When automotive recruitment agencies and automotive employers are assessing job applications, they sort the applications. There are many ways that they can do this and the methods they use may vary depending on their experience, priorities and knowledge.
An initial sorting will usually aim to quickly sort the wheat from the chaff, i.e., quickly identify the ‘no-hopers’ from the good candidates. Usually the level of planning preparation and presentation of the candidates’ resumes are an easy basis to make the initial cull.
Once they have progressed to the interview stage, the criteria for progression become a bit trickier. Most employers and automotive recruiters we have worked with have some similarities in this regard, and although they have different names for it, one of the major criteria that we see applied to distinguish potential employees is ‘Locus of Control’.
Locus (from Latin: location, place) of control is a term that describes a person’s belief about the causes of results in his/her life. Someone with a strong sense of personal responsibility and accountability is said to have an internal locus of control. Someone who sees that most of their life is affected by outside forces such as conspiracies, luck, enemies, market forces, etc. is said to have an external locus of control. Another common terms to describe these two categories are survivor (internal L.O.C.) and victim (external L.O.C.).
If you were an employer who would you rather employ? Someone with internal locus of control or someone with external locus of control?
When we apply these terms specifically to car salespeople, in our experience:
Car salespeople with internal locus of control:
- Have clear goals and direction
- Are self-motivated
- Generally focus on their goals and the team’s targets
- Believe that they can take action and make judgements to positively affect outcomes
- Actively ask questions to find out information
- Don’t make excuses
- Fill ‘spare’ time productively
- Use initiative to seek out knowledge and skills
- Take responsibility for their own learning and professional development
- Have a conciliatory attitude to customers, even those who don’t buy
- Tend not to blame other people for what happens
- Are accountable for their actions
Car salespeople with external locus of control:
- Don’t have goals or clear direction other than what is given them by management
- Are either unmotivated or expects others to motivate them
- Generally ignore their goals and the team’s targets
- Believe that they are helpless and victims of circumstances
- Make incorrect assumptions and don’t ask questions to clarify situations
- Make excuses
- Waste ‘spare’ time with unproductive or even destructive activities
- Expect the employer to do more for them than they do for themselves
- Do not take responsibility for their own learning and professional development
- Have a hostile attitude to customers, especially those who don’t buy
- Tend to blame other people for what happens
- Are not accountable for their actions
Even as I write this, I remember reviewing a resume a few years ago in which the salesman listed each of his previous employers and the reasons for leaving the employer (bizarre!). In each instance, he blamed the employer, e.g., our cars were overpriced in the market, the valuer wouldn’t give me good trade-in valuations, the management were unprofessional. It was abundantly clear that this salesman had a massive external locus of control. At the time he had sent his resume to 200 (yes, two hundred!) prospective employers and in true external L.O.C. style could not for the life of him understand why he hadn’t been invited in for a single interview!
As you can see, any employer in their right mind is going to want to employ lots of Internal L.O.C. salespeople and have no external L.O.C. salespeople at all on the team.
If you already have an internal locus of control – congratulations, we can probably place you with one of the best automotive employers in the country. Contact us!
If you realise that you’re somewhere in the middle and need to develop more of an internal locus of control, follow these steps to actively develop a stronger internal locus of control.
1. Acknowledge that you ALWAYS have choices and that those choices ALWAYS have consequences. Admit that you are not always immediately aware of your choices nor their consequences and don’t start thinking about the consequences in too much detail to begin with. By realising that you always have choices, you can begin to examine your choices when you feel helpless and start thinking about, observing and learning from the consequences of the choices that you make. The choices available or the ones you identify may not always be desirable, but you can begin to start exercising CHOICE about your circumstances, even just to get started.
2. If you feel stuck, list all the possible choices that you can see , even if they are choices that you would not make. Just get as many down on paper as you can before you start evaluating the consequences of those choices. If need be, do some research and get help from others to add to the list.
3. When you have an extensive list of choices, think about the likely consequences of each. After weighing up the likely consequences, make a clear decision about your choice (which may include to do nothing for a certain period). Rank the other choices so you have a back-up second choice if need be. Acknowledge that this is YOUR CHOICE – you have made this decision. This starts you developing the habit of looking for, and being aware of, new choices, possibilities and opportunities.
4. Keep doing this exercise when you feel frustrated or helpless in like situations. As you keep doing this, you will become better and better at it, and you’ll develop better decision-making which will make you happy to take responsibility for the mostly good decisions you make.
And finally, if you have a strong external locus of control, don’t worry, it’s not your fault that you haven’t had the success and breaks you would like. There have been other people conspiring to keep you down and they have been helped to hamper your efforts by the aliens. But one day you will have some good luck and the tooth fairy will deliver you a special package containing a magic elixir of youth and vitality, the winning lottery numbers in advance and a genie in a bottle and everything will work out!
Successful salespeople have an internal locus of control
