Automobile Dealership Sales and Management Training is Not One-Size-Fits-All: How the Kintz Group Ensures a Perfect Fit

The automobile dealer industry experienced quite the rollercoaster over the past few years. Everything from crazy consumer demand, empty lots, supply chain issues, personnel shortages, rising interest rates, and higher gas prices. With the art of selling automobiles shifting and changing with each new loop, how do dealers face strategic shifts in training their teams?

Are We There Yet? host Grant Harrell knows someone whose very focus is that question. Training methods represent this man’s passion, and the automotive industry is his lifeblood. Best-selling author Tim Kintz is also the Founder and President of the Kintz Group, an organization dedicated to creating customized dealer training programs. Kintz and Harrell share a long history and passion for working in the car business.

“Selling cars is the easiest, high-paying job you’ll ever have or the hardest low-paying job you’ll ever have,” Kintz said. “It depends on how good you are. And if you’re good, you can make money in spite of yourself.”

And with the proper training, Kintz aims to see good turn into great.

Harrell and Kintz met up on Are We There Yet? to discuss:

• Kintz’s career, influences, and the Kintz Group’s mission.
• The benefits of structured, formal dealer training programs.
• How customizing training programs for dealerships provide a path for success.

“We have our sales process, our management, and our leadership process,” Kintz said of dealerships. “I realized it’s not just plug-and-play. All digital apps and programs are only as good as the people executing them. None of that stuff is any good if the people aren’t trained. We’re not in the car business; we’re in the people business. Whether we go into a store to help them rebuild their digital department or how to sell a car, face-to-face, we’ll go in and do a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree evaluation.”

Tim Kintz, founder and president of The Kintz Group is also the author of two bestselling books, FRICTIONLESS: Closing and Negotiating with Purpose, and FEARLESS: Leading and Managing Unbreakable Teams. Kintz believes that training is not one size fits all. The Kintz Group identifies factors that make an auto dealership unique and customizes training programs that fit what those dealers sell, how they sell, and to whom they sell, all generated for their specific needs.