How do you get around giving up price over the phone?

Jerry Thibeau · Oct 26, 2018

Thanks Rick!

So here's an interesting fact for you all. We listen to hundreds of thousands of calls. As my coaches are listening, we are scoring those calls and I have a special button inside the scoresheet to track how many times we get the "just give me your best price" question. Ready for it... It's only asked 4.5% of the time. A lot of times it's the salesperson who is leading the customer to talking about price.

When the best price question is asked, I divert to the trade. Are you going to be looking to get top dollar for your trade? Tell me about your trade, Oh that sounds nice, I am confident we could offer you top dollar. When are you available to come in so we can see you trade, today or tomorrow?

If no trade, sell the value of your dealership, sell your huge inventory, sell yourself. And if nothing works, give them a price over the phone.

Managers, why not listen to your reps in action? I have a new product out that will allow you to do just that:

Jeff Scherer · Oct 27, 2018

I was part of AutoNation’s initial online sales launch back in late 90’s. (My team actually sold the first vehicle AN ever sold online). As part of that, we also launched one-price selling and F&I menu selling. Hugely successful at the time. The old school pundits however, still stuck to the “don’t post price, and they will call.” How wrong.

One other thing that we also did that was against most of the car sales philosophy was to provide transparency. We showed customers the invoice and said “this is your price + $XXXX markup, less any rebates.” ( remember this was a time where invoices were locked in a safe). In today’s world, the expanse and ease of the Internet demands transparency from dealers selling considered purchase items.

So if you DON’T give a price over the phone (and/or hem and haw before you do), you’re likely toast. It’s going to be much harder to get that guy in. And the other commenters are spot-on: IT’S VERY OFTEN THE SALESPERSON THAT MAKES “PRICE” AN ISSUE, usually NOT the customer.