How To Attract & Sell The Millennial Car Buyer – PART 20

How To Attract & Sell The Millennial Car Buyer (PART 20)

TRANSCRIPT: When we talk about your road to the sale. It’s important to know that three plus hours, that is unrealistic. Slower is not better. Your customers don’t like it okay. Today’s up has spent over 19 hours looking at information online. They’ve seen more than 24 different sources of information. They showed up at your lot ready to buy. They came here for step six, didn’t they? The demo drive, but what did your team do as soon as they arrived?

We took them right back to square one. Okay. Right back to step one. That’s why you’re blowing them out. That’s why you’re closing only one out of five traditional ups. They hate your road to the sale.

AutoTrader.com tells us that less than one half of 1% like the current car buying process. Why? It’s long. It’s clunky. It has unnecessary steps. Also, they tell us 73% of people will drive farther for a great sales person versus 65% who will drive farther for the lowest price.

Finally, two thirds of consumers are more likely to buy from dealerships that offer a preferred buying experience. Moreover, 80% of your ups, they don’t buy from you if you’re running a traditional road to the sale. I know you probably want to disagree with me on this because you’re showing a higher percentage of ups at your closing but that’s because your sales people aren’t putting all of the ups in the CRM. We know that, don’t we?

Our studies prove that four out of five ups leave your dealership without buying. You’re only closing one out of five if you’re an average dealership running a typical road to the sale. Now if four out of five people are leaving your lot and we know buyers visit just 1.6 lots on average before buying, what is our road to the sale doing to them today? Okay.

Did our road to the sale, the experience that we gave them, did it encourage them to buy somewhere else at the next place or did it encourage them to hold off completely right now? Push them three months out, six months out because we took them back to square one. They found value. They found relevancy. They came to you for authenticity. They came to buy the vehicle and your silly road to the sale blew them out, didn’t it?





It’s back to creating a better buying experience to become known for this experience. This means you need to move to a road to the sale that’s simple, that’s seamless, that’s transparent and fun. Remember the four things that consumers want in your process. Simple, seamless, transparent, and fun. It’s one where we take charge. It’s a process where we take charge and we guide them through the entire thing. Instead of a road to sale let’s call it a buying process. Okay.

Why should we do a buying process? Hey, make no mistake. They hate your current process. They really do. They’ve already completed a lot of things. Let’s look at what they’ve already completed before they ever showed up. Everyone’s done a needs analysis. That’s why it’s a buying process. Everyone’s completed their product selection before they ever got to your lot. Everybody knows the car’s features. Everybody is ready to test drive. Everything you do should be a trial close because of this. We’re going to assume everyone starts the paperwork and we’re going to assume that everyone is a qualified buyer.

Everyone is a buyer. Why? We know buyers only visit 1.6 lots on average before they buy. If they’re not a buyer here, they’re going to buy from our neighbor. We have to treat everybody like a buyer. We need to assume they’re here for a delivery.

When we talk about assuming someone is here to buy this is a new form of what you may have heard called assumptive selling. Assumptive selling in the past focused on making the customer take ownership, right.

Assumptive selling went something like this, “And Bob how will you be titling your Mustang?” Okay. That’s how you do assumptive selling. It makes the customer take ownership in their mind. It’s old school, but still do it. You should be doing that kind of assumptive selling. “Hey Bob, how will you be titling your Mustang?” That’s assumptive selling.

You also have to assume the sale right as the salesperson I have to assume they’re buying. I need to treat them like they’ve already bought. It’s just a formality now that they’re here to test drive and doing all these other things like paperwork.

Here’s what you’re doing right now. Your salespeople are assuming that four out of five are not buyers. You know why? That’ their experience. Let’s start assuming that five out of five are buyers and you’ll be shocked at how many close. A buying process should start with their first interaction with us. This means that all this stuff we do offline right, the messaging and our marketing and our reputation. Everything that we do offline, that offline messaging.

Anything we do online, right, that should all be. They haven’t interacted with us, but it’s what they saw.

They saw that we’re easy. We’re doing all these things right. That we’re simple. All these things that CARite claims to do, we do. We take people right through the process, but then we also need when they start interacting with us like lead response. When they submit a lead and we’re responding to them we need to provide authenticity. We need to have a process. We need to take charge. We need to be direct. We need to guide them. In our lead response, when we do it on the phone or when we’re on the lot we still need those same things. Authenticity and process where we take charge, we’re direct and we guide them.

What’s our buying process look like? Listen, it’s a one goal strategy which is the next step. It’s a natural progression. It’s a closing process if you will. We’re going to speak human. We’re going to have a conversation with people. When we take them through our buying process. We’re going to talk as if we’re selling to a friend because we’re going to provide authenticity.

Let me give you the opposite of authenticity just so you know what I’m talking about. Somebody steps on our lot and we ask them what vehicles they’re here to see and they say, “Hey, we’re here to see this used minivan that you’ve got on AutoTrader. Is it still in stock?” Authenticity is, “It absolutely is. Let me get your driver’s license. Let’s go ahead and scan it so you can take it out on a test drive.” That’s what you would talk to a friend about.





What is your team saying today? Your team is still trying to do needs analysis. Your team is saying things like, “Is it just minivans you’re looking at or you also looking at midsize SUVs?” That’s inauthentic and you have now taken me from the potential that I am going to buy to ensuring that I am now at be back for you because I’m leaving. Okay.

By the way, efficiency is key in our buying process. If you remember from the earlier parts today’s connected customer wants speed and they want quality without attitude. That will equal money in your pocket.

Now if you have an appointment culture in place, if you learn the appointment culture from my other training ,you don’t need to ask the sales questions do you? You’re not asking those silly road to the sale questions like is it just minivans you’re looking at or are you also looking at midsize SUVs? Plus if we assume the sale those road to the sale steps, by the way, can all be completed concurrently.