Drive up to a dealership and you will most likely see a lot lizard. Their species is easy to spot. They tend to congregate in front of the dealership, smoking, joking, complaining and waiting to wait on someone. Notice I said waiting to wait on. These lizards are a curious species in how they tend to look for prey. The professional is a different breed. The professional tends to not wait on much or for long. The professional has goals, a work plan and is too busy taking action to join the lizards for long, if any at all.

You have heard it before that a dealer provides facilities, inventory, capital and an office; in return, the salesperson provides the effort. It’s the type of effort that defines which category the salesperson will be in. The choice of category will influence the attitude, future and happiness of the salesperson. Let’s look at traits of a professional:

• A professional has goals. Those without goals are destined to live and work for those who do.

• A professional has a work plan. Professionals recognize that time is their most important currency, because when the 1,440 minutes of each day are gone, they aren’t coming back. A professional avoids and kills all time vampires without mercy.

• A professional self-educates consistently because he understands he could not possibly know it all and has a desire to get better every day.

• A professional has a complete follow-up program built over and beyond the dealership’s CRM, because she realizes the real capital of her business is what she does with that database of customers.

• A professional has a marketing/prospecting system, because he realizes that you cannot give the control and power of your income up to dealership advertising, seasonal traffic patterns or economies. The professional makes and works a plan to get all of his business through his own efforts and becomes independent of walk-in traffic.

• A professional works consistently on gaining and maintaining a positive attitude, because without it, everything else does not work. A professional does not care that others may scorn her and her positive approach to life.

• A professional is continually realizing the importance of combining mind-body-spirit for continued success, and without the combination of all of them, his efforts and success can quickly go away.

• A professional creates a “business within a business” that features her own personal stamp or brand.

• A professional is committed and commitment equals consistency.

If you are cynical about dedicating yourself to being a professional, I invite you to take a good look at the lot lizard. Observe him as he squirms around endlessly on the lot. Observe the lot lizard’s attitude, happiness and success. Ask yourself what their long-term possibilities are for success. The choice is yours. Lot lizard or professional?

If you would like the free Special Report “Becoming A Professional,” e-mail me at info@tewart.com with the word “Professional” in the subject line.

There are seven steps to make immediate change. These steps can be used to quickly increase sales by a more significant amount than you have ever experienced.

Step 1: Change the Environment

The military uses boot camp. Baseball has spring training. Football has training camp. The easiest way to bring about rapid change is to change environment. When you change environment, you change behavior. People tend to hold onto limiting beliefs and behaviors as long as they stay in their normal environment.

Regular training sessions should be done outside of the dealership environment. It is easier to create a sense of team and discuss goals and ideas and get input if you are outside of your normal environment. It’s also important to eliminate distractions to supercharge the learning that takes place in the new environment — no cell phones, no interruptions.

Step 2: Change Appearances

First appearances greatly influence the decision-making process of people. Change the appearance of your dealership and your people and it can make a huge difference. Walk across the street from your dealership and look back. Ask yourself, what do your customers see? Drive by your dealership at different angles of view and ask the same question. Small changes can make give your customers much greater curb appeal and catch the attention of others. When your customers pull into your dealership, what do they see? Your vehicles should create a sensation of “WOW” for your customers. Make your dealership clean, visually appealing and easy to navigate. Confusion breeds indecision.

What do your employees look like? People buy from people they feel most comfortable with in appearance, beliefs and values. As a rule of thumb, your salespeople should be dressed slightly above your customers. This will allow your customers to be comfortable and respect your employees at the same time.

Step 3: Get Incremental Buy-in From Your Customers

To sell, you must get out of your own way. Often, salespeople are the biggest hindrance in creating a sale. You must first create trust with your customers. To create trust, you must have a mindset of TLC – Think Like a Customer. You must release the mentality of a salesperson to slow the process and bring incremental buy-in from your customer. It is not a mistake that the symbol for questions is shaped like a hook. The right questions asked correctly are the hooks that make the sale come together. Questions should be asked in incremental order so as not to scare the customer. Sequential questioning will establish a fluid process of discovery for the customer. This will create rapport and establish feelings of reciprocation and obligation from the customer. Most salespeople violate the customers trust by asking financial data questions too quickly. This also interrupts the natural pace of communications and creates apprehension in the customer. Remember that selling is like tuning in a radio dial to the right frequency. You must take your time and listen.

Step 4: Facts Tell, Stories Sell

People need to combine verbal, visual and emotional evidence. All this can be accomplished with “similar situation” stories. People don’t buy vehicles; they buy emotional solutions to problems that they can see in their mind’s eye and feel in their hearts. Features are like the scenes of the movie. Benefits are the underlining storyline and stories are the emotions that tie everything together. Personalize everything you do with true and relatable stories and visualizations.

Step 5: Be Unforgettable

What is your “WOW” factor? Have an SDP – Specific Defining Proposition. You must make your claim of why you, your dealership and your product are the best for the customer. Don’t be shy about differentiating from your competitors. Make the largest truthful claims possible. Create the brand of your dealership. What makes you, your employees and your dealership stand out and become remarkable? What will your customers not forget about their experience with your people, process, product or market position?

Step 6: Use Testimonial Selling

When someone else toots your horn, it will be heard twice as far and twice as long. Customer testimonials and evidence of trust are a massive sales builder and marketing tool. Utilize the people who like and trust you to convince others. Letters, videos, audio testimonials, pictures and direct testimonials create the strongest form of social acceptance available.

Step 7 - Dance With the One You Came With

Your best source of success for now and the future are the customers who like you, trust you and have done business with you. Before you spend one dollar on advertising for new customers, determine your process and actions in maintaining your current customers and how they can provide you more customers.

These seven steps are universal and undeniable. If followed, they will provide you with increased sales and profits. If you would like what I call the “8th Wonder of the World” step, e-mail me at info@tewart.com with “8th Wonder” in the subject line.

What is hidden wealth? Hidden wealth is an unused, dormant or under utilized part of your business that contains great value. All businesses have at least one hidden wealth. Even the best businesses in the world contain hidden wealth. The key is to determine your hidden wealth and begin to mine the potential gold that lies therein. All businesses are different. Each business should require their leaders to conduct a concerted effort of introspection and egoless honesty to determine what their hidden wealth may be. One way to begin is to ask deeper and better questions about your business than you ever have before. What is the story of your dealership? How is that unique and more importantly, how does that benefit the customer?

Begin a journey to determine what your business does best. What does your business do better than anyone else? Then ask yourself these questions about that one thing, “How”, “Why” and how can I prove it to my customers in a way that benefits and motivates them? Once you determine the one thing that you do better than anyone else, then ask your customers why they think you do it best? See if what you feel and they feel are the same. If your business does something great but your customers don’t know, it won’t matter. If you customers don’t hold the same value in what you think you do great, it won’t matter. Better questions lead to better answers and better businesses. Ask yourself, what do you have that others don’t have? What do you have that is better than what others may have? Is your sales staff better? Is your service better? Is your location better? Is your inventory better? Is your pricing structure better? Is your process quicker? Is your facility better? When you determine what you have that’s better, you must ask yourself, why is that true?

You must also ask yourself, how can I explain what we do and how it’s better in very specific terms that the customer cares about? You can’t say you have a large inventory. It doesn’t mean anything. But you can say you have 500 vehicles worth ten million dollars in inventory and that no one comes close to your selection and because of that it takes the hassle out of shopping. What ever you decide is your strong point, ask yourself this question, “Who cares?” If you can’t tell your customer in a way that benefits them, they won’t care.

Some dealerships have a large database of untapped business. Some dealerships have a great location with many possible synergies with other local businesses that could be explored. Many dealerships have community relationships that could be utilized. Many dealerships have talented but untrained people. Many dealerships are either sending the wrong or mixed message to the market or sending a good message to the wrong market or utilizing either the wrong medium or not enough mediums to reach their market.

Each dealership has assets that contain vast riches if they can be explored and tapped.

Each year at the start of football practice, Vince Lombardi, the coach of the Green Bay Packers started his season the same way. His opening statement to his players was, “This is a football.” Every year, John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach of the UCLA Bruins started his first practice of the season by demonstrating to his players how to properly put on their socks to prevent blisters. Pretty basic stuff, huh?

Notice the similarities between Wooden and Lombardi in the educational formats. Whether it’s athletics or business, you must start with the fundamentals first. Just as if you built a mansion on a weak foundation, a business built on a weak foundation will crumble. Bill Walton the former star basketball player for UCLA was interviewed about John Wooden and he recounted his first practice with Wooden and how the coach talked about putting on socks properly. Bill Walton remarked that he expected incredible wisdom to come from his legendary coach in the first practice and was disappointed that the practice started with how to put on his socks. When Bill Walton questioned Wooden about the first meeting, Wooden’s reply was simple. If he were to teach Mr. Walton everything he knew about basketball but he could not do any of those things because he was sitting on the bench unable to play because of blisters, then all those teachings would not matter.

How many times have you experienced or witnessed yourself, sales people, managers and owners looking for miracle cures without taking care of the fundamental basics? Massive advertising campaigns, computers, software, business development centers, new facilities or cure-all sales approaches won’t matter if you don’t have the right foundation in place. What are the components of a solid foundation? First, you must have the right team members. Everything starts with people. I encourage every manager or owner to raise your expectations and requirements for the team members you recruit. Concentrate most all of your efforts into getting the right people before you move on to anything else.

Make sure you have the talents of those people matched to their positions. Many baseball historians have reviewed the “Big Red Machine” of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team in the 1970s and noted the improvement in the team that was made when Sparky Anderson, the Reds manager, moved Pete Rose from the outfield to third base to allow the insertion of George Foster to the outfield. At the time, the move was considered by many to be risky and even ridiculous. In retrospect, the move was genius because it allowed the right people to be in the right positions. In the book, “From Good to Great” by Jim Collins, Collins noted that great companies not only must have the right people on the bus, but that you must have them in the right seats as well. An example would be that great sales people don’t always make great managers and vice versa.

Next, make sure you give your team members the processes to use their skills. Talented team members going in different directions will still create bad results. The proper education of process should include what to do, how to do it, when to do it and, just as important, why. Talented and intelligent team members will also provide beneficial feedback to strengthen your process. It can even be argued that the process should come first. Talented and bright team members recruited into a bad process with limited flexibility to improve the process will just create heightened turnover problems. In other words, if your business model is bad, the better the recruit, the quicker he or she will leave.

When looking at a big task like creating a winning team with a winning strategy, it is natural for it to seem daunting. Remember that all big goals are accomplished one step at a time. Break down your strategy into small steps. Create a simple flow chart that utilizes a visual guideline for your goal. Put estimated timelines next to each stage to create urgency in creating your success. However, don’t be tempted to reduce your level of expectations to just say you made your deadline. Remember your end destination and take action every day, the time of achievement will take care of itself.

You are who you decide to be at any given moment. It does not take money, a degree, a certain age, a certain appearance, tons of experience, knowing the right people, past success or any other qualifying factor that you may be currently using as a subconscious roadblock to your desired success. Your belief system creates your results both past and present. If your current belief system is not what it should be to support your success, you must fake it, till you make it.

If you currently don’t appear to be on the path that will create the level of success in the form you desire, you must begin to identify the mental programming that is limiting your success before you can change your resulting limiting actions.

You must pay close attention to your inner dialogue when you write goals or have thoughts about anything you desire. When thinking of your goals, if you repeatedly think of the specific reasons of how and why your goal may be hard to obtain, you are creating the “When-Then Syndrome.” Your subconscious identifies your current programming that tells you that for X to occur you must first have Y. If that is the case, your current mental programming is limited and will not allow you to break through your current barriers to further success.

Write down the first twenty mental images or messages you heard or were taught about money. When closely examined, most of the images and messages remembered will be limited, negative, and fear based. Those negative messages and images have taken a life of their own and have been accepted in your subconscious as absolute truths. To increase money, you must identify your current limiting messages and rewrite the messages to create accepted new truths.

Every person you come into contact with tries to define you based upon his/her own thoughts and beliefs. Your workplace is full of people with their own limiting mental programming that want to define you in a way that makes them feel better about themselves. People will create images such as “you are just lucky” or “the favorite of the boss” or “a weak sales person”. So often you act in your work environment in a role based upon the images and messages accepted by your subconscious. Unfortunately, your subconscious accepts all images and messages without filtering. However, you can overwhelm the negative messages with your own positive messages. Your conscious mind will choose and react to the strongest messages being given to it. Don’t allow others to create your destiny based upon their own limited beliefs.

Your subconscious can act as an automatic responder in a positive form just as it can negatively. You must bombard your mind with positive and repetitive images for your conscious mind to react with positive messages. Read and listen to the material that will support you in creating the images you desire, while reducing and eliminating the negative influences you encounter from relatives, co-workers, and the news. You create your own reality. It’s your responsibility to choose the right sources of information to saturate your brain.

To start manifesting your desires, you must become clear on your goals. Write what you want in present tense using vivid details of your emotions and thoughts at the time of obtaining those goals. The repetitive conditioning of your subconscious with the imagery you have created will begin to grow just as your muscles grow by the repetitive action of lifting weights. Soon your positive imagery will be so strong that your belief system will accept this as reality before it has ever transpired as reality. There will be no difference between your chosen reality and your current state. Your belief system will accept each step and each day as a part of your path to success. Dare today to choose what you desire and the actions that support those desires.

Are you the CEO of your company? If you’re a sales person, and you answered no to this question, think again. To be successful you must have a CEO mentality. All successful sales people view themselves as a business within a business. Never forget that the company you work for writes and signs your check, but you fill in the numbers. Always take responsibility for everything. You are the CEO.

What does a CEO do?

First of all, a CEO designs a marketing strategy. How do you get your business? Walk-ins, in-bound phone calls, repeats, prospecting, networking, referrals, bebacks, affiliate marketing programs, database mining, database swapping, niche marketing, seminars, websites, email responses with auto responders and sequential auto responders. Do you have at least one strategy for utilizing each one of these? Many people may not even know what many of these items are. The bad news is that you are way behind the top businesses in the world, but you can catch up and even pass the most productive sales people with dedicated strategy and smart actions.

Top sales people gain and maintain their results through many avenues beyond walk-in traffic. When you are new, you spend 80 percent of your time gaining new customers and 20 percent maintaining them. As each month goes by, your goal will be to reverse the time used to 80 percent maintaining current customers and 20 percent gaining new ones. To do this, you must develop a marketing web with multiple streams of lead generation. Lead generation = dollar creation.

If floor traffic dries up, you will have an excuse not to sell vehicles. From now on, excuses are not allowed. What is your strategy for walk-ins? Do you have a process? Does anyone besides you follow up with unsold customers? If you TO in person why not TO on the phone? Are you utilizing monthly planners or productivity software that allows you to automate your follow-up of sold and unsold customers by phone, mail and email? Do you have a monthly newsletter or, better yet, an email newsletter that reaches your customers unobtrusively and at zero-cost? There are companies that will set up auto responders with pre-set messages to be sent at certain intervals to your email list. This automates some of your follow-up to the point that it is being done while you sleep or are on vacation.

Have you set up affiliate programs with other businesses to share customers and provide an introduction to one another? Example, “Who does business with whom I want to do business with?” Ask that question first to think of businesses that you can set up reciprocal agreements with to provide a value proposition to their customers with enough leverage so they will want to call, fax or email you to get what you sell.

Most businesses utilize one-stage marketing. This requires running an ad and asking someone to buy. For many sales people, this is expensive and not effective. A better strategy is to form two or three stage marketing techniques. You are asking a customer to respond that they are interested and want more information. Here are some examples: Give a be-back cd to every customer who does not buy and ask them to play it on the way home. The cd should have two to five minutes of information that thanks them for the opportunity and provides them with specific reasons why they should buy your product from you, at your dealership. Give the customer an incentive to call you back. Arrange with a local restaurant that you will provide a coupon to every customer who shops or services with your dealership, an offer for two-for-one at the restaurant. In return, ask the restaurant to also reward their customers by giving each customer a coupon with their bill that provides a special offer from you, with enough leverage for the customer to respond for more information. Provide seminars for local groups on the subject of, “How to buy a vehicle and not get ripped off.” Do you know where the last 10 customers who have bought from you work and how you can set up automobile buying programs with their employer? If you let your mind expand, your wallet will follow.

You have two choices, you can use excuses like, “My managers won’t let me do anything,” “I don’t have the time,” “I have to make money right now,” or a million other excuses. Or, you can think of your business as a business and become the CEO with a long-term, committed strategy to grow expeditiously.

Click Here to find out more information about Mark Tewart's upcoming workshops.

Thoreau once said, “Things don’t change, people do.” If things are to happen, you must make them happen. Good people and businesses always make things happen. Let’s look at the essential rules of making things happen.

Rule 1 – Always have a CEO attitude – You must start by taking responsibility for all things both good and bad. Accept that your company signs your check and you fill in the numbers. Your own personal philosophy, which is determined strictly by choice and your own free will, determines your first step in success or failure.

Rule 2 – Every business operates two businesses: People and Marketing. If you are great with people but don’t have people to speak to, you fail. Marketing has become essential to all sales people.

Rule 3 – Lead generation equals dollar creation – The more leads you generate the more money you earn. How do you create leads? Develop a marketing web – Draw a small circle on a piece of paper and put the name of your company in the middle. (Your company, not the one that signs your check). Now draw lines in different directions that look like spokes coming out of the circle. Label each spoke as a source of leads. (Example: walk-ins, incoming sales calls, referrals, repeats, be-backs, service, networking, prospecting etc.) Notice that each spoke can have multiple spokes that sprout from it.

Rule 4 – Add value first – The perception of price is always in relation to the value perceived. Perception is reality for your customers. What do they perceive to be the value in your offer, product, you, or the business? To create value you must TLC—think like a customer--and then take action.

Rule 5 – Give HFG - hope for gain. People always want something better than what they have. It’s human nature. Hope for Gain follows the pleasure versus pain rule of life. People act to either find pleasure or avoid pain. Hope for gain moves people toward pleasure.

Rule 6 – Offer risk reversal - Take away your customers’ risk and it creates urgency in the eyes of the customer. You must lower the barriers of entry that discourage customer traffic. Risk reversal allows your customer to avoid pain.

Rule 7 – Provide leverage – Hope for gain and risk reversal provide leverage for people to take action. You must always be thinking of ways that your customers can get excited about contacting you now. Urgency, emotions, social proof, incentives and testimonials all provide leverage.

Rule 8 – Facts tell; stories sell- Stories add the most important element of sales and marketing. People think in pictures. People relate to stories that they can see themselves in the staring role. Make them the star. People will avoid advertising and marketing on purpose, but they will react to a good story.

Rule 9 – Utilize the law of obligation and reciprocation – In sales or marketing, you must be willing to add the wow factor. You must be willing to give people extra service, extra offers, extra emotion, extra humor, extra enthusiasm... extra everything, until the customer feels an overwhelming obligation to give you a chance.

Now let me give you some examples to create leads using these rules.

1. – Record a two to five minute be-back CD that you give to each customer who doesn’t buy a car and ask them to play it on the way home. On the CD, thank the customer for the opportunity, tell them your SDP--specific defining proposition- to get them excited about doing business with you and purchase your product.

2. Nice trade call – Every time you take a nice trade-in, call at least 20 of your sold customers and let them in on a secret. Let them know about the beautiful vehicle you now have and how it hasn’t been put all the way though service and clean-up yet. Let them know you’re calling a few of your preferred customers about the newly acquired vehicle. If they don’t want it, ask them who might be.

3. Create affiliations – Who does business with whom you want to do business? Always think of how you can add value to them first. What can you do to help their business? Offer coupon swaps. Offer to create a coupon for a two for one special at their restaurant. In return, ask that they distribute a coupon from your business.

4. Offer a free program – Offer a thirty minute program to some of the varying associations on how to buy a vehicle. Take brochures with coupons offering value that would make them take action to receive something of value from you. Create a lead first.

5. Postcards – Postcards are cheap. You can send to targeted markets, with a targeted message, such as, “Employee Purchase Program – Buy a vehicle for what I would pay!”

6. Val-Packs – Postcard advertising made even cheaper.

7. Orphan Owners - Call every orphan owner and offer them something of value. If you offer all the clients who’ve not been contacted the chance to do business with you, a large percentage will consider doing more business with you in the future.

8. FSBO call – Call everyone selling your brand of vehicle and ask them about their trade. Offer to get an appraisal and to help them purchase their new vehicle.

9. Create a Free Special Report – “How to buy a vehicle” – You could combine your postcards with this message and once you’ve created a lead through their response by fax, phone or email, you can follow up after sending your special report.

10. Create your own web site – Put your web site address on all your business cards, mailing, materials etc. Put your picture, biography, special offers, recipe of the month, etc. Make people go to your site for a special offer.

John Wooden said, “Don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do.” You can’t change economies, but you can work daily to change your actions. A little extra effort put forth everyday will help build a successful business. Make it happen!

“I want to think about it.”

Baloney. If you believe and allow this excuse from customers, you and your family will be eating Ramen Noodle soup your whole career. When customers tell you they want to think about it, they are really telling you they either have an unspoken objection or they are not convinced that you or your product and service is right for them.

The next time a couple tells you that they want to think about it, watch them as they get out of earshot of you. They will turn to each other and begin to talk about why they are not buying. Whether it’s an objection or a concern, it’s going to boil down to Money, Me or Machine. Money can be price, terms, payments etc. The ‘Me’ portion can be you, the business or service reputation or ability. The Machine segment is your product or service.

First you have to identify the customer’s possible thoughts and emotions. Customers have three forms of spoken and unspoken communication when they say, “I want to think it over.”

• What they are saying

• What they are trying to say

• What they really mean

To get past the smokescreen of “I want to think about it,” you must listen to and understand what they are saying and onto what the customer is trying to say and what they really mean.

When you hear the dreaded stall or objection phrase, don’t do what the majority of salespeople do. Do not ask the customer, “What is it that you want to think over?” With that phrase you create a “Turtle Customer.” They are going to feel threatened or embarrassed and pull into their shell. You will force them to feel scared, embarrassed or intimidated and they are going to run like rabbits.

When you hear the objection, the first step is to agree with them by saying, “Sure, I understand, it’s a big decision so you should take your time.” Next, move your customer to the future. The future does not carry the pressure that today does. “Mr. Customer, if it were a week or a month from now and you had given everything consideration and were ready to make a decision, do you think the No. 1 consideration or thing that had held you up from buying would have been the machine or the money?” Notice, I didn’t mention the “you” portion because the customer would usually be too embarrassed to say you were the problem. Most likely if they are still with you, the problem is the product/service or the money.

If it’s the product or service, it’s easy to suggest alternatives that might fit what they are looking for. A salesperson without alternatives fails by a lack of alternatives. If money is the issue, then break the money portion down — Price, Payment, Down Payment, Monthly Payment, Term, Rates etc. Ask, “Mr. Customer what part of the money is the most important to you?” and then give the possibilities.

Next you must move them to close. “Mr. Customer, in the future, when you are making your decision to purchase and feel good about the payments, would the payments be ____, ______ or ______?” Give stair stepped based options on whatever it is that is their main concern. Customers feel less threatened about options and feel like they are in control. The customer will feel less embarrassed in sharing with you what they can and are willing to do.

When you get the answer from the customer, use the “Up to” and “No more than” phrases to raise the customer’s thinking and commitment. Example — “$500 up to?” “Now if you really had to, no more than?”

Notice that the art of closing this sale is not about closing, but about opening possibilities. You must open to be able to close. To get past the “I’ll think it over” objection, you must listen closely and try to really understand what the customer is communicating. You must move the customer forward in a manner that lessens the customer’s anxieties, rather than increases them. All of these steps must be performed with confidence and with an attitude of TLC – “Think Like a Customer.”

Tip No. 1: Avoid the Myth — “Salespeople create numbers and managers create gross.” This statement is a myth. How well a salesperson establishes a relationship with a customer and asks questions that uncover wants, needs, emotions, previous buying patterns, communication styles, the customers HFG (hope for gain) and more will determine gross profit more than anything a manager can ever do.

\A salesperson must create a buying environment and experience that transcends price. The price pendulum works. When value exceeds price, people buy. The value can be perceived in many forms and channels. Value can be perceived in the 3M’s: Money, Me and Machine. Value can be communicated emotionally, logically, experientially, conceptually, fear based, happy based, product based, salesperson based and more.

Tip No. 2: Sell Apples to Oranges — What is different about your sales process that creates “WOW?” What makes your process so much better that price becomes less of an issue? Create “apples to oranges” choices and distinctions on Money, Me and Machine. Example: Use a different meet and greet such, as “Hi, folks, welcome to ABC Motors. Are you out beginning to look and shop around?” This takes the traditional response of “I’m just looking” away but does so in a positive manner. If you receive an e-mail contact, then use video e-mail to contact the customer back. You will be unique from all other dealerships who reply back to the customer. First impressions count.

Tip No. 3: Walk the Wheel — Draw a circle and draw a series of lines coming out of the circle all around the circle. On one side of the line, you have one option. As an example, you could have “financing,” and then on the other side “leasing.” You could have a line with “long-term financing” and then “short-term” on the other. Keep doing this until you exhaust every possible scenario you can think of. When you think of better options, the issue of price will become lesser in consideration. Your competition will often be very narrow in their focus.

Tip No. 4: Set the Stage — How do you address price? Are you practicing stone-age sales techniques? Do you actually believe, as many sales trainers teach, that you can avoid the issue of price? Notice I said the “issue.” You would not stand for old-school “avoid and evade” techniques, and neither will your customers. Try setting the stage for price by addressing how you and your dealership handles price. There’s an old saying that “You can’t sweep crap under the rug and expect the stink to go away.” Address the issue of price up front and with confidence. You will notice the trust and comfort you create with customers because of this.

Tip No. 5: What do you say? — Don’t wing it. Know exactly what to say to a customer when the customer asks you what your best price is. Competence = Confidence. When you are competent in handling the question, your confidence goes up and the customer will follow you anywhere and do anything. Example: “Absolutely! I will get you pricing on anything you want. The price on every vehicle on the lot will vary somewhat because of the following: Time in inventory, supply and demand of the vehicle, current factory programs and dealership promotions. Let me get you the correct price based upon on those factors. By the way, so I can get you the best price, let me ask you…”

Step 1 – Listen

Step 2 – Agree (“Absolutely!” “Sure!” “You bet!”)

Step 3 – Address (use a word track like the one above)

Step 4 – Segue (bridge from the addressing of the question to redirecting using a phrase, such as “By the way...”)

Step 5 – Redirect (ask questions about car buying and car trading)

Tip No. 6: Dig Deeper, Dig Deeper, Dig Deeper — Most salespeople go skin deep with customers, but you could and should dig deeper. Go deeper by going to their trade-in first. When you go to the trade-in first, you are going to their comfort zone. When you go to the trade-in first, you unlock their buying patterns and preferences. You will create role reversal in the selling process and discover how the customer communicates. The customer will explain what their “hope for gain” is by communicating their dominant keywords. About 95 percent of your customers will have one or two keywords that they repeat over and over that will communicate what is most important to them.

After you first greet a customer and begin to communicate, tell them the following, “Let’s walk over to your vehicle for a quick second for two reasons. One reason is I can get all the information about your vehicle so when the market value is being determined I will have all the information necessary and that will save you a bunch of time. Secondly, as I am getting the information I want to ask you a couple of questions about the vehicle and from this I usually come up with a few ideas to save you some money, fair enough?”

Notice I am anchoring in two things: saving time and saving money. Your customers all want to save time and money. Perception is reality. You are setting the perception of reality to save time and money. You are talking the language of the buyer.

Tip No. 7: Practice Give/Get — Never give something without asking to get something in return. This establishes value in your price, your proposal of the price and you. You are also establishing some pain to the practice of the customer asking. If you give without asking for something in return then you are rewarding the act and associating the emotion of pleasure to the act of asking. Like Pavlov’s dog, what gets rewarded gets repeated.

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