For the past year, selling used cars hasn’t been much of a challenge for dealers. Prices rose with the shortage of new vehicles, and many shoppers came looking for the best deals they could find.
Now that new vehicle inventories are returning to normal levels, selling pre-owned models could be more difficult. Some dealers have excess inventory levels of previously-owned models, making it difficult to bring in the new models from automakers.
Regardless of whether a dealer offers new cars or simply sells used ones, offering incentives and challenges to the sales team is a great way to boost sales. Let’s look at a few ideas to get your team excited about selling these cars.

Offer a Daily Prize

Set a number or simply offer a prize to anyone that sells one of the used cars on the lot. This prize can be presented daily to the top salesperson or to all team members who sold a pre-owned vehicle. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, but it should be something that your team will want to compete for every day. By giving away a prize every day, your team will stay engaged and ready to sell the vehicles you want them to sell.

Reward the Social Aspect

Social media is one of the leading ways to sell products, including used cars. Your sales team uses social media every day; why not offer a prize for the team member that has the most followed post, the greatest increase in followers, or has a post that converts to a lead for your dealership? By offering a prize for social media posts, your team can get creative, head to the lot for some TikTok or Instagram marketing, and work to bring more shoppers to your dealership.

Daily Winners Go Into a Raffle

You can use the daily prize idea and put all daily winners into a raffle to win a much larger prize at the end of the month. This can keep the competitive juices flowing as your team works hard to get their name in the raffle. Repeat winners have a better chance at winning the big prize, as they should. By combining the daily prize with a monthly raffle, you’re keeping your sales team focused every day and then ending the month on a high note with a raffle that will award one lucky person an additional prize.

Used Cars Assigned

You’ve got a car lot filled with pre-owned inventory waiting for new homes. Assign one car to each salesperson and ask them to focus on that car until it is sold. Incentivize their commitment to pushing this car through their social media posts and test drives. It won’t take long before the assigned car is sold. One way to incentivize this is to use a low-commission car as the first model, but the salesperson who sells their car is then assigned a car that has a much higher commission rate. Whenever money is involved, sales teams get excited.

Make it Visible

While this might sound harsh to the poor-performing team members, placing a visible sales tracker in the break room or other employee area is a great way to get your team excited. Ensure this tracker is updated every day or whenever a pre-owned car is sold. This visible reminder should entice those with low numbers to improve their game and focus on selling more used cars. You can offer an incentive for the top performers, but you might not need to the commission and recognition could be enough to keep them pushing the cars out the door for your dealership.

Bring in the Customers

Let’s face it; there are slow days at the car dealership with few or no customers coming through the doors. That’s when you need to get your team to go where the customers are; online. Create an activity blitz for the morning using a three-hour block. During this time, the team member with the most direct emails, messages, and calls wins the afternoon off. Nothing will get people excited to work hard than a sunny afternoon of freedom when the sales floor is slow. Put this contest to work and watch the engagement levels rise.

Boss Embarrassment Team Contest

This one can be tricky; everyone, including the boss, has to be on board for it to work. The idea is to incentivize the entire team working together to sell a specified number of used cars on the lot. This can run concurrently with other contests, which help keep the team focused while they work toward the ultimate goal; embarrass the boss. Before the contest begins, the boss and the team have to agree to terms. Some ideas are to have cream pies shoved in the face, publicly shave the boss’s head, or put the boss in a dunk tank. This can be a lot of fun, and a party can be part of the action.

Sales Poker

Set five goals for your team and allow them to pull a card from a 52-card deck when each goal is achieved. The person with the best hand wins the prize. The goals can be a set number of used cars sold, a number of social media posts about the used models on the lot, numbers of leads converted, positive reviews earned, and leads generated. At the end of the selling period, all team members with five cards show their hands to see who won the prize.

Most No’s Received

This is a great contest for weekly competition, and it can be a lot of fun. Anyone who has been in sales for a while understands they will hear “no” much more often than “yes.” With that in mind, you can track who receives the most no’s and award a prize for this distinction. Earning the most negative responses is an indicator that a salesperson is engaged and connecting with potential customers, even if they aren’t ready to buy one of the used cars for sale on your lot right now.

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