Tesla recovered sales by calling test-drive leads

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 4:50

   It was okay. What happened? I was trying to figure out if I could be helpful. And so I asked him, like, what's your biggest problem right now? And he said, demand. And so I said, well, how many cars have you promised the street for this quarter? And the number was something like 12,000. And we were a month and a half into the quarter at this point. And I said, well, how far in are you? And he said, we've only sold 3,000.

2. 5:14

   And I was like, oh, that's a big problem. I said, okay, why don't I work on that problem for like a week and I'll come back. And then I went out on a blitzkrieg. I went to eight different stores, took a test drive because I had heard that the test drive was the big thing in buying a Tesla. Like you hit the accelerator, it's like a rocket ship. You never forget it and you buy the car. So I went to eight stores, did test drives.

3. 5:38

   I used eight different email addresses so they wouldn't know who I was. and funny thing happened i didn't get a call back and after like a week i hadn't been called back so i called the head of sales ops i said am i blacklisted in the system for some reason like why would nobody call me back after a test drive because that is supposed to be when you're asking me for the sale and he looked in the system he said you're not blacklisted at all you used a bunch of different email addresses so that we couldn't even track you basically i said well can you look up for me how many people have done a test drive in the last 30 days who haven't been called back? And he's like, yeah, give me an hour. So he called me back and said like 10,000.

4. 6:22

   And I'm like, oh my God, like you can make your number for the quarter. You just have to call people back and ask for the order. Why aren't people doing that? And he said, well, people are incented to do test drives, but we have no incent, we have no commissions here. So they're not incented to make the sale. And I said, yeah, the hardest thing in sales is asking for the sale. So you're not incenting people to do that. I understand the behavior. So why don't we do this?

5. 6:45

   Can you shut off anybody's new test drive leads until they call all their prior test drives back for the last 30 days? He's like, I can't. I said, okay, how long will it take? He's like, worldwide. Like I can do it like right now, it'll take several hours to proliferate around the world, but I can do it right now. He called me the next day and he's like, you wouldn't believe it. The orders are coming in left and right it's and I said yeah because you just your people are asking for the sale this is how this works and then I went oh gosh I don't work for Elon yet and I just made a decision in his company like I shut off all new leads so I called Elon up and I said hey look I'm really sorry I haven't worked for anybody for a long time and I was afraid of this and I just stepped across the line and I told him what I did I said your problem in sales uh is that people

6. 7:33

   weren't asking for the order and so what i did was i shut off all new leads until they asked for the order and it turns out the sales are coming in i think you're going to make a quarter i gotta apologize to you though i don't work for you yet this isn't my company it's yours i should have checked in and i didn't just out of habit i didn't check in and i'm sorry and there's this long silence on the other end in the phone and then he finally came on and he said that was a great decision you're going to fit in here just fine so he didn't mind you overstepping at all Not in that case at all, because it was speed of decision, which I got to know was what he was after. He wasn't after a hierarchy or checking in. He was after, as long as you're following first principles, just go as fast as you can.