It always amazes me that the first thing to be jettisoned in difficult times is training. When times are tough, you need to be sharper, faster and better than your competition – or you’ll be eaten for lunch!
Which brings me to today’s story… Unfortunately, a rather common occurrence when dealing with certain types of salespeople.
You want a new car – and walk into the showroom…
You stand there expectantly and eventually realise you’re being ignored by the salesmen who all seem to be busily engrossed in their paperwork.
Frustrated, you think… "Okay, they’re ignoring me… so I’ll just walk around looking at models”
You walk around the shining new cars, open the doors and look inside. Maybe you even get in to see how they feel.
Eventually a salesman walks up. Yes, a salesman, not a saleswoman. Let’s face it, most of the salespeople in the motor industry are men (although in my experience, the women far outsell the men, so why more companies don’t employ women is beyond me – but that’s another story).
"Hi, how are you?"
"I'm fine thank you"
"You're looking for a new car?"
<"duh – why would I be here if I wasn't"> "Yes, I am"
"Let me tell you all about this car…"
…and now the "vomiting” begins.
Without bothering to ask you what you’re interested in (or even if you're interested in this particular model, the salesman "launches" into his set spiel.
He talks, and talks and talks about the wonderful features of this car.
How fast it goes (zero to one hundred in seven point one seconds), oh look, one press of the button and the roof comes up, leather seats, and of course a tachometer, twelve CD stereo, graphic equaliser, and seat warmers (we're in Cairns and the temperature never gets below 15 degrees C).
And if you’re a woman, he’ll open the boot (trunk to some of you), and tell you how much shopping you can fit in there. Then he talks about colours and how well it would go with your handbag! Eeech!!!
Of course if you happened to have a man with you, the salesman would probably ignore you entirely and focus his whole conversation on him (even though you're the one buying the car!)
He'd then proceed to open the bonnet and show your friend the wonderful engine - ooooh, look at those spark plugs, aren't they shiny! Duh!
By now your eyes have glazed over, or you're feeling that this guy really isn't listening, and you're looking for the nearest exit to make a dash for. You're thinking of all the excuses you can to just get away!
Suddenly the salesman's phone rings and he goes to answer it and you make good your escape.
You can see the salesman frantically waving to you to come back…come back… come back.
Ever had an real experience like this? Maybe you were the buyer, or maybe, God forbid, you were the salesman?
What is it that made this experience so unpleasant? Was it the feeling of being trapped by a salesman who just wouldn't listen? Did you feel that you couldn't get away and that you would put under so much pressure that you'd have to buy the car just to get away?
So what should he have done instead?
Fast forward a few days and once again you're walking into another showroom. You're wondering if the experience is going to be repeated?
But this time it's very different. A saleswoman walks up to you immediately and smiles. Yes, smiles.
"Welcome… have you ever been in here before?"
"No"
"So that I can help you best, what sort of car are you looking for?"
<"Yippeee, this woman is actually asking me what I want"> "I'm looking for a solid family car"
"Oh great… so that I can understand your requirements better, what exactly do you mean by "solid family car?"
"Oh, let me think… it needs to seat four people comfortably, be a colour that's easily seen, be reliable and fuel efficient."
"Okay, would you mind if I ask some more questions?"
"No, of course not"
"So, what's important about the seating?"
"Well, we go on long country trips and our last car had uncomfortable seats, so we got cramps as well as back pain."
"So you want to avoid cramps and back pain? How will you feel if that were possible?"
"Absolutely great - it would mean that we could enjoy the journey as well as feel fresh when we got to where we were going."
"What's important about a colour that's easily seen?"
"Well, safety is an important consideration. We want other cars to see us from way off and avoid accidents."
"And reliability?"
"As I mentioned, we do a lot of country trips, we don’t want to get stuck somewhere, and we need to be able to easily get parts in whoop whoop."
"Okay, let me show you this model here. It's a solid family sedan that has been engineered for tough Australian conditions which means that it'll do the long trips with ease.
As it's a roomy car, the seats are large and comfortable, while providing support. Unlike some tinny imports, this car is designed to last and we offer a 10 year warranty as a proof of our reliability.
Naturally the car comes in a range of colours, but I recommend silver as a colour that can be easily seen from a distance. And of course the new engine technology means that it's super fuel efficient.
How about you take it for a long test drive. Here are the keys - come back in a couple of hours!"
Gee - what a concept! Allowing a client to really (really) try on the car for size. Sort of like a puppy dog close.
You come back thinking... "Fantastic… when can I have delivery?"
Put yourself in the salesperson's position. If you're in the persuasion business, and let's face it, who isn't, wouldn't it be great if all your interactions turned out like this?
You'd be on top of the world and so would your clients as everyone would have got what they wanted.
This is achievable. Great salespeople do it every day and you can learn how to too…
We all want to buy rather than be sold to. We want to feel understood and not be put under pressure.
To become a really successful persuader takes work. You need to have the right attitude (win-win) as well as skill, so that you can find out what people really want and then show them how they can have it.
Then surprisingly enough – money becomes no object!
Need more leads? Want to close more business? Call us on (02) 9499-7958 for cutting edge online and offline marketing and sales strategies that will bring in prospects and convert them EVEN in a difficult economy.
Rashid.
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