KISS
One of the first lessons I learned in the business of retailing automobiles was the KISS rule. KISS is an acronym for Keep-It-Simple-Stupid. One visual depiction of this rule is: open mouth, insert foot; a good concept to keep at the foremost part of our brains!
Jackie Cooper, an industry legend in auto-retail sales training, told me a story once about how he blew a sale he’d just closed. Jackie was noted for going into car dealerships for 2-3 days and training “on the floor”. Jackie insisted that, all customers who were not closed, be turned over to him before they left; but only after that customer had been turned over to every manager in the store. In other words, Jackie was so confident of his closing skills that he wanted to be the last person the customer talked to.
At a Cadillac dealership in Texas, Jackie had the opportunity to take the last turnover to an elderly woman who was going to go home and “think about” buying the new Cadillac she had just driven. Jackie managed to get the lady back to the negotiating table where she finally agreed to buy; right then and there.
While writing up the deal and without thinking, Jackie asked a question of this lady he had asked hundreds of other people in order to create a vision of ownership as a help in closing them. This question creates a “word picture”, as Jackie called it.
“Ma’am, do you think this Cadillac will fit in your garage?” Jackie asked casually. Frequently, when you have a customer who has yet to take mental ownership of your product, you can ask them a question like this one, and they’ll mentally picture the vehicle in their garage: taking mental ownership. Jackie’s problem was that this lady had already said yes, she’d own the car. She already mentally owned it!
As Jackie tells the story, the lady was ready to O.K. the figures on the buyer’s order just as he asked that question. “At that very moment, I watched in horror as she stopped signing, placed the pen down on the table and said: ’You know, I don’t think it will fit in my garage.’ ”
Jackie of course drove the lady and Cadillac to her garage and tried every way possible to make it fit… it didn’t.
We have all likely experienced times when we gave the customer more information than they needed and, as a result, lost a sale or gave up some profit. Recently, during one of those long, uneasy periods of silence, when the customer is trying to decide whether to say yes, I was tempted to ask the customer how our car compared to the one like it she had seen at another dealership. Wisely I kept my mouth shut and she bought moments later. Not until after she was getting ready to drive away in her new purchase did the lady mention the other vehicle. Whew!
The rule of thumb for KISS is to say no more than is needed, to sell the benefits of the car and once the customer says yes, keep your mouth shut and keep writing!
Jackie Cooper, an industry legend in auto-retail sales training, told me a story once about how he blew a sale he’d just closed. Jackie was noted for going into car dealerships for 2-3 days and training “on the floor”. Jackie insisted that, all customers who were not closed, be turned over to him before they left; but only after that customer had been turned over to every manager in the store. In other words, Jackie was so confident of his closing skills that he wanted to be the last person the customer talked to.
At a Cadillac dealership in Texas, Jackie had the opportunity to take the last turnover to an elderly woman who was going to go home and “think about” buying the new Cadillac she had just driven. Jackie managed to get the lady back to the negotiating table where she finally agreed to buy; right then and there.
While writing up the deal and without thinking, Jackie asked a question of this lady he had asked hundreds of other people in order to create a vision of ownership as a help in closing them. This question creates a “word picture”, as Jackie called it.
“Ma’am, do you think this Cadillac will fit in your garage?” Jackie asked casually. Frequently, when you have a customer who has yet to take mental ownership of your product, you can ask them a question like this one, and they’ll mentally picture the vehicle in their garage: taking mental ownership. Jackie’s problem was that this lady had already said yes, she’d own the car. She already mentally owned it!
As Jackie tells the story, the lady was ready to O.K. the figures on the buyer’s order just as he asked that question. “At that very moment, I watched in horror as she stopped signing, placed the pen down on the table and said: ’You know, I don’t think it will fit in my garage.’ ”
Jackie of course drove the lady and Cadillac to her garage and tried every way possible to make it fit… it didn’t.
We have all likely experienced times when we gave the customer more information than they needed and, as a result, lost a sale or gave up some profit. Recently, during one of those long, uneasy periods of silence, when the customer is trying to decide whether to say yes, I was tempted to ask the customer how our car compared to the one like it she had seen at another dealership. Wisely I kept my mouth shut and she bought moments later. Not until after she was getting ready to drive away in her new purchase did the lady mention the other vehicle. Whew!
The rule of thumb for KISS is to say no more than is needed, to sell the benefits of the car and once the customer says yes, keep your mouth shut and keep writing!
posted by Morey's Muses | 9:41 AM
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