The first step in advancing the productivity of your staff in using the phones is a better understanding in the importance that the telephone can play and how it affects your business. Often a lack of the right attitude is displayed in the treatment towards the receptionist position. The receptionist is usually hired without any guidelines that would be used to hire for an important position. In your dealership do you have personality profiles, set interview questions and guidelines to hire an exceptional receptionist? Do you have a formalized training process and performance based pay? Often the receptionist is the lowest paid person in the dealership but is often the person who influences the customer first. Why not pay the receptionist a bonus based upon various criteria such as average time to answer a call, average hold time for a customer etc.

The sales people also need training on the understanding of the importance of both inbound and outbound sales calls and how this can affect their incomes. A sales person can sit around all day waiting for someone to come in, but they can take incoming sales calls and treat them like they are not important. The average dealership will spend a fortune on advertising to get people to call and come in but not pay attention to what is happening when the customers call or come in. Call a competitor or call your own dealership and mystery shop a few times and ask yourself if you are impressed with the results.

Let’s talk about a few things to improve the importance of sales performance in utilizing the phone. First of all, the dealership needs a formal call tracking process. Many dealerships know their floor traffic but not their phone traffic. Why? This sends the wrong message. You must quantify to qualify, meaning you must know where you are at to understand where you would like to go. Have the receptionist use a call tracking sheet that they are trained to use.

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In the bestseller, Good to Great, Jim Collins discovered that, “the good-to-great companies continually refined the path to greatness with the brutal facts of reality.”

And, in his recent autobiography, Jack Welch reports that he spent about half of his time on people: recruiting new talent, picking the right people for particular positions, grooming young stars, developing managers, dealing with under performers, and reviewing the entire talent pool.  Says Welch, “Having the most talented people in each of our businesses is the most important thing.  If we don’t, we lose.”

Why is it that many of us put off giving feedback to our employees even though we intuitively know that giving and getting honest feedback is essential to grow and develop and to build successful organizations? Maybe it is because there are so many ways to screw it up. 

Here are ten common feedback mistakes:

1.  Speaking out only when things are wrong.  “Praise to a human being represents what sunlight, water and soil are to a plant - the climate in which one grows best.” - Earl Nightingale 

2.  “Drive-by” praise without specifics or an honest underpinning. - “Great job!”

3.  Waiting until performance or behavior is substantially below expectations before acting on it.

4.  Giving positive or negative feedback long after the event has occurred.

5.  Not taking responsibility for your thoughts, feelings and reactions.  “This comes straight from the boss.”

6.  Giving feedback through e-mail messages, notes, or over the telephone.

7.  Giving negative feedback in public.

8.  Criticizing performance without giving suggestions for improvement.

9.  No follow up afterwards.

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When I was in high school, given the choice between giving an oral report and a written one, I always choose the written report. In college, I did the same thing. My reason: fear. I was terrified of public speaking.

When I graduated from college, my father gave me some advice. He said, “If you want to succeed in the business world, you will need excellent presentation skills. Take a job that will give you the chance to practice speaking in public.” 

I listened to my dad. My first job after graduate school was in the training department of a bank, designing and presenting supervisory training programs. At the first workshop I was to teach, my co-presenter didn’t show up. I was on my own. All I remember about the workshop is that I got through it. Afterwards, I made the decision to learn all I could about presentation skills. I never wanted to feel that kind of fear again.

It’s 20 years later and today I do public speaking almost every week. And I love it. Why? Because along the way, I learned some secrets, which I will share with you.

But first, forget the advice you got about picturing the audience naked. It doesn’t work. It’s not real, and it doesn’t do anything to help you connect with your audience - which is your ultimate goal.

Decide what you want to have happen as a result of your presentation. By focusing on what you want to convey you start to forget about yourself and move into thinking about your goal. Do you want to impart information? How can you do that clearly and concisely? Do you want to motivate your audience? If so, what do you want them to do? Do you want to persuade your audience? If so, persuade them to do what? After you determine your goal, you can figure out how to get there.

Put yourself in the audience’s shoes. Why are they there? What do they know about the subject? About you?

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