Are you afraid of SkyNet? Does the idea of artificial intelligence scare you? If not, then it probably should. On today’s episode of Mind Your Own Business, your host Jonathan Dawson dives into implementing artificial intelligence, AI, into the dealerships. Dawson elaborates on the ways individual salespeople can leverage AI in their daily interactions to sell more vehicles.

Individual AI exercises can help salespeople improve their ability to communicate effectively. Dawson explains that AI offers influential tools dealers can use to enhance efficiency in the retail sector. DriveCentric, for instance, seamlessly displays how AI is a potent CRM tool. DriveCentric uses AI to help dealerships analyze customer data and buying behavior, enabling salespeople to tailor their interactions. Additionally, AI makes recommendations based on customer preferences. Furthermore, AI-driven sales forecasting tools can help predict customer needs and allow salespeople to reach out to potential buyers through personalized messages. Salespeople that use AI effectively can strengthen relationships and improve the likelihood of closing deals by knowing their consumers more.

ChatGPT is another powerful and effective tool that enables salespeople to ask for a unique follow-up prompt it can send to leads. For example, say you have Steve, an unsold lead. You can go into ChatGPT and ask for a simple prompt, like a poem, that can be sent as a follow-up email. The more descriptive you are with the AI tool, the more descriptive your response will be in less than half the time it would take a team of writers to compile.

On the other hand, another avenue your salespeople can use to leverage AI is reaching and engaging potential customers effectively. AI-powered media tools and posts can assist salespeople in identifying potential leads and engaging with them more effectively. Not only can AI aid in tailoring their message approach, but it can help determine the best time to send the messages. Enabling adequate time to contact the leads will increase the likelihood of a response, leading to more conversions. 

For example, say you have a specific car with incentives attached to selling. Go over the free ChatGPT tool and ask: Under what conditions and with which target demographics would you like to purchase a 2019 Sprinter van from a car dealership? The AI responded with the following response in less than three seconds: “The 2019 Sprinter van would appeal to a variety of life scenarios and demographics. It might appeal to companies and commercial users seeking a flexible and roomy vehicle for moving goods and offering services. Additionally, because of its large luggage area and potential for conversion into a camper van, this would appeal to travelers, adventurers, and outdoor enthusiasts. The sprinter van might appeal to families or large parties looking for comfortable, spacious vehicles for excursions or daily commuting.”

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On the latest episode of Mind Your Own Business, host Jonathan Dawson, founder of Sellchology, discusses the importance of recognizing areas of your dealership that might be struggling and proactively correcting those processes or behaviors. He draws a parallel between the fall of great empires and the downfall of dealerships, using the boiled frog analogy. He explains that just as a frog slowly adjusts to increasing water temperature, it’s too late to escape, dealerships often fail to notice the gradual decline until it’s too late.

Dawson shares his experience visiting a once highly successful dealership that has now become virtually deserted. He urges dealership owners and managers to be vigilant and proactive in identifying areas of neglect or oversight that could potentially harm the business in the long run. He advises holding a meeting specifically dedicated to discussing these areas and involving department heads and experienced employees to gain valuable insights and perspectives.

To prevent the boiled frog scenario, Dawson recommends forming a dedicated team responsible for addressing the identified issues and taking action. He stresses the importance of empowering this team to make necessary changes and continuously improve the dealership’s operations.

Dawson emphasizes the need for clear communication throughout the organization. He suggests informing the entire team about the issues being addressed, discussing potential solutions, and seeking employee feedback. By involving the team and fostering a sense of ownership and collective responsibility, dealerships can avoid major setbacks and ensure everyone is aligned with the vision and goals.

Dawson also highlights the importance of allocating the right resources to address the dealership’s needs through internal training or external partnerships. He warns against burdening managers with excessive responsibilities and urges dealers to consider investing in resources that can accelerate growth or prevent decline.

Ultimately, Dawson encourages dealerships to learn from history and avoid the fate of once-great empires. By proactively addressing neglected areas, fostering clear communication, and allocating appropriate resources, dealerships can avoid being the boiled frog and ensure long-term success.

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Traffic, traffic, traffic. Traffic solves a lot of problems for dealerships. You have to get traffic. You have to get people in the door, the phone to ring, and the door to swing. On the latest Mind Your Own Business episode, your host Jonathan Dawson discusses ways to utilize different market strategies to engage more traffic. 

When deeply diving into how dealership staff members can self-generate traffic, Dawson encourages dealers to look into the methodology of the four primary approaches to solving marketing questions. It’s important to note these four approaches are not all created equally, not all are on the same level of effectiveness, and not all have the same costs. However, Dawson explains the approaches in the order based on how he believes dealers would operate. 

1. Pay for exposure/opportunity- AKA PPO
   • This approach is paying to have the opportunity or exposure in the marketplace. Dawson explains, “If dealers ever spent money solely for the purpose of a targeted audience to see or hear its message, then you have already partaken in this method.” To illustrate, if a dealer has utilized a billboard, television, radio, or social media- there is no guarantee anyone has heard or seen it. Still, you’re paying upfront money to have the exposure. 
2. Pay per lead marketing 
   • Dealers will pay money in this situation in exchange for a contact, such as an email address, phone number, a conversation, or the ability to capture something from them. 
3. Pay per sale 
   • Dealers only pay if a transaction is created. In the automotive sector, Dawson refers to it as the “Bird Dog Fee,” which only gets paid in the event that a sale occurs.
4. Free marketing mode
   • Dealer participation results in a one-time low-cost, long-term residual benefit and payment for exposure, opportunity creation, and relationship building. Dawson states, “Expanding your marketing strategy by spending money once on a low cost and then enjoying the long-term return will benefit your dealer more.” For example, giving a consumer a keychain, depending on the style of the chain, will stay on their key fob for years. “You spend only a small amount on the keychain,” Dawson says, “but the customer may have it attached to their keys and handle them for years.”

Ultimately, Dawson encourages dealers to sit down with their teams and establish a goal. Ask each team lead how intentional they are in all four approaches and how effectively they perform those methods. What most dealers don’t know, expresses Dawson, is that you can utilize each method while also using the expansion of social media to train your salespeople.”You can train your people to utilize their customer’s social media and broaden your dealers’ advertising methods.” 

Dawson examines the questions dealers should be implementing in order to implement these marketing strategies more effectively. Such as: how many salespeople know how to complete a sale and then broadcast it on their Facebook lives? Or how many know how to illustrate their Jones effect properly? 

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How do you handle difficult conversations? Whether they are team- or coworker-oriented, we all have challenging conversations. But how do you handle them? On today’s CBT Automotive Network exclusive: Mind Your Own Business, your host Jonathan Dawson dives into the methodology and approach of using psychology to converse with someone proactively. Dawson is the founder of the sales training platform Sellchology and an expert on the psychological principles behind sales strategies. 

Method one

Dawson encourages everyone to revert to the classic ‘feel, felt, and found’ sales technique. The technique has been found to aid in navigating through difficult conversations. Many of you have heard it, and I’m sure you taught it to a salesperson. The first method it’s going to sound like so,

1. “I wanted to share something with you because I feel….” Fill in the blank with an emotion of how you’re feeling. 
2. Dawson encourages you to take whatever you’re feeling and then proceed to “I also noticed I felt that way when….” You have to be very specific about what you noticed here or observed, then insert the scenario that happened and activate that emotion. 
   1. To illustrate, Dawson encourages, “I wanted to share something with you because I feel disrespected in our relationship. I also noticed I felt that way when you came into the meeting late again.”
3. He continues, “And what I found was that it’s impacting…” and fill in the blank with what you found out. Maybe their behavior affects how the company gets along or productivity levels, or it’s negatively impacting you. 

Utilizing the feel, felt, found methodology for introducing a complex topic is a way that puts the responsibility on them to asset what you said in the light of how it’s impacting your relationship with them and you personally. 

Method two

Another method Dawson highlights is the FBI method. It’s very similar in deployment with three key points to it: 

1. F- Feel
2. B- Behavior, 
3. I- Impact 

When having a conversation, you might implement this method as the following:

“Hey, I wanted to share with you something because I realized the other day I felt a little disrespected, and the behavior that I noticed was when you showed up late (or pick the area that you can be specific in) and tried to make it recent. Then when I noticed the behavior of X, the impact it’s having is no longer… fill in the blanks accordingly. However, Dawson exclaims, “Once you have stated either method, bring all the ownership back on you and say, I don’t want to feel this way about you or something along those lines.” But encourage a way to fix the issue. 

Take ownership of how you feel about your relationship what that person. Because what happens is they will usually take ownership on their behalf. But after, you have to give them a clear path forward. Dawson reiterates, “To make sure this doesn’t happen again, can we agree…” Many organizations have unresolved internal conflicts because people lack meaningful conversations about complex topics. 

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As a manager, getting your employees to buy into a new project can be one of the most frustrating parts of the job. There are many mistakes leaders can make when announcing a new project to their team, so on this episode of Mind Your Own Business, host Jonathan Dawson discusses how to motivate your employees the right way. Dawson is the founder of sales training platform Sellchology, and an expert on the psychological principles behind effective sales strategies. He is also an author, speaker and consultant with years of experience in the car business.

Many business owners set themselves up for failure by assuming their employees will react positively to a new idea or project. “The first mistake that sabotages a lot of launches is expecting that everyone will respond the same way you respond,” explains Dawson. However, when it comes to motivating a team, it does not matter how good, exciting or relevant an idea is: it is impossible to get everyone to buy in. This is because everyone operates according to their own frame of reference.

Thankfully, you do not need to get a positive response from everyone on your team. Instead, you simply need enough supporters to get the task started. Rather than aiming to bring everyone on board, aim instead for those who understand your idea and its purpose.

By cultivating this small group of supporters, business owners can motivate their teams more than they could alone. This is because it gives other employees a standard to follow and a way to see the idea working in real time.

Another way business owners fail to improve buy in, is by skipping two fundamental questions: Who will be impacted by this change? How will they feel about it?

Ideas, both good and bad, can come with unintended consequences. Failing to foresee these not only puts your business plan at risk, it also weakens your authority. To avoid sabotaging themselves, managers should seek to answer how their idea will change their employee’s circumstances and whether or not this change will be viewed positively. “People don’t like stuff being dropped on their head…especially if it impacts their life,” remarks Dawson.

Managers also make matters worse by failing to make their expectations clear. Employees need to know the standards to follow, roles to fill and deadlines to meet in order to make an idea work. Without doing the preliminary work necessary to offer a detailed strategy, business owners sabotage their ability to get their employees to buy into their idea. Giving teams this framework also provides accountability since it ensures everyone is 100% aware of what they are expected to do and who to go to when something needs to be taken care of. “Within your organization, if you want something to launch better, there needs to be a person, an individual, that the buck stops with.”

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On the latest episode of Mind Your Own Business, host Jonathan Dawson, founder of Sellchology, discusses eight ways car dealers can out-experience their competition. Dealers that provide a better customer experience will give themselves a sizable advantage and improve retention rates.

Not all customers view the transactions the same way. Dawson says he calls this the YOLO effect. The YOLO effect is what you do to cause a customer to say ‘you only live once’ and decide to buy from your dealership. They not only buy, but pay a premium to do so. Dawson’s eight principles include:

Making life easier. Anytime your life gets easier, you may say, take my money. Ease is the one way, we can use psychology to turn down the price sensitivity that the customer may have when buying a car. Dawson asks the question, how easy is it to do business with you? What process changes have you made to make buying a car from you easy?

Putting forth extra effort. Dawson asks the question, what is your team doing to exert that extra effort? He says if they do bring the extra effort, customers are willing to buy.

The efficiency of a customer’s visit to your dealership. How many times in your life you’ve paid more money because you want something to happen faster? Can you make things quicker without rushing customers? Dawson says, in the next sales meeting ask your employees, how and where can you make things more efficient?

Educating the customer. Whenever we’re being educated our brains tell us, it’s okay to pay money for this education. It’s easy to sell a car but are you educating the customer on the process? You need to teach employees how to use an educational selling approach not just being transactional.

Showing off expert staffers. Expertise is paying money to specifically work with an expert. On your sales team, are the members certified or accredited? Position your team as the expert in the marketplace.

Entertaining the customer while at the store. You need to make sure your customer is having a great experience. What are you doing to entertain your buyers?

The environment of the dealership. Dawson says some dealerships have put little to no thought into the actual environment they’ve created for their customer. The environment dictates whether or not a person feels comfortable paying you money. Ask your team to go around the building and look for areas where the environment should be adjusted or aren’t paying enough attention to the details.

Exclusivity of the experience and the result. When a person feels that what they experience is truly unique or special, their brain justifies paying a premium for it. You have a unique opportunity to out-experience your competition.

Have your team go through this list and have them identify things that they are doing or things they think they should be doing to elevate the customer experience.

Did you enjoy this episode of Mind Your Own Business? Please share your thoughts, comments, or questions regarding this topic by connecting with us at newsroom@cbtnews.com.

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In some ways, the automotive industry saw some of the most amazing growth and profitability over the last two years. While this is an exciting time for car sales, savvy car dealers have started to pick up on the negative effects. On the latest episode of Mind Your Own Business, host Jonathan Dawson, founder of Sellchology Sales Training, discusses the pitfalls of complacency culture.

Dawson has started to notice some troubling discourse on social media from General Managers and other automotive retail professionals. He says the posts he sees are troubling and he is concerned about how dealership employees are treating customers.

For example, a sales manager’s post on Dawson’s feed recently lambasted a customer for not agreeing to place a hold deposit on a vehicle. That sentiment, by itself, is not that concerning. However, the thread below the post was filled with comments like “screw ’em”, “sell it out from under them”, and “I hope you rub it in their faces.”

This is a wake-up call to car dealers that some of their employees truly might not care about the customer. Here is a manager, in writing, on a public platform declaring that he doesn’t care about his customers.

Dawson wonders, if this mindset has become the norm, what are the long-term ramifications? What happens if you are not Minding Your Own Business? If you are a car dealer, you need to be actively paying attention to what’s going on in these online forums.

Dawson believes, some dealer groups, unknowingly, have a negative culture brewing that might be undermining your reputation. Some dealers have spent decades building up the value of customer relationships. This insidious attitude displayed on social media can tear all of that down.

Dawson understands that scarcity is your biggest closing tool right now, but does that means that your salespeople have to lose their empathy?

Did you enjoy this episode? Please share your thoughts, comments, or questions regarding this topic by connecting with us at newsroom@cbtnews.com.

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Welcome to another edition of Mind Your Own Business. Today, host Jonathan Dawson, founder of Sellchology Sales Training, discusses how to evaluate, eliminate, and expand your perspective.

First, evaluate where you get your perspective. You have a sphere of influence if you are in a management or leadership role. In Dawson’s case, he gains his perspective from the many voices at the dealerships, conventions, and conferences he visits. Being surrounded by different voices gives Dawson a way of seeing problems and opportunities through different lenses.

When you evaluate your perspective, keep these main ideas in mind:

• Areas of opportunity: Identify where you can grow professionally.
• Look for people to model after: Find out who is already growing and developing in the area that you want to.
• Ask for their perspective: Position yourself to be resourceful. Reach out to the people you admire who are achieving success in the areas you want to develop.

Auto retail professionals often need a new perspective, but they also need to eliminate bad perspectives. Most people don’t know how to stop the unhealthy voices. For example, suppose you constantly get praised and never critiqued. In that case, you might not be listening to the right people or getting the right perspective.

Expand your perspective by dedicating time to search for new perspectives. Try listening to audiobooks or knowledge-based podcasts during your commute to work to broaden your perspective. Make sure you set aside time on purpose to expand your thinking.

Did you enjoy this episode of Mind Your Own Business? Please share your thoughts, comments, or questions regarding this topic by submitting a letter to the editor here, or connect with us at newsroom@cbtnews.com.

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Welcome to another edition of Mind Your Own Business. Today, host Jonathan Dawson, founder of Sellchology Sales Training, discusses how to take your training meetings to the next level with these five themes:

1. Motivational: The goal of this type of meeting is to motivate behavior. You want your staff to walk out of the meeting feeling genuinely motivated to reach their goals and make specific behavioral changes. This is the time to set benchmarks for your employees and incentive their performance and behavior. Discuss current challenges with them and explain the outcomes you are looking to see.
2. Inspirational: This meeting aims to inspire thought and encourage employees to reflect inward. Consider bringing in a guest speaker who faced and overcame a difficult challenge. A moving message might inspire your staff members to make changes internally and grow professionally.
3. Informational: While informational meetings are the most exciting, they are vitally important. An informational meeting is where you talk about valuable information to the employee’s department or day-to-day role. Try making a list of the things your team has to have to be more effective at their jobs.
4. Educational: Different from informational meetings, educational meetings are learning experiences. These meetings are the closest to ‘traditional’ training sessions. This is an opportunity to look at specific skill sets, techniques, and approaches. Roleplaying, discussions, and scriptwriting might play a large part in these meetings. 
5. Relational: This meeting format is all about camaraderie.

Don’t worry about incorporating all five themes into every meeting, says Dawson. Instead, think of the themes as different approaches you can take to the meeting. Think about the big idea you want to present at each meeting and choose one of the five formats that fits best.

To make sure your meetings are consistently hitting the five themes, Dawson suggests keeping a calendar. Determine the goals you want to accomplish each month, the number of meetings you need to have, and what type of meeting theme each one will be.

Did you enjoy this episode of Mind Your Own Business? Please share your thoughts, comments, or questions regarding this topic by submitting a letter to the editor here, or connect with us at newsroom@cbtnews.com.

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Welcome to another edition of Mind Your Own Business. Today, host Jonathan Dawson, founder of Sellchology Sales Training, has prepared a simple exercise to explore The Dunning-Kruger Effect and reveal how it may be affecting your business.

All you have to do is answer the three questions below to the best of your ability without looking up the answers on Google. You don’t have to answer with the exact numbers, but try to choose a reasonable range of estimation. Write down your guesses.

1. How long is the Nile River? (miles)

2. How tall is the Eiffel Tower? (feet)

3. How heavy is the Statue of Liberty? (pounds)

Do you have your answers ready? How precise and confident are you in your answers?

Oftentimes people with limited understanding of a subject, overestimate their own knowledge. You have little to no first-hand experience with all three of these features, yet you feel confident narrowing down your guess to a precise zone. This is called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Typically, the person who has the fewest number of reasons to be confident tends to give the most confident answers. However, the human brain does this psychological principle naturally for all of us, and it could be affecting your business.

Dawson’s point here is that people presume things without really knowing them and that can be dangerous when running a business. Salespeople presume they know what the customer is thinking, even though in many cases, they have no reason to do so. Then, the salesperson starts guessing what the customer’s motivation is for buying a new vehicle.

The reality is, that human perception of what we think we know is often incorrect, and unless we stop and ask questions, we can’t grow. Let’s not guess and find out later. Let’s ask and find out now.

Check your answers:

Did you enjoy this episode of Mind Your Own Business? Please share your thoughts, comments, or questions regarding this topic by submitting a letter to the editor here, or connect with us at newsroom@cbtnews.com.

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