In the beginning, there were only customers, and all were good. 

    You expected to sell about one out of four customers, and sometimes you even sold one out of three.

    You did a great greeting and then ran through the steps as far as you could.  If they didn’t go ahead, you just had a manager talk to them, shook it off and went to get another one.

    You did this a lot, people bought cars,  and they called your success beginners luck.

    After a while you began to think about the people who left without buying.  Sometimes they said things that could be to be a problem later on.  You began to think that if you had just stopped moving through the steps you would not have wasted all that time on the wrong car or with the wrong customer.  There are signs, you told yourself, and I should be looking out for them.  The other great guys you worked with gave you some pointers.

    Your manager probably tried to help.   After a TO he would have told you why that customer was not a good one.  If it had been good, you see, he would have been able to close it.

    You developed a deal detector that told you whether of not to keep going with the steps.

    In fact, you started looking for the good, the right and ready customers.  And you rose from being new with all that promise, to mediocre, just like everybody else in the showroom.

     You don’t know why.  Your manager doesn’t either.  He runs another ad, looking for another promising new candidate.

    You try to figure out how to get better at sales, how to get a better deal detector, how to deliver more and more cars. 

    The pressure is on and you don’t know how to relieve it.

    Let me release that pressure valve for you.

    There are only customers, and all are good.

    No one has the faintest idea whether the average customer is going to buy the car or not until they have been through your process that resulted the selection of a car, a desire to buy here and now, and confidence in the price.  After that, you'll know if they are buying or not.

     Here’s a good formula: 10 percent are totally easy.  10 percent are totally difficult.  80 percent can go either way on the spectrum and going through the steps stacks the deck in your favor.

    Go through the process with them, do it well and thoroughly.  Go as far as you can.  When the customer won’t move ahead, get a turnover, shake it off and go get another customer.

    After a deal you can debrief by asking yourself these questions

    “Did I go through the steps the way I was taught originally?”

    “Did I get a TO?”

    “Is there an objection or question for which I didn’t have a good response?”

    “What should I do to get better at that?”

    “Where’s the next one?”

     You will actually never have enough information about the customer to be sure that they told you the truth about why they left or didn’t buy.

    The only solid information you have will be about your own performance.

    Go back to the beginning and all will be good again.