How to sell 29 percent more motorcycles
A courteous, knowledgeable salesperson isn’t enough. The most successful salesperson is an enabler, a cheerleader, an ally in supporting and justifying the purchase of a motorcycle.
Customers who work with an excellent salesperson will nearly always describe that salesperson as helpful. “Helpful,” that’s the key word, whether the salesperson is helping the prospect choose between two different models or picking up the phone to call a prospect to share some news and invite them back into the dealership.
Of course a salesperson can’t call their prospect and be “helpful” if they haven’t bothered to write down the prospect’s contact information, and today U.S. motorcycle salespeople don’t capture any contact information 55 percent of the time. So there’s plenty of room for improvement, but is the effort worth it? Yes. The facts say that motorcycle dealerships whose salespeople capture contact information at least two-thirds of the time retail an average of 29 percent more new units than the other dealerships.
We joke about salesman that can’t hold margins and can only sell by discounting. We call them cheerleaders. A cheerleader salesman is one that takes it off, and you get it all the time.
It is astounding to think that getting customer information and following up on those customers is not being done 100 percent of the time by 100 percent of anyone who would call themselves a salesman. That would be like me telling everyone I am a carpenter but not making anything out of wood. I think that would be offensive to the guys that actually are carpenters and do make stuff out of wood.
We created a simple Excel Spreadsheet we call Deal Maker. On it we capture contact info, vehicle model, accessories and a running total with fees at the bottom of the form. Everything we discuss with the customer is on this sheet. Each time we contact the customer we take notes. It’s a cheap way to keep up with contacts. Our close ratio improved dramatically. Anyone outside of the impulse buyer has to be contacted at least four times to close a sale. The impulse buyer moved to another planet last year.