Hello, it’s christian younger with kaizen automotive consultant, and i want to welcome you to another automotive best practice of the week in this week’s edition.
We’re going to dispel one of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to automotive sales people and we’re going to learn what the top automotive car people do to establish, rapport and create trust with their guests, and they do all this without saying a word now.
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Welcome back in my 29 years in the automotive industry as a sales manager, general sales manager and automotive sales recruiter and consultant, i’ve literally interviewed hundreds of sales applicants.
One of the common questions that will be asked of sales applicants is: why do you think you’d excel at this particular position at car sales, and one of the common answers you’ll hear is well, i have the gift of gab.
I can talk to anyone and i think it’s a common misconception out there, that you have to be able to control or dominate the conversation when you’re a salesperson that you should be talking and tell them why they should buy this particular product or service.
However, i’m here to tell you it’s the exact opposite, the world-class seals people out there.
They know that you should actually dominate the listening.
Many of you have probably heard the quote: god gave us two ears and one mouth use them in proportion, and you know what i’m here to tell you that’s actually true when it comes to sales, because the top sales people you’ll find they talk about.
Maybe 30 of the time, and then they listen to their guests and ask questions to get the guests to tell a little bit more about their needs and wants probably closer to about 70 percent of the time when it comes to automotive sales.
We all know that we should ask questions and then listen to the answers to those questions, so we can identify our guests needs and wants.
However, there’s four other reasons and big benefits that you get out of dominating the listening that i want to talk about today.
Number one is: it creates the possibility to earn some trust, there’s no faster way to rapport than actually actively listening to your guests needs and wants, and if you can establish rapport now, you’ve got a chance to build to build trust with that guest.
I mean: let’s face it: the guests they come in with their guards up a little bit they’re expecting this fast talking slick golden tongue sales person to try to talk them into buying a car today, why don’t you go ahead and go left when they’re expecting you To go right and talk a little bit less than you normally do.
Listen to them a little bit more number two is: it helps build self-esteem when people know you’re listening to them, sincerely you’re, showing them that you care about what they have to say and because you care about what they have to say, that makes them feel more Important and them feeling more important leads to more self-esteem now, because you were involved and kind of helped them feel more important and raise their self-esteem.
Some of that good feeling gets unconsciously transferred to you.
So good news for you now you’re one step closer to rapport which could lead to that trust.
The third reason why automotive sales people want to dominate the listening is it reduces resistance, there’s a natural resistance that guests have when it comes to walking into a car dealership.
There’s some tension there and defensiveness.
That just is part of our business and unfortunately not everybody finds this the most pleasant experience.
In fact, when it’s been ranked in experiences, it’s been ranked between getting sued and getting a root canal so hit the burst or bubble, but not everybody likes to go.
Do this so when you run into somebody, that’s listening to you and you like this person, it’s kind of hard to be upset with that person and come down hard on them when they’ve been paying attention to your needs and wants the whole time after all.
What’s that old, saying when it comes to discipline your children, this is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you.
So it’s difficult for people to come down hard on people.
They like number four.
It helps develop self-discipline for the listener.
We can listen and understand at a rate of about 500 to 600 words per minute.
Yet when we speak, we only speak at about 125 to 150 words in a minute, so there’s a pretty big gap there and it’s really hard to listen without letting your mind drift so by practicing active listening, you really practice on focusing and concentrating on what the Guest is saying, and that’s just going to obviously make you a better listener, which in turn is going to help you identify their needs and wants much better and who knows the practice.
It actually might save your marriage in this next section.
I’d like to give you my top four best practices for becoming a better active listener.
Number one listen attentively.
It’s been said that the eyes they’re the windows to the soul.
So what i want you to do is look whoever you’re talking to dead, straighten the eyes and that’ll.
Let them know that you’re listening to them and that you’re focused on them, but that’s the easy part.
The next part is clearing your mind, clearing your mind, so you can focus on exactly what they’re saying to you and then this last part.
It’s the most important, don’t be thinking about what you’re gon na say.
Next just listen.
The second best practice pause pause.
Three seconds before responding after the guest or whoever you’re speaking with, has just got done talking by pausing.
What you’re going to do is you’re going to show them that you actually care and that you had listened but you’re also going to invite them to maybe give you a little bit more detail on what they have just said.
I mean people find this three seconds of silence, kind of uncomfortable and so a lot of times, they’ll just continue on and give you a little more detail to what they had just told you and that’ll help you identify their needs and wants even further best practice.
Number three ask questions using mirrors: according to chris voss, who is head fbi, negotiator and author of the book back here, never split the difference he says using mirrors brings out crucial and critical buying information that would have never been revealed.
Had you not asked the mirror questions now, what is a mirror? Well, mirrors, just simply repeating back the last three important words or the part of the statement that the guest had just made, and it’s repeating those back to them in a question form using mirrors.
What it does is it insinuates empathy which in turn creates bonding and then that bonding that helps build trust.
Now, how could we use this in the automotive business or what’s an example? Well, let’s pretend for a moment that we’ve spent a little time with a guest and then all of a sudden as we’re talking to them.
They look over at us and say you know what that sales person is the other dealership.
They really pissed me off and then you would just look at them with an inquisitive type of look and ask the question pissed you off! Well yeah! You know, i mean i told him.
I didn’t have much credit and he told me i’d need a co-signer.
Even if i put money down, you’d, say money down and then well yeah.
You know, i mean i’ve got money.
When i was 17 years old.
I got attacked by this dog and i got a 50 000 settlement that i put in the bank.
I think it’s sitting in a cd really fifty thousand dollar cd yeah.
You know i mean i’ve got that money available.
I mean i don’t want to take it out.
However, i mean, maybe you know there could be something that could be done to help me get a loan.
Well, you know, as you can see, this information is crucial.
It’s critical information to for us to help this guest get approved for a car loan.
Perhaps we could borrow against the fifty thousand dollars.
We could look and see if there’s any penalties using some of that money as a down payment.
So again, this mirror it’s going to reveal a lot more information than we would have got normally had we not asked the mere question best practice.
Number four once again comes from chris voss’s book, never split the difference and that’s using labels to learn more and to clarify.
Labeling is just a way to validate your guest’s emotion by acknowledging it and once we give that emotion, a name we show that we identify with which how the guest feels for an example in the automotive business.
Let’s pretend that it’s a slow tuesday afternoon – and you happen to be out on the point watching vehicles come in and out of the dealership lot and you observe this middle-aged woman.
She pulls onto your lunch.
She parks as far away as she can from everybody.
She parks out way out away from where anybody is and she gets out of her car.
Real, quick, she’s, looking around, looks very nervous, jumps back into the car very quickly anytime, a salesperson approaches her.
She jumps back into the car.
In fact, when you go over to approach just to see, if there’s any questions she might have, or you can answer, she jumps back in the car and she gives you a dirty look and drives off the lot now two days later, that thursday, you happen to Be on the lot again and you see her drive back up and she really just does the same thing she drives around.
She stops gets out, jumps back in, gets out, jumps back in then you can tell that she didn’t really want to do it, but she drove over by you.
She rolled the window down about halfway.
She took a vehicle detail, page printout from some type of a website, probably your website and she kind of shoves it in your face and says: do you guys have this honda crv, or is this one of these bait and switches nasa’s exchange? You can’t help but think man, this lady’s a real bee bear, but you don’t respond like that.
You go ahead and smile and say well i’ll, be happy to check on that.
For you.
I think i know where it’s at.
Would you mind following me? Please and so then she does not get out of the car.
She goes ahead and trails you about two miles an hour with the window, halfway down you’re, trying to ask questions through the window: she’s just answering them with a quick, yes or no very short, and to the point with her answers showing that she’s very distrustful and Not really happy about being there, and especially not happy about having to talk to you now you finally get to the honda crv that she’s interested in when you do the good news is she does get out of the vehicle.
However, her body language tells you that she doesn’t really want to be there and that there’s a lot of distrust and she doesn’t really like the fact that she has to go through this process.
So at this point you decide you know what i’m going to label this emotion, i’m going to label this distrust and this disdain that seems very apparent for car sales, people and car dealerships.
So you just simply say this ma’am.
It seems like you’ve really got your guard up, but you know i guess i can’t really blame you.
I mean the past actions of a few bad actors in the automotive business have kind of tarnished the image for a lot of us.
Now, after you say this, you can see in her body language and her eyes, you can just see the relief, the tension that just goes out of the muscles and out of her body and she’s, so happy that somebody’s identified with her and she goes on to Tell you everything you need to know: she tells you that her father has passed away three months prior to this visit and that she never has purchased a car without him.
So there’s a lot of anxiety because of that also she happens to be very, very busy at work and she hasn’t been able to go pick up her anxiety, medication from the drugstore.
So therefore, you’ve got that tension on top of everything else.
She goes on to give you all the information that you need to know to be able to go ahead and help her take home, a brand new honda crv about two or three hours later after this meeting.
I’d like to point out that these last two best practices, the mirroring and the labeling they’re, just simply tools tools to help.
You gain more information, more information that hopefully will get you to understand their needs and wants a little bit better and help you deliver a car today, however, this new intel is useless useless.
If you don’t have the ability to be able to clear your mind and to be able to listen and listen intently and listen without thinking of what you’re going to say next well, there you have it how the top car sales people in the automotive industry gain Trust are able to show more empathy and find out their guests hot buttons, all by keeping their mouth shut more often, so they can dominate the listening.
Now, if you’d like to get more automotive psychology selling tips, please go ahead and click on the video.
That’s coming up right about.
