Language varies based on geography, history, and culture. Dialects change and accents bubble up. Yet no matter how many different dealerships I visit across North America, the standard, monotonous, repetitive phrase you I hear every salesperson regurgitate is “I want to earn your business”, or some derivative thereof. Just saying it doesn’t make it true.
Do salespeople really want to earn a customer’s business? No. They want a customer’s business, but not all want to earn it. It’s just a phrase. They would far rather just get a customer’s business with as little effort as humanly possible. “I want to earn your business” is salesperson jargon passed down through the years that carries very little weight to a customer. Whether they say, “I want to earn your business” or the even more lazy “What’s it going to take to earn your business?”, the salesperson is simply trying to take a shortcut to doing the work.
To “earn” something takes work, energy, time, attention, and, in many cases, sacrifice. So saying the phrase “I want to earn your business” rings just as hollow to me as someone on the phone who says, “in case we get disconnected”. No, you don’t and no we won’t. You just want a lazy way to get my phone number. Customers know you want their business. They also feel, though, that their business should be deserved.
When I hear salespeople and BDC agents spit forth this empty statement, I like to pull them aside and ask “beyond discounting the vehicle, how can you earn their business?” Some admittedly don’t have a great answer beyond “I can keep calling them”. While I love a good phone call (with a reason), that sounds a bit more like harassment than an “earned” purchase. Others, though, do have suggestions.
“I could shoot them a really good video of the vehicle”
“I could alert them to new inventory similar to what they’re looking at”
“I could offer to bring the vehicle to them”
“I could see if they’d like a sight-unseen trade appraisal”
“I could start putting some numbers together for them in advance”
“I could tell them when the incentives change”
“I could send them reviews or information of awards the vehicle has received”
All are great ideas, so I tell them, “Now change those coulds to wills.” THAT is how you earn someone’s business. Saying you want to do something is not near as impactful as taking the actions that prove you want to. Doing is different than saying. As a side note, DealerKnows recommends removing any instances of this phrase from email/text templates because we never want our clients to sound average or unconvincing. Rather, we train your teams to actually do. To see all the extra effort a professional can put in to win over a customer.
If you do all that you can to earn someone’s business, you never have to simply say you want to again. They’ll already know.
