Podcast with Margaret Henney: Unlock the World of Video in Your Sales Process

A blue background with a blonde woman in a black shirt smiling next to the words "Podcast with: Margaret Henney, Director of Marketing and Video Specialist"

If we haven’t convinced you yet that video is a game-changer for dealerships, this podcast will remove any doubt! Covideo Director of Marketing Margaret Henney joined the Dealer Talk with Jen Suzuki podcast to discuss how dealers can sell more cars by using video in their sales process. Jen Suzuki, sales coach at eDealer Solutions, hosted this deep dive into video strategy.Check out the episode now wherever you get your podcasts!

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Getting started with video

Margaret is a video strategist with over a decade of sales experience. She found it was sometimes a struggle to build necessary sales relationships with phone calls, and video changed everything. While in-person conversations are the gold standard of communication and phone calls are more convenient, video messaging sits right in the middle: effective, easy, and personal.Video may not always be natural to start using at your dealership. As with any tool, you need to start small and work on adoption. Margaret and Jen discuss the “chronic sales voice” or “phone voice” they would take on when making cold calls early in their careers. When they made the switch to video, they evaluated their outreach and realized it’s best to be fully yourself on camera! This is when Margaret knew she had hit a breakthrough.

“People would say, ‘Margaret, I know this sounds crazy, but I feel like I know you.” -Margaret Henney

Some expert advice? Don’t put too much time into any one medium. Include video in your usual routine of meetings, phone calls, texts, and other outreach.

Why video for dealerships is worth it

In this industry, you have a lot of tools to master, tons of customers to manage, and all kinds of competition. How will video make the difference that makes you stand out?In the podcast, Jen and Margaret discuss how getting ghosted is a part of the job—whether it’s customers not showing up to an appointment, ignoring your response to an online inquiry, or backing out of a sale without a word.The average person gets 121 emails a day, and they only open 20-40% of those emails. Plenty of these emails are spam. Plus, it can be hard these days to spot a bot or AI-generated message. It’s no wonder it’s hard to get ahold of customers. But as Margaret and Jen emphasize, you won’t see any changes by continuing to do the same thing.Not only is video a notable, different approach to set you apart from the competition, it’s also very easy to create custom outreach with little time and effort. But to your prospects, it will look like you spent a lot of time!

How to make video a habit

Jen and Margaret also discuss how to motivate your dealership team to be consistent in implementing video. Once you start seeing results, it sticks faster—it’s really motivating when you see results! But starting out, you should establish one or two parts of your sales process to implement video.Here are some of the best places to start:

Initial outreach—If you have an impactful tool like video that will make a big difference to your sales, why would you wait to use it until late in the sales process? When responding to an online inquiry or doing your first outreach, try video! Maybe you called and had to leave a voicemail. Sending over a video that acknowledges their interest and “puts a face to your name,” so the relationship starts out personal.
Appointment reminders—If someone has an appointment coming up, send over a video introducing yourself if you haven’t yet and explaining anything they should know about the dealership. (Where should they park? Where will you meet them?) Remove some anxiety from the experience. You can also show off cars they’re interested in and even hold the keys in your video. But even a small check-in can have a big impact.
Unsold follow up—If someone came into your showroom and, for whatever reason, walked away without purchasing a car, follow up! Remind them you’re here to help. Ask what they’re looking for, let them know about new vehicles they may be interested in, and remain their go-to person for their next sale.

“If you want to change your outcomes and you want to change your results, we all know this: you can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. You have to do something new. And doing something new that can make the biggest impact on your productivity and your outcomes is oftentimes going to be uncomfortable.” -Jen Suzuki

Establishing a personal brand at your dealership

In the podcast, Margaret and Jen also discuss video’s role in building a strong personal brand. You can generate your own leads by showing what you’ve done for customers and sharing case studies and reviews. Video is an excellent medium for building up an expert persona.Build trust and credibility by telling customers what is going on at your dealership or changes you’re making to increase their satisfaction like hiring more employees, building up your service team, or updated processes.

Personalized videos made simple

Margaret’s top advice for implementing new technology at your dealership: don’t get a new tool, hand it over to your team, and tell them to use it however they want. Start out with a plan and create a process for others to follow. Embed that process into your company culture. At Covideo, we have a library of training materials people can watch at any time, so you only have to record it once.The good news about adding video into your sales process: it’s easy! With Covideo, you have simple tools at your disposal to make a huge impact. Plus, our experts are here to help you determine where to start with video and start building out a process your team can easily follow. Schedule a demo with us to get started!