My first closer told me to work on the “sizzle” when I was selling a car. So I did. I learned how to show people the stuff on cars. I suppose you know to not tell people anything. You want them to learn. So it’s, “Did you know, this car has power-assisted steering, Mr. Jameson?” I learned how to sell cars a long time ago. It was an option, you know. That lets the customer in on the learning experience. And you learn all the technical terms for the features and use them. It works, especially when you’re selling a used car. The competition usually has little experience with the various brand and model year cars in his used car inventory and all he has to talk about is price. The trick is to talk about the features you know the car has, like, “Did you know, John, this car has the latest steel radial tires”? For today’s studs, you can use the latest Barracuda Blue Tooth, 75K kilomonsters in place of the tires.

Selling the sizzle instead of the price. When John asks you what kind of discount you gonna get for him, you can ask him, “Well, John, did you know that this car comes with a standard 100 percent No-Fault Warranty?” Stop there, let that sink in with John for a second. He’ll ask. He’s gonna want to know what that warranty covers and you can tell him. “John, The Standard 100 percent No Fault Warranty means no matter how many months or how many miles you drive this car, and no matter where you go, should anything ever break on this car it’s 100 percent nobody’s fault!”

He won’t be talking discount anymore, just kind of snicker then laugh, slap John on the back and say, “just kiddin’, let’s step inside and see what we can do.” Then turn and walk. John’ll follow.

All that crap sounds so corny. But it works. I ran a Honda/Isuzu dealership for a while. I knew the cars and trucks we had pretty well, but later on, I started working at a BMW store and for my first car deal there I was talking to some folks about a little used Isuzu Pick up we had. It was the current model year and real low miles and the price on the windshield was $12,995. Now, there was an Isuzu dealership two doors down who had brand new ones with no miles for $11, 500 or so. Same model, same equipment. I knew Isuzu pickups and gave them the full-tilt walk around demo, moved some cars around and pulled it on the showroom so they could see it under the lights, ran all over the place getting them coffee, snacks, and sodas, introduced them to the service writer in the shop, (I didn’t even know him yet). They got the treatment. When I asked them to buy, they just said yes.

They followed me to my office and I wrote them up. I lined the full price and wrote plus tax and lic. and fees, and told them they needed thirty-five hundred to four grand down and their payments would be around three-hundred a month. They never asked for a discount. They had five grand down and their credit union would finance the rest. They thanked me profusely for showing them the truck and spending time with them. They told me they had looked at a new one at the Isuzu dealer but the kid that helped them didn’t know anything about the truck, couldn’t find the key, and was trying to get them to come inside out of the cold and work a deal before they had even sat down in the truck or driven it.

Now that kid, if he had succeeded in selling them a new Isuzu pick-up for the $11,500, would have made a mini commish, but alas, he didn’t even get a write-up spiff. I got a write-up spiff, the first deal on Saturday spiff, and started my five car weekend. And the commish on the pick-up was almost a thousand bucks. And those folks sent their folks in to buy a car from me. The Isuzu had those new-fangled halogen headlights.