How many of you like to fail? I will assume that no one raised their hand… that’s what usually happens when I ask that question to a group of highly successful salespeople. Now, please think of anything you have attempted to do, that was new and complicated, that you were successful at the very first time you tried it… walking, talking, hitting a baseball, skiing, selling a car… anything. And even now, with experience and skills, isn’t it true that when you receive an Internet lead, you fail far more frequently than you succeed?
What I want you to do is to embrace failure, manage failure and finally succeed through failure. I want you to accept the fact that most of the people who contact you using the Internet will NOT buy a car from you. That’s okay… most of them don’t need to buy a car from you in order for you to be successful. The truth is, I want you to fail. I want you to fail in order to achieve your goal. I want you to fail 40% of the time to achieve your goal, four separate times and you will still be successful.
Let me explain. Selling a car through the Internet is no different than anything else; there is a process involved. When you first learned to sell cars, you probably learned the 10 or 12 steps to a sale that began with the Meet and Greet and ended with the Delivery. The same applies with the Internet, except there are only four steps, once you have received a lead. Step one is contact; that means that using any means available, you achieve two-way communication with your clients. Step two is to set an appointment to visit the dealership. Step three is to do all in your power to assure that the client shows up for their appointment. Step four is to sell the car, probably using most of the 10 or 12 steps to a sale that you first learned when you started your car-selling career. When I stated earlier that I wanted you to fail at these four steps, I was serious… I want you to fail 40% of the time, four different times. Of course, that means that I want you to be successful 60% of the time! And that will get you to where you want to be.
Step One: Contact. When I stated that you must use every means possible to establish contact, it is because this may be the most difficult of the four steps in which to achieve a 60% success rate. As you already know, there is a phenomenon in Internet Automotive Sales where the customer clicks ‘send’ on their lead information form, from whichever source they are using to send a lead and then they immediately go on a vacation to MARS! You reply by email, hopefully within less than 30 minutes and there is no reply. If you rely on email alone, you may never reach this buyer. You need to send an email that means something to the buyer (more on that later) as soon as is humanly possible. Then you need to follow that up immediately with a phone call. Then you need to send another, different email with content that is also worthwhile to the buyer. You need to vary the time of day that you call and you need to keep calling and emailing until you get a reply… not so frequently that it becomes obnoxious, but frequent enough to be called ‘persistent’.
Step Two: Set an appointment. Why would anyone be willing to set an appointment to visit a car dealership? Simple… because the dealership has something that they want. And I am not only speaking of the car or truck… with a few exceptions they can get one of those almost anywhere. What I am talking about is that not only does the dealership with which they are willing to make an appointment have the vehicle that they are interested in, they also offer something more. You decide what that ‘something more’ is. Is it the best price, the best service, the best selection? IS IT YOU? The buyer has to have a good and valid reason to set aside time in their lives to visit a dealership. I call it… “theygottawannameetya”. The buyer has see value to them of coming down to the dealership and meeting with you, or someone else, and it has to be compelling enough to overcome whatever is holding them back.
Step Three: The buyer shows up for the appointment. While this seems to be the simplest part of the equation, believe it or not, it is a very common point of failure for a LOT of salespeople. I mean, after all, in order to get a 100% appointment show rate, all that has to happen is that the buyer does what they said they would do in the first place. So why is this so difficult… who knows. Perhaps they set the appointment just to get you off the phone. Maybe something came up. Maybe they stopped by a competitor on the way to you. Lots of things happen. You need to do all you can to be certain that it happens with 40% of your appointments and no more. This includes sending a separate email, after the appointment is made, with turn-by-turn directions to the dealership. It means that a manager from the dealership calls to confirm the appointment either the day of the appointment or the day before they are scheduled to arrive.
Step Four: Sell the car. This is the easy part… the ‘no-brainer’. Of the people that send Internet leads, most of you currently sell 50-60% of those that show up at the dealership.
So… those are the steps. I want you to fail 40% of the time in each one of those steps. If you receive 100 leads in a month and 40% disappear with no further contact, that means you will talk to 60 buyers. And if 40% of them refuse to set aside time to visit the dealership, then you will have 36 appointments. If 40% of those people fail to show up for their appointments, then you will have 21 buyers arrive at your dealership. And you are probably selling 60% of those who show up so you will have a 13% close ratio.
If you aren’t currently closing 13% of your Internet leads, figure out which step is weak and work on that one. If you are selling 13% or more, then you should be looking for ways of getting even more leads than you currently are, because you are already very successful and you need to make more money than you are now!
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