Product Knowledge Championship Preview| EP141

You can feel people's passion for what they do and what they love. And when that shows through, you can easily sell anything.

Welcome everyone to the Driving Vision Podcast brought to you by the Zigler Auto Group. I'm your host, Sam Dark. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Like it if you do, and leave a comment. Hey, team Zigler and our friends of the Driving Vision podcast.

So we're here today in studio, Zigler Studios, with 2 of my favorite people over the last 2 week. No. I'm just kidding. In general. So Araya Daniels, head of training development, Zigler Auto Group.

Araya, welcome.

Hello, Sam.

And, of course, we got Mike Van Ryn, VP at Talent Development. And we're here to talk about something that's become a tradition across the Ziegler Auto Group. So I'm gonna ask you guys a question. Let's see if who can get this. What are the numbers?

5 I'm gonna give you three numbers, four numbers, and you guys write this down. Tell me what this has to do with the price of tea in China. 500, the number 27, the number 5, and the number 1. The number 500, which is a big number, 27, 5, and 1. Araya, you're smiling.

You know the answer. This is

I know the answer to this, Sam. So What is it? Currently currently, we have around 500 sales professionals, sales consultants in the organization. So across our, all 40 locations with over 2,500 plus employees, about 500 sales professionals. 27 is a prominent number.

Mike, do you wanna share why 27?

Well, that's because we hosted 27 separate product knowledge competitions individually across the ZAGG in the last few days.

So, Mike, before you go into that, though, a a product knowledge presentation is old school or is new school for an old school idea, which is a walk around. Right? So it's the thing I sold Saturns for a long time, and Saturn had a plastic car. And with every single customer, we spent a lot of time walking around the car, beating that car up, talking about it, connecting with the customer on that car. And that old art is still important today.

And we do it. What's the average length of each walk around that you listen to, Mike?

Well, we gave each individual competitor a 10 minute time limit. So we cut them off at 10 minutes and, it's amazing what they could pile into that 10 minutes. And, Ryan, I learned a lot over the last few weeks.

It's amazing to me, Ryan, like, 10 minutes 27, you heard the same thing over and over and over and over. And in so doing, you sort of become experts, at this. So I'm gonna ask you a question. Why does an auto group like the Ziegler auto group role play something like walking around a car with a customer? Like, it's not real.

Like, focus on the real stuff for crying out loud. Why do a role play?

Well, role playing, Sam, is where you get better. Right? So in a part of our process is to craft and teach our customers the product that they're buying. Right? And so the important piece of role playing comes in to practice delivering that product knowledge to our customers and crafting that so that they can deliver as much information and crucial hot buttons to the customer that help leave them feeling educated when they purchase a vehicle with us.

So product knowledge competition is a great way for sales professionals to showcase those skills, which is great.

So it's interesting. It's one part information. It's equal part connection with that customer. Right? It's learning how to connect with them so you can create that ultimate automotive experience.

So you can help them find that right car, and you can't just like, it takes practice to do that, just like an actor would practice in, before they, before they film a movie. So, Mike, step us out back a little bit. How would you describe what this product knowledge champ or, process is that the Ziegler Auto Group has done every year for the past past many years?

Well, it started off very small, and I believe it was back in the day where we had about only 9 stores in 2 states. And, it was actually, Aaron Ziegler, Dan Scheid, our CFO, and myself. We were the 3 judges, and we did the thing in one day. And, it's evolved greatly from there. Now, bringing in, you know, 27 competitors from all of our locations throughout 4 states.

So it's been a bit of awesome competition. But like I like Araya said, like you said, Sam, it's it's all about honing our craft, getting better, for each other, challenging each other. Right. With our product knowledge. And then also for our customers to deliver that ultimate automotive experience for our customers.

So it's been neat to see how it's evolved over the years.

Araya, I thought we bring back the old school today. So we do 27 presentations, plus 5, plus 1, at 10 minutes each. Aaron, Dan, and Mike will lock them in a room, and we'll just let them pick the winner. Can you imagine how long that would take? That would

be great.

It'd be a long be a long day, Sam.

Yeah. So Mike, Mike, you mentioned how many years? How many years has this gone on? So this is actually our

we're just finishing up our 13th year, believe it or not. Lucky 13.

Mhmm.

And it is a lucky 13 here in 2024 because Right. We've see you've seen some really, really good presentations. You've seen some incredibly creative ways to connect with a customer. Before we talk about those, after having seen 27 presentations, you probably have seen some pretty funny things. Alright?

Anything funny stick out to you?

We've had some ones over the years, Sam. And one that, I remember a couple of years ago, we had actually someone do a presentation on a product that we sell called ZGuard, which is a protective, coating on the interior and exterior of the vehicle. And he doused an entire bottle of water on himself to showcase what it was like basically to protect your investment, which was kind of funny. So that that one always sticks out to me.

That's pretty good. I like that. Mike, what what's been the most creative that you've seen? Well, I

won't say the most creative because we've had so much creativity over the years, but I will share a few of the highlights. We've seen fire. We've seen skeletons, cowboy and cowgirl hats, sunglasses. We've seen people's favorite snacks and drinks, and then we've also seen a plethora of different sporting equipment throughout these, vehicle presentations. So it's been a lot of fun.

Mhmm. You know what? It strikes me. We always talk about back to the basics and basics are delivering to every customer what they're owed, which is a world class experience. And in today's world, that world class experience is tough because as a human being, you have to repeat something over and over and over and over and over and over.

Right? And it's it it it occurs to me. You just saw 27 of the same thing, basically. You're doing what sales consultants do. What advice do you give to your sales consultant that's like 10 cars into a month?

And they're like, for that 11th per customer, that 12th, that 20th, that 30th, should I still do a product walk around? Should I still engage in the process?

Oh, absolutely. Right? So huge part of that process and what we what Mike and I have seen even this year is the ones who do the best are the ones who have done their research and connected with the customer on a personal level. So getting to know what their hot buttons are, what are the things that they are really valuing in their vehicle that they're purchasing and looking forward. So when they really hone in on those hot buttons during their product knowledge, walk around, they're able to really gain more interest and engagement from their customer because their customer is those are the things that are important to them.

Right? So it makes that that buying process and the purchasing process even more wonderful for them because they're learning about how that vehicle is gonna benefit them. And so those are those are that's kind of the biggest thing that we see is the connection that you build with that customer. You're able to understand what those hot buttons are for them and hit on those.

Mike, as Araya was describing that connection, you gave her a thumbs up, and then you scratched your chin. I've never seen you scratch your chin in all these years. So what were you thinking is in that moment when you gave the thumbs up and then scratched your chin?

Sam, did you just tell me I'm getting old?

No. No. I've just never see I've never seen you do this before. It was awesome.

No. That was great. Or I hit the nail on the head with that. Right? And I'll add one more thing to it.

It it it's about energy. And you can feel that energy, and it's very contagious. And the energy that we have inside ourselves can be translated to our customers and from our products too. Right? When we're passionate and excited about our products, the customers can feel that and experience it.

And by the way, if you're delivering a vehicle, if you've already sold it, you're kind of reselling it to a customer and Yeah. Giving them that ultimate automotive experience. And then, by the way, you're gonna get referrals from those customers because you've done such a great job.

You know, it's interesting. Subaru is a factory. They actually have a process around this. So customer will buy a car, they leave, and Subaru actually has a process where they reimburse their retailers to bring that customer back to the store for a second delivery. It's so important that they knew exactly what they bought, and they get the best value out of that introduction.

You know, it's interesting. You think about the business world out there today. And in a lot of ways, it's a mess. When you look at some of these basic processes, I'm gonna give you an example. I'm gonna give you 2 examples, and then I'd be curious to hear what your thoughts are on this.

So we're so reliant on technology. Sometimes we think technology can replace the human element. So two examples. I pulled up to Starbucks this week to get a coffee, and the dude behind Starbucks, I don't know a lot about coffee and what goes behind it. But the dude at Starbucks is like, our brewer is down.

I'm like, the brewer? You're Starbucks. It's all you do. What do you mean your brewer is down? Like, are you are you are you closed?

He's like, no. No. No. You can have tea. You can have we have, like, we have, like, breakfast sandwiches, and I got a breakfast sandwich because I was looking for oatmeal, which is terrible at Starbucks, and a breakfast sandwich.

But, like, how do you fail at that? Another example here in town, there's a workout facility called d one, and I've been there many times to work out, just drop in, and they have a functional issue accepting payment. Every time you go in there, they're like, our payment system's down. Our Apple Pay is down. The mind body app doesn't work.

So here's my question. That was a long build up. Unless you have examples of this, because I think this is where we excel. Were there examples in these walk arounds where there were failures in system or process or understanding or maybe how they thought things would go? And members of our team had to adapt in that moment Mhmm.

And overcome the lack of a resource. Maybe the coffee machine was broken or maybe the payment system was broken and still deliver that ultimate experience because that's part of the difference with us. Right? Were there any moments where those participants rose above a failure to deliver in the role play?

Yeah. Absolutely. And Mike is probably thinking of a few that came up this year. You know, we have, a a few times where the sales professional is is sharing the knowledge behind the technology inside the vehicle. So, like, in the instrument cluster Yes.

Understanding how to Bluetooth the phone to to the vehicle. Right? Like, in times where it didn't work or maybe they're just the Bluetooth wasn't working to see that person pivot so well and make it professional and kind of add some humor to, like, oh, hey. You know, this is technology. We'll figure it out together kind of thing.

There's, the ones that we saw this year did a great job just pivoting and being able to still make it a great experience with the customer. That's just a prime example.

Yeah. One particular instance, comes out and it's, one of our sales, specialists was showing us how to, about the towing capability and pull it off, like, the cover on the tow hitch, and then he couldn't get it back on right away, but he just, like, kept flowing right through and, did a nice job. Sometimes you don't even know if something goes wrong because they're such professionals. Right? And they just adapt on the fly.

And I think getting your customer involved as much as you can, you know, show show a customer how something works, then actually have them do it. So show first, then do. It is a great, great way for us to get our customers involved.

So is there a connection between that adaptability and that ability to improvise and being successful in selling or business or whatever? Like, I think about, like, a coffee shop that can't make coffee up, workout facility that can't get paid. Right? Like is the ability to pivot. How important is the ability to pivot?

We talk we talk about grit. Right? We talk about resilience. How how important is that, Araya, in in our business?

You know, well, there's a, I think a twofold to that question because I think it helps you be a little bit more relatable to your customer too. Like just to customers to say like, hey, we're not perfect. We know that this technology isn't perfect. So just to be able to relate to people and knowing like you've got that connection that way. But on the flip side, when things do go wrong and when things don't go as smooth as you've planned, being able to pivot during those times is just crucial to success anyways.

Right? Like, anything that you go through professionally or personally, right? You're able to, come out on the other side when you've learned how to pivot through those things and the product knowledge competition, there's things that happen in every single one of them that maybe the sales professional wasn't quite ready to have happen and it does. And then they've got to learn to pivot and they do a great job at doing it. So

yeah. Do you think maybe that need to pivot is part of the reason why some people don't do a great product presentation? Like technology is pretty intimidating. Right? If Bluetooth doesn't work, and I'm using that as an example, I don't know what goes wrong nowadays, but there's so much that could go wrong when you're trying to show how perfect a car is.

There's so much technology. I wonder if that's part of the reason sometimes if people aren't practicing this, maybe that's part of the reason why we avoid it. Because sometimes we avoid naturally things we don't understand. Right?

Mhmm.

Alright. I have a question. So thinking about buying situations, I know you both like to buy stuff because I've seen what you all do in the world in the day day to day. You like to buy stuff. Thinking about a buying experience you've had over the past several years, is there one that stands out where someone really described a product, feature benefit, advocated for a service in such a way where you really connected, and it opened you up to the potential of something that you never, a, thought you needed or maybe you didn't fully appreciate.

Like, you were truly educated, and in the process, you connected. Any examples?

I've got one and it's an it's an easy one and it's become a part of my daily routine and you guys won't be surprised to hear this but, my protein supplement, my protein supplement that I drink daily is something that I have drink daily for the last 4 years of my life. Oh, what's wrong? So it's called Recover Through Body, and it's it's 20 grams of protein to add right after I'm done with the workout. And, just have learned about the product, but someone sold it to me. And I believed a 100 percent in the the quality of the ingredients, and it's all that I use right now to, to supplement protein.

So yeah.

I love it, Mike. No surprise.

One that comes to mind for me, Sam, is and you and I have golf together. You know, I I love golf is, And

you know I don't. No. I love golf. I love I love trying to golf, but I'm not a great golfer.

I love trying to golf.

I mean, I can go I can really go anywhere and buy a buy a golf club or a set of golf clubs that I want, but I always go to Maple Hill in the Grand Rapids area. And it's because they tailor that experience, to me, and I know the people over there. And, a lot of times they'll say, this is my favorite club or these are the top 2 that I think would fit your game. So anytime somebody gives me, like, their favorite, I, like, take that to heart. And we had a few of our experts in the last week or so that said, hey.

These are my favorite tires that are on this vehicle. This is my favorite feature. Right? Things like that go a really long way and hold a lot of credibility.

Alright. And you know what's interesting? Sales is one thing, but genuinely authentically advocating for something you truly believe in is completely another. I think it's a total talent and trait when salespeople find out enough about the product to really get excited about it. And my example aligns with that.

So I work with our Subaru stores a little bit, and I recently had the opportunity to go to a new retailer orientation with Subaru. And if you ever get the chance, Subaru is unlike any other franchise out there. So outside looking in, you're kinda like, it's a little strange. It's not, you know, it's not BMW. It's not Mercedes Benz.

Like, it's a it's a it's a different culture. It's a very specific narrow culture. I went to this new retailer orientation where they spent the time to connect and explain basic stuff, and then they top it off with a tour of the plant. I'm gonna go out on a limb. Coolest plant in the face of the planet.

Like, their ability to deliver vehicles without defects and to continually get better using this kaizen process, which I think was started by Toyota, second to none. And they got me to believe, and they connected with me simply by taking the time to walk me through it and allow me to have that experience. And you know what's interesting is we talk about this, and you did this 27 presentations. A lot of that explanation and connecting is about love. Right?

Because time ultimately is love. You showed love to our 27 finalists, and 5 will do, next week. We'll talk about that in a minute. How does love play a role in what you do day to day, but also what our sales consultants do as they connect with their customers.

First off, I think you've been hanging out with our Subaru stores a little too much. Way

too much.

But second is, Bobby, when somebody, when somebody loves what they do, and is passionate about a product, you can feel it. Again, back, back to the energy being contagious. So, you know, if you love what you do, people, people, people can see that. So, I love what I do in my role. I love investing, in our teams across the ZAG, and then also seeing top performers, win.

And, it's just a lot of fun. It gives me some personal satisfaction even looking at where we started and where we're at today. And even, you know, seeing people like, Araya and where she started and where she's at now. So I I just love that part of my job, and, I think people can see that and feel that.

I'm just yeah. To just ditto what Mike just said, you can feel that. Right? You can feel people's passion for what they do and what they love. And when that shows through, you can easily sell anything.

Right? You can sell sell anything that you believe in and that you love yourself. Yeah.

And and it's part no matter what we do in the world, we are all salespeople. Alright. So let's talk about this. Next week, we're gonna crown a champion, the 2024 product knowledge champion. Last year, it was Devin Rainwater who, after he won, went on to have his best month ever.

This year, we're we're, tell us a little bit about the event, this year, Araya, and what we can expect next, Wednesday night.

Yeah. So next Wednesday, October 16th, we'll be kicking off what's our top five finalist competition and award celebration. So we'll bring together those 27 people who competed to celebrate them for representing their store and, beating out everyone else on their team back at their their store. And then we're gonna take the top 5 finalists. So from the the top 5 out of those 27 walk arounds that Mike and I did, they're coming together.

We're gonna give them 5 minutes to deliver a presentation to, their customer, and, they're gonna compete on whoever does the best walk around for that evening and then crown a number 1.

And our winner last year put our largest GM not largest. He used to be largest. He's he's not anymore, but largest GM into a little EV vehicle. And he he may have had bourbon nearby so that there may be some bribery that goes on with this, that goes on with this event. But we will be live streaming at beginning Wednesday night, 6:15 CST.

You can see it, either through the driving vision podcast. There'll be a link at the Ziegler YouTube page and also on the team Ziegler Facebook. And there's an element of this, the people's choice, which is you as a, audience, a viewing livestream audience are able to log in, and you can vote for who you think, did the best job of connecting authentically with the customer and advocating for the vehicle they're selling. Mike, anything you wanna add about what we're gonna see Wednesday night?

It's gonna be a high level of competition, and you're gonna see, winners out there who have won for their store and won for the entire auto group competing against each other. And you're gonna learn a lot too. So if you're tuning in, get a pen, get a paper, jot down some word tracks, jot down some notes to help you get better if you're in a sales role with, with any organization.

Awesome. Well, nobody competes like the Zigler Auto Group. We compete to become better, and this is a great example of that. We did say love way too many times on this podcast, so I take it all back except for the fact that it truly shows that you care when you're willing to spend as much time with a customer as our, sales professionals do on a daily basis. So, Araya, give us our closing word, and then we'll wrap.

See everybody there Wednesday night beginning 6 15 central at Subaru Sherryville or online. Look forward to seeing you team Ziegler. Araya.

Yeah. I'm gonna just say good luck to our top 5 competitors, and congrats to the 27 that represented their store. We're really looking forward to seeing how the competition unfolds this year. It gets tougher and tougher every year. So top 5, go connect with your customer, go practice, go role play with others in your store, and best of luck.

A special thanks to Mike Van Ryn and Ryan Dean for contributing to this week's podcast. Until next week, how are you driving vision today?