When we first started selling cars, it’s a shame that all of us weren’t taught how to effectively follow-up with a customer who leaves your lot without buying. If we had been taught “why and how” to follow up with these “unsold prospects,” we’d all be generating our own high value floor traffic, and selling 20+ per month.
So let’s look at one of the two fastest ways you can sell more cars and make more money starting this week.
Follow Up Everyone Who Didn’t Buy
Why follow up if they didn’t buy?
• Because eight out of 10 came to buy your product from your dealership. The average salesperson delivers just two of those eight. That means six people left your lot who will buy within a week.
• 33 percent of those people will come back into the dealership, if you contact them.
• When they come back, two out of three will take delivery on the spot.
• 90 percent of your competitors won’t follow-up their unsold prospects.
That means there’s a 90 percent chance the field is clear, and that you have no other salespeople competing for any of your unsold prospects.
How To Follow Up Unsold Prospects
Once they leave your lot, the prospect who hasn’t bought yet has just become your “hottest” prospect, and the faster you act, the greater your chances are of making the sale.
You’ve already done 90 percent of the work to make this sale, so don’t stop now. Even if you wrote them up and couldn’t get together, you still have a huge advantage, but you have to act fast.
Why? Because they’re still going to buy, but they aren’t coming back if you don’t take five minutes to do your follow up, which is just part of selling.
Once they leave your lot without buying, everything you do next is called “follow-up.” Send them a note, you’re doing your follow-up. Text them, call them or email them – you’re doing follow-up.
Contact them quick, often and with an urgent reason!
Follow up has to be immediate. Yes, I mean within minutes of them leaving your lot, you need to make your first contact and I’ll show you how.
Why so quick? If you wait until tomorrow, since they’re buyers, they’ve probably already stopped somewhere else. Even if they didn’t buy there, now you have an active competitor.
But even if you called them back five minutes after they left, if you don’t have a new, urgent reason for them to make a U-turn at the next light and come back in, why would they?
Here’s an easy six-step process to follow, and the best news is (depending on how well you did when they were on your lot) – most of the time, you’ll find that you don’t need all six steps to get them back in.
6 Steps To More Sales
#1. You can’t stay in touch with anybody if you don’t get their info. Get their name, cell, email, complete address, etc. How? Ask. And give a reason: “I’ll text you a link to __ with more info, if that’s ok?” (Sure.) If not ok, email it or mail it, but you want ‘text’.
#2. Send them a text (always get their approval) within minutes. Short ‘n Sweet with that urgent reason.
Bob – make a U-turn quick. I told my manager about your trade, and he thinks he has a buyer now and needs to see it ASAP. Joe
#3. Send an email within minutes, or ASAP if no text. If no text, email the message above. If you texted them and got no response…
Sorry you couldn’t come right back. I know you want as much as possible for your trade, so let me know ASAP when you can, my manager still has the buyer. Joe
#4. If they didn’t come right back, put a very short handwritten “thank you” note in the mail.
#5. If you still get no response – then call them right away with the same urgency (trade). Call again no later than tomorrow morning – and again later in the day or the next morning. Keep calling until they ask you to stop.
#6. If you’ve done 2, 3, and 5 with no luck, get your manager to make the call quick, before it’s too late.
TIP: Put every customer you sell and every prospect you don’t sell into your master follow-up list. Why? Because they’ll all be buying more vehicles sometime down the road and the stats are always on your side. Ninety percent of the other salespeople will never contact them, whether they buy or don’t.
Do this right and you can increase your sales right away. Have a great 2018!
