“Succeeding on the Showroom Floor”

In car sales, any customer that has agreed to come into your dealership is an extremely hot deal. These buyers have spent an average of 15 hours researching online before landing on a vehicle at your dealership. Then, they set an appointment or walked into your showroom floor. All of this work and effort shows just how committed the customer is and conveys that they’re ready to make a purchase. However, when a deal is handled in the wrong manner, even these hot deals can be lost. So, it’s up to the sales professional to be ready to deliver a stellar buying experience while making it as easy as possible for the buyer to say “yes” to buying a car. In this blog, discover the 7 best showroom floor best practices that will help you close deals with any customer that walks into your dealership!

Showroom Floor Best Practice #1 – Building Rapport

Building rapport is an extremely important aspect of any car sales process. The better rapport you have with a customer, the easier it will be to do your job. Yet, many sales professionals attempt to build rapport the wrong way. It can seem tempting to engage the customer around topics like sports and politics, but it is extremely risky. Building rapport around things like this can completely kill your deal once the buyer has an opposing view. It’s unprofessional and an easy way to lose a deal that would otherwise get closed.

Instead, build rapport around the reason why the customer has come to your dealership – to purchase a vehicle! So, in the greeting, make sure to give the customer a compliment and let them know that you can do whatever they want to do. This makes the buyer feel good, lets them know that you’re listening and is a surefire way to build rapport early on!

Showroom Floor Best Practice #2 – Early Objections

In situations where you get hit with objections early in the deal, it’s vital to keep things small. Objections in the greeting, for example, are likely just test objections. Most customers tend to toss out objections that aren’t serious because they feel that they have to. However, even in cases where it’s a serious objection, there’s no need to handle it at this stage. Handling objections at this stage will likely only damage your deal.

Remember, if an objection is small to you, then it is small to the customer. On the other hand, delving deep into the objection will make customers think they’re onto something and will make it much harder to move past. At this stage in the deal, your goal is just to move the customer to the next step, not sell them a vehicle. So, when a customer objects, just agree with them, tell them why and move to the next step of your process!

Customer: “I’m not buying anything today.”

Sales Professional: “I understand that you aren’t buying anything today. I’d want to look around too if I was in the market for a new car. We can make today just a looking day. Follow me.”

Showroom Floor Best Practice #3 – Fact Find Here

Fact finding is a crucial part of any deal. It allows you to gather important information that you can use to expand your inventory, land on a perfect vehicle and sell the buyer on what matters to them. Although, if you want to collect the best information possible, then it’s necessary to fact find at the customer’s current vehicle. Fact finding here sets you up for success by allowing you to:

• • Compliment the customer. This is another chance to make the buyer feel good and establish some more rapport around their vehicle.
• • Find out the features and equipment that are important to the customer. Now, you will be able to include this in your sales pitch and will make you more effective at closing.
• • Learn other information that will help you expand your inventory. You might find that the customer is open to other models or even other brands. Sometimes, buyers are even open to used vehicles even though they came in on a new car. This information will give you far more opportunities to succeed.
• • Discover dents, scratches, and other trade issues that will give you more power in the negotiation. That being said, the walkaround is a time for positivity, so just take mental notes and keep them to yourself for the time being.

Showroom Floor Best Practice #4 – An Effective Test Drive

The demonstration drive is any buyer’s favorite part of the car buying experience. In turn, this is where a lot of deals solidify. So, it’s no exaggeration to say that your deal depends on your ability to give the customer a perfect test drive. To deliver this quality of an experience, it’s imperative that you have a set demo route and master the two steps of the test drive.

A set demo route is optimal for giving the customer the best feel of the vehicle while showing off all of its great features. Every dealership should have one in place, so if you don’t know yours, make sure to ask your sales manager for one. Then, bring your buyer through these two steps:

• • Step 1: Drive the car off of the lot yourself. A sales professional should always be the first one to drive in the test drive. This is your chance to sell the vehicle to customer and point out all its amazing features and equipment.
• • Step 2: Switch spots with the customer. Your set demo route should have this be in a great location, especially one that gives the buyer perspective on how nice the vehicle is. Now, it’s your time to keep quiet and allow the buyer to get a feel for the vehicle. The only time you should speak here is giving directions or answering the customer. Once a customer feels for themselves how the vehicle handles, it typically becomes a done deal.

Showroom Floor Best Practice #5 – 100% Write Up

After the demonstration drive, sales professionals should ask every single buyer to come inside and see numbers. It will only hurt your sales numbers to make assumptions. We cannot read minds, and will never truly know what the buyer wants to do. Even when customers seem uninterested in the vehicle, they might come inside and buy the vehicle if you ask. However, if you don’t ask, then you will not close the deal.

Showroom Floor Best Practice #6 – Negotiating the Right Way

Whether the customer objects to the vehicle price or their trade valuation, both can be handled by negotiating in the right way! Before ever negotiating on money, you should always first negotiate with vehicles. As long as you have set yourself up for success early in the deal, you will be able to handle this objection most of the time without having to negotiate on price. In turn, close more deals and hold far more gross.

How to negotiate with vehicles for pricing objections:

How to negotiate with vehicles for trade valuation objections:

Showroom Floor Best Practice #7 – Be Prepared to Close

It would be amazing if every deal was as easy as showing customers the numbers and asking them to sign. Unfortunately, that’s not going to be the case on a lot of deals. Therefore, you need to be stocked up with many different closes that provide you the ability to close regardless of the situation. Watch the videos below for some fantastic examples of this:

Sell the Difference:

The Machine Money Me Close:

The Ben Franklin Close:

Boasting over 1,400 sales training videos, RevDojo’s On-Demand Car Sales Training is your key to taking dealership success through the roof! This comprehensive training platform provides everything your team needs to succeed in selling cars, including in-depth knowledge, techniques and insights in handling objections, closing deals and more! Contact us today at (888) 603-4443 or sales@revdojo.com to learn more!