So, our ego causes us to talk too much, which keeps us so busy we listen poorly and because of this, we assume we know what's on the customer's mind. Follow the chain so far? Oh, good. Since we have no accurate idea what's on the customer's mind, we:
TALK ABOUT THINGS THAT DON'T INTEREST THE CUSTOMER.
We talk to her about benefits that should be important to her, because they are important to us. We tell her about durability and she wants to know about color selection. We tell him about insulation "R" ratings, when he wants to know about the community pool. We bore our customers to distraction talking about things in which they have no interest, and then we call them "flakes" when they don’t buy from us. Curious.
A Mercedes-Bent has four-wheel independent suspension. This means if you’re bored on a rainy weekend, you can take that car out on a wet airstrip and slalom it around those red cones, like they do on TV, and you won't knock any down.
A Mercedes-Benz benefits from high quality construction standards and state-of-the-art aerodynamic design. When you drive a Mercedes-Benz in the rain, the airflow blows all the water off the side glass and the body panels, so you can just look out to the side and see really clear. And the Benz isn’t through with that waste water yet. That water is channeled through little tunnels and grooves and gutters to the rear of the car where that waste water is used to scrub the taillights. That's why you buy a Mercedes-Benz. Must be so; that’s what they say in their ads.
BULL! A Mercedes-Benz is an ego rub, pure and simple. You buy a Mercedes Benz so you can have little motors in the doors roll up your windows (you can’t hand-crank, might hurt yourself; break a nail, or something), turn on the automatic air and ten-speaker Blast-O-Matic stereo, and say to yourself, “I wonder what the poor folks are doing.” You buy a Mercedes-Bent to help you feel good about yourself. That isn't what you tell your friends, but that's why you really buy it.
I was an extra-motivated buyer. I had the “hardly waits.” See, I had been driving a Porsche, but it got all short. Got stuck in the side of a Cadillac. The guy at the body shop said he’d have to have my car for up to a month. I said, “I can’t be de-horsed for a month, I’ve got to have wheels.”
He said, “Go on down to Avis. They’ll rent you a car.” So I did, but Avis was all out of cars. They rented me a Dodge. You ever drive a Dodge? Nobody ought to have to drive a Dodge. It was a monkey-vomit green 4-door Polara sedan, a slag heap on wheels. I didn't get an owner's manual, so I couldn't even figure out where to put the corn in that hog.
I took it up to its top end, about 35, and went right down to Smythe European, which seemed like a good idea, as Smythe is where they sold Mercedes Benz in San Jose, which is where I live. I walked right in through the front door, just like a real customer, was greeted by a salesman. I could tell he was a salesman, because he said, “Hep ya?”
I said, “Yeah. I've been thinking about buying a new Mercedes-Benz Roadster.”
He said, “Great. What can I tell you about them?”
I said, “Well, I dunno. How fast do they go?”
He said, “Why is that important? You can only drive 65 anyhow.”
Well, now, maybe he could only drive 65, but I can go like a bat out of hell and have tickets to prove it. I don't know how it is where you are, but in California you don't just get on assigned risk automatically; you've got to earn it. I did what you'd probably have done. I took a brochure and went home to study. I didn't want to flunk any more tests.
In reading that brochure, I found that a Mercedes-Benz has K-Jetronic Fuel Injection. WOW! That must be fast. They wouldn't dare call it K-Jetronic unless it was fast. There’s truth in advertising and what all. I could just see those little, black German hoses squirting raw fuel into the cylinders, little explosions going off, flame pouring out the back. Driving the birds out of the trees. I just had to get some K-Jetronic fuel injection.
I went down again the next day and went through the side door. I didn't want to meet that first guy again. Another fellow glided up. This one wore gold chains and running shoes, but he must have had the same sales training, as he said, “Hep ya?”
I said, “Yeah. I've been thinking about a Benz Roadster. The brochure said it has K-Jetronic Fuel Injection.”
He said, “Yes sir, you can drive this baby at 17,000 feet above sea level all day long. She'll never miss a lick.”
Well now, the last time I checked, San Jose was about 250 feet above sea level. I said, “I don't do a whole lot of that.”
Undaunted, he riposted, “Well then, you'll be delighted to know about the fuel economy. This little beauty will give you 16 miles to the gallon around town, on regular gas. It'll burn anything you can pump through a pipe.”
I don’t know if you’ve priced a Mercedes Benz lately, but where I live they run over $100,000. That’s 100K, 100 grand, 100 LARGE. If I was going to spend 100 large on a Benz Roadster, I sure didn't care about gas mileage. I wanted it to suck some gas. I don't know much about cars, but I do know this, as I’ve owned a few—the more gas they use, the faster they go. I wanted something with a five gallon toilet up under the hood. I could flush with my foot and WHOOOOSH!!! And regular gas? Not likely. I wanted my car to burn nitro.
I said, “I really don't care about gas mileage all that much.”
He said, “Haven't you heard about the energy crisis?” (Well, yeah, I’d heard about it. It was in all the papers.) He went on, “It's your patriotic duty to help us conserve our dwindling petroleum supply. Don't be fuelish.” Then he took a little American flag out of his pocket and waved it at me.
What he didn't know was that he was dealing with an educated man. I took physics in high school. They told us about a guy named Helmholtz and the First Law of Thermodynamics. There is as much energy available on the face of the earth today as there was a million years ago. You burn up oil and you get heat and smog. It doesn't go away, it just changes form and converts to energy and mass. Therefore, I conclude, there is no energy crisis. We have scads of energy. We have solar, wind, wave, tidal action, geothermal, hydroelectric, hydrogen, yes, even nukes. We are just a little light on oil at the moment. Even the most casual student of history understands that oil is but a passing fad. We didn't even use oil until 1900. In 1890, the first oil well on the North American continent was drilled in Pennsylvania. Prior to that time, we used whale oil. A funny thing happened. The whales got offended, and the price went up. We only use petroleum today because the price of whale oil is too high.
That's the way it works in a free-market society. As supply dwindles, price increases. When the price gets high enough, alternative energy sources become attractive. Therefore, the solution to freeing ourselves from dependence on imported oil must be crystal clear to any educated person. Use up that oil as fast as we can, and I want to do my part.
Now this may sound ridiculous to you—it sure did to him—but bear in mind whose money was going into that Mercedes-Benz. I took another brochure and left. Went home to study some more.
I kept going back to that dealership. I really wanted to buy a Benz, but those guys thought it more important to educate me than to sell me. One guy bounced up and down on the open door of that beauty to show me how well it was built. They must teach 'em that at Mercedes-Benz school. If anyone ever did that to my car, I'd punch out their lights. Another fellow showed me how the ashtray was mounted on ball bearings.
They showed me a video clip depicting what would happen to me in a grinding head-on collision. You'll be happy to know that if you run a Mercedes-Benz head-on into a Peterbuilt, the engine won't come straight back and catch you in the chest. The engine is goes down and tears off your legs.
On my sixth visit to that dealership, Bill Smythe, the dealer came out of the back room, where dealers hide, and said, “You've been hanging around here a lot lately.”
I said, “Yeah, I've been trying to justify why I ought to give you what you want for one of those roadsters. They're a lot of money, you know.”
He said, “Yeah, they do cost a lot of money, don't they?
Something very different was happening than on my previous visits. This guy was agreeing with me. The average salesperson would have interpreted my statement as a “price objection” and because he had been to a seminar, would have felt compelled to overcome it. The average salesperson might have said, “What do you mean a lot of money? This is fine German craftsmanship. They use thick steel. I want you to look, my friend, at the fit and finish on this automobile. This seam between that hood and the front fender is of uniform width all the way down.” And he'd have taken a little ball bearing out of his pocket (I’ve actually seen them do this) and rolled it down the seam to show me it was uniform. BULL! If that car would go fast enough, you could have chucked a bowling ball down that seam and I wouldn't have cared.
Bill Smythe didn't do any of that “salesman stuff.” I had made a true statement (anybody that doesn't think a Mercedes-Benz is a lot of money has some letters missing from his sign), and he agreed with it. He didn't argue and therefore, gave me nothing to fight. He left me in a position of thinking, “Yeah, well now what will we talk about?” In all my visits, this was the first person not to tell me what a fool I was for wanting what I wanted. I liked him already.
He inquired, “Why do you think you'd want a Mercedes Benz anyhow?” (Not a bad question.)
I said, “Well, I'm told they're fast.”
He grinned, “DAMN, are they fast.”
I yelled, “Oh, good! How fast are they?
He said, “I can't tell you that. We don't conduct top speed tests, but they go like a scalded dog.”
I said, “It says 160 miles per hour on the speedometer. Will it go that fast?
He said, “Not with me in it, it won't, pal.”
“How fast have you had yours up to?”
He said, “I can't tell you that. I have a position to maintain in the community and I’m not a scofflaw.”
“I’ll never tell anybody, cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Well, I really shouldn’t tell you,” he said, but since you promise… It was a couple-three weeks ago and I'd been to a dealers' meeting in San Francisco. It was three o'clock in the morning, and I was coming home alone on Freeway 280. Big full moon, top down, wind blowing through what hair I've got left. You know that long, straight stretch out back of Palo Alto, by Sand Hill Road?”
I breathed, “Oh yeah. I know that stretch.”
He went on, “Well, I came under the Sand Hill overpass and looked down that long stretch toward Alpine Road. There were no headlights or taillights, and I thought, 'What the hell, let's see what mamma will do.' I just wrapped my toes around the radiator and hung on. Now I don't know how fast that car'll run, 'cause I ran out of guts before it ran out of go, but at the end of that stretch I was showing 135 miles an hour. I grinned so big I still have bugs in my teeth.”
I whispered, “A hundred thirty-five miles an hour? Really? Oh, that's good.”
He said, “If you were to own a Mercedes-Benz, what color do you think you'd want?”
I said, “I don't really care. My wife picks the color. I've always been partial to silver, but color's not really important to me. My little Porsche is silver, but I don’t care.”
“You drive a Porsche?” He asked.
“Well, yeah, but it’s in the body shop.”
“How are you getting around now?”
I inclined my head toward the green Dodge leaning against the building.
“Oh no,” he said. “That’s horrible. You need a car right now, don’t you?” He increased my urgency.
He said, “And you say your Porsche is silver. I can see you're a man of impeccable taste. There seems to be something inherently right about silver German cars. Italian cars ought to be red. British cars ought to be British Racing Green, but German cars should be silver.”
I said, “Damn straight.”
He continued, “In fact, remember when Mercedes was involved in factory-sponsored racing? They had leather-helmeted road-warriors like Stirling Moss and Juan Fangio and Rudi Carriciola driving those big old pavement-ripping 300SLRs. Ah, those cars were silver.”
I cried, “Yes, they were SILVER.”
Dropping the pitch of his voice, he murmured, “Now I'm not a believer in fate, but you're not gonna believe what just happened. Just yesterday, the drive-away truck dropped off, in my back lot, a silver Mercedes Benz roadster. It has that trick folding hard top, and…you aren’t allergic to leather, are you?
I fairly shouted, “Oh heavens, no. Look, I've got shoes on and everything. I love leather.”
He said, “Oh, that's a relief. I know you've been reading all the brochures, and you know the standard upholstery is vinyl. Now, it's good vinyl, the best available. Has holes poked in it to keep down sweating and all. It's plenty good enough for most people, but just based on the off chance that I might encounter a particularly discriminating individual, such as yourself, I took the liberty of ordering this one with top-grain Austrian cowhide upholstery. Would you like to see that car?”
He could probably tell, as I had drool all over my lapel. I was slicker than a seal.
As we have previously discussed, the finest sales presentations I have ever seen are non-verbal, where few, if any, words are passed. Bill Smythe was master. He went over to a board and got the keys to that roadster. Together we went to the back lot, where that lovely piece of work regally reposed. It had been sitting all day in 90 degree heat. You know what new cars smell like when they've been left sitting in the sun? Another example of government hype. The government tells you that that smell is nitrosamines—it comes out of the upholstery and the spare tire as they cure—and is supposed to be bad for you. The government made Schlitz take all the nitrosamines out of their beer. Nitrosamines, in sufficient doses, can kill you. That's the way I want to go.
He snuggled up close to that car, put the key in the door, and opened it about two inches. He hung his nose over the edge of the door glass and sniffed delicately—just stood there for about a month. I danced behind him, balanced on tippy toes, trying to avoid physical contact, which I felt would be rude. I wanted to get in that car so badly my teeth itched.
He pulled the door fully open and, with abroad and gracious sweep of his arm, indicated that my entrance to the sacred interior would be completely acceptable. I jammed my head and shoulders into that magnificent Teutonic cocoon and, flaring my nostrils, hyperventilated on nitrosamines. I'm so glad that car was new. Had it been used, I'd have sucked the entire contents of the ashtray right up my nose.
He said, “Sixteen prime Austrian steers gave their lives for your comfort.”
It took him less than a half hour to separate me from the full purchase price of that car. Oh, I didn’t pay sticker. I used to be in the car business and I don’t pay sticker. I paid sticker plus $1,500 to get special wheels to go with those leather seats. Did he need 75 closes? Certainly not. He said, “Press hard, the fourth copy's yours.” I hesitated and looked at him for reassurance. Was I really doing the right thing? He comforted me, “You like it. You want it. You can afford it. Buy it.” I did.
Guess what never came up again. Price. Price is only important when someone doesn't want something bad enough. I was terrified to mention price. If he had thought I couldn't afford it, he might not have let me have it, and I'd have given him right of first refusal on my first-born.
THE SUPPORT CONCEPT
Bill Smythe employed one of the cornerstones of effective selling:
Support those statements made by the customer which take us closer to our sales goal.
Withhold support from those statements made by the customer which take us away from our sales goal.
The Bill probed me to find areas of need, or dissatisfaction with my present status. When I said I wanted a fast car, he agreed with me and told me his car was fast. He stroked my ego and let me know it was O.K. to want what I wanted, and he was going to help me get it.
When I brought up a problem, price as an example, he withheld support. He didn't argue, he just flowed with me. I said, “They sure cost a lot of money.”
He said, “Yeah, they do cost a lot of money, don't they?”
There's nothing for me to fight with in that statement, He's obviously on my side. Had he tried to tell me why I was wrong and why the car was worth the money, I would have had to defend my position. In so doing, I'd have sold myself more solidly on the fact that price was a problem. As it was, the question of price never came up again.
Tell me how talking ONLY about that which interests the customer has helped you in selling.
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