Hi guys!
I really believe this topic is a very interesting one. First of all I want to show my admiration and respect for all these people that have being working in the car business for years. I would like to just bring another perspective to this conversation. I have been working in sales my whole life. My father was an entrepreneur. My first job was in a retail store when I was 16 years old, then I decided to move my career into acting (Where I learned a lot about personal branding and networking since in acting you depend on so many people in order to work; producers, agents, casting directors, directors, actors, etc) and currently I'm working as an Internet Sales Manager at the same dealership I started working as a salesperson.
The perspective I want to bring is a generational one! Millennials! Since I'm also a millennial and our generation was the one that grew up using the internet I thought it was necessary to talk about it. We saw the progress from messenger to snapchat and now we are the present and future generation of online sales. Something that in my experience I discovered is that millennials are adopting the fears of past generations for the car business and they don't necessarily enjoy any negotiation process. They tend to love the idea of "no hassle", with exception of few people that still feel they need to negotiate the price even if they don't understand the market.
I believe one of the reasons why True Car is so famous in my generation is because it brings them the perception that nobody will take advantage of them, even though they don't necessarily read or understand how True Car actually works and I mention read because my generation tends to be more visual and in general they don't tend to read as much as past generations.
Now, everybody knows that an average customer will visit 8 different websites in order to find the best deal possible online and then send an e-mail or make a phone call to the dealership. With this in mind two main factors come to my mind in order to increase your sales online; the dealership's website needs to be EXTREMELY user friendly and the person responding to this customer at the dealership needs to have AMAZING people skills! If you can master the art of reading people's body language, tone of voice and emotions, even if the communication is via e-mail, over the phone or maybe social media, you will have the advantage in online sales.
The platform might be different but human behaviors are the same! The only big difference is that Millennials are more tech savy and more educated than past generations, however, most of them were so attached to their computers, phones and tablets when they were younger that they tend not to know how to react in stressful or uncomfortable social situations like... negotiations. We need to learn to sale our company, dealership and ourselves not only via e-mail or text but via facebook, linkedin, twitter or even snapchat. Now is not enough with delivering a great "sharky" sales pitch but to have the social skills and emotional intelligence to create a win-win situation for both parties.
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