Distress selling never works

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The glorious sunshine will either bring customers out in force or send them to the beach or pub. Our insiders are reporting a mixed bag of success, it appears that many customers know exactly what they want and are prepared to buy if the price is right, and others are trying to be persuaded but are undecided.

Unfortunately in any form of retailing when it goes quiet it is vitally important that sales people stick to the basics. There is a tendency in car retailing to believe that when there is not much activity and enquiry levels are down the “lunatics come out of the asylum” meaning that staff believe that all the enquiries they get are from “messer” or timewasters.

The reality of course is that during busy periods the buyers usually outweigh the lookers and therefore are not noticed so much and sales people tend not to feel it is as much due to how busy they are servicing customers who have bought. What tends to happen during slower times is customers start to feel the desperation in their sales advisor and it puts them off or ensures that they go away and consider what’s on the table.

I heard the other day of a customer who went in a Vauxhall dealer to enquire about a new car and within minutes it was being discounted by £2,000! It was such a shock for the chap that it immediately made him think that there must be some kind of closing down sale in motion. This kind of distress selling does not really instil confidence into the buyer.

Let’s face it a large discount is always acceptable but it needs to be worked for and negotiated, in my experience if you open up by discounting the product before a customer has even been qualified it doesn’t say much for its desirability and smacks of sheer desperation.

This is why sticking to a sales process and understanding what the customer wants by way of demonstrating the products on offer has always worked and will continue to do so.