The Perfect Appointment – PART 11

The Perfect Appointment (PART 11)

TRANSCRIPT:

All right. Time for step four of the perfect appointment. That’s in store VIP treatment. That’s where we’re greeted and treated like a VIP by a manager, and if a manager can’t greet and treat them like a VIP right away, the turnover is immediate. That’s why we put the folder at the desk with the keys, so that we can take them over there.

This is what they expect. The guy on the right is what they expect when they pull up to your dealership. We’re going to give them the girl on the left. Okay? We’re going to give them the person that they just didn’t expect to see. We’re going to have this manager. She’s going to come out from behind the desk. She’s going to see this Barbara Jones pulling up in a 2004 Ford Focus. Right? That we know she’s going to trade. She’s going to walk up to her, she’s going to open up the door. She’s going to say, “Are you Barbara Jones?” She’s going to say, “Yes, I am.” She’s going to say, “Hey, great. I’m Marian. You’re just going to absolutely love the new Taurus. Come on. Let’s go get your keys.” Right?

She’s going to take her right in. She greeted her by her name. She’s going to treat her like a VIP. She’s not going to ask any road to the sale questions. She doesn’t care why Barbara wants the Taurus. Let’s say Barbara’s coming out of a big F150 or something, and going down into a Yaris, or … she doesn’t care what changed in Barbara’s life. No road to the sale questions. Barbara’s already been through all those on her own.

We’re going to have a done deal attitude. Anything we say is going to be a trial close like, let’s go get the keys to your new Taurus. That’s a trial close. Another trial close is when we hand the keys and the folder off to our product specialist.






We’re going to say to Barbara, this is Bob, he’s our product specialist on the Taurus. He’s going to take you out on your test drive. When you get back if you like the vehicle, we’ll go ahead and do the numbers. Another trial close. She knows from what I just said that when she gets back from the test drive that we’re going to do the numbers.

See, we’re going to treat every appointment like it’s a delivery. This is critical. You have to do the vehicle appraisal during the test drive. This is you Mr. Manager, Ms. Manager, you’ve got to get their trade number during the test drive. Now, this may mean that your sales person goes outside with a tablet. Takes the customer with them, does the trade walk where they down sell the trade properly. It gets the information about their trade, and maybe even shows them MMR or whole sale black book. Shows the customer some lousy number for the trade. Says, don’t worry. That’s just my computer. My manager’s going to look at it while we’re on the test drive.

Then once we’re on the test drive, the manager does need to value that trade to get a firm number on it. A good number and a firm number. Because what we want to have happen is when they get back from the test drive. Within minutes of getting back from the test drive, we want to hand them a bottle of water and the full deal. We want to give them the write up. Doesn’t matter what you’re using. You can use a four square. Whatever uses, doesn’t matter. Hopefully it’s on a tablet.

The numbers in what we give them are going to support everything that we’ve talked about so far. Now, the done deal attitude, let me tell you what this means. It means we’re going to treat everyone like they’ve already done a means analysis. We’re going to treat everyone as if they’ve completed their product selection. We’re going to treat everyone as if they know the car’s features. We’re going to believe that everyone’s ready for a test drive, because everybody’s already a qualified buyer.

Everything that we do is naturally a trial close. If we were talking to someone who actually ordered the car online and already paid for it. We would talk to them in terms that they already own the car. That’s how we’re going to treat them during the fourth step of the perfect appointment. Everybody’s going to start the paperwork.






To get 80% close rate of appointments that show. You got to get 100% write up. If you don’t get 100% write up, you’re not going to get an 80% close rate. It’s as simple as that.

Now when I talk about keeping them engaged, I want you to understand it’s not just making the time go quicker. We want to keep the VIP customer with the sales person the entire time. Okay? That means bringing them outside to gather information about the trade before the test drive. Okay? Never leaving them alone. Like I said, maybe we have a tablet, and they help us with everything. That makes the time go quicker. Makes it shorter. Also, here’s the deal. It keeps them from shopping you elsewhere.

See this number 82%. Google says that 82% of their consumers use their smartphone as an in store purchase assistant. What does that mean? That means they’re shopping you. You leave them alone at the table while you go talk to the manager at the desk for two or three minutes. Guess what? Within two or three minutes, they now know what your neighboring dealers have on their lot. They’re going to tell you, you know what? We’re going to head to lunch real quick. We’ll be right back. They’re not going to lunch. They’re going to look at your competitor. Keep them engaged the entire time.

All right. In order to do the perfect appointment, that fourth step, that in store VIP treatment has to be controlled. That means we need to pull them through our process. That has to make sense, that whole process. See, they’re buying a car, not donating a kidney. Take them through a process that makes sense. Stop treating them like a suspect. Make sure it’s efficient. Okay?

I know in the old school days that we wanted to slow people down, because slower was better. Slower is not better today. If you want to close at 80%, do it in 60 minutes or less.

Also, it’s a buying process. The perfect appointment is a buying process, it’s not a selling process. They don’t feel sold. They feel like they bought the vehicle when we do the fourth step of the perfect appointment, in store VIP treatment properly. We need to assume the sale. We need to have a done deal attitude throughout as if they’ve already bought the vehicle. Remember, it’s called the perfect appointment for a reason.

If you want to freelance before your appointments are showing and closing at 80%, go ahead. Okay? Just pick where you want to be on this chart. Okay? You want to treat them like a traditional up, right? You want to try to flip them into something else. You want to handwrite the VIP folder, or let’s not do the VIP folder. I don’t want the keys at the desk. I want don’t want some customer coming to bother me. I want Bob to keep the keys. That’s his customer. Okay? Every step that you cheat, short cut, or short change makes your VIP feel more like a traditional up. You’re going to sell fewer cars. If you are not closing at 80%, you are short cutting that fourth step or that third step of the perfect appointment.

The choice is yours.

I hope today was valuable. Don’t just look at today’s video, the perfect appointment, which is an updated version of the appointment culture. There’s more information in the appointment culture. Go back to SteveStauning.com, and go back through all of the older videos around the appointment culture. Much of it hasn’t changed. In fact, most of it hasn’t changed. What I showed you today really is what a lot of dealers are doing that are simply not helping them sell any more cars.