How To Attract & Sell More Trade-In Leads (PART 14)

How To Attract & Sell More Trade-In Leads (PART 14)

TRANSCRIPT: Why a special process? Why not just treat trade customers like every traditional up? Here’s the reason. The average dealer who gets a trade customer to show up for an appointment closes them about 30% of the time. It doesn’t matter if it’s Instant Cash Offer, websites, whatever. Wherever the lead came from, the average dealer who gets a trade lead to show up for an appointment close them about 30% of the time. Dealers who follow the perfect appointment on their trade leads, and I’m going to teach you the perfect appointment for trade in just a minute, the dealers who follow the perfect appointment close these trade leads at 80%. That 80% who showed, that’s 4 out of 5 that they’re closing.

Now, there are 4 steps to the perfect appointment. The first step is called Strong Appointment Setting, but the goal is an appointment that shows, and this takes discipline, okay? I say to the customer, “Hey, I’ve got 2 appraisal times open this afternoon. I’ve got a 5:15, 5:45. Which one works better for you? She comes back and says, “Heck! I don’t know what time I can be there. How late y’all open?” It takes discipline to say, “Well, we’re open until 9, but our last appraisal time on Camrys is for 6:45. Now, I’ve got a 6:15 and a 6:45. Which one works better for you?”

See, it takes discipline to tell them what to do. All appointments should be set for today or tomorrow only, and that takes discipline. Remember our owner marketing customer, right? We called them on Monday. He said, “Oh, I can’t wait to sell my Tundra. I’ll be in on Saturday.” We need to have discipline, have the guts to say, “Oh, that’s okay, Mr. Jones. We actually have 10 more Tundra owners on my list to call today. If I can’t get one of those owners to sell me their truck today or tomorrow, I’ll go ahead and give you a call Friday. We’ll schedule that Saturday appointment.” That will get you an appointment for today or tomorrow for Mr. Jones or at the very least, we’ve tamped down his new car fever until Friday.

All appointments to be a firm appointment require 3 things. They require a specific date and time. Tonight before 9 is not a specific date and time. It’s a specific date, but it’s not a specific time. Tonight 8:15, that’s a specific date and time. It requires a specific goal. See, the customer needs to know why they’re coming in, “We’ve got a buyer and immediate need. We’re going to give you an appraisal for your vehicle.”

I have seen people do equity marketing and equity mining, and make phone calls to people, and just tell the customer that, “My manager needs to see you.” They were calling yesterday’s service customers and saying, “Hey, my manager needs to see you right away,” and they were getting paid for an appointment. They were cheating the system. There was no specific goal. We need a specific goal. He needs to know that we’re going to appraise his 2012 Tundra when he gets here.

We need to get that prospect in order for it to be a strong appointment to make a mental and verbal commitment to the appointment. A verbal commitment is, “Yes, I’ll be there,” but the mental commitment is when they know all of the things we’re going to do to get ready for the appointment. We do that by recapping the appointment. I offered Mrs. Jones a 5:15 or 5:45. She agrees to come in tonight at 5:15 to let us appraise her Camry, all right? If I turn into a typical salesperson and I say, “Oh, that’s okay. We’ll see you at 5:15. Be sure to ask for me.” She says. We had a verbal commitment. We got no mental commitment.

Here’s how you get the mental commitment from her. I say to her, “Great, Mrs. Jones. Just to recap, we’re going to see you tonight at 5:15, where we’re going to give you a firm written appraisal on your 2012 Camry. Now, we’re going to make sure that our appraiser is ready and able to help you right away at 5:15, so we get you in and out just as quickly as possible, but if anything happens to our appraiser, we’re going to be sure and call you well in advance, so you don’t waste your trip down here, and all I would ask from you is that you show me the same courtesy. Can I count on you for today at 5:15?” When she says, “Yes,” that’s not just the verbal commitment, that’s the mental commitment because she knows all of the things we’re going to do to get ready for the appointment.

All right. Step 2 in the perfect appointment is the appropriate appointment confirmation. Again, the goal is an appointment that shows. Your manager should be the one that makes the confirmation call. Don’t spam. Use your gut. Managers only make one call. If you get voicemail, leave a strong voicemail because all of your appointments are set for today or tomorrow only. You shouldn’t have to make 20 appointment confirmation calls. You make one, about 4 business hours before the customer arrives. We want to make sure that if Barbara Jones is scheduled to see us at 5:15 tonight and it’s 5:15 and she’s not here yet, we’re going to call these no shows at the scheduled appointment time. You have to do this. This is part of the confirmation process.

I don’t want the manager making that no show call. That no show call should go back to the person who set the appointment. The call is simply this, right? We pick up the phone and we say, “Hey, Barbara. It’s Steve Stauning calling from Steve’s Honda. I just want to make sure you’re able to find our facility,” right? It’s 5:15. She couldn’t find our facility yet. The reason I’m going to make the call at the scheduled time is because I want to sell a car. See, maybe she was early. Maybe we work on a motor mile. Maybe she got here early, and I called her and she said, “Oh, yeah. I was early, so I went over to the Toyota dealer across the street, and they’re doing an appraisal right now.”

See, I got to stop this. I got to stop this before she gets in the box. I got to remind her that she gave us the opportunity to give a firm written appraisal on her vehicle, and I’ve got to get her to come back across the street.

All right. Third step of the perfect appointment is pre-appointment preparation. This is what we’re going to get a vehicle, right? If it’s not an Instant Cash Offer, just buy outright vehicle. Someone who either gave us a vehicle of interest or an equity mining customer, we’re going to get a vehicle cleaned, gassed and parked in a designated area at least 30 to 45 minutes before they arrive because we want them to catch new car fever when they get here.

We’re going to have it in a designated area because we don’t want to take someone into … Some of you might have 50 Camrys on your lot. We don’t want to take a Camry buyer into Camry land because their head will start swimming. They won’t know what they want. We’re going to pick out a couple of Camrys for them. We’re going to park them in a designated area. We’re also going to get a deal jacket created with VIP in large letters. By the way, the designated area where we park those vehicles, you see they’re sold vehicles only. We’re going to do a deal jacket. Even for the trade customer, we’re going to do a deal jacket.

Don’t overthink this. We’re going to have VIP in really large letters. We’re going to have the customer’s name on there. We’re going to have our logo, and that’s it. This is for them, not for you. I don’t care what’s inside this Manila folder. I do care that it’s in color. People will believe that they’re a VIP when you show them this, and you treat them like a VIP when they’re there.

Now, I want you to memorize as many of the details as possible before they get there, especially as a manager because then you can do the in-store VIP treatment. This is where they’re greeted and treated like a VIP, preferably by a manager. Wouldn’t it be great if you knew Barbara Jones was coming in. She’s got a 2012 Camry. She’s coming in at 5:15. A woman pulls up at 5:10 in a Camry. Wouldn’t it be great as a manager to walk out to her, open her door and say, “Are you Barbara Jones?” She says, “I am.” You say, “I’m Steve Stauning. I’m the sales manager here. Gosh! We’re glad you’re here. Come on, let’s go get your firm offer for that Camry.”

I can treat her like a VIP. I can treat her differently than she’s treated today anywhere else. She’s not treated that well. She’s not treated that well at Nordstrom’s. Believe it or not. See, Nordstrom’s doesn’t know her name until she pulls out the plastic, but I just greeted her like a VIP by her own name. I don’t want to ask her any road to the sale questions. I don’t want to know why she’s trading. I don’t want to know any color she wouldn’t consider, if she’s going to use the new Camry for business or pleasure, none of that.

I’m going to have a done deal attitude throughout, okay? I’m going to assume the sale every step of the way. That’s the in-store VIP treatment. I’m not going to take her down a traditional road to the sale. I’m going to walk through a closing process.

Now, we’re going to do some Q&A in a minute. Just so you know, because we have a 3-minute delay, I’ll stick around, and we’ll wait for questions that may come in afterwards, but I promised to tell you where you could find my 2017 trade-in lead process, and there it is on undeniableadvantage.com. It’s got all my e-mail templates, all my voicemail scripts. You just need to go to undeniableadvantage.com. Go to Recommended. Go all the way down to where it says, “Trade-In Leads”. Click on that link, then scroll to the bottom of that page. Click the Download My 2017 Trade-In Leads. Oh, by the way, you don’t have to give us your information or anything. That’s a link that goes straight to the PDF. You can just download it. I won’t even know who you are. I’m not going to hassle you. I’m not going to do anything. Go there and get my stuff.

Now, these are all the voicemail and e-mail templates you need to drive a connection, okay? This is the trade-in lead handling process. I got a trade-in lead. This is the handling process for that, for those leads. Now, this is yours to use for your dealership. This is not for sharing outside of your dealership. If somebody’s interested in this process, send them a link to that page, okay? Send them to my page. They can scroll to the bottom just like you did. They can do that horrible, terrible thing and click Download Steve Stauning’s 2017 Trade-In Process.