Selling In The Motor Trade

This week we revisit the first part of our interview with Gareth Timmins. What does Royal Marines training have to do with selling cars? More than you would think. Gareth Timmins joined up at 20 after a career in professional rugby league, passed out as a commando at 21, and wrote in a diary every day of the process. That diary became his book, Becoming The 0.1%, named after the one in a thousand who get through. In this episode he takes Simon through the parts that surprised him most. The sleep deprivation. The routines that kept him going when the motivation had gone. The strange rules that only make sense years later. And the moment at week 15 when he decided to stop fighting it. Honest, practical, and full of things you can take straight into your own team.
•    What the first 15 weeks of commando training are really designed to do
•    Ten hours of sleep in two weeks, and what that does to a person
•    Why your routines matter far more than your motivation
•    The gym rule about touching your face, and the reason behind it
•    The night the training team threw everyone's kit down the stairwell
•    Cultural architects, cultural assassins, and how culture gets rebuilt
•    The sacrifice to life ratio, and how to use it on a goal that feels overwhelming
•    Simon and Gareth on standards, straight lines and why retail is in the detail
Gareth Timmins signed his first professional rugby league contract at 15 and was playing on television by 16. He left the game and joined the Royal Marines at 20, passing out as a commando at 21. His book, Becoming The 0.1%, is the diary he kept through the whole of training, and a second book on building culture inside organisations is due next year.
Whether you run a dealership, a sales team or a service department, there is plenty here to take into your next team meeting.
Simon Bowkett, or Skippy to most of the trade, founded Symco Training and has been coaching service advisors and sales teams in UK dealerships for years. Everything covered here comes from air conditioning programmes Symco has actually rolled out inside dealer groups, not from theory.
Service advisors, service managers and heads of business will all get something out of this one, so share it with your team before your next department meeting.
About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk

It is plate change month in the UK, and Simon is in the studio rather than a dealership for this one. The subject is a question a lot of aftersales people are quietly worried about. When oil sales go, what replaces the income? Peter Smyth at Swansway Group rang after the tyre sales episode to ask exactly that, and this episode is Simon's answer. Tyres are worth doing, but they are a retention and trust play more than a profit play. Air conditioning servicing is the one that carries real margin, and most dealers already have the kit sat in the workshop. Simon walks through the full process, the knowledge your team needs, the objections they will hear, and how to price it against the cheap regas down the road.
•    What Peter Smyth at Swansway asked about replacing oil income, and why the number worried them
•    Where tyre sales genuinely help, and where they fall short as a profit replacement
•    Air conditioning servicing versus diagnostic work, and why the difference matters to your comeback rate
•    How often it should actually be done, and how to get one consistent answer across your whole department
•    The five touchpoints where air con can be introduced, from pre-call through to the follow up
•    The 'I hardly use it' objection, and the boiler at home explanation that lands with customers
•    Why customers cannot feel the air con getting worse, and why they notice straight away once it is serviced
•    How to compare your full service against a £99 regas without getting dragged into a price fight

Simon Bowkett, or Skippy to most of the trade, founded Symco Training and has been coaching service advisors and sales teams in UK dealerships for years. Everything covered here comes from air conditioning programmes Symco has actually rolled out inside dealer groups, not from theory.
Service advisors, service managers and heads of business will all get something out of this one, so share it with your team before your next department meeting.
About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk

Selling In the Motor Trade is closing in on 300 episodes, and Simon Bowkett wanted to mark it properly. That means a thank you to everyone who has listened since the early lockdown episodes, and a question back to you about where the show goes next. Along the way he shares the numbers that put the milestone in perspective, including the fact that only 6% of podcasts ever reach 100 episodes and fewer than 1% get to 300. He looks back at the guests who have made the biggest impression, from US sales trainers to dealer group leaders here in the UK, and he is honest about how the topics have moved on. Agency has faded. Chinese brands, a crowded franchise market and replacing oil revenue have taken its place. Then he opens the floor to the audience.
•    The story behind the show and why it started in the first lockdown
•    Podcast statistics that put 300 episodes into perspective
•    The guests who have stuck with listeners, from US trainers to UK dealer group leaders
•    How the trade's biggest questions have shifted since 2020
•    Chinese brands and a UK market with around 97 badges competing next year
•    Replacing oil revenue as service departments look further ahead
•    Why competitor trainers are welcome on the show, and the rising tide argument behind it
•    How to suggest a guest, a returning guest or a subject, and what you get for it
Simon Bowkett, or Skippy to plenty in the trade, is the founder of Symco Training and the author of Words That Sell Cars. He has hosted this podcast since the first lockdown, interviewing sales trainers, dealer principals and industry leaders from the UK, the US and Australia. This episode is a solo, and it is as much a thank you as it is a plan for the next 300.
Worth a listen if you follow the show, then send Simon a message on LinkedIn with the name you want to hear on it next.
About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk

Ever been told to go and prospect local businesses and thought, right, where do I even start?
This one is for you.
Simon Bowkett takes a client question about local business users, the buyers who are not quite fleet and not quite retail, and turns it into a step by step approach you can use this week.
It begins with a business you already look after. From there you find their competitors, use that connection to get past the gatekeeper, and give the decision maker a proper reason to meet you.
Simon also shares the referral question that gets customers introducing you themselves, the voicemail messages that actually get returned, and a simple idea sitting in your own accounts department that almost nobody uses.
Practical, honest, and built for a busy week on the forecourt.
•    Where to start when you have been told to go and prospect local businesses
•    How to use AI to build a list of a customer's direct competitors
•    What to say to the gatekeeper so your call gets put through
•    How to ask for a referral in a way people actually answer
•    Why your dealership's supplier list is full of easy appointments
•    Three voicemail messages that get a call back
•    Handling the "we already have a supplier" brush off
•    Why face to face still beats email and LinkedIn for this buyer

Simon Bowkett is the host of Selling in The Motor Trade and the founder of Symco Training, which coach sales and aftersales teams across UK dealerships. He runs a small business himself, so he knows why these buyers go quiet and how to bring them back.
The whole episode is built around a real question from a client. 
Share it with anyone on your team who has a local business patch and is not sure what to do with it.
About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk

Think about every amber tyre your department advised on last year. Now count the customers who rang back and booked in purely to have them done. It fits on one hand. Colin McAllister spotted two in a single day across John Clark Motor Group recently and it was unusual enough that he noticed, in a group with a site running 40 retail ramps. In this episode Simon Bowkett, Colin McAllister and Darren Bedford of Symco Training work through how red and amber work actually gets communicated, from the drop off conversation to the phone call that decides whether the customer says yes or drives to a fast fit. The line that kills your update calls. The rule that settles whether an item is red or amber. And why quoting your competitor's tyre price yourself is the fastest way to keep the job in house.
•    Separating the customer appointment from the car appointment so the golden hour survives a full drop off rush
•    The drop off agenda: payment method, VHC explanation, best number for the advisor, email for the technician's video
•    "If you don't hear from me, that's good news, and I'll see you at four o'clock", and what it does to your inbound calls
•    Why the health check should wait until the diagnostic the customer actually paid for is finished
•    The grandma rule for settling red or amber, and the version technicians should be using on themselves
•    Quoting the fast fit price yourself, and why a five pound gap per tyre closes on convenience
•    "Did you need to get back to me about the price, or about when we could fit it?"
•    The tyre card John Clark hand to customers, printed 1.6mm thick because that is the legal limit
Colin McAllister runs group training and development at John Clark Motor Group and brings the tools they put in advisors' hands, including the percentage worn tyre card and the Tyre Safe link that takes the argument off the dealer. Darren Bedford is sales director at Symco Training and spends his weeks inside service departments, which is why he keeps pulling this back to language rather than effort.
If your amber work goes quiet after the phone call, play this to your service advisors before Monday's drop offs.
About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk