Trying to buy a car

Today's Saga: Trying to buy a car. But first, an advert

Advert
Please read the message on this site. It's about you.
In New Zealand last week the all-day seminar featured one session about the phone. I've been teaching this stuff for 25 years and am still amazed that audiences tell me it is so worthwhile. I KNOW from listening to thousands of mystery shopping calls for clients that you can confidently count on increasing your sales by 10% to 30% if you do your phonework right. I KNOW you are losing that much right now. Read the feisty opinionated article and you will see what I mean.
Get the Great Phone Skills pack with its e-Book and 4 free MP3s.


Anyway...

Trying to buy a car
See if you can get the picture:

The economy is all gloom and misery.

The car industry is in tatters.

Car yards are closing quicker than window shutters during a Taliban hunt for girls with school books.

You'd think every car salesperson would therefore be over the moon at the sight of a nice man like me whose opening remark is, "Hi. Wife and teenagers over 15 years have driven her car into the ground — it won't even start — so we need a new one now."

You'd think — over the moon. You'd think they would use some of my pet phrases from Balancing the Sale. Something like. "Thanks for coming in. Can I ask you a couple of questions to see how I can help you best. First of all, what kind of car is the one you want to replace? Have you been happy with it? Is there anything about it you'd like to change? etc..."

You'd be dead wrong.

All I can find are oxygen thieves. God's beloved and hugely nice people everyone of them, but fair dinkum! It's 2009 and they're still acting like they're selling donkeys and wooden wheeled wagons to Bedouins in Basra.

"How much ya wanna spend?" (How in blazes would I know? What is there to buy?)

"Watcharfta?" (If I knew that I would have bought it off the internet)

"Yeah. Seen anythink ya like?" (Errrr!)

"The ‘XYZ' is a good car." (Whee!)

Home truth time"
So, are your people any better? You'd think so but then you are the person who thought I'd be getting treated like royalty by members of the desperate car industry. What about checking again. Even ask yourself how your own selling skills are faring.

Thought
If I held a public seminar in your capital city would you come? Would you host it and invite your circle of friends, distributors or suppliers to buy a table of tickets. That's what the Doveys at Exceed Maintenance did in Auckland last week. It cost them less and they got megas out of it. Here's what they said afterwards.

Karen: "We had a fantastic day. The big learning point for me was the telephone session, about not interrogating people but using the techniques to open up the conversation."
David: "Your message was strong and you challenged us. I wrote pages and pages of notes. Once we start believing we are as you say, ten times better, we will be totally different."

So email me and tell me you are interested in discussing the public seminar idea. It's colin at colinpearce.com.

My Kick in the Pants for You:
My "K.I.S.S." principle. "Keep Improving Sales Skills."

Cheers
Colin Pearce
Raconteur