Original post is from Used Car University's Blog and is written by Harlene Doane. 

Dealerships sometimes take the time to look at their sales demographics (e.g. zip codes, age, gender, ethnicity) and adjust their marketing for prospects based on those demographics. No surprise it’s called target marketing.

But does you salesperson do the same with their prospecting?

The dealership demographics and the salesperson demographics may not be the same.

Let’s say the dealership reviewed their sales for the last six months and found some demographics like this:

15% of their customers are Latino
50% are 40-65 yrs old.
60% live with 15 miles of the dealership
30% have multiple children
30% have served in the Armed Forces

Clearly, many customers overlap in demographics so this is a simplistic view for my examples sake.

Now depending on the dealership goals they may decide to try to acquire more customers in their highest demographic groups – 40-65 yr olds, living within 15 miles of the dealership and adjust their marketing accordingly. Of if they wanted to expand by targeting a group they don’t serve well, may reach out to the Latinos with multiple children in their marketing. But neither of these may be where the individual salespeople should be prospecting. Yes, every salesperson worth their salt should be doing their own prospecting and not just waiting on the dealership to deliver leads.

Now let’s look at some of the salespeople employed at the dealership and their individual sales.

Justin reviews his sold customer demographics and finds that 75% of his sold customers are Latino, so although the dealership may not be spending much of their marketing dollars on the Latino demographic, Justin should certainly be spending his time prospecting in that market because he closes more of them.

Tom is retired military and not too surprisingly 50% of his sold customers have also served in the Armed Forces.
Blake has a disproportional number of sales to women as compared to the other salespeople.
Mary, who lives 30 miles from the dealership, has customers who are older and often live outside the 15 mile radius of the dealership.

If each of these individuals where trying to prospect for maximum results, shouldn’t they do their prospecting where they have the most influence as proven by their sales?

Just because the dealership serves a specific demographic doesn’t mean the individual salesperson serves the same demographic.

For maximum results every salesperson should be prospecting where then have the most influence as proven by their sales!

NOW THE QUESTION TO STRAIN YOUR BRAIN TODAY IS, WHAT IF UPS WERE ASSIGNED TO THE INDIVIDUAL WITH THE MOST INFLUENCE TO THEIR DEMOGRAPHIC INSTEAD OF THE NEXT AVAILABLE SALESPERSON?

Harlene Doane
Chief Operations Officer

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