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World’s Greatest Car Salesman, Part 1

It’s Easy To Stand Out In Industries Where Everyone Else Pretty Much Sucks.

It’s Easy To Stand Out In Industries Where Everyone Else Pretty Much Sucks.

Everyone Hates Car Salesmen… And Rightfully So.
Here’s A Blueprint For Selling Cars The Right Way—That People Will LOVE.

Written by Rich Harshaw.

Note: This article is part of Monopolize Your Marketplace’s Innovation series. Don’t worry that the topics aren’t directly related to contractor marketing; find ideas that you can run with in your business.

“You will die in a fiery crash. Beheading is not out of the question.”

Yea, I know. Not a great way to start an article. Also not a great way, it turns out, to sell a car. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what I was told last summer when I was dumb enough to go car shopping.

My wife finally convinced me it was time to trade in her six-year-old Sequoia, and though I avoid dealerships with more gusto than A-Rod avoids urine tests, I packed the wife and six kids into the car and headed to the lots. (Everyone has to come to really, really test roominess.) We set out to test the new Cadillac Escalade and the newly restyled Toyota Sequoia.

First up, at the Cadillac dealership we met the cheesiest salesman—70’s porn moustache, gold chains, chest hair, the works. I told him we were looking for the Cadillac version of the Suburban, a new one. The only word Mr. Crazy Deals heard was “Suburban.” He replied (shocker) he had the perfect one.


Sure enough, he had precisely ONE Suburban—black with pimped out chrome rims. The vehicle wasn’t horrible, but it WAS used and WAS NOT a Cadillac. To purchase that car I would have had to change my name to “Puff Richie,” “Rich DMC,” or “Fiddy Rich.” We bailed out before ever seeing a Caddy.

Fire and death came into the equation at the Toyota dealership next door. Upon hearing that we were considering a Suburban, the Toyota salesman freaked. As a former police officer, he “couldn’t tell us how many times he arrived at the scene of an accident involving a Suburban wherein the passengers were already dead.” Suburbans, he went on to hyperbolize, have bad crash safety ratings; they flip over, catch on fire, and on occasion, he let it slip, they even behead passengers.

Naturally, my wife was mortified. Not that we had just been verbally bludgeoned by officer CHiPs, but by the possibility that our family would end up somewhere between original recipe and extra crispy… and headless. After all, Ponch told us he never saw any such carnage in twenty-one years involving a Toyota product.

Two dealerships later, I wasn’t any closer to buying a new car. But I was closer to a new profession. I decided there HAS GOT to be a better way to sell cars than lying to people and beating them over the head. That’s when I decided to renounce contractor marketing (maybe) and become the World’s Greatest Car Salesman (WGCS).

With that backdrop, I present you with my plan to become the World’s Greatest Car Salesman… in 14 steps. In this posting, I’ll concentrate on steps 1 through 6, and pick up the last 8 steps next post.

Step 1: What Convinces Is Conviction

Lyndon B. Johnson said, “What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument that you’re advancing. If you don’t, you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn’t there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or brilliant or elegant will win your case for you.”

In order to become the world’s greatest car salesman, I cannot go to work wherever the commission rate takes me… like most salesmen do. Instead, I need to go where I feel the best about the vehicle.

To decide this, I’ll research each brand and their flagship model—Honda’s Accord, Toyota’s Camry, etc.—as well as their main trucks, SUVs, and economy cars. I’ll grade on looks, interior, engine warranty, reliability, gas mileage, etc.—and choose the winner.

Once I decide the winner, I’ll buy a fully loaded model. Why? A big part of this step is going to be me looking at the prospect to say to him, “See that car. Mine. I drive it, and here’s why.” There’s a huge credibility issue if you’re not driving the car you’re selling. To become the WGCS, I’m going to have to go “all in.”

Step 2: Understanding The Numbers

I’ve got to get out my calculator—the marketer’s most important tool—and see what I can afford to spend/ to get to the top. On the average car, dealerships gross $2,500 to $3,000. The average marketing budget for a large, big-city dealership is $150,000 a month, during normal times.

The average salesman sells 12 cars a month and makes $300 a car. Doing the math, that comes to $3,600 a month and roughly $40,000 a year. A good salesman will sell nearly double that—20 cars—and make $350 to $400 per car with bonuses.

Because the best salesmen are recruited with signing bonuses and negotiable commission structures, I’m going to walk into the dealership and offer the sales manager the following commission structure:

  • If I sell 20 or less cars in a month, I earn regular commissions. $300 per vehicle.
  • If I sell 20 to 29 cars a month, I want a $400 flat rate per car. The dealership will take advantage of me because some of these sales would have resulted in higher commissions under normal bonus structure.
  • If I sell 30 to 39 cars a month, I want a flat commission of $550 per car.
  • Finally, if I sell 40 or more in a month, I want $700 flat per car. Now I’m in territory that’s very, very uncommon. Nobody sells 40 or more cars a month. The sales manager will agree because he thinks my chance of actually doing it is zero… and in the off chance I do achieve this lofty plateau, he’ll make a ton of money.

Why can’t anybody sell more than 40 cars a month? Time is the excuse. It takes time to deal with people and time to write up sales. But here’s the paradox: they have “no time,” but 75% of a car salesman’s time is sitting around waiting on a prospect to wander onto the lot.

Here’s my goal: I’m going to sell 50 cars a month, and I’m going to make $35,000 in monthly commissions. Not a bad salary for a car salesman. As you’ll see in this model, the amount I take home will actually be a bit less because there will be expenses. However, I’ll tack on another $5,000 to $10,000 dollars plus a month as I get into joint ventures.

Out of that $35,000 a month I will spend $10,000 as follows: $3,000 for an assistant, $2,000 towards future promotions (which I’ll talk about later), $1,500 towards car payments (later also), and $3,500 a month towards marketing costs—all deductible as business expenses. That leaves me with $25,000 a month of profit, plus whatever I make from joint ventures. You’d agree $300,000 to $400,000 a year is pretty good compensation for the heretofore miserable car salesman. Mr. Chest Hair will make a tenth of that, if lucky.

Step 3: Introducing The World’s Greatest Car Salesman

I have my numbers calculated, so let’s create a brand identity. Not for the car. An identity that brands me as the World’s Greatest Car Salesman. How did we know Muhammad Ali was the greatest boxer? He told us! He backed it up in the ring—like I will back it up on the lot—but he claimed to be the best in the world. There’s magic in that.

So first thing’s first. I will anoint myself “The World’s Greatest Car Salesman.” I’ll put my audacious title on my cards, my website, everywhere. I’ll let confirmation bias do its job. What’s that? Stated simply, if I tell people I’m the WGCS, they’ll believe it and look for evidence to support it, and discount evidence they see that contradicts it. A bias, get it?

Besides merely being clean cut, knowledgeable, transparent in all my transactions, low pressure, and respectful, I need prospects to identify me and revere me as literally The World’s Greatest Car Salesman. If I don’t cap my great inside reality off with the monarchal World’s Greatest Car Salesman title, people won’t pay attention to me. I need attention if I’m going to sell 50 cars a month, month in and month out.

Step 4: Build A Case For The Cars

Now that I’ve started to brand myself, it’s time to build a case for the cars. I already researched the cars when deciding what brand to sell… now I need to print a report for each category (compact, full size, SUV, etc.)… to have as my own consumer reports. They will contain plenty of evidence from car magazine reviews, editorials, Edmonds.com, crash test comparisons, fuel consumption reports, etc. I will also include driver and customer testimonials.

The information you normally expect to get from car salesmen comes from two sources mainly—the car brochure and their big, fat, flapping traps. The same flapping trap, mind you, that yaks about pulling a bunch of headless bodies out of Suburbans.

A basic marketing principle is that people believe what they see more than what they hear, and a marketing tool in the form of a printed comparative report will go a long way toward enhancing my credibility and adding clarity to the prospects’ decision-making processes.

Are you starting to see why step 1—choosing the right car—was so important? If I’m going to show which car is the best, it had better be the one I’m representing. I don’t want to go through this whole process and say, “Hey, the Maxima really is better than the Camry. Get one of those.” I have to create a defendable position. Since I am trying to sell an unheard-of 50 cars a month, step four doesn’t stop at the marketing tool.

Remember the $1,500 a month I budgeted for car payments? I am going to lease or buy the top two competing models in at least two categories. In other words, if I’m selling Toyotas, I’m going to own a Toyota Camry of my own (per previous discussion) and I’m going to buy a Honda Accord and a Chevy Malibu. I am also going to buy two more cars in a different category (compact, truck, SUV) for a total of five vehicles. Why? So customers can compare them, test drive them, and see exactly what my marketing tool is describing. This step is absolutely critical.

$1,500 a month may sound cheap for four car payments… but check this out: even though my plan calls for buying a fully loaded Toyota for myself, it only demands base models from my competitors. Inside these cars, I will hang signs to point out their deficiencies. This is important. Not only will I educate my prospect with a report, I’ll offer up the cars for comparison and continue highlighting their deficiencies inside of them. Do you think confirmation bias is going to start doing me a favor? You had better believe it.

Think I really might be the World’s Greatest Car Salesman? I’m only getting started! Remember I need to sell 50 cars a month, not a paltry 20. Extraordinary results demand extraordinary efforts.

Step 5: Consumer Advocate

For step five, I will step over to the customer’s side and expose the typical car lot’s tactics. I will document the biggest ways car dealers or car salesmen rip off and cheat customers and teach customers how to identify the tricks in a 4- to 8-page brochure.

Because customers expect to be cheated at a car lot, the lowest price, surprisingly, isn’t their primary concern. People just want to know that they are being dealt with in a forthright manner. If I’m that salesman, they’ll quickly love me. They can even take my brochure to other car dealerships. Heck, I’ll even drop them off so they can see for themselves. Inevitably, all the other car dealerships are going to hate my freaking guts. I’m okay with that. Even other salesmen at my own dealership will wish me dead. I’ll deal with that, too.

Step 6: Relentless Follow Up

Now it’s time to create a hopper system. Anyone who crosses my path goes into my hopper system. Every person I know from church, the guy at Wendy’s drive-thru, everyone. I will gather as much information as I can: what kind of car they drive, how long they’ve had it, when their birthday is, when their anniversary is, what their kids’ names are, etc.

Every two weeks, I will send standard emails that will educate them about cars, the buying process, and financing. Where do you think I’m going to get this information? Right out of the reports I’ve already written—the car reports and the hard dealer tricks. I’m going to make sure that the WGCS branding shines through—absolutely shines through—so that everyone starts to believe I really am the World’s Greatest Car Salesman.

Also, every once in a while, I’ll send special emails that speak to their interests—business, sports, movies, music, etc. My assistant will research some interesting things on the Internet, and I’ll send interesting articles to the right people. On birthdays, anniversaries, kids’ birthdays, holidays, and all kinds of special situations I’ll send special emails, too. These people will hear from me about once a week on average.

Next Issue—Steps 7 through 14
Step 7: WorldsGreatestCarSalesman.com
Step 8: Joint Ventures
Step 9: Join The Club
Step 10: Leveraging The Internet
Step 11: Radio Magic
Step 12: Mr. Giveaway
Step 13: Referrals Galore
Step 14: Everything Else

 

© 2014 – 2016, Rich Harshaw. All rights reserved.

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