Focus on closing the deal, not squeezing every dollar | SOS Ep. 374

Mike shares valuable sales lessons from three car-buying experiences where salespeople refused to negotiate, costing them sales when he took his business elsewhere.

• Being unwilling to negotiate with a ready buyer is a major sales mistake
• Three different car dealerships lost Mike's business by refusing reasonable offers
• Each dealership called back when it was too late, after he'd bought elsewhere
• Focus on closing the deal rather than squeezing every dollar from each transaction
• Getting a deal done and moving to the next prospect is more important than maximizing commission
• If you can't meet a customer's exact price, find creative ways to add value
• Never let a ready buyer walk away—the opportunity cost is too high
• When someone shows buying signals, do whatever you can to accommodate the sale

Mike is giving away three months of one-on-one coaching and three months of Sales Builder Accelerator. Email mike@survivingoutsidesales.com or connect on LinkedIn to enter through the end of September.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Announcements
• 1:19 Wife's Car Accident and Sales Lesson
• 3:23 First Car Buying Experience
• 8:21 Second Car Buying Experience
• 12:48 Third Car Buying Experience
• 21:32 Key Sales Lessons
• 23:24 Special Offers and Coaching Opportunities

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The Surviving Outside Sales Podcast, hosted by Mike O'Kelley, presented by Sales Builder Academy. The goal is to survive and thrive all phases of outside sales, whether you're getting in, dominating or getting out. Surviving Outside Sales I'm your host, mike O'Kelley. Hope everybody has had a fantastic summer. We're rumbling towards the fall, labor Day is right around the corner and we are preparing for that push towards Q4. It's the best time of the year. There's a lot of great stuff that is coming down the pipe and I've got a couple of announcements I'm going to make at the end of the episode. You are not going to want to miss that, so stick around to the end of the episode. I've got some offers and some freebies, so stay tuned. So today I wanted to talk about about. When you talk about the sales process, it is basically you are selling something that somebody wants, but it's not about the actual commodity and you have to understand that.

Speaker 1: 1:19

I'm going to give you an example. My wife got into an accident a little fender bender recently and her car was totaled. She's okay. She did have some doctor's appointments and some recovery that she needed after the accident, but she's doing okay, all things considered. Very fortunate, she was hit by a unlicensed work vehicle that was carrying a big wood chipper, which I think is probably about 2000 pounds, like it was really bad. I mean, it was so bad that she was at a standstill and the car rammed into the back of her, couldn't stop, couldn't break in time and completely totaled the car. The car was totaled so we had to get a new one.

Speaker 1: 1:59

And I bring this up because everybody has gone through an experience at some point where they've had to purchase something, and in this case this was a new automobile. And I'm going to share three different examples of how not taking action and not willing to work with a buyer has cost people sales. Okay. So this has happened to me specifically with cars. Okay, three times in my life I have gone out to purchase a vehicle and the person was not willing to budge, work with us. They were sticking to their guns. Okay. What you have to understand is, especially if you're selling a high ticket product, you just want to do whatever you can to work with your buyer. If somebody is interested in what you have and they are there, they're live, they're ready to go, you want to do whatever you can in order to accommodate that sale.

Speaker 1: 2:55

When I was in, um, when I had just moved to Charlotte. I got into a fender bender. Um, I was T-boned at a stoplight. Uh, I was pulling out and somebody had ran, ran a light and T-boned me, totaled my car, all the airbags deployed and I was very two thousands. I can't remember the specific um, what was it? 20, 20, 2002. This was 2002. I moved to Charlotte and literally in the first week, bam, cars totaled.

Speaker 1: 3:33

So I get a rental car, I drive home to Richmond, virginia, and I work with my parents on helping me find a car. And um, so I go to a car dealership and I'll remember this this was a Chevy dealership and I was looking to get a Chevy, uh, trailblazer. I think it was the first year of the Chevy trailblazer came out. If it wasn't a Chevy trailblazer, it was a Chevy SUV. Maybe it was a Chevy blazer, I can't remember. It was a 20, 2002 Chevy SUV, but it was like a medium-sized SUV.

Speaker 1: 4:06

And I remember sitting down and the salesperson tries to do the old song and dance. And I tell the salesperson I'm in town for 48 hours and I am buying a vehicle. I'm either going to buy it from you or I'm going to buy it from another dealership. It's all up to you. And of course the sales professional said well, we'll do whatever we can to get you in that car. I said, okay, great, comes back and has all these add-ons, these fees and all these things. And literally on there I said well, what is this fee? Grounds maintenance fee? They were trying to charge like $1,000. He goes well, this is to water the grass around the cars and to wash the cars and to pay for the car washer to go out there and wash the cars and to keep the cars clean on the lot. And I said no, I'm sorry, that's not something I'm going to pay for. I said you take that off, we'll sign the paperwork right now. He refused and I said okay, and I looked at my mom and I said let's go, let's leave. We left, we drove to the Nissan dealership. I had a Pathfinder and so we went to the Nissan dealership and at the time I thought you know what, I don't want to do another Pathfinder, let's do something else. So shout out to Pence.

Speaker 1: 5:19

Nissan in Midlothian Virginia Bought two cars from them in a three-year period. The first Nissan Pathfinder. Then it was totaled. We bought a second Nissan Pathfinder because we walked onto the lot and the salesperson there said, oh hey, have you shopped with us before? And I said, yes, I got my first car. I had a hand-me-down when I was in high school, but I was like I got my first car from you guys three years ago. And he said oh, what's the last name? So he goes inside and he goes. Oh, he goes. Yeah, mr O'Kelly, do you have the pathfinder? I said no, sadly, it was in an accident. I digress, so he goes. Well, I tell you what. We don't want you to leave the lot. Okay, we want to get you in another pathfinder. So we're going to do whatever it takes. So you tell us the price. We're going to work with you. We want to get you back in another Pathfinder. Okay, we appreciate you being on the lot. Mind you, I had just left the Chevy lot and I told the guy you know, we're going to buy a car this weekend, okay, so you can either sell us a car or you can't.

Speaker 1: 6:22

So we go to the Nissan and we had negotiated a deal and actually my dad had joined at this point because he was off of work. So it was my dad, my mom and me and we're looking at cars and so we come up with, we find a brand-new Pathfinder and we look at the car and then all of a sudden I look over and I said, well, what about that one? And it was the newest model, it was the I think it was the 2003, and this is 2002. So we were looking at 2002 Pathfinders. But then I was like what is that? Because there was a little change in the body style. I said what about that? And I said can we get the same price on that one? And we looked and the MSRP was higher on the new one. He goes well, that car literally just got here like a week ago, and I said, okay, well, if we can do the same price, I'll do that one. And he goes back and talks to his manager. He goes we can do that. We just want to get you into a car period, point blank. We want to get you into a car. We sold the car.

Speaker 1: 7:15

I'm driving back to Charlotte I get a phone call. And this was back when you took phone calls, because you very rarely got phone calls and I had my first flip phone from Sprint. So I answered the phone call and it was the same sales guy from GMC or the Chevy dealership and he goes hey, mike, I got great news. I talked to my GM and he said you know what, if he can come in today, we'll do that deal. And I started laughing and he goes what's so funny? And I was like I'm driving back to Charlotte and my new Nissan Pathfinder Thanks for the call Click, well, snap. You know, all that person had to do was not let me leave. You know, you have a buyer who says I will do X if you do Y, and it wasn't beyond the pale, it wasn't unreasonable, but he missed out. So I'm sure he went and told his general manager oh yeah, he's, he's not in the market, he's not a real buyer, anything to save face. But that guy blew it.

Speaker 1: 8:15

Okay, um, fast forward to when my wife was getting a brand new car in 2021. Okay, the Kia Tellurides. My wife had made the decision. We had a Lincoln MKX and it just wasn't going to work as far as car seats. We didn't have enough room. It was a great car, she loved it, but we needed car seats because we just had our first daughter and we were expecting our second. So we're going to have two car seats. It just the Lincoln MKX was not built for two car seats and to have any kind of room. We saw Tellurides around. My wife fell in love with it, but we couldn't find any. So I this was in 2021.

Speaker 1: 8:49

I don't know if people remember, but, like new cars and used cars were going five $10,000 over MSRP or Kelly Blue Book. It was insane. So I remember I went to a dealership in Kia dealership in Gastonia, north Carolina, because it was one of the only places I could find that had an actual car on the lot. So I walk in there and I look at the car and the car is amazing, car's great. And I said, okay, well, what's the MSRP? And both of the salespeople started laughing and they said, well, we don't sell cars for MSRP anymore. And I said, okay, well, it says it's MSRP like 40, I think it was like 49 or 50,000. It was something around 50 K. And so they said, well, we don't do that anymore. And I said, well, I, if you can do X, y and Z.

Speaker 1: 9:34

I felt like history was repeating itself. Um, I said, if you can do X, y and Z, I'll buy the car today. We're ready to go Like I'll buy the car today, I'll sign the paperwork and I'll drive it off the lot tonight or tomorrow. I have to go get my wife to, you know, cause I was by myself and obviously I don't have I can't drive two cars. They said no, we, we, you know we're going to, we're going to wait, somebody's going to.

Speaker 1: 9:51

I said somebody is not going to pay what you're, what you're asking them to pay. Nobody's going to pay over MSRP for a car Like I'm sorry the car has been here for two weeks, there's, there's more cars on the lot, like we're at the tail end of the shortage of Kia Tellurides of 2021. And I said nobody's going to pay it. I said I'm willing to pay it right now. I said I'll pay MSRP. I'm not even looking for a discount because I understand the market. Okay, I'll pay. I'll pay sticker price.

Speaker 1: 10:23

Because I realized right now at most Kia dealerships they're going for three, four, five, 6,000 over MSRP. Because there was, it was supply and demand there was. There was so much demand and there was very little supply. So I wasn't trying to get a deal, I just said I'll do MSRP, but I'm not paying more than MSRP. That's absurd. I don't care what the scarcity is. So they said, well, we can't do it. And I said, okay, well, you, just you lost a sale. I said thank you for your time, bye, and I walked out of the dealership.

Speaker 1: 10:56

While I'm driving home, my wife tells me that there is a certified used with 10,000 miles in Hickory, north Carolina. So I called the dealership and I said, hey, I'll be there tomorrow. I said will you hold the car? And they said yep, we'll hold the car. So I go up there. It's a gorgeous, perfect shape.

Speaker 1: 11:11

It was a mom with two kids. She was trading it in for a minivan, a Kia minivan, the new Carnival that just came out. So it was very low mileage. She'd had it for about a year and a half, hardly driven it. It was in great mint condition.

Speaker 1: 11:24

And I asked the price. And the price was much lower than the brand new model, much lower like five or $6,000 less than the, than the MSRP of the brand new model, and it only had 10,000 miles on it. And so I called up my wife and I kind of negotiated through her, which also is a hot move, because then I can say oh, you know what my wife's on the other end she says X, y, z, like we kept lowering the price, but what we got was more for our trade in. We got a very fair trade in according to Kelly Blue Book. We got on the higher end of the Kelly Blue Book, so we were very happy with the deal. We basically negotiated everything. It was done.

Speaker 1: 12:05

My wife would have to come back the next day to buy the car. Uh, that night so this was a day after that night I get a phone call from uh the Gastonia, uh, North Carolina Kia dealership. Hey, mike, great news. You know we chatted it over and, uh, if you want to come in, we'll sell it to you for MSRP. I said I'm sorry, too late. I bought a car from Paramount Kia in Hickory, north Carolina. You guys had your shot and you let me walk off the lot. I said that was your first mistake. You let me walk off the lot. Hope you have a good day. Bye, click, turn it off. That happened twice. You're starting to see a pattern. It happened a third time two weeks ago.

Speaker 1: 12:52

My wife, when she got into the accident, she really wanted to do another Kia Telluride. So we were looking at getting certified used and we wanted a Kia Telluride. You know about the same model, the 2021. And so there was one that was right around the corner from our house, a Kia dealershipide you know about the same model, the 2021. And so there was one that was right around the corner from our house, a Kia dealership in Charlotte, north Carolina. I'm not going to say the name, but if you Google, you know exactly what dealership I'm talking about. Don't ever go to them. They are horrible, super disorganized and they play games Simple as that.

Speaker 1: 13:19

So I called the sales guy who was the sales manager and I said look, my wife is interested in this car. Is it still available? Tell me about it. What's the best you can do? I want you to send me your best and final your best and final out the door price. Okay, out the door price, send it to me, sends me the outdoor price. And I said well, I'm just a little confused because online two days ago, it was listed for almost $2,000 less. So I drove by the lot and you have about 25 Kia Tellurides on the lot. So I don't understand why. Because there's no supply. There's ample supply and there's not a crazy amount of demand right now. So I don't know why you raised the price. That doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1: 13:59

I said this is our price, out the door, like we had a price that we were willing to pay. And I said look, there's other Kia dealerships that have very similar models with better mileage for what we want to pay. And he said okay, well, let me see what I can do. And so I he goes, I'll send you over the best and final kind of the offer. We're allowing it to go out the door. And he sends me the email and I said well, this isn't going to work. I can do this price. If we do this price, I will come in tomorrow and I'll sign the paperwork. We'll buy the car and what? The price I gave him was extremely fair. And he said no, he got, and he calls me and I and I, I talked to him and he says I'm losing money if I sell it to you for less than what I offered it to you. And it was something like we were apart, like $3,100, but, mind you, it was only $2,000 off what the car was literally sitting at two days prior. So now he's telling me he's going to lose a, he's going to lose a, he's going to lose money if he sells it to me for less than that. And I said okay, well, I, this is my price. So if you can't do that, then I appreciate your time, but we're going to go elsewhere. And he goes. Okay, yeah, go elsewhere. See what you got a little snarky. So we do.

Speaker 1: 15:18

We reach out to another dealership, shout out to Hendrick Kia of Concord, north Carolina. They were amazing to work with, very turnkey. We reach out to them about the car, see if it's still available. And they said yes, it's a fair, it's a very low mileage. Kia Telluride almost identical features sunroof, leather, navigation, whole nine yards, all black. My wife had a white car before with black rims. Now she's got all black with black rims. The car is extremely badass. I'm very jealous. This is a car I want to drive, but I digress. So we were texting with the dealership and basically they're like what is it going to take for you to come buy the car? We give them the number and they were like if you come in tonight and sign the paperwork, we'll do that deal. And we were going to. We paid several thousand dollars less for less mileage than the previous car we were willing to buy. We just had to go a little bit further. Both of the cars were Kia certified, still had their a hundred thousand mile warranty on it, but this car had about $9,000. I'm sorry about 9,000 miles less than the car from the dealership in Charlotte that basically told me to go pound sand.

Speaker 1: 16:34

I pick up the girls, we pick up the girls from daycare, we drive up to Concord, north Carolina. It's about 35, 40 minutes from Charlotte. We go to the dealership, we check out the car. Car looks amazing. It looks like the Batmobile Absolutely obsessed with it, love it. Completely blacked out, completely blacked out. Everything's blacked out. Logos blacked out, names blacked out, black interior, tinted windows, sunroof it looks amazing.

Speaker 1: 16:57

While we're sitting down doing the paperwork, my phone starts vibrating and I look at my phone and it says, uh, blank, blank, kia on the caller ID. And I just start laughing and I show it to my wife and I let it go to voicemail and then I get an email and the email says hey, mike, great news. I talked to my general manager. He's willing to do it. If you're willing to come up a little bit, he's willing to do it for the $2,000, the price we had online a couple of days ago. He's willing to do that if you want to do the paperwork. And I shot him an email back. I don't remember what the dude's name was, but I said hey, so-and-so. I'm sitting at Hendrick Kia and Concord purchasing a Telluride as we speak. Thank you for reaching out. Have a good day.

Speaker 1: 17:50

If you didn't notice, it was all of the exact same three scenarios In person. Went to a dealership Well, I didn't go to this Kia dealership in Charlotte. I didn't go to the dealership. I was negotiating over the phone, three straight things. I tell them I will buy, I'm ready to buy. I will sign the paperwork tomorrow or that day. I am ready to buy, if you can do this for me. What pissed me off about all three scenarios was their lack of, or their unwillingness to, negotiate.

Speaker 1: 18:30

If you learn anything from this story, negotiate with a buyer that is ready to buy. Don't mess around. If somebody is ready to buy, forget about you've got prospects elsewhere. Negotiate with them. If you've ever watched like a reality show that does real estate and they always tell the buyers they're like we got a buyer right here. Forget about the extra $10,000 you're going to get. Do the deal, get it done. Your job is to sell something. So if you're out there right now and you've, you're selling things. There are certain things you can't budge, but try to do something to make them feel good, like throw in a bonus Cause.

Speaker 1: 19:13

Honestly, if they had come back and said, mike, we just can't do your price, let me see if we can do something else and maybe we can put a package together where, like they could have done something like offer five years or three years of oil changes, something that costs them very little, but it's a savings to me, the buyer. We only live about three miles away from the dealership. It would have been great if we had gotten a couple of years of oil changes. And, by the way, the dirty little secret is, at dealerships their prices are so inflated and they get so much money from the warranty work that they can in fact write those off and it's not a huge deal. They could have had a car sold that has the Dutch Miller. Oh, I already said it, sorry. I let the cat out of the bag. It says the Kia name on the back of the car. I let the cat out of the bag. It says the Kia name on the back of the car. They could have had that. They could have had that. It's a walking advertisement.

Speaker 1: 20:14

I never take off the dealership's sticker off the car or like the name plate or anything like that. If I appreciate what they have done in the sales process, I never do that. The only time I've ever taken off those tags is when I really didn't have a great relationship or great experience at the dealership. I have bought two other cars where I did not have great experience at the dealership. It was just they had the specific car that I needed at the time and so I just went with it them, you know letting people know. But three times I could have bought something from the one of the first people that I I reached out to and in each instance I ended up buying three different cars from the, from the salespeople and the business that was willing to negotiate. They understand the value of having somebody live in front of them. I can't stress it enough.

Speaker 1: 21:11

If you have somebody that's giving you buying signals, they're asking buying questions, they're asking you to negotiate, figure out what you have to do to get the deal done, period. Don't worry about anything else. Especially, do not worry about your commission. Get the deal done. Don't try to squeeze out an extra dollar or two or extra thousand or extra 10,000. Don't think about your commission. Well, if I can get them to do another 10,000, I'm going to get X, y and Z more.

Speaker 1: 21:46

Don't just get the deal done. Get the deal done and then move on to the next deal. Then get that deal done and move on to the next one and the next one and the next one. That is what you should be focusing on is not trying to squeeze every single dollar out of every single deal, but you want to be able to know is this a good deal? Am I getting a good? Am I giving a good offer? And get them to say yes and move on to the next one. Get them to say yes and then move on to the next one. Get them to say yes and then move on to the next one.

Speaker 1: 22:19

It's a classic case of people sticking to their guns, trying to get as much as possible, probably because they had incentives that they were trying to hit, and they were trying to get me to hit their incentives to make more money so that their commission could be larger, and in the end, it bit them in the ass. So, hopefully, the car buying experience and I know a lot of people have very similar car buying experiences that they have gone through in the past. So again, it's one of those things where you don't buy cars very often and when you do, some of those sales professionals use certain tactics to try to get over on you. But I digress, point being please just focus on closing the deal. Get the deal done and move on to the next one, and don't worry about the timing, don't worry about, oh, if I just hold this over for another day, don't sandbag, just try to get the deal done, move on to the next. Make money, live the life of your dreams through sales, all right.

Speaker 1: 23:20

So I kind of teased in the beginning that I had an offer that I wanted to give out to people. So what I'm going to do is um, I have a. I have a lot of people that have been reaching out to me recently about getting into the sales industry and, as as we talk about surviving outside sales, there are three uh facets there's getting in, there's dominating and then there's getting out. You know the dominating part. That is how you work on your craft and you become a professional. You learn things like the P3 sales method. I have students that are working through the sales builder blueprint and the sales builder accelerator and then you also have the people trying to get their first job, and that's called the sales entry plan. So I haven't talked about this in a while.

Speaker 1: 24:03

If you're new to the um surviving outside sales universe, do me a favor. Um, please. Uh, give a review on any platform you're listening to. It really helps out the show. It helps to spread it to other people. Leave a review. Uh, connect with me on LinkedIn. Just search Michael Kelly surviving outside sales. Uh, connect with me on LinkedIn. Shoot me a message. Just search Michael Kelly Surviving Outside Sales. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Shoot me a message If you want to chat about whatever's going on in your life. I usually chat with about three to four people per week three to four new people per week about where they are in their sales journey, et cetera. I'd love to help you get to where you want to go, if possible.

Speaker 1: 24:43

Sales entry plan these are for professionals who have no idea where to start and they're looking to get into the sales world. There's a nine-step process that I can run you through. It's very simple. I can run you through that process of how to get your first job and the goal is to get you the best offer possible and then get you onboarded and then, once you get that job, if you want to learn the sales methodologies of the sales builder accelerator and the P3 sales method the last sales method you're ever going to need for the rest of your life you can do that as well. But I am going to be doing a I guess you could say a raffle for individuals who want to sign up. I'm going to be giving away uh three months of one-on-one coaching with uh one person who wins the contest. So it's going to run through the end of September. You can sign up. You can just email me say hey, I'm in, I want to learn, I want to learn more about it. You can reach out to me, mike, at survivingoutsidesalescom. I will have a website with a form that you can sign up with, but I'll be giving away one spot for somebody in the sales world. So reach out to me.

Speaker 1: 25:56

If you're looking to get into sales, you're trying to find that new or you're trying to find that new role you could be in sales and you're looking to get into another industry. You have to be able to have a plan and you have to have a structure around your job search. You can't just apply for jobs on LinkedIn. Very rarely are you ever going to get a job. There's, there are things behind the scenes. There's preparations.

Speaker 1: 26:22

I have spoken I mean, I've interviewed and I've hired hundreds of people in my life. I'm an I'm an expert now of hiring people and looking at resumes and I see some terrible resumes. I see terrible resumes. I see terrible reach out. I see terrible followup. People are unprepared for interviews. Some of the times they don't even know what they've, what they've applied for, and that just infuriates a person on a discovery call or first time. And it's also gonna be the same thing if you reach out to a recruiter or a recruiter reaches out to you. But um, also, I will be also giving away a um three months of sales builderator as well.

Speaker 1: 27:05

So if you're in sales right now or you've just gotten into a sales role and you want to learn more, you want to learn the ways of how to build your sales business as your sales territory and treat it like a business again, reach out to me. So I'm going to be announcing in the next subsequent podcasts how you can enter that. But don't wait. Make sure you enter. You can just shoot me an email, mike at SurvivingOutsideSalescom, or you can connect with me on LinkedIn and say, hey, I want to know more about XYZ. I also do a free territory audit if you're in the field, or I also do a free consult call if you're looking to get into the industry and just kind of see how I's um, see how I can help or what I can do to assist you in any way possible. So thank you so much for everybody who's been listening to this five and outside sales podcast.

Speaker 1: 27:50

Um, it has been absolutely crazy. This summer has been the craziest summer of my life. Um, I feel like I've been burning the candle at both ends to the point of where all of my fingers are burnt. But I'm going to be having more podcasts. My goal is still to get to 500 podcasts, so I'm a hundred and something away. I'm going to keep going at it, keep grinding and trying to help as many sales professionals as possible in this beautiful game of outside sales live the life that they want. So reach out to me, connect with me. I'd love to hear about what you're going through and love to hear from you. So reach out to me, connect with me. I'd love to hear about what you're going through. I'd love to hear from you. This has been until next time. This has been Surviving Outside Sales Cheers.