Stop Slamming Your Competitors Is Among These 10 Top Car Salesmen Tips

The average age of U.S. vehicles is said to be around 10 years. (Source R.L. Polk) Now this does seem high and even somewhat odd given all the recent incentives from clash for clunkers to rebates to low or zero percentage interest rates. One would think with 10-year-old cars that the goal to increase sales would be far easier.

So if incentives have not motivated people to buy, then why are dealerships and car salesmen or saleswomen having such a trouble to increase sales? Now some may answer because of uncertainty regarding the economy, not knowing if they (the customers or buyers) will have a job tomorrow and even the inability to secure financing. Others might respond is the quality of automobile, SUV and truck manufacturing has dramatically increased allowing for a longer period of use.

What I would like to suggest is many who sell cars for a living have not changed their approach to the sales process nor have the dealers changed their approach to marketing and selling. And I know this to be true because I began shopping for a new car recently.

After visiting just two dealers, I know I will not return to one of those because of the salesperson. His behaviors actually negatively engaged my emotional receptors. Sales Training Coaching Tip: People buy from people they now and trust. Emotions open the trust door.

Here are the top 10 car selling tips guaranteed to derail your goal of how to sell more cars dead in its tracks:

1. Jump immediately into the selling mode without even attempting to build the relationship. For example, he could have asked me "So what have you liked about your car?" Sales Training Coaching Tip: A solid relationship is critical to successfully earn the sale.
2. Give the potential customer a brochure before learning his or her needs. Since I came with a list of needs and he saw the car I was driving (Ford Focus Wagon), he immediately thought I wanted another wagon.
3. Do not discuss the whys (psychographics) behind the needs. Sales Training Coaching Tip: It is important to learn why a person wants road stability to the interior color.
4. Talk about quality generically such as "We have much better quality control" without being specific. Today's buyers are far more educated and many want the actual specifics.
5. Directly slam the competition. This is a real turn off. There is no good reason to ever slam your competitors. Will you make some negative comment about me when I leave such as "There goes another tire kicker?" Sales Training Coaching Tip: Cream always rises to the top.
6. Make innuendos or insinuations about your competition be it a dealership or another sales person. These comments are subtler such as "You know they lost their other dealership?" So what does that have to do with my desire to look at your dealership to consider buying a car?
7. Imply that educated customers are not a good thing. Remarks that are said almost tongue in cheek such as "traffic is down because no one visits the showroom anymore due to the Internet" does not strengthen the relationship. Then directing them to the Internet to build a car just does not make sense.
8. Tell me you worked for the competitor you just slammed. How does this piece of information build confidence and trust?
9. Talk more than listen. Actually, I believe this salesperson talked 4 to 5 times more than I did.
10. Act bored or disengaged when the potential customer does not go with your flow. Since I had a list of needs with a few wants (those being features that were not deal breakers), my sense is this threw the salesperson off his game.

Maybe it is me, but my sense is there could be a lot more cars sold if those selling cars changed their approaches and focused first on building the relationship. What I do know is right now, I know far more about the two sales people who I interacted with than they know about me and that is just the opposite of what it should be.

Do you want more car sales? Then you may find the FREE Top Car Salesperson Profile Assessment of interest.

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