If you have ever bought a car, chances are you had a few experiences with a used car salesman. While many people shudder at the idea of having to walk onto a car lot and get hounded by the salesman, the fact is this is a profession that takes a great deal of insight. While you might not want to try your hand at selling cars, there are actually several valuable lessons that you can learn from the men and women in this profession. The following are just three important lessons that can be learned from any used car salesman.
Lesson #1: Listen First
A good car salesman understands the importance of listening to the customer before making any recommendations. In order to help the customer find the right car, the salesman must first find out what their needs are. Is this a young couple looking for a bigger car to start a family? Does this customer need a reliable vehicle for work? Does this customer want a luxury vehicle? This same principle is helpful in the business world. Instead of convincing a customer that your product or service will meet their needs, start listening to what the customer is actually looking for and then determine how you can help them.
Lesson #2: Know Your Products
In order to be successful at any job it is imperative that you are familiar with your products or services. For a car salesman, it is no easy task to keep up with the constantly changing inventory on the lot, not to mention knowing all of the features of various makes and models. That said, these salesmen must stay up to date with new line models and the cars that are being brought in each day. For anyone who sells anything, having a strong knowledge of the details of an ever-changing product line is a must.
Lesson #3: Let the Customer Fall in Love
Assuming that you have accomplished the first two tasks, you listened to your customer’s needs and paired them up with available products, you should be able to make a recommendation that will be so spot on you can almost guarantee the sale. Good car salesmen know that selling a car doesn’t take much convincing. They let the products speak for themselves. The same is true in the business world. If you do a good job of setting a customer up with just the right product or service, you can almost sit back and allow the customer to fall in love.
While selling used cars might not seem like the most glamorous job, it is certainly a profession that requires skills that just about any business professional can learn from. These are just a few of the important lessons that can be learned from a car salesman, but will be helpful in nearly every facet of the business world as well.