Presentation focuses on Capturing of Lost Sales for a Car Dealership. Having Categorized the reasons for lost sales we try and look at each category to assess how to minimize Lost Sales thereby increase sales...

1. Car Sales Prospecting
Review for year 2006
Prepared By: Ghassan Kabbara
January 4th 2007

2. Summary of Prospect
Utilization
 Since Inception the Prospecting
Application has not been utilized in an
effective manner.
 Our measure is very clear in the sales
Figures for 2006 for individual
customers.
 There has been no improvement
versus 2005 Sales

3. Now some good news
 How ever despite the fact that we have not
achieved any added value to our business in
terms of KD Sales, we have gathered
sufficient Data which we will now review
that can help us with the days to come.
That is to improve our 2007 Sales.
 In other Words: Yesterdays bad news can
help us solve tomorrows problems…..

4. Assumption
 All Data Inputted into the Prospecting
System is accurate and represents the
true efforts of Sales men Information
Collection in the last year.

5. The Facts
 We have introduced a Prospecting Application 4th
Quarter of 2005.
 The Salesmen have a target of 100 prospects per
month. Else they will receive a KD 50 deduction for
not achieving the target. This has changed a couple
of times.
 This could to a certain extent compel the salesmen
to input “Inaccurate Customer info” into the
prospecting database; hence the Assumption
mentioned in the previous slide is no longer valid.
 Over 6500 Prospects have been inputted into the
application.

6. More Facts
 To create a prospect the salesman has to feed in
the following minimum Information:
– Name
– Address
– Phone Number
 Over half the Prospects Created did not have the
Civil IDs inputted.
 Average number of Follow-ups per Customer is 1.5.
– 65% of the prospects were contacted only Once
– 18% of the prospects were contacted twice
– 17% of the prospected were contacted more than twice

7. Even More Facts
 Out of a total of 6600 Prospects
– 3400 have Civil ID’s
– 3200 do not have Civil ID’s
 The Lost Sales Ratio for those Prospects that do not
have Civil ID’s is 93%.
 The Lost Sales Ratio for those Prospects that have
given us Civil ID’s is 51%
 What this could possibly mean is that those
Customers that give us their Civil ID’s we have a
better chance of closing the Deal; then those
customers that do not provide us with Civil ID’s.
We can then Focus and Follow up on only those Prospects
that are cooperative, who provide us with their Civil ID's

8. A Tool to assist Salesman
for acquiring prospects.
 We have even provided the Sales man
access to Service History for all our
Customers which can be used as
potential prospects.
 As Dealer believes that we should
focus on existing customers

9. Prospecting System
Objectives for Sales Men
 A tool for the Salesman to capture all
Prospects into one database. (To
eliminate the manual Dairy).
 A tool used to Follow-up with
Prospects and try and close a sales
deal.
 A tool to send customer
promotions, well wishes on B-
days, Eids, etc.

10. Prospecting System Objectives
for Customer Relations
 To follow-up and confirm Salesman
Information.
 To log the outcome of any
discrepancies of Prospecting
Information and what Customer
actually Said.
 To confirm Salesman Targets.
 To provide Management with Reports.

11. Prospecting System
Objective for Management
 A means to Capture the Conversion
Ratio. (Sales / (Lost Sales + Sales)
 To Measure Reasons of Lost Sales and
take the appropriate Action to mitigate
the Lost Sales where possible.

12. To many
pending
Prospects
Closing
Ratio
Too
High

13. Aging of Pending Prospects for 1434 by Month
2 2 5
18
62
45
83
126
178
149
298
466
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
All These Prospects should have
either a Done Deal or a Cancelled
Status with Lost Sale Reasons. We
should not have this many pending.
This is proof that we are not
following up with our
prospects.

14. Pending Prospects by Sales Man Vs
Month of Prospect Creation
Should Not be Pending

15. Let us now Focus on those Lost Sales
those Cancelled Prospects. After All
one of the Objectives is to monitor
the Lost Sales and Focus on the
Reasons as to why they occurred

16. Top Ten Lost Sales Reasons
Not to Customer Specs
23%
Price too High
18%
Finance Co. Not Approved
16%
Color Not Available
6%
Trade in Value too High
5%
Parts too Expensive
1%
No Answ er
1%
BlackListed Customer
1%
Not Happy w ith Service
1%
Out of Stock
28%

17. Top Ten Lost Sales Reasons
Lost Sales Reasons for 2006
(source Prospecting Application)
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
Series1 943 734 590 507 201 155 37 31 19 19
Out of Stock
Not to
Customer
Specs
Price too
High
Finance Co.
Not
Approved
Color Not
Available
Trade in
Value too
High
Parts too
Expensive
BlackListed
Customer
Not Happy
w ith Service
No Answ er
Assumption that
Salesman have
confirmed with
Prospect the Real
Reason (s)he didn’t
buy a Dealer

18. Why we have not utilized
the Prospecting System?
 A Deduction of KD 50 is enforced if Target for
Prospects are not fed in monthly.
 There is no discipline to follow-up with prospects
periodically. (i.e. at least 3 follow-ups should be
made before Canceling the Prospect)
 No Peer Pressure is being enforced to maximize
benefit of system.
 Is the Lost Sales Reasons the true measure why we
Lost Sales Deals?
 There is no formal procedure in place for
approaching existing customers.

19. Lost Sales Reasons
 Let us now address what action we
could possibly take as Sales men and
management to improve our sales
based on the lost sales reasons that
has been captured by the Sales men.
Again on the assumption that the
Reason(s) are genuine.
 Let look at a few Lost Sales Reasons.

20. Out of Stock
 We have over 900 Out of Stock reasons. This
means that we have lost sales because we did not
have the car the customer wanted when he made
contact with our salesman.
 Is this a valid reason? Did we really lose customers
because we had no cars in stock?
 Did the Salesmen have information at his disposal
as to when the next shipment would arrive? Was
the prospect contacted?
 Let us do more research on this and list these
customers, the dates, and the cars they requested.
Maybe this can help us in determining our forecast
and stocking levels.

21. Not to Customers Specs
 We have over 700 lost sales due to this.
 What were the specs requested? We need
to list all those specs and see what can be
done to address this issue?
 How important was the spec to the
customer that compelled him/her not to
buy? Could we have convinced him/her
otherwise?

22. Price too High
 This is a classic one. We have 600 lost sales due to our prices
being too high?
 If we have captured the right price that the customer would
have bought then we can use this data to review of our
discount strategy or pricing levels.
 Again I would ask the following question, Did we really lose
these deals because of our price? Did the Sales man approach
Sales Manager on these cases? Is the Price that the customer
was willing to pay captured?
 When Prospect says price is too high, compared to what? His
Budget, Another model, or too prices he picked up from the
Internet.
 We can even work on a Critical Volume Gain model to analyze
what the right price should if we were to have the 600 extra
sales made due to price reduction.

23. Finance Co Did not
approve
 We have 500 lost sales due to this.
 Is this also because the price is too high? Or is it
because the customer was unable to purchase due
to unfeasible installment scheme?
 What are the conditions of the Finance Co? How
much time did we spend with the customer before
his application was rejected?
 Could the salesman have made the decision without
having to discuss Financial particulars with the
Finance Co.?
 Can we make this information more visible to the
customer by having pamphlets or posters?

24. Color not available
 We have over 200 lost sales due to this.
 Do we use this information when placing
orders? Or do we only rely on actual sales?
 This could also be addressed by converting
the customer to another color that exists?
The Sales man sales skills come into play
here.
 Did we follow-up with the customer to see
what he purchased and what color he
chose? Was he honest in his excuse?

25. Trade in Value too High
 We lost 150 customers due to this.
 30% of our sales are based on trade-ins and
this needs to be scrutinized.
 Possibly our appraisal on Used cars needs to
be refined. Risk of taking car into Used
Stock Vs. Getting the Deal needs to be
made.
 We need to refer to our appraisal
documents to review all these cases for
improving the Conversion Ratio of Sales due
to trade-ins.

26. Conclusion
 If we break down Lost Sales due to Internal
& External Problems. We can then do the
following:-
 Share with Dealer the Lost Sales due to
external Reasons. Such as No Stock and Not
to Specs. (Lost sales should be shared with
our supplier in order that we can have more
cars allocated and a more accurate
forecast.)

27. Think about this for a
while!!
 It seems very surprising that the Salesman
is Losing a potential deal due to No Stock.
 How is that possible?
 When the cars eventually do come, do we
contact those customers?
– Is it because we have already “Cancelled” this
prospect and are looking forward to a new one?

28. In my opinion
 In order to Manage and Improve our Sales
we need to utilize the Prospecting Data &
measure, monitor and take action on the
Lost Sales Reasons at the earliest. Each LSR
can be addressed.
 There needs to be a means to reward the
Salesman for accurate Prospecting
Information.
 Maybe we need to review the Lost Sales
Reasons, for more accurate capture of
Information that can help us in the future.

29. New Modifications for
Prospecting Application WIP
 Control the flow of information between Prospect /
Reservation / Sales Input.
 Prevent Cancellation of Prospect if less than 3 follow-ups are
made.
 Provide an option for salesman to input probability of success
of closing the deal by putting a percentage value every time
he follows-up with prospect.
 Provide a New Conversion Ratio Report showing figures in KD
Value so when we see the Lost Sales Value, it becomes
painful to us & to think twice before Canceling a Any
Prospect.
 Provide a Report showing prospects in the pipeline based on
Probability of Success.
 Near Future: Sending SMS to Prospects automatically every
time a follow-up is made.

34. We have the Tool. Lets Use it

35.  Thank you For your Time.
 QA
 Ideas!