In my dealership, I think most of the traditional car salespeople see me as an oddity, if not a joke. They don’t understand why I focus on vehicles that are much more time-consuming to sell and have lower profit margins and lower commissions.
This morning, I walked into the Saturday morning sales meeting and this was the first slide of the meeting presentation:
I’m not sure if this was grudging acceptance or ridicule by management, but we all had a good laugh. (I think they thought I actually have the blazer I’m wearing in the photo…)
Buzz, what percentage of your sales are to people who come to the dealership already interested in or curious about EVs and what percentage to people who didn’t know anything about them til they ran into you?
Probably about 1/3 have never heard of Volt or Bolt EV or they thought GM had stopped making them.
Fantastic!
If only all the shoppers could run into you first. I presume your colleagues are actively steering people away from plug-ins.
No. Times are tough right now in the car business. Everyone will try to sell a Volt or Bolt EV. A few have succeeded but Volt/Bolt EV customers have lots of questions. If the salesperson talking with them doesn’t have the answers, just like at any other dealership, they’ll leave. I’ve seen other salespeople come down and get a Volt or Bolt EV, to take it to their building, only to see it return to my building the next day.