Grace Lupoi: 0:00
Welcome. To Prepare to Win. We have drive time tips on living and selling with excellence. So in this podcast we are really going to use the principle of better today than yesterday right To drive the habit of pursuing excellence into your personal and professional life so you can re ally win more often.

David Lowe: 0:14
Right and so winning. We describe that as what? Being so effective, you’re benefit to others, and that you can live with that healthy pride that creates that joy, peace, and satisfaction in your life. Hi, I’m David Lowe, the Automotive Sales Coach. I’m sitting with Grace Lupoi, one of our sales coaches. We really thank you for joining us. Thank you so much. We know your time is valuable and we appreciate the opportunity to partner with you in a pursuit of excellence, right.

Grace Lupoi: 0:50
Yeah, so thank you, and thank you everyone for joining us. So, David, today being our first podcast, right, let’s talk a little bit about who this podcast is for and really what the point is.

David Lowe: 0:58
Okay, that’s probably a great idea, right? So I, honestly, we’re a sales organization, right? We train and consult at automotive dealerships, and so obviously, this podcast started as a way to help today’s sales professionals become better, right, not just professionally, but personally as well, because they kind of feed into one another, but really I believe it’s for everyone, and the reason I say that is all the time when we go through our training, the things that our students come back to us and talk about are really the principles of living with excellence. Right, they talk less about the sales tips and more about how it’s. You know the principles affected, who they are and how they live, don’t they Right? We hear that feedback all the time. So I think that everybody matters. Whether you sell cars or don’t sell cars, everybody matters. And what we do matters, right, right, why we do it matters, how we do it matters, and I think that everything we do ripples into so many lives. Why not join us to learn how to live and sell with excellence? Right Now, by the way, is sell a four letter word? So let people say, “hey, I don’t sell anything. Oh, yes, you do. So really, selling is simply persuading someone of the benefits of something, isn’t it Right? And so, moms, you’re persuading your kids to eat their vegetables, right, I mean, and go for it. You know you get it. Everybody’s persuading people all the time. So I know that the car business is riddled with bad behavior stereotypical, pushy, aggressive, under-trained salesperson. That’s the stereotypical culture, right, and we know that, and we want to help those people, give them the training they need not to be that way. Right, and in doing so, we’re talking about becoming more right. And becoming more means being a better human, being a better person. And so if you want to be a better person, drive excellence, seek excellence, turn the pursuit of excellence into a habit, then I think, whether you’re a salesperson or a mother or an engineer, it doesn’t matter who I think that this podcast would be a benefit to you.

Grace Lupoi: 3:08
I think so too.

David Lowe: 3:08
So really, Grace, we say this for everyone is it like Gandhi? Reminds us what Jesus said right, be the change you wanna see. Be light in other people’s lives. And really what it means is when we change the world around us changes with us right so it starts with ourselves. Better today than yesterday. That’s the whole thing, and that’s what this podcast is about.

Grace Lupoi: 3:29
I think you’re exactly right, and let’s take us back a little bit too. We talk about automotive sales professionals, right? Talk about that.

David Lowe: 3:35
Okay, yeah. So automotive sales right. So most people get a job selling cars on the way down. That’s th e way I did. I was just wanting to eat, right, and so and there’s not any training. I got less training to sell cars than I did to cook chicken at Kentucky Fried Chicken. It’s sad but it’s true. And selling is a profession that has professional opportunity and professional responsibility right. But what if you’re not trained to do it? Could you imagine if doctors or even bus drivers got as little training as sales? But what about plumbers and electricians? Right. So when we talk about preparing to win, we wanna help today’s salesperson win more often. What does that mean? To live with joy, peace and satisfaction? We’re gonna talk about the things that they do every day, how they treat their guests, how they walk through the selling of the car with character and integrity. That really builds that healthy pride, right. And so I think that selling is craft and art, and you have to learn to craft. So when we say preparing to win, we really wanna talk about the craft. And when we say prepare to wins for everyone, we’re really talking about the fact that we believe everybody wants to be better today than yesterday. Right, I think everybody’s a flame inside. It’s normal. Yeah, I think so, and I think that, well, ben Franklin said it, that we all desire to be better. He said I wanna sum it up for you there’s no happiness or satisfaction in life without self-approved conduct. I think that’s really really too. And George Rogers, he really summed up what Ben Franklin was saying and he said that the reality of life, that nothing great ever just happens. I love that. No one just climbs a mountain. No one becomes a professional baseball, other than of significance. You don’t really become a great parent or useful. It’s just something to happen. We’ve gotta make it happen. And so we can’t sit back and reactively let life happen. We have to proactively do it. Now there’s a game plan. We have been studying the best of the best for decades. There’s truly a game plan out there. So when we say prepare to win, we mean what? Have a game plan right. But I really think the game plan starts with that desire to simply be better and to be a benefit to others. Right, and the more people we benefit, the higher we go. Jesus said a generous person prospers, and that’s true. We know that if we’re a musician, the more people listen to our songs, the more popular we become. So the better we get, the more we influence our world and it comes back to us. We reap what we sow.

Grace Lupoi: 6:08
That’s awesome and, david, it sounds like a lot of things you’re talking about really. Come back to principles, right? We talk about how principles never change and techniques and the way we do things are always going to change, right? So what do you mean by that?

David Lowe: 6:20
That’s really true, right? So all the training we’ve developed over the last three decades was really designed so I could suck less. That’s the truth. I wanted to suck less. I wanted to win so much. I wanted to make the sale, and even more than making the sale, I just want to be a better person. Like I was always disappointed. I just want to be someone that I would admire in terms of what I do with my life, my actions and my reactions, and I knew that just wasn’t going to happen. So I started studying what the best of the best have done for over 3,000 years. You go from Solomon to the rock. You know Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln. There’s so many people we can go and say what did they do to get there? These are called principles, and you notice that these successful people all have things in common. By the way, that’s the training platform that we built our training on, and when people tune in, we’re going to talk about those principles that drive success and excellence into their life, right? So a principle? A principle is a natural law. You asked what it is right Solomon talked about 3,000 years ago said it’s the way things are created at the beginning. Stephen Covey and the AGs probably explained it a little more simply. But they’re natural laws, they’re why we do what we do. So reap and sow If I plant one field, how many can I harvest? Only one, right. So what I put in I get out, and so we’ve heard that called the boomerang effect or karma. Right, that might be a natural principle, a natural law called a principle. The Wright Brothers. They discovered a principle of lift watching birds. How do birds get up in the air right, momentum forward and air lift over, and so they use the propeller plane to get an airplane in the air right. The principles called lift right and understanding those principles of success can help us succeed right Now. There’s a difference between principle and a technique, right? So a principle is why we do what we do, the natural law that governs man. The technique is how we do it. So the principles are never going to change. But, oh my gosh, the techniques have to change. Technology has to change, and that’s not just in my professional life, in my personal life. As iPhones and tech invades my life, I’ve got to make some decisions. How do I want to spend my time? Who do I want to become? What’s important to me? What do I value, and so that’s really a technique for living. What does my day look like? And I got to constantly be looking at that. So the Wright Brothers got a plane in the air with the principle of lift Today jet engines right A little bit different than back then, right? So these huge planes use the same principle, but boy, the technique has changed, hasn’t it? So we think about blockbuster, the principles people want, they want entertainment, they want it now. So I’ve reached probably a lot of people that are listening. Used to go to blockbuster Friday night and wait around for a new release to be returned. Right, and anyway couldn’t wait to get that new DVD. Go home and watch it. Blockbuster was right. The problem was technology changed and they didn’t change with it. So now the new blockbuster is what Netflix. So the principle is still the same. I want it and I want it now. But technology changed. And if we don’t change with the technology and techniques, we fall apart. Right, and I think in the car business a lot of people are stuck in the old way. Right, memorization, memorizing scripts, kind of negative reinforced techniques, almost pressure. You know what I mean. They don’t. You know what Sales people don’t like it. But that’s all that was kind of available. And so we started this podcast to say how can we help return that integrity to the business? Right, it’s a job of integrity and character. I believe that. How do we help? How do we help today’s sales professionals? Take the principles John Wooden used right Character and preparation to win more often. How do we help? I don’t care if moms, engineers we talked about any walk of life says you know what? I don’t sell for a living, but I do sell for a living. I’m always with my coworkers, I’m all with my friends and with my family. I always have the ability to influence them. How do I communicate better? How do I, you know, be a better, just be a more of a benefit to the people in my life, right, my friends, my coworkers and my neighbors, and I think that’s what we want to talk about. What are the principles? And then, what are today’s techniques that we use, especially for salespeople? We’re going to give them techniques that they’re going to love. Why? Because they’re doing things well creates a healthy pride.

Grace Lupoi: 10:55
Right, that’s what I want Joy, peace, satisfaction, that’s right.

David Lowe: 10:58
That’s the only right. So we talk about getting the car and getting the house and as you go through life, maybe it’s just eating, maybe it’s just paying your rent, then maybe it’s a house and then maybe it’s a bigger house. It seems like things never satisfy. The more we get it seems like, the less satisfied we are, and we see that all over with people who’ve made it. They’re unhappy. We see that in America right now, with the state of depression and opioid use, the most richest countries ever been. Opportunity galore, unemployment, really low, and yet people are lacking purpose. We haven’t made that decision. Who do I want to be? Who do I want to be? And I’m telling you, people who make the decision to be better today than yesterday, find purpose. And they don’t worry about everything else. They worry about who? Themselves. And working on themselves. The problems of other people don’t seem so big. So, really, living and selling with excellence, you can’t do it without harnessing the power of the principles, right? These key principles that drive success and constant development of your techniques. Right, and really, that’s what this podcast is about. And, by the way, Grace, that’s why you’re here with me, isn’t?

Grace Lupoi: 12:07
it. Yes, it is.

David Lowe: 12:08
So Grace and I got together. Our company, Automotive Sales Coach trains Car Dealerships, and Grace, was going to college selling cars.

Grace Lupoi: 12:16
I was, and before that, though, you and I met selling service right so about five years ago I was working in the service department as an express lane advisor selling oil changes and tire rotations and that’s when I first met you and you introduced this thing to me called practicing and role playing, and I don’t know if you remember, but I was very apprehensive at first. I thought what in the world is this? But, I realized that you were exactly right. I can’t talk to a customer with no game plan and think that I know what I’m doing. That preparation is so, so important. That’s when I first was like man, who is this David Lowe guy? I like him a whole lot. Then I came back that next summer and sold cars and really just made me decide this is what I want to do after college, this is the career that I want to put myself in and continue on with. You, even changed majors. I did yeah, so yeah this is.

David Lowe: 13:01
We come to this honestly right. So Grace graduated and got a master’s right and joined our team and she is actively coaching sales people and I’m like, wow, I can’t believe she’s only this old right. With practice and preparation instead of years to get better, we can get right we can get. So that’s the whole point of our dealership playbook. That’s the whole point of Automotive Sales Coach is help today’s sales professionals right, learn from what the best of the best do. Help them become master sales professionals. Instead of having taken years, we can distill that down. But people have to be willing to do what you did. So many people today think that they can sit and success comes knocking right. They’re waiting for it. I know complacency is all over. Apathy and entitlement is everywhere. The reason you have your job is you didn’t have any of those. You took personal responsibility, developed your skill set, and that’s what we’re after. So let’s talk about winning for a sales person. I said to a car salesperson first thing on their minds. What is a win to them? Making the sale? Yeah, making the sale, making some money. And it’s so much more than that. It’s not just selling the car, making money right, it’s also having a customer go. Thank you so much. In fact, salesman told me all the time that when the buyer thanks them, sends them a car, brings in cookie, the impact it’s made like I’ve done something really well, which creates that healthy pride. It’s weird. You mow the lawn you have to do it all the time, but you sit back after look at them on the lawn. It’s a weird healthy pride that comes over you. But this is bigger than that. You, a buyer, came in nervous about what to do, what to buy, when to buy it, how much to pay. You build relationship and trust, value and desire and showed them how you could stand by them, not just now when they buy the car, but throughout their ownership experience. They now have somebody they can go to, that they can trust. That’s really what this is about, and so winning is becoming their car person, isn’t it? I think that’s it, and I think winners constantly want to get better.

Grace Lupoi: 15:11
I know I do.

David Lowe: 15:12
Right, and I know that. So it’s funny. So I will do some training and I’ll bring some new things to the table and all of a sudden I’ll listen to Grace coaching a salesperson. Guess what she’s using immediately, isn’t it? Why not? Why not? That’s how I did it. I heard some. That’s really good. I’m going to take that and we’re encouraging people. We want you to exceed us, right, that try to be as good as us. The whole point of our sales coach is build tomorrow’s leaders that we could lead the automobile industry into excellence, character and integrity. Earn the right to have excited, loyal, lifetime customers, right. So I think winning is bigger than just selling the car.Grace Lupoi: 15:51

Absolutely.

David Lowe: 15:51
It’s finding a career with a purpose. And guess what? These transferable skills? Don’t they roll over to your personal life? Have you noticed? I definitely have. Your ability to communicate better at home with your friend, empathy and logic, better listening skills, affirmation, right, all of it. And so that’s why, again, we say this really started. You know, Chris, that does our technology. He was in a training class. I was holding him and he said can my wife come to the next class? Right, Kisha? And I said where’s she’s selling cars? He said she doesn’t. I just told her training’s about so much more than that, and that’s kind of how we got connected His realization that we’re not just talking about earning a living here, making more or getting more. We’re really talking about becoming more. That’s winning.Grace Lupoi: 16:37

That’s the beautiful thing about this training and why I’m so excited just to keep going with you guys.

David Lowe: 16:41
That’s right, and so there’s a joy, peace and satisfaction that comes from that and ultimately, so I just say to anybody what winning has been, so you know when it all costs, do whatever it takes to win. So distorted and corrupted, you know, winning is about taking down the other person instead of raising yourself up. To me, that’s garbage. I’m saying I’m going to live in a life of abundance, I can win and you can win too. Winning is living with joy, peace and satisfaction. It comes from a healthy pride and, as Ben Franklin said, it’s hard to have that healthy pride without pursuing your best self. You want to pursue your best self in this podcast. We’re going to challenge you to do that. I hope you come back Now. Listen. I don’t know how you’re watching us YouTube or what podcast you’re watching us on, but if you would, we’d love you to follow us, like us, subscribe whatever it is on your thing, share it with a friend comment. We’d love you to leave a review as you go back. Right Now I want to tell you the next podcast we’re going to center around some selling skills. You’re going to get real tips to help close more car deals and create excited, loyal, lifetime customers. Right, and listen. If you’re not selling, you’re going to learn things that are going to help you live with more joy, peace and satisfaction as well. But next podcast, what are we going to talk about? Grace, kind of give that.

Grace Lupoi: 18:00
Yeah, so next, next time, we’re going to talk about concrete negotiation, gaining the upper hand in negotiations and learning how to really create the win-win scenarios that benefit you and your customers.

David Lowe: 18:10
So isn’t that cool. So we’re talking about conquering negotiations. Now I’m going to tell you what a lot of people heard how to you know how to get the customer right. And there’s some guys here’s a hundred and one closes. That’s not what we’re going to talk about. The level of negotiation conquering negotiation we’re going to talk about is a much higher level. It’s not this kindergarten stuff that we read about. It’s a higher level of living and serving, and when we work at the highest level, we get the highest results. I can’t wait for that next podcast. So, grace, thanks for being with us today. Thank you, guys for taking your time. We really appreciate it. Go ahead out there. Be better today than yesterday. Seek excellence in everything you do right and impact your world.