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The Automotive Sales Industry is changing - Are we developing people fast enough?

Aug 18, 2026 Future Skills Development (FSD), Gerhard Lourens, Skills Development

The Automotive Sales Industry is changing - Are we developing people fast enough?

Opinion piece by Gerhard Lourens, Skills Development Specialist at Future Skills Development (FSD).

For many years, the recipe for a successful automotive salesperson seemed fairly simple.

Know the product. Be confident. Build a relationship. Negotiate the deal. Close the sale.

That formula still matters, but it is no longer sufficient.

The customer walking into a dealership today is very different from the customer of ten or even five years ago. In many cases, they have already researched the vehicle, compared specifications, watched online reviews, checked competitors and worked through some form of affordability calculation before speaking to a salesperson.

Some customers may know more about a particular feature than the person sitting across the desk from them.

So where does that leave the salesperson?

Perhaps the role is no longer simply to provide information. The real value may now lie in helping the customer make sense of that information or guide the customer in a direction, if they had misconceptions on features or the benefits of their selected vehicle.

This requires a different set of skills.

· A salesperson needs to ask better questions. They need to listen properly and understand what the customer’s needs are. They must be comfortable communicating face-to-face, over the telephone, by email and increasingly through WhatsApp.

· They need CRM discipline and a basic understanding of finance and legislation. They must have confidence when handling objections and enough product knowledge to translate features into benefits that matter to an individual customer.

· And the list keeps growing. Hybrid and electric vehicles are becoming more visible and relevant. Vehicle technology is becoming more complicated and artificial intelligence is entering the workplace. Customers expect faster responses, better communication and a far more professional buying experience.

The industry is also showing signs that skills development cannot be ignored. Sector-skills research published by merSETA in 2024/2025, drawing on Workplace Skills Plan information submitted by employers, has identified motor-vehicle sales roles among occupations where vacancies can be difficult to fill. This is because suitable candidates do not always have the required skills. Sales-management roles have also featured in this discussion, as there are no official Sales Management qualifications available for the Automotive Industry.

That raises an interesting question.

Do we really have a shortage of people wanting to work in automotive sales or do we have a shortage of people who have been properly skilled to succeed in the industry?

There is a vast difference.

Dealerships invest heavily in buildings, stock, systems, lead-generation platforms, advertising and brand standards. Yet the person responsible for converting much of that investment into business may still learn the job by largely watching a colleague doing it. Sometimes it is successful, but it can also become a scenario of passing on old habits from one generation to the next.

Training should also not be confused with sitting in a classroom for a day and receiving a certificate. Real development should reflect in practice, by asking better questions, stronger follow-up, more accurate CRM information, improved prospecting, better customer conversations and ultimately, better results.

Perhaps we should also change the question we ask when recruiting. Instead of only asking, “Can this person sell cars?”, we should be asking: “Can we develop this person into the automotive professional which our customer will need tomorrow?”

Vehicles are changing. The customers have already changed. The question is whether we are developing our people quickly enough to keep up.

Source reference: merSETA Sector-skills research and Workplace Skills Plan employer submissions.