I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.
It covers:
I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.
Designed to help consumers and promote the new CAR FU system, this will be an authority site. Should be online and generating quality content for car buyers in a week or so. In the meantime, check out this video:
Should be online and ready for test drives by Tuesday, May 6th. Please e-mail peter@movinmetal.com for free access in exchange for honest critique. Be kind…
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Many times I have witnessed a woman drive into a dealership, park, walk around for a while, and finally go up to the receptionist and ask for some assistance. I find this curious, as women directly influence 75% or more of ALL car sales. To watch trained attack-jackals…er, sales associates, virtually ignore her because they believe that she is not the decision-maker is almost surreal. No one can just ‘walk around’ out there!! Who does she think she is?
Why do these professional salespeople, both men and women, often ignore female customers? A lot of it is due to the fact that the auto business is decades behind the rest of the business world in customer service practices, and has shown few signs of catching up. So, maybe they are surprised to see a woman out of the kitchen. Wait until they hear about that whole ‘voting rights’ thing!
The NADA has estimated that a woman will bring along a man with her to buy a car 78% of the time. Is it because she needs to be helped through the negotiations? Does she need to have her trembling hand held as she signs documents? Does “all this money talk” just confuse her? Well…..NO. It is because if she doesn’t bring him, he will blather on and on for weeks– maybe years–about the deal she could have had, if only…..
I support any man who wants to change a tire for a woman (this is one of our inalienable rights, as pack-animals), but to presume to handle the finances and negotiations for ‘the little lady’ is nothing short of ludicrous. In fact, in most deals involving married couples, the woman is in charge of the final decision. Perhaps men instinctively know that we can often become mesmerized by shiny, fast moving objects and make poor decisions. Without the steadying influence of our better halves, many of us would be living outdoors, under a lean-to, foraging for sustenance. Of course, we would have some really cool cars.
Women are particularly sensitive to time-wastin’ and bull-shootin’, and being disrespected on top of it all makes enduring a difficult and expensive process that much more grating and demeaning.
My advice, to any woman who feels that she is not receiving the attention or respect due her, is to simply announce, loudly, that the car is for you, you are the only decision maker, and you want to buy a car TODAY!! That will get their attention! Then, torture them for hours solely for entertainment.
Ready for your next car?
Um…NO. Why would you do that? Besides the fact that lying or misdirecting is an unnatural and uncomfortable process for most people, besides all the time it will cost you–HOURS–as they now have to appraise your trade and put an accurate value on it (while fantasizing about stabbing you in the chest), it has skewed your financing deal because your interest rate quote was based on a certain LTV(loan to value) that has now changed. If you did not work a financing deal, and decided only on a purchase price, you have locked that price in and left only one more negotiable item. It is much easier to try to work the edges of a negotiation when you have another variable. Your trade-in will not suddenly gain (or lose) value. EVER. It is worth what it can be sold for at that moment, never more. Depending on several subtle factors, or the skill(or lack thereof) of the appraiser, one can gain a small monetary advantage or concession on occasion. But when dealers move money from one car to the other, it is because that is what you are telling them you want to see. “Give me more for my trade!” Okay, here you go. “Hey, what happened to that other price?” If you know where the numbers should fall on both vehicles, you will at least be able to squeeze from both sides. Just like they will be doing!
Okay, but isn’t that how you work out your own budget? By the month? So, if your main deciding factor is the monthly payment, then perhaps you should mention that. Of course, you have already figured out what your interest rate should be and the term of the loan before you got there, didn’t you? No? We should probably slow things down a bit, then.
By the way, obtaining your own financing will eliminate this step. Why not do that right now?
Huh? How will you beat the dealer? If they sell you a car, they have been successful. That is what they do. If the deal is not advantageous to them, they will not sell you a car. When you enter into any event in your life with the idea that someone else has to lose in order for you to be successful, that event is taking too much from your life-force and should be put on hold.
If you are happy with your deal, if you have the car you want and are paying the amount you determined you could comfortably pay, then you have been successful. Be happy! That is the very definition of winning a car deal, and if you need more evidence that you won, take a victory lap around your neighborhood, around your part of the world. See the sun, the sand, the mountains, the ocean ? Yep, you won.
Oh, yeah...”Bigfoot”? Just a giant prehistoric ape-like creature that lives in the Pacific Northwest. Nothing more.
The worst thing any car salesman ever has to do is explain to a customer that the car they are trading in isn’t worth much money. Or any money. This is how the conversation often goes:
Sales Manager: “What’s he tradin’ ?”
Salesperson: (handing over a form) “This one here…”
SM: “Ouch. What does he think it’s worth?”
SP: “$11,500.”
SM: “Where did he get that number from?”
SP: “ I dunno. “.
SM: “Let’s open him up a bit…” (scribbles on paper, hands it to SP)
SP: “Oh…oh, no, no, no…you’re kidding, right?”
SM: “Just take it out there. Now.”
The difference between what folks think their cars are worth and what they are actually worth is dramatic. The Kelley Blue Book (kbb.com) assesses the values of cars in various geographical markets. They are very good at what they do, so good that many credit unions use the retail KBB to determine how much to loan on a purchase (CU’s usually use retail numbers for their figgerin’, while banks use wholesale figures), and many dealers use Kelly as a pricing guide.
But one thing that Kelley does not accurately measure–and barely pays lip service to– is the real trade-in value. The problem is this: In the real world, a car is worth exactly what it can be sold for at that very moment in time. The sun goes down, the sun comes up, the car is worth less money.
There is actually another Kelley product, one that many dealerships use to value and manage their used car inventories. Unlike most credit unions, banks base their financing formulas on wholesale value rather than retail, and they respect the numbers issued by this other book enough to base their financing on them. This other book(really a software program) is known as ‘Karpower’, and it takes into full account the costs of reconditioning and the necessary replacement of wear and tear items. It is a far more accurate measure of value….but it is still not the BEST measure of value.
The only real way to determine a cars value is to answer this question: How much can I sell this for in the next ten minutes? Only dealer auctions provide any real-world perspective. Using this criteria, the amount that can be fetched at the next available auction is the actual value of the car (minus costs of transportation and auction personnel).
With the typical labor cost for mechanics at or near a hundred dollars an hour, any bill for any work can run to a thousand dollars or more very easily. The used car department pays the service department for the work, the expense is added to the base cost of the vehicle, and the amount left between the asking price and the amount already invested is the margin. The smaller the margin between the KBB retail price, a price many buyers are well familiar with, and the amount the dealership has invested in the car–how much they are “in it for.”–the less bargaining room they have. In other words, the more they give that guy for his trade-in, the less they will be able to bargain with you on the same car!
Overheard on car lots every single day, all across this great land:
Sales Manager: “ Where did those people go?”
Salesperson: “ Which people?”
SM: “ Those people that were back there checking out the (anycar).”
SP: “ Oh, they said they were just looking.”
SM: “Really. Did they talk to a manager before they left?”
SP: “ Well….no.”
SM: “You’re fired.”
Over the years, through millions and millions of car deals, generating reams and reams of car-deal data, it has been determined by car dealerships that it is more cost-effective to alienate 85% of the people who are “just looking” in order to sell to the other 15% who will finally give up and buy after several hours of ‘the process’. In other words, when you ask “where are the keys to my trade-in, I want to go home…”, what they hear is “ I need more convincing.”
When most people are asked for their opinion of car salesman, the answer is often an unbroken string of obscenities. Even kindly old Granny, sitting there knitting a sweater for her cat, will fire a burst of profanity that could make the most battle-hardened Marine queasy. This is the result of years of conditioned responses from both buyers and sellers. The ‘process’ is so contentious that many folks will keep their cars long after they no longer want them rather than venture on to a car lot. The fact is that it is an invasive procedure by nature–this information-gathering and credit- score-determining–and when folks become aware that their ‘comfort zone’ has been violated, and the rules that they live by the rest of the time in their lives no longer apply, they become less honest and less straightforward, as a kind of defense mechanism.
In 80-90% of car dealerships today, the salesperson you meet on the lot is more of a tour guide than the plaid-jacket-striped-pants-white-shoes stereotype of yesteryear. In fact, the salesman on the lot is the only person that wants you to be successful more than you do! He is also the one guy who probably CAN’T sell you the car. He has absolutely no idea what they will sell the car for, what your interest rate will be, or how much you can expect for your trade-in. In the age of specialization, this fellas function is to get you inside and sitting down. Period. There is a well-known adage that you talk ‘cars standing up’, and ‘money sitting down’. Of course, this makes perfect sense on paper, but very often the customer is so wary and on-edge that it is a difficult hurdle, and often requires the gentle persuasiveness that ‘The Closer’ typically lacks.
Once you are sitting down, the next person you will meet is The Closer, and he does not really care what your kids are named or where you work, what your hobbies are or how long you have been married. He wants to know how much effort will be required to put the deal down so he can move to the next one.
The fella who greeted you on the lot, that “nice young man”?
He is hovering in the background, hoping all goes well.
He is rooting for you to hold strong, to not get tired, to be happy with the trade-in amount they offer.
He wants you to be comfortable and he wants you to be able to afford the car, but most of all…most of all, he wants you to BUY, because somewhere in the back of the office, out of the sight of customers, there is a chalkboard or something like it. The board contains the names of all the salespeople and the sales they have made that month, and there is nothing he wants in this world–nothing he needs in this world–more than “chalk”.
