Pub. 10 2020 Issue 1

8 AUTOMOBILE DEALER NEWS ILLINOIS www.illinoisdealers.com It’s All About the People By Francis Fagan CONSULTANT’SCORNER D uring my travels across the “Land of Lincoln,” I hear: “It’s hard to recruit”; “It’s hard to retain salespeople,” or “Can you find me some people?” I will tell you that the answers are all emphatically the same: Yes. The irony is that I’ve heard these sentiments expressed in various forms since 1987. Here is the State of the Union with our sales force: We currently have a 74% turnover rate, with an alarming 39% just in the first 90 days for our new hires. Why is our industry so inefficient at retention when we have so many tools and resources such as unwavering owner support, a strong work ethic, and well-trained managers? Why is it so high when we now have companies like Hireology, Indeed or Career Builder? Simple. 67% of dealerships do not have a hiring process. Let’s think this through. Most 20Groupmoderators will show you the benchmark: salespeople sell 11 cars a month on average. If you want to sell 100 cars that benchmark will imply you staff nine people. Undoubtedly, some stores strive for more — some stores want each salesperson to sell 15-20 cars per month, which is a nice goal. However, such a goal may wither in the seasonal summer months when most people take time off for personal reasons (such as to attend graduations and weddings). Therefore, it is essential to make the daily monitoring of your sales schedule a top priority. There are twomajor issues facing you today: (1) hiring the “right people,” and (2) retaining the people you hire. Let’s address the first in this article. Turn on CNBC or Fox Business and everyone will tell you that the labor market is historically tight, with record-low unemployment. Do not despair; there is hope for you yet. Beforewe discuss a process, here are a few threshold questions to ask yourself: When should I be recruiting? All the time.Hiring the right people at the right time is a lengthy and on-going process. Rarely does a “superstar” justwalk through thedoors andsell 20cars the firstmonth.