Skip to main content

Would That Be Enough To Earn Your Business?

A friend of mine (who happens to be a professional sales trainer) helped his grandparents buy a car about a month back. He recently shared an e-mail interaction he had with a car salesman. A bit over the top, perhaps, but there is some good advice in there. Needless to say, he bought somewhere else.

The original e-mail...

    Hi Mr. Harring,

    I assume by your visit and request for information for your grandparents on the vehicle of their choice, they are in the car market. I also assume they are searching for the BEST PRICE on that vehicle. I am trying to do what I can to earn their business. I also assume there are closer dealerships to you and that does put the pressure on me to get a price that would have you drive the small amount of distance to me. If I could beat your best price from $100-$300 on that price, would that be enough to earn your business? Let me know.

    Mr. Perkins
    Internet Leasing Manager

... and the reply...

    Mr. Perkins,
    [sic]
    1. Most prospects will not be completely honest with you. This may occur to varying degrees, but it is almost universally true.

    2. You will never change the point of view of a prospect. The best you can hope for is to stimulate realization of a misunderstood need.

    3. Comfort is key because no one (salesman nor customer) benefits from an unnecessarily hastened decision which inevitably leads to a buyer's remorse. You can slaughter a sheep once, but you can sheer it twenty times.

    4. Price is NEVER the real issue. Prospects ask such questions as "How much does it cost?" and "Can you tell me more about the features?" because they do not know what else to ask, usually as a result of their lack of understanding about what they really need.
    [sic]
    A final word of free advice. Let your prospects like you, but do not try to make them like you. Refrain from loaded or rehearsed questions about their opinions of where to find a good steak. Ask them what they want from you and actually listen, hard, to what they say. When words come out of a prospect's mouth, which ones do you care about? Well, it shows. A smart, successful salesman will gain insight from what most see as mundane. No one walks into a car dealership wanting to make friends. They come in wanting to buy a car. If they make a friend, great for both of you. If not, hopefully they will have at least bought a car.
    [sic]
    Listen, be a human being, and want success for your customers, not yourself.

    Thanks,

    Mr. Harring

Could a more refined and matured process have relieved some stress and created success?


Popular posts from this blog

What You See (Part 1)

When a camera takes in an image, it is objective and records what comes through its lens, without bias, not giving preference to one piece of information over another. The brown book sitting on the shelf is as important to the camera as the red fingernail raised toward the sky. When the brain takes in an image, it receives 400,000,000,000 bits of information each second, but only processes 2,000 of those bits because the brain has a network of neurons that has been trained to use associations, both of objections and of familiarity, to sort information into quickly usable portions of fuel for decision making. When watching a movie, is the focus on the streetlight in the background or the exploding truck in the foreground? The camera makes no separation between one bit of light and another, but the brain does.
Read more

Small Enough To Be Hugely Successful

For centuries, putting something on paper (disk, etc.) and distributing it has been exclusive to huge media companies. Anyone can create a website or a start a dry cleaner, but publishing has been traditionally dominated by gigantic media houses. No more. Along comes Lulu and enables anybody to publish a book. A real book - with hearty paper, professional covers, and a listing in the Library Of Congress ! One at a time, they turn them out. For less than the price of a DVD player you can even have your book distributed through the same mainstream channels from which companies such as Barnes & Noble and Amazon buy their inventory. The book certainly will not market itself, but it is definitely there in front of decision makers where it would never have been otherwise. Lulu has turned an entire industry on its ear by giving power back to creators and customers, alike. For industries like pharmaceuticals, where huge companies took the power of independent pharmacies , the pend
Read more