A 10 Minute Routine for Coaching Dealership Sales Calls

By Jake Robison

If you manage a dealership, you know how easy it is to spend an entire Saturday helping everyone and still get to closing time without having coached anyone.

You worked numbers, met customers, answered questions and helped get deals across the finish line. You were involved all day. But did anyone get better at selling?

I have worked on dealership showroom floors for the last 25 years and spent more than a decade as a general manager. I know how often coaching gets pushed aside by something that needs attention right now. You plan to spend time with a salesperson, then a deal gets complicated or a customer needs you. Before you know it, you are locking up and headed home.

Sales calls give us a practical place to start. We can hear what the customer asked, how the salesperson responded and where they needed help. The challenge is making time to do something with what we hear.

A 10 minute routine can help. You will need to keep it focused and you will need to follow up. But that is manageable, even in a busy store.

First, Decide What You Want to Hear

Before reviewing a call, get clear about what you expect from your salespeople.

“Build value” makes sense to an experienced manager. A newer rep may hear that and start listing features. “Get the appointment” tells them the result you want, but it does not teach them how to get there.

What does a good conversation actually sound like at your dealership?

If a customer asks about a boat, do you expect the rep to learn how they will use it before recommending something? If the customer questions your price, what should the rep find out before asking a manager for a discount?

Be specific enough that someone can practice it.

For example, you might want a salesperson to ask who will usually be aboard and what the customer wants to do on the water. Those answers can change the recommendation. They also give the salesperson a reason to talk about certain features instead of walking through everything on the spec sheet.

Your reps should understand what you expect while still being able to sound like themselves.

Minutes One and Two: Pick a Relevant Call

Start with something you are already trying to improve.

If your team is struggling to turn inquiries into appointments, choose a call where the customer showed interest but never committed to coming in. If reps are asking for discounts too quickly, find a conversation where price became an issue.

Searchable recordings make this easier. You can also ask a rep to bring you a call where they got stuck. A strong call is useful, too, particularly when someone needs to hear how a skill works in an actual conversation.

The point is to choose a call for a reason. Otherwise, you can spend your available time listening without getting to anything you can coach.

Minutes Three Through Five: Find the Part Worth Working On

Listen for the exchange that relates to the skill you chose.

A customer asks, “What’s your best price?”

The salesperson answers, “Let me check with my manager.”

That response may be familiar, but it leaves several questions unanswered. Is the customer comparing another boat? Are they working within a budget? Are they simply asking because they think they should?

Before we start discussing a discount, we ought to know.

Listen to enough of the conversation to understand what happened. Then choose what you want to work on with the rep.

This is where managers have to be disciplined. Once you start listening, you may hear five other things you want to address. Save them. If you try to fix everything in one sitting, the salesperson may leave with a page of notes and no clear idea of what to do on the next call.

Minutes Six Through Eight: Let the Rep Work Through it

Play the exchange for the salesperson and ask, “What did you feel was important to do when they asked you that?”

Their answer matters. They may have felt pressured to respond quickly. They may not have known what else to say. They may even believe that checking with a manager is exactly what you want them to do.

Give them a chance to explain before you jump in.

Then ask, “What could you ask before coming to me for a price?”

Work toward an answer they can use. Something like:

“I can help you with the numbers. Are you comparing this one with another boat, or is there a budget you’re trying to stay within?”

Adjust the wording together. If it sounds awkward coming out of their mouth, keep working on it.

Have them say it aloud, then answer as the customer. Tell them you found a similar boat for less somewhere else. See what they ask next.

That second exchange is important. A rep can repeat a sentence back to you without knowing how to handle the answer. A little practice will show you whether they understand what they are trying to learn.

Minutes Nine and 10: Set the Expectation

Before you finish, agree on what the rep will do differently.

“For the next few calls, find out what the customer is comparing before we discuss a discount.”

Write it down. Later in the week, review another call where they had a chance to use it.

If they did it well, play that part back and tell them what worked. Be specific. “You asked about the other boat and found out it had a different engine. That gave you something useful to discuss.”

If they are still struggling, ask what happened. They may need more practice, or the response you worked on may not have fit that situation as well as you thought.

Either way, follow up. A coaching conversation is easy to forget when the showroom gets busy again. Returning to it shows the salesperson that this is something you expect them to learn.

Make it Easy to Ask for Help

Your team should know why you are reviewing calls and what will happen afterward.

If every review turns into a rundown of mistakes, people will dread them. You want a salesperson to feel comfortable saying, “Can you listen to this one? I didn’t know where to go with it.”

How you respond will determine whether they ask again.

Use good calls as well. With the salesperson’s knowledge, share an exchange that would help the team. Ask the rep why they chose that question or how they knew it was time to ask for the appointment. Experienced salespeople often do things naturally that newer people have never been taught.

And be willing to look at your own instruction. If several reps are missing the same thing, ask yourself whether you have explained it clearly and given them enough practice.

After years in the business, we can forget how much we had to learn.

Ten minutes is a starting point. Some reps will need more time, and some calls will deserve a longer conversation. But a focused review gives you a way to coach regularly instead of waiting for a quiet afternoon that never seems to come.

Pick a call. Help the salesperson work through the part that gave them trouble. Then make time to hear how they handled it the next time.

Jake Robison has worked on dealership showroom floors since age 19, managed sales floors since 2003, and spent more than a decade as a dealership general manager. He is co-founder of Callsistance and Livesistance, sales coaching partnerships that help dealerships coach phone and face-to-face conversations around their own standards.