This episode it’s time to look at the trial close, test close or pre close, whatever you like to call it.
It’s an important stage that can’t be missed, as it’s asked to ensure the car is right for the customer, before you go to the numbers.
Think of it like a proposal, if you went to straight to the wedding without asking the question, it would be too much, too soon.
Here are the highlights:
{00:57} What is the purpose of a trial close?
{02:07} Why we should do it?
{04:32} When do we ask it?
{05:31} 3 Yes Tag questions
{07:50} Evolution of the trial close
{14:41} Don’t be wishy washy
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
Time, welcome to the Selling and the Motor Trade podcast in Association of Car Without. The online car-changing destination. Together we share tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department, and generally put more profit into your department, dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett, or some of you might already know me as Skippy. First thing, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi and welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Today it's all about the trial-close question. Now you might not as a test-close, a pre-close, gaining commitment that the cars write before we start talking about the numbers.
So if I call it a trial-close, it's all the same thing. Now firstly, what's the real purpose of this trial-close question? If you're relatively new to the motor trade, and your boss has just said go and have a listen to the selling in the Motor Trade podcast, get some tips and ideas, you may not have been exposed to it before. The trial-close question is a question you ask after a demonstration drive to make sure the car is right before we start talking about the numbers. And what you're looking for is some sort of commitment from the customer that if we get the numbers right, the customer's happy to go ahead with the deal. So really the way to look at it is the trial-close is separating the car from the numbers.
Because you know what, unless the car is right for the customer, does it really matter how cheap it is? Possibly not. Now listen, there's lots of different trial -close questions. On our training course, we talk about, I think it's something like eight different trial-closers that we talk about depending on the type of customer you've got. I'm not going to focus on all of those today. I'm going to focus on one or two, but more importantly, the importance of why we should trial-close. Because can you sell a car without asking a trial-close question? Yeah, good. You could just ask an actual closing question. But that might be a little bit too harsh, too forceful. Here's how you're looking at a trial-close question.
A trial-close question is just kind of like a proposal. Now hold on, hear me out. Traditionally what we do is if you're with your partner, one of you will propose marriage to the other person. Okay? And there's going to be a time in between proposing marriage and the actual wedding date. That might be three years if you're saving for money. It might be, I don't know, three hours if you're in Las Vegas. It might be three months if one of you are pregnant. Okay? But that gives you and your partner and family and friends time to get used to it. So actually, what'll happen is you or your partner will sit down and think, right, this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life.
There'll be some sort of romantic gesture. You'll get down to one knee and say, Emma, will you marry me? Yes, yes, yes. I love you. I love you. Okay? And then there's the time to sort the wedding out. Can you imagine if we didn't do that in society? Imagine we just turn and say, hey, Emma, put a nice dress on. I'll go surprise. What are we doing? Oh, don't worry about it. You're going to love it. We drive down to the local church. Okay? And Amazon, what are we doing here? Oh, don't worry. It's going to be great. You walk in and all your family sit on one side. Your partner's family is sitting on the other side.
Simon, what's happening here? Don't worry. It's going to be great. You walk in the front of the aisle and the priest or the vicar or the registrar or the Jedi, whoever's marrying is there. And they turn around and say, Emma, do you take Simon to be your lawful wedded? Whoa, back up a bit. That might be too much too soon. What happens is we do the proposal and then the wedding date, it's almost a foregone conclusion because you know what's going to happen. That's why I like to look at the trial closes almost the proposal. We want to make sure that they know what's going to happen. There's some sort of commitment without using the word commitment because commitment is going to scare the customer.
So that's what the trial, close questions all about. So when do we ask it? I personally like to ask my trial, close question when they're still driving the car five minutes before they get back to the dealership. So when you ask that trial, close question, you've got five more minutes of customer thinking, yeah, this is a car for me. I really, really like this car. Now, some people like to ask the trial, close question when they're back in the dealership, they're at the desk. You ask, are there any more questions? And then they ask the trial, close question. Okay. Now, a trial, close question might be asked at different points of time, but they're the two main ones we're going to talk about.
Let's talk about when they're driving the car to start with. And here's how I might do it. Into the demonstration drive, your customers driving the car. Primarily on the demonstration drive, you're going to be quiet. There's magic and rap in the metal around these people. And five minutes before we get back to the dealership, we might start getting the customer into the yes frame of mind. Few little yes tags. I'll tell you what, for a 1.6, it gets up and goes, quote, well, doesn't it? Well, listen, the talk from this electric vehicle, it's so much better than what a lot of people think, isn't it? Yeah, I really like this. If they're playing around with the Bose sound system, and they say, oh, I like the bass on this at the beginning of the demonstration drive, right towards then, you might say, two, I have the sound from that Bose sound system.
It is good, isn't it? Yeah, I'm really impressed with that. Okay. Two or three little yes tag questions. You might throw in a mental ownership question. Now, they're optional. And there's another episode on this podcast. We talk about that. But something where people have to take mental ownership before they take actual ownership, something along the lines of, hey, listen, Simon, you said you're a golfer. What golf course you play at? And when they say the belfry, they're driving the car to the belfry, their friends are there. They're getting out their lovely new I-10. They're getting the golf clubs out of the glove box, be eight Simon, they're pitching themselves living the car. Okay. Or if you know they do a long journey, they travel to Cork from Dublin, two or three times a year to see in-laws.
You might say, hey, Mr. and Mrs. Customer, you said you traveled to Cork regularly to see in-laws down in Cork from Dublin. How long does it take you to get to Cork? When the customers, there's about two and a half hours in their mind, they're driving to Cork, they're in their lovely new, whatever the car is. Okay. That's that mental ownership question. Now, they're optional. Don't force one in if it doesn't naturally present itself. Okay. But mental ownership, I think, are very, very powerful. But then I might do this. And remember, we're separating the car from the figures. I might start off with a nice, easy one. Hey, so let me ask you, Mr. and Mrs.
Customer, if everything stacks up right, is this the car? You'd like to be driving thanks to all three years. So if everything stacks up right, is this the car you'd like to be driving thanks to all three years? Now, if it's a yes, great, we'll get the numbers right. So use this by my job. Let's go back and see what the bosses come up with. Okay. Now, let's talk about the evolution of a trial closed question. When I first started in the industry, I'm older than most people listen to this. Okay. I was taught to say, if we can get the figures right, is this the car you'd like to buy? Don't get the figures right.
Is this the car you'd like to buy? Oh, and by the way, then it was a now today. Okay. You can get the figures right. Is this the car you'd like to buy? I tend to avoid that one now because if you say, if we can get the figures right, it might imply the figures aren't right currently. Okay. Now, especially if you're living in an environment where it's agency, we're not going to discount the price. You're a no-haggled dealership on a used car supermarket. If you say to a customer, if we can get the figures right, it almost implies that there is room to haggle and move. Okay. Now, then some people turn around and say, apart from the numbers, is there anything stopping you want to buy this car?
But that one there though, for it to have a positive outcome, the customer's actually got to say, no, right at the time when you want them to say, yes. Okay. So apart from the numbers, is there anything stopping you want to own this car? No, no, no. Okay. Or you might turn around and say this. Hey, listen, have you got the figures right? Is it that car you'd like to buy? But I struggle a little bit with the phrase buy because buy implies shelling out money. People like to own things. I don't know if they like to buy things. Give an example. I would love to own a serious vision jet. I would actually come fly, but bloody hell, I learned very quick.
Okay. I'd love to own one. I'm not sure if I'd like to buy one because buy implies shelling out orders $4.2 million, which it is. Okay. So that's why you might try and avoid buy and deal at that stage there. Own. Is this the case? You'd like to be driving the next two or three years. For them to drive it's next two or three years. Guess what? The customer's to buy it anyway. Or there's a three questions you might ask at the end of the demonstration drive. Do you like it? Yeah. Do you like enough to want to own it? Yeah. So what you tell me is we just got to get the numbers right.
And that's the car you'd like to go ahead with. Okay. Yeah. All you're doing is separating the car from the money. Now, some managers listen this, turn around and say, oh, no, I want myself people to say, if we get the numbers right today, is this okay? You're going to buy today. Okay. And you haven't leave me a thousand pounds deposit today. Right. Personally, might leave the today obviously for later on. Because bear in mind, I'm still driving the car at the moment. Okay. And I have two issues with the word today. Even get the numbers right. Is this okay? You'd like to drive today? Number one is it might be too harsh. You got to scare people off and go, what hold on?
First place I've been just started the process. Okay. Also, might be too soft. Because if it's 11 o'clock in the morning, how many other Toyota dealerships can they get to today? There's a few of them. Okay. So, might leave that up your sleeve later on. Oh, is this the car you happily met a thousand pounds deposit now? When I'm in the negotiation, I might use that later on. But bear in mind, I'm still driving the car at this stage. I don't want to scare people at this stage. Okay. It might be a little bit too much too soon. So, what I'm going to do is let's try this one first. And Mr. Customer, if everything stacks up right, is this the car you'd like to be driving next to three years?
I'm really loving that trial close because it ties in that mental ownership question with the trial close in one fail swoop. Now, people say, yeah, as I said before, great, we're getting the numbers right. It's the easiest part of my job. Let's go back and see what the bosses come up with. Now, they've got five more minutes of thinking, yeah, this is the car. I might be driving next to three years. Isn't that what a good jeweler does? They ask you to buy that watch or that ring or that piece of jewelry. Why are you wearing it? A great sofa salesperson will ask you to buy the sofa while you're sitting on it. So, I'd love to ask that question while they're still driving the car.
Now, when I stop the car, the guys will turn around and say, right, do you have any other questions, Mr. and Mrs. Customer? No? And then I love to reiterate it. Great. So, what you're telling me is we're just going to get the numbers right. And that's the car you'd be happy to secure. Great. So, what you're telling me is we're just going to get the numbers right. This is the car you'd like to own. So, I tend to reconfirm it when I've asked any other questions. Now, you might want to reconfirm it when you're sitting back at the desk because there is a point where after people are giving that trial close commitment, we want to try and get the numbers in front of people as quick as we can when the motions are still high.
And after the demonstration drive, that tends to be the point the customer's emotions are the highest. Okay. Now, there's another part to this trial-close question, though. You might get people that turn around and give you what we affection call a wishy, washy response. Have everything stacks up right? Is this the car you'd like to be driving next to three years? Well, it could be. Maybe. Definitely want to put on the list. Is there any commitment there? No, there's not. You didn't want firm commitment. I want you to go back to that proposal. And remember, the trial-close is like a proposal. Can you imagine if you got down on the, you asked your partner, will you spend the rest of your life with me?
Yes, will you marry me? I love you. I love you. Then you go to the priest, the register, the Jedi, the whoever's marrying you. And they soften the question. Simon, do you think you might possibly want to maybe spend the rest of your life with Emma? I do. Would Emma and I be married? No, this is one of those yes or no days. Salespeople, listen to this. Let me promise you, so many times on our sim checks. Now, a sim check is when we train people. We take them through the IMA approved process. At the end of it, we say, sell us a car from start to finish to make sure that they follow the process the right way.
Every 12 months, we go through another sim check, kind of like an airline pilot has to go through a simulator every six months to make sure they still know how to do it right. And so many times we hear salespeople, they think they've asked the trial closed question, but they wish he washed through it. They turn around and said, the car's nice, isn't it? So do you think if we could kind of get the figures right, this is the car you might want to consider? Now, I'm over exaggerating that. But you know what? Not by much. Do you think this might be the car you like to own? Do you think this could be the one?
All of that. There's no burn-in-air commitment there. Okay. Also, if the priest turns around and said, Simon, do you take Emma to be your lawful wedded wife? Sure. Why not? We'd be going out long enough. We may as well. Again, would I be married? No. This is one of those yes or no days. So what happens is either you as a salesperson, you give a wishy, washy trial closed question, or the customer gives you a wishy, washy response. Have everything stacks up right? Is this the car you'd like to be driving the next or three years? Could be. Possibly. Definitely one to put on the list. Is there any commitment there, guys? No. And if you get that response, we want to ask the follow-on question.
How does when you say maybe, when you say possibly, it sounds like there's something you're not sure about. Can I ask you, is there anything about this chair roller that you're not 100% sure about? Is there anything about this car you're not 100% sure about? Now, we'd love to use the phrase, you're not 100% sure about because it kind of implies it's 99.9% right. It's just slightly wrong. That's when you say maybe it sounds like there's something you're not sure about. Is there anything about this car you're not 100% sure about? What you're doing with this is trying to flush out any possible objection about the car before we get into the numbers. Now, so often when you do this, when you say possibly, it sounds like there's something you're not sure about.
Is there anything about this holding Commodore that you're not 100% sure about? Goodness me, I'm sure my age now, holding Commodore. That's the guys in Australia. What we're talking about, that was a great car. We were allowed to sell many years ago. Okay, but listen, when you say maybe it sounds like there's something you're not sure about. Is there anything about this car that you're not 100% sure about? Well, the mileage is higher than what I hoped. Well, I wish it had full leather interior, not that half leather. Well, I wish it actually had a power out roof on it. Okay. Well, I'm not entirely sure about the color. You haven't got firm commitment. We've flussed out a possible objection that might come and bite you on the arse later on.
But what we need to do is now see if it's going to be a deal breaker. Because you know, at this stage, you're at the end of the demonstration drive. The objection you get at that stage, I think, can only be a minor objection. Okay. Because a major objection would have come out beforehand. Okay. If the color of the car was a deal breaker, when you walked out to the car and they said, oh, I can't buy that permit from green color car. Or I just think it looks horrendous. You wouldn't have got to in the demonstration drive. When you walked out to the used car, it's got 80,000 kilometers on it. And they sat in.
They said, 80,000 kilometers? That's far too much. I'd never buy a car with 80,000 kilometers on it. You wouldn't have got to asking the trial closed question. So I think it tends to be a minor objection, or more importantly, a negotiation point. Okay. Well, the mileage is higher than what I hoped. What they're saying is, are you going to reduce the price? Okay. Well, there's a bit of a stonetrip just down the front of this used car. If a customer has looked at that used car that intently to see the stonetrip, or there's been a stain in the boot of the car, no, no, right in the corner, Simon, can you see in the corner there?
If they've looked at that intently, tell you what, that's the best buying signal you could ever see in your life. Okay. So it might be a minor objection or a negotiation point. In fact, here's a war story. Emma and I bought a house. Couldn't have seen this must be 19 years ago now. It is too. 18 years ago, 18 years ago. Now, the person was selling it was not allowed to live in the country for more than 90 days of the time. He was living in Guernsey or Jersey, something like that. So the estate agent, it was for tax reasons. Okay. That made him sound like some sort of criminal, didn't it? Okay. But the estate agent was selling for the property, not the person owned it.
Emma and I will walk around the place with the estate agent and we decided, this is the one. Okay. We've been looking for a long time. We thought, you know what, this is where we want to be. Okay. But I started pointing out to this estate agent everything that was wrong with it. Okay. Well, all the windows need to replace and they're oak. That won't be cheap. Okay. And it's got, um, the kitchen, there's not much life in this kitchen. That's got to be like, the oil tank's knackered. Okay. It's all rusted out. It's going to need a new oil tank. You won't get much change out of like three or four grand for that.
Was it because we didn't like the property? No. What had I started in my mind and let me estate agent know it's negotiation. So what we want to do is we want to find out is it a deal breaker. Now, I used to think I had to overcome every objection every time to get someone to buy something. But we don't, don't we all compromise in all walks of life? Okay. And I didn't like everything about that house. I didn't like we had to replace all the windows. I didn't like it had to replace kitchen bathrooms. I didn't like we had to convert it from a two bedroom, four bedroom house because we had two kids.
I definitely didn't like the price of it. We liked enough other things about it to put up with the things that we didn't like. Okay. So we need to see if it's a deal breaker. Okay. How much am I had to compromise with me? Okay. So what we'll do is if someone says, well, the mileage is higher than what I hoped. Okay. Well, I wish I had full leather interior. It's a half left interior. Okay. And that's reflected in the price. If I had low mileage on it, we wouldn't be asking 39, 995. If everything else stacks up right, the mileage on that car, that wouldn't stop your one tone it, would it? Well, I wish it had full leather interior as opposed to half leather interior.
Okay. And that's reflected in the price. If it had full leather interior, it'd be an S line model. And we wouldn't be asking 52,000. We'd be asking a lot more for it. But you know, if everything else stacks up right, the lack of full leather interior, that wouldn't stop your one tone it. No, not really. Great. Sounds like we found the right car for you. So what we're saying is we're just going to get the numbers right. That's the car you'd like to be driving the next two or three years. That's the car you'd love to own. That's the car you'd like to secure. Okay. Now that is blushing out the possible objection. Okay. Now when you stop the car, you might then say, write any other questions.
Oh, I'll go say this. So often on one of our training courses, someone turns around and says, Oh, here's what I asked for a trial closed question. When the customer is driving back into the dealership, they always say, where do you want me to park it? Okay. So well, there's so cars on the left, if not put on the right back on sale and see which way the customer drives the car. Listen, I'm not going to knock it. We don't knock any other trainers' ideas. If you've been told to do that from your management, please remember, you work for your manager, you don't work for us. I'm going to say, I don't think that's a trial closed question.
It's actually a mental ownership question. Okay. And I think there's a lot of other mental ownership questions that work better than that, because that's not actually a trial closed question. You're not getting commitment that the customer wants to go ahead with it at that stage there. It might give you an idea. It might be a test, but it's not actually going to give you that commitment at that stage there. So guys, with this one, at the end of the demonstration drive, couple of little yes tags, gets up and goes quite well for a 1.x, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, I'm really impressed with that. I tell you, the heated steering wheel, that's going to make life a lot easier next time you scrape the windscreen in the middle of winter, won't it?
Thaws out those fingertips so quick. Oh, yes, I really like that. I think it's more important than the heated seats, if I'm honest. So have you driven the car far enough? Yeah, I have. And now's your trial closed question. So listen, can I ask you if everything stacks up right? Is this the car you'd like to be driving next to us for years? Maybe. And listen, when you say maybe, it sounds like there's something you're not sure about. Is there anything about this chair roller that you're not 100% sure about? Well, the color wouldn't be my first choice. Now, don't say that's reflected in the price. No one wants that bloody color, but you might just say acknowledge it.
OK, but if everything else stacks up right, the color of the car, that wouldn't stop your wind tone, it would it? No, not really. Great. Well, it sounds like I've found the right car for you. Now, again, if they say the mileage, the lack of full leather or the color would stop in one tone, it guess what? You're going to have to find a car with lower moles on it. And you're going to have to find a car with leather interior on it. So Mr. and Mrs. Customer, how much a extra amount can you stretch? Get in a car that's got that leather interior that you really wanted. OK, with the color of the car, you've got an objection that you know you need to overcome.
But don't draw overcoming objection that you might not need to. Guys, that's the trial closed question. Think about it as the proposal. If you get the trial closed question right, the actual close is so much easier. So many times we're asked to help Johnny close the sail, close the sail. And so often, Johnny, it's not they can't close the sail. He hasn't been able to open it up right. And we haven't got firm commitment. Management listening to this so often manages to go out to second face a deal, double close. And actually, there was never commitment that the car was right to start with. You're trying to close on the wrong product. And that's a real hard gig.
So listen, try the trial closing and let me know how you get on with it. There's just a few of them. There's so many different trial closes there. But listen, have a look at that on our sales fitness program. This is just some few ideas for you to have a look at. I'll see you next one. 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 LinkedIn.
Thank you.
