Mike Stoner
Helping others Make it Rain since 1996
(206) 715-8662
The Shopper Stopper
All the right tools & training to increase both
your volume and your gross
In Just Minutes a Day!
Your Competitors Are Making It Easy For You
Your competition in almost every instance has a disposable mentality when it comes to prospects and customers. It sucks for the customer but from our viewpoint it’s great for us.
Why? Because they probably still work old-school sales processes (many like to call themselves “old school”) and if we do just a little bit better we will completely dominate our market area. It’s not hard to exceed customer expectations when the expectations are already negative.
Comprehensive process videos here.
Increasing the price you get is worth working on.
The greatest thing affecting your bottom line is PRICE. Think about that. If volume and the cost of getting customers remained constant and you were simply able to get a higher price your bottom line would increase instantly.
Factors that determine price:
- The Tangible Value – The Actual Car or Truck
- The Intangible Value – Created Largely By You
So Tangible Value + Intangible Value = Total PERCEIVED Value
The PROFIT is in the intangible value. You can represent any automotive product in the market and you can increase the Total PERCEIVED Value by boosting the Intangible Value you bring to the product.
It is the Intangible Value that customers pay extra for. Increase the Intangible Value and you can sell for more, without effecting volume negatively. In fact there will be a positive impact on volume. You’ll sell more of them for higher prices. That’s a MAJOR breakthrough.
Nothing else affects the Intangible Value of the cars and trucks you sell as much as your sales process does. Intangible Value is built primarily through your selling process. It’s in the approach to selling that value is built.
A “salesy”, high pressure process has been universally rejected and a buyer subjected to one seldom buys from that seller, let alone a second time and never a third.
Everything you do and say, if done and said in the right way with the right attitude will work in your favor and build that Intangible Value.
The 3 Ways to Increase Profits:
- Optimize Your Sales Process to Sell More Units
- Increase Your Price
- Optimize Process AND Increase Price – The Biggest Bottom Line Booster
Our profit is proportional to the goodwill and trust we have with our customers and prospects.
Only 2 Reasons They Won’t Buy From You
- They don’t want it or you don’t have what they do want. If they don’t want it there’s not much you can do about that. If you can’t get what they want by dealer trading or ordering that’s also something you can’t do much about.
- They don’t trust you. Many times there is a level of distrust right from the start on the part of our customers. It can be a real chore or sometimes even impossible to overcome this. However, everything you do and say, if done and said in the right way with the right attitude will help you build trust.
While there are no Magic Words, the words we use can work magic and turn a price shopper into a high profit buyer.
Comprehensive process videos here.
A process engineered to maximize sales volume and profits consists of the same steps as any other process.
When building a home the better quality of materials (tangible) and craftsmanship (intangible) exhibited the higher the value is perceived to be. This holds true in a sales process also.
A bottom line boosting sales process will differentiate your dealership from others. What is said and done at key moments in the process are the things that will set you apart.
The Meet and Greet
Lee Iacocca said “The future of the automobile business will be decided upon at the point of contact”.
The sales great, Elmer Wheeler, who coined the phrase, “Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle” also said “Your first ten words are more important than your next ten thousand”. This statement by Elmer Wheeler has been quoted through the years by many other sales greats, including Jackie B. Cooper. It’s what Mr. Iacocca meant by his statement I quoted above.
Craft a greeting that isn’t the typical “How can I help you” or “Welcome to the dealership, my name is Mike and yours is”?
The greeting we use in our client stores is “Welcome to the dealership. What can I get you a price on today”? It addresses the issue at the forefront of their minds and sets us apart from virtually every other salesperson they’re going to run into.
Comprehensive process videos here.
The Trade In
I’m a salesman. Chances are, you’re a salesperson too and that’s why you’re reading this. Being a salesman I’m familiar with the fact that we have a tendency to talk too much. A substantial percentage of salespeople do.
In Dale Carnegies 1937 book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” he says the more people talk, the more they like the people they’re talking to.
Our sales and profit boosting process closely integrates the Trade Evaluation with The Meet and Greet.
People are comfortable in three places. At home, work and in their car. Getting the customer to their car helps to put them at ease. It also helps to get them started talking. We put them in the position of being a sales person and like many sales people THEY will talk too much.
Like Dale Carnegie said, the more people talk, the more they like the people they’re talking to and in this scenario they’re talking to us.
Moving the trade evaluation to early in the process and involving the customer in the sale of their car will absolutely boost the Intangible Value of your proposition.
Comprehensive process videos here.
Selection and Demonstration
“Don’t Ask If, Ask Which”- Elmer Wheeler (go ahead and google him).
Always give your customer a choice between something and something and never between something and nothing.
Utilizing this technique to offer choices assists the customer to focus in on what it is that really fills their wants and needs. Giving them choices can also help to determine if we are landed on the right car and the level of commitment to the car without asking a pressure laden commitment question.
In addition choices made can greatly assist in the negotiation of the price and the closing of the sale for a higher price. The choices they make can set up some very potent but simple negotiation techniques as well.
Comprehensive process videos here.
Use it in Negotiating and Closing too.
Our client stores utilize the copyrighted The Shopper Stopper sales presentation. The negotiation is a totally transparent presentation meaning that in every new car negotiation we disclose the invoice total as the starting point and if on a used car we disclose the wholesale value as the starting point.
This technique is counter-intuitive to the salesperson and the managers but is exactly what the customer wants. This works to the advantage of our clients because it further differentiates them from every other dealer in their market.
If we are unable to close the deal the release makes it very difficult for other dealers to make a deal, yet preserves our ability to make gross when they come back and they do. IF and that is a big if, the customer shops they become frustrated with the other dealer because they typically have a hard time getting a price without giving a commitment first.
An NADA survey of non-buying customers asking why they didn’t buy revealed they left for one of two reasons. Either the dealer didn’t have the car they wanted OR because the salesperson mishandled them (they didn't like you). My personal belief is that the “mishandling” comes primarily from a failure to address the price question on the lot in a satisfactory way.
Working from wholesale or invoice on every deal allows us to answer the price question when it comes up on the lot and the answer is satisfactory to most all without giving a price.
Don’t be “just another car salesman”. Differentiate yourself. You’ll increase your Intangible Value which in turn increases your demand and ability to charge more.
Call me. I'll help you make it rain.
Mike Stoner
(206) 715-8662