As a salesperson, we’ve talked a lot about how this is incorporated into the customer facing time. How is this changing the way a salesperson functions when they’re not dealing with one, two, or three customers at the same time. When they’ve got that “down time” when they’re not in front of a customer, how is this changing their routine at that point?

Now, from a salesperson standpoint, again, my greatest asset as a salesperson is my personality, my ability to be unique from other salespeople, whether they’re working with me at the same store or across town. I want the customer to remember me. How does the salesperson preserve that aspect if suddenly we’re doing so much of this in an automated fashion that salespeople become almost cookie cutter? Does that happen?

Is there pushback from a sales manager when adapting to a modern CRM and Automated Sales Process? Not if they understand how it helps THEM, too!

Now all of a sudden as a salesperson, I can genuinely start to believe that the manager really is there to help me not to be a watchdog but to be a co-salesperson in the effort.

Now, I will admit that the very best sales people, regardless of the industry, the best salespeople have certain things that they do that maybe everyone else doesn’t do. They have a certain style, or a pattern that they follow, and from what you’re saying, we’re not trying to disrupt that entirely. A salesperson can still have what makes him a great salesperson incorporated into this, but the fundamentals of the sales process are left to the control of management and the owner of the dealership, correct?

If a salesperson pulls out a mobile phone when greeting a customer, does the customer perceive it as a distraction or is it seen as being on the cutting-edge of technology? Is it a sign that the dealership is current with the modern age and are using tools to serve them better? Or is it just rude!?!

Another thing that the sales force was not necessarily doing that well was handling the calls, the incoming calls and things, so we created business development centers. BDC was going to be the answer, and that was going to be our end-all be-all to fix things, but really the BDC is not an automatic problem solver.

When you’ve got all this information, a dealer has a tool in place that collected this information, the natural tendency is, “I’m gonna blast these people with all kinds of emails and they’re gonna hear from me all the time. What a great way! I’m gonna have my name in front of them,” but that can be the death of your process, as well.