Price cutting is a self-inflicted wound. Nobody holds a gun to your
head and makes you cut your price. I know that many of you are thinking
right now: "There is so much competition today that you can't maintain
profits," "Everybody is giving everything away," "The salespeople can't
negotiate," and "Everybody knows our pricing from the Internet..." Blah,
Blah, Blah. Stop whining about price!
Only
about ten percent of buyers buy on price alone. For that ten percent,
you can decide to lower your prices or let your customers buy elsewhere.
Every person who has ever sold anything knows that the happiest
customers are the ones that pay you profit, whereas the unhappiest
customers are the ones that you gave everything away to. Here's a news
flash: You don't have to do business with them. It's your choice.
All
things being equal, money will be the customer's final decision. It is
your job to make everything unequal. Customers consider the 3 M's:
Money, Machine, and Me. What are you doing to elevate the "me" part of
the equation? The "me" part of the 3M's stands for you: your process,
the dealership, the service, and the reputation. It's the easiest part
of the equation to change. Your dealership is unique and your customers
need to know why. You have to believe that you are the best and that you
are worth more. Many salespeople and sales managers have a flawed, weak
belief system. If you don't believe you are outstanding, you will make
yourself a replaceable commodity.
Every day you must work as hard
on yourself as you do on sales. When you get better, your customers will
get better. Do you work on yourself every day in the area of attitude,
education, motivation, sales skills, customer follow-up, and marketing?
Let's be brutally honest and forget about being politically
correct...most sales people stink at their profession.
The
majority of salespeople never work on the above skills. Can you really
tell me that those unmotivated and uneducated idiots are the tough
competition? Your only competition is in your own mind.
Recently,
while in Las Vegas, I shopped for shoes at Caesar's Palace. At the first
store I went to, I noticed the salesperson looked agitated to have to
hang up the phone to wait on me. He was extremely rude and did nothing
to add value to his store or differentiate himself from other
run-of-the-mill salespeople.
The second store I went to, I
encountered a sensational salesperson that created rapport, sold value,
and quality. He knew his product and made a high price seem like a
bargain.
The first store lost two sales and the second gained from the first salesperson's stupidity.
Is
the first salesperson and his inadequacies the norm, or was it an
aberration? My experience says that unfortunately, he's the norm. My
hunch is that your experiences are the same as mine.
Work every
day to get better and show it to your customers. Work on your belief
system. Don't be a commodity, and stop whining about price. Price is the
easiest problem to solve in the sale.
