Nelson Mazda’s Director of Business Development Lindsey Toscano

Just a few weeks ago, the Association of Automotive Internet Sales Professionals (AAISP) held its annual conference in Nashville. The first of a long list of awards recognized the “Most Improved Internet Manager,” and no one was more surprised than the winner, Lindsey Toscano, Director of Business Development at Nelson Mazda in Tulsa.

But her surprise was misplaced, because the progress Toscano and her department have made has been truly phenomenal. The Dealix Dealer Newsletter recently had the chance to speak with her, and to learn more about how she’s helped her dealership become an Internet sales powerhouse in a very short time.

Dealix Dealer Newsletter (DDN): So you were surprised when they called your name?

Lindsey Toscano (LT): My goodness, yes. I didn’t even know I was a nominee. This was my first time attending AAISP, and I was awestruck, just being there among so many great professionals.

DDN: The term “most improved” is kind of a funny thing, in your case. It’s not as if you’ve been doing this a long time and suddenly became really good at it. Two years ago, you weren’t even in the automotive business. How did it all happen?

LT: Well, I do come from a sales background, but otherwise this has been an enormous change for me. I was a manager at an Ann Taylor clothing boutique up until two years ago. The wife of Nelson Mazda’s GM, Brandon Murphy, was one of my very best customers. She knew the dealership was looking for someone to manage its Internet Department, which it was just developing at that time. She thought I would be good at it, and she pushed me to interview. I got the job, and things began to happen very quickly.

DDN: Tell us about the Internet department and how it was developed.

LT: It’s now a full-blown Business Development Center that handles both phone leads and Internet leads. We have two sales coordinators and two Internet sales managers. The coordinators work with leads to set appointments and support the sales reps, who see sales through to the very end. We’re looking to hire at least two, and perhaps as many as four, more people right now.

Nelson Mazda didn’t have any kind of coordinated Internet sales effort until the summer of 2005, when the dealership brought in Dealer Synergy, headed by Sean Bradley, to help build the Internet department. This step turned out to be the foundation for our success. Our executive management was 100% committed to taking the right approach, and Sean provided it.

DDN: Did you come on board in the middle of all this?

LT: Yes, part of Sean’s job was to help with staffing and training, and so I was hired before the department was ready to launch. For me, being able to learn from him was extremely important, because I didn’t have co-workers who understood the Internet sales process and who could teach me - I was there to learn all I could about it and teach others.

DDN: What has been your approach to managing and educating your staff? And what has it been like to take on those responsibilities so soon after you learned to do the things that they’re expected to do?

LT: Actually, being relatively new to all this has made it easier for me to help my team. They know that I’ve learned by doing, and that my knowledge is fresh and still growing. I work actively with leads right alongside them, and we spend a lot of time practicing and role-playing and feeding off of one another’s successes. One of the greatest things about my work is the excitement that we all share - the feeling that we’re doing great work together.

DDN: Was it a struggle early on, or at any point?

LT: Believe it or not, no. We were so well prepared, and we worked so well together, that the department really hit the ground running. Before any of this happened, Nelson Mazda received a handful of Internet leads every month and handled them very informally. Maybe there would be one or two sales a month - or maybe none. In our first month, we closed seven sales. After the first two months, we were averaging 15–20. A year in, 40 was typical, and right now we’re doing 50 a month. We think we can hit 80 by the end of 2007. The progress has been very rapid, and it didn’t take long to get ramped up.

DDN: What are some of the specific things you and your team do to be so effective?

LT: One big factor is the framework in which we do our work. We start every day knowing exactly how we’re going to spend it. Our plan may change in the course of the day, but we’re never just muddling through. This helps us keep tasks and leads from falling through the cracks. Without a daily game plan, it’s really easy to tell someone that you’ll call them back at 3:00 and then forget - and that’s the sort of mistake that can cost you a sale.

Another is our follow-up process. Literally, we never stop following up with a lead unless they tell us to stop calling or emailing. There’s a woman we call every month or so who became a lead two years ago, way back when our Internet department was brand new. The last time I talked to her, she told me how much she appreciated our staying in touch, and she said she’d told all her friends about how highly she thought of us. She may not be ready to buy now, but who is she going to buy from when the time comes? As long as you’re always friendly and personable and demonstrate that you really care about what you can do for the customer, rather than vice-versa, you can stay in touch for a long time, with very little effort.

DDN: You mentioned earlier that you’re looking to expand your team. Let’s wrap up by hearing about the kind of people you’re looking for.

LT: One thing I’d stress is that no experience is necessary. One of our key principles - and it accounts for my being here - is that personality and character are much more important than the jobs a candidate has held before. A lot of people can step in and do ok, but it takes a special person to excel. You have to be able to be incredibly systematic in your dealings with customers, and at the same time you have to be genuinely warm and interested. Balancing those two things is extremely difficult for most people.

The other issue is teamwork. Sales jobs often foster a competitive perspective, and there’s a place for that. But we get a lot more mileage out of working together and being happy with what we achieve as a team. I don’t mean that we simply get along better as a result; I mean that we sell more cars and satisfy more customers. The stakes are too high to hire someone who might not work well in this kind of environment.

DDN: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us, Lindsey. Congratulations on your award!