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A true story about being humorous

A good friend of mine is one of the top salespeople in the car business. He’s very good at all the areas of selling. He is good at closing, prospecting, following up, the basics etc. But my friend has a pure talent for making people laugh.

Here is what he used to do. Picture a jam packed showroom on a Saturday. My friend would get out of his cubicle wearing these silly black glasses, with the big nose and the moustache and come to the middle of the showroom and start this hilarious speech in front of everyone. He did have a talent for being a great public speaker. But a gimmick like this worked very well for him. So get creative and see what works for you. But the idea is to be humorous and not rude.

If you have a great sense of humor, use that to you advantage. No need to turn into a stand up comedian like my friend but learn to entertain. You can easily see that the superstars in the car business are all salespeople who have a great sense of humor, follow a plan and work smart. They spend an ample amount of time, money and effort getting better at selling. And they are all very likeable people. But the average salespeople are the ones that are stubborn and think that there is no room for improvement. These are the sales people that usually never grow. Make a friend before you sell something. And building rapport is the same thing as making a friend.

Pitfalls of building rapport and getting caught up

Doesn’t it feel good when you sell a vehicle and have a happy customer because you made a friend? Well then you need to build a lot of rapport. But remember your main objective, and that’s to sell a car. So try not to get emotionally involved with the customer. There is a big difference between getting emotionally involved and building rapport. Avoid believing everything that the customer tells you. If you start to sympathize for the customer then you’ll have a tough time closing the deal.

Take a moment to think about this: How will you present a deal to your managers if you’re emotionally attached with the customers situation. Don’t ruin your selling ability by sympathizing for the customer. This will completely ruin your deal.

Empathizing with the customer is the way to go. Everyone of your customer is buying a very expensive product when they buy a car. So yes it is good to understand their feelings. If you understand them then it will become easy for you to gain their trust. But don’t loose track of the sale by sympathizing. Rather empathize, make a friend and sell the vehicle properly.

Why won’t car salespeople build rapport?

Too often, I see car salespeople trying to go from just meeting the customer to closing right away. And every chance they get, they are trying to close the sale on price. Sure, you might sell a few vehicles and make some money. But it’s not even close to what you should or can earn in the car business.

Since most customers buy the vehicle because they liked the car salesperson, why not get them to like you? Now don’t brag about yourself to try to get them to like you. Instead build rapport with them. If you start to build rapport with them, you’ll notice it will slow down the sales process and you can go through the basic steps much more smoothly.

The customer came into your dealership because they are interested in buying a vehicle. And this might come as a shock to you but trust me when I tell you; they know you’re there to sell them one. So start off by getting rid of that tension. You got to make them feel as if they are here to own a vehicle versus you are there to sell them one. Customers just don’t like to be sold.

If you’ve been selling cars for a bit now then you know people don’t like being sold to. So start by asking tons of open-ended questions to make them feel comfortable and at ease through the entire process. Break the ice as quickly as possible. Ask them questions such as:

Where do you work?

Do you have any kids?

The idea is to slow things down and get off topic and talk about something else other than selling them a car. This is called building rapport and it’s the easiest way to make the customer feel comfortable. Now don’t just build rapport, qualify at the same time. Building rapport and qualifying should be done side by side. If you do these 2 things then you ease the tension and at the same time figure out what vehicle to present to the customer when it comes down to showing them a car. It will also save you time and help you close the sale.

Is there a set amount of time the car salesperson should spend building rapport?

No one can tell you how long it should take. That will vary from customer to customer. Some are easy and some people are tough. But if you have control over the conversation then I would say it’s fairly easy to build rapport.

Selling cars will become very easy for you if you can make your customers have fun. And the way to make them have fun is to find common grounds with them. And that means to build rapport. Be humorous and entertaining and it’ll be a breeze. There are so many more skills I teach that you need to learn to earn professional wages in the car business. But building rapport is a must skill for you automotive sales career.