Dan Cummins

Challenge

As the store continues to grow, the need to have an air-tight on boarding process has become a necessity. The sales team at Dan Cummins is effective because they’re all on the same page, so with a new group of hires coming in quarterly it’s becoming more and more difficult to get the staff operating with the same process and using the same language.

Approach

The management team at Dan Cummins has built an exceptional process for implementing training as a group. Training is built into their culture from the top down. All new hires are on-boarded with the expectation that to work at the store you have to be willing to improve. From the day they start at the store they’re already working on completing the new hire training certification, so
it’s not long before they’re speaking the store’s language. As a team they meet every morning and train on two chapters, then hold a discussion on how they will be applying that content. Additionally, all salespeople complete 10 chapters prior to their Saturday sales meeting.

Results

After increasing their average monthly unit sales by 160 YOY in 2015, Dan Cummins has stayed on pace with their training and increased unit sales by another 158 per month in 2016. They’ve also increased new vehicle sales by 74% from the prior year. They’re now on their 3rd year with the program and are looking to make 2017 another record year.

Increases like this are possible for the Dan Cummins team because they’ve built a culture committed to improvement from the top down. Some of their tenured staff is on a second pass through the training and the content has become a huge part of how they operate. From their most tenured rep to their newest hire, every salesperson has the tools to continue improving and is following the right processes for the store.

“Training put the store in a state where they can all communicate. At Dan Cummins, customers hear the same language no matter who they talk to.”