Selling In The Motor Trade

Hosted by Simon Bowkett

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291

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Aug 2026

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About the show

Simon Bowkett, from Symco Training, shares tips and ideas on selling in the motor trade from a sales and aftersales perspective, as well as interviews with industry leaders sharing some of their best practices. To find out more visit www.symcotraining.co.uk

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August 27, 2026Episode 127 min

One Line to The Gatekeeper That Gets Your Call Put Through

Ever been told to go and prospect local businesses and thought, right, where do I even start? This one is for you. Simon Bowkett takes a client question about local business users, the buyers who are not quite fleet and not quite retail, and turns it into a step by step approach you can use this week. It begins with a business you already look after. From there you find their competitors, use that connection to get past the gatekeeper, and give the decision maker a proper reason to meet you. Simon also shares the referral question that gets customers introducing you themselves, the voicemail messages that actually get returned, and a simple idea sitting in your own accounts department that almost nobody uses. Practical, honest, and built for a busy week on the forecourt. • Where to start when you have been told to go and prospect local businesses • How to use AI to build a list of a customer's direct competitors • What to say to the gatekeeper so your call gets put through • How to ask for a referral in a way people actually answer • Why your dealership's supplier list is full of easy appointments • Three voicemail messages that get a call back • Handling the "we already have a supplier" brush off • Why face to face still beats email and LinkedIn for this buyer Simon Bowkett is the host of Selling in The Motor Trade and the founder of Symco Training, which coach sales and aftersales teams across UK dealerships. He runs a small business himself, so he knows why these buyers go quiet and how to bring them back. The whole episode is built around a real question from a client. Share it with anyone on your team who has a local business patch and is not sure what to do with it. About Symco Training: Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal. To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk

August 20, 2026Episode 1028 min

Two Tyre Callbacks in a Year: Why Your Amber Work Goes Quiet

Think about every amber tyre your department advised on last year. Now count the customers who rang back and booked in purely to have them done. It fits on one hand. Colin McAllister spotted two in a single day across John Clark Motor Group recently and it was unusual enough that he noticed, in a group with a site running 40 retail ramps. In this episode Simon Bowkett, Colin McAllister and Darren Bedford of Symco Training work through how red and amber work actually gets communicated, from the drop off conversation to the phone call that decides whether the customer says yes or drives to a fast fit. The line that kills your update calls. The rule that settles whether an item is red or amber. And why quoting your competitor's tyre price yourself is the fastest way to keep the job in house. • Separating the customer appointment from the car appointment so the golden hour survives a full drop off rush • The drop off agenda: payment method, VHC explanation, best number for the advisor, email for the technician's video • "If you don't hear from me, that's good news, and I'll see you at four o'clock", and what it does to your inbound calls • Why the health check should wait until the diagnostic the customer actually paid for is finished • The grandma rule for settling red or amber, and the version technicians should be using on themselves • Quoting the fast fit price yourself, and why a five pound gap per tyre closes on convenience • "Did you need to get back to me about the price, or about when we could fit it?" • The tyre card John Clark hand to customers, printed 1.6mm thick because that is the legal limit Colin McAllister runs group training and development at John Clark Motor Group and brings the tools they put in advisors' hands, including the percentage worn tyre card and the Tyre Safe link that takes the argument off the dealer. Darren Bedford is sales director at Symco Training and spends his weeks inside service departments, which is why he keeps pulling this back to language rather than effort. If your amber work goes quiet after the phone call, play this to your service advisors before Monday's drop offs. About Symco Training: Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal. To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk

August 13, 2026Episode 924 min

The £9,999 Screwdriver: Why Dealers Keep Underselling Their Own Technicians

Simon Bowkett is joined by Colin McAllister of John Clark Motor Group and Darren Bedford of Symco Training for a proper after sales conversation. They get into service plans and retention, the golden hour, how quickly a VHC video needs to reach the customer, and what happens to the job when authorisation lands three hours too late. Colin shares the real auto authorisation figures across the group, and there are two cracking stories in here about the value of a good technician, one involving a coffee machine and one involving a screwdriver and a very large invoice. • Service plans, price protection and why they hold retention together when money is tight • The golden hour, and the 15 minute standard through technician, parts and front desk • Real auto authorisation rates across John Clark, plus how fast customers respond to the video • Why long lead times push away the service customers you actually want • Getting credit for diagnostic work instead of handing over a no fault found • The coffee machine story and the FedEx invoice, and what they say about your labour rate • Where technicians are coming from now, apprenticeships, ex forces recruits and fast track Level 3 • Simple contact habits at drop off that get you an answer while the car is still up in the air Colin McAllister is group training and development manager at John Clark Motor Group and looks after training across the group's dealerships, including its apprentice programmes. Darren Bedford is sales director at Symco Training and works with service departments across the country on process and workshop planning. Both have been on the show before and both know the trade from the inside. Send this to your service advisors and your service manager, then look out for part two next week where the guys cover how to put it into practice in your own dealership. About Symco Training: Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal. To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk

August 6, 2026Episode 819 min

Stop Saying 94% Worn. Say This Instead...

Do you actually want to be in the tyre business? It sounds like a simple question, and most dealers answer it with a quick look at the margin. Simon Bowkett reckons that's the wrong test. In this episode he explains why tyres are worth doing even close to break even, because of what they protect. Keep the tyre work and you keep the customer. Lose it and you hand a fast fit the chance to sell them servicing, wipers, batteries and a winter check. He also covers the practical side. How to quote, how to explain tread depth so it actually registers, how to get tyres checked early enough to sell them, and why sitting on the fence causes more problems than staying out altogether. • The real question to ask before you commit to selling tyres • Why stopping defection matters more than the margin on the tyre • How to quote the fast fit price yourself and keep the customer's trust • A clearer way to explain tread depth than talking in percentages • Checking tyres at drop off, the way many US service departments do it • What mismatched tyres do to noise, handling and stopping distance • How to give the customer a choice instead of a flat no This one is Simon Bowkett on his own, drawing on years of training sales and aftersales teams in UK dealerships. Everything he covers here also runs through Symco's Sales Fitness and Today's Service Advisor programmes. If you run or work in a service department and tyres feel like more hassle than they're worth, give this one a listen before you decide. About Symco Training: Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal. To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk

July 30, 2026Episode 735 min

The Quickest Win in Your Service Department

Here's the upsell that costs you nothing in workshop grief. No cars pulled back off the ramps at ten to four. No service advisor watching their CSI score go out the window. Air conditioning servicing runs itself. The technician sets the machine going and gets on with the rest of the job. Yet most departments barely offer it. In this episode, Simon Bowkett lays out why that's a missed opportunity and how to fix it. He starts with belief, because a service advisor who thinks air con doesn't really need doing will pitch it exactly that way. Then he works through the whole process and the word tracks that make it land. This is about turning a quiet job into steady profit without piling more pressure on an already stretched team. What's covered: • The real reason air con servicing beats most red and amber upsells: the machine does the work • Why a stone through the condenser is diagnostic work, not a service, and why that distinction protects your credibility • The five touchpoints to sell it, and why you pitch at more than one • The SWAP format that lets the technician's video do the selling for you • Killing the 'I hardly use it' objection with the boiler analogy • Why the word 're-gas' is costing you money and confidence • The promise-me close that banks the sale twelve months out • What gets measured gets done: a simple leaderboard for air con servicing Simon Bowkett, Skippy to most of the trade, runs Symco Training and hosts this show. He's not a technician and says so, but he's sat on enough Monday-morning service counters to know where the process falls apart. His job here is the sales and belief side, and he hands the technical weight to the people who fix the cars. If you're a head of business, after-sales manager or service advisor, this is a quick win hiding in plain sight. About Symco Training: Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal. To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk

July 23, 2026Episode 629 min

Dial Your Own Dealership. You Won't Like What Happens

If a customer walked onto your forecourt, got ignored for three minutes, then was told to hang on while nobody came back, heads would roll. You'd call it a process failure and fix it that day. So why is exactly that happening on your phone every single day? Roughly one in three callers never gets through to someone who can help. They're not cold leads. They want to buy or book. And when they can't reach you, they don't wait around. They phone the independent down the road who picks up. Phone leads convert at nearly double the rate of internet leads, yet they're the ones we let slip through. This episode lays out where the calls fail, why voicemail is a dead end, and five fixes you can check today. What's covered: • The one in three callers you never knew you were losing • Why phone leads convert at nearly double internet leads and still get neglected • Hold times, voicemail and the exact points where calls fall over • The Monday morning crunch that makes the service desk the biggest offender • How missed calls are quietly costing you service loyalty and repeat sales • What happens to your net promoter score when a customer has to explain themselves three times • Five fixes, including the one most owners never do: dial your own dealership Host Simon Bowkett, or Skippy to regular listeners, runs sales training company Symco Training and spends his days inside real dealerships. This one is data led and personal. It started when he couldn't get hold of a newly acquired group on the phone, and a business partner asked him why it's so hard to spend money with dealers. Before you spend another penny on marketing, listen to this and go dial your own dealership. You might not like what you hear. About Symco Training: Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal. To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk

July 16, 2026Episode 531 min

I Sold Four Cars to Motorway and We Buy Any Car. Here Is What Dealers Need to Know

Here is the trade-off nobody on the sales floor wants to admit. Every time your salesperson says just sell it to We Buy Any Car to kill a part-exchange objection, they are handing your best stock to someone else. Quick for them. Expensive for you. Simon sold four of his own cars through Motorway, Carwow and We Buy Any Car to see the process from the customer's side, and it was worse than he expected. Late outsourced drivers. An app arguing about a tyre inflation kit on run-flat tyres. A finance settlement that nearly left a black mark over £60. But the sharp end is this. Your used car department is your profit centre, and you are letting it starve to make one objection go away. This episode is about taking that stock back. What's covered: • The easy objection-buster that quietly drains your used car stock • What really happens at a We Buy Any Car drop-in centre • Why Motorway and Carwow quote almost identical prices to the pound • The outsourced drivers and app mistakes that put deals at risk • Why finance settlements through these services are not as seamless as they look • The window of opportunity close that keeps the trade-in with you • The one to ten condition question that stops distance sales going wrong • Why used car managers should worry more about their own salespeople mis-describing cars than customers If you run a forecourt and you want to stop feeding your rivals, listen to this before your next sales meeting. About Symco Training: Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal. To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk

July 9, 2026Episode 419 min

Why Are Your VHC's Not Converting?

Here is the uncomfortable bit. Your VHC videos probably aren't broken. Your technicians' script is. In this episode, Simon Bowkett, Skippy to most of the trade, explains why so many vehicle health check videos get filmed, sent, and then convert nothing. The camera was meant to fix a strange problem in the motor trade, the expert who inspects the car never actually speaks to the customer. But most technicians narrate like mechanics reading a chart. Amber, red, green, borderline, two millimetres. The customer hears noise, not risk. Skippy breaks down the SWOP process Symco teaches, shows how to make a worn tyre feel like a real decision rather than a line on a checklist, and hands you six steps to put back into the business for immediate results. What's covered: • The real reason VHC videos get watched but don't sell the work • Why 'amber, red, green' narration quietly kills conversion • The SWOP process: see it, why it happened, the outcome, the proposal • The doctor and receptionist problem, and why the expert must speak to the customer • How to explain a two millimetre tyre so the customer feels the risk • How the right video hands the service advisor an easier, more credible call • Six steps to lift VHC conversion, ready to use straight away If your health check videos are getting filmed but not converting, take the six steps in this episode and put them in this week. About Symco Training: Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal. To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk

July 2, 2026Episode 347 min

Are You Losing Money on Every Part Exchange?

Most used car managers still price off the auction book. Cazana wants to flip that on its head. In this panel episode, Simon Bowkett sits down with Ian, Mark and Darren from Cazana, the retail valuations platform built on more data than anyone else in the UK, with around 900,000 unique cars tracked every day. The conversation stays practical and commercial throughout: how to value a car retail-down rather than trade-up, why days to sell matters more than gut feel, and why the used EV market has turned hot again. If you buy used cars, run a sales desk or want tighter stock turn, this one is built for your job. What's covered: • Why valuing a car retail-down beats pricing up from the auction book • How days to sell data sharpens what you pay and what you advertise for • Why the used EV market has turned hot again, with dealers struggling to get stock • What battery health really does to used EV values, and why it is less of a worry than people think • How provenance, MOT history and local stock affect a car's price • Why estates, saloons and small petrol hatchbacks are selling quickly right now • The pricing strategy that avoids a race to the bottom • What the Cazana 500 offer gives independent dealers Cazana is a used vehicle data and retail valuations platform, originally built in 2012 by Tom Wood, purchased in 2023 by Percayso and relaunched after the Cazoo collapse. Ian leads the business, while Mark and Derren bring years at Experian Automotive and Cap HPI to the table. Eight of the top ten insurers and the Financial Ombudsman already use their valuations, which tells you something about the quality of the data. If you are a dealer principal, used car manager or buyer trying to buy better and turn stock faster, this is worth your time. About Symco Training: Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal. To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk

June 25, 2026Episode 224 min

Why Trust Is Measurable in the Blood and What That Means for Your Dealership

Here is something most sales managers know but cannot prove: the mood on the floor matters more than the morning meeting. Dr. Tharaka is back to put the science behind it. Emotions are contagious. Your team members are copying each other's states right now, not by choice, but because that is how human brains are wired. There is a measurable return on your team's emotional climate. There is also a measurable return on trust, down to the hormone level in the blood. And there are practical tools you can put in place on Monday morning that shift both. This episode covers the mechanisms, the techniques and the brain science in plain language for people in the motor trade. What's covered: • Why emotional states transfer between team members and why that is not a soft concept but a performance variable with a commercial return • The bandwagon bias and why customers and staff alike default to following the crowd, even when it is the wrong crowd • Why short-term memory evaporates and a practical visual technique for making customer names, partners and even dogs stick • Why the brain is 60,000 times faster with images than text and how that should change how you show up with a customer • Time punctuation: how to use the calendar to unstick a team that has run out of momentum, and the dealership example that ran used car targets to the 15th • Crisis, Crash and Comeback: the three-phase model that explains the bickering, entitlement and initiative loss that followed lockdown • Oxytocin, trust and why there is a direct financial return on building genuine rapport, backed by experimental transaction data • The what went well huddle: zero cost, measurable impact, simple enough to start this week Dr. Tharaka is a neuroscientist, performance psychologist and TEDx speaker who appeared on Channel 4. He advises leaders on the psychological levers behind team performance, motivation and trust. He is not a motivational speaker. He is someone who can tell you what is happening in your team's brains and what you can do about it. If you want the science behind why your best teams behave the way they do, and the tools to build more of them, this is the episode. About Symco Training: Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon's words 'real world', it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal. To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk