Selling In The Motor Trade

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...

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-dow...

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...

What happens between the ears drives what happens on the forecourt. That is not motivational filler. That is the core argument from Dr. Tharaka, a consultant psychiatrist and TEDx speaker who has spent 15 years studying how the mind affects performance, and now brings that science into the working world. In this episode, he and Simon Bowkett dig into the real psychology of why salespeople go from...

Here is a question worth sitting with. When you walk into your own business, does everyone know who you are? Graeme from Eden Motor Group once acquired a large Ford dealership and asked the general manager to take him on a tour. The GM opened a broom cupboard looking for the stairs to his own parts department. He had never been down there. When Graeme finally got into the parts office, the young w...

The UK has made itself the most attractive market in Europe for Chinese car manufacturers, and most dealers have not fully thought through what that means yet. Graeme, CEO of Eden Motor Group, has. He has been in the trade for over 40 years and built a multi-franchise group across Vauxhall, MG, Leap Motor, Mazda, Hyundai and Peugeot. He is direct about the dynamic: aggressive BEV targets and a rel...

Graeme Potts has run motor retail at every level worth running. He joined Sir Peter Vardy in 1983 when Reg Vardy was three dealerships, and was still there when it had grown to 85 and was turning over 900 million pounds. He then led the RAC turnaround with 10,000 people and a 765 million pound price tag, ran 1.6 billion of turnover at Inchcape, and then walked away from all of it to start Eden Aut...

Customers say cash for a reason. It is not usually because they are cash buyers. It is because they have been conditioned from the day, they first paid a plumber to believe that saying cash gets them a better deal. In this episode, Simon breaks down exactly why your team keeps hearing that answer in 2026, the assumptions that kill finance deals before they even get started, and the specific questi...

Most salespeople ask about GAP insurance once, get a no, and move on. This episode is about what happens when you go back. Simon runs through a single sweep-up technique, one cheeky question asked at the point of collection, that consistently turns previous rejections into policies sold. The logic is simple: by the time the customer arrives to collect their car, the mental pain of the purchase pri...

AI is not magic. It is not going to replace your sales team. And it is almost certainly not going to save a broken process. What it will do, if you use it properly, is give your people time back, cover your leads after hours, and flag the problems your managers are too busy to catch. Will Benedicks and Brent Wees have been doing this at dealership level, not in a conference presentation, in real s...

Most dealers are using AI like a glorified Google search. Type something in, get something back, move on. That is not wrong exactly, but it is leaving a lot on the table. Brent Wees and Will Benedicks have a sharper way of thinking about it. Knowledge is now scalable through AI. An agent scales the execution of that knowledge. Most people are only using the first half. In this episode, they walk t...

Most dealers are still valuing used cars the way they did ten years ago. Buy it at auction, add a margin, put it on the forecourt and hope the price holds. That approach does not work in a market where Chinese brands have no residual history, EV prices have swung dramatically, and live data can tell you within minutes what a car will actually sell for in your postcode. Derren Martin spent years as...

There is a number that should get every used car manager's attention. The OMODA J5 7 was the biggest selling car in March. The deal was around £299 down, £299 a month. That is an extraordinary amount of car for that payment, and it is working. The problem is that car becomes a used car in three years, and the used car market for Chinese brands does not really exist yet. Derren Martin ran the entir...

You'd back central London as prime EV territory. Josh Apps from V12 can't move them. He'll sell a red-on-red Range Rover faster than a well-specced Tesla every time. That counterintuitive reality is one of several sharp observations from a dealer who built a credible high-end business in one of the most expensive places in the UK to operate, with no forecourt, no showroom, appointment only, and ov...

What happens when a former professional footballer and football agent walks into the motor trade… and decides to build a dealership with "more care, more style, and a lot less ego"? In this episode, I'm joined by Josh Apps , founder of V12 Automobil in Central London. Josh didn't grow up in the trade. He's built V12 from scratch since 2022, and he's straight-talking about what actually works when...

Most salespeople wait for the dealership to hand them customers… then wonder why they're stuck at "average".  In this episode, I'm joined by Ali Reda, one of the highest-volume salespeople I've ever spoken to, to break down the mindset shift that changes everything: you don't "work for the dealership", you run your own business inside it. Ali explains how he builds trust through community work (so...

Ali Reda is the car salesperson who sold 1,582 cars in 12 months, hit 32 cars in a day (twice), and talks through the exact model behind it, without living at the dealership.  He works Monday-Friday, doesn't do weekends, and built a "business within a business" by going all-in on relationship selling, community presence, and a delivery process that removes bottlenecks.  Episode highlights: How Ali...

Most dealerships still do the same thing. They take the top salesperson, give them a title, and hope they become a great leader. In this episode, I'm joined by Neil Carrahar to talk about why that move often backfires, what to do instead, and how to build a leadership pipeline that actually works.  We get into the real issues that show up on the floor, like high performers who poison the culture,...

In this episode, I'm joined by Neil Carrahar to talk about the bit most dealerships get wrong: motivation and mindset . Neil shares a real story from a sales training program, where a new starter put his hand up on day one and asked, "How do I get into the 200 Club?"   That one question told Neil everything he needed to know. We break down what that kind of hunger looks like in the real world, and...

You've told the team what needs doing. You check in later. Nothing's happened. Your blood boils… then you realise you might not have been clear enough in the first place. In this episode, I'm joined by Stuart to break down OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) in plain English. It's a simple way to set a clear goal, define 3 to 4 measurable checkpoints, and keep everyone pulling in the same direction...

Neil Carrahar is back for Part 2. This one goes deeper on what high standards actually look like in practice, especially on the "nothing special happening" days that quietly define your dealership. We talk about consistency, manager behaviours, and why customer confidence depends on the process you run every single day. If you lead a team, manage used cars, or sell day in day out, this episode wil...

I'm joined by Neil Carrahar, Operations Director at Symco Training. This is a straight talk episode about standards, culture, and the day-to-day operational stuff that drives results in a dealership.   We cover what "good" looks like in the real world, why teams drift over time, and how managers can set expectations that actually stick.   If you're a dealer principal, sales manager, or anyone tryi...

This one's another Book Club episode with Jason Cranswick, talking about the books that actually change how you think (and how you run a dealership). We recover The Chimp Paradox (Steve Peters) and how your "chimp mind" shows up on the forecourt, The Mindset Workbook (Carol Dweck) and why fixed vs growth thinking changes performance, and A Path Through the Jungle (Steve Peters) for handling pressu...

Jason Cranswick is back on the pod. Last time we spoke it was book club stuff, but a lot's changed since then. Jason stepped out of his C-suite role and now runs Cranswick Consulting, working as an executive coach and board advisor. In this episode we get into what that move actually looks like, what he had to learn (and qualify for), and why so many motor trade leaders struggle to let go of the d...

Most "lost" leads aren't lost because the car sold. They drop out because something went wrong in the follow-up, the numbers didn't stack up, or they quietly went and bought a different brand. In Part 2 of my chat with Jeremy from Marketing Delivery, we get practical about how dealers can pull people back into the funnel, keep aftersales communication relevant, and stop annoying customers into hit...