I’ve always known that we can learn effective sales tips from sales professionals who sell cars. That’s right, a car salesperson. I’m going to share one below. It’s simple, powerful and can be used in virtually any selling environment.

The Importance Of Qualifying
There is one sales skill automotive sales professionals must be quite proficient at. That skill is qualifying prospects. Their selling environment dictates that they qualify a potential buyer very quickly. They may be dealing with multiple prospects simultaneously and typically only have one shot at selling. Once the prospect walks out the door, he is usually lost forever.

They simply must be able to quickly qualify in order to survive. Car sales can be brutal.

The Question
We all know the standard qualifying question areas: budget, product fit, decision maker, time frame, etc. Car sales professionals know these too. However, before they get to these questions they’ll hit the prospect with the following:

“What other cars are you looking at?”

This is a profound question. If the prospect answers back with a superficial half-baked answer, the seller knows the prospect is almost certainly not serious about buying. He has not done his market research.  Clearly, before seriously thinking about buying a car most people know what the competition offers. If someone is serious about buying, he has done his homework before shopping. This is the sign of a serious prospect. Car sales trainers tell me the more expensive the car, the better this question is at predicting the seriousness of a prospect. That makes sense.

No Need To Fear This Question
Some sales professionals in other industries are afraid to use this kind of question for fear of “bringing up the competition” or “making the prospect focus on the competition.” That’s silly. Believe me, prospects know we have competitors. Acknowledging that we have competitors is never a revelation to real prospects. I think this question shows confidence and maturity on the part of the sales professional.

Sales Blog Challenge: Try It
This is not an offensive qualifying question whatsoever. It will get us information we need to know. Try it on some prospects today and be prepared for deer-in-headlight looks from non-prospects and researched answers from authentic prospects.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Related posts:

1. Phone Sales Tips: A very powerful question to use when prospecting on the phone
2. Be Bold about Qualifying Questions
3. The Rules Have Changed For Qualifying Prospects – Ignore Them At Your Own Risk

Tags: assertive, prospects, questions, sales advice, skills

We'd like to hear your feedback on this post - feel free to comment below!