by Simon Bowkett
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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Publishing Since
7/14/2020
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July 23, 2026
<p>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.</p> <p><strong>What's covered:</strong></p> <p>• The one in three callers you never knew you were losing <br /> • Why phone leads convert at nearly double internet leads and still get neglected<br /> • Hold times, voicemail and the exact points where calls fall over <br /> • The Monday morning crunch that makes the service desk the biggest offender <br /> • How missed calls are quietly costing you service loyalty and repeat sales <br /> • What happens to your net promoter score when a customer has to explain themselves three times <br /> • Five fixes, including the one most owners never do: dial your own dealership</p> <p>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.</p> <p>Before you spend another penny on marketing, listen to this and go dial your own dealership. You might not like what you hear.</p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>About Symco Training:</strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">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.</span></p> <p><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;">To find out more visit: <a title="www.symcotraining.co.uk" href= "https://www.symcotraining.co.uk" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">www.symcotraining.co.uk</a></span></p>
July 16, 2026
<p>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.</p> <p><strong>What's covered:</strong></p> <p>• The easy objection-buster that quietly drains your used car stock<br /> • What really happens at a We Buy Any Car drop-in centre<br /> • Why Motorway and Carwow quote almost identical prices to the pound<br /> • The outsourced drivers and app mistakes that put deals at risk<br /> • Why finance settlements through these services are not as seamless as they look<br /> • The window of opportunity close that keeps the trade-in with you<br /> • The one to ten condition question that stops distance sales going wrong<br /> • Why used car managers should worry more about their own salespeople mis-describing cars than customers</p> <p>If you run a forecourt and you want to stop feeding your rivals, listen to this before your next sales meeting.</p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>About Symco Training:</strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">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.</span></p> <p><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;">To find out more visit: <a title="www.symcotraining.co.uk" href= "https://www.symcotraining.co.uk" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">www.symcotraining.co.uk</a></span></p>
July 9, 2026
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Here is the uncomfortable bit. Your VHC videos probably aren't broken.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">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.<br /> <br /> <strong>What's covered:</strong></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">• The real reason VHC videos get watched but don't sell the work<br /> • Why 'amber, red, green' narration quietly kills conversion<br /> • The SWOP process: see it, why it happened, the outcome, the proposal<br /> • The doctor and receptionist problem, and why the expert must speak<br /> to the customer<br /> • How to explain a two millimetre tyre so the customer feels the risk<br /> • How the right video hands the service advisor an easier, more credible call<br /> • Six steps to lift VHC conversion, ready to use straight away<br /> <br /> If your health check videos are getting filmed but not converting, take the six steps in this episode and put them in this<br /> week.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>About Symco Training:</strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">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.</span></p> <p><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt;">To find out more visit: <a title="www.symcotraining.co.uk" href= "https://www.symcotraining.co.uk" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">www.symcotraining.co.uk</a></span></p>
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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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