top of page
Search

The Art of Sales Through Follow-Up



Pre-owned managers, have you ever had a salesperson tell you that you reduced the price on a unit with an appointment later that day? Yes, it has happened to me too. That was a teachable moment for me; I realized I was throwing gross out the window and possibly missing deals by not being more involved in the follow-up process.


My flawed belief was that the pre-owned manager was responsible for generating the leads through merchandising and lead providers, and the salesperson or BDC rep was responsible for following up on each lead assigned to them. Through experience, I've learned that price changes and follow-up should be one process, and I need to stay involved throughout the lifecycle of each unit.


The days of dropping the price of a vehicle until it sells are over; we need to get back to the art of sales through follow-up. The conventional CRM will keep track of client info and notes and remind you when to attempt contact again (based on configuration). In my opinion, our industry needs a process to work leads from two different perspectives: the manager's eyes and the BDC/sales rep's eyes, and this needs to be a symbiotic relationship. No price changes should be done until follow-up is completed to your satisfaction.


The manager should know all pertinent details on each unit at a glance (i.e., age, last price change, price to market %, lead count, whether you have a switch customer to offer this unit to, and the previous time each lead was contacted).


The BDC/sales perspective should be prioritized by leads on units in stock, and then we can recycle leads as fresh inventory enters our inventory management tool. Using up-to-date talking points (i.e., last price change, we want to buy your trade, we have six similar units in inventory to show you). 



Managers, we need to follow up on our follow-up process. What we focus on expands.


-Mike Clites

LotWalk Performance Engineer

Recent Posts

See All

Comments

Rated 0 out of 5 stars.
No ratings yet

Add a rating
bottom of page