Triple BDC Productivity: Work 59 Leads, Not 528

Your BDC is working 528 leads to sell 35 cars. Work the 59 that matter.

Most CRMs hand a rep 80 tasks a day sorted by lead age: three-day calls, 10-day emails, 30-day follow-ups. Jasen Rice pulls up a live 50-car store and shows a different sort. Filter to leads on cars still in stock, then to the ones nobody has touched in two days, and the same team sells the same cars with a third of the work.

The method, in five moves.

Sort leads by in-stock, not by lead age. The traditional CRM process works fresh leads hard and older leads less, regardless of whether the car is still on the lot. Jasen flips the sort: an active lead on a car in stock gets worked whether it is two days old or 50 days old.

528 leads on 35 cars is a 7% return on activity. The store had 50 cars total and 528 leads in 60 days, but those leads sat on only 35 units. Even selling every one, that is 35 sales for 528 leads worked. Cut to the 168 leads on cars still in stock and the same 35 sales become a 21% return.

Work the untouched in-stock leads first, every two to three days. Of the 168 in-stock leads, 59 (35%) had not been contacted in the last two days. Do those 59 before any three-day call or 10-day email in the task list. The goal is contact ratio on live cars, not task completion.

Judge each rep on in-stock leads, not total leads. One BDC rep had 225 leads on 25 in-stock cars, an 11% return. Only 69 of her leads were on cars still in stock (36%), and only 30 of those were untouched in two days. That is her list for today.

Internet closing percentage is a basis point, not a decision point. If 225 leads land on 10 cars, the rep's ceiling is 10 sales, or 4%, and that is not her fault. Same for a lead provider that sends 50 leads on your two cheapest cars. Until you know how many cars the leads are on, closing percentage cannot tell you who is good or bad.

Why does working leads by lead age waste two-thirds of your BDC's day?

Jasen starts with how most stores run leads. You are either handling them by the age of the lead, following up hardest while it is fresh and less as it gets older, or you are logging into the CRM and clearing whatever 80 tasks it queued up: three-day calls, 14-day emails, 30-day phone calls. Either way the rep is weeding through the whole lead load, and the lead load at this live store was 528 leads over 60 days.

Here is the catch. The store stocks 50 cars, and those 528 leads are on only 35 of them. The most the team can sell out of that pile, without switching anyone to another vehicle, is 35 cars. Jasen calls that a 7% return on activity: weed through 528 leads to sell 35 cars. The method is not about selling more from the pile. It is about how much of the pile you have to touch to get there, which is the leakage covered in how to spot lead leakage at your dealership.

The method: three slices of the same 528 leads

Slice one is in-stock. Of the 528 leads, only 168 were on cars still on the lot. Work those 168 and you can still sell the same 35 cars, but the return on activity jumps to 21%. That is the tripling in the title, and it comes from not calling people about cars you sold last week. (Those sold-car leads are not worthless; Jasen preaches switching them to comparable in-stock units, and recovering sold-vehicle leads is its own discipline. He sets it aside here to keep the math clean.)

Slice two is contact ratio. Jasen does not need the rep to work all 168 today. What he wants is for every active lead on an in-stock car to be touched every two to three days, regardless of lead age. Of the 168, only 59 had gone two days without contact, about 35%. So the day's list is 59 names. Do those first. Then, if there is time, go run the traditional three-day-call and 10-day-email process. He is not throwing that process out; he is putting it second.

Slice three takes it down to the rep. One BDC rep on the screen had 225 leads to sell 25 in-stock cars, an 11% return if she worked the whole pile. Only 69 of her leads were on cars still in stock, which is 36% and roughly three times the productivity. And only 30 of those 69 were untouched in the last two days. That is her Monday, and it fits the follow-up standard in dealer follow-up tracking: fewer calls, all of them on cars you can deliver.

I've got to weed through 528 leads to sell 35 cars for a 7% return on activity. This is where tripling your BDC's productivity on lead management helps you sell some more used cars today.

Jasen Rice, LotParty Quick Tip

Jasen's practical argument is staffing. Most sales teams are running thin, and in January that means flu season, vacations, and open seats. You cannot add hours to a short-staffed BDC, so the only lever left is making each hour count, which is the same logic behind used car lead recovery: put the effort where a deliverable car exists.

Why internet closing percentage is the wrong scoreboard

For 30 years the industry has graded BDC reps and lead providers on internet closing percentage: leads in, sales out. Jasen says that number is pretty much irrelevant until you understand how inventory shapes it. Take the same rep and imagine her 225 leads land on 10 cars instead of 25. Her ceiling is 10 sales, about 4 or 5%, and the manager says she is not doing her job. Was it her fault, or was the inventory concentrated so that half the leads piled onto a handful of units?

Same with lead providers. Say CarGurus sends 50 leads and all 50 are on your two cheapest, highest-demand cars. You sell both, your closing rate reads 4%, and you cancel CarGurus for sending bad leads. The leads were fine. They were on two cars. Jasen's read is that a general closing percentage, say 8% with a goal of 10%, is a fine basis point to track over time. It is not a decision point for judging a rep or a vendor until you break it down to leads per in-stock car, by rep and by source, which is the work he says he will be digging into over the next year.

Rebuild the BDC's list around the cars, not the calendar.

Pull 60 days of leads and tag each one in-stock or sold

Export every lead from the last 60 days out of the CRM with the stock number. Match it against today's inventory. Write down three numbers: total leads, leads on in-stock cars, and how many distinct in-stock cars they sit on. That last number is the most your team can sell from the pile without switching.

Hand each rep only the in-stock leads untouched for 48 hours

From the in-stock list, filter to leads with no contact in the last two days and split by rep. That is the first list every morning, before any CRM task. The standard is a touch every two to three days on every active in-stock lead, whether the lead is two days old or 50.

Rescore reps and lead sources by leads per in-stock car

Next to each rep and each provider, put leads, distinct in-stock cars those leads are on, and sales. Keep internet closing percentage as a trend line, but make decisions on the in-stock math. If 50 provider leads sit on two cars, the fix is inventory and pricing, not cancelling the provider.

Where LotWalk fits

The three slices in this video are the same filters LotWalk runs every morning. The Daily Action Plan lists which leads to call on which in-stock cars, each vehicle card shows total and active lead counts, and the "No Leads in 7 Days" chip flags the cars nobody is calling on. When a unit sells, Switch Leads matches its open leads to comparable cars in stock so the other 360 leads are not dead files. The Scoreboard tracks Total Worked against Total Worked In Stock per rep, which is the return-on-activity number Jasen is describing, and the coach checks it on the weekly call. The habit works with a spreadsheet and a stock list. LotWalk does the sort for you and keeps score.

Read the whole tip.

Show transcript (lightly edited for readability)

Why internet closing percentage is irrelevant on its own

What I'm saying in the title is how to triple your BDC or sales team's productivity on lead management, especially on used cars. This works on new cars too. I've gone over it before, but I want to double down on it and show you some numbers. If you happen to be listening, check it out on YouTube or my Facebook to see the screen. This is one of the things I'm going to be working on over the next year, making sure the numbers we use to track success rates on BDC or sales team members, and on lead providers, are more accurate than what we've been using for the last 30 years.

What I mean is that for the last 30 years we typically take an internet closing percentage: how many leads to how many we sold. Based on the numbers I'm going to show you, that's a pretty irrelevant number until you understand how the inventory impacts it.

528 leads on 35 cars

This is an image from a live store. The only thing I've edited is protecting people's last names and the store name. Up at the top is 60 days' worth of leads, 528. If you're running your traditional CRM process, one of two things is happening. You're either handling leads based on the age of the lead, so the fresher the lead, the more consistently you follow up, and as it gets older you reach out less and less. Or you're logging into your CRM and you've got 80 tasks to do today: three-day calls, 14-day emails, 30-day phone calls, 10-day emails, just working through the lead load of 528 leads.

But look at what those 528 leads are on. This dealer has 50 total cars, and those 528 leads are only on 35 of them. So the most you're going to generate out of 528 leads is the 35 cars they're on. That only equates to 35 sales, unless you switch people to other vehicles, which is something we also preach. But let's take it at that. I've got to spend my time weeding through 528 leads to sell a total of 35 cars, which if that happened, gives me a 7% return on my activity. This is where tripling your BDC's productivity on lead management helps you sell some more used cars today.

Slice one: cars still in stock

The first slice is this: of the 528, only 168 of those leads are on cars still in stock. So I can work 168 leads to sell the same 35 cars. If you just focused on the 168 where the car's still in stock and sold the 35 cars, same math, it gives you a 21% return on your productivity. You've got a 21% chance now to sell something.

Now I'm going to take it a step further, and here's where it gets really cool. I don't necessarily need you to work 168 leads today. What I need you to focus on is this: I have an active lead where the car's still in stock, and I want to increase my contact ratio on it every two to three days. I don't care if it's a two-day-old lead or a 50-day-old lead. It's an active lead on a car in stock, increase the contact ratio. Of the 168 where the car's still in stock, only 59 haven't been contacted in that two-day window, 35% of the 168. So let's just do the 59 first. I'm not throwing away your traditional internet follow-up process. I'm saying, why don't we focus on the 59 where the car's still in stock first, before we worry about the three-day call, the 10-day emails, and the rest of the task load.

Down to the rep

Let's see how that works down to particular reps. Take one rep here. She has 225 total leads to sell 25 cars. She could go through the traditional CRM process and weed through 225 leads to net out 25 deals, which is an 11% return on her time. I'm saying, hold on a second. Why don't we first look at the 69 where the car's still in stock? You can still sell the same 25 cars. Let's reduce your workload down to those 69 today, and that gives you a 36% return on your time, again tripling the productivity of the time being spent. Take it a step further. I don't need her to weed through all 69 leads. There are really only 30 right now that haven't been contacted in the last two days. If you want to increase contact ratio, you can call them every day or every other day. Feel free to go after all 69. But if you're just weeding through the 225, it gives you a very low return on productivity.

Here's why that's important. Most sales teams are running thin. Most sales teams are short-staffed, especially now with flu season, people sick, people on vacation. I'm already short-staffed, so to maximize the productivity of that shorter staff, we need to have them fine-tuned. Why don't we just work the leads where the car's still in stock.

Reps, lead providers, and the inventory behind the number

Let me go back to that internet closing percentage. This is a fictitious number, but let's say she has 225 leads on 10 cars instead of 25. Think about that. 225 leads, and she can only sell 10 cars. That'd be like a 5% closing percentage. And you're going to say, you're not doing your job, why are you at a 5% closing percentage? Well, out of 225 leads, if the most she could sell was 10, unless she switched people, is it really her fault?

Imagine a lead provider, a third-party listing site like AutoTrader, CarGurus, or Cars.com. Let's say you got 50 leads from CarGurus, but all 50 leads are on two cars, because they're your cheapest, or it's the 10-year-old car with 50,000 miles at 10 grand that gets 40 or 50 leads on it. Even if you sold both of those, you got 50 leads and only sold two cars, and you spent how much money? Then you say, let's cancel CarGurus, we only sold two cars out of 50 leads, they're not very good leads. Until you understand how inventory is impacting the performance of those lead providers and your BDC or sales team, you have no clear indication of how successful they are.

Going back to her 225 leads on 25 in-stock cars, that's kind of your 10%. That's maybe where the average internet closing percentage of 10% comes from. I'm going to be digging deeper into these elements and figuring out the best metric to track, because internet closing percentage is not a good number until you understand how inventory impacts it. If you have a general internet closing percentage of 8%, and you know that number, it's a basis point. It's not the one I'm going to make my decisions on. The basis point is 8% and I want to get to 10%. That's a good number to track, because if we improve it, we're selling more cars. Still a basis point, but not a decision point that I'm going to judge good or bad performance on until I understand how the inventory impacts it. All those numbers I showed you, we break down to the lead provider to get a better understanding of how good or bad those leads are.

I hope this is helpful. If you want to see how we can break this down for you, because we need to increase the productivity of the sales team, I need them to help me sell a car today, especially the cars still in stock, this is the best way to do it. All those numbers take you right to those opportunities, right to those leads, so they can work them through the CRM more effectively. Here are those 20 leads. Here's the customer. Copy the name, go into your CRM, call and email, mark them worked, and go to the next lead. Be more productive with the time being spent. Hope this is helpful. lotpop.com, sign up for a demo, and I can walk you through how we can help your team.

Transcript lightly edited for readability from the live stream. Watch the video above for Jasen's screen share.

Questions dealers ask about BDC lead productivity.

How do you triple BDC productivity on used car leads?

Change the sort. Instead of working leads by lead age or by the CRM task list, filter to leads on cars still in stock, then to the ones with no contact in the last two days, and work those first. In Jasen Rice's live example, a store had 528 leads over 60 days but only 168 on in-stock cars. Working the 168 sells the same cars with a third of the effort, which takes the return on activity from 7% to 21%.

What is return on activity for a BDC?

Jasen's shorthand for the cars a team can sell divided by the leads it has to work to sell them. If 528 leads sit on 35 in-stock cars, the ceiling is 35 sales, a 7% return on activity. Cut the list to the 168 leads on in-stock cars and the same 35 sales are a 21% return. It measures how much of the lead pile a rep has to touch to reach the deliverable cars.

How often should a BDC follow up on an active used car lead?

Every two to three days on any active lead where the car is still in stock, regardless of how old the lead is. Jasen does not care whether the lead is two days old or 50 days old. If the car is on the lot and the customer has not been contacted in two days, that lead goes to the top of the list ahead of scheduled three-day calls and 10-day emails.

Is internet closing percentage a good way to judge BDC reps or lead providers?

Only as a trend line. Jasen calls it a basis point, not a decision point. A rep with 225 leads on 10 cars has a ceiling of 10 sales no matter how well she works, and a provider that sends 50 leads on two cars will show a 4% close rate even if you sell both. Until you know how many in-stock cars the leads are on, closing percentage cannot tell you whether the rep or the provider is the problem.

Your BDC is working 528 leads to sell 35 cars. Work the 59 that matter.

The method, in five moves.

Why does working leads by lead age waste two-thirds of your BDC's day?

The method: three slices of the same 528 leads

Why internet closing percentage is the wrong scoreboard

Rebuild the BDC's list around the cars, not the calendar.

Pull 60 days of leads and tag each one in-stock or sold

Hand each rep only the in-stock leads untouched for 48 hours

Rescore reps and lead sources by leads per in-stock car

Where LotWalk fits

Read the whole tip.

Why internet closing percentage is irrelevant on its own

528 leads on 35 cars

Slice one: cars still in stock

Down to the rep

Reps, lead providers, and the inventory behind the number

Questions dealers ask about BDC lead productivity.

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