How To Sell Cars Online or Offline (PART 17)

How To Sell Cars Online or Offline (PART 17)

TRANSCRIPT: We talked about people being surprisingly honest with their trade. If you’ve got Kelley Blue Book instant cash offer. If you’re an instant-cash-offer dealer, you know 95 or more percent of the people who show up with their vehicles, they’re very honest with their vehicle. Most times, they’re too honest. They tell you it’s a piece of junk when it’s actually pretty good. People aren’t choosing excellent all the time. Don’t be afraid of this. We can actually do this deal 100% online. They’re going to be very, very honest here but you have to keep mental ownership. This is the problem with a lot of the tools that are out there. Whichever part you chose, they’re going to need to be like AutoFi and insure the customer maintains mental ownership in every step of the process.

“What do you mean mental ownership?” Let’s talk about it. Think about this and think about Amazon. Is there any time in Amazon’s process when it’s not mine, in my head? Is there any time that it’s not mine? No, it’s mine all the way through. Yeah, it’s in the shopping cart. I can take it out if I want but it’s not like I’ve got to qualify for something or someone’s going to come in and take it away from me or any of that. It’s mine. That’s mental ownership. Toys like payment calculators, they seem more what if rather than I’m buying to consumers.

Whatever tool you use, it has to be like AutoFi and give them mental ownership throughout the process. It has to be a buying process online. Again, it can’t be what ifs. “Oh, let’s pay with this payment calculator. Let’s estimate our credit. Oh, let’s add 100 points to that! Oh, let’s take 100 points away! What happens to our payment?” No. it’s got to be I’m buying. They’ve got to have in their head this mental ownership I’m buying. We have to reduce the friction.

Simplicity is one thing but if you expect your prospects to complete a purchase totally online, you also have to remove any points of friction like a long-form credit application. Moreover and this is what we’ve talked about, them connecting with their own bank. If you allow them to connect with their current bank on your website, think about the trust that that builds. That’s immediate trust and confidence. I’m on your website and rather than filling out a credit app, it says I can sign in using my bank account.

Think about how insanely easy this is. This is today. This is happening on dealership websites today. “Would you like to sign in using your bank?” That’s what it asks. We’ll use the data from your bank to pre-fill your finance application, verify your income and verify your address. Holy cow! It’s fast. It’s easy. It’s in order. It makes sense. This is all the things we said a great buying experience requires. This is what the old online shopping carts didn’t have. They couldn’t do this. This is why they always fail today but there’s still something missing here. I want to be clear. This is not perfect. I want to be clear. There’s something missing.

We’ve got about a minute and a half delay, so I’m not going to wait for you to guess. No. I’ll wait. No, I’m not. I’m kidding. Go ahead and guess amongst yourself what’s missing. You know what’s missing in here? What’s missing is a customer grinding you for all your profit. That’s why the grosses are higher. The front-end grosses are higher because they’re taking your price. They’ve done their research. These are the people that would have walked in to your dealership and your team would have closed them at 20%. These people are willing to buy from you because they know that your price is competitive. Yes. The early data shows that for those who buy online, they pay more than for those who show up at your dealership. It’s happening.

When we can do this now, now it all comes down to terms, doesn’t it? It’s just called self-desking, the online version.