P4 Automotive grew its dealership count to five locations selling 10 brands in the past 18 months.
But successful scaling requires successful staffing.
The most challenging role to fill these days, according to Scott Pharr, the group’s COO and partner?
Not technicians, even though Pharr acknowledges that’s an obvious answer.
What they’re saying: “… There's a value that a sales manager brings to the floor that is maybe the most unappreciated value,” Pharr told Daily Dealer Live hosts Sam D’Arc and Uli de’ Martino.
“They do a lot of the work for the finance departments. They're coaching, they're training, they're mentoring, they're making deals happen. They're appraising, they're managing inventory. They're doing a million things, and I think it's no secret, in most cases, over the last seven to 10 years, in a lot of situations, they make less money than the finance spot that they came from,” Pharr added.
The problem: Many sales managers, especially when recruited from within finance departments, take a pay cut for a sales manager job, Pharr said. Plus, employee expectations have shifted.
“The post-Covid bubble burst has put folks into fake pay expectations, unfortunately, or they're all chasing, everybody's chasing, a title,” Pharr said.
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The fix: Consider hiring from outside of the dealership ecosystem.
“Which isn't really a practice that you like to do, but I think you always have to be open to it,” Pharr explained. “…We're having really open, transparent conversations with people.”
Pharr’s advice: Keep track of the following elements help make a successful sales manager:
Check the OEM site for surveys and CSI intel, including finding where the surveys are and which ones are still outstanding.
“If you're doing really well and actually passionate about winning in the CSI game for sales and service, you've got somebody in your company that's tracking this,” Pharr said.
Monitor appointment data, with same-day or next day appointments the best. Pharr said this lesson got drilled into him “militant style” during his days of working at dealerships owned by Larry Van Tuyl. That means confirming numbers from the prior day and again, keeping the scheduling tight.
Stay on top of production data by comparing where the dealership is at against where it’s tracking against the forecast. “I track all of that stuff because I'm a little bit of a psycho when it comes to data,” Pharr explained.
Looking ahead: Pharr plans to continue aiming to be ”the easiest place to do business for the team member and for the customer.”
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