How To Set & Sell Owner Marketing Appointments – PART 13

 

How To Set and Sell Owner Marketing Appointments – PART 13

TRANSCRIPT: So we’re at the fourth step of the perfect appointment. This is the SHOW. It’s called ‘in-store VIP treatment’. We want to meet and greet this customer like the true VIP they are.

If the managers have memorized all the details, imagine if at 5:10, a guy pulls up in the same color Grand Cherokee that Mr. Jones has. I’ll bet this is Mr. Jones. What if I walk out to him and say, “Hey, are you Mike Jones?” He says, “I am”. I say, “I’m Steve Stauning. I’m the sales manager here”, right? I shake his hand. I say, “I can’t wait to get a look at your Cherokee. Come on. Let’s go inside.”

Is that different than he’s treated today? Absolutely.

It’s not just different than how he’s treated on other dealership lots or your dealerships lot. It’s different than how he’s treated at Nordstroms or any other retailer, because they don’t know his name until he pulls out the plastic, do they? You just greeted and treated him by his name.

Now, hopefully, a manager can do that but if not, we’re going to take him inside to meet the manager. We’re not going to say, “Hey, let’s go inside and meet my manager.” We’re going to say, “Come on, let’s get your appraisal started”, right?

You’re going to take him to the desk. Be careful. I want you to understand one thing. Mr. Jones is going to do what all of these guys do. He will have his keys in his hand and he will say, “Here are my keys. It’s right out there. I’ve got ten minutes. Give me a price.”

If you take his keys and tell him you’ll have a price for him in only ten minutes you’ll never sell a car. You need to take his keys from him, say, “Thank you, Mr. Jones, but just so you know, it’s going to take us, at least, 45 minutes to do a proper appraisal on your car. Now, I don’t want to waste your time, so I have this brand new Grand Cherokee out here ready for you to test drive.” See, we’ve got to get him to catch new car fever and he’s not going to catch new car fever unless we get him in a new car, right?

So, be prepared. Be prepared for every one of these guys to come in with their keys and say, “It’s right out there. I’ve got ten minutes.” Have the discipline to take those keys and say, “No, problem, Mr. Jones, but just so you know, it’s going to take us 45 minutes, at least, to do a proper appraisal on your vehicle to make sure you get all the money we can give you on it. In the meantime, so I’m not wasting your time, why don’t we go ahead and test drive this brand new Grand Cherokee right over here?”

Now, it’s important for your manager to have a ‘done deal’ attitude. We want to treat every appointment like it’s a delivery. We want to treat it like we’ve already bought his vehicle and he’s already bought ours. So, anything we say should be a trial close. When you take him to the desk and the manager holds up the VIP folder and before he hands it to you says, “Okay, so you already know Steve. He’s our product specialist on the new Cherokees. Now, while you’re test driving that Cherokee, we’re going to go ahead and get your appraisal done on your Cherokee, and, if everything works out, when you come back from your test drive, we’ll go ahead and do the numbers.”

See, that’s a trial close. I just did an assumptive close by saying, “When you come back from your test drive we’ll do the numbers”. It’s important, though, that the appraisal gets done during the test drive because he’s going to be at his highest point the minute he comes back from that test drive. So, imagine, when he gets back from his test drive, I’ve got the numbers to present. I’ve got a bottle of water for him and I’ve got the numbers on his vehicle and I’ve got the numbers on our vehicle. I’ve got the whole deal done. All he has to do is sign.

It will absolutely shock you, as long as you’ve given a fair pencil, how many people sign and take first pencil in this case.

It’s called the perfect appointment for a reason. Don’t shortcut it. You can’t say, “Hey, Steve, I like parts of this but I’m going to do this differently.” It’s the perfect appointment. Please follow all four steps. You will be shocked. You will close at 80+%. You’ll have better than an 80% show rate.

I guarantee it.