Quick Take
- Narration: No narrator is listed; the audiobook appears to be an AI-narrated or author-read production, suited to the direct, manual-style content.
- Themes: Automotive sales process, customer relationship management, income optimization in dealerships
- Mood: Brisk and practical, written by someone who has been in showrooms and does not intend to waste your time
- Verdict: A lean, specific guide for car salespeople that treats its readers as professionals, not beginners who need to be coddled.
I do not typically review sales training audiobooks, mostly because the genre tends toward the bombastic and the generic in ways that make them difficult to engage with critically. Ridiculously Simple Car Selling arrived in my review queue as part of a broader batch, and I went in with low expectations and a commitment to be fair. What I found was a short, specific, and practically organized guide that is genuinely designed to be used rather than admired from a shelf.
Steve Stauning is writing for automotive salespeople at every experience level, from what he calls the Green Pea to the Old Car Dog, and the Trust Auto Group Special Edition framing suggests this is a version of the book customized for deployment within a specific dealership group. That context matters because it means the book is not trying to be universal training literature. It is trying to help specific people sell more cars in specific conditions, and everything about its structure reflects that intention.
The One-Twenty-Five-Page Philosophy
The book’s most distinctive feature is its deliberate brevity. At approximately 125 pages in print form and under four and a half hours of audio, Stauning has made a structural argument: everything a dealership salesperson needs to know before, during, and after the sale can be communicated without producing a textbook. The chapter structure is modular, covering attitude and activity, CRM usage, the road-to-the-sale process, objection handling, appointment setting, referral generation, fresh up and phone up and internet lead management, and social media strategy for salespeople.
Each chapter is short by design. The stated goal is that lessons can be implemented immediately after reading, which is a promise the structure keeps. This is not a book asking you to absorb and synthesize a framework before you can use any of it. It is a book you can read on a Tuesday night and apply on Wednesday morning. For the working automotive salesperson that is a meaningful feature rather than an accident of length.
What Stauning Gets Right About Automotive Sales Specifically
The automotive sales environment has specific features that generic sales training does not address well, including the CRM ecosystem that dealerships use, the specific pressure points in the road-to-the-sale process, the problem of negotiation avoidance, and the particular dynamics of the physical showroom versus the internet lead. Stauning addresses all of these as an insider who knows the vocabulary, and the specificity is the book’s main competitive advantage over general sales training.
The section on avoiding getting caught in a negotiation is typical of the approach: specific enough to be actionable, grounded in dealership reality rather than generic sales theory. Similarly, the treatment of Be-Backs, customers who leave without buying and say they will return, reflects direct familiarity with the dynamics of automotive retail rather than borrowed wisdom from another industry. The book is firmly in the practitioner’s handbook category rather than the business thinking category, and it is better for knowing that about itself.
The Henry Ford quote Stauning opens with, whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right, is a cliche that surfaces in most sales motivational literature. Stauning earns it back somewhat by immediately pivoting to the point that reading a book and implementing its lessons is necessary but requires actual effort. He is not promising transformation through attitude alone. He is promising results through specific behaviors applied consistently. That distinction is the difference between motivational content and practical instruction.
The No-Narrator Question
No narrator is credited for this production. The audiobook is either AI-narrated or read by the author, and at under four and a half hours neither option significantly diminishes the listening experience. The content is structured as a manual rather than a narrative, which means the lack of an actor’s interpretive voice matters less than it would for memoir or fiction. Listeners who are primarily interested in extracting practical information will find the production adequate for that purpose. Those who prefer audiobooks as a listening experience may want the print version instead.
With only eleven reviews at the time of writing, the rating of five stars across a small sample should be read cautiously. The absence of negative reviews in a debut professional book can reflect genuine quality, a tightly targeted audience, or the enthusiasm of an early adopter group. The Trust Auto Group connection suggests the distribution may have been partially controlled within a specific professional context, which would affect the review profile.
Who Sits in the Salesperson’s Seat
This book is for working automotive salespeople who want a structured framework for increasing their productivity without reading something longer than they will actually finish. Dealership managers looking for something to deploy as onboarding or refresher training will find the modular chapter structure useful for that purpose. Listeners outside the automotive sales world will find little to transfer: the specificity that makes this book useful to its target audience makes it narrow for everyone else. At under four and a half hours and covering 125 pages of direct practical instruction, it is exactly as long as its subject requires it to be.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Ridiculously Simple Car Selling applicable to other sales roles, or is it strictly for automotive?
Stauning writes specifically for automotive retail, and the book’s value is largely in that specificity. Concepts like CRM leverage, road-to-the-sale process, and Be-Back strategy are drawn from dealership experience. Salespeople in other industries will find some transferable principles but the book is not designed for general application.
What does the Trust Auto Group Special Edition designation mean for the content?
The synopsis indicates this edition was written for or customized for a specific dealership group called Trust Auto Group. The core content appears to be Stauning’s standard automotive sales training, potentially with some adaptation or endorsement for that group’s specific processes and culture.
How does this book compare to longer, more comprehensive automotive sales training programs?
The book’s explicit position is that brevity is a feature rather than a limitation. Stauning argues that everything essential to selling more vehicles can be communicated in 125 pages of short chapters designed for immediate implementation. Salespeople who want more comprehensive training on negotiation theory or psychology of buying may find the coverage here intentionally lean.
Does the book address internet leads and digital customer acquisition, or is it focused on showroom traffic?
Yes, the synopsis specifically lists handling internet leads alongside fresh ups and phone ups as topics covered. The social media strategy for individual salespeople section also addresses the digital component of modern automotive retail.
