Episode 17: The Art of Upselling

Accelerate your dealership success. This is the Car Guy Simple Podcast.

Welcome back to Car Guy Simple. I'm Joe Levine. Car Guy Simple, the pod for the retail automobile business, fixed or variable ops. We are so excited as always. And thank you for joining us again. Stay tuned, right? Let's get going. Let's get going. Josh, should we get going? We should get going. Let's get going. So this segment, we're going to talk about some tactics, some ideas, some things to think about, maybe things that you can take back to your team. Um or maybe some things that you already do that might just need some tightening, or you're good. I'm confirming what you're already doing. In any of those cases, let's go, let's go, let's go. Let's start with uh the desk versus the box. That's always an interesting collision, right? Of the Titans, right? Desking the deal and what goes on in F and I. The box. So there's different tactics, there's different ways to do this. Some stores love to build a lot of leg into the front end of the deal when they're working the whether it's a four-square or any other sales process, right? And send the deal into the box, the finance department, business office, whatever the flavor ice cream you call it. It's all the same department, right? Um the tactics different. The danger of putting leg in a deal is a couple of things, right? So you put uh, you know,$3,000 worth of leg in a deal and it goes into the F and I or the box office, right? Um I don't mean the box office for tickets. And uh it's an easy sell, and we load them up with tire and wheel and extended warranty and whatever else we're gonna load it up with. And uh we got to be careful, even if it's sold well, because the chargeback rate could come back to haunt us, versus working the deal as effectively as we can at the desk to get the highest possible gross out of the deal, whether it's a cash, a payment, whatever type of uh sales process or or type of buyer, or if it's a foursquare or a payment matrix, whatever you're using, doesn't matter. Conceptually, let's move just past that. And I guess you can tell I'm not a big advocate for sending a lot of leg in every deal to the box. It's easier on everybody. Is it really transparent? Does it really help with consumer sentiment when it comes to buying vehicles? Uh, could it potentially be an issue if we don't spot deliver that person, right? And uh for some strange reason there's a deposit. And just on a fluke chance, and I know this never happens, where the consumer would leave a deposit and want to come back a day or two or whatever later, right? And whether they need steps or not, whatever the reason is that they didn't get spotted, and just on a fluke chance, they shop it and they find out this weird disparity, and now we've got to start selling the difference. But you told me my selling price was X, and they told me it was this, and why is the payment different? Leg, right? So all of that aside, because we can bring that up another another time or send a mailbag question and I'll dive deeper. Um let's talk about what goes on in the business office, finance office, the box, whatever you want to call it. So it's it's it's tomato tomato, right? Legally, anywhere in the country, we're covered if we use a menu. Now, sometimes the menu selling is is um time consuming. Sometimes it may not be our best option. It is the most consistent uh legal option, however, against all other odds and and people that may not be as into menu as possible. The precedent has been set in courts throughout areas of the United States that if we show a consistent behavior, and that's where we get into keeping ourselves out of trouble, out of court, out of the AG's office. You've heard me say this before, right? I, for one, have no idea what the color of the AG's carpet is in any attorney general's office throughout the country. Want to keep it that way. I'm sure you feel the same way. How about the negative impact of inconsistent behavior from a selling perspective? Listen, we need product. We need to sell product. If there is a menu that's signed off by both the manager and the buyer of the vehicle or lessee of the vehicle, right? The person taking delivery, every time, every deal without exception, without fail, new use, doesn't matter. We're covered. It's when we get inconsistent and we don't use the menu, right? Some stores have it uh white paper, some use, you know, electronics. It really doesn't matter how we deliver the document, how we go over the document. What matters is that we have a consistent behavior that it's done all of the time. Now, I get it. Most of us know this. And I dare say that probably all of us know this. But it's a busy day, Joe, or but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but. World is full with butts, right? And that's when the inconsistency can kick in. A dedicated behavior keeps us out of harm's way. A dedicated behavior allows for two consumers to be sitting in the service department post-delivery, getting an oil change. And right, people compare notes. We want everybody to go, yeah, that's they went over that with me, or did you get, yeah, I got that, or or I just heard talk to my service advisor. Thank goodness I got tire and wheel. What's that? They didn't even talk to me about that. So they don't remember. We have done focus grouping with tons and tons of consumers in a lot of different environments. And what we've learned is that the less we talk about something in terms of in writing and otherwise, a menu versus verbal, talking about it versus showing it, selling it, talking about it, and asking for did you want that to be part of your upfronts or put in your payment at, I don't know,$18 a month or whatever it is. Word tracks aside, consistent behavior is the best way for repeat and referral business, for people comparing, for return business, for referral business all being handled the same way. Let's take treatment and put it on the side. We're just going to talk about treatment later in this discussion. Right now, it's all about counsel your team, work with everybody to have a consistent way of doing business from the first deal to the last. The first deal, the day you open your business, first vehicle you ever sold, to 50 years later, we do business the same way. Sure, tactics can be modified and things can get done, but it's all about how you position yourself in discussions with the consumer. And some people will argue, well, that it deals with buying tactics, right? Buying tactics that work. So let's shift gears to buying tactics, because I think we've we've beat up that prior one enough, right? Buying tactics. Buying tactics are calls to action from an advertising perspective. And you know, we we can speak to that because this pod is pirate. The paid political announcement, Josh. Powered by Car Guy Simple, powered by PMD, the world's largest automotive advertising agency in Bootin, New Jersey. We happen to be car people in the media business as opposed to media people trying to sell the car people, right? So, from our perspective as car people, we need to design things that are not going to drive the PL wacky, flowing, you know, red ink. We there are times where we need to come up with things. Recent, here's an example. We had a Cadillac dealer recently that was overloaded with EVs. Surprise, surprise, EVs, EVs, right? It's a necessary part of our inventory. They're not going away. Well, this particular retailer was virtually out of ice engines. And what am I going to do with all these? I'm stacked up with EVs. What am I going to do? So what did we come up with? We came up with a tactic, a sales offer, right? And we tied it to a sales process. And in the first three weeks, that small-ish Cadillac retailer, right, delivered 14, just quoting data, so you know how we feel about data around here, delivered 14 EVs in three weeks at a$2,500 loser, zero down, zero first payment, zero security deposit,$349 a month. Obviously, mileage and tax and stuff, right? On top disclaimed properly, but that was the offer, right? And the original freak out was, but you're making me lose$2,500. What did we learn? We learned that when we closed the front end of the deal and brought these people, they're leasing, they're not buying anything. Really? We can't sell wheel and tire, we can't sell other things. We can't, well, there's no maintenance packages on EVs. So there's nothing else that we can offer people. There's EV options. And if we haven't packaged those together, they're necessary, valuable, reliable, counted on. You know, it's one of those, what's that insurance thing? Uh you only wish you had it when you realized you didn't, right? And something happens. I don't have to sit here, at least I don't think I have to, teach people how to, how to how to think about that stuff. I'm certainly willing to help you with word tracks. It's part of what we do here at PMD. After all, we were a sales training company before we were an ad agency. Uh so this is not alien to us. Um and it created leverage, leverage for the for the the dealership to get a hold of upper management in in the in at the OEM level and say, hey, we have throughput with EVs. How about some love with the rest of the engines? You know, I don't want to get into adversarial behavior within with an OEM. That's not what I'm prescribing. It's all about finding, however, calls to action, offers, if you will, that a consumer will be wherever. I equate it to this. If I'm at a sports bar, what do we have in sports bars? Josh, as a general rule, what do we have in sports bars? Televisions, right? They're all over the place. This game, that game, TV's all over the place. And as a general rule, either one is playing the game sound or whatever, and a lot of them are muted. If I'm watching a commercial in a sports bar on a television, and there's no sound because you can't have 17 sets all going at the same time, colliding with each other from an from a sound perspective, right? That's not gonna work. I should be able to have an aha moment if I'm a consumer, because I see on screen, I see an offer, a call to action, and get somebody to go, what did he say? What did she say? Just to slow things down for just that fleeting second to plant it in the mind and allow some repetition to take over. In terms of um of claims, be careful when you come up with offers, guaranteed price matching. You gotta live with it. Uh guaranteed lowest price, or we'll give you a something. Um, whether it's a a cash, a thing, uh, a pony ride, a cotton candy. Just be careful that everybody and your staff is aware of what you're saying, what you're advertising in any media, whether it's digital, traditional, or otherwise, and recognize that it should have a either an open time limit where it's just part of your your business plan that this is ongoing for the next X number of years, or it's a limited time only and it's clearly communicated. Calls to action are absorbed in different ways. Now, right before well, but how about this? Before COVID, everywhere in the country, right? We were all really good with leasing and we had this great portfolio, and then COVID hit. I don't have to give you the history listen. You all know that, right? You've been around, you know that, right? Now people are leasing less, buying more. Tailor your offers to the people that you're trying to attract, the vehicles themselves. And oh, by the way, the biggest pitfall that we hear in the field is people in dealerships, the new programs come out for the These things stink. The programs are no good. To who? Because you've heard me say this before. I'm gonna say it again and again. I've done it in boardrooms, I've done it in, I've I've made this statement uh uh in in sales meetings. I do it all the time. And most of the time I get I really never thought of it that way. Are you your customer? And don't tell me yes. Well, I drive too. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you work at a particular store, you might be your customer. Odds are good you're not for that particular model or manufacturer. So we have to look at what is the mass broad appeal to the the offer that we're putting out. And we have to be malleable enough, right? Flexible enough, either easy for me to say, huh? Uh, and and and be able to flex and change and and and do what we need to do to continue to find things to get people's attention. Please don't get thrown out by by getting poisoned by the programs aren't good enough. We're not going to sell anything. Because guess what? Consumer doesn't know that they're bad programs or good programs. When they've decided that they're in the decision phase, bottom of the funnel, as the fancy marketing speed goes, whatever. Um they're not going to ask anybody, including themselves, if it's a good offer, if the program makes sense. They'll make that decision if it works within their budget. Now, sometimes budget gets altered. The number one thing that alters a budget decision on a payment, price, discount, or all the above, trade value, all of those things, singular number one issue is the purchase or buying experience. Right? Now, I'm not suggesting a Disney experience versus they come through the door and bang, you crack them across the head, right? You just break their joint. That's not what I'm saying, right? If we are a value-selling organization, if our value proposition slows things down to speed them up, we have a tactical advantage in comparison to other retailers in our market. And if you don't think that that's the case, I challenge everybody listening or watching or both, and again, thank you. Go mystery shop. Don't show up in a demo. Don't show up with, you know, the name of your store on your whatever you're wearing. Just go play customer and let them take you through their sales process. Right. We we typically are 10 steps, right? Meet and greet, qualify, select a vehicle, guest ride, sell service, presentation, appraisal to close after sale delivery. Those are our 10 steps. You may have seven, you may have 12, you may have whatever it is. Here's your questions. Is it value proposition oriented? Is it features and benefits oriented, not just for the vehicle, for your store? Because what brand are you really pushing? Are you pushing the manufacturer's brand or are you pushing your brand? Your brand is the number one thing to make sure that you're enhancing in terms of value, not just what gets built and delivered to your store. If you give the consumer a full, well-rounded, 360-degree approach to the buying process, think about what you've ever bought anytime in your life. I don't mean bananas at the supermarket. I'm talking about a, you know, a durable good or a higher ticket item, whatever the right phrase is that you want to use. Did you find that the more value you placed on a particular item, the more consistent your yes behavior is, that that button gets pushed in your brain where you look at it and go, huh, I can justify that price. Not because I stole it price-wise, but because even if I could steal it, there are people that have walked away from the most ridiculous low price in the world because they didn't see the value. Push hard on not just that value proposition sales model, making sure that you do that on a regular basis, every time, without exception, without a fail. When you TO, right? Now, some people don't have everybody has to touch the desk before the consumer leaves. Some of you do. That's not where I'm headed. If there's a TO that takes place when the TO happens, it's okay to ask leading questions of the consumer. How did you feel about this? How did you feel about this? How did you feel about this plan? How'd you feel about our rewards? How did you feel about uh pickup and delivery? Whatever the value proposition items that you offer, if the consumer says, I don't remember hearing about that, you don't look at the salesperson and and and send them to go uh uh pick up coffee for everyone in the showroom floor. It's possible that the consumer didn't hear because maybe it wasn't effective enough. Maybe it happened too quickly, maybe it was, you know, two minutes where it should have taken an extra minute and make it a three-minute conversation. So think about that. Slow things down to speed it up. If it if your sales process landed in a in a in a time frame that took 10 minutes longer than it currently takes, and you really made sure that the consumer understood all of the why buys and they experienced it and they talked to people and they met people other than the salesperson during the purchase steps, the buying steps, right? The road to the sale, ooh, right? Is that going to build a better value proposition? But you can't just train it and expect it to get done. You got to monitor it. How do you monitor it? Those that don't take delivery, or I'm sorry, those that don't say, yes, I'll take it. Let's let's slow it down. And get a TO. It's okay to ask, what did you let me ask you a question, Mr. Schmielpeck? What did you think about this or what did you think about that? I don't remember. Let's go back over it again. Oh, I really like that. So you're familiar with what are the two things you like the most about it since you're familiar with it? What is your back? What's the number one reason? I really like your rewards program. Why do you say that? Let them resell the benefits of that particular value-building item. Okay. This is the one that I don't get. Well, let's quickly, I know we're coming up on a break, Josh. Coming up on a break. All right. So I got two things left. Incentives. Incentives won't break the bank if you know how to properly use them. Most consumers think they're savvy. Well, I've been on your website and I've been on the consumer and I've been, and I'd shopped, and I went to the manufacturer, and I know all of the incentives. Do they? Are they? Do they understand the value of it? Just because there's a Costco rebate of$1,000, Whitfum is the acronym, right? What's in it for me? What does that really mean? You get an extra thousand. If we're just gonna dance off of that and move on with our life, did that build enough value? I'm not saying, you know, do a war and peace big volume of explaining that, but make sure that the consumer sees the vision of the value in every incentive. And remember, you may feel it's a crappy program. The consumer, they they only know what they hear, see, feel, and touch. Help them understand. And finally, before the break, a I've always called it a customer-driven experience. Some people call it a welcoming experience. When I first started selling cars, there was a sales trainer, and most of you probably have never heard this name, but I always give credit where credit's due. The first person that I ever attended a sales training uh class, I was sent to this, this, uh, this uh this hotel, and I sat down and a guy by the name of Clint McGee, guy from the deep south, and had a big old accent, and he and he goes, Why is it that everybody that walks in gets hit with this? Can I help you? Can't and he got up on on this soapbox yelling at the top of his can I help you? Can I help you? Can I help you? Right? Or then there's derivatives, or there's there, there's variations, not derivatives, right? There's very are you being helped? Are you here to see anybody? Do you have an appointment? What the heck is that? Is that the way to start it off? Versus a because you can build value in a relationship just like you can build value in in products, in features and benefits, in what goes on. In terms of what your dealership offers. How about value in the sales relationship? Why do we have to go right to a five-liner at the desk? Why do we have to hit him with, can I help you? Can I help you? Can I help you? Can't we start out with a little bit of small talk? I don't know about you. I really don't. But when I walk into a store of any kind and they go right after the sale, I'm like, oh, yeah, take it easy, take it easy, right? So why not a little small talk? Why not introduce yourself? Welcome them. Make them feel like an honored guest, not another mark on the board. Does this take some time? Sure. The average meet and greet, if you really look at it properly, it takes three minutes. It has to be well planned, well executed, and that takes practice. It's just like playing an instrument. It takes practice to sound good. Uh if you're into rock music, did Eddie Van Halen become one of the world's greatest guitarists because he picked up an axe one day and said, Ooh, open E. I don't have to hit anything. Just let me hit the strings. No. It takes time to master your craft. That's why plumbers have to go through the process of an apprentice or an electrician. You want somebody that first day on the job is going to rewire your entire house? No, I would think you would want somebody that's overseeing the apprentice and the job is being done properly. Don't be an apprentice. Be accomplished. Or you're going to sell, you know, three to six vehicles a month and you're going to be upset and you're going to move on because the person in the desk over next to you or down the showroom from you is doing 27 a month or whatever the number is. And you're like, how does that happen? Well, they've been here longer. How about the sales process? Don't shadow them. Master yours and let it complement everything that's going on in the store. Speaking of everything that's going on, it's time for a short break. When we come back, we're going to continue with some other items, and then we're going to go make some money, right? So thank you, and we'll be right back.

Our full service ad agency specializes in providing creative solutions for new car dealerships looking to sell more vehicles, increase service numbers, and promote their brand image more effectively. We use our experience in television, OTT, digital, social media, and more to anticipate challenges and find effective market-dominating solutions so that our dealership partners can thrive in an ever-changing landscape. You can learn more at pmdusa.com.

Welcome back to CGS Car Guy Simple, the pod for everybody in retail. Thanks. Thanks for a lot of reasons. Thank you, everyone. Everybody. Maybe this is your first time. Maybe you've been with us for all episodes. We appreciate you. You want to catch up on uh prior episodes? You can go to carguysimple.com. You can go uh to our YouTube channel. You can just go back and look right on all the syndicated platforms. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Apple, Schmapple, and all kinds of stuff except Crapple. We're not on Crapple. No, we're not. It's correct. But all kidding aside, thank you for for viewing. And hit the subscribe, right? Thank you if you already have. Thank you for subscribing. The numbers are growing on a weekly basis, and we're honored, you know, which which begs the question because you've heard me say this before. This is not a monetized pod. When we first did this, right? And we have friends of ours in in the car business at the manufacturer level, at the retail level, um, competitors of ours in the advertising industry level. Yes, powered by PMD, PMD USA.com. Why do you do this and not monetize it? We felt as a team that we should bring skills, tactics, thoughts, guests, anything we can think of to the automotive community to make things better. A lot of times people leave the retail automobile business fixed or variable ops doesn't matter because they're not feeling it. You know, the one thing, if I had to pick the one thing that that doesn't work well in our industry, CE credits. In the insurance business, you have to maintain a license, right? You have to go continuing education credits. And if you're a technician or other positions in fixed ops, you have to maintain a certain standing based on training in certain manufacturers at the sales level. The skill set that is needed is to remember this. And I I love getting away with this one. I've done it in rooms of five people when I've been invited in to speak. I've been uh 500 people and anything in between. What business are we in? And I'll get all kinds of things. And I go around the room and you know, we're in a car business, we're in retail, we're in this business, we're in that business. And sooner or later somebody will say, we're in the people business. That's really what we are. We have internal and external customers, right? Internal customers are the people inside of our dealership organization, whether it's a single point, rooftop, or an entire group or a campus, whatever. And then we have the external customers that that purchase goods and services from us that allow us to keep the lights on. In either case, it's really important that we stay abreast of things that work and maybe also, not maybe, let's also talk about stuff that doesn't work. I'm not bashing, right? That's what PMD was founded on when we converted our ad agency, and this is not paid political announcement. I'm told I don't talk enough about PMD. So, so our ad agency, PMD, which stands for progressive marketing dynamics, very long name, right? The reality is our agency was started to be to be a lot of things, certainly effective. Roll units, help fix stops, do all this other stuff, aid and training when necessary, do all of the things, vendor referrals. Yes, that's really, you know, some people would say our core business, right? PMD is more than that. We're an advertising agency of people, I've said it before, we're car people that happen to be in the media business versus media people trying to sell to car people. We are not chasing how much are you spending on a monthly basis and making a decision if we're going to do business with you or not. That says and really defines us as being boutiquey because we want to work with anybody that's looking for improvement. Anybody looking for improvement, we're in. And that's why this pod was created. It's informational. It's not to make money. It's not to make money. So I call out to everybody, whether you're an automotive retail vendor, you sell and or service or whatever um dealerships anywhere in the country, right? Anywhere. Or you uh you work within a store. I mean, we've had guests on that are that are owners and managers and other stuff. If you would like to be on our pod, please raise your hand. Go to carguysimple.com, right, Josh? Is there a form there? There's a form right on the bottom of our website. There you go. And and just raise your hand. Fill out the form, just like you would want a consumer to do. Do a form fill. Tell us who you are, what you got, right? We're looking for anybody that can bring something to the table. A digital 20 group, if you will, a digital convention of sorts, where you, from the comfort of your vehicle or your desktop, or whatever you want to watch or listen to to our pod, we're always looking for who's got something useful so that when you shut that episode off, you can take it back to your group of one or three thousand people and say, I got an idea. I heard about this, or we should talk to that person. And and that allows us to be agnostic to fee structure because there's no collusion here. We're not collecting a dime from anybody who comes on to be part of the pod. That allows us to enter into a who's out there that that can bring something to the automotive community. I've been in the car business a really long time, right? You know my story. And if you don't, quickly, I grew up in the car business. I left my dad when I got done playing at the U. Cause what's it all about, Josh? It's all about the you. That's right. Where did your wife go again? The university. The U. Unfortunately, you would have to go back and and and do that. And we would allow that. We're good like that. That's what we do at Miami, right? All kidding aside, we want to hear from anybody that feels that they have something to contribute. It's not a sales pitch. Just by showing another way to do something or a better way to do something, or an alternative way of doing something. You're selling. It's okay. Let's help everybody around us because together we're stronger. Because I don't know about you, there's still this mystique about people not being the happiest in the world going to a car dealership for sales, parts, service, or whatever. Some people akin it to uh uh root canal without Novacaine, right? So the more we know, what was that thing? Remember, Josh, remember those? The more you know, remember that thing on television, the more you know. The more you know, the more you know. So why not do that here? Being agnostic to uh to opportunities to bring people on and not having a monetarily based situation allows us to continue to do this and present people, options, and opinions and solutions. People, options, opinions, and solutions. Those are the four tenons of Car Guy Simple. And you're probably gonna see and hear that repeated ad nauseum. That's how we did this, that's what we set it up to be. And I really need to stress that. That's why we started what we do. That's why we do what we do. And frankly, we feel it's an extension of our advertising agency. You want to hear more about PMD? Go to PMDUSA.com. Just go there, pmdusa.com, and you're going to learn more about what we do. And by the way, we we're not that philanthropic. We Josh, we we do get paid for advertising services. I just I want to make sure we're clear on that, right, bud? We do make advertising. You want to be on the pod? You have an idea, you don't want to be on the pod, but you got a mailbag question, you're gonna see episodes. We did a few in the past, we've got more coming. The mailbag is filling up. Talk to me about this, tell us about that. What's your opinion of this? What do you think about that? Bring that stuff, bring it. Help us tailor our content to what you need, what you want. We're in. And with that, speaking of in, have a great selling day. We wish you all the best, health and wealth, and success for you and your family. Car Guy Simple, thanks for watching. And uh tune in, man. Pay attention. There's more episodes, really cool stuff coming. And thank you again for your help in keeping this thing going. This wheel needs to keep turning for all of us because information is power, knowledge is power. CGS, power. Take care. See you soon. Thank you.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and at CarGuysimple.com to learn more and see behind the scenes action. If you have a topic you want us to discuss, we'd love to hear from you. Feel free to send Joe an email at Joe at CarGuysImple.com. This is the Car Guide Simple podcast. See you next time.