While some would find it daunting to be the only woman in a showroom full of salesmen, it’s never fazed Tiffany Kruzer much, although she did laughingly admit, “Being the only girl is a little rough sometimes.” Evidently, it has kept her on her toes; she is regularly a sales leader at Ganley Honda in North Olmsted, Ohio, and has consistently averaged over 30 units a month for quite some time.

General Sales Manager Nick Lorenzo described Kruzer as “very friendly, very enthusiastic and always upbeat.” He added, “She’s very passionate about her work … She not afraid to talk to people, and she’s not afraid to pick up the phone and make 200 phone calls in a day. She’s a worker … not a time-waster.”

Kruzer said her personality and enthusiasm for talking to people (especially on the phone) are what ultimately got her into the sales business. Her first foray into sales came around the age of 18 when she responded to an ad that inquired, “Do you like to talk on the phone?” That led to her start in telemarketing, which later moved into more traditional sales work. She got her first opportunity in car sales at a BMW, Porsche and Audi store in Pennsylvania. “I just knew that I was good at getting along with people, so I figured, why not try selling cars?” she recalled. “They put me on an hourly [wage] with $100 per car, and I ended up doing so well that they put me straight on commission after about a month.”

When she later moved to Ohio, she began working at Ganley Honda in February of 2002. Since that time, Kruzer has continued to excel. She is ranked fifth in sales volume among salespeople from all 27 Ganley stores. Lorenzo said she’s been the dealership group’s salesperson of the year the last few years and is usually salesperson of the month six months out of the year.

In March, Kruzer hit a new personal best and sold 40 cars, a record number of sales in a single month for any salesperson in the dealership. Even more impressive is the fact that she not only beat her own record and set a new dealership record, but she managed to do it while being eight months pregnant!

She credited her stellar performance in part to a loyal base of repeat customers; 16 out those 40 sales were to returning customers. “A lot of that had to do with my customers knowing I was leaving for maternity leave,” she stated and added that a few of them even came in a couple months before their leases were actually up. “The people at work said I used my belly bump to close,” she said with a laugh. She estimated that in a typical month about a third of her sales are to repeat customers, and some months they make up as many as half her sales. “I don’t usually have to take too many people off the floor.”

Lorenzo said Kruzer’s CSI scores are always exceptional. “That’s what we look at here. We want to make sure that we’re a positive impact on our district, and Tiffany probably has the highest CSI in our store, on average,” he stated.

“I think a lot of salespeople these days don’t really listen to customers,” she said. “Whenever I go to buy something, if people are just worrying about themselves, trying to push me towards something I don’t want, I don’t like that … I try to listen to the customer, and I try to take care of them.” She said the key is to tell the customer, “Let me know what you’re trying to accomplish and we’ll see if we can do that together.”

After hitting her record 40 vehicles in March, Kruzer decided perhaps it was time to finally give herself a break before the arrival of her baby. “I said to myself after I did the 40 cars … ‘I think I’m going to go halfway through April and take my maternity leave,’” she said. She and her husband, Aaron (whom she met at the dealership when he worked there as a service writer), welcomed their son in May. Kruzer also has a daughter from her previous marriage. She fully intends to return to the sales floor at Ganley Honda very soon.

Congratulations to Tiffany Kruzer, Sales Professional of the Month, and thank you to Fran Taylor for bringing her to our attention.

Nominate Your Sales Pro Now

Vol. 9, Issue 6