Making Tomorrow’s Sale Today

As a follow-up to last week's story about my best friend’s unfortunate luck in buying a used car and the amazing service we received as a result, here’s more of the story.

My friend is still in the market for a vehicle. Actually, she is now looking for multiple vehicles. The new one will be purchased from the dealership mentioned in last week’s story. But since she wants to put a lot of metal around her son, she is looking elsewhere.

Looking online, we came upon a couple of Subarus that looked pretty good to us. The website did not list a physical address but instead showed a phone number with the words, "call for appointment."

An appointment to look at a used car?

She had her heart set on seeing these vehicles, so I called.

The term, "Used car salesman," quickly brings to mind a certain caliber of person whose integrity is constantly in question.

This experience was the complete opposite.

When Matt called me back, I could not have been more impressed. He was knowledgeable and passionate about his trade. He asked me several questions about how the car would be used and who would be driving and immediately eliminated one of the vehicles from the conversation, saying that he did not believe it to be safe enough for the driver (my friend’s 19-year-old demolition derby-style son).

Honesty and a used-car rep. Imagine that!

But then he said something that I thought was quite striking. He told me he was not only interested in selling us a car but he said, "I want to make tomorrow’s sale as well. That is, I want to be doing business with you for several years to come."

He went on to tell me that he has sold some families seven or eight cars over the years. What a great testimony!

Do you have tomorrow in mind when you make a sale? Have you ever told the client that you want to be around in 10 years? These are powerful words to use when trying to differentiate yourself from your competition.

And not sound like some used-car salesman.

Additional free content can be found at sales.epicomm.org. Contact Bill at (781) 934-7036 or bfarquharson@epicomm.org. In addition, if you’d like to talk about your sales challenges, book time on Bill’s calendar here: www.meetme.so/BillFarquharson