Car sales and the power of silence…

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All car sales people will use silence in the car selling process. They use it because it is powerful and effective, so why not turn the tables and use it on them? A car salesman is just that, a salesman and in your dealings with him you will inevitably be asked to buy a car. In sales parlance this is referred to as “the close” and you will be “closed” by the salesman or sales manager as many times as it takes until you say “Yes”.

There are many verbal techniques used when “closing” a sale:

“So if I can get you the deal at …, will you buy the car now?”

“Would you prefer the payments over 3 years or 4?”

“Shall we do the deal at that price then?”

“If we can do the deal at …, when would you like to take delivery of the car?”

“Will you be paying the deposit by cash or cheque?”

And there are many more varying examples of the above.

It is normally obvious when you are being “closed” and more noticeable still is the silence that follows an attempted “close”. It is a fundamental teaching in “sales” that once the salesman has made the “close” he remains silent.

This silence is designed to place pressure on the customer. A “closing” question has been asked and then silence fills the void. The salesman will not make another sound and won’t care how long it takes. Typically, people perceive silence as an uncomfortable and awkward break in conversation so they instinctively insist on filling the silence. A good salesman has learned how to use the “power of the pause” and has calculated that he will be able to lead his prospects and customers into filling the gap of silence with valuable information or even a commitment.

The salesman will ask one of his closing questions;

“Shall we do the deal at that price then?”

And then sit back and fold his hands or pick up his pen as if to write down the customers response. All the while in his head he is repeating the mantra…

“I will not speak, I will not speak”

Another technique might be to utter the closing statement and then outstretch a hand. They know how hard it is for someone to decline the offer of a hand shake and they are applying even more pressure. This particular handshake is not just a friendly gesture as they have just asked you a closing question, and are now staring into your eyes without saying another word. It is a very powerful psychological technique.

So what is the best way to combat these types of closing techniques?

It is simple but easier said than done.

Just say “no”

Tell them you want the car (if that is indeed the case) but that you don’t want to pay the price they have offered it to you at. You then tell that you will, however buy the car at the price that is agreeable to you. You are then the one who goes all quiet. You have turned the tables on the salesman and are now using the “power of the pause” to your own advantage. Remember a “close” is only effective if it is followed by silence. You may also want to offer your outstretched hand at this point. Stare them in the eye and don’t withdraw your hand until they have either agreed or declined your offer as it would be a sign of weakness to do so.

They will either agree to your deal or say that they can’t do it for one reason or another and that the deal they are offering you is already excellent and so on. Then they may either close you again or say that, unless you can agree to what they are suggesting, they won’t be able to do a deal with you. You can safely ignore these tactics as they are designed purely to weaken your position and wear you down.

Whatever tactic they choose you can be sure of one thing they will go silent again and the ball will be back in your court. Again the next move is simple really, stick to your reasons why you can’t do the deal at the price they are offering and they you want to do it at your figure and then, you guessed, say nothing.

If the salesman won’t do a deal with you then ask to see the sales manager, if he’s available. Use the same tactic on the sales manager as you are more likely to get a better deal from him. He will not want to lose your deal, especially not in front of his salesman. However he is likely to be more experienced at dealing with tough customers like you so you will have to be persistent.

During these negotiations you could pick up your documents and put them away in your pocket and start shaking your head, making it look like you are going to walk away but at the same time saying that you would buy the car at the price agreeable to you and then “close” them again with the silent treatment.

In reality they will more likely do a deal with you than not for the following reasons;

They have spent quite a bit of time with you.

You are saying that you will sign up there and then.

You have got your part exchange documents on the desk to give them.

You have got your credit or debit card out in front of them.

Are they really going to let you walk away without buying a car?

No of course they won’t.

They will try everything they can to get your business and if that means coming down in price and accepting less profit but still selling another car for the dealership, then so be it.

Sep 8, 2008In51der

Comments: 25

Chris Harris
13 years ago
Salespeople spend all day putting up with people who try to play mind games. It’s just irritating and the salesperson can see right through it.
Carrie Cashen
13 years ago
It’s the salespeople who are irritating yet they still expect people to hand over their cash.
The customer should take her (or his) hard earned money to a salesperson who doesn’t try and play mindgames.
Michael
13 years ago
Very interesting article. I’ve found salesman to be quite tough to break in Australia. They seem very confident and pull all the usual tricks for example: ‘This car is such a great deal, we are actually LOSING money on it if we sell it to you!’.

Remember people, most likely they are LYING to you, they are making a profit and quite a hefty one too.
mARK rOBBINS
13 years ago
As the proprietor / Salesmanager of my own dealership, I find these sort of articles misleading to all concerned. To perpetuate the myth that ALL Salesman have a strategy / Technique is simply not true, I never try Closure techniques and always let the customer decide, nobody likes to be sold anything or pressurized, least of all me! many many times it is the customer who plays around, thinks you are there to let them Test Drive, Think about it, make silly offers, play their mind games etc: and as for the line” will they let you walk away from a deal” Yes we will and do many times a month, as for making a profit, why do people have such a hard time with that, I never hear the same argument for the profits of other lucrative company’s such as Supermarkets, Utility’s, Estate Agents etc? many many times the profit is less than most of my customers earn in a week but of course they never believe that do they. 26yrs as a stand alone dealer and still this is the one profession where your experience counts for nothing! There are some fantastic deals out there, but the consumer has to know when they are getting a great deal, many dont!
admin
13 years ago
We can certainly agree with a lot of what you say, however you are still very much in the minority, as we are sure you will agree there are thousands of customers out there who are trying to trade-in very expensive nearly new cars which they neither wanted nor needed because they have bowed to pressure from a pushy salesperson. For the interests of balance of, course not all salespeople behave unprofessionally, and they have nothing to fear because if they do the job correctly and offer the service which you allude to then great, but the dodgy ones will have to sharpen up, not least because MTI is on to them!
Mark Robbins
13 years ago
With respect, I must disagree, I do not think I am in the minority, if anything the majority of Dealers both New and used offer a valuable and at most times a pleasurable experience, yes, there will always be the over zealous and pushy sales man, but that in turn applies to many retail establishments. As for the statement regarding the “thousands of customers who are trying to trade in very expensive cars they neither wanted nor needed” the mind boggles! Are we to believe these people in their thousands wandered into car showrooms with no intention or need for a New car and were pressurized into buying there and then? 1. If you have no need for a new car, don’t go looking! 2. Just because some fool in a suit fires a number of questions to you, try’s to broker a deal and then go’s silent, does that mean you feel intimidated enough to sign on the dotted line? A small amount of consumers may well feel pressured to buy (much like the dreaded Time Share Salesman we all seem to encounter on holiday) but I believe the majority of consumers are well versed in such activities and are able to make constructive choice. Lets ask your readers how many of them truly came home with a car they never wanted or worse still, needed! No,the real issue, here in my opinion, is the vast difference in price between that which the customer paid new, coupled with the huge depreciation that all New Cars experience in the First Three years, the first Two being the worst, that for me is always the hardest part, telling the customer (based on monthly Glasse’s Guide Automotive used prices) just how much their vehicle has lost, after all, do any of us want to hear that nice shiny car out there on the forecourt has lost literally thousands of pounds, in what is to the consumer a very short time. Of course there is always the other more unpalatable reason…………………………………………The consumer themselves are to blame, choosing the wrong car to suit their needs in the first place, not based on anything the sales team did or didn’t do, but simply because as humans, when it comes to cars, or anything else for that matter, we don’t always make the right choices do we?
admin
13 years ago
Mark we love your passionate defence and truly believe that independent owner drivers like yourself who have complete control over your sales process and indeed what deals you do and don’t do, can only offer a first class service if you want to build any kind of reputation and repeat business. However when you employ people with no qualifications, as is still happening, pay them a low basic wage and set them high targets to earn decent commission human nature and common sense tells you that corners will be cut and misleading information will be given. We are not saying that all customers are innocent and when we talk about ‘thousands of people driving around in cars they don’t want or need’ we mean the wrong cars because of lazy qualification or aggressive selling techniques which, whatever you may think are still be carried out across the country today.
At MTI we are here to help people make the right choice by hopefully preparing them and advising, but also to alert them to some of the tactics which they could encounter and if highlighting these facts save one person money or help them avoid a bad experience we will have succeeded in what we set out to do.
All of us at MTI are in the trade and have been for many years so not only do we know these practices exist but indeed have carried them out at some point ourselves. This places us in the perfect position to advise our readers of the tactics of SOME unscrupulous dealers, or garages whether they are franchised main dealers or independents. So if you offer the service you claim we wish you luck and lots of sales, but please don’t criticise us for trying to assist consumers in the potential pit falls of choosing their next car, if anything the advice we try and give is more relevant in these tough times than ever before.
mARK rOBBINS
13 years ago
I totally understand your concerns with regards poor training and high target figures for trainee salesperson’s, wages are poor and too much emphasis is put on target achieving with little regard for the consumer, however I suppose it will be a long time coming before some publication sticks up for the dealer! without a doubt I have turned away more deals than closed this last couple of months, the thing is, no matter what the magazines say about dealers, some customers (more than ever nowadays) seem to think we all have huge margins to play with, as you say, you and your team are all in now, or have been at the cutting edge of the Motor Trade, whilst deals can be done, and bargains are out there to be had, please also educate them in the truth about how tough it really is for us as well, we want to give great deals, and I know for a fact there are some fantastic ones out there, but we all know sometimes the customer has read to many of these magazines for there own good! Good luck for the future, we are all going to need it.
admin
13 years ago
We all want a vibrant car industry we are all passionate about what we do but we truly believe that if we can have some transparency and provide some good old fashioned common sense to selling cars then nobody will mind the dealer making a sensible profit. One of the reasons for starting this site in the first place was to provide the inside view, and if you look at many of our articles the aim is to drive our readers to companies who do give great service and therefore will make profit. At the moment the companies who don’t get it right deserve whatever fate befalls them. Good luck to you and be assured that we will try and give a balanced view at all times. Ultimately it will be sites like ours which ensure that customers expectations of massive profits for car dealers are tempered and that will eventually mean that the good guys will win!
A PeReZ
13 years ago
For 30 years of car dealing it has always made me mad the tricks they play.
I hold my ground and have to continually say NO immediately. I do not stay in anyones office. I go to the show room and make the salesperson find me. It always takes hours and hours of haggling good cop over bad cop. My last vehicle was listed $14000.00. They finally took $2200.00 off and still made a profit. There is no such thing as a No Haggle Price. Games to make as much as they can is business as usual. I know no one that wants to go in for the haggling that happens no matter where you go.
Mark Robbins
12 years ago
There most definately IS such a thing as a “No haggle price”, when the price “really is ” as good as its going to get its up to the consumer to realise that, many dont! but the ones that do often walk away with the real bargain. Only writing this because in the last ten minutes my sales staff have just sold two vehicles in our boxing day sale at “No reduction” why? they were already at cost with no further margin to give!
Printings
12 years ago
Nice article, thanks for sharing with us all !
Dan Lewis
12 years ago
I wish my wife knew when to shut up…she’s a salesmans dream..!
patrick lewis
12 years ago
Surely salespeople have got more pressing matters to deal with at the mo,than playing games with people or am i just being niaeve
Kev
12 years ago
Mark, you are probably not still reading this so far after your last comment, but just in case……

I was 100% with you until I read about the Boxing day sale!

Do me a favour mate, let your people have a decent break with their family this year!!!!!

Kev
Mark Robbins
12 years ago
Hey Kevin, We never make people work over christmas, have always left it up to them to decide if they want to come in, if not, its just me and my partner! and even we wont come in if we really dont want too, just one of the benefits of working for yourself, we dont have a head office or manufacturer to answer to.
cameron
12 years ago
I do agree with Mark about this article alot of the ‘techniques’ mentioned are outdated eighties rubbish that no one really uses or anyone falls for nowadays. Any young salesman attempting to deploy this style would be laughed out of the showroom or punched in the face. In order to be a successful salesman these days you need to be presentable, have a pleasant manner and enjoy your job. The last element is probably the most important and thats up to the sales manager to create a team that gets on and is motivated. Then all you need is a good product and worthwhile commission structure and don’t think commission breeds salacious pumped up selling machines, commission just helps the sales person get up out of bed on a Saturday morning to go and do the same bloody job that you or I couldn’t face doing now.
steve walsh
12 years ago
True Cameron but what you have to remember that ther are still lots of ‘eighties’ style sales people working in the industry who have been very successful with these selling techniques and are un-willing to change,admitedly they are becoming fewer by the month,but there are still some very naive customers out there who could easily fall for the old closes like going silent with a deal on the table and whoever speaks first loses! and there are still many managers who will insist that salespeople operate by going backwards and forwards to him whilst trying to deal someone on the prestext of trying to get the best deal when we know most of it is hype!!like most bad things in this country instead of finding a balance where a sales person can be honest and professional and earn a good living from that,the pendulum has swung so far the other way that even if a customer doesnt like the decor of the showroom he will complain.i have heard of customers complaining to a salesmens superiors and even the ceo of a company simply because the salesperson would not give them the deal they want,that is why good sales people are leaving the game,but it started with customers getting ripped off and mis-led and this is what has happened as a result no one trusts anyone and sites like this will always ultimately write something that many will disagree with!
cameron
12 years ago
Yes I see where you’re coming from but I still don’t believe its actually that bad out there. I remember coming back from a two week residential sales training course where all that assumptive close stuff was preached, on arrival back into the showroom I had a go and was asked by he customer if I had by chance just come off a sales course and that was is 1985!
The fact of the matter as I see it is that there’s basically not much money available at the retail end of the motor trade so the most of the lads and laides the low basic wages attracts are uneducated and simply have not got these mysterious jedi mind tricks at their disposal. Closing questions are one thing but getting someone to actually buy a car they don’t want is very uncommon, you may get an order on Saturday afternoon but it will be cancelled on Monday I’ve seen that situation so many times.
These sales techniques were invented to make a simple job more mysterious, the arguement from the eighties sales trainers point of view was that customers need to be tipped over the edge withour realising it but the fact of the matter is that a salesman will lose as many punters as they gain as most people particularly these days have heard it all before.
The sentiment of the article makes it sound like an army of Derren Browns waiting to sell you a car where the reality if you walk into a most used car showrooms if you’re actually really going in to buy a car and they have one to offer you, the likelihood is that you’ll have a good experience.
Kev
12 years ago
You are bang on with this Cameron, the article is a bit rubbish really.

In fact, we all just went on a 2 day sales course which refreshingly suggests that we stop acting like salespeople and try acting like humans!

Kev
steve walsh
12 years ago
Ok so if there are not many people buying cars they dont want why are there so many of thewm trying to sell the car back to the dealer or trying to trade it in elsewhere so soon after they have bought it?you only need look at autotrader to see the amount of privately owned late reg cars being offered for sale to know that some of them surely must have been pressured into buying them,I can appreciate what you are saying the world has changed and customers are much more clued up,but the fact remains that the car trade still has a long way to go before people compltely trust the sales people within it,and for that matter salespeople stop believing that all buyers are liars!!!
Kev
12 years ago
Steve, I am not sure you can draw that conclusion from some adverts on autotrader can you?

For example, at the moment with scrappage, we have lots of people buying the cheapest i10 model, despite coming from a big car, and you can bet your bottom dollar a load of those will be on autotrader soon.

I am a sales manager, but sold cars for many years, and I just do not see how anyone could be pressured into buying a car……well actually, I can, but only on the day….I mean, people usually have a week or so before collecting the car, so plenty of time to cancel if they really have been pressusred.

I do not think all buyers are liars…well, actually in one respect they are…they ALWAYS say they have no idea whatsoever how much their old car is worth………and a few seconds afer you tell them, they say “its worth way more than that” :-))))

I think in general, most car sales people these days (in proper dealerships) do treat customers with respect, and in the case of my dealership, the amount of respect will be in line with the respect customers show us!

Kev
Tony Citroen
12 years ago
Salesman sell. Doesn’t matter what techniques they use, they are sure to use something. A salesmans gotta have an angle he’s not there for a cosy chat afterall ~(if he was he wouldn’t last long that’s fo sure!)
Kev, why are the i10’s back on autotrader so quick, can’t be that bad can they?
Kev
12 years ago
They can have as cosy a chat as they like, provided they sell enough! After all, its bloody hard to find good people these days.

No i10s for sale privately on AT mate, just a comment that there might be some in the months to come.

There is very little wrong with them at all, just people buying them on scrappage cos they are only £4995 and coming from big old cars.

Kev
Mark Robbins
12 years ago
Well, if anything came of this article it was debate! but the fact still remains, in most cases on “the majority” of people “The power of silence” does not work, and as i have said on countless occasions, if as a consumer you are stupid enough to walk into a dealership of any kind and let a halfwit salesperson pressurize you into buying a car you never wanted more fool you ! Do the homework, get some facts, think long and hard about what it is you want and more to the point, need, and then think some more! unscrupulous sales people have and will exist long after we are gone, just dont make their job any easier for them.