Hiring the Best: How to Find and Hire the Best Car Salespeople
There are more than a million people who work in the automotive industry selling vehicles. But not all of those people are good at what they do.
In order to find the best car salesperson for your business, you need to have a viable hiring strategy and a solid interview process. You also need to have an education program in place at your dealership to train new employees on your business practices.
If you’re ready to implement changes in your business that allow you to reshape the way you hire and train your employees, read on! You’ll find out everything you need to know to get started.
Consider Their Experience
When you hire someone who has very little experience selling cars, it will take a lot of time and training to bring them up to speed. If someone has little to no experience in sales, in general, they would have to start with the basics before they are ready for their own customers.
In order to find out if a candidate has enough experience to do well, consider asking them about their strengths and weaknesses. If they are able to point out where in the sales process they run into trouble, then you can work with them to progress in that area. If they have no idea what the sales process entails, then you should choose another candidate.
Don’t Consider Their Experience Alone
Auto sales is an entry-level job that can be lucrative for the right person. When you post a job opening on a website, you may be tempted to ask for experience as a way to weed out some of the applicants.
But you could actually be working against yourself if you do that. If someone is highly experienced and doing well in the automotive industry, then they will be unlikely to want to change dealerships. If you do see someone making a change, you might ask yourself why they want to start over.
With experienced candidates, you should proceed with caution. Contact their previous dealership to find out why they are not working there anymore.
Benefits of Green Employees
There are benefits to hiring someone with little experience in car sales. The first is that they don’t have any bad habits already established. They won’t cut corners immediately and will give leads their best effort.
They also don’t have preferences on how they interact with customers, so they may be more willing to walk the car lot or engage in cold calling.
Finally, green employees don’t have sticky reputations from the car dealerships that they have worked at in the past. They will be motivated to build a positive image for themselves in your workplace quickly.
Identifying Aptitude
Some people are great at making cold calls, others have a natural aptitude for approaching customers on the car lot. It’s important that you’re able to recognize the key characteristics of people who are successful in those tasks.
The best way to determine if a salesperson has a certain aptitude is with pre-employment testing. Consider purchasing a subscription to candidate testing software so that you can sort less desirable candidates out of your hiring process early on.
Meet Candidates Multiple Times
In order to conduct an effective job interview, you have to meet a candidate several times. This will give you the opportunity to see how they act on multiple occasions.
It’s one more time for them to be late, appear disheveled, or say the wrong thing. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt and schedule a second interview. If it reinforces your original opinion, that’s great.
Consider a Trial Period
If you have a good training program, then your business shouldn’t be afraid to start over with a new employee. Consider bringing people onto your team on a trial basis.
You can put them through your training program and give them the opportunity to be successful. Then, if they don’t perform, you will be able to cut ties with minimal discomfort.
A trial period could also be an opportunity for you to create competition for your new employees. You could hire five potential employees and tell them that the three with the best performance will be hired on full time.
Focus on Candidates with Honor and Integrity
When you’re working in the automotive industry, there can be a lot of discord. It’s a very competitive business and some salespeople are more likely than others to poach a potential sale from a coworker.
It’s important that the people you hire for your business have honor and integrity and don’t engage in those kinds of practices. The last thing you want is to create drama in the workplace by bringing on the wrong team member.
In order to find out what kind of person you’re interviewing, you should ask them pointed questions about what they would do in various common sales situations.
Ask them what they’d do if a couple came in and told them that they were working with someone else the day before and that person wasn’t at the dealership that day. Also, ask them how they would react if someone took a client from them.
How to Create the Best Car Salesperson
Do you want to have the best car salesperson in the industry at your automotive dealership? It all starts with the right training.
Improve the training program at your business with the help of one of our education and training consultants. Contact us today to learn about the programs and services we offer.
