The Eternal Art Of Auto Sales
Published: October 6th, 2009
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Given the announced dealer culling and GM's BK position, I wonder how many Chevy dealers today believe they'll be around to sell Chevys, and believe GM will be around for 10 more sales to the same owner. That level of faith has to impact sales philosophies at a basic level: move the metal now vs. make a customer for life. Customers have adjusted their BS meters' sensitivities fairly high these days. Just imagine the response a potential buyer would give the Chevy manager now to the statement that he wants you to be a customer 10 cars down the road. What would you say to him?
Door-to-door car sales -- what a concept! Maybe GM can resurrect it. Twotone
If you read The Machine That Changed the World (absolute required car guy reading), you'll learn that Japanese sales channels still rely on door-to-door relationship building over generations. Families feel embarassed to buy from outside their sales channel (brand) without very good reason.
Well, it's not exactly door-to-door, but... Not long after I'd learned to write in cursive (3rd grade iirc, that would make it 1949), I decided to try to add to my collection of car sales literature by writing postcards to a couple of local dealers and asking for a brochure. One intrepid salesman from a dealership about ten miles away showed up a few days later with a new GMC pickup to show to this hot buyer. He talked to my father, and must have gone away shaking his head in wonderment, but if he was that interested in moving the product, he was probably doing okay.