Ugh...car sales

[Arnfinn Madsen]

He gave you the feeling that it was your decision, although it was he who decided that you are going to buy that car (not you) then proceeded to make you convince yourself to do it.

[Jules22]

[ QUOTE ]
Make friends with the guy and his tactics will rub off on you. I've never met a good salesman who doesn't LOVE to talk about themself... open up that line of communication and he'll be letting you in on everything.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is spot on, accurate advice. i used to sell vacuum cleaners of all things, and believe me, you would be astonished what u can learn from experienced sales guys. ps dont ever get into vacuum sales, that [censored] was silly, but good money

[DasLeben]

Thanks for the great advice. Seriously.

My approach as of right now is to avoid asking questions such as:
"How can I help you?" (their answer: "I'm just looking!")
"Would you like to take it for a drive?"
"Would you like to come inside and talk numbers?"

My approach is to simply say things like:

"What brings you in today?" (they have to answer this one)
"Let's take 'er for a spin. Hop in!"
"Tell you what. Let's go inside and we'll see what we can do for you."

And once inside:

"Go ahead and take a seat in that office right there. Let me just grab some paperwork."

So far, this way of "controlling" the deal has worked fabulously. I generally have no problems getting people to test drive the car, and haven't had many problems getting people inside. The problem I have is in closing. I have had way too many deals fall through in "the box." I've gotten everyone from people refusing a car offered at invoice, to people wasting my time in my office just to go joyriding in the GTO. It's really really annoying.

I will definitely get out there and kick some ass tomorrow though. The other salesmen have been great in helping me out so far, and I'll be trying to apply everything they've taught me from here on out.

Also, please don't get the impression that I resent this other new guy. Him and I are definitely on good terms, and I tend to hang out with him during the slow periods in the day. I've even had him follow me around working my ups, and he's said that I sound fine to him.

[DasLeben]

Alright...I went back to work today, and within the first 2 hours sold a used '03 Chevy Silverado 1500 for sticker. I just told myself that it was important that I sell value, and not price. Apparently this worked, and he walked out happy, and I walked out very happy. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[RacersEdge]

What's the variance like in car selling?

All I can think of is maybe you are not qualifying your customers fast enough by not leaving the casual ones to just look on their own while you try to snag the serious buyer who just walked in. (Just stealing some sales lingo my dad uses in talking about selling.)

[DasLeben]

[ QUOTE ]
What's the variance like in car selling?

All I can think of is maybe you are not qualifying your customers fast enough by not leaving the casual ones to just look on their own while you try to snag the serious buyer who just walked in. (Just stealing some sales lingo my dad uses in talking about selling.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Variance can be pretty strong. I went a 4 day period without selling a thing, and then I sold 4 cars in 5 days. It's weird like that.

Qualifying buyers is definitely something I'm working on. There are guys on the lot who can spot serious people a mile away, but sometimes you just get stuck with bad ones.

[groo]

Take more ups than everyone else....then get you salesmanager involved as early as you can. His paycheck depends on your success, and as long as you are willing to learn, he'll be willing to teach.

[DasLeben]

[ QUOTE ]
Take more ups than everyone else....then get you salesmanager involved as early as you can. His paycheck depends on your success, and as long as you are willing to learn, he'll be willing to teach.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just realized today (almost missed out on a deal) that when someone comes up and asks for either a sales manager or someone I've never heard of, ALWAYS go with them. The sales manager will almost always flip you the deal, or you'll take the deal instead of the non-existent salesman.

I almost let a guy go and look for this person himself today before I decided to go inside and wait around to see if he found him. As it turns out, the guy he was looking for was now management, not a salesperson. Wham...he buys a used car from me for stickered asking price. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[groo]

[ QUOTE ]
or someone I've never heard of

[/ QUOTE ]

Remember, you're new and you haven't heard of everyone yet. When you go out of your way to help them find this salesperson (which usually doesn't work there any more) you start building a relationship and developing trust. Those are the two things that will sell more cars for you than anything else.