The phrase, "Welcome to the dealership, my name is... and you are?" may be costing you THOUSANDS!

In too many dealerships the "Hello" leads to a "Goodbye" rather than a "good buy". We all know that there are many lost opportunities that don't make it to the test drive, the write up, or even a T.O. because the sale was lost in the greeting. Yet another sale lost to the unspoken objection.

You’ve probably heard that body language is the first and primary language that we speak. Some studies have shown communication as 55/38/7 (55% nonverbal, 38% voice tone/inflection, 7% words/content) and whether the math is exact or not, we all know that we speak volumes before we say a word. So how does knowing this fact allow our salespeople to have a greater impact from the greeting?

The answer is as simply as remembering this little rhyme;

"Look at the feet to know how to greet."

Traditionally the "greeting" has been taught as a sentence that you say to welcome the customer to the dealership and begin the rapport building process. It's common for dealerships to teach what I refer to as the "professional based" greeting as the standard approach; "Welcome to our dealership, my name is ... and you are?" This is the "professional" greeting that is to be accompanied by a firm handshake, a welcoming smile, and a positive attitude. Sounds all well and good but managers share with me that they struggle to get their team to perform this simple task consistently.

Salespeople often attempt to "reinvent" the greeting into a technique that's less formal, or more personable.

This leads to the second type of greeting common to your lot; the "personality based" greeting. This adaptation by a salesperson is based on an attempt to connect with the customer by being funny, charming, witty, laid back, or some other non-threatening approach. Typically it starts with a comment about something relatable such as the weather, last night’s sporting event, an article of clothing the customer is wearing, or a bumper sticker they see on the car.

Either way a typical salesperson is trying to start the process in one of two ways; Professional or Personable. These two style are rooted in the salesperson's own comfort zone by either trying to establish the trust and respect of the customer with the professional greeting, or trying to open up the sale being liked and connecting with the customer by using the personality greeting. Unfortunately, neither of these approaches give the salesperson the highest likelihood of success because both potentially miss the message the customer was sending before either opened their mouths.

Stop guessing, winging it, or simply greeting out of habit when the customer is telling you exactly how to greet them through their body language. Remember, "look at the feet to know how to greet" and the feet (body language) will tell you in advance how to approach your customer.

There are only 4 possible postures a customer can have with their feet.

They are: Facing you - like a statue, turned away - looking over the shoulder at you, moving towards you, or moving away from you. That's it. Statue, Side-statue, Towards, or Away. And each one of these is a non-verbal indication of the customer's state of mind.

The beauty of this insight is that it immediately empowers an approaching salesperson to make an adjustment to his/her greeting by simply seeing what the customer's feet do when they see the on-coming salesperson.

Let's look intuitively at the 4 possible reactions and the implied emotional and mental state revealed.

The Statue customer represents the majority of customers on a dealership's lot. This is the customer who freezes like a statue when they see the salesperson approaching. The distance could be 30 feet or 30 yards - they aren't taking a step, the salesperson does all the walking. Their torso and feet are facing towards the salesperson, they just wait. The non-verbal message is simply, "I am willing to hear what you have to say, so please don't be an idiot."

The Side-statue customer is similar to it's cousin the "Statue" in that the customer is not moving. However the difference is in the position of the body and the direction of the feet. In this case the torso and feet are pointing away from the on-coming salesperson and the customer is simply looking over their shoulder waiting for the approaching salesperson. The non-verbal message is, "I would rather not hear what you have to say because you are probably an idiot."

The next two are straight forward once you think about it.

The Towards customer is someone who moves towards the salesperson once they see them and is clearly saying, "I want to talk to you and I want to hear what you have to say."

The Away customer sees the salesperson and starts walking away from them and is clearly saying, "I don’t want to hear what you have to say right now, because I know you are an idiot."

Okay, so I am adding the "idiot" part to emphasize what I think is a serious issue. Namely, we don't listen to our customers before they start speaking. If body language is in fact language, then should we be teaching our people how to speak it effectively? What is the take away from this insight into body language and non-verbal selling? Is it possible that the vast majority objections; whether spoken (just looking, no time, don’t need help) or unspoken (bad eye contact, forgotten names, bad body language) your salespeople struggle with are somehow related to this disconnect and miscommunication that starts before they even say “Hello”?

If the customer can only have 4 possible postures with their feet then maybe we should be teaching our salespeople 4 possible greetings!

Each of the customers; the statue, side-statue, towards, and away need a unique greeting to match the message from the customer. Consider how this simple and practical truth can impact your bottom-line. The average salesperson is taught to do the professional greeting I mentioned earlier which includes a handshake, welcome, and exchange of names. This approach works the best with the "towards" customer.

Now ask yourself a painful question.

What percentage of all first-time customers who show up on the lot WANT to talk to a salesperson and start moving TOWARDS a salesperson when they see one?

Most managers and salespeople I've met say less than 10% of customers move TOWARDS the salesperson.

So in effect we teach 100% of our people to do a technique 100% of the time that works really well 10% of the time?!?

And with a 10% success rate managers wonder why they can’t get their salespeople to do a “proper” meet and greet consistently.

Thoughts??