Great question, because being more productive is your key to success. There are primarily two things that control your productivity at work each day:
Your activities (what you do)
Your skills (how well you do them)
Your daily goal is to stay busy doing productive things your entire shift. Continuous activity keeps your momentum going, and that means more success.
Whether it’s making prospecting calls and getting more appointments, doing your follow-up and getting referrals or appointments, talking to Service customers and showing them a new vehicle and getting a demo or sale, or talking to a walk-in customer and demonstrating and closing another sale – it’s ‘staying busy’ doing productive activities that increases your sales and income.
Again, it’s your activities plus improving your skills at each of those activities.
Most people need to improve their work habits and their skills, and you can easily do this in just a few minutes each day. Plus there’s a side benefit to improving your skills and habits; your attitude dramatically improves and that affects everything you do, too.
Start Here ... To start making improvements in your work day and in your skills, first you have to find out exactly what you’re doing now so you can measure your actual improvements.
Keep a ‘work log’ each day for 30 days, and you’ll quickly find out how many hours of your shift you’re actually doing something productive that will affect your sales and income.
‘Waiting’ Isn’t ‘Working’
When we remind salespeople that waiting isn’t working, the average person in class and in our surveys admit they only work about 3 hours of a 9-hour shift, and that’s probably pretty accurate.
On improving your skills, even if you aren’t using our VSA® to track everything, just pay attention. After each sale and attempted sale, replay everything that happened and write things down.
If you will, you’ll quickly start seeing where you lost control, got trapped talking price, or missed an opportunity to handle an objection or close the sale.
Not sure you can see yourself going from wasting most of your day to becoming super productive by tomorrow?
That’s OK, let’s look at two plans on how to break the habit and become more productive a few steps at a time.
Let’s assume you’re only really working 3 hours, too. In those 3 hours you’re talking to customers, chasing paperwork on deals, etc – you’re busy doing something to sell a car.
To improve, starting tomorrow, if you prefer the slow route...
Take 5-10 minutes to train on selling every day on prospecting or unsold follow-up.
Make just five 5-minute phone calls (actual contacts) every day to prospect or follow up someone who didn’t buy.
The math on your productivity improvement:
With the training and the calls, adding some time to log your contacts and put your notes into the system, you’ve added another 45 minutes or so to your productivity each day!
But wait – there’s more great news. If you make those five actual contacts (dials don’t count), that’s 25 contacts the first week. Plus, because you’ve been training on improving your prospecting and follow-up skills, you’re getting more referrals, more appointments, and more be-backs.
If those 25 contacts were to unsold customers, 1/3 of them will come back into the dealership and 67% will buy on the spot. That’s 8 more people next week on the lot to talk to than you had this week. Plus, these 8 will be 5 times easier to close than your regular walk-in prospects.
The Productivity Math ... You were already working 3 hours, you added another 45 minutes, and next week you have another 8 people to talk to. That means your actual productive time at work will dramatically improve.
Not even counting the extra time you’ll spend with those other 8 be-backs, by the end of next week, you’ll be working 50% more each day. And guess what happens to your sales and income when you are 50% more productive? Exactly!
Your sales and income will soon go up 50%, too.
Take the fast track (a more serious commitment)...
Keep training and learning how to sell in the next 30 days.
Make 10 of those 5-minute contacts, and also go meet just 3 people in service each day and use the referral script.
Changing habits takes a continuous effort until the new, more productive habits replace the old ineffective habits. Most people figure it takes about 30 days to do that, but in our workshops we always recommend you spend 60 to 90 days of focus instead, just to be sure a new habit sticks. Go for it!
