Posts Tagged ‘internet department’

The First 5 Emails to Successful Lead Management – Joe Webb

Friday, August 5th, 2011

After mystery shopping countless dealers over the years, some of the glaring needs we see are a basic process for handling leads. Over time, we’ve been able to determine a few of the basic steps your dealership must take when properly managing ongoing follow-up with your potential clients.

Step #1: Give them what they asked for and be generous with the information.

This seems pretty basic, but, still to this day, the good majority of customer questions go unanswered in the first email. It is well known that if you can answer any specific questions the inquiring customer asked, offer multiple pricing options, and give truthful information regarding inventory, availability, builds, prices, and incentives, you are on your way to building trust with the customer.

Step #2: Endear yourself to the customer.

As the saying goes, people buy from people they like. However, in automotive Internet, you need to go one step further. People buy from those they respect and appear willing to go above and beyond to earn their business. This is why so many have seen success stem from performing actions as simple as including a personal picture of themselves in the emails, shooting a quick walk-around video of the customer’s desired vehicle, sending Why Buy from Me’s, and emailing personal video introductions. You can’t build a relationship with someone you don’t know.

Step #3: Detail your process.

In ALL of our mystery shops, the Internet Manager says the same thing. Paraphrasing – “We have a special process in place to make this the best no-hassle purchasing experience for you.” Well that is all well and good, but not EVERYONE can have the best process. And what is your in-store process anyway? Why don’t you tell them what will happen when they arrive? People are submitting leads because they are afraid of the unknown. Put a detailed process of what events/activities will they can expect to transpire when they arrive for their appointment.

Step #4: Build value in your dealership

An Internet shopper can buy their desired vehicle from anywhere. When it comes to new cars, they can get the same car in the same color with the same options/features/specs at the same price or lower from your competitor right down the street. They can get the same finance rate or lower. They can get the same trade-in value or higher from them too. So what really is it (besides your people) that separates your dealership from the rest? What is your Value Proposition? What do you offer that others don’t? Being “family-owned and operated” doesn’t always translate the way you think it does to a consumer. So make sure you have an email template or Value Proposition with something that a customer might be able to attach a dollar value to.

Step #5: Sell the brand

This is the LAST thing you need to do… not the first. The manufacturer already spends millions and millions of dollars selling the virtues of their brand. The customer submitted a lead on that brand so they at least are considering it in the mix. At one point in your lead management process, you will need to re-sell them on the brand, most specifically, against the other makes the consumer is considering. However, this can certainly be one of the latter messages/topics you are sending to your Internet shoppers. They’ve likely uncovered enough to sell themselves on it one way or another in their research phase so focus on Steps 1-4 first.

If you give them what they ask for with multiple options, sell yourself, your process, your dealership, and your brand – in that order – you will convert more Internet shoppers to In-store customers through your email and phone communications

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Posted in Blog, Lead Management/Follow-up Process | No Comments »



Preparing to Grow your Internet Department

Friday, May 20th, 2011

It’s not the wand that makes the magic happen, but the magician who wields it. All of the tools, solutions, and leads in the world may be necessary to stay competitive, but it is the people you employ that make you profitable. If a dealership is only as good as the people speaking to their customers, we must make sure we have the right people representing us in the first place.

One of the fundamental problems on our sales floors is that it is just too easy to get a job. Candidates walk in, fill out an application, prove that they have a pulse during an interview, and are hired on the spot. This has to change. This builds no value in our dealerships, our profession, or our industry. We must require applicants to earn a position rather than just getting it.

As a trainer, dealers always ask me “What is the magic bullet out there? What will help me sell more cars?” They are likely looking for a solution/tool/CRM/website/campaign, but the true magic bullet is a great employee. One forward-thinking person (especially in your Internet Department) can yield endless profitability. You are the magic bullet. The people around you are the magic bullets. Your growth will be determined by the people that work for you, with you, above you, and beside you.

We develop intricate processes to bring a prospect from lead to appointment to sale throughout our showrooms, but we rarely have a process to recruit, interview, hire and train the employees of our stores. I was able to achieve success while in the retail side of the automotive business, but I know I wouldn’t have been near as successful if it hadn’t been for the people I surrounded myself with during my time at my former dealership. It is only because of the work I put into preparing them for success and the work they, in turn, achieved, have I been able to parlay my career as an automotive internet expert into starting my own consulting business. Selling cars, not on the floor, but online, is a TEAM environment. It is high time we begin focusing on acquiring a solid team.

One question I’m often asked is ‘Who should run my Internet Department/BDC?’. There are only three choices, each with a different monetary tag attached.

1) You can hire the best (otherwise known as ‘stealing an expert’).
2) You can promote from within.
3) You can hire a newbie and train (i.e. start from scratch).

The Differences: Know that you’ll pay top dollar to hire the best, but this will yield you the fastest turnaround and gross. If you decide to promote from within, you will likely be paying a fair industry price for their services. Lastly, you will save considerable money (rough book value) by hiring someone new to the position, but won’t see considerable growth or a return on the investment for some time.

Over the next few weeks, I will detail out the best places to RECRUIT talent and SELECT the right person as well as how to properly HIRE and create an ORIENTATION program for them to succeed.

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Posted in BDC/Internet Department Structure, Blog, Hiring for the Internet/BDC | No Comments »



Who is the Thoroughbred on your Internet Team?

Saturday, September 18th, 2010

Great people breed success.  As it is with all businesses, the better the people you surround yourself with, the better the accomplishments will be of the team.  If you are dominating your market online, you can likely pinpoint a member or two of your workforce and credit them for much of the success.  But who is the thoroughbred on your Internet team?

There are several types of employees, but I am only going to highlight two of them for this question.

Show Pony – This person is, straight up, the most talented on your squad.  They have the highest closing ratio, the strongest word tracks, and the greatest skill.    When they have a customer on the phone, the show pony will convert to an appointment at an exceedingly high clip.  When a customer is in front of them, more often and not, they buy.  When the commissions come in, the gross profit is substantial.  However, their effort level is fleeting.  They don’t apply themselves 24/7, but when they do, the success is there.  The Show Pony tends to doddle.  Take some time off.  Not manage their time as well as they should or make all of the follow-up calls set for them for the day, but those they do make end in results.

On the other side of the room, there is the Work Horse.  This employee isn’t going to set the world on fire with their statistics, but when they are at work, they are working hard.  The Work Horse is disciplined, does all that is asked of them, completes all of the calls in a reasonable manner, closes the customers at the average rate, and keeps themselves busy WITH WORK during downtime.  If there is one thing you can assure yourself of is that the Work Horse will exhaust all effort in selling a unit and completing their calls. 

Now I ask you, who is more valuable to have on your staff?  The Show Pony or the Work Horse?  The one with unending talent and skill or the one with amazing work ethic?  Ideally, we’d like to have both characteristics in one perfect person, but this is rarely the case.  So when interviewing candidates, ask them which one they believe they are.  Or when giving your employees their monthly reviews, categorize them and praise/train them accordingly.

You are the owner of this stable.  If you do have someone with both of these traits, be thankful.  Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.  Praise the person.  However, don’t be afraid to celebrate someone in the winner’s circle and dole out some public praise for their skill or effort.  Just ask yourself first, which is the more admirable quality to have?

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Posted in Blog, Competitive Edge | No Comments »



Location, Location, Location

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Location is considered king in the world of real estate. If you feel the auto industry is tough, try real estate. My wife is a realtor, but unlike others, she is thriving because she understands the need to market homes digitally and through several online portals. (You wonder who gave her those ideas?) In the dealership realm, surprisingly, location is also key. However, It is not where your dealership is located that matters most, but the location of your digital advertising.

Those of you reading Digital Dealer magazine are already on the path of online profitability. Those of you taking workshops, seminars, webinars, and attending conferences are achieving significant Internet sales. Those of you staying abreast of market trends, new technological solutions, and your own internal metrics are taking the right steps. All dealers have web sites. They have their inventory listed online. Most are dedicating budgets to third-party leads, SEO, SEM, and other digital marketing tactics. These dealers have taken the next step in becoming more than a dealership with an Internet department, but an Internet dealer. The problem arises when dealers are dedicating their budgets to online initiatives everywhere. Vendors can provide one good reason to be advertising on their site, but online saturation in this market is an impossibility.

Digital display ads are the most common form of online advertising. You find these as banner ads, skyscraper ads, leaderboards, and those aggravating pop-up boxes. These can contain text, graphic images, interactive material, or multi-media rich content. These online ads are very similar to any other newspaper or billboard ad, except a digital ad’s effectiveness can be tracked. You cannot click on a billboard. That form of advertising is simply for brand/dealer recognition. However, dealers don’t need location/brand recognition unless they are a new dealership or have recently relocated. If you’ve been in the same location for 25 years, you don’t need dealer awareness. In today’s market, you need to be present and available to shoppers while they are on the Internet researching, regardless of their place in the sales funnel. The primary goal of a digital ad, as we know, is to get the attention of online visitors and have them click onto your ad thereby linking them to your web site. Obviously, these online ads can deliver traffic to your site. Much like a realtor placing an “Open House” sign at an intersection, pointing you in the direction of the home, the digital ad offers the “driver” the same opportunity. Those who are prompted by the sign to visit the open house/web site would be considered a “click-through.” There is no use for a realtor, or for a dealer owner, to post a sign advertising a location unless the end result drives someone to see you.

Dealers must tighten the notches on their budgetary belts and realize they cannot be everywhere. Take a close look at your digital ads and determine if they are getting the impressions and the click-throughs for the money. It takes a little, simple math.

For example, at my former dealership, we briefly ran skyscraper ads running on the web site of a local radio station. Impressions were enormous, but the click rate was minimal. Considering it was not an industry-related site, I shouldn’t have expectations that the web visitors clicking to the web site were very far down the sales funnel. If you receive 100 clicks on your ad and your web site converts, say, 5 percent of every visitor to a lead, you can expect to receive five leads. If your dealership has a good closing ratio of your own web site leads, call it 20 percent, anticipate to realistically sell one car. Continue to drill. Does your average gross profit from one Internet sale equal the cost of your digital ad on a site? If you aren’t seeing the return on investment, rethink the need to be on the site. Is it a good location? “Breaking even” doesn’t pay the bills. You may want to pack up and set up your digital shop elsewhere.

Many use their gut instincts when determining where to have the ads placed online, while others use logic. I contacted my ad exec-extraordinaire for my former dealer and asked her the first step in deciding where to place a dealership’s digital advertising. Beth Hoover, account manager for Pinnacle Advertising and Marketing, said, “Advertising web banners on specific sites, based on behavioral targeting or something as broad as visitor demographics is our first recommendation. During and at the close of each campaign, reviewing click throughs and impressions can help determine the ROI. Is it really worth it? I believe the success of any campaign requires many components, including the creative, the idea behind the creative, banner placement (leaderboard, skyscrapers, etc.), number of visitors clicking on the site, time spent on the site, the question “are you there when the customer is looking?” and lastly, common sense. In other words, if you own a Lexus dealership, posting web banners on the local watering hole might not be the best way to spend your dough.”

Beth touched on behavioral targeting and visitor demographics that are becoming more of a focus now more than ever. An ad’s location is becoming a science. The top Internet marketers and advertising agencies are taking their responsibilities seriously by geo-targeting (delivering different digital content based on the geographical location/cultural market) the dealer’s potential customer base. It is essentially niche-marketing based on specific geo-locations of your anticipated customer base. The understanding of that location, not just of the digital advertising campaigns, but of the online shoppers as well, is imperative.

When it is time to review your ad budgets and allocate new or existing dollars to different opportunities, realize that the location of your digital ads will predicate the success of the ad dollars. Simple math determines the ROI. If a site wants your advertisements, but the ad’s success on the site cannot be tracked, only justified, don’t move into their neighborhood. You won’t be happy living there. Instead, do some research on that area that is best for you. Make sure you are going to like your neighbors and the home will fit your financial needs. Unlike most real estate ventures of late, buying land on a web site should show dealers a quick profit. So focus your efforts on the three most important aspects to your digital advertising. Location, location, location.

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Posted in Blog, Websites/SEO/SEM/Display | No Comments »



Who is Selling Whom?

Friday, March 6th, 2009

We have a serious problem in the automotive industry. No, the Internet is not destroying the car business as the old-timers like to say. The problem is simple. Internet customers, in many cases, are more knowledgeable on the models than the people selling the vehicles.

Sure, you can point fingers and say salespeople should take a vested interest in the brand they are selling. You can train and train and train. The repetition of a hundred test drives may not be enough. You can give up and believe clichés such as, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” or “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”

It comes down to the fact that many salespeople are relying on their selling skills above their product knowledge to appease their customers. With the large majority of customers having done significant research on builds, options, pricing, invoices, and trade-in values, salespeople are at a significant disadvantage. How does a dealership overcome this epidemic?

An Internet sales professional (ISP) is the answer
If ISPs do their job correctly, they should be as researched and prepared as any customer (Internet or otherwise) that visits the dealership. Quality ISPs should be able to match wits with any customer that steps in front of them.

This is not always the case. With so much information available online, just a click away, customers are walking in with all of the information necessary to make the best deal for them. Internet sales professionals must be more familiar with these sites than the customers utilizing them. Ownership and management of every dealership should strongly encourage their ISPs and salespeople to take time out of their day to sit down and research all of their models through the Internet. My mentor, and marketing manager, John Photopulos, made it a point when I became Internet sales manager to send me to every best practices training, phone skills class, and product knowledge course available. I visited web site after web site to learn all they had to offer. By training yourself with all resources available, including the Internet, you know where the customer is coming from, you understand their expectations, and, best of all, you have the knowledge to dispute any of their errant beliefs.

How often do you run into a customer who believes he has a firm understanding of the vehicle’s base price and invoice, only to find he is not in the same ballpark? This is a common occurrence and one that is easily overcome providing the ISP has dedicated his time to understanding these sites. How many customers believe they can purchase a unicorn (a mythical vehicle that has never been seen, except as a part of someone’s imagination built on a wishful web site)? Hopefully, the ISP can utilize these sites to correct the customer for the benefit of the dealership. With a little practice, you will quickly learn how to navigate through the sites. This will give you the wherewithal to inform your customers without turning them into shoppers by overeducating them.

If any web site and its content are explained to a customer the right way, dealer profit will remain and customer service ratings will increase. No longer will the buyer feel their questions are being talked “around,” but instead, talked “through.” Knowing the intricacies of the web sites that your customers are requesting their information through will only put you one step closer to a closed deal with a happy customer and a reasonable margin of profit.

An example: When a client is in your store and wants Edmunds Excellent Value for his trade, take time with him. After a silent walk-around of the trade, build it out on Edmunds. Make sure the customer rates its condition with you. Read the detailed explanations of each value category. Once this is done, go one step further. Build out his new vehicle with him. Make sure to click on the tabs that mention the regional advertising fees being legitimate (though he never expected to have to pay that before). Click on the explanation of dealer holdback and view the TMV (true market value). I don’t know about your dealership, but most busy suburban Chicago dealerships would be content offering a good trade-in value provided the customer pays TMV. In a market like ours, flooded with over-aggressive dealerships, most would be happy to accept this deal. It is a daunting task for a customer to give a reasonable explanation to you, a professional, why the value of his trade is correct on a web site, yet the price that others are paying for a new vehicle is not a legitimate number.

If you are working Internet leads, or any customer for that matter, and you did not know the basic information above, this entire article is dedicated to you. I believe Internet sales professionals must take it upon themselves to learn and understand the sites their customers are surfing. Furthermore, I believe the ISP should train his sales staff how to use these sites to their benefit. My Internet sales coordinator (and right-hand man) Jason, only months into the business turned to me and said, “I can’t believe more salespeople don’t use the Internet to their advantage. Instead, they consider it more like a roadblock.”

As an ISP, you should change the perception of Internet sales, thereby changing the culture of your dealership for the better. In my last article, I mentioned how Internet sales professionals should differentiate themselves from normal salespeople on the floor. It is imperative for an ISP, above others, to function at a high level. We are all a team, though, and it is a good feeling when the sales staff around you is successful too. Share some of your knowledge, experience, and time with them. Do not let them walk into a situation where they are overmatched. Teach them the new selling tactics for today’s car shopper and make a progressive difference at your dealership. And, most importantly, know how to overcome customers’ objections using the very same source where they gathered the information.

In the simplest of terms, the Internet offers knowledge to the public. In our industry, knowledge is power. If a customer knows more than the salesperson, he has the ability to sell you on his beliefs, opposed to the correct way, where you are in control and you do the selling.

Just remember who is selling whom. There is only one answer.

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Posted in Blog, Understanding Internet Sales | No Comments »



Genetics

Saturday, December 27th, 2008
(Check out this old blog from my very first post on DrivingSales.com)

I have a distinct feeling that some dealers believe achieving online success may be a flash in the pan. These dealers (owners) must have a chemical imbalance passed onto them from their fathers and family members before them to believe e-commerce is a trend. Many struggling owners learned from an older generation that didn’t have to adapt as quickly to newfound technologies and, therefore, lived well by sticking to tried and true advertising mediums. There is a major problem facing many of today’s owners that has a greater affect on their long-term goals than the economy does. It is their judgment. I can only assume this problem is genetic.

I hear from ISM after ISM across the country that buy-in from ownership continues to be difficult. Dealers just won’t know what they don’t want to learn. Many dealerships have one person handling incoming leads. They buy a few third party leads, place some inventory on an AutoTrader or Cars.com, and have a mediocre website. These dealers achieve their same old 12-14 cars sold off the internet each month – reaching a 10% closing ratio – and feel that they are in the game. Those of you reading this know that they aren’t even in the ballpark. There is so much more that can be gained from dedicating a significant portion of ad dollars to online initiatives and e-commerce training and the proof is in the profits, process, and testimonials of the top dealers.

I write for Digital Dealer magazine and recently left a dealership to start my own digital marketing consulting firm, DealerKnows LLC. The documented numbers I (and my team/department) had achieved there put the dealership in the upper echelon of successful Internet dealers. When I write, it is usually a rant like this where I am trying to accomplish/win an argument or struggle I was having. Through my meandering writing, I’ll find my answer. In this case, I know what the answer is. Genetics.

I was speaking to a close friend and internet professional whose dealer sent out a 60,000 piece mailer. Yes, you heard me correct. A 60,000 piece mailer. $30,000 or so in cost. During my friend’s time there, he constantly warned them that their dedication to paper (consistently spending 70% or so on newspapers, direct mail, etc.) was going to have a negative impact on their bottom line and they didn’t listen. On my few run-ins with this dealer during consulting, I too stressed their need to dedicate more money only. Time and again, they’d spend their money on paper products only to prove my friend and I right. They would have their tri-weekly full-page newspaper ads and their 10,000 piece “customer appreciation” mailers where past customers were told to come in and pick up their free set of steak knives or whatever. They expected their sales crew could convert the type of people that drive 10 minutes for a $3 set of knives – they were consistently incorrect. This $10,000 cost would equal one sale at best. (My friend’s department was responsible for tracking this monthly futility as all quality ISMs and IDs carefully looked at ROI. – $10g spent on direct mail a month would = $1g in profit. Where is the sense in that?)

Very recently, my friend left this dealer – support issue if you can believe it – and, just because this valued employee and his “team” that brought online success to the dealership had left, it doesn’t mean one must give up hope and go back to old tendencies. Direct mail may have always been in their blood, but a 60,000 piecer?! It’s gotta be a problem with the DNA that makes you choose to do this. So I learned the result of their massive mailer was, wait for it, 2 cars sold. That is correct. Two cars. $30g = $3g… maybe. I’d call up and shout out an “I told you so” or a “You still aren’t listening to us?!”, but it’s not their fault. It’s genetics.

Does losing the majority of an internet team (others left once my buddy had chosen to take a leap) mean you must go back to the ways of the wild, wild west? No. Processes were in place. Websites could have been updated. Leads were still coming in. However, this unnamed dealer had reverted back to what they knew. What their family and their family’s family before them knew. They went back to paper.

This, my first blog, is not meant to be a rant against dealer ownership. After all, I still would like to think I have good relationships at my former dealer (though I was recently just denied from filming any more of my car sales-comedy sketches in their place of business – no reason given) This also isn’t a blog to rip direct mail or newspaper – which may have its time and place – (in my opinion – newspaper ads can be printed during big holiday days and direct mail sent once a year). No, I hope this writing alerts dealers to the fact that unwise thinking never benefits them, no matter what their condition. Before I left, my department received 25% of the ad budget toward internet initiatives and would consistently yield over 60% of store sales (and up to 85% one month). Even without us, an upheaval in staff can be survived. Sure, dealerships are selling half of the cars per month they did in their heyday. You’d think they’d want to dedicate their ad money to something able to be tracked. The economy will turn around and consumers will once again walk through your door.

Turning their back to what works in today’s time and gravitating back toward the paper-type advertising in play when their ancestors were alive will not their store survive. (Wow! That sounded like a sentence written by Cormac McCarthy. I’m proud of myself. Written just how I wanted it.)

I don’t like taking an article like this to “the streets”, but I believe, during these difficult economic times, dealers must look in the mirror. They must look at what is within themselves and decide if their decisions (be it caused by faulty wiring or the wrong synapses firing) are what’s really the root of the problem. I think poor judgment (similar to what was described above) has to play a significant part. (60,000 pieces! $30,000?! It serves a dealer right to have a $3,000 or so return on that poisonous investment. You give an internet professional $30g and they’ll turn it into $300g.) It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. Just someone with good genetics.

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Will Your Internet Department Sink or Swim?

Saturday, October 4th, 2008

An Internet Sales Professional should be a life raft.You can stop an internet customer from drowning in a pool of builds, specs, and prices.You can save them from visiting one salesperson-flooded dealership after another.

 

Now ask yourself…are you a life raft or are you an anchor?

 

A life raft will answer a question quickly and, more importantly, competently.

An anchor will attempt to drag the customer into the store by giving them either as little information as possible or by flooding them with prices.A life raft offers quality answers after the initial email and gives customers realistic expectations and fair offers.An anchor promises the imminent arrival of a vehicle they have little chance of obtaining.

 

One thing that an Internet Sales Professional (ISP) can be sure of is the internet-savvy consumer knows a price waits for them right around the corner; one website away.More and more, customers demand to have all their questions answered… and sooner rather than later.Vague answers are no longer adequate bait to lure today’s consumer.
 

 

Save them from vague answers, repeated urges to visit, and automated follow-up responses.If you want to be competitive, you have to answer their questions on the first email.Please notice… “email”.Don’t be the person that calls them immediately, even if it is under the veil of “Did you receive the information I sent you?”They are sitting at their computer with their inbox open!They know you did not send anything!You can always call later; but you can’t change a bad first impression.Send a personalized email first.

 

Internet Sales Professionals have the opportunity to separate themselves from the typical salespeople on the dealer floor.These are the very people the consumer fears and want to avoid speaking to in the first place.And let’s face it, we ISP’s are all just glorified sales reps with good word tracks, better organizational skills, and fast fingers.However, customers have higher expectations of us.Johnny Car-Buyer doesn’t want to believe he is talking to a Sales Rep that can type.Nor does he want to be conversing with a technician from a computer store.He wants to believe he is speaking to a knowledgeable friend that is looking out for his best interest.Johnny needs a life raft.

 

Any ISP worth their weight in leads will tell you that directing an internet customer to act is just as easy as a walk-in customer.We all have the same job duties.We all are fighting toward one goal.“Get the customer in.”How we go about this and how we view our job description, though, is what separates you from the next ISP a few miles away.How do you direct an internet customer, you ask?Your first email will rarely spur someone to hop into their car, drive to see you, and drive off with the exact vehicle quoted.Not anymore.A few years ago this was a little more common, but people want all of the information nowadays.They don’t do this solely by collecting prices.Internet customers ask follow up questions.It is how you respond to these questions that determines your worth as an Internet Professional.

Build trust by moving the internet customer one step at a time.Build the relationship, connect with the customer, and move them toward you.This is how you differentiate yourself from other ISP’s and endear the customer to you.Customers want to be guided on their car-buying process.Replying to customers’ questions will give you the opportunity to direct them to the dealership. If handled correctly, you can guide them straight to your lot.You don’t need to light a fire under them in the first email.You simply need to give them reasons over time to see you.It is a process.

 

Some dealers operate by inundating their internet leads with mass amounts of information, whether it was requested or not.This is called the “Info Anchor”.The anchor drowns the customer with builds, specs, and prices, hoping to look like they are being upfront with their information, but, in reality, just trying to save themselves time from following up.You don’t need to purchase ALL of the leads possible. You simply be more thorough with your leads so your closing ratio increases.

 

Like everyone else, I shop my competition.Their initial emails with amazingly low price quotes, attached list of all features and options (and even discounted warranty prices!) are absurd.Even though they are not being vague, they are supplying the customer with too much  information:The Info Anchor. However, try to ask them a follow up question and wait for a response.Continue to wait.Take a nap.Take a trip.Take a coma.You will keep waiting because they hardly ever answer follow ups.They give it their one shot and they’re done.That is when Life Raft (me – and not just because of my size) floats in and saves them.I keep them headed toward land by answering any remaining questions they have.I don’t make their vehicle purchase seem like a too-good-to-be true mirage, but a tangible and reachable goal. An overflow of information will simply numb them from realizing the difference between a fair deal and a nit-picky deal.You will just send them shopping.Doing this is creating your own worst enemy.

Here is my request to all ISP’s.This is what I am asking you to do.
1) Do not give the lowest possible price for a vehicle.Offer a competitive price that reflects the value their vehicle deserves.You are selling something of value.You are selling a motor vehicle that will be carrying their most important commodity – their family.

2) Don’t offer to beat everyone’s deal.You will only send them scavenging for quotes.In latter emails, simply tell them you will stay competitive with other offers.

3) Build value in what you do.Buying a vehicle can be a painful process.You are saving a customer from going through a potentially-frustrating and painstaking process of visiting an endless number of dealerships to get the same questions answered.

4) Tell them the truth.It is a lot easier to remember what you have said to them in the past.

If a customer feels that you have saved them time, energy, and a little money…you have already become their life raft.You have become a real Internet Sales Professional and you have earned the sale.

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Posted in Articles, Understanding Internet Sales | No Comments »