When you sell cars for a living, your confidence in your product is the first positive virtue influencing customers to buy. If you project faith and assurance in the used car a customer asks about, that is the trust-enhancer that moves the sale needle closer to a close.
But with all the makes and models on the used lot, how in the world can even the most seasoned salesperson be equipped to answer the questions and concerns, spoken or not, customers have when car shopping?
As the saying goes, every used car has a different story to tell. Consumers fear the used car they buy from you will start to tell its story as they drive it off the lot. And the tale it tells – future repair needs, undisclosed mechanical and accident histories, scrimpy reconditioning, and lingering odors – is in the mind of every shopper looking at your used cars.
Unless, you’re taking a proactive stance toward eliminating such skepticism from the get-go. Dealers and GMs who miss this point would do well to rethink what really moves the needle in today’s used car department.
You know this well, customers buy certainty before they buy the car.
Control the Story of the Car
To control the sale, control the story. You achieve this by having at hand important facts and other information about the make and model of the car the customer inquiries about. But that’s a lot of information if you want to be prepared to talk about any make or model on your lot.
During the Stone Age, salespeople used to compile hardcopy, three-ring evidence manuals. These books provided vehicle pictures, feature and option details, VIN information and more. Today – thanking our lucky stars – we have all this sort of compelling trust-building data at our fingertips. These once thick binders are today known as digital vehicle portfolios (DVP).
With a DVP app on a phone, your team can pull up digital profiles of the particular vehicle a customer is interested in, and in the app (or desktop version for the showroom) are the trust and confidence plot lines you use to tell a detailed, historical, and good value story about the vehicle. And, you’ll build this confidence in your and your customer’s knowledge of the car.
Remember, the real product isn’t the car – it’s confidence. Every step in the sales process should reinforce certainty and trust.
Control the Data of the Car
DVPs help make the case. Remember also, facts tell, but stories close. To do that, a DVP equips you and your customer with otherwise hard-to-find-and-access information about the vehicle so they can make the best purchase decision for themselves:
Control the Deal
Customers enter discussion with you as skeptical consumers. Knowing you have instant access to answers for the hard fact-based questions they’ll likely ask, salespeople can relax and do a better job listening and drawing out deal-making answers.
Missteps here can create doubt, frustration, and shopping fatigue. Friction in the selling process always makes it harder to keep customers engaged and sold. But, when you can move the story along quickly, you protect gross.
Control the story, control the data, and you control the deal. The margin is where these vectors are, where the customer leans back, believing you. This moment doesn’t come from price — it comes from confident presentation, information clarity, and engaging professionalism
A final call to action for leaders: