Sales Management in a Car Dealership: A Case Study Analysis

This case study examines the challenges faced by Julian, the new sales manager of a car dealership, who is tasked with improving the sales performance of a team with diverse age groups and experience levels. The assignment identifies key issues such as employee dissatisfaction, lack of team cohesion, customer complaints, and declining sales revenue. It delves into the problems arising from poor leadership, ineffective communication, and a lack of technological proficiency among some team members. The solution proposes strategies to foster an inclusive work environment, provide targeted training, improve customer interaction skills, and implement effective marketing strategies. It emphasizes the importance of market research to understand customer preferences and developing a cohesive sales and marketing team to enhance customer retention and attract new clients. The ultimate goal is to increase sales, improve profit margins, and enhance the dealership's market share by addressing leadership shortcomings and implementing strategic improvements.

Running head: SALES MANAGEMENT IN CAR DEALERSHIP
SALES MANAGEMENT IN CAR DEALERSHIP
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Issues with Sales and Sales Leadership.....................................................................................2
Proposal to Address the Issues...................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Sales in a business plays the major role of developing the customer count in varied
regions to expand the base of the organizations as well as enhance the customer relationship
such that the issues of customer retention is removed from the companies (Van der Borgh, De
Jong and Nijssen 2019). The concerned salesperson who carries out the sales processes by
dealing with the customers interacts directly to provide valuable recommendations and thus
contribute to the amplification of brand awareness of a product or service (Bachrach, Mullins
and Rapp 2017). The lead of the sales department is responsible for creating innovating sales
strategies and managing the salesperson efficiently for the progress of the business. The paper
will highlight the issues faced by a car dealership company in its sales department and the
way-out by which the new sales manager Julian addresses those issues by implementing
effective solutions.
Issues with Sales and Sales Leadership
During the job interview, the CEO of the car dealership company informed Julian that
he need to manage a team of 10 salesperson consisting of eight men and two women. These
people belonged to different age groups varying from 23 years old until 60 years. The aged
ones were the experienced ones who possessed an immense knowledge about the processes
of sales operations in the reputed organization of car dealership. On the other hand, the
younger ones who hardly had experience possessed the advanced technical knowledge that
the experienced people lacked at a significant rate. Hence, there was a difference in the
viewpoints and opinions in within the team reducing the cohesiveness in the work
atmosphere (Cachon, Gallino and Olivares 2019). The old ones suffered from inferiority
complex and the new ones boasted off their technical knowledge. Due to the lack of efficient

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leadership by the previous sales lead in managing such a diverse team, the employees were
frustrated enough and had enough leadership issues.
Since the work atmosphere in the sales department of the branded car dealership
company were not healthy and all-inclusive, the people working in the team were frustrated
with their job profile. It is the duty of a salesperson to guide the customers with the right
choice of product and inform them in detail about the product specifications (Pongpearchan
2016). In order to do that, the concerned salesperson need to converse with their customers
effectively before suggesting the most suitable product for them. However, one will not be
able to perform his or her job as a salesperson effectively, if they are not satisfied with their
work environment (Bellini et al. 2017). In this case, too, all the ten-team members were not
satisfied with their job and thus duly failed to interact with their regular customers. Due to the
misbehaviour and miscommunication of the salesperson with their customers, the latter
submitted complaints to the organization. The inefficiency of the sales workers to interact
with the clients hampered the relationship of the car company with their loyal customers.
The root cause of the loss of the customer base for the automobile-selling
organization was the poor performance of the sales team while interacting with the
customers. The customers started preferring to opt for the competitors in the market while
buying themselves vehicles over the mentioned car dealership organization in the given case
study. Due to inability of the sales department to retain their customers and provide them
with optimum services, the organization could not even catch up to the local market share
(Liu, Miao and Lin 2019). The sales revenue started falling as well as there was a decline in
the gross profit growth due to which the value of the share in the local market of the company
was below the national average. The margin of sales went much below than the previous
years that affected the company’s brand image at a high level. All these issues happened to
occur because there was no leader who can manage the sales team effectively and guide them

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to handle their customers in an efficient way such that they can contribute to the increment in
sales, thereby increasing the revenue of sales as well as the profit margin of the company.
Proposal to Address the Issues
Since the sales team of the given car Dealership Company could not perform
effectively due to the diversity in the age groups of the team, the first and foremost step that
should be taken by Julian as a new sales manager is to maintain an all-inclusive climate in the
team. He should engage all the members in teamwork such that nobody feels left out of
ignored and everybody is given the equal chance to perform irrespective of their age group.
Moreover, Julian should arrange for training sessions of the old members such that they can
learn the new technologies such as handling CRM software while dealing with the customers
(Francis 2018). In this way, the knowledge difference of technologies between the old and the
new will be reduced to a significant rate. In addition, if the seniors of the team guide the
juniors from their own learning experiences, the juniors can gain immense knowledge about
the types of customers and the market that will prove to be effective in their service. Thus,
Julian will be able to bring about a consistency in the performance of the team members that
will help in the sales growth of the organization of car dealership.
Since the clients were frustrated with their job profile, they could not attend their
customers in the right way and dealt them in a very bad manner. Hence, to recover this
particular issue of dealing customers in the right way, the newly appointed sales manager
Julian should provide training to all his teammates on how to interact with the customers in a
proper way (Atefi and Pourmasoudi 2019). He should guide them with the right questions
that they should ask to the clients while interacting with them about the most apt choice of
buying cars from their organization (Rangarajan et al. 2018). The team members should also
conduct a market research about the types of customers and their preferences in general about

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the cars. This will help them to prepare with the set of questions that they will ask
chronologically one by one and determine the best choice for the clients. If they can serve
their customers efficiently, they will be gaining client satisfaction, which will automatically
increase their business sales.
Finally, to attend the issue of decline in sales growth and increase the profit margin of
the company, Julian should carry out a market research about the buying preferences of the
customers and accordingly develop a marketing team that will be responsible for promoting
their business apart from selling it. The marketing team should also incorporate the digital
measures such as social platform and websites that will help in reaching out to a wider range
of clients through Internet connectivity (Gaddefors and Hashem 2019). Julian should increase
the cohesiveness of both the teams such that, one can promote the business to numerous
clients and while the clients return back to the organization, the sales team can deal them
accordingly. Thus, this process will be effective not only in retaining old customers but also
bring in new customers and stand out from the competitors in the market.
Conclusion
The assignment highlights the importance of the activity of the sales team in a car
dealership company. No matter whatever organization it is, the sales team of a particular
company is responsible for building the relationship with the customers because they are the
end persons who deal with the clients directly and guide them according to their choices.
However, the sales team of the reputed car dealership organization failed to perform due to
the absence of a proper sales leader. The paper highlights the issues such as employee
dissatisfaction, decline in sales and many more and thereby suggests recommendations for
Julian the new sales manager on how to deal the issues effectively.

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References
Atefi, Y. and Pourmasoudi, M., 2019. Measuring peer effects in sales research.
Bachrach, D.G., Mullins, R.R. and Rapp, A.A., 2017. Intangible sales team resources:
Investing in team social capital and transactive memory for market-driven behaviors, norms
and performance. Industrial Marketing Management, 62, pp.88-99.
Bellini, E., Dell'Era, C., Frattini, F. and Verganti, R., 2017. Design‐driven innovation in
retailing: An empirical examination of new services in car dealership. Creativity and
Innovation Management, 26(1), pp.91-107.
Cachon, G.P., Gallino, S. and Olivares, M., 2019. Does adding inventory increase sales?
Evidence of a scarcity effect in US automobile dealerships. Management Science, 65(4),
pp.1469-1485.
Francis, A.K.K., 2018. Customized CRM Solution for Improving Product Sales and
Customer Support.
Gaddefors, E. and Hashem, S., 2019. An Intraorganizational Perspective of Sales Teams: A
case study of the design and processes of a sales team in the cloud software industry.
Liu, Q., Miao, K. and Lin, K., 2019, June. Inventory Management of Automobile After-sales
Parts Based on Data Mining. In Proceedings of the 2019 3rd High Performance Computing
and Cluster Technologies Conference (pp. 195-199).
Pongpearchan, P., 2016. Effect of transformational leadership on strategic human resource
management and firm success of Toyota's dealer in Thailand. Journal of Business and Retail
Management Research, 10(2).

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Rangarajan, D., Sharma, A., Paesbrugghe, B. and Boute, R., 2018. Aligning sales and
operations management: an agenda for inquiry. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales
Management, 38(2), pp.220-240.
Van der Borgh, M., De Jong, A. and Nijssen, E.J., 2019. Why helping coworkers does not
always make you poor: The contingent role of common and unique position within the sales
team. Industrial Marketing Management, 77, pp.23-40.