Of Course I Asked for the Sale... Or Did I?

As salespeople and sales managers, we often scratch our heads...

and wonder why that customer didn't buy. We followed the process from start to finish, and the customer still left without the new vehicle. Statistically, NADA states that we only close 14%-15% on average, of first "ups." Therefore, this customer must fall in the other 85%, right? In fact, this high percentage of customers that do not buy simply were not asked to.

Let's take a closer look at the typical customer visit: The customer arrives on the lot and we wander out to meet them on the lot, quite promptly and with confidence. We extend our hand, welcome them to the dealership and declare that we are there to assist them in their vehicle purchase. They respond quite warmly in return (phew, not many like that) and tell us that they are interested in trading out of their old car and into one of your new ones. We invite them to come in and sit down, while we gather some additional information to ensure that we help them select the right vehicle. We offer them a coffee, or a beverage, and we then discuss their wants and needs. The customer graciously answers all of our questions, including the budget ones! So now we know what features they need, the features they want but don't necessarily need and we know what their monthly budget is. (This is going great isn't it?) We hurry out to the lot and select, from the inventory, the vehicle that not only meets their wants, needs and budget and, even better, we have the exact color they want too! We circle around and bring the vehicle right to the front door, where the customer is anxiously awaiting our return. We do a very thorough presentation on the vehicle. (You know everything about this one; you even won a walk-around competition on this model). We provide every conceivable piece of information anyone could ever want to know and the customer seemed very interested while we walked around.

We set out on our demo drive, we drive first of course, and we continue to spout off information that undoubtedly the customer would want to know, such as foot pounds of torque, compression ratios, etc. We reach the halfway point, switch drivers and let the customer enjoy, in peace, the easy, all right-hand-turns, drive back to the dealership. When we arrive back, we pull up and park, exactly where we had left from, and we ask the customer, "So, what do you think of it?" The customer responds, with something like "I really like it! So how much is it?" This is really going well, and we're sure we've got a deal now, so we say, "Great, come on in, and we'll work up some numbers for you." We get back to our desk, and begin to write up the worksheet. We fill out the Trade Evaluation Form. The customer gladly gives us the keys to his trade, and even tells us that he just yesterday put new brakes and tires on it, and he knows he won't get that money back.

So we go to the sales manager and he asks us "Did the customer drive it?" Of course, we're pleased to say, "Oh yeah, and he loves it." GREAT! Ten minutes later the sales manager returns, and pencils the deal for us. We even think he went heavy on the trade, this is really good. We quickly get back to our customer, who has been happily waiting in the customer lounge, enjoying a coffee and watching TV. When we tell him "we've got some numbers for you now" he jumps up to rejoin us back at our desk. We present the numbers, to which the customer replies that it fits right in his budget, and he's quite surprised at how reasonable we were with the trade value. So we then say something to the effect of, "Can we get some credit information, and if everything is ok, hopefully you will be able to go home in the new vehicle right away." To which the customer replies, "I still want to think about it." We don't understand, so we ask, "Do you like the car? Is it the right color? Is the payment too high?"

To our amazement, the customer DOES like the car and the color and the payment are fine, he just wants to think about it. He assures us that he'll call us tomorrow and let us know. We know we had great rapport with the customer, and they've been pretty honest with us all along, so we reluctantly, but happily, shake their hand, and tell them that we look forward to hearing from them tomorrow. But by early evening the following day we've still not heard from the customer, so we finally phone them to find out when they will be in.

We find out that after they left our dealership, they stopped at another dealership down the road and took delivery of a vehicle that was more expensive than the budget he told us, and although he was definitely pleased with the treatment we provided, he just couldn't pass up the "deal" he was offered down the road. What happened? This customer ran into a Salesperson! If you review the entire process that we went through with this example, you should realize that never once did we ask the customer to buy. We simply did everything that the process calls for with one glaring omission - ASKING FOR THE BUSINESS NOW.

So many times we merely assume that because the customer is at our dealership, and because they are prepared to go for a drive and discuss numbers that we are at the point of a sale. In reality, this customer would most likely have purchased from us had we asked a few seemingly obvious, yet often omitted, questions. Upon returning from the test drive, instead of asking, " What do you think of it?", ask a trial-close question, such as, "So, will this be your first purchase from our dealership?" or "If there was one thing that would keep you from buying this vehicle now, what would it be?" or "Will there be any changes or additions we need to make to this vehicle before you take delivery of it?" These questions let you know that you do or do not have a potential sale now. Upon presentation of the figures, assume that the customer is taking delivery right now until you are told otherwise. Example: "OK, Mrs. Customer, with your present vehicle and an initial investment of $1500, your monthly investment is only $555. Will you be using cash or credit card for your initial investment?" What can your customer possibly say? Perhaps, "That payment is too high!" Your response being either, "How much too high?" or "Well, we calculated these numbers based on the minimum initial investment of $1500. How much more than $1500 were you planning on putting down?" These types of open-ended questions get the customer talking to you about how they want to structure this deal. Realize that you are structuring the deal now and not wondering why your customer left with the intention of calling you back tomorrow. The number-one reason customers don't buy is we neglect to ask them to.

ASK, ASK, ASK and then ASK again! (ABC = Always Be Closing)

MAKE IT A CHAMPION DAY!

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