Aligning Training with Customer Expectations with Jim Farkas | 2024 NADA Show

Paul J Daly: 0:07

We're here with our new friend, Jim Park SGM of Germaine Honda and Ann Arbor, Michigan. It's so great to have a conversation with a new person. Yes.

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:15

He's from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and there's a good chance he's a Michigan fan.

Jim Farkas: 0:18

We're number one in the country.

Paul J Daly: 0:21

He's like, I mean,

Jim Farkas: 0:22

why would you be this reality you guys gonna face?

Paul J Daly: 0:25

I have no dog in this fight. So I

Kyle Mountsier: 0:28

went to Ohio State. And that's all this last year for us.

Paul J Daly: 0:34

Jim, thanks for joining us giving us some time. Thanks.

Jim Farkas: 0:36

I appreciate being here. Yeah.

Paul J Daly: 0:37

So tell us a little bit about your overall perspective on we're just gonna get right in overall perspective on training and educating your team. You know, it's

Jim Farkas: 0:46

always been difficult because every solution you work with seems to have their own specific way to be able to train on that tool. Yeah. And then the dealership, I have people using multiple solutions. The problem is no one brought it all together. To me, like quantum five actually takes KPIs training, and builds an entire process about the customer transparency and journey through the dealership. And individual tools don't normally do that. So for me, quantum five, ties it all together,

Paul J Daly: 1:09

well, let's back up and like just go with like, raise the drone up a little bit to get a little more in the 30,000 foot view. What's your general perspective on trainings in general, like how do you approach it? What's your mentality behind?

Jim Farkas: 1:21

You know, a lot of it's templated. And it's stuff that we've been doing for years and years and years, and anybody that's been in the business a long time generally says, Hey, we we got a 10 step process of selling a car. That's not accurate anymore. With the internet and the technology that consumers have, they want to go down a different drive the

Paul J Daly: 1:36

consumer journey, it looks like, throw a bunch of dots on a board and just start drawing lines. And it could be anyone.

Jim Farkas: 1:43

And then how do you teach that? So you know, for consumers and for our actually new employees that are coming into the business. They want to learn a different way. And really, it's not been a transparent way for us to be able to do that in the car business. Most of them have been here a long time we trained basically how we used to understand the car business work. Yeah, this is your this was your first

Paul J Daly: 2:01

training experience in the car business? Like when did you start? And what did you start

Jim Farkas: 2:05

started in 1989, and phone calls through the black box sticker book? A long, long time, it's

Paul J Daly: 2:12

really cool. start dialing,

Kyle Mountsier: 2:14

right. Yes, that's amazing. It's obviously transition a lot. And like, like you said, if the consumer has told us they want a different way of buying a car, servicing a car or anything like that, then our training can't just be like, get him to up get into a worksheet, right? Like that's like, you can't work that

Jim Farkas: 2:34

way. No, it's and we all say we liked the idea that we go back to the dealership, and we do it the way we used to do it. So so to me, you have to think outside of the box, you have to engage with your employees first. Because if they don't get it, they're not going to be able to deliver it to the consumer. And the consumer doesn't want something different when you're starting to deal with, you know, buying things online. Let's just say with Amazon, they want it quick. They want it now. And they have an expectation. They come to a dealership open up the doors, and we take them down the old sales process that we've been doing for 25 years. It doesn't it doesn't match. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:05

And so like the the hard part about that is, is basically if you've been trained in the industry, or you have trained other people in the industry, you've got this subset of like the way you've always done it. And so moving that especially you have a pretty unique process, at least in the in the sales side of your industry. Yeah, business, right. Yeah, we

Jim Farkas: 3:26

have a process where it's a one price store, which is something they did back in the 90s. And starting to come back now. But it's as price competitive as dealerships are. Why do you need to negotiate price? The other part is is people don't like going from a salesperson to an f&i manager to a sales manager. They hate it. Yeah, exactly. And anytime I sat around friends and have that discussion, they're like, why did we do that? I didn't want to break up and say, well, that's why we're most profitable. That's the only thing that we know how to do it. But there was never a tool that can actually tie that in, in a individual salesperson understanding what that process looks like, and then us being able to train towards And so yes, I use a tool now that can bring it together compliance, f&i sales accessory, it touches on everything that the consumer journey would be, and is done by one individual. So

Kyle Mountsier: 4:13

so that that's a complexity because there's not many people in the industry even doing that. So getting the resources to understand how to train that is a whole other level, right?

Jim Farkas: 4:24

Correct. And there are some smaller companies out there, some are getting bigger and quicker and faster, because that's what the customers want. So dealers are starting to adapt. But there was no consistent training to do that. And not only just the training process with the staff, but all the tools working together to complete that. And if I had one individual that can handle the entire process, they needed to know eight tools, all the way from sending into credit application, understand the website, a Dr. tool, a CRM is unbelievable and to train towards that.

Paul J Daly: 4:51

Very difficult. So compliance. The compliance conversation has definitely ramped up over the past 12 months. We have a little bit of a feels like a little Have a law at NADA, because the cars rule is kind of like just simmering right now. But what's your approach to compliance? As you know, like in in the training process? Are you talking about it more or less? What's your specific trajectory. So

Jim Farkas: 5:13

in our training process, we have to be compliant all the way through. And if I'm going to have a one person model, they need to understand taking a person's data and information, how they have to protect it, they have to understand laws based upon each state of what they're supposed to sign and document and then save, it's really difficult. And if you don't have a training process to do that, you're not going to create consistency and transparency. And to me having the one tool to be able to train on that, but then having a company that can teach it is huge. So I use a company called A to Z. Yeah. And ideally, that's what I've tried doing by myself as an independent store for five years. And when this was finally developed, and came out, I mean, it's exactly what we're looking for. But how do I train my staff on it? And how do I keep up consistent training, so the consumer journey is replicated based upon the journey that I want to deliver. And, at this particular point, based upon our current training, I don't need to have a person that has five to 10 years of experience to be able to do this, I can onboard a person that's never been in the car business. And with our training process that we have with Q five and agency. I'm ready in 90 days. That's the Holy Grail. Right? That's it.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:21

Yeah, literally ready to go. And they can serve a customer start to finish start to finish. That's absolutely amazing. What what's the next challenge on the roadmap for you? Because that's, that's a big enough challenge that you've had, and maybe you're still fighting through that, but what are you looking to grow into, in that in the sales environment,

Jim Farkas: 6:40

you know, completing an entire sales process online, is it and we talked about having Dr. Tools and and, you know, that customer journey should look like this. It's still broken. When a person gets online and wants to normally buy something. When they get back into the store, they're now dealing sometimes with another individual that has to figure out where that person came from, in their journey, re put all the data and information back in, tell the customer hold on and wait. And it's like, why is that happening? So for me, when that person starts their journey online, when they step into the store, they should pick we should pick up right where they left off understanding exactly where they're at. But you have to have a trained sales staff to be able to do that as well. And I don't even like call them my sales staff salespeople, their client advisors. And my managers are not called managers, either. I mean, they're, we have client advisors and client trainers. And that's it. I don't have a new car manager. I don't have a used car manager love them. We sell everything. So I love it. I love

Paul J Daly: 7:37

that. Well, Jim, it was great to get to know you a little bit here. I know this is just the beginning, probably the first of many conversations we'll have. Thanks for giving us some of your time and insight.

Jim Farkas: 7:44

I appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you

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