SALES training and automotive sales events specialist, Absolute Results, has recently been impressing dealers across the eastern states and across the ditch as more car retailers adopt the company’s methods of moving to an appointments culture and report strong sales from record closing rates.

Absolute Results is able to add, in a one-day private sales event, an extra week of sales to a dealer’s month.

It does this by applying its systems to a dealership’s database and, through extensive analysis is able to identify the most likely customers to take advantage of a special, customer invitation-only sale day.

The dealership’s sales staff are trained in “intelligent phone conversation” to recruit into the showroom for the event people who are loyal customers. The sales staff are then supported and ready to convert those who turn up into repeat and new customers.

It is a training and events system based on a dealership’s existing customers that has sold more than 750,000 vehicles globally and more than 20,248 vehicles in Australia.

Steve Zanlunghi, director of operations – Asia Pacific Region, told GoAutoNews Premium: “Recent events have shown that contacting the dealers’ database to invite previous customers for private sales events continues to have great success.”

Some recent examples from Absolute Results’ sales events in May and June include:

• A dealership for a premium European brand in Melbourne sold 27 cars from the event with a 71 percent appointment-to-show ratio and a 52 percent close ratio. The event was so successful that if a customer walked in without an appointment there was over an hour wait
• Luxury European brand dealership in the Melbourne suburbs sold 36 cars during the event with a 57 percent appointment-to-show ratio and 56 percent close ratio
• An event in the Melbourne suburbs for a volume Asian brand sold 32 cars with a 77 percent appointment-to-show ratio and 57 percent close ratio en route to their best-ever month in spite of that brand being down by double digits nationally
• Dealership in Queensland selling a mid-ranking Japanese brand sold 31 cars, enjoyed a 67 percent appointment-to-show ratio and generated an extraordinary 86 percent close ratio.

Mr Zanlunghi said that these results reflect the growth of the Absolute Results team in Australasia.

“As far as our team here goes, we are currently up to five local trainers in Australia who are locally based servicing Australasia. Each has sales manager, or higher, experience at dealerships in Australia or New Zealand.”

Mr Zanlunghi said that in the first two months of 2020 (pre-COVID) Absolute Results posted the following results across Australia and New Zealand:

• 303 Sales Executives trained vs 228 YTD 2019
• Increased total sales at events 63 percent in a market down about 12 percent
• Increased appointment-to-show ratio to 58 percent vs a 52 percent appointment-to-show ratio 2019 YTD.
• Sales closing ratio YTD increased to 53 percent vs 51 percent in 2019

In addition to these averages across all events, Mr Zanlunghi said that, in February, Absolute Results also had strong results from four key sales challenges across Australia and NZ along with one World Class Training and Event week in Japan.  These were:

• Mainstream private sale event for a European brand:  Collectively sold 87 new vehicles from 15 different sites in February. This OEM sold 187 total units in the month of February in Australia for an increase of 19 percent year-on-year.

Of those units sold, 47 percent of their sales for the month came through an Absolute Results private sale event with each of the 15 dealers doing two days of training  and appointment-setting with a one day sale.

• Giltrap Group Challenge, New Zealand: Absolute Results conducts an annual sales challenge with this dealer group each February at eight different locations. This year 264 total vehicles were sold in one weekend with a closing ratio of 58 percent.

This was a total sales increase of 36 percent in a down market vs last year. One Japanese volume brand store within the group actually had a closing ratio of 86 percent during the event.

• Luxury challenge, European luxury brand, Melbourne and Sydney: This OEM sold roughly 1900 total units across Australia in February (including fleet and retail) for a monthly increase of 9.3 percent vs February 2019. Of those 1900 sales, 599 new car sales and another 92 used came through Absolute Results’ private sales.

This means that 32 percent of their entire new sales volume for the month of February came through an Absolute Results event. The company worked with just 17 of the brand’s dealer locations across Melbourne and Sydney with one sale weekend for each dealer. The actual penetration would most likely be higher if the fleet and company car sales were pulled aside and the comparison was confined to only retail sales.

• Sales leadership training and sales event in Japan for a super luxury European brand.  Absolute Results trained all 24 Japanese dealers in sales leadership and the appointment setting culture during two sessions in both Osaka and Tokyo.

Absolute Results then hosted two World Class private sales held at the same time in two stores (but three hours away from each other). These two stores collectively sold 10 total vehicles ranging in price from $A200,000 to $A400,000 each despite the corona virus scare.

Significantly , these two stores collectively sold only three vehicles in the prior three months between them. Absolute Results was able to put up these results within one weekend while using a translator.

Absolute Results consults and deploys trainers to work in over 2000 unique dealer showrooms, in 19 countries each year.

Since arriving in Australia, the company has trained 3980 sales staff, had 40,283 customers turn up for their appointments and generated 20,248 vehicle sales for clients.

The average closing rate is 51 per cent over all events and the best result at an event was a Honda dealer in Sydney who achieved a closing rate last year of 88 per cent.

Read more: Dealers sitting on a fortune

By John Mellor