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Sales Lessons Learned From Buying A New Car
420 Plays15 days ago
Our family just bought our first car, and our journey was filled with pretty clever sales strategies that are worth sharing in today's episode. It's worth noting that these strategies exist literally everywhere, only hidden in plain sight.
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Journey
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, following up like a pro and closing more deals.
Defining a Solarpreneur
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solar printer you might ask? A solar printer is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
00:00:43
Speaker
Hey, what's up solar
Lessons from Car Buying for Solar Sales
00:00:44
Speaker
printers? I'm going to tell you my experience of recently buying a car was thinking about it and a lot of applications to solar that I noticed with this car buying experience. So stay till the end if you want to hear what car we ended up getting. Hey, was it a Lambo? Was it a Corvette? You're going to have to stay till the end. Was it an Audi? Hey, welcome to the podcast. My name is Taylor Armstrong. We're here to help you close more deals.
00:01:11
Speaker
and get more referrals and have a much better time in the solar industry. Sorry, a little tongue-tied here. Getting back from Thanksgiving. Getting back into the solar game. Hope you had a great holidays. As usual, we are coming at you every Tuesday, Friday with fresh new content. We are looking for great guests for people that are changed in the industry. So let me know if you have recommendations.
00:01:34
Speaker
ah But stay tuned. We got a lot of exciting guests coming up.
Family's Car Buying Decision
00:01:37
Speaker
But today is all about the car buying experience. Yes. I'm going to tell you the story. What ended up happening? We went to Utah oh over the Thanksgiving break. um We were there for five, six days in Utah. Some of you know, we recently had our third kid. We got a six month baby now in addition to a five year old and a three year old.
00:01:58
Speaker
So, uh, as you can imagine, it gets pretty chaotic just trying to do these drives to Utah. Um, from, I'm in San Diego, so we drive to Southern Utah. It's ah about seven hours. So we're like, okay, we don't need to fly. Let's just drive, but it can get pretty brutal dealing with three kids. And we were in just a SUV, a five seater. And we're like, you know what? We got to get a bigger car. So wife was finally complaining enough. That's had to bite the bullet and get the bigger car.
00:02:26
Speaker
Hey, and so ah we got to Utah. We decided, you know what? There's probably going to be some Black Friday deals. I'm sure they're trying to meet their end-year quotas. Let's go check it out, see what they got in Utah. And of course, the taxes are much lower in Utah for buying vehicles. And um so we thought, what better place place than to look there? yeah Something you might want to consider if you're buying a car.
00:02:51
Speaker
And so we go we have kind of in mind what we're looking at we don't know what a bit of research. We show up to one dealership there in saint george utah and we start looking they show us some car with the first one we're looking at was actually a chevy traverse. These are they have the third row in the back.
00:03:14
Speaker
their SUV still, so I'm like, you know what, that might be a good option because didn't want to just go full on minivan. But ah those ones, wife didn't love. So then we go to the next dealership. Spoiler alert, that one we started looking at was Kia.
00:03:32
Speaker
We were looking at, um they had the Kia Tellurides, which are pretty cool cars, a few different ones. But the one we started looking at more than others was the Kia Carnival. And if you've seen these things, it is a minivan, but they look more like an SUV. Just looking at it, you couldn't really tell that it's a minivan unless you see like this sliding doors on it.
00:03:57
Speaker
And um the reason we started looking at these more, I did do some research and here's a little pro tip for you as well. If you've been in solar a while or if you're in any cell's 1099 job, you can take advantage of the 6,000 pound write off for the vehicles.
00:04:14
Speaker
So once I um you know did some consulting with my tax guy and did a little way research on this, come to find out there were two cars in specific that did meet this weight requirement and I wasn't looking to spend 60,000 plus on like suburban or anything. So it came down at the end of the day to the ah Traverse and the and the Carnival, which both were worth 6,000 pounds, at least the newer models. And so that's what it came down to. okay And so um we'll we'll see which one we've got, but I want to walk you through the good and the bad that I saw throughout this sales process. And I think there's a few applications to solar um that we can take from the experience. yeah So first, I'll go with the good, and then we'll wrap up with the bad. So the good was this.
Dealership Experiences
00:05:03
Speaker
um When we got to the first dealership,
00:05:05
Speaker
the The guys were right there waiting um almost as if they've been expecting us, which I think a lot of doerships do, but these sales guys are like counts on the hunt looking for their next victim. Right. So we park instantly. This guy's like, Oh, how's it going? How can we help you? What car is we looking at today?
00:05:24
Speaker
And I didn't like that um because it felt like, hey, they're there to serve and have to walk in, look for who to talk to. They were right there. I'm asking what we want to look at. So he showed us the a Chevy Traverse. Wife didn't love it. And then the next thing I liked, he took us in and he treated us like he was inviting us into his home. He said, hey, let me show you some different options um in case you didn't love that one. He gave us bottles of water right off the bat, offered us something to drink.
00:05:52
Speaker
So I really felt i'm at home in this first dealership we went to. And, um, that was the pros of the first one, but, um, we did start leaning more towards these Kia carnivals. And so that's why we went to the other dealership. And then the pros for that one were, um, let me see here what we got.
00:06:10
Speaker
Well, I guess I'll start with the cons of that one. They didn't have the same type of homely fill we pulled up. We didn't, um, get the same warm welcome. We weren't like greeter guy off the bat. We had to walk inside the building. We had to like flag the guy down. Um, and they were nice, but it wasn't like the same. They're right on top of it. Uh, it's a little more like we felt like we had to intrude and ask them and say, Hey, we want to look at this car.
00:06:39
Speaker
And um so yeah, we started test driving and that's the other thing. The pros of the first dealership, um they let us just take the car. I don't know if there's some difference in the brands or whatever, but they let's just take the car. And this was a used Traverse we were looking at. We were driving it all over town. No big deal.
00:06:58
Speaker
The second one, when we started driving, driving these key of carnivals, the guy, he wanted to be in the back seats, the settlement did. And, uh, we were hoping we could just same thing, drive it by ourselves, kind of talk about it without the settlement being in our ear. But, uh, this guy, he jumped in the car with us, um, was just interested in different experience. Hey. And so what ended up happening, we drove it, wife loved it.
00:07:24
Speaker
Um, had a lot of cool features and this one was new versus a used traverse. So she's, she and ended up getting sold on this. Um, Kia carnival and we, any of you that are married know that, uh, pretty much you gotta, you gotta do what the wife says. Otherwise you're not going to make it long. It's good. You gotta to learn the negotiation and it's not all about the wife, right? You gotta, there's gotta be a balance.
00:07:50
Speaker
He had none of this happy wife, happy life crap. I think it has to be happy wife, happy husband as well. But she ended up liking this one. It met the weight requirements. So I'm like, okay, whatever. We'll just, um, I guess let's see what kind of deal we can get on this. So we started leaning towards that.
00:08:06
Speaker
And then here's where things got interesting.
Successful Negotiation
00:08:09
Speaker
We sit down, we start doing the negotiation. So I see the price on like the websites. I see the price that they're supposed to give. um They give us like you know the $700 off the MSRP. That's where I start just negotiating. I'm like, OK, I wasn't necessarily planning on signing today. But if we can make um the numbers work, then we'll do this. Let's do this today.
00:08:35
Speaker
Hey, and so Selzmann leaves for a little bit. I'm talking with a wife. Should we do this? Should we do this? She said, yeah, I want it. I want it it's so bad. I'm like, okay, well, if we can get um the deal we want, then guess let's do it. um So we go back and forth a little bit. And then finally I tell them, look, man, and um so we'll, we'll get this today. We'll make a decision. If you can give us 42 grand flat, we'll sign the docs. We'll do this today.
00:09:03
Speaker
And I think they had started at like $43,800 or something for these Kia Carnivals. So I was basically asking for, I don't know, $1,500 less or ah give or take than the price they started at. So he goes, he's like, okay, well, we'll see what we can do. He goes back, um talks to the manager, comes comes back to me and says, hey,
00:09:25
Speaker
Yeah, we can't do that. and And that was it. So I got up, we walked out, and that was that. But the story doesn't end there. yeah We did end up getting a car. So we go back to the in-laws house. My wife is super disappointed that we didn't get it, but I'm like, hey, he didn't he didn't fight for the deal. He didn't give us um the price we're looking at. so Guess that's that. So I start calling a few other dealerships. I know we're passing through Vegas on the way back. So I call a few other dealerships. They're acting like they might be able to give us um closer towards the deal we' we're looking at. And that's it for a few days. Then finally, we get a call on Friday. And then the guy says the the Kia dealership in Utah, they say, Hey, you know what? Talk to the, talk to a different manager.
00:10:12
Speaker
and we can get you that deal. So long story short, um he got us the deal. We went back, we buy the car, and we ended up getting this Kia Carnival. Crazy story, right? I'm sure I haven't bought in a car in a long time. but um So yeah, what were the pros about this?
00:10:30
Speaker
I think he did, he did push to get us the deal at the end of the day. And, um, we did have a good experience at the end. Actually after buying the car, we, he sent us a box of cookies, which was cool. It went to, uh, actually my parents' house in Utah. I guess that's where my license was still showing my parents' house in Utah need to change it. So they sent us a box cookies to the wrong address, which was thoughtful. We didn't get it. So it was a good experience. And the other part that I thought was.
00:10:59
Speaker
Um, really good is when we were actually signing the docs, going through the credit application and all that. It wasn't the original salesman that did this. He had another guy he passed it off to. And, uh, this guy was a pro. This guy, he was super clear with going through the documents. He made us feel really comfortable in the process because he summarized everything. Weird signing made him seem super simple.
00:11:21
Speaker
So I felt like he summarized it so good that I didn't necessarily need to read it. And I'm not like one of those analytical buyer type. Um, if it makes sense to me, if I'm, if I'm getting a deal, I'm doing it, right? Maybe some people read every word we own all those owl type, but yeah, I was super comfortable with that part. And it got me thinking, man, I wish I had a separate person. I could just pass off solar documents too. Cause this sells a guy, he can go follow up with other prospects while he's getting all the documents signed. So I was really impressed with that part part of it.
00:11:49
Speaker
So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego. And as we were gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results. But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
Promoting the Solar Scout App
00:12:05
Speaker
Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout. But it's not a door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:12:14
Speaker
It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later cancelled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood. It's been working for a lot of teams across the country and now I'm on board too. I'm going to be one of the first to use Solar Scout in San Diego so I decided to partner up, but I told them hey, I'm going to talk about Solar Scout on my show, you need to get my listeners a great deal, and they did.
00:12:39
Speaker
So go to solar scout dot app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up. That's solar scout dot app forward slash Taylor. Okay, back to the show.
00:12:54
Speaker
Yeah, but let's get into some problems I saw and here's where we can start to apply some things to our solar business.
Reflecting on Car Buying Lessons
00:13:01
Speaker
Okay. So a few problems. The number one thing I would say is the first day when we were looking at the car, the guy, I think he could have done done a lot more to lock the deal down there.
00:13:13
Speaker
um As I mentioned before, a wife was totally sold. I had told them, hey, if we can get to this number, we'll do it today. And in my head, I was expecting it would probably be meet somewhere in the middle of our numbers. I would have still been convinced.
00:13:28
Speaker
You could have gotten close to the number, um but he didn't really fight for it. He just came back and he's like, nope, can't do it. And that was it. So for me, I'm thinking in my head, man, why would you not do everything possible? Even if you absolutely couldn't lower the price, found it hard to believe that you couldn't have a little leeway or I don't know, take a little bit out of his out of his commission or something. But even if you couldn't in my head, I'm thinking, man, if I were at the the table. If I were at the kitchen table trying to do a deal today, I would make sure this potential customer knew that I had exhausted all options that I fought for him. And this is the best we can do. But hey, I talked to this manager. um I offered to
00:14:09
Speaker
take some of my commission and to pay for it. and We couldn't get it done, whatever. this guy He just came back and said straight up, no. But if he would have made us feel like, hey, this I tried everything I could. Look, you guys are getting a great deal. Here's why. You look at website, you look at this, this, this. They're all coming at this. We're going to give you top notch service. I'm going to take care of you. If you would have come across with that attitude and um just showing us how he fought to get us to the best deal possible,
00:14:37
Speaker
Then I would assign right there and how many times have we lost deals because we have not exhausted all our options and then it's like people don't pick up. You have to go through the whole back and forth trying to follow up with people.
00:14:49
Speaker
So that was the first thing I saw is just, I think this guy was almost lucky in a way to get the deal because when we left, we already knew that's the one we wanted. We were calling other dealerships. We're seeing what other deals we can get. So this guy, he's lucky that things ended up working out in his favor because chances are if you don't get the deal, then in there,
00:15:10
Speaker
and someone's ready to buy, then they're probably going to go with someone else, or they're going to move on. So that was the first big mistake that I saw as we were going through this car buying experience.
Customer Communication Strategies
00:15:22
Speaker
And then a few other things. I mean, the guy had some technology issues. I don't know what CRM or text they're using, but he claimed he'd been sending us follow-up texts. We weren't getting them. So make sure your technology works learning lesson right there.
00:15:38
Speaker
um But the other big thing is um i I asked this guy after, I'm like, hey, so how come we couldn't make this happen the first day? And the salesman's words were that the manager that gave the authorization to drop the prices or give better deals, he wasn't in the office, so they couldn't get permission to do it that day.
00:15:59
Speaker
So I'm just thinking to myself, I'm like, well, why not tell us that? Like, why didn't you just be like, Hey, look, the manager that can authorize possibly a little bit better ah pricing on this. He's out of town. Um, we're not able to get that, but I'm going to fight for you. I'm going to get in touch with him and then like let's, let's schedule a fall for Friday. And if I can get this for you guys, we'll do it. Does that sound good?
00:16:24
Speaker
I said the very minimum do that, but he just left us hanging and it was just like we didn't know if we thought that was it. We thought, OK, well, they really can't do any better. So we're looking at other options. So um the key there is if you can't I don't know if you run out, of run into a situation like that, at least set a follow up time and make sure you have access to whoever you need access to. I don't know, drop price or whatever you're needing to do.
00:16:52
Speaker
And then the last little thing, um, that I didn't love about the whole experience is we took our six month baby. We had to take our six month baby with us on this whole car buying journey. When we did end up getting the car sign in the docs, this whole thing, it took like, I don't know, two and a half hours start to finish, finish everything. We had a little like back and forth issues with some of the documents. Um, but our baby, he started just losing it, freaking out. And at the end, the car sells them in.
00:17:22
Speaker
I don't know if it was a requirement, but he had to show us kind of like the bells and whistles, the features of the vehicle before we could go. um But our baby, he's freaking out, not having it. We're hungry. We've been there for a long time. And um so I don't know, maybe it was a requirement, but um this guy, he just kind of dragged it on probably longer and than it needed to with a crying baby.
00:17:47
Speaker
Hey, so those are some of the issues I saw and, um, you know, it's a fine car buying experience. I wouldn't say it was terrible or anything. There's probably more positive than negative and we ended up getting, um, the deal we were looking for, but, uh, what are some takeaways from this?
Advising Solar Professionals
00:18:03
Speaker
Hey, so you heard the problems. How can we apply this to solar? So just drop up. Let's, let's figure out how we can maybe avoid some of these similar mistakes that could happen in solar.
00:18:14
Speaker
Hey, number one, and we talked about a few of these already, but number one, if you have to contact a manager to get something done, I've had many times where I've needed to like, um,
00:18:26
Speaker
add something to the docs, make like an addendum to the contract. And um in the past, I've had people that I could reach out to you for that. So for you, maybe you're in the heat of the moment, you have someone you can contact instantly if there's a problem with docs, if there's a problem with the price, if you need to get the okay to drop pricing, whatever, which I would recommend doing even if you don't need the okay, like because you want them to feel like they're getting a killer deal. So effective manager close right there.
00:18:56
Speaker
But do you have someone on speed dial, they can help you with potential issues. They can um make corrections to documents or whatever needs to be done. Because for me, that's one of the worst feelings. You got the deal in the bag, but there's just some type of small issue that you couldn't get help on.
00:19:15
Speaker
So if you are managing a team or if you're a rep, whatever owner, whatever, um make this a priority to have someone available to help you in whatever situation to close deals. And this is a huge thing that's helped me out over the years is just having someone like that that can help me um when we're in different situations. Or we have our team right now, we have like a closer chat So sometimes when we're stuck on things, even if there's one manager that can't help, we can send out a message to this whole, close your chat and there's a good chance that someone will respond out of 20 people in there. Right. So first application. Hey, and then, um, another thing is just, um, talked about this before, but again, make sure customers feel like you're fighting to get them a great deal.
00:20:06
Speaker
and do everything possible to get things wrapped up on the spot the same day. Don't extend it out. hey Get some emotion involved in there. um Make them feel like hey you're going to bat for them and you're on the buyer's assistant as Grant Cardone calls it. You're on their side and you're fighting to get them what they want. You're fighting them fighting to get them the best number is the best deal possible.
00:20:30
Speaker
Hey, and then just reading the room, right? um So if you have crying kids, crying babies like we did, and maybe you can be a little bit more efficient. Maybe you can, I don't know, optimize your presentation a little bit.
00:20:46
Speaker
But you don't have to go through every little thing. If you got crying babies, um you got to figure some things out. Don't try to present through crying babies and um dogs going crazy. Command the attention and just be understanding. If you're not a parent, you know sometimes people got to deal with babies, whatever. um So read the room and adjust when there's when there's things going on like that.
00:21:10
Speaker
And then, um yeah, lesson learned from a positive. They sent in the box of cookies. I like that. um I wish we could do this with solar, but when we sign the docks for the car, um there's it's actually written in there, you know agreement contract, whatever it is. that's hey When you sign this and drive off the lot, you can't return it. That's a done deal. Wish we could do that with solar, right? Just sign it and then that's that's it. and Panels go up right that instant.
00:21:38
Speaker
Well, we can't do that, but we can create a good experience. um We can send out that box of cookies. We can maybe go back at the site or we go back to the next day, drop off the thank you card, whatever. There's things that we can do to solidify the deal and make people feel like they're having a world class experience. So ask yourself that. Are you giving your customers a world class experience? Are you actually contacting them after the deal is signed?
00:22:06
Speaker
Are you following up with them? Even if you have project managers, are you in their corner? Are you helping answer any questions? And if you're not, your retention is probably suffering and you're probably not getting very many referrals either. Cause these are the people that have, I think longevity and solar. They get referrals, they treat their customers, um, amazingly, and they give their customers a world-class experience and get a lot of referrals out of it.
00:22:34
Speaker
Hey, so those are just some things to consider. um So yeah, hopefully there's a lesson or two learned from my car buying experience.
Kia Carnival Features
00:22:43
Speaker
If you got a family, um check out Kia Carnival. and These things are like minivans on steroids. Pretty cool. It's got the whole self-driving, almost self-driving Has like the advanced cruise control where it'll stay in the lanes and follow the cars. So great on the drive home from Utah. It just, just said it and practically took a nap in there. Not quite to the level of Tesla, but um with Tesla's, they got the cameras now that are like monitoring, making sure you're not on your phone and stuff like that. So I almost like this better cause you can be on your phone. It's still driving for you. It's not going to freak out if you're, um, you know, if you're letting it drive and checking a text or whatever.
00:23:25
Speaker
So, yeah, let me know if you have any questions or looking to buy that next vehicle. Hey, I got three kids. Maybe you don't, but hey, see if you can take advantage of that $6,000 weight limit and maybe we get a tax ran off.
00:23:40
Speaker
Okay, so hopefully this helps someone out there. um I know it's not super specific to solar, but I think there's cells as cells. It's applicable cross and across all industries.
Motivation for Solar Professionals
00:23:51
Speaker
So hopefully you learned some lessons. Stay tuned for the next episode. We got some amazing guests coming on. um Can't wait for some episodes coming up here.
00:24:01
Speaker
and have a strong finish to the year. We're recording this in December. So keep your foot on the gas. Don't slow down. Get some, get some deals and i have fun knocking and hopefully warm weather wherever you're at. For me, it's still pretty warm, but if you're knocking on the snow, hey, you got this. Go grind it out. Okay. So thanks for being on today. We'll see you on the next one.
00:24:22
Speaker
Hey, solar printers, quick question. What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day? For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-start level. That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry. and it's called Soulciety. This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give solar pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day. Currently Soulciety is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled. So go to soulciety.co to learn more and join the learning experience now. This is exclusively for Soulciety listeners, so be sure to go to soulciety.co and join. We'll see you on the inside.