PITTSBURGH -

As a car dealer, you’ve been thoroughly trained on all steps of a sale from greeting through negotiation and final sale. 

And, you apply these steps well.  But it’s a good bet that even armed with all of your knowledge and experience, there have been more than a few times when you found yourself wondering, “What happened?  I thought everything was going well, and yet the prospect walked out the door.”  

Here, you will learn unusual but highly effective tips to help you focus on signals that you might otherwise miss — signals that could be the difference between clinching a deal and having the potential buyer walk out the door.  

Women-Drivers.com reveals that the average woman goes to 1.9 dealerships prior to purchasing.  That means that while five out of 10 women who walk in are going to buy a car from you, five are going to leave — and 89 percent of those who do leave will not return to your dealership.  

As a sales adviser, F&I adviser, GSM, GM or dealer owner, knowing how the unconscious can undermine effective communication enables you to better read a buyer and increase sales potential.

Here, we concentrate on your interactions with women buyers in particular.  But, the same principles of observation, awareness and being “in the moment” apply in every sales situation with all customers.

Your Brain on Auto Pilot

Have you ever said something or acted on something and then asked yourself, “What was I thinking?”  Let’s face it, all of us have found ourselves acting first and thinking second at various times.  When this lapse of “conscious consideration” happens during the car buying process, it means that you could be missing something vital.  

Let’s take a closer look. The brain has three essential components:

  • The Neocortex, smart and conscience, produces language, reason, and analysis.
  • The Limbic part stores memories and reactions and records and produces emotion.
  • The Reptilian part is unconscious, designed to create fight or flight when survival is at stake, and can be quite irrational, allowing one to jump to unwarranted conclusions.

Barbara Schwarck,  of Clear Intentions International — a company that provides break-through executive Neuro-Emotional Coaching — works with sales professionals in  the U.S., Israel and Germany.

“The common challenges that sales people have are fear of rejection, inability to direct and manage themselves, poor time management and lack of confidence – or, in some cases, the sense of deserving to be successful. Even though its 2013 and we have all this technology and are highly sophisticated, our emotions still rule our decisions and experiences. Sales people think the deal closed, and in a nano-second something happens and they derail it,” said Schwarck.

Clear Intentions offers the BreakThrough Now app that assist salespeople in powerfully dealing with blind spots As a result of some simple tests, there are dramatic improvements in productivity, procrastination,  feeling disempowered and against rejection.

Schwarck added: “It’s a PH test to locate weaknesses and what to go to work on.”

When you stop paying real attention to your sales interaction and, instead, operate on auto pilot or assume or just to conclusions, your limbic brain takes over meaning are acting on instinct, history and internalized prejudices rather than being present to happening right now.

For more on the scientific aspects of how the brain functions, and how a buyer can also become “hijacked or hooked,” read Women-Driver’s article on The Neuroscience of Buying a Car.   

With women going to 1.9 dealerships prior to buying, read on to understand three key developments you can employ to maximize your sales opportunity well beyond a 50-percent chance.

1. Get to Know Women Car Buyers Better

Here’s a quick test to help you understand why some women have a difficult time relating to their sales adviser.

1.    When “browsing for a car’’ what percent of women feel the salesperson was directing real, or  valued, communication toward them?

(A)  less than 60%       (B) 75.0%     (C) 79.3%   (D)  82.1%

2.    When “buying a car’’ what percent of women feel the salesperson was directing real or,  valued, communication toward them?

(A) less than 60%   (B) 67.9%       (C) 84.3%     (D) 90.7%

3.    What percent of women ‘browsers’ would recommend their salesperson?

(A)  41.4%      (B) 51.5%     (C) 61.5%   (D) 71.6%

4.    What percent of women ‘buyers’ would recommend their salesperson?

(A)  61.5%      (B) 71.5%     (C) 81.7%   (D) 91.6%

According to Women-Drivers.com, the answers are:: 1. (D);  2. (D);  3. (D);  4. (D)

These few answers show that women experience browsing and buying very differently.  Women give their salespeople much higher scores when buying.  Clearly, there is room for seller improvement.  

Consider to what extend you might be responsible for these perceptions.  Do you interact or pay attention to her the same if you think he is “just looking or browsing?”

Do you pull out all the stops, however, when you think she is buying?

2. What a Woman Really is Communicating When She Says, “I’m Just Looking?”

While the woman may, in fact, be “just looking,” there is also the possibility that she’s not ready to talk; she’s got other things on her mind; she is distracted by having to pick up her kids, or any other myriad of possibilities.  

Maybe what seems as a standoffish response is not disinterest, but fear or nerves.  As a sales adviser, you know not to take certain statements at face value.  

She probably wouldn’t be in the dealership in the first place unless she is on the way to buying a vehicle.  

And, that vehicle is going to be bought from you or someone else.  So, let’s make that person you.

Since trust in the sales person is the single most important criterion on which a woman makes a car-buying decision, you need to work on gaining that trust.  

That “standard” response could also mean she is checking you out to see how well you will listen or attend to her; after all, a woman who develops trust in the sales person most likely will buy there.

Further as the four following sales scenarios show, without trust, a sale will not occur.

3. Avoid the Pitfalls of Over Confidence, Reliance on Intuition and Dependence on Your Experience.  

“I’ve been selling cars for years and am an expert.”  “And, I know women.” 

If either of these statements describes you, then this section is just for you.  You may be over confident, rely on intuition and on your experience just a tad too much.  

The way you behave or that “little cute thing you say” may actually undermine a woman’s trust in you.  In addition to trust, below is a chart from Women-Drivers.com with are the factors that are most important to a woman in the sales transaction.  


(Note:These add up over 100 percent, as women can choose multiple responses)

This graph tells an important story: with the exception of price and knowledge, these criteria are all about whether the woman relates to you or not.  

The sales adviser who is trustworthy, respectful and knowledgeable is the one who gets the sale.

But, if you allow your brain’s intuitive center to lead the way, and don’t tone down those instincts that create boundaries and cause you to misread the situation, the mutuality necessary to reach trust won’t be achieved.

There are three important pitfalls that you can learn to avoid by being in the moment and evaluating what is in front of you:

•    Don’t let confidence get the best of you.
•    Avoid relying on your intuition.
•    Don’t let experience be your only guide.

While confidence is a good and necessary attribute, over-confidence has just the opposite effect.  

Nobel Prize-winning cartographer of the human mind Daniel Kahneman says, “Confidence is a completely unreliable guide to decision making. Yet we tend to trust it implicitly, in ourselves and in others.”  

Remember the limbic system — the brain part that controls emotion and records history? Fully 28.2 percent of women already feel apprehensive and another 21 percent feel confused and intimidated when they are buying a car. It’s possible that your overconfidence will exacerbate her existing discomfort.  

Achieve balance.  Be optimistic that success, as defined by selling a car, is achievable with every prospect.  A positive and optimistic attitude is likely to be relayed to the consumer.  

But, at the same time, don’t let over confidence get the best of you and keep you from seeing what is happening in front of your eyes.  

While instinct and gut feelings have their place, the more modern approach is to minimize reliance on the “myth” of intuition.

Intuition can be useful, but it should not be used as a replacement for observation and reasoning.  You have to learn when to trust your intuition and when to be wary of it.

Here’s a graphic example of how your intuition can trick you.  When a woman smiles during a car sale, what do you think?  If you answered, “I think that she is happy and things are going well,” you are just as likely to be right as wrong! Surprising isn’t it?

But, studies have shown that many people smile insincerely and 90 percent of people smile when they are frustrated.  Also, women often try to placate others and may smile politely but ingenuously before walking out the door.  

If you mistake a smile for satisfaction, when it was actually frustration or even insincerity, you might miss the sign that the buyer is going to walk away and, thus, the opportunity, to get the interaction back on track.  

Your experience is your best asset; don’t let it also be your downfall.  

Be wary of letting your prior success mislead you.  Just like confidence, experience and ego can be important assets.  But, use these assets to be smart, wise and mature and able to self-correct when off base.

Rather than relying on what you know, the next time you engage in a sale, think about what you don’t know.  Try to keep an open mind, learn about the buyer by asking and “getting her” and approach each and every interaction as a learning opportunity.

Let go of your ego, let go of your instincts and be open. Listen and you may hear what you haven’t heard before.  Look and you may have a clearer vision of what the buyer is really wanting from you.  

Think and you may have a revelation that gets you to “yes” in new and more satisfying ways.  Develop a new sales mentality by using the thinking, ather than the intuitive, part of your brain.

Anne Fleming is president & car-buying advocate at Women-Drivers.com.