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The 100% Write Up

 In car sales, you miss 100% of the shots you do not take. So, the goal is always to write up 100% of buyers at your dealership. Regardless of how committed you think the buyer is, every single customer that comes into the dealership should be shown pricing and payments. Remember, before a buyer even enters your dealership and shakes your hand, they’ve spent numerous hours researching. As a result, we know that they are committed to purchasing a vehicle. Therefore, they are all buyers, and should be treated as such. If 10 buyers come to the dealership, then 10 buyers should see numbers!

If you don't write the buyer up, you can't make a sale! 100% write up is key! In this blog, learn how to move every buyer towards a write up!

Selling the Write Up in the Greeting

 When you get back from the test-drive, the write-up should already be pre-sold. That is because the buyer should have been told about the write-up at the initial point-of-contact. So, if you have made it all the way to the end of the test-drive, you should be confident that you can easily write up the customer. Just assume that the write-up is going to happen since you have already explained your entire sales process at the point-of-contact.

To learn more about selling the write up in the greeting, check our previous blog on greeting best practices here.

 Transitioning from the Demonstration Drive to the Write Up

Being able to smoothly transition from the outside to the inside of the dealership is vital to delivering the write up. At this stage of the process, your early fact-finding and demonstration drive should give you complete confidence that you landed the buyer on the perfect vehicle. The buyer is clearly very committed if they were willing to test-drive a vehicle. Here’s an example word track for how to get a buyer from the demo to the write up:

Salesperson: “How’d you like how the vehicle drove?”

Buyer: “It drove really well.”

Salesperson: “Great. Why don’t you come inside and I’ll show you how easy it is to do business with us.” / “Awesome. Why don’t you step inside with me and I’ll show you some numbers.”

Then, start walking towards the door. However, if the buyer isn’t interested in coming inside and seeing numbers, sell the benefits of receiving the information. For example, if they know the pricing and payments, the buyer can at least think about it and/or compare with other offers. You want to write up the customer 100% of the time, regardless of what you think the outcome will be. Once the write-up is complete, there is a good chance you will close the deal.

After reading this blog, try writing down a few words and phrases that you think will help you get the customer to come inside. Then, practice saying the lines you wrote down.

Presentation of Figures

Initial Presentation of Figures

When you present the initial numbers, if you start the deal the right way, you are more likely to finish the deal the right way. Try starting out with a decent down payment, a short term, and an average APR. That gives you some wiggle room to negotiate downwards and please the buyer, if necessary, without resorting to pricing.

When presenting the figures, you do not need to go over every single line. If you try to discuss everything on your worksheet, you’re just asking for objections that might not have even been there in the first place. In the first pass, you want to go straight to the payment options. Have confidence, assume the sale, and present the payments. In this stage, the buyer already has had multiple chances to see the pricing – online, on the car, etc. So, there’s no need to further draw attention to it. Payments are more likely what will be the deciding factor for pulling the trigger on purchasing a vehicle! Complement the buyer’s choice of vehicle, remind the customer of all the cool features the vehicle has, and ask the customer to circle the payment plan that works best.

Second Pass

In the second pass, you let the customer "win" even without letting them get a discount on the price. By having room to negotiate with things such as the down payment, the term, or the APR, buyers can feel that they’ve gotten a “win” in the negotiation. Buyers naturally feel that they need to negotiate with car salespeople because they’ve been taught that they might get taken advantage of. By letting the buyer have a win at this stage, it will usually be enough to move on from the negotiations without resorting to the price!

Negotiating with Inventory Instead of Price

When a buyer objects to the pricing in this stage, negotiate with inventory and equipment as opposed to the price. Remember, buyers are used to paying more for better features, so use the logic in the deal! Explain to the buyer that the vehicle they chose is priced at a certain value because of all of the equipment and features in the vehicle. If they still continue to object to the price, you could offer to show them lower-priced, lesser-equipped vehicles instead. This will usually give them perspective of what they are getting for the price.

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