How To Attract & Sell The Millennial Car Buyer – PART 8

How To Attract & Sell The Millennial Car Buyer (PART 8)

TRANSCRIPT: “All right, Steve, we got a lead from the 39%. Now what?”

Today’s connected customer already has all the information. We got a lead, I’m telling you right now, it’s an order. They are not looking for more information. Don’t fall for that. Remember the communication lessons from earlier, the five call types. We have one goal throughout. We got a lead from the 39%. They selected our car and our dealership from among the millions of cars for sale and the thousands of dealerships online. They said to us when they submitted that lead. They said, “Hey, your vehicle has value, and it’s relevant to me. Okay? Right now I’m looking for authenticity.” They need us to be authentic. They need us to help them buy our vehicle.

We have one goal throughout. Yes, we’ve got an e-lead now, and every step of our process has just one goal. Our one goal right now is to reconnect. Right? We got to get them on the phone. We got to go back and forth via email if that’s their choice, or we we’ve got to start texting or messaging them. Okay? Our one goal right now is to drive a reconnection, so everything we do is dedicated to that reconnection. Okay?

We’re not going to call and leave a voicemail that gives them all the information they need and says, “Come on down when you’re ready,” because they’re not going to call us back. We’re not going to get that reconnection. We need to treat every lead like it’s an order because it is. They ordered this car from us, so our goal is a reconnection. We need to be fast and we need to be first.

There’s a company called CraftJack. Their data shows that the dealer who responds first converts at a 238% higher rate. We also want to be persistent when we get these leads. Right? I have one goal, drive a reconnection. Because Velocify data shows us that it takes 6 attempts to reach 93% of prospects who are willing to reconnect with us. That’s what this data shows here. By the sixth call, I’ve reached 93% of the people who are willing to reconnect. Don’t over do this. Look at this data. After 9 calls, we’ve reached 97% of the people who are willing to reconnect. I’m telling you right now, there’s almost zero ROI in making more than 9 call attempts to a new lead.

I just saw an OEM’s process, their 2017 process recently. An OEM that spends a lot of money on digital. The process that they want their dealers to follow has phone calls on day 30, day 45, day 60 and day 90 after a lead came in. I’m telling you right now, and don’t tell me about that one time you sold that guy after you called him after 60 days.

These are people who haven’t reconnected with us, who if we’re following our process we probably made 10 or 15 calls to already. If you’re making a call on day 30, day 45, day 60 and especially day 90, to somebody who’s submitted a lead, you’re wasting your time. Yes, you’ll occasionally get one of them on the phone. Yes, you’ll occasionally be able to sell them, but work on the hot leads.

Work on the leads that are still within their first 9 calls. Work on the leads that are under 2 weeks old. Then let your CRM take over. It is a waste of time to make those calls I just described. It is a waste of time and there is no ROI in that. If you want to hire a third party company to make those calls, do it and pay them only on the sales that you make from those calls, because there’s no ROI for your team to be doing that.






All right, so since we know there’s almost zero ROI making more than 9 call attempts on a new lead, let’s make sure our processes are set up that way. Also we need our emails and our text messages to be read. Let’s stick to short, text only emails that focus on driving a phone call. Remember we have one goal right now, it’s reconnection. Also any text that we send should be TCPA compliant, of course.

“All right, we’ve reconnected, Steve. We got them on the phone. Now what do we do?”

There’s one goal. See, it’s not hard to do when you have the one goal strategy. We’ve got them on the phone or we’re emailing or texting each other. Our one goal is now an appointment that shows. That’s our only goal when we have a prospect on the phone or we’re conversing via text or email. One goal, an appointment that shows. It’s not a tennis match. We don’t need to let this be a tennis match. We have one strategy, one goal strategy, and that’s an appointment that shows.

They ask us something. They say, “Hey, I’m not coming in until you tell me what my trade is worth.” We can say something like, “Only a trained appraiser knows what your vehicle is work and it’d be irresponsible for a dealer to give you that information over the phone sight unseen. However, I do have two appraisal times open with our appraiser this morning. I’ve got a 9:45 and a 10:15. Which one of those works better for you?”

One goal, and that’s to drive an appointment that shows. That’s it. That’s my only goal. If I give them all of their trade information now, are they going to show up at the dealership? No, probably not.

I’m not being coy here. It is irresponsible for a dealer to give that information over the phone. Do you think Texas Direct will do that? DO you think CarMax will do that? No. They require you to be in store because they know they’re going to sell zero cars to people that they give all the information to on the phone.

Now I’m not going to go through all the talk tracks. There’s lots of free talk tracks available at SteveStauning.com. Overcoming objections on the phone, look for that series. It’s a pretty solid series if I do say so myself. The price is right, it’s 100% free.

When we’re talking about the 39 and 61%, I want you to know it’s an information balancing act. Understand this, online consumers are trying to eliminate you. There are too many choices out there. Right? They’re online and they want to narrow down their choices. Once they start calling people or once they start really narrowing down their choice if they’re part of that 61% that’s just going to show up, they’re trying to eliminate you.

You need to balance what you provide online across all your digital storefronts. That means your own websites and third party sites. If you give too much information, then the 39% may not connect. They may not even submit a lead if you give too much information out, but if you give no information, then you’re never going to get the 61% to walk in. It is a balancing act. By the way, where that line is, is changing almost every day.