If you are like me dealing with car salesmen can be an exasperating experience. They have so many little quirks and sneaky little ways to try to get information from you that it can try the patience of the best of us. I want to share a few things that you can do to drive them up the wall for a change.
I was in the car business for years and I can tell you there a certain customers and things that customers do that drive salesmen crazy. Imagine how good it will feel to turn the tables.
One of the customer types that drive salesmen crazy is the indecisive customer. If you act like you can make up your mind what you want, you don’t know what you want right from the start that will twist them up right from the start. Salesmen are trained to get you to land on a particular vehicle that is why they come up and ask what you are looking for so they can lead you around. If you tell them you have no idea that you are just getting ideas or whatever they will back off. Even if you do find something you like you can carry the indecisiveness on through the negotiation process by going back and forth on whether you want to buy or not, you can’t decide what would be a good price, you don’t know what kind of payments you want. These things will drive a car salesman completely nuts!
Never, ever let them see you like a car and don’t act like you like them either. I don’t care if it is the car of your dreams and you have been looking for months to find one. Don’t let them know that. This is another thing that salesmen can’t stand, a total lack of emotion from the customer. This is another thing they are trained to do, it is called finding “hot buttons”. They study you and watch your reactions and listen carefully to your responses to tell whether or not they have found the right vehicle for you or not. They will get scared when they can’t find something that gets you excited because they know their job can be on the line.
Knowledge is one of the best ways to trip a salesman up. Most car salesmen don’t know much about the cars they sell. I was consistently one of the top salespeople in the business and I wasn’t a master of product knowledge so I know. If someone asked me how much a car weighed I would ask, “Are you gonna drive it or carry it? It’s real heavy, you can’t pick it up!” Seriously, if I got a prospect that was loaded down with product knowledge they would eat me up. It isn’t that difficult to learn all the stuff you need to know about a particular vehicle. If you have your search narrowed down to one or two cars make sure you know all you can about them.
Gregg Hall is a business consultant and author for many online and offline businesses and lives in Navarre Florida with his 16 year old son. For quality car care products go to carcarewizardsdotcom