How to sell and more importantly: Close the Deal!

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MaximumAuto

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Hi, my name's Jesse Aquino. I've been reading on this forum for a long time now as I am just like all of you; I love detailing cars. I decided to finally join and share my input. I hope this can help some people out.

First of all, I want to share some marketing strategies that work, how they work, and I will explain why they work.

1) Facebook Advertising - And no, I am not talking about the advertisements that are on the side of the news feed. Simply post a picture (please make sure it looks professional.) I'm not saying that you have to use a +$1,000 HD top of the line camera, but take it to a photo editing program and adjust levels like contrast, brightness, saturation, etc.. (I will write up a guide or better yet a YouTube how to in fact do all of this.)

Post at busiest times of the day. I post about three times: 12 PM, 3 PM, and 6 PM. Simply ad a description of your service. Your phone number and business name. The best pictures to post are the before and after. Classic tape down the middle showing dramatic results. You have to sell yourself before you can sell your service.

I can not tell you how much business I have received from this simple marketing strategy. All I can say is that it works.

2) Instagram - For those who don't know what Instagram is.. it is a social network compared to Facebook, but it is about picture posting and using tags (Ex. #Detailing) to basically let other people search the tag and they will see your photo. Other users can also follow your pictures and it will show up on their feed for them to see every time you post a picture. This is another effective strategy that works.

-- Here's an example. If you search the tag #Chicago on Instagram, you will most likely find people who well... live in Chicago or posted a picture about Chicago. So simply, post a detailing picture of your service (before and after) and follow it up with tags (#Detail, #Detailing, #DetailingWorld, #PaintCorrection, #Chicago)

Because the tag #Chicago is in your description, everybody who looks up the tag #Chicago will come across your detailing picture. Put two and two together and you might just find that special customer.

3) The Half and Half Method Sales Pitch (Or Fender, etc..)

This may work only if you have a dark colored car or easily visible by sunlight. Simply take the trunk if it's not already detailed. Tape a line down the middle of the lid and create swirls on one side (Sounds bad, but just listen!) and take the other side and detail it (Polish and Wax.) When you talk to a customer show them your car or your work van, whatever it is. Awesome method, makes people understand what swirls actually are.

Guys and remember selling is about giving features and benefits. Yes.. I'm sure you guys have all heard this line many times. But customers do not understand what swirls and clay bars are. It's vital you explain what and why they are beneficial or harm the car.

If you have leather and it's dirty again to half and half. It is a great selling pitch!

4) YouTube Videos

You guys already know this too. Simple and Effective. Put some music in the background though or use little of the buffing machine noise. Let's face it, the noise of the machines get annoying. Nobody wants to hear it. I can't tell you how many videos on YouTube have the noise on there. It's a turn off for customers. Put your phone number too, there's so many videos without it! Customers do not want to go searching for your number.

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"Money isn't in selling, it's in closing the deal."

Selling is only the first 80% of the process, closing is 20% but is 100% of the money.

How to Sell:

1) Agree first - No matter what the customer says agree first.

Ex. 1) If a customer says I love Armor All products man, they're great! (We all know Armor All should be no where near a car) but agree. "Yeah man, armor has a great product, but actually let me tell you something you don't know." Then explain the harm using the product. If you simply say "Dude, Armor All is the worst thing you can put on a car, you will offend the customer." So first step, simply agree!

Ex. 2) Customer: "It's too much money."

You: "Yes, Sir or Ma'am I agree it is a significant investment. The fact is it is a lot of money. But, think about it this way. Yeah, you spend $300 (or whatever it is), but you raise the value of your vehicle by $1,000 as well. Did you know Kelly Blue Book actually determines the price of a car based on condition?

This is vital in selling a product or service. Simple, Just AGREE!

2) Write a Proposal Up to Everybody!

Put pen to paper and write the proposal of your service and the price. Give a great attitude and don't quit out on a deal. If they no wife, no money, no hope at all.. WRITE THEM UP. Treat everybody like a millionaire.. well except for millionaires, treat them like billionaires. I promise you this goes a long way..

3) Follow Up

Give a phone call once a month to ask for the business again or three days after you have completed a detailing job. Make sure the customer is happy. Be persistent. Once again, this goes a long way!

4) Understand that Objections are sometimes only Complaints

What do I mean by this?

-- Ex. "It's just too much money."

Do you get it? Just because the customer says it's too much money doesn't mean they are rejecting your service, they are just complaining that it's too much money. How many times do we go to a store and think to ourselves "Well.. that's a lot of money," but WE BUY IT ANYWAYS.

This follows up with my number one rule: Agree first, and that is how you overcome the complaint. You have to realize when it is an objection though. Sometimes it is.

Always start with the lowest package. Up sell, do not down sell or you will face a lot of problems and challenges. You can't excite a customer about a $500 paint refinement package and drop down to a standard $100 package. Makes no sense. Always up sell guys.

5) Don't ask a customer for a budget

What's going to happen if you do? They're going to low ball the hell out of you. Be CONFIDENT IN YOUR PRICE WHEN YOU SAY IT. Look the customer in their eyes and speak firmly. Trust me, customers can tell when you're not confident in your price. If you're not confident, they're not going to be confident in you. Body language is key in selling.

The Most Important Rule:

Be Willing to Close the Deal

1) Ask for the Business! Assume the deal.

Ways to ask:

- So do we have a deal?
- I am open tomorrow all day. What time is best for you?
- Should I pick it up for work or will you be dropping it off?

Possible Objection examples and how to overcome them.

Customer: "It's just too much money."
You: "I agree it's a lot! And that is the reason why you work hard every day. That's the reason to do it today, you can afford this type of premium service, which a lot of people can't afford."

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Customer: "I have to think about."
You: "I agree thinking about it is a wise decision, but a thought is instantaneous.Think of an elephant, did you get it? Now think of your house burning down (LOL, just kidding, but you get the point!) What you need to do now it make a decision." This gets the customer to realize: "yeah he's right."

Guys, customers come to you because they want you to take money out of their pockets. That's why they come to you! Ask for the business and close them!

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Customer: "I have to ask my wife, or I have to ask my husband.."
You: "What if your spouse says no..?"

Customer: "They won't.
You: "Okay, then I need your okay right now."

OR:

Customer: "If my spouse says no, then we won't buy."
You:" Would he/she say no to the price or the service."

If the customer says PRICE, she's objecting the price. You need to either lower the price a bit or build more value.

If the customer says SERVICE, well then you didn't do a good enough job selling your service.

These are ways to figure out and overcome objections.

There are many more. If you guys need some more closes ask me. If you have any questions on objections from customers, let me know and I will show you specifically how to get around it.
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I hope this helps some of you guys. Please share your thoughts and your strategies as well.
 
Awesome write-up.

But, am I the only one feel the "close up deal" part is a little too pushy to the customer?
 
I completely agree you need to ask for the sale but the ABC (always be closing) method is much too harsh for this type of business. I respect my clients and if I lose an appointment or two because I give them time to think about it that means much more to me than pressuring people into decisions they don't necessarily want to make.
 
You want to "close the deal" ..... well its rather simple, first you have to ask for the business. And second is you need to stop overselling the product or service.

If they present a challenge you overcome it thru answering the objection and providing a sound answer.
 
When people think my prices are to high I have them take a lot at my work and 90% of time they go with me. The people that don't want to pay for it don't really care about their car and just want a deal.
 
I don't know if any of the professional business owners here have a big enough business for the concept I'm about to throw out.

I've been a Fortune 100 Executive and Consultant for my entire career. As such, I've spent or recommended hundreds of millions of dollars worth of purchases in businesses I've been involved with.

When I was younger, I noticed that the sales people who almost always got my business seemed to have a similar style. I just didn't know what it was that made them different.

When I decided to stay home instead of running all over the world, I got involved in smaller businesses (not a lot of Fortune 100s in Phoenix).

I joined several Chambers of Commerce around Phoenix (Phoenix, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Mesa, Chandler). At one of the meetings, a gentleman from the Sandler Sales Institute gave a presentation about sales techniques.

It only took a few minutes for me to realize that this was the technique I had been encountering all my life. I still have occasional contact with many of those marketing people (many are contacts on LinkedIn), so I asked them if they had been through the Sandler Sales Training. 100% said yes, and it was the best training they had ever had and was the core of their competitive advantage.

The traditional Carnegie techniques involve such tactics as
If I could show you how to save a million dollars per year, would that be of interest to you? Followed by how to overcome objections.

The Sandler technique (done well) is a negative sales technique, explaining
Others might need the goods or services I'm selling, but it's probably not necessary for your business.

If you've read this far, go back to my opening statement. It wasn't an insult to anyone here, it was a challenge statement consistent with the Sandler Sales techniques.

After the Chamber presentation, I put all of my Geeks On Call technicians through a specially constructed course that the Sandler guy here in Phoenix and I put together. Some were better at it than others, but every one of them started selling service contracts to our business calls (generated from radio and TV advertising).

Since I had mastered the technique to the point that people can't even tell I'm selling them something, any potential business customers that my guys couldn't close, I did. The techs all knew that if I got in front of the customer, we'd get the contract.

The model for Geeks On Call was to get business customers on service contracts even though the advertising campaigns generated mostly residential computer service customers. After 1 1/2 years as a franchise owner, I had 5% of the total nationwide franchises, but I had over 50% of the service contracts. Yes, even the advertising campaign here in Phoenix was different than the standard for the company that ran in every other market. It was tuned with the Sandler techniques even on the radio.

The difference is selling something, versus getting the customer to decide to purchase.

Read up on the Sandler Sales Institute. David Sandler died many years ago, but his family franchised the concept and there are Sandler Sales Institute offices in cities all over the country.

You are all selling services that many other people can perform, just probably not as well as you can.

An idea from the Sandler blog:

It is critical that you identify, name and define the uniqueness of your solution. The pains that you solve using a solution that your competitors can also use is called a strength, and usually prospects determine the difference between strengths by getting to the lowest price. A strength that your competitors cannot duplicate, or don’t know about, or are not as good at it as you are, is called a Dominant Competitive Advantage. By selling from your Dominant Competitive Advantages, they will not compare pricing. Identify your Dominant Competitive Advantages, get rid of the head trash and improve your technique, and you will be incredibly powerful–and you’ll never bail out!

You guys all do incredible work (I've seen the pictures). Many of you need to grow your businesses to the point of needing helpers to handle all the business.

This is the best way I've ever learned to get that business.

BTW, how many of you have joined Chambers of Commerce, BNI or LeTip groups in your local markets?

Best regards,
Jim
 
I've watched thousands of videos on how to sale, how close the deal, and so on. Everything from youtube videos, college courses, and seminars. This write up is pretty much a A+ overview on how to sell and close. Great verbal judo, too!
 
I think this is an awesome write up except for one caveat.

The first tip: Using edited photos. If you truly believe in your work, you should be able to go away from the hacks that use edited photos.

I think it is deceiving and lowers the standard of the industry as a whole to use edited photos.


For example, take a look at ANY of Mike Phillips' photos. In not A SINGLE ONE, is there an edited photo. That is because it truly lowers the standard of the industry if you must rely on edited photos to make your work look good.


At the end of the day, if the car does not look like that in real life, it should not look like that in the photos you advertise.
 
MaximumAuto said:
Hi, my name's Jesse Aquino. I've been reading on this forum for a long time now
Click to expand...


Hi Jesse,

Welcome to the forum, we love seeing lurkers transition to active members. Interesting first post, looking forward to your future posts...



jgg85234 said:
I've been a Fortune 100 Executive and Consultant for my entire career. As such, I've spent or recommended hundreds of millions of dollars worth of purchases in businesses I've been involved with.

Best regards,
Jim
Click to expand...


Wow Jim!

I love reading posts like this that share the background of our members. Very interesting and congratulations on what sounds like a successful career built on years of hard work and dedication.

So is detailing cars your hobby and escape from the corporate world?



ihaveacamaro said:
I think this is an awesome write up except for one caveat.

The first tip: Using edited photos. If you truly believe in your work, you should be able to go away from the hacks that use edited photos.

I think it is deceiving and lowers the standard of the industry as a whole to use edited photos.
Click to expand...

I agree.


ihaveacamaro said:
For example, take a look at ANY of Mike Phillips' photos. In not A SINGLE ONE, is there an edited photo. That is because it truly lowers the standard of the industry if you must rely on edited photos to make your work look good.
Click to expand...

Keen observation. Except for cropping out the fluff, (that means removing the portion that surrounds the actual focus of the shot using the cropping tool), and resizing gargantuan photos to 800 pixels wide so they will fit on the vast majority of computer screens in the world, I don't edit my photos.

To date, my favorite photo set is actually of my own truck that we buffed out last week and that's because I tried really hard to capture the before and after by putting in "controls" that are as simple as taking the before pictures with the truck parked in a specific location, at a specific time for the sunlight at that time. Then when I took the after pictures I parked the truck back in the same position and took the pictures at the same time for the sunlight at that time. The truck truly looked like it did in the before pictures and now it truly looks like the after pictures.

1987 Chevy 4x4 Monster Truck "Before & After" Pictures


Takes a little extra work and time but I when I can I think I'll use the same process for some future projects. The biggest problem is too often you don't have the car the next day to frame up the after shots.


:)
 
Very useful and just what I was thinking and researching about. I recently found an old book at my Dad's house called "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie, what a coincidence. I am about half way thru and then start on Renny Doyle's book I just got a couple days ago. Will look into the Sandler Institute also. Thanks, this forum and the men and women here are just priceless.
 
Welcome!

Thank you,
I love all useful information.

The other day I was at home. I went on FB and decided to post a "Free Exterior Detail" just cos I was bored. And a few minutes later I got a call and did a quick wash and even applied some wax for my female friend.

After i was thinking to myself. Wow it worked!!!
 
Wow Jim!

So is detailing cars your hobby and escape from the corporate world?

Yes, a hobby. I don't know about an escape.

My wife's accident with her 1989 Pathfinder and her strong desire to keep it rather than replace it got me to looking around at the state of the art in car maintenance.

Now that my detailing skills are back to current, one of these days I have to get the 1989 Pontiac TTA Pace Car out from under the covers and get it ready for show. It's one of only 15 that came without T-Tops and has a cloth interior. And, other than driving it a little to make sure it didn't have any major problems, it's been under wraps since it was new.

I always look for ways I can help people. I had been intending to start a discussion in the How to Make Money detailing cars section, and just never got around to it.

Jesse's excellent post got my brain cranking about how I could help people in this forum.

Among the members, there are many hobbyists. But, there's also serious business people trying to figure out how to grow their businesses.

If you're young, and are self-employed, you feel on top of the world. In order to really make some money in the world of small business, you have to grow. You can only do so much work yourself.

Successful sales techniques apply to every industry, and even apply to your personal life. Every time you meet someone new, you're making an impression, good or bad.

The Sandler Sales Institute gave me the understanding of what made some people more successful than others.

This world of Detailing is an up and coming business. We (at least I) couldn't do what we can do now even 10 years ago. All those bright shiny muscle cars I see at auctions certainly look a lot better than they did when they were new. Watching cars going down the road, I see some that are excellently detailed, many that have had a little work, and many that are having serious clear coat failures (I do live in the desert after all). I see new cars that are swirled beyone belief. Everyone wants to drive a nice shiny car. There's some serious opportunity out there.

Why? Better tools, better chemicals, better techniques, and a desire to make vehicles of every kind look beautiful.

But, how many people who are doing this on their own are thinking about the future? Do you still want to be putting forth the same level of physical effort 10 or 20 years from now? You'll be worn out!

I can certainly share many of the concepts one at a time on this forum. But, if people want to change their lives, the Sandler Sales Institute training will change your life in a very short period of time. It'a a very intense training. Not cheap, but not really expensive for someone who wants to grow a successful business.

My Geeks On Call franchises are gone, and I'm back to working by myself, with occasional assistance (paid) from many other people.

My phone still rings off the hook all day and night, and I have to turn away business frequently because I just can't handle all of it. That's called a referral network.

So, my next question is

When you've made a customer ecstatic over their vehicle, how many of you remember to ask for referrals? Every person you help has their own network. Don't give them a business card, give them several and ask for referrals.

Jim
 
Welcome to AGO.

I agree with using unedited pictures. This hobby/profession relies on showing the true work of the individual. Editing your work to make it look even better or hide defects is setting yourself up for failure. You have to strive to make your work perfect and rely on just taking the pictures showing just that. Not trying to bash at all just giving my 2 cents.
 
jgg85234 said:
Wow Jim!

So is detailing cars your hobby and escape from the corporate world?

Yes, a hobby. I don't know about an escape.

My wife's accident with her 1989 Pathfinder and her strong desire to keep it rather than replace it got me to looking around at the state of the art in car maintenance.

Now that my detailing skills are back to current, one of these days I have to get the 1989 Pontiac TTA Pace Car out from under the covers and get it ready for show. It's one of only 15 that came without T-Tops and has a cloth interior. And, other than driving it a little to make sure it didn't have any major problems, it's been under wraps since it was new.

I always look for ways I can help people. I had been intending to start a discussion in the How to Make Money detailing cars section, and just never got around to it.

Jesse's excellent post got my brain cranking about how I could help people in this forum.

Among the members, there are many hobbyists. But, there's also serious business people trying to figure out how to grow their businesses.

If you're young, and are self-employed, you feel on top of the world. In order to really make some money in the world of small business, you have to grow. You can only do so much work yourself.

Successful sales techniques apply to every industry, and even apply to your personal life. Every time you meet someone new, you're making an impression, good or bad.

The Sandler Sales Institute gave me the understanding of what made some people more successful than others.

This world of Detailing is an up and coming business. We (at least I) couldn't do what we can do now even 10 years ago. All those bright shiny muscle cars I see at auctions certainly look a lot better than they did when they were new. Watching cars going down the road, I see some that are excellently detailed, many that have had a little work, and many that are having serious clear coat failures (I do live in the desert after all). I see new cars that are swirled beyone belief. Everyone wants to drive a nice shiny car. There's some serious opportunity out there.

Why? Better tools, better chemicals, better techniques, and a desire to make vehicles of every kind look beautiful.

But, how many people who are doing this on their own are thinking about the future? Do you still want to be putting forth the same level of physical effort 10 or 20 years from now? You'll be worn out!

I can certainly share many of the concepts one at a time on this forum. But, if people want to change their lives, the Sandler Sales Institute training will change your life in a very short period of time. It'a a very intense training. Not cheap, but not really expensive for someone who wants to grow a successful business.

My Geeks On Call franchises are gone, and I'm back to working by myself, with occasional assistance (paid) from many other people.

My phone still rings off the hook all day and night, and I have to turn away business frequently because I just can't handle all of it. That's called a referral network.

So, my next question is

When you've made a customer ecstatic over their vehicle, how many of you remember to ask for referrals? Every person you help has their own network. Don't give them a business card, give them several and ask for referrals.

Jim
Click to expand...

I should have done this. Asked my customer to give referrals for my free work. It's ok, now i know.
 
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