Following on from the puppy dog in the last episode, we now look at the mouse.
These customers can either be extremely easy to sell to or extremely difficult to sell to.
We discuss finding common ground and how to close.
Here are the highlights:
{02:02} Characteristics
{03:39} Walk and Style
{07:31} How to sell to them
{08:13} Common Ground
{09:36} What Close to use
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 worry, no me as skipping. I will start with saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi, we're back again with this series mastering the four different types of customers. I have to say, if you're new to this podcast, welcome aboard. Thank you so much. Okay? Where's over, I think it's 160 different episodes there. There's lots of tips and ideas. If you're looking for those, go through all the titles there. There's lots of good interviews of industry leaders and great ideas there. At the moment, we're going through the mastering the four different types of customers. So if you're just coming to here, today we're going to be talking about the amiable customer, the green or the mouse. You might want to go back to the start of this, which is mastering the four different types of customers. Okay? Probably a good place to start before you dive straight into this one. And again, this series is designed that you can play in the sales meetings. So the dealer principal is listening to this, the heads of businesses, you can send this through to all your salespeople or just play it in the sales meeting if you want. That's why we're doing it this way. So firstly, the amiable. These are the people that tend to be lower on the assertiveness, but very high on the responsiveness to people. So with that amiable. So they tend to walk fast or slow. They tend to be slower. Okay? These amiable people. These ones that are not assertive, but responsive to other people. They're often dependent on other people. They're respectful, willing and agreeable. They're emotionally expressive. Everyone's friend, supportive, definitely soft-hearted. Even a low risk taker, loves security, a group builder, oversensitive possibly. Some people say not always goal-orientated. Now, I personally don't buy that one, but that's what they come up with in the 1940s. Okay? So, hey, listen, who's I'm saying is wrong, but I personally think anyone of the four can be very goal-orientated and driven. I think they just do it in a different way. But this mouse, they tend to walk slower. Conversations tend to be more dare it's apologetic. Do you mind if I have a look in the boot? Is there any chance if I could? Is that all right there? They're dressed. They tend to be more conservative. Praise. Okay? They're conversations. They tend to want to be, they'll buy you first, the dealership first. They'll ask things like, oh, look at Google reviews, trust pilot. That works really well for these people. You say to these people, hey, Mr. and Mrs. customer, we've had 10,000 five-star trust pilot reviews here at leasing options there. We don't get that way without looking after people. Ah, there's strengths and numbers. A lion, they might not care about that at all. If it comes back to, we've been talking about watches and suits. Now it's got nothing to do with money. It's a mind set. All these types of personality styles want a lovely watch. You might get the lion. They want to protectfully watch. They want a braggy watch. No one else knows what it is, but they know it's one of the best money can buy possibly. The puppy dog wants the flash Rolex watch. Okay? The buy metal one. Okay? The one that's got the different colors on them. They want to make sure that you know that they've got it on. Okay? But the amiable, the mouse, they want to quality watch, but they might get something a little bit more conservative. Thinking more the amiga style. Now again, I don't, that's the right analogy. It's not money. It's almost the mindset to the suits. They want to quality suit the lion. It's a several rows suit. No labels in it. It's almost just made for them. Okay? The puppy dog wants the Versace suit. Okay? And they want to make sure they know, or sorry, you know, okay, that it's on them. Okay? But actually the amiable, they want to quality suit. But if you listen to this in the UK, we might go to Marks and Spencers, a quality Italian fabric suit there. Okay? Because they want something quality, but maybe in something that's not any face. Oh, actually they might want that quality suit, but they won't flash it about there. Okay? So these, the mouse, they tend to be too quieter as well. Okay? More almost apologetic. Let me ask you this one. Easy or hard to sell to? We actually find these people extremely easy or extremely hard. Okay? Now let me tell you why they could be extremely hard. Because the mouse doesn't want to offend you. So even if they don't like the car, okay? The mouse is the one that says, at the truck goes, oh, the car's lovely, isn't it? And they're nodding their head from side to side. Oh, yes, it's lovely. Where the body language is saying clearly not. Okay? So if we get the numbers right, is that the car you'd like to be in? We're driving next to it for years. You might say to the customer. And the customer says, oh, yes, definitely. As the head's still shaking from left to right. Okay? You put the deal in front of them and they say, oh, we're 99% sure we're going to go ahead with that car. We actually love it. We're just not sure of the color. We're going to go across the road to Starbucks and have a coffee and talk about the color. But then you never hear from them again. Okay? You keep on phoning them. It goes to answering machine. They're ghosting you. They finally leave a message. Hi, can I leave a message for Paul? He's here. I'll put you through. No, no, no, don't put me through. Just leave a message. Can you tell Paul he's the best salesperson we ever come across? That Picanto is absolutely lovely, but we bought a Sportage. But can you thank him so much? You get the message? You think, what? They're looking at a Kia Picanto, a tiny little car. They bought a four-wheel drive Sportage. Because maybe the mouse didn't have the balls to tell you it wasn't big enough because they didn't want to offend you. Actually, this is where customers satisfaction index scores. The mouse is unhappy with you. But when you hand the car over, they never say that. Oh, it's brilliant. Thank you so much. We really love it. You get the customer satisfaction index score, the net promoter score, and it was only a six out of 10. What did they wrong? They won't say it to their face. They might tell other people there. In fact, you know what? Often extreme mouse, they never fill out a net promoter score anyway because they wouldn't want to offend anyone. Let's have a look at how to deal with the mouse. Now, we call them a mouse, and we always talk about the animals because if you think about how to deal with that animal, with the puppy dog, we metaphorically pat the puppy dog with the lion. We're like the lion tamer. Now with the mouse, what we're going to do is a real mouse in your house. How would you catch it? Do you catch the mouse by running after it and chasing it? Nope, because the mouse is going, squeak, squeak, squeak away. You let the mouse come to you. You had some cheese. You entice the mouse. Gently, gently let it come to you. That's what we're going to do with that customer who is the mouse. You might actually think about these people there. Work jointly to seek common ground with these people. Make sure you find out about personal interests and family. Biggest thing I would say is be patient though. Avoid going for what looks like an easy pushover because they do. But actually, they're the people that they buy the car. They leave it deposit. They phone back the next day. You've got that weird excuse. I'm sorry, Simon. We're just going to have to pull out that car because we didn't realize when we went home, we found out from a neighbor that our postman's got a really bad case of ingrown tone, and we're not sure who's going to deliver the mail soon. You think, what? Was that good to do? You know that really weird, weird excuse? It's just because on the day they've signed up and they didn't have to pause the gumption to tell you it wasn't right. So that's where you've got to be patient for these people. Use personal assurances and specific guarantees with these people. Where possible? We really like to avoid options and different probabilities. Take time to be agreeable with these people. I also say focus discussions on how they're going to go ahead, not if they want to go ahead. And always low risk, low risk, low risk with these people. So let's have a look at some of the closing questions. We might actually do just a lovely, a summative close. Now this one I stole from a man called Ash that's working in a Volkswagen dealership in Rexam Wales. And was dealing with a customer, it was clearly a mouse, that timid mouse. And let's say, I'll take you through the scenario. All right. And I'll add that. I'll tell you the whole story. I was in there doing coaching in their business one day. Okay. I walked out lunchtime to go and get a sandwich. And I overheard this lovely couple having this conversation. He's getting a car ready for us. Well, we haven't bought it yet. He isn't he's sitting at a tow bar, but he hasn't. We haven't bought it. That's what I'm telling you. You need to go and tell him. I thought that was strange. I went and got my sandwich. I went back. And this couple was sitting at Ash's desk and he was signing them up on the deal. I waited until they left. I said, Hey, Ash, what was this all about? So I don't know. Simon, maybe it's my cheeky little closing question. Come on. You got to tell me what that is. Said, now you're a sales trainer. You'll tell everyone else. No, of course I wouldn't as my fingers were crossed. But this is what it was. That was really good. I can't remember it word word. It was years ago. Okay. But I think from memory, this guy had to get a tow bar fitted to the car. And this is what Ash had done. Okay. He'll turn and say, great news. Got some really good figures here for you. Now the price that pushed twice and the four S blah, blah, blah is a hundred thousand pounds. The current market value in your car is two thousand, which works out 80,000 balance. That works out at X amount over the six months, but comes down to Y amount over the 48. Now I'll be able to have that car ready for you by next Tuesday or this. Would you do me a favor? Will you give me two Wednesday just to get that ready for you? Yeah. When is it going to be fine? And the phrase I stole from him there was, would you do me a favor? Now with that one, now I need to get the tow bar fitted. So I'll be able to have that ready for you by next Tuesday or would you do me a favor? Will you give me two Wednesday just to get that ready for you? By would you do me a favor? It just ties in with the mouse trait. Could you ever use that technique on an analytical snake? Never. Could you use that with the lion? Okay. The director, the lion, it's never going to work. I think it'll only really work with that mouse as a customer. Maybe the puppy dog. So again, when a customer comes in, they're timid, they're standoffish. They're almost maybe not shy, but come across that way. Remember, they're going to buy you first before they buy the product and the deal. So make sure you sell yourself there by opening them up. Ask lots of questions about themselves. Be careful. Don't go for what looks like that easy pushover because I tell you, they'll squeak away at a great rate of knots. Now, last one. Next time, next week, we're going to be looking at those analytical snakes. They're the blue ones. I'll see you then. 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, through LinkedIn. Thank you.
