Make Sure Your Sales Team is Executing on Fundamentals in 2019!

As we head into the new year, it’s a great time to make sure that your recycled auto parts sales team is consistently executing on sales fundamentals. After training and coaching hundreds of sales teams, I know it’s just as easy for a veteran salesperson to slip away from basic techniques as it is for the new comer to never consistently master them. I like to boil it down like this:

Our parts salespeople can have two types of calls: informational calls or sales calls. A typical inbound informational call might sound something like:

“Hi! I’m looking for a 2012 F150 engine.”

“Sure! Let me look that up for you! … Yes sir, I do show to have one here. I can have it to you in 2 business days, it’ll be $1300.”

On an informational call, a customer calls looking for a part, our salesperson finds the part, and a price is quoted. Too often this format of call is misunderstood to be a sales call even though the salesperson is not fulfilling what, could be considered to be, the most fundamental part of their role. An actual sales call sounds more along the lines of:

“Hi! I’m looking for a 2012 F150 engine.”

“Sure! Let me look that up for you! … Yes sir, I do show to have one here. I can have it to you in 2 business days, it’ll be $1300. Would you like to put that on order?”

Anytime a salesperson gives a price without asking a question to move the sale forward, they aren’t really executing on one of the most fundamental elements of their role. A frequent misconception is that the sales call can only happen if the salesperson is speaking directly to the decision maker. This doesn’t matter. The salesperson should be at the ready with questions like, “Do you think you can sell my part to your customer at that price?”, “Is my price within your son’s budget?”, “I know you have to sell the job first, but is there any reason you wouldn’t sell my part to your customer?” Regardless of the situation, there is always a way to phrase a question to move toward the close.

Many sales calls will require the salesperson to ask multiple questions to advance the sale throughout the conversation. Things like, “If I could have that to you tomorrow, would that work for your schedule?”, “This engine has 110,000 miles on it, does that mileage work?”

Make sure your sales team members are executing on this basic technique the right way. Whatever the question used to advance the sale, it should always be delivered with confidence, in a way that can only be answered with a “yes” or a “no” by the customer. A frequent mistake among many salespeople is to make suggestions to a customer, saying things like, “I have that engine. It’s $1300. If you want to get that going, you can pay over the phone with a credit card.” This does not provide any momentum towards a close. The question must be, “Would you like to pay over the phone with a credit card?”

With phones ringing off the hook, it’s easy to lose sight of the most basic of sales techniques. Use this new year to hit the reset button with your sales team to make sure everyone is having sales calls, not informational calls.