Selling a car feels amazing. It’s an adrenaline rush, no doubt. You work 26 days a month on average, though, and no one wants to spend 50-60 hours a week hoping for only 5 to 6 shots of dopamine. You can’t survive on so few celebrations. Salespeople, to be happy in their position, and not just complacent, must learn to appreciate the small win. And dealers can help.
If you judge your success solely by how many vehicles you sell or the gross you make, regardless of how much metal you move, your job of a salesperson grows old quickly. There are different levels of celebration you can achieve. It’s all in how you look at it. Multiple actions must happen for a customer to buy a car, but every step the shopper takes closer to that purchase can be viewed as a small win. If you’re a dealer, you need to promote (and reward) the activity and effort salespeople put forth to achieve the small win. Get excited when the little things that must happen, do. We already know…
- Selling a vehicle: Big win
- Making healthy gross on that vehicle: Big win
But what about all those little pieces that must fall into place along the way to achieve that big win? We need to feel good about ourselves when that happens. Give ourselves a boost. Feel ourselves moving forward. High-fiving each other when things go our way.
- Getting a customer to share their phone number with you: Small win
- Capturing their email address: Small win
- Customer opting in for texting: Small win
- Learning their place of work: Small win
- Adding notes about the customer’s personal life in the CRM: Small win
- Getting them to call you back: Small win
- Having the customer answer their phone: Small win
- Receiving a positive text or email response back with answers to your questions: Small win
- Your video being viewed by the customer: Small win
- Setting an appointment: Small win
- The appointment showing: Small win
- Taking in a quality trade at a fair price: Small win
- Getting a credit challenged customer approved for a loan: Small win
- Doing something so positive for a customer that they thank you for the help: Small win
As you can see, a lot of things have to go right to culminate in a sale. It doesn’t matter if the deal being finalized and the customer driving off in their new car is the only determining factor that gets you paid. There are so many little actions that need to go your way to make that deal happen… find a way to see the beauty in them. If you’re a dealer owner, don’t just expect these actions. Give positive feedback when your team accomplishes them or when the customer acquiesces. Each small win gets you closer to building a relationship with a shopper. Closer to creating a customer for life. A “great” or a “good job” to your team goes a long way toward emphasizing the importance of the little things.
Only finding happiness in a sale will not make you happy long-term. Appreciating the small win in the process will. Put enough small wins together and they equal big success.
Hey salespeople… want to find ways to sell more cars? Be a soldier, not a spectator.
