LATEST CUSTOMER REVIEWS

I can honestly say, hand on heart, that the bootcamp was without doubt, the course which has brought about more real change to me personally and on my busuness than any other.
I mean that sincerely. Ive managed to slowly unpack and use many areas of the course within the business and the team has bought into it totally.
The course notes and folder lives under my desk next to my case and is opened probably every other day for some point of reference.

Hard work, yes! Worth it, definately ! As a business I'm probably 10 times return on investment in terms of the cost of the course already.

Massive thanks Ali

I recently took part in and completed the "Class Leading Area Management" course run by Sentience Automotive Solutions.

The knowledge and experience I have gained from taking part in the course cannot be measured.

By implementing the tools that I have picked up from Ali May-Khalil and Neil Egan, I already begun the see the benefits in my job role and I can confidently say I am now a greater asset to the dealer network that I look after. I am looking forward to continuing to apply the lessons I have learned to help my dealers progress and develop.

Neil Egan was a great source of guidance and direction throughout the course and was always there to pass on his extensive knowledge and expertise in dealer management and development.

I would highly recommend anyone keen to improve both themselves and their business, to get in touch the Ali and Neil.

Neil has been helping me development into a sales manager position that I have recently been given. Has helped me on day to day roles and long term goals. Thanks!!

Unannounced visit by me, and 2 of the team were outside attending to the used car display, which was immaculate, and I just couldn’t find fault.

A testament to Neil Egan for his time invested in guiding the sales team and forming the habits.

All cars I checked were advertised on our website with fantastic photography, great lighting, company backdrop etc with all 79 on Autotrader, and some innovative use of attention grabbers.

Due to its success and processes being followed we’re signed up for silent video for next year, and with focus as much, if not more, on digital as well as physically showrooms, the bar has been well and truly set.

So, it’s by no coincidence that I can confirm that our dealership is in league number 1!

Long may it be maintained.

I’ve been to a couple of workshops before with Ali, and he always delivers.

The most useful part of the day is definitely the top tips, especially down to what a big difference that extra little bit makes to the business.

Thank you, Ali, I will be back again for the next!

We thoroughly enjoyed the Maximising Dealer Revenue in Perth. Ali highlighted the small changes that we can bring in straight away, that are usually overlooked, but will have the biggest impact.

This was the first workshop we’ve been to; it was a good laugh and we’ve taken away a lot to start immediately in the business.

The workshop exceeded our expectations and covered everything from A to Z. We're going to immediately implement maximising on every sale, social media and the efficiency of our processes. We learnt that we need to make the most of the facilities available to us and how that impacts the customer experience.

It's great to be back with likeminded dealers. We've taken a lot from the Maximising Dealer Revenue Workshop, especially the small, 1% things.

It's been a real eye opener and a refresher of what we know we need to be doing to maximise our revenue.

After working with Neil at Sentience for 3 days, we have now been pushing forward at 30% warranty penetration rate - we started at 13%, which give us £4,165 added income per month.

Really helped us in 2021 after we got in touch to see how we could improve our business following a tough period.

These guys just get it and quickly got us going again.

Early on we were told that "you know what you know, and you don't what you don't". Spot on as Sentience identified the areas for improvement and should us what to do.

Results have been brilliant and really grateful for the way in which they supported us.

Got recommended to Sentience by a trade contact who told me "these guys will cost you but worth it".

We had to increase our stock turn but didn't want to lose margin at the same time. Stock was getting older and we want to grow the business. Got these guys in and not only do they get it but they just know their stuff.

Really pleased with the results and they delivered everything (plus a bit!) they said they would.

Cheers guys and look forward to continuing working with you this year.

When lockdown hit, we knew we had to do something so we got in touch with Sentience. The team quickly understood what we needed and helped us to manage our costs, increase our enquiries and help us to improve our margin. It has been a bloody tough few months but I can say that we are now in great shape and have had much better than expected results over the lockdown.

Thanks to Ali and the team - worth every penny.

We knew we needed to do something but wasn't sure what! A contact recommended Sentience and we got in touch to see how they might be able to help us.

Having just completed the Dealer Development program, I can say that it was a cracking decision made. They gave us great support, guidance, motivation and showed us how we could squeeze more profit from our business and how to manage our people and processes better. We ended 2020 in good shape all things considered!

Whilst we find ourselves in choppy times, we have a plan and one that we know works.

I had heard of Sentience from another dealer I know and thought I could do with some help. I booked the Independent Dealer Health check and Ali got in touch to chat it through. It sounded ideal for my business as I needed another pair of eyes to get me going in the right direction.

The day was great, huge value and I now have a very clear plan on what I need to do to grow my business. I have already seen an increase in sales and the future now, as it didn't before, excites me!

Thanks to Sentience (and the lady who helped sort out my terrible paperwork!) and I am looking forward to the plan coming together.

The figures really do the talking. The things that have been put in place have really helped us each month to accelerate our growth and profitability. It has been a real help to have a fresh pair of eyes and ears to help us to not just sell more cars, but try to maximise the potential out of each deal. I think the independent sector has a lot of people who do not have the sales experience to maximise each business opportunity and it has been great to gain more insight and professional advice – I would definitely recommend Sentience to an independent dealer out there who is looking for the next step up.

I would just like to take this time to thank Ali and his team at Sentience Automotive Solutions. I have now been working with them for 7 months and they have worked wonders with me and my business in that time.

So far they reduced my advertisement (you know who) by half and achieved much better results, I have improved my turnover, my profit per unit is up and even social media is working well for me, all thanks to Ali and his team.

They have so much experience and knowledge and have been fantastic for us. I have asked Sentience to continue working with me as I feel my business will only go from strength to strength with them on board.

I would recommend Sentience Automotive Solutions to everyone. Mark my words, they will improve your business and you will see results quickly like I did.

Gavin McFayden – Owner – McFayden Motors

We’ve just spent the day with Mel and it’s been a really, really good day.

We’ve had some really good ideas bounced off of her, for our social media platform and a clear plan on how we can sell more from it.

We’ve literally posted our first post, 20 minutes ago and we’ve already had some fantastic engagement, that we’ve never had before! So that’s really good.

Mel’s been really helpful, given us plenty of guidance, and I personally feel that it's gonna be a big benefit for our business; I’m sure for other businesses out there in the motor trade, will also get some good results from it, so definitely, Sentience, is a worth while thing to give a go...

Thank you to Mel from Sentience for your recent Maximising Your Virtual Sales Process training, I can safely say the team found it very worthwhile particularly some of the functionality you shared with regards Zoom and its introduction in our sale process, you also helped the team understand the pro’s and con’s of distance selling and how we can use it as a positive in our business. In all as we plan our return to work you guys have helped the team gain more confidence in returning to work and more importantly being able to transact confidently online again whilst minimising actual human contact to everyone’s benefit. This will allow us to operate a more efficient sales process in the future. We have already begun to see the rewards!

Following the lockdown period starting in March 20, we needed to find a new way of interacting with our clients and quickly. We engaged with Ali and the team at Sentience, who we have worked with before, with the idea of running a series of virtual workshops for our dealers, not focussed around our products, but ways they can navigate through a testing time and come out of it stronger than ever. Having just finished the 14th and final workshop in the series, we are incredibly delighted with the activity. We received some incredible feedback from our clients, who have been able to adapt and evolve their thinking for the good of their own business’.

The content was thought provoking, honest, insightful, impactful and most importantly relevant to the challenges and opportunities that our industry is facing.

Thank you to Ali, Paul and Mel for their support, effort and execution of what was an excellent series of workshops.

We decided to speak with Sentience following a recommendation to see how they may be able to help us through the difficult conditions we faced.

They got straight to the point, showing us what we could be doing better and how we should do it. Ali and the team can walk the walk and don't mess about! Asking some very tough questions of us that made us re-think some of the things we do.

Can't speak highly enough to be honest as the results have been beyond what we expected. We managed to sell around 60% of our normal amount in May and our profit per unit has increased by around £140 a unit.

We now have a plan to really tackle the next 6 months and will be continuing to work with the guys from Sentience. Might even buy you a beer when we can!

Cheers!

Having never used a consultancy, we were a little apprehensive as to what value Sentience could bring. Following a recommendation, we had a chat with Ali and agreed a course of action for our sales teams.

We have been blown away to be honest. The Sentience team slotted straight into our business, engaged us from the start, and the communication and delivery was exceptional.

It is, however, all about the results and I must say they have been outstanding. Virtually all areas have improved, more retail new sold than before and our F&I income has hugely improved.

More sales, more profit and one happy client!

Thanks guys and thank you for being part of our business.

A breath of fresh air and plenty of new ideas!

Ali’s no-nonsense style takes no prisoners and I have no doubt will also deliver hard hitting activity from all of our sales people over the weeks and months ahead.

Every single member of the team who attended the program has been very excited to start putting it all into practice and inside a week we’re seeing successful results.

A tailored program that delivered exactly what we asked for.

Earlier this year, we got in touch with Sentience (following a recommendation) as we were not having the best of times but wasn't really sure why or how we could improve.

We had tried a few ideas such as more stock, different types of cars etc but still the business was under pressure.

I agreed to a consultancy project, following a long chat, that would hopefully leave us with a plan on what to do to gain more sales and profit.

Well, here we are in December (about 8 months later) and we have had our best year for four years. The turnaround on last year has been incredible and we have made our best ever level of profit.

We go into 2020 with our tails up and ready to go!

The team from Sentience are just great, normal and like a laugh. Plus, the targets we agreed have been hit and exceeded!

Worth every single penny. Thanks guys!!

Working with Sentience was, simply, the best money I have ever spent on myself. Immediate increase in sales, metal profit, finance and add-ons.

Using just one of the things I learned, sold us our Cayman straight away!

Credit where credit is due and I just wanted to let you know how big a difference you have made.

Thank you!

4 months of work = £81622 increase in profit. Amazing programme and great support. Nothing more to say as the numbers say it all. Thank you!

I decided to ask for some help in taking my business to the next level. This is when I spoke to Ali at Sentience and we had an open, and brutally honest, chat about what could be done.

This resulted in us signing up to the IP3 program. Ali worked with us in our business, over a 12 week period, to identify, train and coach us to achieve the targets set.

Not only did we have a good laugh (he is alright for an Arsenal fan!) but we also grew our profit to a level we have never achieved before. A record 12 weeks for sales, profit and add-on sales. The return on investment is crazy.

Thank you guys and we look forward to working with you throughout 2020 and to the next level!

Mel was great. She came in, made herself a cup of tea and sat down at my messy desk, unfazed. She worked around me, my dog and my customers. She is full of energy and she certainly re-energised me. Mel encouraged me to start trying harder to bolt on add-on products into my sales. After she left, I used one of her techniques and advertised one of my older cars as coming with a 3-year warranty, I sold the car that evening. I made £1700 from the chassis on that one and didn’t end up discounting the car at all. I would have spent about £120 on the warranty I give away anyway, so upping it to a 3 year only cost me an extra £120. Whilst she was in, she accidentally ended up handling a customer complaint for me and he left with a fair resolution that we were all happy with, she handled it better than I could of despite her lack of involvement in the situation itself. She thinks on her feet and I will 100% be inviting her back soon.

A huge thanks to Melanie for her support. She has coached us on how to maximise each and every deal. Not only that, but in a way we could all enjoy and benefit from.

Plus, Melanie walks-the-walk and demonstrated this by actually using the techniques/processes with real customers whilst with us.

Thanks again and we look forward to working with you again soon!!

Following Paul coming into our business we have immediately benefited. We really needed to focus on our B2B, PCH and leasing sales but wasn't sure how to really maximise this area.

Paul came in, worked with the team, and put in place the key processes, measurements, activities and the "how". The results have been hugely positive.

Having working with Sentience for around a year, I can honestly say the impact has been incredible. We have never been more profitable and our business is now in shape to continue to grow, and be even more profitable, for the next 10/15 years.

Absolutely massive ROI! Simple as that.

I attended an interesting Master Class Used Car seminar presented by Sentience for the IMDA. I was at the time wanting to increase the used car part of my LMC Citroen business. I agreed to a number of intense consultant visits from Sentience and it has transformed my management style and the performance of my used car business. Processes handling management issues, sales training, increasing add on profits, key performance indicators are all part of the massive assistance Sentience has provided for me.

I've been on numerous training courses through my life and have always managed to pick up something of benefit, however this was by far the most relevant as it approached the whole area of sales from a different angle.

I immediately started acting on the action plans, one of which was to word my conversations and emails in a manner that, whilst always polite, conveys my time is important.
This led me to approach the CEO of a large car supermarket.

Instant response, asking me for pricing, further details and suggested retail price. If it comes off, it's worth about £350k, if not, it's still another opportunity to further the relationship with a huge Car Supermarket Group.

We met Ali late last year and after an initial consultation, we got off to great start – why? Quite simply, Ali’s practical and down to earth methods of communication far surpass any consultants we have met in the past. Ali is the only person I have met who not only talks the talk but he walks the walk in that he will get the buy-in of staff by even ringing and selling to our own customers! No mean feat for a Londoner in Northern Ireland!

Business is a journey where the goals are always changing and evolving and whilst we have made many of our agreed targets, more importantly Ali has been the catalyst to us starting to refocus on the basic and helping us to realise that our goals whilst always changing are quite achievable with the right team mindset and a little help from the best!

Following the Sentience team spending two days in our dealership, they created us a plan of attack and how we can improve our profitability.

Fast forward a couple of months and the results are in. We grew our finance penetration to 42% (from 20%), extended warranty sales to 40% (from non-existent) and our profit per unit up by 15%.

Absolutely thrilled and it was good to have people who can actually walk-the-walk come in and make a real difference.

Cheers guys and see you in a couple of months for the next installment!

A few months ago, my Directors organised a consultancy with Sentience International in order to support me in my current role. Having met Ali-May Khalil they were suitably impressed and thought I would benefit from working with Ali.

First of all let me tell you about Ali – what he won’t do is tell you what you want to hear – what he will do is give you the truth, whether it hurts or not, but he will then put everything into perspective for you within your business/role, build you up, help you to clear all the “fog” in your life and give you ideas, plans, support and encouragement to get you through any issues so that you come out the other side confident, stronger and enable you with the tools to help you get there.

Don’t get me wrong – as he will admit – he does not have all the answers and you have to put in a massive amount of effort, but he will work with you over a period of time to help you achieve the results you want. He does not suffer fools, but he genuinely cares about what he does and how he does things, but most of all – HE WANTS YOU TO SUCCEED!

He has helped me massively both in terms of mind-set and the progress that I want to achieve, and my business is already starting to benefit from the “green shoots” that we now have thanks to his help and advice, and my determination.

Hi Heidi,

Wanted you to know that, following the Bootcamp and the plan we made at the end, I went back to the business and implemented the customer journey and close strategy. Ten days later our run rate increased by 11 units and we also managed to sell an average of 1.5 products per sale on each one!

Brilliant and long may it continue!

Thanks again to you all for a great few days, it has made a massive difference to me and my business.

Cheers.

Thank you for the past 2 days! Amazing content given and shared with us and soooo much which has now been broken down in its simplest form so I can go back and work on these simple things going forward so it makes a difference to the bottom line!!!!

Well done Sentience International, fantastic. A tailored, bespoke program which went well beyond the brief and surpassed expectations. It was tough, it was intense and it was relentless – no noise, no nonsense, no filler. Most importantly, the processes and action plans that have been implemented are delivering real results across the team. Couldn’t recommend you highly enough. Thank you.

Myself and my colleagues have just completed some follow up / refresher sessions with Ali this week and all are in agreement it’s possibly been the most beneficial workshops all have us have ever been on. This probably carries more weight when I mention that I’m the senior member of the team with a significant milestone birthday not too far of that starts with a ‘5’... I’ve been in Automotive for over 20years and have been on dozens of courses over the years and nothing comes close to the value of what I’ve gleaned from Ali over the x3 days in total I’ve now spent with him. He is incredibly engaging and his methods do work as I’ve already been putting them into practise and begin to see better results! My thanks to Ali and the team and I look forward to our next catch-up!
All the best, Julian P

The sales team, even by their own admission, had lost their way a little. Volume had dropped YTD along with GPU.

Ali came and met with me, understood my concerns and quickly got to grips with what it was that was stopping the team from achieving their objectives.

Fast forward 10 weeks, and the team have delivered 107% of retail volume target for the first time this year.

If you want results, team engagement and, importantly, for everyone to enjoy themselves, then give Ali a call.

Looking forward to continuing our relationship.

I thought that Ali was a real inspiration and has made me look at things totally differently . Now I have had time to reflect it has made me want to make changes in how we do things as a team and give something different to every customer that walks through the door.

In comparison to other training courses I have been on, this has been the most effective. I have spent days at different training sites trying to work out what to apply to myself and my role. This was achieved in one day with Ali.

What breath of fresh air, an honest and practical approach to car sales that will actually make a difference. A simple change of thinking of us as selling a service instead of a product will make the both the customer experience enjoyable and make us more profitable.

Ali was very honest with us and treated us very well during the whole process which made us believe and trust him. You could clearly see his passion which I think helped us understand more about life in motor trade but also outside our work place.

We have a plan and are ready to deliver!

I wanted to give a big thank you to Ali who came down and did some work with our Camberley sales team - feedback from the team has been fantastic and we’re all looking forward to putting into practice the numerous elements that were discussed throughout the day. I would highly recommend getting Ali and his team at Sentience into your business without hesitation.
Thank you Ali

Hi Ali,

Was great to meet you yesterday at Birmingham.
Thank you for delivering a brilliant day, also for the time you spent with me talking after the event. It meant a lot and I appreciate it massively.

You are very engaging, fresh and authentic with loads of knowledge and fucking hilarious! ??

Without a doubt you'll be recommended. I hope to see you in the future with the IMDA and wish you all the best and look forward to seeing you achieve massive success.

Best regards,

Luke Collins

George Stanley Cars

A big thank you to you for your outstanding delivery over the last two days. The feedback I’ve had from my people this afternoon rates you consistently as “the best training they’ve ever had”.

Massive credit to you and I have no doubt that, as before, we will see great ROI in the results and activity in the Northern Division.

John has delivered a meeting/training session with the sales team with one of our clients as part of the learning and actions from the recent AM programme. He has seen instant results with the increased level of proposals received since the session from a dealer that had a very poor finance penetration. The directors have been so impressed that they have asked John to complete these on a monthly basis.

For me, this has been the best course I have ever attended whether that be with MotoNovo or any other business. I have taken so much away from the course, businesswise and also personally.

I can 100% promise you I will be taking a lot of the coaching methods on board to better myself and help towards my career progression. I honestly cannot thank you enough.

I felt you deserve the praise and feedback.

This has been fed into the business and I believe so many Account Managers will benefit from your course.

I personally enjoyed working closely with Ali and the team. They understood what we wanted but also showed us what we didn't realise was missing! 118% of objective achieved as a result of engaging Sentience.

The team loved the bespoke approach, the "realness" of the delivery and understood exactly what they had to do and why.

We will be looking to continue our relationship with Sentience in the immediate future.

Before working with Ali, I was struggling with confidence and being able to identify what I needed to implement in my career to reach the next step. After a series of knockbacks for promotion and responsibility, I decided to take the next step and use Sentience International.

I had met Ali previously through watching him speak to Business students and admired his honesty and knowledge in the management and business sector. In hindsight, I wish I had done this earlier.

I would recommend Sentience for any management/business progression. Their resources are top drawer.

Working with Ali has been fantastic for my career and personal growth, enabling me to learn new skills and achieve a promotion!

The resources and advice have been of a highly professional nature combined with honesty and integrity.

Gareth.

I recently attended an inspiring and thought-provoking 3 day leadership bootcamp at Leeds Business School unpacking very relevant leadership topics. I came away with some very specific and bespoke actions which I have already begun embedding within my role (all have proved successful thus far).

Ali and the supporting speakers are subject matter experts and really encourage you to relate to and understand what each means to you, your role and your direct reports. All were very engaging and provided a relaxed yet reflective and action focussed environment throughout the course.

This training has differed to many other leadership or training courses I have attended previously because the actions arise very naturally as you explore the topics due to the manner in which the training is delivered.

Ali and I spoke at length about the challenges facing our sales force and, in particular, the pressure on our PPU. Ali came back with a solution that was delivered in our retailers that has not only driven our performance but also provided learnings that we can continue to benefit from.

Ali's approach was just what we needed; energetic, inspiring, knowledgeable, measurable and sustainable.

In a word - outstanding and we look forward to seeing Ali very soon.

I had the pleasure of spending 3 days with Ali at Leeds Business School last week. A thought provoking 3 days and I came away with several specific actions taken directly from my learnings that I will put in to practice over the next few weeks. Ali himself was thouroughly engaging and we were blessed with the top class 'speakers', all extremely high-level but all with a definitive understanding of the changing business world. Highly recommended, just don't confuse the Red Ball with the Red Bull ??

Ali came and listened to the challenges that our business faced. He took the time to really understand what it was we needed and how we wanted it to "look".

Ali returned with a programme that was specific to us and delivered it over five days to our team to great effect. We continue to see the results through our people and the return on our investment has been obvious.

We look forward to working with Ali and the Sentience team again very soon.

After knowing Ali for some years in his old role as a very successful general manager I was keen to get his wide spread knowledge of the industry and people development in our business.
Ali's approach suits our own vision of bespoke tailored personal development .
What was important for us was that everyone understood what we wanted as the employer and also what the individual needed , this was then built into a bespoke course that fitted perfectly for everyone.
I would highly recommend having him imbedded in the senior management development program not just for his skill in performance development but also as a fresh set of very experienced eyes around your business.

“ I can’t speak highly enough of Ali and the team at Sentience. As somebody who has been on hundreds of ‘training’ courses over the last few years it is refreshing to see Ali’s approach. Ali built a Personal Development program around MY individual requirements and delivered it in an informative, inspiring and fun way. I can honestly say that I have never left any type of coaching, training or development program feeling so refreshed and motivated to make the changes needed. Thank you to Ali and all the team at Sentience. Looking forward to working with you more in the future”

The team and I really enjoyed working with Ali. He has a profound understanding of how to drive results through people and his enthusiasm, passion and delivery skills were of the highest standard. He gets results through his techniques and insight.

I just wanted to take the time to thank you for the recent Coaching for Success course.

The theory was mixed with a large amount of real world scenarios, and I found your style of delivery significantly added to my enjoyment, and as a result my learning experience

I can confidently say that I took more positives away than on any similar type of course, and I thoroughly look forward to attending one that you take in the future.

The content was interesting and well presented. Ali was engaging, entertaining and I learned a lot from his experience and insights. The day seemed to fly over and I took things away that I have applied at work with success since. I would (and have) thoroughly recommended to my peers. Thank you Ali!