Dealers Report Sales Drops of Up to 30%. A Trainer Says the Fix Is in Your Store.

A sales trainer says he has heard from stores whose sales were down as much as 30%. He also phoned a store as a regular shopper and heard the floor tell him to wait until after an election. He says that talk usually echoes what the desk and the GM have been saying. Here is what he told dealers to do about it.

A trainer says he is hearing drops of up to 30% — and the market talk is coming from the floor

Sean Gardner is a sales trainer and instructor with the Joe Verde Group. He joined the Inside Automotive show to talk about the gap between stores that follow the market and stores run by their managers. He said that gap shows up most when volume falls, and he has heard from stores whose sales were down as much as 30%.

Then came the story that should stop any sales manager cold. Gardner phoned a store as a regular shopper. He heard the staff tell him there were not many buyers around, or that he should wait until after an election. He said talk like that usually echoes what the desk and the GM have been saying. And instead of pushing a shopper to act, it hands them another reason to put the purchase off.

My read: a shopper who hears that nobody is buying right now has just been handed permission to wait. Your own floor did the closing for the store down the road.

The 26-store group that saw the need to tighten its process

Gardner pointed to a dealer group with 26 stores where leadership saw the need to tighten its processes, giving the sales team a clearer path to convert more opportunities. He told managers to walk back through their sales process and find what needs work — starting with how the team answers the phone, greets walk-ins and works internet leads.

That list is short. Phone calls. Walk-ins. Internet leads. Not interest rates. Not consumer demand. Not showroom traffic. All three are things you can change before the weekend.

His framing is simple. Some stores are market-dependent. Others are management-driven. The second kind still sells in the same market as the first.

But there is a catch, and it is the easy part to skip.

What this means if you sell powersports or golf carts (my read)

This part is opinion, not reporting. Picture a powersports dealership in a slow month. A guy calls about a used side-by-side he saw online. The rep answers, hears the model, and tells him the inventory is thin and to come back in spring. That is the stall message Gardner heard, with different words. The lead is not lost because the market is soft. It is lost because nobody created urgency.

Now picture a golf cart dealer. A form comes in on a Saturday night — a retired couple asking about a four-seater for their neighborhood. That form sits until Tuesday. By then they have driven to the dealer two towns over. The form was never the problem. The gap between the form and the phone call was.

Here is the part that should sting. In both cases the owner looks at the month and says the market is slow. The framing in the piece is that traffic, rates and demand are not yours to move. How your team answers the phone is.

Gardner wants 30 minutes, three times a week

His training advice is specific: 30-minute sessions three times a week, built on basic selling skills — questions, objections, closing. When fewer people walk in, each interaction carries more weight, so a rep's ability to grind through a hard deal matters more than ever. He also said stores should work on developing professional salespeople instead of leaning on easy deals or buyers who show up ready to sign.

Three 30-minute meetings a week add up fast. If your floor cannot spare that, you do not have a training problem. You have a priority problem.

The 25/75 split behind goal setting

Gardner puts the split at a quarter for writing the goal down and three quarters for building a realistic plan and sticking to it. In his words, "75% of the success of goal setting."

My read: most stores do the easy 25% and never touch the 75%. A number on a whiteboard is not a plan. The 75% is the boring part — daily activity, follow-up, and the discipline to keep going when the board is behind.

Three obstacles Gardner says managers should remove

He listed the frustrations salespeople bring to him: a manager who is not around when a rep needs help putting a deal together, demo units that are not ready to show, and a negative answer when someone brings a hard deal to the desk. Gardner encourages managers to remove those obstacles and give their people the support to stay engaged.

Every one of those is a manager problem wearing a market costume.

How to use this in your store this week

1. Listen to your own calls. Pull your recent incoming calls and listen back. Gardner's review list starts with how the team handles incoming calls. Write down every stall you hear, every version of come back later.
2. Stop the market talk on the floor. Gardner's story shows what happens when the desk's mood floats out to the floor. Say it out loud at the morning meeting: nobody here tells a customer the market is slow.
3. Book three 30-minute trainings this week. Put them on the calendar before you leave today. Use his three topics: questions, objections, closing.
4. Write a one-page plan for each rep. The goal is the 25%. The plan is the 75%. One page, one number, the daily activity that gets there, and who checks it on Friday.
5. Work the unsold list with urgency. Gardner told salespeople to work unsold customers harder and faster, answer price objections better, and present payment options more clearly. Start with everyone who did not buy recently.
6. Stage your demo units. Gardner flagged demo units that are not ready to show as a common frustration. For a powersports store that means charged batteries, fuel, and a clear path to the door. For a golf cart dealer it means clean, charged carts parked where a customer can sit in one fast.
7. Start a referral push. Gardner pointed to repeat and referral business as a way to build a pipeline you can count on — the kind of customer who comes back and asks for a salesperson by name. Ask every buyer this week for one name.

Here is how I would run the follow-up from step 5.

For a powersports lead, I would name the machine he asked about, own the delay, and ask two questions — trail riding or around the property, and new or used. Two questions, no pitch.

For a golf cart lead, I would open with the weekend form, apologize for the slow reply, and ask whether the cart is for a neighborhood or a business. That answer decides which carts you show.

For a price objection, I would put the cash number and the monthly number side by side and ask which one matters more to him.

None of that needs a new ad budget. It needs a phone and a habit.