(Excerpt from How to Sell Anything to Anybody by Joe Girard)
But they need what you have to sell. That’s really why they’re there. So they stay. But they’re still scared, because they’ve been told what kind of people we are. Let’s face it: Salesmen don’t have the best reputations in the world, because everybody tells everybody else that they are trying to take too much of your money from you. Everybody knows somebody who can get it for you cheaper or wholesale. That’s one of the biggest problems in the car business, and everywhere else too. They all think they know that they are not going to get what they want at the price they ought to be paying. And that scares them.
But there they are, coming through the door, feeling this way. Full of distrust and fear, ready to say or do anything to protect themselves from what they think you are going to try to do to them. You may even run into people who will give you a $10 or even a $20 deposit just to get out of there—and never even come back for their money. So that ought to tell you something about how they feel about the situation they have walked into.
This means that what we do every day of our working lives is a kind of war. I mean that. It is a kind of war, because prospects often come in as enemies. They think we are trying to put something over on them, and we think they are there to waste our time. But if you leave it at that, you’re in trouble. Because they will keep on feeling hostile, and so will you. There will be lies and cons on both sides. Maybe they will buy, and maybe they won’t. But either way, if the hostile feelings on both sides remain in force, nobody will feel good about what happens.
I am not saying that this is a good attitude, but I am saying that it is generally a fact. But it is a fact that you can deal with and turn to everybody’s advantage. Because if you understand what is going through that customer’s head, you can win that war and turn it into a valuable experience for both you and your customer. You can do that by overcoming your customer’s initial fear and scoring a victory, that is, making a sale.