In my last post, we examined your basic alpha nature, your need to dominate other people. Did you read the comments after the post? Wow. Not very happy are they? No surprise there. As you know, most people think car salesmen are the scum of the earth: cheating, lying, arrogant, ignorant, over-aggressive sumbitches with their own circle in Hell (where they try to sell each other five-year warrantees for all eternity). Are consumers wrong to hate you so? Nope. But don’t worry about that. There’s nothing inherently wrong with your innate desire for interpersonal dominance. It’s what you do with it that matters.
Remember media mogul Ted Turner’s desk sign: lead, follow or get out of the way? It’s more than a warning; it’s every possible human interaction defined on 12” of brass. When two or more people meet, those are the options. The TTAC’ers who described their horrific experiences with car salesmen are, in the main, alphas (smart, car-savvy ones to boot). They walked because they weren’t willing to follow your lead. That’s alpha to alpha conflict for you; it almost always ends in tears. More importantly, the end result was exactly the same as if these car-buying alphas were brochure-grabbing submissives: they “got out of the way.” The followers? They bought a car.
This is your job as a car salesman: turn as many customers as possible into followers. And to do that, you’ve got to be a leader. Not a bully. A leader.
Before I explain the difference between the two, I want to counter a concept that’s been infecting car sales for some time: rapport. According to the trainers spreading this bone-headed pseudo-science (called Neuro-Linguistic Programming or NLP), rapport is the “quality of harmony, recognition and mutual acceptance that exists between people when they are at ease with one another and where communication is occurring easily.” They’ve got lots of tricks to help you: matching, mirroring, modeling, pacing, etc. Bottom line? They think you should be the customer’s friend.
Have you ever heard the expression “never sell to a friend?” Well, exactly. There’s no better way to ruin a friendship than to sell your friend a car. As soon as something goes wrong, the friendship is toast. As you know, a car is usually a customer’s second largest (i.e. most expensive) purchase. As you may recall, your non-alpha car buyers are profoundly risk-aversive. They don’t want a friend that can schmooze about baseball or house prices or restaurants. They want someone they can trust to help them buy– or not buy– a car. Confused? Think of it this way: would you rather hitch a ride in an airplane flown by your best friend– no matter how well trained– or a professional pilot?
Not to belabor the point, but did you ever have a teacher you really respected, admired and trusted? Someone who taught you something important and filled you with confidence in yourself? Did you play videogames with them at home? I don’t think so. (Again, resist the urge to think of any exceptions.) A successful car salesman can be friendly, but he or she should never try to be the customer’s friend. Ingratiating yourself to the customer means subverting your natural alpha tendencies to establish a peer-to-peer relationship. That’s just plain wrong. What car buyers want, what they need, what they deserve is a professional. A leader.
Entire forests have died to create all the books on the subject of leadership. Let me condense them for you. A great leader is honest, passionate, knowledgeable, attentive, clever, patient, disciplined, committed, charismatic, open-minded, positive and, lest we forget, funny. All you need to think about is honesty. A great car salesman should never, ever lie to anyone. Remember: your potential customers are looking for an excuse to confirm their profound distrust of your basic character. One lie, no matter how small, and your ability to lead is history. You can always fall back on bullying, but that sucks. It erodes your ability to look yourself in the mirror in the morning and, eventually, makes your customers hate you on sight.
So, never lie about price, availability, depreciation, specifications, features, the dealer’s profit, your commission, your uncle’s role in the Kennedy assassination, what you had for lunch, your favorite football team, anything. The NLP zealots are right about one thing: 90% of communication is non-verbal. One tiny little lie, and your hyper hyper-sensitive customer will know. They will never trust you again. Nor should they. By the way, do you know why you lie? Because you’re desperate. You don’t have a proven and comfortable sales methodology that takes you from first customer contact to vehicle handover and beyond.
We’ll start on that in the next installment. Meanwhile, the “right” thing for the customer to do is to trust you. Well, it will be, when we’re done.
That’s an interesting description of car salesmen:
cheating, lying, arrogant, ignorant, over-aggressive sumbitches with their own circle in Hell
Several years back, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle wrote an updated version of Dante’s Inferno. Their punishment in one circle of hell was to spend eternity slogging through chest-deep shit, and if you opened your mouth to say something more shit came out.
Guess who was condemed to that circle of hell?
Yep. Car salesmen. And insurance salesmen. And telemarketers.
Wow, bad news for me, Frank, since I’ve been reduced to being a cell phone telemarketer (free phones – but obviously selling the phone service plans) due to the wonderously fantabulous (NOT) economy in my town during the pathetic 90’s and also insurance salesman. Never a car salesman, but I’ve tried. Yeah, simply because I love cars. Probably the last reason to want to do that job, I admit. I’ve gotten it out of my system now, after having tried to get an interview with one of only two place in my home town who deals with customers as if they were human beings, and not succeeding.
Guess what? I never lied to any customers, not once. Not in any degree, or white lies, or anything. I did “okay” in cell phone cold-calls but my personality didn’t match the needs of that job (the company I worked for was started by a car salesman who got tired of being stiffed by his employers). Get the picture? At least my family and I didn’t starve, but I was about 50% off from being the “top” salesperson; my goal was to feed my family, so 1st place was not the gauge by which I considered myself a failure or success. Nor has it ever been.
In insurance, it was a different story. I was top or 2nd sales leader on the (incoming) phone center job for 6 years, month in, month out. I made my employer tons of money. Don’t ask what I got paid – it wasn’t even commissions (let’s just say I’d have been wealthy by now had it been). (Don’t forget, I live in an area where the pay is the lowest in the state of Michigan, the only depressed state other than Louisiana, and where gas prices and rents/homes are the highest in the state. Lucky us, eh? And, no I don’t want to move. I just want an even playing field. Good luck, right?)
I concentrated on the customer one at a time, and either helped them with what they needed or said sorry, I can’t help you; perhaps this other company could assist you (and provided them with a number or two). It didn’t help (early on) that a manager in the company called me (and the rest of us) “order takers”. “Right. If that is so, then why do some of us sell 55% of our calls, and take twice as many calls as average, while others take 1/2 the calls of average and only sell 20% of their callers? DUH”. She was a moron.
I’m NOT kidding when I tell you all that my most difficult “sales” job was to actually convince people that I could not in fact help them when I couldn’t!
Then, I went to underwriting, at which point I got to see just exactly how much of the human race will misrepresent material facts (plain English: LIE) to save $20 and how probably 20-25% of the human race could quite easily fit in as car salesmen or saleswomen in the sleaziest of dealers – yet virtually all of us profess to hate how we’re treated there.
Ironic, no?
Hey what is up with that thing where they go “I’m going to write a price down on this piece of paper”, and then hand you the paper. Man that is the dumbest thing ever. I’ll crumple that paper up and chuck it at the next dealer that does that to me.
Excellent observations in the article. If only salespeople would read and take heed. You hit the nail on the head when you say that customers are looking, probing, even testing the salesperson to confirm their preconceptions. Alas, the salesperson too frequently takes the easy way and lives up (or down, I should say) to their rep.
Customers like to be right, like all homo sapiens. But they would PREFER to be surprised with a salesperson who proves them WRONG by being a professional, and all that entails. Sales guys need to drop the customer pitch of “Did you know that the color of these tires matches the color of your hair?” and get some training before we all give the internet another go at buying our cars.
Maybe one of the Chinese automobile manufacturers will actually try to sell cars in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, UK etc. by the preferred method of buyers.
Sell cars ONLY on the internet. No vultures – whoops – salesmen.
Oh oh, I hear a little voice from the back of the room “Yeah, but what about test-drives?”
Set up enclosed-wall test tracks (no car-theft, then), providing all manner of driving, from highway to simulated city street, gravel roads, etc. (Yeah, the dealers would have to be in rural areas with large swaths of land).
Put in rows of all of the variations available in the new-car line (instead of in dealership showrooms) as demonstrators, then sell them off as used demonstrators in the autumn.
Then, customers who’ve come for a test-drive could accomodate themselves 16 hours a day (with WELL paid attendants to answer questions, pass out keys, fuel up the cars, wash them, show prospective customers where the online ordering units are, assist in showing them where the secure and nannied kiddie play area is while mom & dad try out the new sedan, etc.)
Yeah, “order takers” would be on hand (see my prior post), but would be well trained in the fine-art of assisting prospects and treating them with respect and truthfullness.
The cars could be equipped with a timer which would sit on the dashboard, giving prospects – say – up to 1/2 hour before the ignition cut off. Most test-drives are significantly less than this.
The service centers could be part of the same complex, as well as a few dozen cars or more, ready for delivery. Delivery of cars not-in-stock could be offered (and at the same time, the trade-in taken away).
Ordering cars on-line with fixed menu pricing, no hassles, no B-S, and arranging loans on-line too…. wow, what a novel idea.
The trickiest part would be the trade-ins. But if someone could invent a scanner (video/computerized) to compare each trade-in against a computer matrix, and all of the automobile service records on all cars could be accessed, as well as loan information – all with the permission of the prospective new car purchaser, of course – the trade-in system would be entirely outside the scope of human frailty. The price one gets would be the same at any dealer with the system, with only small variables in value (down to locality price variations – pretty minor).
I’ll go out on a limb and predict that if this were to happen, GM and Ford would be bankrupt (Chapter 7) within a year, and Toyota and Honda would be demanding their dealerships all changed over.
I always said to myself and others when selling (again, see my prior post) that – I’m dealing with grown-ups, I can show them what I have available and they can take a decision one way or the other. If they have additional questions, I can answer them. I can use my professionalism and friendliness (not fake friendship) to the advantage of the customers and myself if in doing so will result in a sale which will be right for them, but for which they are showing reluctance. (In other words, make them confortable enough to decide “yes” or “no”). I NEVER strong-armed anyone.
While it is true that we have loud, obnoxious salesmen around here — the local Nissan dealer’s crew apparently thinks that screaming at poor little old couples will humiliate them into buying — I think I see a changing trend. I recently bought a new car and found, for the most part, the salespeople were honest, friendly, and remarkably free of BS. I bought a Lexus, partly because of the vehicle and partly because of great treatment at the dealership. The BMW dealer was courteous and helpful as well. So, even was the Mazda.
One interesting thing I did notice, though, was that the worst sales staffs (Nissan notwithstanding) were at the GM dealers. I once encountered a herd of them outside the showroom pouncing on cars driving in before the poor people had a chance to even open their doors. It is my opinion that, in general, the GM dealers seemed to have the staffs mostly stuck back in the 60’s. They hid keys. They used the stupid lingo that car salesmen have always used. They answered questions with other questions: “How much is that car?” “What will you pay? Make me an offer with a deposit and I will take it to my manager.” Give me a break. I wonder what this means for GM?
I have made my sales as my career, first as a boat dealer, and now as a Realtor selling high-end waterfront property in Florida. I have found that treating people honestly, fairly, openly is not only the best, but the only policy. Once you are of the mindset that what is best for the customer is best for you and your company, you will get along fine as a salesperson. (Insert the flag and audio of the national anthem here.)
I still wonder if I am paying too much somehow when I buy a car, but at least if I am getting screwed, I am smiling.
dolo54:
I think they do that so they can carefully observe your reaction to the price itself rather than your reaction to what they say or how they say it. If they pay enough attention they can tell by watching you what you think of it. If they just asked, it would be easier to fake a reaction to it(like to say you can’t afford it when you know you can, you just don’t want to). Putting it in writing also seems to make it more “official”… but of course until you’ve both signed it, it means nothing. They probably also want you to think “shh… we can’t let anyone else know about this great deal we’re giving you because if we gave everyone this price our poor families would starve”. Yeah right.
I won’t go into my recient experiece with a local Honda Dealer, but lets just say I won’t buy a car from anyone that yells at me.
I started reading this article wonder what was Mr. Fargo smoking, but by the end, I got the point. He has taken this discussion in a very interesting direction that I did no expect. I bought my last car from a dealer whom, let me lead. I felt I was in control of the negotiations from the beginning. I asked a question, and would get straight answers. No one tried to spin anything, the answers were either yes, or no. I paid 2 grand more for a Toyota rather than buying a Honda simply because I felt the dealer was being honest with me, and they were not trying to play games to get me to purchase what I didn’t want.
I think the Internet has really turned the tables on car salesmen. The amount of research you can do before you get to the dealer has grown 10 fold over the past 5 years. The average Joe now has such weapons as carsdirect.com and edmunds.com that he can use to really put the squeeze on car salesmen. Dealers whom don’t want to deal with the internet, and keep selling the old fashon way are going to get squeezed out in the next few years. We are not that far off from Glenn’s vision of salemen becoming ‘order takers’.
–C. Alan
“I grew up sheltered, the closest I ever came to doing drugs was listening to a Jimi Hendrix Album.”
Why even deal with the salesperson in person? When I bought a used Mercedes, I searched on cars.com, and then pulled a CarFax report, and Edmuds and Blue Book information, on each car in which I was interested. I then called dealerships, and asked to speak with the used car sales manager. I then negotiated. Where a car had already been sold, I asked for the sale price, and when they would give it to me (only 25% of the time), I could then use that information to improve my negotiating position. I wound up striking a deal at substantially less than asking, and when I walked into the dealership, it was to take a 10-minute confirmation test drive, sign papers on the car and the extended warranty, and drive off. By bypassing the salesperson, I was able to avoid having the negotiation start at the highest price, which is what the salesperson needs to get paid the most. The sales manager has a different agenda — he or she wants to move the car off the lot, and if he or she can do that without having to pay a salesman’s commission, so much the better.
Bottom line: do your research, pick up the phone, and go straight to the top to negotiate your deal.
Consider though that going straight to the top is a former salesperson…
This explains why Saturn (especially in the early-mid ’90s) did so well selling mediocre cars.
In 1982 I was royally screwed when I bought my first new car, and resolved at that time that IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN, not to me, not to anyone I knew who asked my advice. I’m an enthusiast who works in a building with 200+ women…..not a week goes by that I’m not approached by a staff member to help buy a vehicle, whether it’s to steer them to a good vehicle match, help with the negotiations, or just assure them of a fair deal. I relish the role because the treatment of customers (especially women) at most dealerships is deplorable. I’ve seen it all – the 4-square, the hiding of the keys, the endless ‘sales manager’ dance (um, can I speak to someone who actually has permission to sell a car??!?) literally hundreds of times. I could probably make a decent living as a consultant, but then the fun factor would rub off of this sick hobby of mine.
Idiot dealerships get zero customers steered in their direction; competent, fair dealers (or more specifically, salespeople) receive quite a few referrals or phone calls from me.
The internet has given we the people tremendous power. Sure, its still not a level playing field (how often do you buy a new car v. how often do they sell one?), but it has become much more fair now that those of us unfamiliar with the game at least can find out a realistic price for the vehicle, and the various options available.
My last 3 personal vehicles were all internet negotiations, and all pleasant experiences. Oddly enough, the jackass Toyota dealership 5 minutes from my house is ‘persona-non-grata’; the dealer 15 miles away has now sold either my family or my referrals close to 20 vehicles. You reap what you sow.
Edmunds did a series of articles as to an inside look at a salesperson’s job hazards – it’s a very interesting read:
http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/42962/article.html
Perhaps the 3 biggest pieces of advice I give to my referrals is
1. Be able to walk out of a dealership the moment you want to, especially if they jerk you around
2. Never shop payments (sidebar: go in with a kbb, edmunds, or carsdirect print-out)
3. Get everything in writing
Now go in peace.
You have to keep in mind that the turnover in most dealerships is very high. Most salespeople last 6 months, then it’s down the road to the next dealership.
You’ll find BMW salespeople that sold Fords a year earlier, and before that Audi, and before that…..
Each one of them bring their good and bad habits to the next product. Sure, the manufactures send them to charm school, but most learn to hate you, the customer, very early in their career.
Working for straight commission has a tendency to bring out the worst in people.
Johnny Canada, I don’t think you can characterize all commission salesmen as you did. I have been one for a long time and know many others who are also. Being a salesman is not necessarily bad. Being on commission can actually improve customer service. A commission salesman needs to satisfy the customer to get the sale to get paid.
The problem is poor training or no training. Or worse, training to follow some misguided system that tries to fool or bully a customer into making a deal. Sales management should make sure that all employees are ethical and follow ethical guidelines.
Give us honest salespeople a break.
mfaulkner,
Yes, you are correct.
There are some first class salespeople in the automotive industry.
When you stumble upon one, the whole buying experience is wonderful. Remember, spending money should be fun.
My comments are directed to the majority of salespeople that look at us as “suckers”.
A professional salesperson can be proud of what he/she does for a living.
Pretty nice series. I’m not sure about other countries, but my experience in Europe is very different when it comes to buy a car.
Most likely, you will not take a test drive. The dealership has no new cars in stock. If you are lucky, they may have the same model in the showroom. In a different color, different trim, different engine. You can sit in it. You can’t drive it.
When by chance they have something driveable, you are guaranteed to go to one of their partner dealership, and test drive something in another trim/color/engine.
You definitely pick options out of a catalog, the nice salesperson will add up the price for you, factor in a 2% to 8% discount and order your car. Expect 4 to 6 weeks delivery. For a normal car. Expect 6 month plus for higher end segments (MB, BMW, etc)
Buying a car there is very relaxed, there is absolutely no pressure.
I bought 2 cars so far in the US, and yes, all the symptoms described have been encountered. The first time, I got screwed over big time. The second time, not so much.
Live and learn. And buy you next car from amazon.com.
I have to share my experience…
There are two BMW dealerships in my city, both owned by the same guy. First one has had a long reputation as being pathetically poor in customer satisfaction, so much so that an anti-dealer website was put up by someone that eventually had about a hundred testimonials of horrendous service, experience and rip-offs from customers, potential customers and even (ex) employees.
Second dealership was built recently and I was ready to buy my first car. The first six trips were downright off-putting. I ended up meeting most of the sales staff, but always felt derided, that I wasn’t worthy, or was simply a waste of time. Perhaps I didn’t look the part of a BMW customer, I don’t know. When I asked them specific questions about options, mechanicals or even electronics, they all gave me various and conflicting answers and could not confirm what I knew through my own research about the model I wanted. I had naively expected that they would know every nuance and detail of the cars they sold.
I persisted one last time with another visit. This time I met a new sales guy. He treated me like a human being, like an equal. He was honest, forthright, reliable and never pushy or prodding. It was such a breath of fresh air. He gained my trust and confidence. After a few more meetings with him and some test drives later, I placed an order for my car with him.
This guy made all the difference to me. Like me, he was passionate about cars, BMWs in particular, totally humble and human. He knew so much intricate detail about what he sold and told me flatly when he didn’t. We talked about children and our familes and in essence he became a friend to me. He has since moved on to another dealership for another manufacturer, and I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I would even consider that other manufacturer when looking for a new car in the future, just so that I could deal with him again.
There are those rare jems among the mass of undistinguished rocks that are worth seeking. Though the future in car retailing may be salespersonless, I’m not yet ready to give up on them yet.