When a lead arrives in your inbox, do you quickly send out a response based on the type of vehicle they inquired about? If so, you may be going about it all wrong. While I agree that time is of the essence, the quality of response far outweighs the speed of the response. Why? If five local dealers send 1 minute auto-responses and you were to get back to the same prospect 20 minutes later, who sits atop their inbox when they open it up? You. The benefit? Many people read their emails from the top down. The first returned email is not always the first to be read. Do you know how to deconstruct leads?

That being said, take your time and follow these steps.

1. Determine (if possible, don’t assume) if it is a man or woman emailing and prepare yourself accordingly before a call or email.

2. What time did they submit their lead? Are they night owls? You should have both follow up emails and calls scheduled 23/24 hours after their initial inquiry (though those are not your first contacts).

3. Does their email address give anything away to where they work? Maybe you’ve sold someone from their office.

4. Does their location assist you in personalizing your email response? You may know someone in their area or have attended a local school yourself.

5. Google their name – find out everything you can about them. (It is time to do a little spying.)

6. Try to find their accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Spokeo.

Why must you learn how to deconstruct leads? Your goal is to find out as much about them – their interests, their likes, where they were schooled, where they work and live – as “digitally possible”. You must use these findings to build rapport with your prospect and find some common ground.

Internet Managers do not have the luxury of sitting in front of these leads unless you are employing video chat at your dealership – which I had done with great results. If not, use the digital networking sites and the clues they leave on their leads to offer them more than a price, but a friendly, professional guide through their car-buying process.

While it seems like a lot to do to each lead, you can legitimately accomplish the tasks in 5 minutes. It is well worth the extra time you will spend. The personalization of your response will weigh heavily on whether they ever walk into your showroom.

Do you read your leads?