the opportunity to reach out to them the day before it could increase your chances of selling a car the next day. Obviously not every customer will be in a position to trade but your managers can help highlight some that could be a good position as well as some talk tracks to use with those customers.
4. I don't feel as a salesperson you need to pay anyone to send you clients, dealerships pay enough for marketing to the store and have BDC's / Internet Departments to generate the showroom traffic from those sources. How do those customers get distributed to the sales floor in your dealership?
5. I'm sure you know a good amount of people and those people know just as many, use your social media to post a daily video walkaround on a specific new or pre-owned video you feel comfortable talking about, keep it short, 60 to 90 seconds max and share it with a call to action for questions or interest in other vehicles. Use those responses to work and ultimately set appointments with. Keep it consistent, daily, the traction will start to take and you will get buyers.
These are just a few of my thoughts for you and my biggest advice is to not overthink it, keep things simple, people by cars from people and only very few salespeople stay consistent with any effort the put forth. I hope this helps you some.
Best,
Chris Costner
