Zimmermann sales executive powers to glory, again

De Klerk won the award of Top Sales Executive at the 2012 Volkswagen Grand Prix Awards ceremony that was held in Johannesburg South Africa recently beating many other hopefuls from Volkswagen’s network of dealerships spread across southern Africa in the category of dealers with monthly sales of 50 or more new vehicles.
By winning the 2012 title, which comes with a reward of a week long trip for two to Prague, de Klerk has now won the prestigious award four times in a row since 2009. He said the award has motivated him to work even harder.
De Klerk attributes his success to the fact that he does not sell cars, but rather advice customers what car is best suited for their needs.
He says 90% of the customers that he gives advice to always come back. “It’s like a chain reaction. You give a customer advice now, they refer more people and after three or four years when they need to replace their car, they come back again.”
De Klerk said he gets a lot of satisfaction when he sees a customer coming back to him for the second or third time either to upgrade their car or to buy something for the wife or for their children.
His advice to other sales executives is to be passionate about the products they sell. He says a sales executive has to believe in their product otherwise they will not be able to sell it. On top of it all, he says as a sales executive, one should never try to sell the customer something, but should just give them advice.
“Never tell a client no, don’t buy this; rather give them the advantages of the various models and let them weigh up the options. As soon as you start selling your product and you tell the client you have to buy now, you have to sign here now because tomorrow the price is going up, the customer will move back.”
De Klerk who says the GTI and the Touareg are his two favourite models, dedicated his award to his “wonderful” Volkswagen clients for their continuous support.
He also paid tribute to the Zimmermann Garage Workshop and the Volkswagen range of products which he described as the best. “Sometimes I don’t think it’s my selling skills that does the trick, but the good service at the workshop and the fact that the product sells itself,” he adds.