Greenhorn in car sales.

I have been in car sales for 7 months and still can t get it? Some days I ask the right questions but then I don t really remember what the right ones were I asked? I would like some advice on the type of questions I should be asking? Thanks

Depends on the situation:

Open Ended Questions: Ex: "What do you like best about the Toyota 4Runner?" or "In order to best help you; Tell me a little about what you'll be using the vehicle for?"

These questions get people talking... i.e. feeling comfortable. People get comfortable talking about themselves. Your voice is not soothing until a trust relationship is built.

Either or Questions: Example: "Jim, Betty... which one of you would like to drive first?"

or

"Jim, Betty are you going to be titling this vehicle in one name or two?"

or

"Would you like a four door or a two door model?"

These questions are used to get control back, or to close. I am okay with whatever answer they choose because we will be moving towards "yes".

Here's the best advice I can give you. Take the time to read two books if you are serious about a successful auto sales career. In this order:

1. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnagie.
2. How to Close Every Sale, by Joe Girard.

People graduate to a professional level of service and an "I Can" attitude before they succeed. You seem to be a little light on both. No worries, you can choose to succeed.

At first sales people try to "Do it TO their customers."; then they learn to "Do it WITH their customers."; finally they learn how important it is to "Do it FOR their customers."

Be a polite, helpful gentleman... Care about your customers; and take care of people long term. If you are doing things correctly, you won't have to "sell" to people; you will make them "want to buy from you." Be giving.

Practice being nice to everybody; Go out of your way to help people and make their day... Both inside and outside of work... then you won't have to think so hard while you are working.

FollowUpMaster Thank you very much. I believe I am going to try this first thing in the moring. I will also look into those books.

First off, I agree with FollowUpMasters' excellent post. Thanks FUM.

I think the most important thing is for you to remember that you start with the end in mind (as Stephen Covey says). In your questioning, you're trying to identify what will allow a prospect to feel comfortable to commit to paying you (or their lender) a bunch of money. In general, salespeople don't spend enough time or effort asking questions.

Here are a few...

- What do you drive now?
- Why did you select that particular model?
- What do you like about it?
- What do you not like about it?
- Why are you looking for a vehicle now, instead of six months ago or instead of next year?
- How much do you know about Hondas?
- What is most important to you in a new vehicle at this point in your life?
- Who will drive this car?
- Where will you drive it to? How often will you drive it?
- How did you select our dealership?
- What's missing in your current car that you'd like to see in your new one?
- Who else, besides yourself, will be selecting your new vehicle?
- Describe your perfect vehicle.

I'm not suggesting you ask all of these questions, but sometimes you might need to ask tons of questions to let the prospect feel comfortable with you, as FollowUpMaster says.

As your prospects answer your questions, you ask additional questions that help narrow the discussion. Your questions get more specific and less broad. Eventually, you can ask closed questions which help clarify issues that aren't clear yet (such as, "so are you more interested in a coupe or a sedan?)

Another challenge with less experienced salespeople is that they sometimes forget the prospect's answers to all those great questions they've asked, or they tune out the prospect's answers because they're mind is preoccupied with thinking about what the next question should be instead of absorbing what the prospect is telling them.

The best to you, brett-trev!

Thanks Skip, I should have really started here when I went into sales. I will be also trying some of these questions today. Hopefully, I don t stumble on them too much.

After 7 months of struggling, I believe I would look into some serious sales training. It would be similar to me telling you that you can be a bullfighter, handing you a red cape and a saber and saying go get'em tiger. In some ways not earning enough money at a profession is alot this. You don't go to work planning to fail but failure and frustration set in, and after many gorings, you quit and feel worse about yourself than you did before you began your sales career.

Instruction can reduce the time it takes to become successful. Every person enters their sales career as an unconscious incompetent. In a matter of hours they graduate to the next stage of development....the conscious incompetent...in other words before they started they didnt even know what they didnt know....but with a little instruction they become aware of their incompetence. After instruction they graduate to the next stage...conscious competent. That is...they have learned what to do but they have to think about it and study the principles to get them firmly rooted in their minds. It has been said that PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT....I disagree...I believe that PRACTICE MAKES PERMANENT....and that PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT...Practice the wrong things over and over and you will only be a professional at doing what is wrong. Fourthly, The final stage of development is the unconscious competent...or the salesperson that can accomplish the sale without having to think about the steps as individual segments...That is they are in automatic mode....Kinda like asking Tiger Woods how he hits the ball...and him replying...I take a club out of my golfbag...golfball and tee out of my pocket...stick the tee on the ground...ball on the tee...swing the club on a backswing and turn it loose on the downswing....Sounds simple...But he has thought about every detail of the modern swing for years. He still practices the basics...and studies them over and over...

I believe I would the basics firmly rooted into my mind...IF you get a tip here and there...you will have a mindful of sales band-aids...stuck throughout your mind...but never really knowing what to do...Remember Professional salespeople appear effortless...they duck and weave through their presentations, assert control at times, take the low road at other times...take the time to listen, and other times intently describe the feature, benefit and transitional statements at other times. Use a sharp angle close at times, and remind the customers what they had said earlier in the presentation...an absolute Monet at work....

Good Luck

Originally Posted by brett-trev I have been in car sales for 7 months and still can t get it? Some days I ask the right questions but then I don t really remember what the right ones were I asked? I would like some advice on the type of questions I should be asking? Thanks

Hello, bret-trev, first off I want to say that you have 2 very good pieces of advice already handed to you, but I fear that without any formal training you might not fully understand exactly what that advice is, please don't take this the wrong way, but if I may ellaborate a little. If I were in your situation, this is what I would do.

First off, remeber that the automotive industry is notorious as beign a tad shadey, and believe me, consumers know that, so I would recomend not selling them anything, just forget that. You absolutely need to warm up to your customers first, get them to realize that you are a human beign just like them, also get them to like you, talk about the weather, traffic, whatever might be relievent Remeber people buy from people they like. after a little chit chat, find out why they came into your location, ask some of the above questions, basically you are trying to identify what is their motivation, is it a want or a need? you need one or the other, or you don't have a sell in the first place. After you determine what motivates them then you need to narrow them down to a selection (You cannot show them every car on the lot), and educate them on their selection in the industry we call this feature/benefit selling Basically for every feature that you point out on the vehicle you need to explain to them why or how that feature can and will benefit them more importantly than that, this is where alot of newer sales reps drop the ball. You can feature benefit them all day long, but you need to throw in some tie down questions this is very important, because you use their answers to these questions to close the deal i.e. you show them a feature/benefit and then you might ask them something like is that something that you could use? or is that important to you? remeber all of their answers, relax and let the conversation flow also you need to rely on your above questions and use their answers to your advantage i.e. why did they come to your lot? (Well my dad has bought several cars from this location and he says that he was always treated fairly) keep this sort of selling up until you have them down to one product, in your situation a vehicle at this point quite selling and start closing (you never want to over sell) No hard closes just yet, as you want to make sure there isn't an objection that you may have missed, because before you can trully close the sale you need to have overcome ALL of the objections (i.e. Would you be taking delivery of this car today, or would you prefer us to fully detail it first and you can pick it up tommorow?) if they answer positive reel them in, if not there is an objection and you need to find out what it is (i.e. you said that your father refered you to us, and that you felt comfortable with us, is it me? did I do anything to make you feel uncomfortable? wait for a response if no keep probing, you said that side curtain airbags were an important feature to you and your family ect. ect) Keep this up remeber you are just using the previous asked probing questions to you uncover the objective, once you find out what the objection is, before you resolve the issue get a commitment from them i.e. I understand your situation (emphaty here goes along way) so your saying that your comfortable with me and my company, and you really like the car but you just cannot come up with the required $1500 down payment other than that if you had the $1500 we would be doing buisness today correct? (wait for an answer) if the answer is yes go for the jugular Mr. Smith just for my sake, me and you both know that it's going to take $1500 down to get into this car which I know that you only have $800, but here's the deal, I'm new here and my I need to prove my worth to my boss let me write this up with only the $800 down just so I can run it by my boss so he knows that at least I am doing my job, would you atleast do that for me? I know that he's going to say no, but I got to show him that I'm trying (at this point hopefully you spent enough time with him that he or she will feel that they owe this much to you, after all what do they have to loose, they don't have the required down payment anyways) thank you Mr. Smith, just give me a second to let my boss reject this order... Congratulations Mr. Smith XYZ motors is offering an incentive to repeat customers, which I wasn't aware of were they match your down payment dollar for dollar, and since your dad has bought from us before, I can get you into that car for only $750 down, (make them feel good) Wow you are some kind of negotiator, Not only do you get the car of your dreams, but you also get to keep $50 for yourself. I have never seen my boss like that before, way to go. Rember the above is a basic guide line, the steps are important, the questions will vary but whether your selling pencils or real estate if you use this imformation I feel you will do well, also sales is a numbers game starting out if you only close 20% that's making some income, but more importantly that also means you are being rejected 80% of the time, no worries learn from every situation, and use it to your advantage and you will see your close ratio go up. I hope that you can get something out of my long winded 2nd post LOL. And I wish you the very best, also keep us posted, if you use any of the above mentioned advice and it works or don't work we want to know, after all thats what it's all about. Good Luck.

~Mr. Cesario

First off, remeber that the automotive industry is notorious as beign a tad shadey, and believe me, consumers know that

I dealt with this daily when I was selling cars. A great mentor told me that when you go to a restaurant, you start your server with a score of zero, then as your dining experience unfolds, you score your server +10, -10 or anywhere in between depending how you were treated.

Unfortunately, as a car salesman, you usually start at -10 with your customer. You have a lot more work to do. I absolutely agree with Mr. Cesario when he said that you need to make your customer like you and feel comfortable. One of the toughest things you are up against is your customer's fear. Due to the history of the car business, they are afraid that they will make a poor choice and be taken advantage of. It's really important that your customer sees you as a person and not a car salesman. Do whatever you have to do that make that happen and you will notice people being much easier to deal with. Also, try telling them "I'm not going to sell you a car! I'm not even going to try. I'm just here as a Jeep/Honda/Lexus/Chevy etc. professional helping you to make a well-informed decision." Then, follow what you normally do and sell them a car.

PS - Check out Grant Cardone's website. It's not sales gospel, but I found his material pretty motivational.

Yap, yap, yap...

If you want to make money in the car biz, sell pre-owned, then become a sales manager, then work towards GSM or F&I. In the right the dealership you'll make 300k.

Apparently someone didn't like the simple truth on how the money is made in the car business - and as a result, gave me a negative.

If you you have something you dislike about what I post, have the balls to send me a pm and tell me about it rather then post an anonymous negative remark like a spineless rat.