We are delighted to be joined by Gareth Williams, Managing Director at Hatfields Motor Group.

There was so much to discuss, we decided to make this a two part interview and this is the first instalment.

Gareth grew up in the trade, and has worked in the industry since he finished university. After working at a Ford dealership, he went to work with his father, and they then bought that business in St Helens together. Gareth still lives by the lessons learnt during those early years, such as always take the people with you, being respectful, presentable, well-mannered and listening to the people who know more than you.

He sees some benefits in the agency model, such as consistent profits and stability. One of the mantras throughout his businesses is: treat customers like you want to be treated yourself.

There are so many great take aways from this instalment, and in next episode we delve into surviving and thriving after the changes with Jaguar and the benefits of EV's to investors.

Here are the highlights:

{02:20} Implementing DARTS

{09:12} Always take the people with you

{14:08} Learn from those around you

{17:21} Work Life Balance is the key to attracting staff

{20:27} Agency and JLR

{23:15} Agency isn't wrong

{34:00} Customer service is not about cost

{36:00} Culture of empowerment

About Symco Training:

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.

To find out more visit: www.symcotraining.co.uk