Ah Ha or Oh Yeah?

This is the first instalment of a two part interview with Jonathan Dawson from Sellchology.

Simon heard Jonathan speak at the latest NADA conference and thought it would be really interesting to have him on the podcast.

They discuss taking ownership of things you don’t like, getting activity right and body language.

Here are the highlights:

{02:07} Ah Ha or Oh Yeah

{14:53} Ownership

{20:41} Activity

{21:32} Pattern Interruption

{28:53} Body Language

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 and 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 cars, 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 by saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi, welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Today is another one of my NADA specials. You know, I love going to the NADA-concomsing, what's new and fresh and what speakers are out there. The 24 NADA's I've done now and I'm a real sucker for it. So I've just come back out and I've got to tell you, there's someone that I've met out there this time that I really liked his approach. He talked a whole lot of common sense. He was chairing a meeting, which was kind of like a top 20 ideas and he had three dealers. I believe Jonathan, you've worked with us when you're clients. I'm not sure about that, but I think they're your clients and there was some just good old-fashioned, simple ideas there. I thought, I like that approach. We've got to get Jonathan on the podcast. So Jonathan, I just want to say thank you very much and I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the podcast. Well, of course, as a speaker at NADA, I appreciate you attending. It's always great when you look out there and there are people in the room and it was a great sentence, it was a great show in general for us. I guess those three dealers that were present with me on the panel are my clients and dear friends. And so I appreciate the opportunity to speak to your audience and maybe relay some of the information that we saw there and of course expand on some of those ideas. Yeah, some great simple ideas there, but I always love the NADA top 20 ideas because you often come out with a nugget or two, which is absolutely brilliant. But listen, I just need to start off with the aha or oh, yeah, moments. Can you run through that with us again? Because it just really resonated with me. Well, I appreciate that. Right before we started recording this, I was relaying to Simon that one of the things that I believe about adult learning and most of your listeners are probably a little too. It's like most adult learning really falls into two categories. It has aha moments or oh, yeah, moments. Aha moments are where new information brings about new revelation or maybe even old information, but seen in a new way brings about this new revelation. You have this aha moment where you go, ah, I've never thought of it that way or I've never seen it that way or how have I not thought of it that way. And then you have, of course, the oh, yeah, moments, the moments where you hear something and you go, gosh, why didn't I do why I used to do that? Oh, yeah, who's doing this? Oh, yeah, I used to make that approach. I used to try that thing. Why did I stop? And so most adult learning is that way. And I have a funny story about that. There's a gentleman who's 84 years old. This is in Fort Smith, Arkansas. And I was visiting that dealership because I had a seminar happening that was going to be an event that they could attend, but it was voluntary. The salespeople got to elect to go. And I was invited by the management team to do a presentation for about 20 minutes in a sales meeting. And after my presentation, essentially the team members would decide if they wanted to come to my full seminar. And this gentleman, 84 years old, Grady Burke, gets up in front of everybody and he says, I've been in the selling cars for 40 plus years. I just listened to this man talk for 20 minutes. And let me tell you why I'm going to go to your workshop. He says, I'm going to learn the three things I never did know. I'm going to remember me two things I've done, forgot. And I'm going to sell me five more cars. And then the group was losing it because this gentleman, this old man who, you know, who committed to our industry for 40 years, he understood that you're going to learn three things. You're going to remember two things and you're going to find a way to sell five more cars. And that's really what it's about. So that's why I'm here and that's why I hope your audience is tuned in. Love it. Hey, Jonathan, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get started in the motor triad? What's the backstory? Good job. Yes. My backstory on getting into the car business is I'm going to call it somewhat non-traditional. My wife had just graduated. I was 22 years old. We're newlyweds. She had just graduated with her undergrad. She got accepted into a master's program and we relocated. Prior to the car business, I spent five years in the door to door trade. So I was so... Wow. Tough selling. That's tough selling. You know, people say that and I guess it can be. I found that it wasn't that difficult for me. I'm only being in cars. 17 years old. I don't know. I didn't find it that tough. I didn't find it that difficult, in fact. And I'll tell you, when I started with this company, I was 17 years old when I started selling door to door. And I got to tell you, when I got approached by the elder of my church to join his company, now you were old enough Simon and I say this with, you know... That's okay. Everybody, the longer you do this kind of work, the more you talk to people who don't know what a VCR is. Yeah. Oh, yellow pigeon. Right. You talk to someone and you realize your reference points are dating you. Yeah. But this was the technology called Dish Network was a new technology, digital programming, digital televisions, digital TVs, digital DVD players. All of this stuff was brand new technology and I was 17 years old and the elder of my church got a licensing contract for Dish Network satellite and he wanted a team to go sell subscriptions to the satellite service. So I was the number one salesperson in the entire company at 17 years old. Now I also happen to be the only salesperson in the entire company. I love it. But I was number one. Yeah. I had something to be the worst salesman in the entire company at that time. The best and the worst. You know the only people can claim that record. I can say I was genuinely the best and worst salesman at the exact same time. So our company though grew and as we added new sales reps since I was the senior sales rep at 17 years old, I was taught to I was the guy teaching people kind of how the process works and gradually our company grew. And as it grew, I became very successful at what I was doing and I became the trainer of our company at 18 years old teaching these people how to knock on doors and how to get these subscriptions. So at 22 years old when I relocated to a new state to Kansas, I was given the option to open up another location and just extend my satellite team that way. But I didn't feel like I wanted to do it. It wasn't a challenge for me anymore. And I went to a dealership and this is my foyer into the car business. This is my entry into the car business. As I walked into one side of the dealership, so I mean it's not a big store, it's a small town. So I walked in one entranceway on the across the show floor on the other exit entranceway was a man physically throwing another man out of the dealership, just throwing him physically out of the building. Wow. And I'm walking and I see that and he goes, go on, get out of here, we don't need you. Throwing a customer out or an employee. Turns out it was a customer is the manager throwing a customer out of the building because the customer wanted a low price on the vehicle. Wow. Yeah. So that was my introduction to the car business. So anyways, so I started working at 22 years old at the small dealership. We were a Toyota Dodge Chrysler Plymouth and that's how I got in the business. And you know, I just really honestly, I just wanted to have a job to put my wife through school. She was getting her masters. I was young and taught, you know, when she has her master, she'll graduate, start making real money and I'll be a stay at home dad or something and let her make the bus. But that's how I got sucked into the business. So this separates the real motorized. I love this question. Do you remember the first kind soul? Yes, it was a young lady. Actually, her name was Elizabeth Hendrickson. And what was funny about this particular deal is I was brand new to the, I was brand, brand new. Wow. I go stop yet. It's not just the car, the customer's name, the whole man and everything. It's just don't we remember it. That's how we sold. Go on, tell me the story. Yes. It was a 1994 Honda Civic. It was a Tudor hatchback blue manual transmission. And what was funny about it was my dealer had said to me, I was brand new. I just started like literally the next the day after I got hired. And they said, go walk the inventory and learn the inventory. And I'm walking through and I see in the back of the dealership, this we had what was called a rock lot was it was just cars that are going to be able to sell, right? So just jump cars. And I see this little Tudor hatchback blue Honda Civic, little managed to vision. And I just love managed to just like, wow, what a great little car this would be for somebody. So I sit down on my desk, the phone rings. I'm not even supposed to pick up the phone, but there was no one else on the show for. And the manager's like, pick up the phone. And I answer the phone. And this lady, this little voice on the other end says, yeah, hey, do you guys happen to have any like Honda Civics, preferably like a Tudor hatchback? And if it's a manual, that would be ideal. And I'm thinking, this is a set up. Yeah. This is messing with me. And I'm like, yes. And she says, would it be by chance blue? And I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. Now you're really messing with me, right? And I'm like, yes. And she says, well, I'd like to come see it. Can I come see it? I'm like, yeah, when will you be? She's like, I can be there in half an hour. I'm thinking, this is really happening. So I hang up the phone and I go to my manager and he's like, that car just got traded in. You know, we're not even going to clean it or sell it. I'm like, I just set an appointment on it. I'll go clean it. So I went back there and I cleaned the car myself for 30 minutes. I washed, polished the wheels, vacuumed the car. By the time she showed up, my hair is all a mess. I'm sweating. And she shows up and she's like, it's perfect. My dad said that I can pick it out as long as it's under such a price point. I'll take it and I sold my first car. And I was like, wow, that was easy. So I sold, I started mid month, August, August 10th, I sold 10 cars in the next 12 days. And I just thought I was the stuff. I mean, 10 cars in 12 days. I'm like, yeah, this is easy. So the next month, of course, they asked the goals and they said, what's your goal? And I'm like, I can do basic math, right? If I can sell 10 cars in 12 days, then I can sell 20 cars. So my goal is 20 cars and everybody kind of Snickers, right? That's a new guy who thinks he can sell 20 cars in his second month. I didn't sell 20. I sold 12. And I'm like, OK, so then the month of next month comes around that just my goal to 15 and I sold three and I got fired. So you're all listening to a podcast with an interview from the 20th. Third month sold Greek, ours and got fired. Stay tuned for more great tips. But John, I'll go say, we see this all the time. In the first three months, I see sales people, their sales go bang bang bang bang bang. After three months, sometimes over here in Europe, say, ah, he's got a bit of knowledge now. She thinks she knows how to sell it and the sales crop off. I can tell you, I've got another theory. I think when we first start, we speak to everyone. We don't prejudge. You don't sit there and get the numpty detector. This guy's not a buyer. OK, when you get in three months, we start to learn that, hold on, what do they owe on his car? Let's make sure. Let's look for the reasons why we can't sell a Macar so we don't waste our time. And if you actually have a look at an exercise, ah, by the way, this is a, oh, I used to do this. 20 years ago, I used to say, let's have a look at an experienced sales person and a brand new sales person. And given the score one to 10, on the different parts of the process, they have selling skills, they have product knowledge, but they're street-wise, they're street smart, stuff like that. And give me a score. But new guy, where is he? Who wants free? Experienced guy should be 10, reality is seven, right? So we go down the list. So have a look at this. The new guy should sell. Now, we're near and saying no because it's experienced guy. But then we say, here's the next little bit of enthusiasm. It's attitude. It's got that times effect. It's time. It's delusional optimism. Oh, I love that. Hey, isn't that so? Hey, listen, that's why I started my own business. That's delusional optimism there. Thank you. It's another way of calling it hope, right? You just, when you're in the beginning, you're hopeful. And then you learn to not be hopeful, right? You're, and really what it is. And this is why I marvel when sometimes, you know, when dealers say, oh, we don't do training or we don't make, believe in training or whatever, your people are being trained. Let's just be fair. Everybody is being trained by somebody. They're either being trained by some Facebook group or some Facebook guru or some YouTube clip or they're coworkers. But I, as a brand new salesperson, was being trained by my coworkers. My coworkers were telling me, here's how you greet somebody. Here's what you do and here's what you do and here's what you do. And they were conditioning me to be unproductive and to be mediocre. And that's because most people do not want to be around excellence. It exposes them. And so, you know, I was getting coached on how to pre-qualify my customer by the salespeople who had been there for 10 years and were selling eight cars a month. Dave Anderson calls it the five-car friends, doesn't he? It's so true. That's what happens. Yeah. Yeah. That catalyst though, that three-car month that getting fired, that getting a check for zero, I don't know, even in the States, it's illegal to not pay somebody for their time. It's illegal. And I can see this now and it's a true story and it's just part of my story. But my owner at the time didn't pay me for my time. He paid me for my, quote, commissions, which at the time, I had actually not earned enough that I actually had a deficit. So when I finished my full month, I got a check for zero. And a sticky note attached, I said, you owe us money unless you're fired. And so after working an entire month, you know, having three cars and there were all these minis and then they took out taxes and insurance, some other charges for being new. And I owed the store money. And my owner eventually expressed to me when I expressed my frustration with it. He said, look, I can afford lawyers. Can you? I'm like, I didn't know. I couldn't. I sosed. So I suck it up, buttercup. But that catalyst though is something I now look back on with such fondness. I mean, obviously in the moment when you're 22 years old and you're newlywed and your wife's a full-time student and you're a full-time provider and you fail miserably after spending an entire month away from your bride, it hurt the pride. It hurt the ego quite a bit. Yeah, I was looking. My check and look at being fired and standing in his doorway, Simon, I put on my selling shoes and I convinced him to give me another shock. But here's the truth of that story. When I convinced him to give me another shot, even though he just fired me, I was really doing it for self-preservation because I wanted to not be unemployed when I went across the street and applied at the other dealership. I just didn't want to say I was fired. And that's when I really took ownership. In that moment, I came to revelation knowledge. It was all my fault. Everything's my fault. I'm not a victim anymore. I'm now going to take ownership. And that was the transition catalyst in my career and in many ways in my life that took me from a victimology to complete authority in the sense of like, I own what's happening going forward. And that ownership then led to stewardship, which meant I came to work with ownership mentality of my day and my time and my activities and my results. And no more complaining and no more victimology and no more blaming. If it rained outside my fault, you know, if a customer came in and was upset my fault, that they stayed upset my fault. If they left upset my fault, everything was my fault, which meant I could now change something, do something. So that was kind of the transition from a mindset shift. And I would give this to your audience right now. There are many things in your life you don't like. And here's the truth that will set you free. It's your fault. You have created a lack of boundaries or you've created a lack of decision tree or you've created an acceptance and a tolerance to things that have positioned you where you are currently very uncomfortable. And I'm telling you my friend, it's your fault. And when you own that, it's so liberating. So anyway, so I know we have a whole list of topics we want to address, but I just want to get context to that was the transition for me. Well, Jonathan, I'll go to you. I wanted to ask you, how do you transfer from that into where you are now? And that sets it up perfectly. But I can't remember the man's name, but at the N.A.V.A. conference this year, this is 2024. It was in Vegas. There was a man that I've never heard before. He's one of the keynote speakers, but he was a barroom turnaround guy. Yeah, I'm going to butcher his name, but yes, I know who you're referring to. So people listen to this, they'll message me. It was brilliant. Can't remember the man's name. I never heard about the guy before, but I tell you why. It's so, so similar. He said, he speaks to all these people there. So why is your business failing? And he said, every one of them said it was the taxes, it was COVID. I couldn't get a chef. I couldn't get this. He said, you're not a single one of them. Said, I stopped it up. I got it wrong. It was me. Yeah. And he said, it's human nature. We just don't like to blame it. He said, look at the mirror. It's you. And that just sums up exactly what you were saying. It's your thought. It's there. Yeah. So listen, I'm curious there. So you're into selling. You've turned it around. Did you have any mentors? Did you have anyone that went in the right direction? Because, hey, listen, we sell sales training. We, both our businesses, we talk to these people about how to go from zero to hero. Was there anyone that helped you go from zero to hero? So I'm going to say initially in my early stages of biometer career, no, there really wasn't. There wasn't anybody at my dealership that even initially thought I would make it. My store did not have a lot of turnover. I think the youngest 10-year experience person at my store, when I started, was like five years at the same store. And then everybody else was beyond that. There was a guy who was selling the year for 13 years in a row at that same store. So there wasn't a lot of turnover. And they just quite frankly didn't want or need or think that a guy like me would even make it. So initially, it wasn't an environment like that. My management quite frankly didn't provide it. My mentorship and coaching and outside development actually came from other sources that are not automotive. So for example, big voices that have influenced me are people like Tony Robbins, and it's weightly, Dr. Wayne Dyer. Those influences, Brian Tracy, if I didn't mention that name, so those influences shaped me when I was indoor to door sales. So I carried that over into car sales. And when I made this transitional flip, when I decided that I wasn't going to just let business happen to me, I was going to create business and shape my business intentionally. When I became a good steward of my time, like I said after that kind of moment where I had security, I just became very disciplined about tracking things, which is a skills that I developed early when I was doing door to door sales. And that helped me really accelerate my closing ratio and my success in door to door sales. So I started treating it like a science. A lot of sales people, this again kind of goes back to kind of the way people tend to approach things. A lot of people really view sales more artistically, which is that they see it through a creative lens of a creative expression. So there's sales techniques and everything take on the personality of the person who's delivering the techniques. And this is true for trainers too. Trainers tend to sell from their perspective and train from their perspective the way they would do it based on their personality. I have a more, if you will, scientific approach to it, which is to say, I look for the guiding principles more than the personality. And so when I was looking for my principles in car sales, I started looking for patterns and going, what are the patterns that are consistent that I can begin to build principles and techniques and processes and approaches around certain patterns? And so that started to kind of shake my approach. But that's based on some of the things I learned from like the Tony Robinson mentality and build about pattern recognition and so forth. But sadly, I can say, no, I did not have mentors and coaches in the automotive space. But what I love is all the books that we've read there, the mentors out there. And another one we've got to throw them down. I'm sure you must have come across it is how I raise myself from failure to success in selling. And it's Frank Betcher. He just wrote this idea and he was a door-to-door salesperson. They said, let's put the science into the art form of selling. And let's work out how many people you need to speak to, how many people you need to qualify, how many people we need to. Now in our world, how many demonstrations we need to do, how many fields we need to put in people. And I love that. But people are out-fines, listening this, they'll know about the business plan that we talk about. He just resonates so much with get the activity right. And the results will look out and sell. It's so true. It's so true. And too often, if you're a new salesperson, listen to this. You will see your top salesperson in the dealership. Sometimes they might be the personnel who sells person and say, hey, there's Bob. I want to sell like them. Let me tell you, you might not be able to sell like Bob. Bob doesn't know how to sell like Bob now because he's done it for 25 years. Okay. Bob can get away with stuff. Okay. I'll go to tell you this. And Willie Stevenson, if he's listening this, great. They're not a show. I'm in a dealership. This is an island, Jonathan. Okay. I heard it with my own ears. The customer was miles away on the train without missing a beat. Willie Stevenson said, okay, let's have a look at this. He draws one circle on a sheet of paper and then another one, not far away from it. He said, okay, let's see where that. This is where I am. This is where you are. Let's just call this a what planet are you on? And here's the thing. It worked. He said he'd seen it somewhere before in some video. It worked. Okay. And the customer started laughing. But here's the thing that brain yourself would get wrong all the time. What they never realized about that, they'd say, Willie Stevens get away back and they try something like that themselves. I wonder why they almost get punched because what they don't realize, it wasn't the first car. Willie Stevenson had sold these things. He's sold them eight cars in the past. He got the right to get away with something so silly and cheesy and grass 15 years ago. And actually, you just got to be so careful with that there. When you see this, that personality cells person get to the fundamentals. Yeah. Think of the fundamentals. So part of psychology is the study of these principles in psychology that allow things to work or not work and explain why. So the terminology, the label that I would put on what you just described, the label that I teach in my methodology is to call that under the umbrella of a pattern interruption. So pattern interruption is anything that you do that would cause a shift or change in a person's state or emotions or perception that you do that's unexpected. They don't see it coming. Now pattern eruptions can be, again, they're very diverse in their application. There's not one version. But doing something like that, the shock factor of, did he really just say that to me? Did you just ask me what planet I'm on? That shock factor is the pattern interruption. Now, I teach a whole load of different kinds of pattern eruptions. But pattern eruption as a principle is something that most cells people can recognize that they have done. And what I want to do in my philosophy is to teach them to recognize the pattern of what they did, put a label on it so they can categorize it in their memory bank, and then realize why it worked or didn't work circumstantially. Because certain pattern eruptions would be more appropriate for certain situations. I'll share with you a funny, again, story similar to this, just tie the picture together. Yeah. So a BMW salesperson is walking out on his lot and he just heard me describe pattern eruption in the class. So he's going, hey, John, with this count, he's retelling the story. He walked up to greet these ladies out on the lot. There was just two ladies out on the lot walking through the inventory. And he walked up and he said to these ladies, he said, excuse me, ladies, I need to get your opinion on something. Do my shoes make my butt look big? And these ladies lost their mind. He said they started almost like wet themselves. They could not contain their lap. And he said, does that count as a pattern eruption? I said, absolutely. Oh, yes. That counts. I said, now you understand, I cannot teach sales people to greet customers like that. No, no, no, no. Standard greeting, right? But hold on. I got a jump in here. The standard agreement is a higher welcome to ABC Motors. My name's Simon. You are leaving. Okay. And I've got to say, listen, I know people listen to this. Your manufacturers told you that's a standard meeting. We do that. Guys, you got to be so careful. I think you got to be dear friends. What customers expect them? Because what does the average thing of the car sales people? Apparance of nervous. What he's done there, he's just proven straight away, he's different. Is that pattern drop that he's done brilliantly there? But again, can you teach that? No. Yeah, teach by delivery. But hope, yeah. That's the principle. And the principle has multiple applications based on the personality and the step or the process. So that's why I believe first in teaching principle-based learning so that they can begin to categorize the information and then hopefully apply it where we're with. And by the way, even as you describe, for example, the greeting, right? And Simon, this is again, you and I shared this off camera that we're still getting to know each other that we met at the NAGA. So I'm not familiar with your technique. You're not familiar with all of my techniques to be fair enough. So there's going to be some things you're going to say that I'm going to go, oh, that's interesting. And then I'm going to may have my spin on it to be probably assumed. But it should be like that. Who says I'm right? There's so many different ideas. Exactly. And I'm like that all the time. I'm a constant student of the... Yeah. I always wanted to learn. But specific to the greeting, because if we can get into a little bit of the weeds of psychology for a moment, is that okay? Yeah. Okay. So what I'd like to do is I'd like to unpack my approach to understanding that philosophy and approach to the greeting. And I'd like to use you as my student. Can we pretend you're one of my classes for a moment? Yes, good. Good. Good. So Simon, what I'm going to do is I'm going to use a little bit of a Socratic method. Most people might be familiar with that. The Socrates just believed that people had innate knowledge. It just needed to be extracted. And with the right questions, they could come to that knowledge. So I'm going to ask you a series of questions the way I would if you were a salesperson in my class. And hopefully it's a value to everybody watching. But when you say, again, you walk up to the customer, that every customer is different. Right? And I think that most people would agree that everybody's different. Where I put a caveat on that, as I say, Eren is different in the same ways. So everyone is different. But categorically, those differences can be put into categories. But we see the same patterns all the time. The same patterns. You did. Yeah. And I now have been in 3,000 dealerships in seven countries and three continents. So I have been able to test my theory across lots of different situations and brands and different models of cars and different markets. And what I found is that people, fundamentally, are the same in the patterns. So let's take a look at patterns for a moment and show you how thinking this way can change the way you approach other areas of your sales process. So you're a customer and you're showing up with a lot for the first time. And you don't have a relationship right now with anyone there. What are the emotions that you can feel as a consumer when you see a salesman for the very first time? Let's just walk through some of the psychology of the customer. What? Apprehension. Apprehension. Fair enough. Fear for some people, not everyone. Fear. I'm going to put categorically, I'm going to put fear and apprehension kind of on the same spectrum, right? They're on this side here. Now, on the other side of the spectrum, what else could you feel? But you know, I've done 40 hours of research. I know I want to go and look at that 5, 30 and so on. Excitement. I want to see this car because I want a new car now. We've got to put that in there. So on the spectrum of emotions, on one end, you can be glad that someone's coming out to help you because you're excited to be there and you want someone's help. And then you go to the other side of the spectrum and you get fear, reservation, hesitation, aggression, right? So on that spectrum, I'm going to make a statement that I'm convinced is true. And I'm going to test my theory through you because you also see a lot like I do. I believe there's actually only five core categories of emotions a person can have when they see a salesman for the first time, only five. And these five things are expressed in these five ideas. Number one, I want to talk to you and I'm glad you've come out to talk to me. Number two, I am willing to talk to you and open to hearing what you have to say. Number three, I would rather not talk to you yet, but I know I have to. Number four, I don't want to talk to you yet. And number five, I don't need to talk to anyone yet. So again, here are the five emotions a customer sees me for the very first time in their brain. Their initial reaction to seeing me come. I want to talk, I'm willing to talk, I'd rather not talk, I don't want to talk, or I don't need to talk yet. Now, here's what's fascinating about the greeting. If I asked you, you're going to walk up to greet me and I'm the customer now. And you, if you agree with my general premise that these five emotions are real, how do you know which one I am when you walk up to me? How do you know which one I am? Now, Simon, I'm putting you on the spot a little bit here and we've already pre-agreed before the show that we're willing to do this to each other. Yeah, I loved it. I want to demonstrate psychology for your audience because it's a way of thinking that they can transfer to so many areas of their process to enhance the customer. So here we go. So I know the customer, they got the hands deep in the pockets. They're metaphorically protecting their money. So as they walk into the dealership, they immediately turn left or right in America, because they want to avoid all customers. If there's a car here, the logic way is to walk in front of it, they walk behind of it and say, shit, here he comes. Here comes a car salesperson. You know there's some fear there. Yeah. You know, when you walk up there before you get there, Jonathan, you know, the hand's going to come up and it's just going to be just looking at it. First place I've been, just started the process. So for that one there, we know they're going to be out of your five refresh my memory. It's going to be the... Here's what they are. Here's the emotions and here's the fundamental question I'm asking you, if you're a salesperson right now, you're going to walk up to me. But before you say a word to me or I say a word to you, I want to know how do you know which one of these I am? So here they are. I want to talk. I'm willing to talk. I would rather not talk, but I don't have to. I don't want to talk yet and I don't need to talk yet. How do you know which one I am? Okay. Well, the last two, I can see that because avoiding eye contact, walking around the wrong way and avoiding stuff. Okay. When you're walking up to someone and have someone's looking at you and the icon take. So I'm going to look at those visual clues there. Okay. That's good. And I'm going to talk about this and I'm going to say, no, there's something you're missing still. There's a... Go on. Let me point, let me pinpoint it because you're right there. And this is so intuitive that once you hear it, you'll never forget it. And feel free to please pass this on to anybody that you think would enjoy hearing this. But it's really as simple as this thing here. Look at their feet. Their feet tell you how they feel. Their feet actually tell you exactly how to greet them. Now, when I first expressed this to any sales group, they often have puzzlement and then they're going, okay, I think this might make sense, but take me all the way. So watch this. If I want to talk to you, what will my feet naturally do when I see someone I want to talk to? What do your feet do? Right. I see. I know we're young with the Allen Pidge's on body language. What a great stuff. They point to names people. Yes, I'll take it one step further. If I actually want to talk to you, I don't simply point towards you. I walk towards you. So category number one, if a customer wants to talk to you, the indication that they want to is that they walk up to you. There are so many customers that a salesperson will walk out to engage. The customer will turn towards them and not take a single step. And you might walk 20 yards to this person and they don't think a single step towards you. And so what I'm saying is if they walk up to you, that is an indication they want to talk. If they are open and willing to talk to you, what will their feet do now? Well, you already said it. The point towards you. The body language of a person's feet pointing you but not moving is saying I'm open and willing to have you speak to me. I want to see where this goes. Open and willing. If I would rather not talk to you, but I know I have to, what will my feet be doing? I don't know. It's going to be neutral. It's going to be very neutral there. I would rather not talk to you, but I know I have. Point it away then? Yeah. Is that right? And the body is towards you. Yes. I got a package. Is my feet are actually pointing in the direction. I would rather be going and over the shoulder, I'm looking at you waiting for you. This is the closed posture of a person who would rather not talk to you, but they know why they have to. Then you have the fourth person. I don't want to talk to you. What are my feet doing if I don't want to talk to you? Well, right away from you. Walking away every time. Yep. And then the last one is kind of a tricky one. I don't need to talk to you yet. This one's a little bit tricky because you can't actually see their feet because they're still in their seat driving through the lot still. So a customer who hasn't even stopped yet, who just kind of puts them around. They're not stopping. I don't need to talk to anyone yet. And so why do I bring this up as an example of psychology and of psychology? It's because it goes into pattern recognition. So what happens historically is we've taught sales teams a greeting that we say is a professional greeting. Hi, welcome to the dealership. My name is and your name is and what brings you to our dealership today. And this is the classic greeting. Now here's the question. Which of the five will that work the best with? That's important to talk to you. This one, but what percentage of all customers when they see a salesperson they don't know for the very first time immediately wants to talk to them? Maybe 10%? Yeah, like that. So what we've historically done on our industry is we teach a greeting we want them to use every time that works really well 10% of the time. And the other 90% of the time they get, they get aspects depending on which customer it is. They get degrees of tension in the greeting, degrees of resistance in the greeting. Those resistance points manifest in three patterns. Customers manifest resistance initially in the greeting by giving you weaker negative body language when you approach them. It shows up in the form of weak handshakes or bad eye contact, shuffling feet and hands and pockets. These indicators are social indicators through subconscious behavior that I'm not comfortable yet. So salespeople who greet customers who are in these other categories get weaker negative body language followed by number two pattern. They lose the name of the person they just greeted. I'll meet Simon and say nice to meet you. Simon take two steps and two seconds later and want to call you Steve. My Peter. Or go gosh, you got to be a biblical name. Hezekiah. Right? We lose people's names. How quickly will a sales person lose a customer's name within two seconds? And they're walking around at least in the States. We walk around now calling people Mac buddy, pal and sir. You say what do you think of this one, sir? What do you think of this one, sir? Right? Because I've forgotten your name. Second thing, third thing. And this one, you've already stated this. The customer will start dismissing us through verbal cues, things like just looking and not mind it. First stop and just getting started and don't need a lot of help right now. We just want to look around. We just want your price demanding terms right out from the greeting. What I tell what I tell sales teams is this. If your greeting has resistance in it, it's a broken greeting. If your initial greeting is in the first 20 seconds, 30 seconds, if you have resistance in your greeting, your approach did not match the customer's psychology. And what you're getting from feedback, if you call it negative objections, whatever you want to call it, that negative feedback loop, what that is telling you is that I didn't like your approach. So we are responsible because it's all my fault. It's my fault. If when I put out my hand, you gave me a weak handshake. I should have never initiated a handshake to someone who didn't want to shake it yet. It's my fault. If I get your name and then lose your name, I should have never got someone's name that I wasn't mentally prepared to store. That was my fault. I did that. If I'm getting told I'm just looking and not mind it. First stop, if you, the customer are giving me these objections and I just said hi to you, it is my fault that I approached you in a way that you feel that you must defend yourself right up the gate. And so, psychology as a philosophy is looking for these patterns and then beginning to identify, what can I do if it's all my fault? What can I do to make sure that these things don't stay with my next customer? How do I reduce the likelihood of this happening to me next time? So you brought up the greeting. So I thought I'd expand on that because... No, I love it. Absolute love it. I just want to add to it as well. Please. And when we're talking about the body language, the non-verbal communication, for people who are listening to this, I heard him go out and look at Alan Peaves' work and stuff he does there. And something else he talks about so much for me is don't just add the basic body language to that. Have a look at your zone and how close you speak depending. Oh, we do have a public zone. We have a social zone. We have a personal zone and an intimate zone. Amen. You need to earn the right to go to one of those. We look at the initial meeting that we talked about. We go straight from public. There's a straight, fast, social, past, personal, into intimate when you're touching people. Okay. And actually, you wonder what sometimes where it's like the stop sign comes up and it's but yeah. Stand off there. I mean, I love with body language. There's so many things where we know if we cross our arms, okay? We might be standoffish, but of course the customer might be cold. You need to look for the classes, suggestions. Oh, true. I find that the zones and how to upload your speaking to people, that's something else that you need to have a look at in that sort of, I love these conversations like that. Team cell teams, you've got to start your greeting in the public space, but stop social space. With most customers, it goes from public to stop in the social. You don't enter into the personal space where you could touch and you certainly don't initiate the intimate stage where you make them touch you when a customer who doesn't even want to talk to you yet. And can I say the other side as well? Don't start asking that personal thing about how much a month can you afford? What's your budget? What's that? And you're still at the public side, shout out now in the middle of a showroom floor. You see that side of it as well, don't you? Happens all the time. Don't listen, I love these conversations. We could go off forever on stuff like this because it's like, don't you respond to top sales people, they're people watching, okay? I just love what makes people tick-tick fit. That just leads 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, true LinkedIn. Thank you.