Following on from our previous episode, we talk about five things you must do in a demonstration drive.
These points are when you have parked up and before you let the customer drive.
When you park, frame the car and butterfly it, i.e. open all the doors, bonnet and boot. Gives you and your customer space to for you to show features.
Here are the highlights:
{05:19} Seat back
{05:47} Rear Vision Mirror
{07:27} Adjust Fuel Consumption
{11:46} Set up Sat Nav
{13:51} Take keys out of the car
About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon’s words ‘real world’, it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visit
www.symcotraining.co.uk
Welcome to the Selling in the Motor Trade Podcast, an association with Symco Training. This is the weekly podcast where we share best practice tips and ideas on how to sell more cards, improve your service department and generally put more profit into your dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett. As some of you probably already know me as skipping, I will start with saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi, welcome to another episode of Selling in the Motor Trade. Now listen, I know last week's episode was a bit click-bait-ish and if you didn't catch it, I just said, hey, listen, test drives don't work anymore. But of course, demonstration drives do. So go and have a listen to that episode so I'm not having to repeat myself. I'm sure when it comes out, I hope it would have got a lot of abuse about last week's episode about what do you mean, test drives don't work. Of course, it's clickbait. We want to demonstrate the right feature, the right customer at the right time. And I believe that bums and seats always have worked and I think they always will work. Yes, of course, you've all sold cars without doing a demonstration drive. I have after COVID-19, if we didn't do it, we starved. Isn't it so much easier when you raise the customer's desire in the car? Here's something else though that I think so important. We all know that we've got to get back to basics. Everyone's telling me their sales teams after COVID, they were shell and peas and the good off-fashion basics of the sales process is because we had salespeople that weren't employed before COVID-19 or they're only coming after that period and the whole sales process, we didn't need to do a demonstration drive. When someone called up and said, hey, is that used car still available? I want it because I've missed out on the last three cars. And also when the salesperson said, yeah, it is available. Do you want it? If not, I've got six of my colleagues are going to sell it from under me. You know what? You didn't have to say, well, hold on for a second. Unless the car's exactly right for you, no price is going to be good enough. Let's just go for a drive, make sure the car's exactly right for you. But now, guys, it's changed, hasn't it? We're going to get back to the basics. We're going to get back to the three sales in any sale. So yourself first, the product second and then the deal. Now, I took it out on the last episode. What do you do when you do this demonstration drive? And the demonstration drive for the people who didn't catch that one, instead of coming out of your dealership and going left, left, left, left, left, like we were probably all taught to do. I talked about a demonstration drive where you come out and you drive straight away. The sales person drives first to demonstrate the right feature to the right customer at the right time. We talked about loving golf course car parks midweek because they're nice and quiet. And I just said, hey, listen, let's talk about the five things I want you to do when you get to the handover point. And I stopped last time because I was draining on. I thought, OK, I'll talk about that specifically because I think there's a few key things you can do on this stage. Now, you want to find a lovely golf course car park or something like that. The midweek, the bowling alley that's not used midweek, somewhere where there's not lots of other cars because I personally want to frame the car. How special does that poverty pack car look? There's all the flash ones in it in the car showroom. Even get away, you can actually frame the car. So that's why I like to do it. Think about a good jeweler, a high-class jeweler. You go in and have a look at that ring or that watch and they get the black mat out, don't they? And they get one ring out and they almost frame it. Of course, security's got lots to do this. They don't bring the whole pun of rings out. They bring one at a time for security but also maybe to frame it to make it look special. That's what I like to do. Somewhere where you can butterfly the car. Now what do I mean by butterfly the car? You can stop the car, open up all the doors, open up the boot or the hatch or whatever the car is underneath the bottom and we can crawl all the way around it. Now brand new salespeople, you might want to try this approach because I don't know. But sometimes I felt a little bit self-conscious doing the full presentation that your manufacturer has shown you how to do on the showroom for. With all my experience, colleagues, look at me. All the old dinosaur salespeople are like, no, what's he doing? Oh, he's being on a manufacturer's course. This way, if you take yourself away, you can do a full presentation without any feeling self-conscious. Also your customers, okay? They might feel more comfortable away from the environment as well. Now when we stop there, five things we're going to talk about. Number one, I always love to put the seat back. Why do we put the seat back? Yeah, you know why? Because I got short little legs. I don't know about you, okay? But I got short little legs. And if you jump in my car after I've driven it, you think, couldn't, it's me. This is timing. So what I do is I put the seat back a touch. I'll be smart. Don't put it too far back because there might not be any space behind here. But number one, seat back. Number two, rear vision mirror. I was always taught to knock the rear vision mirror. Now the reason why we do that, if you knock the rear vision mirror, your customer has to set up perfectly for them, okay? Again, your customer might just put up with something that's not perfectly right. If I drive Emma, my wife's car on the weekend, I'm just going down the shops. I don't adjust all her mirror settings because I don't want to get in trouble. And if I want to look behind me, I know this is really bad, but sometimes I just duck down a bit. If you want us to do that, now if we do that, maybe our customer might do the same thing. If you knock the rear vision layer, it forces them to set up perfectly for them. Again, I always thought of it silly just knocking the rear vision mirror. I'm going to say, what's he doing that for? So now I'll turn it into a demonstration. Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Comfort customer. Mr. and Mrs. Safety Conscious Customer. This car's got the automatic dimming mirror because we all know it's like when someone comes up behind you and they haven't got the matrix headlighting and they're blinding you and your Volvo. And you're having to adjust the mirror setting. What this car does is it automatically dims that rear vision mirror, but also the side mirrors as well. So you're not having to just use that little manual adjuster and mess up all the mirror settings. Then you can leave the mirror out of whack. It just seems a little bit more natural for me. So one, seat back. Number two, adjust the rear vision mirrors. Number three, what you might want to do is adjust the fuel consumption computer. Reset it. Now, use a lot of common sense on this one. And we're going to be talking about an ice vehicle, internal combustion engine vehicle. Okay. And hybrid to be fair. Anything with an internal combustion engine, not fully V. We need to deal with them differently, obviously. But are you old enough, listen to this, to remember a choke in a car? Unfortunately, I am. What a choke did on a car. So it choked off the air supply to the engine. So more fuel would get into it until the car was warmed up. See any internal combustion engine car, it needs more fuel until it's warmed up. So what you might want to do is reset the fuel trip computer after you've driven out halfway and the car has warmed up. Now, you've got to use some common sense with this. So if your whole demonstration drive isn't long enough, the car, sorry, may not have had time to warm up. And people might say, oh, no, don't reset the trip computer now because they're going to a short journey and I'll show the really bad fuel consumption. Well, firstly, I would argue that maybe your demonstration drive might be a bit too short. Okay. But also use some common sense. If you jump into a customer's demonstration car and they drive the car like driving missed days very sedately, okay, you might not want to readjust the fuel trip computer, but point it out. If you or your colleague drives your demonstrator vehicle to work like you stole it, you might want to reset the fuel trip computer at the beginning of your journey at the end. I think this is so important when we've got customers coming from diesel because diesel's now the work of the devil in Europe and they're going to hybrid or a petrol vehicle and they used to be better fuel consumption. So many people are focused on fuel consumption. And when you see or the customer's seen that's advertised that 49 miles per gallon with a WLTP, that's a real world testing procedure for the people not in Europe. When they see that, but this car, because your colleague, okay, drove the car to work like he stole it and I managed to get down to 27 miles per gallon, I think, oh my goodness, this car is nowhere near as good as it is. So with those ones, you might want to reset the fuel trip computer and use some common sense on it. Again with electric vehicles, how often is everyone interested in range, range, range? And I get it. Of course they are, okay. But with range, it's a really cold winter's day, okay? You've driven the car with the heating on, the heated seats and the steering wheel, okay? And the car should be getting up to 390 miles range, but this car's now only showing, I don't know, it means we're in half of that, okay? People are going to think, oh my goodness, the efficiency is not as good as this. So that's where you might want to do something with the fuel trip computer. The way I set this up is, hey, Mr. and Mrs. Efficiency, economy customers. This car is achieving up to 49 miles per gallon in old money. Now please bear in mind that it's done in test conditions. With WLTP, it's a real world testing. If you compare us to another manufacturer, you'll get a fair comparison. But the real world, you might not get that. So what we'll do is let's reset the fuel trip computer now and see what you're achieving on the way back. Again, the demonstration drive has to be long enough and not so much stop, start there to get a fair indication of that one. And we're not talking about manipulating customers at all, but you know what, we just want to make sure we put our best foot forward. So seat back, adjust the rear vision mirror, maybe do something with trip computer on the car. And then the next one, number four is set up the satellite navigation. This is the real reason why I'm loving a demonstration drive, which is almost halfway out where you're demonstrating features, advantages and benefits, stopping the car and letting the customer drive the car. Because this way, you can actually set up the satellite navigation on the way back to the dealership instead of you talking as a salesperson. Now you've got bitching Betty telling them where to go. So you're demonstrating the satellite navigation system, or maybe the Apple CarPlay or the Android equivalent, okay? If you want to set that up or you've got your manufacturer's sat nav on it. So I'll turn around and say, hey, Mr. Customer, we've got a satellite navigation. We've got some different areas here called categories. If you look under the categories here, we've got the servicing. That's how dealership there, but take it wherever you want. The great news with that is when they get back in the car and start it up, most satellite navigation systems for an hour anyway, remembers the last destination. So as soon as you start again, all that to do is hit the resume button and it's telling them where to go. So they don't feel like they've been controlled because you're not controlling them. Maybe the satellite navigation is, okay? So that's where you might want to try that one there. Now some people say, oh Simon, I always get their phone and set up the Apple CarPlay. Just be a bit cautious with that one. Setting up my phone in a company demonstrator. Do I want all my phone book information going into the car? I know when I get out, they don't get it again, but the customers know that. Just be a bit sensitive with this. Some people say they set up their own phone and show the customer how the Apple CarPlay works. I personally, if Apple CarPlay is something specifically a customer has a desire for it, something about that car that put it on their shopping list, I'll set it up. If not, call me lazy, but sometimes I find I just don't have time to do it. So that's an excuse. I am lazy. I just don't do that. Maybe I should. Okay? Here's the last thing. I want you to take the keys out of the car. Now some of you people might say, oh yeah, yeah, go take the keys out of the car because I live in the middle of Sydney and I'm going to do so much crime here. Okay? You know what? That might be part of the reason why your boss had told you to do it. But let me tell you, it's super, super rare. I've been in car dealerships for 33 of my years of my life now. Every day I'm in a car dealership somewhere, normally. I have a bit of holidays every now and then. And it's only twice it's ever happened when I'm in a dealership. One was an Audi dealership in Stafford. And you know what? They got the car back very quick. When you hear the whole story, I think it's quite sad actually. Salesperson told me that, hey, skip the guy said, get out. I've got a gun. They think the man just put their hand in his pocket. He sells us into the right things that go on, get out of the dealership, get out of the car straight away. He phoned the dealership, picked me up. Of course they called the police. And the police said, well, how do you got their home address? Well, yeah, it'll be a fake address surely. I said, yeah, yeah, we'll just check. And the car was in the man's driveway. And now after something like that. And when you hear the whole story, it's quite sad that the person had done. I think it was learning difficulties or something like that. And remember, they never even prosecuted it. They got the car back very quickly. Bless him. The person thought he was playing a game of grand theft, daughter or something like that. Okay. Another happened in a pergio dealership in Bristol. These people pulled the weapon to get out. Salesperson did the right thing. Bad people were driving away and a salesperson jumped on the bonnet of the car. Guys, no say on the car's worth your life. Okay. I don't know who your boss is. Okay. But you know what? If someone does something like that, say, hey, enjoy, get out. Make sure you've got your phone with you. Some of you guys will have situations where they'll track your phone so they know where you are. Okay. But it's super, super rare, honestly. I think I'm wrong. The car's get stolen from the other flip. So it's normally when we're shut. Okay. And people cut keys and go back afterwards or something like that on a demonstration drive. That's super, super rare. Okay. Something's more of an issue though. And I'll finish off the key conversation for you. Something that's bigger than the issue. The reason I take the keys is not for car themed. The reason I take the key things for control. Okay. What I want to do with it, I want to show the customer the risks. Okay. If I just hand the keys to them, they might just start up and go. People haven't had a chance to make sure their seats in the right position or their mirrors are set up. Make sure they know how all the controls do it. And I'm trying to have to point out things when they're driving it up. So you can do those different presentations and take the key with you. It's not for car thieves. So then once you present a whole car, you can almost present the key back to them. When they're in the car, is then there's lovely mental ownership going on. There you go, Mr. and Mrs. Safety Conscious Customer. Hand the keys over and get them to start the car. Keep the air conditioning going or the heating going whatever time of year you are. I said there's something else that's bigger than a shoe than car thieves. And please, you need to promise me this. Is anyone jumps in the car and starts driving it like a complete nutter? No sale is worth your life. I'll tell you that for a couple of... Okay. One. I was probably about 20 years old, maybe 19 something like that. I was in a dealership and two young army guys on a five litre V8 Ford Falcon went for a drive. And these two young army guys went through one crossroads and they didn't slow down. I remember distinctly thinking, oh, that was a bit tired. But I can remember thinking about I don't want jeopardize a deal. So I didn't say anything. Second crossroads, they didn't slow down. Again, I thought, oh, not too sure about that. But I didn't want jeopardize a deal. And also that age, I was a bit of a boy racer as well. Third one though, we never made it. A green Toyota Crocida come in T-boned us. Now, no one died. No one had life changing injuries. I tell you what, learnt very quickly. Very quickly when we got back to the dealership, were these guys the real customers? Or were they the joy riders? Yeah. They were the joy riders. When we got back to the dealership, let's have a look at the car. No, we've had our fun. See you later there. Okay. So, you know, if someone drives a car like a complete dickhead. Now, I just say, oh, stick the speed limit, will you? You can drive the car like that all day long, where it's yours. But when I'm in the car, just stick the speed limit. I don't even care if you're rude anymore because no sale is worth your life. And also, there's someone I want you to remember. It's just one person I know that I was in the dealership on the day. My phone call had to go into this person's parents. And he's no longer coming home. Because we're out for a drive. They hit an oak tree and those things don't move. Guys, it's super rare. Be safe out there. Okay. Also, if you get someone you feel uncomfortable with, okay, ladies, do me a favor. Ask one of the lads just to take this person to drive. Okay. I'm sure it's going to be very, very innocent and somewhat unclumsily fancy to you. And it's just a clumsy way to do it. But just be safe for me. Okay. Take the keys though. Okay. For mental ownership. So that's what we're going to do on that hand over point. Now when we're finished, present the car, it's about time for them to drive. I'm going to do a couple of things here. I personally have to say, right, Mr. and Mrs. Customer, I'm going to be quiet now and let the car sell itself. Hey, guys, I'm going to be quiet now and let the car sell itself. Feel free to ask any other questions. It's so, so important because your customers are driving car that they're not used to. You see, if you're a salesperson, listen to this podcast, you've got an ability that I've no longer got. You can jump in a car with a whole lot of different clutch, biting points, different braking pressures, different steering feel, and you're just without even thinking. I've been driving an automatic car for my last four cars. I jumped into a manual car that I hire from Dublin Airport. The first two or three kilometers is like someone's put kangaroo petrol in it and it stops start all the time. If the customer starts driving the car, really shit. Are they likely to blame the car or themselves? They'll blame the car. So that's why you drive first to prove it drives well. Drives like a chauffeur driver. Then when they're driving the car, listen, I'm going to be quiet now or let the car sell itself because they might be nervous driving this car. Make sure you offer to everyone in the whole buying party if they all want to drive the car. Even Eddie expert, you know Eddie, the guy that turns up because he's mates behind a new car and he's mates. Eddie, Eddie expert is driven by jealousy because he's not getting a new car, but his mate is. Okay. Involve him as part of the process because I tell you I'm Eddie expert. I'll wrap the deal on you so, so quick. If you be little or don't include him within the sale. Okay. So I'm going to be quiet now and just let the car sell itself until five minutes before we get back to the dealership. Five minutes before we get back to the dealership, I might start getting them into a yes, brand online. It gets up and goes quite well for a one point X, doesn't it? I'm really impressed that. Two, the Bose sound system. The sound that sounds really good, doesn't it? Two or three little yes tag questions. Something you're almost certain you're going to get a yes to. Can you see yourself driving this car to Edinburgh? That's a closed question. They answer that yes or no. You might say, listen, you said you traveled to Edinburgh regularly to see your noise. How many times a year do you go there? See how that's an open question? And when they say, ah, probably about four or five times a year, they're mentally pushing themselves driving to Edinburgh after civilian laws in that lovely new car. You might want to pepper one of those in. I personally don't force in a mental ownership question if it doesn't naturally present itself. But then when they're, I don't know, two minutes, three minutes before they get back to the dealership, five at the most, you might throw in your first trial, close question. So George, Mary, whoever's driving the car, whoever the car's for, can I see if everything stacks up right? Is this the car you'd like to be driving to an exporter a year? Or listen, apart from the numbers, is there anything stopping on on this car? Okay? Listen, Mary, George, like it, like an after one owner, or you're telling him, you just go to the numbers, right? That's the car you'd like to leave, go ahead with, or that's the car you'd like to drive and make it look big wins. Now, there's lots of words there that we have to avoid. It's deals by, okay? Now, I'm not going to now and stay later, but at this stage when they're still driving the car, we'll probably avoid those. When they give an affirmative, yeah, I love the car. They would get the numbers right. These are spun with your, let's go back and see what my salesmen are coming up with. Let's go back and see what my boss has got for us, okay? If they give you a wishy washing. Have everything stacks up right? Is this the car you'd like to be driving thanks to for years? Could be. You haven't got to admit them. How does when you say could be? It sounds like there's something you're not sure about. Is there anything about this car? You're not 100% sure about it. No, no, no, it's great. And that just leaves the numbers there. And I said, what's the number here? You're not 100% sure about it. Or they might give you an association of objection, okay? Well, the mileage is higher than what I hoped. Well, it wouldn't be my first choice of thought. Well, we should have full leather interior, not half leather interior. Let's see if that's a deal breaker. Yeah, okay, well, that mileage is reflected when the price. If I had a lot of miles on it, when we asked him 39, 95, did everything else stack up right? Then mileage on that car. And we'd stop your own tone and work it. If they said yes, okay, we need to find a lot of miles on it. Well, we should have full leather interior, not half leather interior. Okay, and that's what's left in the price. They've everything else stacked up right. A lack of full leather, that one's stocked when you sell it with it. Now, they say yes, yes, what? You're going to find a car full leather interior. Now, the color changed that slightly, okay? And by the way, if one of these objections come up at this point, it has to be a minor objection. A major objection is the mileage or the lack of leather was a full deal breaker. You wouldn't have got this part on the process, okay? Color's a big one there. Well, red wouldn't be my first choice. Let's see if it's a deal breaker. Don't say, okay, that's reflective of the price. No one wants that. No, just cut that bit out and say, okay, but if everything else stacks up right, the color of this car, that wouldn't stop your own tone, would it? If they say yes, guess what? You're going to have to find a different color car, okay? I love to ask that question when they're still gone. Some time to drive in the car. They've still got three minutes thinking, yeah, this is one for me. That's what a good sofa salesperson does. They ask them to business while you're still sitting on the sofa. A good estate agent that's trying to rent your sell your property might win your inner place. So, where would you put the teeve in here? Oh, probably in that wall there. They're mentally living there. A good jeweler will ask you to buy that lovely, protectfully watch while it's on your wrist, or that lovely diamond bracelet when you're wearing it there, okay? So, I love to ask that mental ownership question followed on by the trial-close question when they're still driving the car. And when they stop, then you've got time to reiterate it. Right, you have any other questions about this car? Nope, great. So, what you're saying is we just go get the numbers right, and that's how you like to go ahead with it. Cool, we'll get numbers right. So, here's as part of my job. Guys, a bit of a rant on the demonstration there. I said I'd do this after last week's one, okay? It's a gain a one for your salespeople. So, please, would you do me a favor? Forward this on to all your salespeople. Salespeople, you've got to listen to this. Do me a favor, just subscribe, because we have so many tips and ideas like this, and the algorithm, it really, really does help to get this out for more and more people. If you could do that, I'd really appreciate it. And do me a favor, this podcast has been going for so long. I think it's going to be one of the longest running automotive podcasts in the UK now. Motor trailer, radio, I think we've been done longer there, but we've been around for a long time now. And go back to the beginning, and have a look at all the different tips that we've done. That just leaves me to say that all details of this episode and other episodes on the selling in the Motor Trade can be found on our website simcotraining.co.uk. Go there to get a copy of our book, Words That Sell Cars. Go there to sign up to a free trial of our sales fitness online sales training program. Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bowkett, food linked in. Thank you.
