People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going.”
Earl Nightingale
Your chances of failing in your first year of selling cars are extremely high if you don’t know how to properly set and work towards your goals.
Above sentence is the purpose statement for having goals.
Search Amazon for the phrase “goal setting” and you get over 9,000 results just in the “Books” category. If you search the word “goal” only, the results go up to 50,000. Even if you limit the search to “Self-help” sub category, you end up with over 20,000 results. There must be many authors who had a goal about writing a book about goals. Is it really that complicated? Do you really need to read a number of books with hundreds of pages to figure out how to set your goals? You may want to do that for your general life goals. A word of caution though: You will get bogged down in bunch of fluff and generalities. Some of these authors get paid by the words they write. I am going to give you a simple, straightforward way to set your goals to succeed in car sales.
How do you measure success in our business? You guessed it right: MONEY? So let’s start with that.
How much do you need to make to cover your NEEDS? Housing, car payments, insurance, utilities, food, etc. This is the net amount you need make each month to survive. Increase the amount you came up with by 10% to cover the monthly surprises and emergencies and WRITE IT DOWN.
How much would you like to have to satisfy your WANTS on a monthly basis? Entertainment, recreation, vacations, planned events, etc. Add the amount you’d like to be able save each month and WRITE IT DOWN.
Add the amounts for your NEEDS and WANTS and increase it by 25%. That is your monthly GROSS GOAL. WRITE IT DOWN. That is how much $ you NEED and WANT to make each and every month. After going through the exercises above you also have your WHY: Satisfying your NEEDS and WANTS.
We are not done yet. We are going to break this $ amount into per unit. If you’ve been selling cars for a while pull your records and calculate the average number of cars/month you sold and the average gross income/month you made. Income includes commission, spiffs and bonuses. Divide the average income by the number of cars to get the average amount you make per car you sell. If you just started selling cars figure the amount at $300/car.
Finally Divide your monthly gross goal by the average amount per car to get how many cars a month you need to be selling. That is your monthly VOLUME GOAL. WRITE IT DOWN.
You can’t sell cars unless you move the customers through the sales process and put them on paper. You have to write them up. What is your closing ratio once you put a customer on paper? If you close 1 out 2 then your monthly write-up goal is double your volume goal. If you close 1 out 3 then your monthly write-up goal is three times your volume goal. WRITE IT DOWN.
Divide your monthly write-up goal by four. Now you have your weekly goal of how many customers you should be putting on paper. WRITE IT DOWN.
Get an index card and put all your needs and wants with $ amounts. Work out the numbers to get your Gross, Volume and write-up goals. Always carry it with you.
Here is an example:
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I NEED to make $3,700/mo survive and another $370/mo to cover unexpected surprises.
I WANT to make $1,100/mo for my fun fund and to go on that Bahamas cruise this year.
$3700+$370+$1100 = $5170 *1.25 = ~ $6,500
MY MONTHLY GROSS GOAL: $6,500
I average $425/unit taking into account all the commission, spiffs and bonuses.
$6500/$425 = ~15
MY MONTHLY VOLUME GOAL: 15 units.
I close about 40% of my write-ups on average.
15/0.40 = ~38
MY MONTHLY WRITE-UP GOAL: 38
38/4 = ~9
MY WEEKLY WRITE-UP GOAL: 9
I WILL HAVE MINIMUM 9 COMPLETE, COMMITTED WRITE-UPS EVERY WEEK.
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Put the index card in your wallet or pocket and read it every day.