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STORYTAILER LLC
CHAPEL HILL

Don’t Get Kicked Out! (Building Relationships vs. Selling Cars on Facebook)

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The second dealership I worked at was a brand-new dealership. I mean it literally had no cars on the lot when I first started. There wasn’t a lot of foot traffic. There weren’t previous customers to follow-up with. We worked from an “up” list so there were many moments of down-time where you didn’t have much to do. We could go the whole day and only see 1 customer at that time. At this time, I wasn’t in the Internet Department. I was just a salesperson “on-the-line”.

I took that time to look at message boards that were geared towards enthusiasts of my manufacturer. I found one that was particularly active and started participating. They welcomed dealer/salesperson participation with one simple caveat – they did not want you to try and sell them anything. The salespeople that did anyways, got kicked off the boards. I participated vigorously answering any and all questions people asked with complete transparency. If I didn’t know the answer, I found it. If it involved a different department, I got them involved. After doing this for awhile, I truly became a “member” of that community. People appreciated the interaction and that I didn’t try to sell them anything. They knew I sold cars and that, ultimately, I wanted to sell them a car, but I didn’t try.

By behaving in this way, I was rewarded by many of the forum members buying vehicles from me. Customers were flying to me to buy cars. I was shipping cars all over the country. People were referring other people to me. If someone went onto this forum asking other members where they should buy a car, I didn’t have to say anything. The other members did it for me.

I wasn’t giving the cars away either, I was selling them at MSRP! People were flying in to buy FROM ME at STICKER PRICE (and no, I wasn’t paying for their transportation either). Here’s the forum and a sample thread:

Fresh Alloy forum: Arnold Tijerina at Riverside Infiniti is THE MAN !

(There are more posts like this. Feel free to search around the forum.)

The point of this story is that I took the time to build relationships with these consumers online without trying to sell them anything, was still being profitable for the dealership and making money for myself.

Dealers have many other avenues in which to continue their traditional advertising and capture business – print ads, 3rd party leads, websites, direct mail, email campaigns, and more.

Social media is presenting dealers with an opportunity that either didn’t exist or I didn’t know about back then. (This was in 2003). Dealers have the ability to interact with consumers in a forum THEY control. The message board I was dealing with wasn’t under my control, I was a passive participant until a question was asked.

I’ve seen many dealers start to create Fan Pages. Some I think are doing it right. These dealers seek engagement and to put a personality to the dealership. A great example, in my opinion, is the Walser Automotive Group. Here’s their Fan Page. They’re trying to build relationships on Facebook.

I’ve also seen dealers on the other end of the spectrum who are basically mimicking their traditional online and print ads on their Facebook Fan Pages as much as possible. They’re trying to sell cars on Facebook.

You can take this opportunity to create relationships with the knowledge that the business will come in the future from the evangelists you created…..

or you can try to sell some cars and get kicked off the message boards.

You decide.

I Do Not Like Them, Spam I Am

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I just finished reading “Linchpin” by Seth Godin and I must admit that some of the things he says in the book were very thought-provoking.

One concept stood out immediately.

From Page 192:

“Just because his boss demands that he act like human spam doesn’t mean he has an obligation to listen. In fact, he has an obligation to do just the opposite. To stand out, not fit in. To make connections, not to be an invisible cog. To do otherwise is a loss.”

The concept that stood out to me within that paragraph was “human spam”.

We all deal with spam. In fact, some of us in the automotive industry create a lot of it.

We have pop-up ads on our websites, GoogleAds, email marketing campaigns, direct mail marketing campaigns, print ads, billboards, fliers and social media marketing campaigns. We send out our message in every way possible in the hopes that some of those broadcasts will bring us some business.

The definition of spam is “the abuse of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately.” (Link)

So what would the definition of “human spam” be?

I put forth that human spam could be defined as follows: the abuse of social interactions (including via phone, or in person) to send messages indiscriminately.”

Examples:

The salesperson who has so irritated a customer with the quantity of his follow-up calls that they have called in to complain.

The BDC employee reading a script to your customers whether on an incoming call or an outgoing call to anybody.

The salesperson burning ups on your lot because he’s pre-qualifying customers, judging them, or determining that they aren’t “now” buyers then lot-dropping them.

I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t seek out our customers. I’m not arguing that a BDC is a bad idea. I’m not necessarily arguing that scripts aren’t a bad teaching tool. I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t follow-up with customers.

What I’m saying is that all of your employees should have proper training and be empowered to handle customers as it seems appropriate and per the customers wishes. We are in a service business, you need employees that have good people skills.

If that means that they need to deviate from the script with this particular customer, let them. If that means that the salesperson can make a judgment call as to how often (if at all) this particular customer should be called or followed up with, let them.

If you don’t have the confidence in the people you hired to make these basic decisions… why did you hire them in the first place?

If you answered, “because they were cheap” or “because they were a warm body”, then you’re wrong. That person acting as “human spam” on your behalf and at your direction is costing you more money in lost business than they are in captured business.

“Good people skills” is a hard trait to quantify but I guarantee you that you know it when you see it. That coffeehouse clerk who always has a smile for you. The customer service rep that you’re talking to on the phone ready to scream at about some issue they didn’t even create who magically calms you down. They have good people skills.

When you first meet someone, how do they make you feel? Chances are that’s also how they’ll make your customers feel.

If the human interactions your employees are having with your customers are only transactional and not genuine, emotional and tailored specifically to that particular customer, then they are human spam.

It’s not about the quantity of the message, but the quality. The better quality your message, the more successful it will be.

Interact with people how they want to be interacted with. Be respectful of their feelings and wishes. Treat them all with respect (not just the ones with good credit).

I had a unique experience when I first started with my current company. I’m a remote employee so there isn’t much interaction with the the other remote employees or the employees at our corporate offices. After about a month (or so) of working, I got an e-mail from a fellow employee that said this:

“Arnold,

 I think I know you.  I think I bought my Infiniti G35 from you. “

I sold 378 cars the year this person bought a car from me. Who knows how many actual interactions it took me to accomplish that. That year was a windstorm of 18 hour days and 28 day months. That was also seven years ago. To have this person remember me after that much time, only by name, was a great compliment in my eyes. It means that the interaction I had with him was genuine and emotional, not merely transactional.

Make every interaction count.

Be human. Not spam.


How Do You Sell Your Bottled Water?

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It’s easy to sell your bottled water if you have the only
bottled water stand in the middle of the desert.

What do you do when there is a bottled water stand every
mile? What about every 100 yards? Now, what if every bottled water stand in the
world were 2 feet in front of you, all in the same place?

Well, the strategy a lot of people take is one of price
competition.

“Buy from me because my bottled water costs less than that
guy’s!”

Another strategy is one using the quality argument.

“Buy from me because my bottled water is better than
everyone else’s!”

You could also use the branding method.

“Buy from me because you can trust that my company stands
behind its bottled water!”

Now take off the sales hat, and put on the consumer hat.

Who do you buy the bottled water from? Why did you make that
choice? What factors contributed to that choice?

Most of the time, we are told how consumers would choose our
bottled water over the “other guy’s”. Someone, somewhere, sat down with a lot
of analytics, focus groups, case studies, market research and a lot of other
people and decided that this way was the best (or at least most successful) way
to sell our bottled water.

They handed you a script and said, “Do this.”

If it doesn’t work, it’s easy to blame “those people”.

You did what “those people” said and it didn’t work.

Do you have a strategy? Do you have something that “works”?
Could your “something” work better than what “those people” handed to you?

Don’t be afraid to be different. The people that are the
most successful in this world did things differently. They tried new ideas.
They probably failed more then they succeeded. That’s how they became
successful.

In my automotive sales career, I did things differently. My sales managers hated that I did what I wanted. At the end of the day, however, it worked. I don’t know whether they were bothered more by the fact that I wasn’t doing what they told me to or by the fact that what I was doing was actually working.

How do you sell your water?

You better figure that out because every bottled water stand
in the world is, right now, 2 feet in front of the consumer’s face… and they’re
all only a mouse click away.

Opportunities Aren’t On The Be-Back Bus

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Opportunity is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a favorable juncture of circumstances”. The second definition of the word is “a good chance for advancement or progress.”

A study I heard of awhile back said that 80% of people who went to a dealership left their house with the intention of buying a vehicle that day.

The customer walking onto your lot, sending you an e-mail or calling you on the phone is a combination of many things: the advertising your dealership does, a vehicle you have in your inventory, or the desire (or need) of the customer for a new vehicle. In other words, the stars and planets have aligned and all the right things happened that led to that particular customer calling your dealership at that exact time. For the customer, that moment in time was the perfect time. That’s why they called (or emailed or came to your dealership) when they did.

At that moment of interaction, you have a favorable set of circumstances leading to a good chance for advancement or progress.

Make sure you have the skills necessary to take advantage of that opportunity. You are in control of your own knowledge. If the dealership doesn’t have a training program in place or material for you to use, get them yourself. Stop making excuses.

Once, while working as a closer, my team and I were standing on the point awaiting the elusive “up”. The next thing we knew, a big yellow school bus pulled up on the street and parked. The driver came out and proceeded to look at some cars. Of course we all got a laugh out of that saying that the be-back bus had finally came back. She told my salesperson that she (and her husband) were looking for a vehicle and she saw a vehicle we had that caught her eye. Needless to say, the woman said she needed to bring her husband back.

The be-back bus became a be-back.

Make the most of each opportunity. You might not get it again. Carpe Diem.

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