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In this episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast, we challenge the lack of creativity of a major auto manufacturer who created the infamous December sales event.
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I air a car buying marriage dispute between me and Mrs. Neal.
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Don t worry, she doesn t listen.
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And we bring you episode two in the ASP December to Remember series and tell you exactly what to do this week, December 13th.
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Welcome back to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast, podcast history, Bill Kasky here.
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Brian Neal here.
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We are so grateful to have you along.
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This is part two of our three part December.
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The December.
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To remember, I said that actually on the tagline.
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And that s what caused us to think about car sales.
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You ever wonder why, where the creative energy goes when these car guys and ladies are sitting around planning their December sales event, and somebody has the bright idea, hey, why don t we call it the December sales event?
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It s working.
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I hate that it s working.
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Because here we are talking about it, right?
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And if you say, let s make it a December to remember,
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Most people know it s a tagline, and then some people can figure out that it s actually Hyundai.
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It s not Hyundai.
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No, it s Lexus.
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It s Lexus.
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But at least that s something that rhymes and has a little December sales event.
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Or December sales event, yeah.
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Or July sales.
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I mean, economics, surely you can do better than that.
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It is interesting.
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I always make assumptions that there are smarter people than I am that know what they re doing in those situations.
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It s interns are making those decisions, I m sure.
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Interns.
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They re smart, too, though.
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So I had a car buying experience.
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Speaking of cars.
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See what you think of this, yeah.
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My wife is wanting to trade her 10-year-old BMW little 3 Series, and it s got 100,000 miles.
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And it s one of those things that you start to have things go wrong, and every year you start to add them up, and it s like 3,000 or 4,000 hours a year of stuff that goes wrong.
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But it never comes in on a monthly basis.
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It comes here and there over the course of the year.
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And then you have to decide, well, how much money do I want to spend on a car that s probably not worth more than $6,000, $7,000?
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Yeah, right.
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She likes it still, but it s served its use.
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It s 10 years old.
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So we started looking at, we looked at a Volvo SUV.
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Very safe.
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And very safe and good cars.
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And so we went over to the guy and we test drove it.
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He might be listening, who knows.
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New or used?
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Use the late model.
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Yeah, 2020.
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Yeah, and so we went test drove test drove liked it Yeah went back looked at it again test drove that the salesperson was like on it man.
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He was so good He was just he was just cool chill, but still followed up everything like that good
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So he said, look, I ve got your car here, your trade-in, so let me work some numbers up, and let me get back with you.
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And this was on a Saturday of last week.
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Thinking, Monday, he ll get something going.
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Nothing Monday.
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I called him Monday afternoon, said, hey, where are we?
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Because I don t want to keep putting money if, you know, who knows what s going to happen next week.
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Nothing.
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My wife emails him Tuesday morning.
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Nothing.
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Wednesday, I call his self.
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Now I m starting to think maybe he, yeah, maybe I m wrong or left.
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He didn t seem like kind of, called, nothing.
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emailed him again Thursday, nothing.
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Four days.
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And he knew that we were ready to buy.
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And we had their car picked out.
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I mean, it was like, you don t need to be very.
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No, not good.
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Yeah.
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And so what do you do?
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Is it still where it is?
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He still hasn t got back to you yet?
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Well, what do you do on Thursday?
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On Thursday, he d call the sales manager.
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That s exactly what I did.
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Yeah, call the sales manager.
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And I hate to throw a guy under the bus, but you just have to.
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That s what I told him.
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Yeah, I hate to do that, but I m not going over his head to do that.
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I m just like, I want to buy the car.
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I spent like 30 minutes talking about our podcast.
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Exactly.
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I said, look.
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You start by saying, I m a sales coach.
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That s what I did.
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Big time.
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That s exactly, yeah.
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I didn t say big time.
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In fact, would you refer to me as big time?
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Hey, big time.
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Would you call me old clunky Stidor, please?
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Yeah.
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So he was very, very kind.
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He said, look, I m sorry.
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I have no idea.
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That s not like him.
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Yeah, right.
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It wasn t.
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Through the process, it wasn t like him.
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That s what s weird.
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Yeah.
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And so he goes, look, let me set you up with somebody else.
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And he was very kind.
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I appreciate your calling.
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And we ll do whatever it takes.
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And I was like that.
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And?
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And so we put a down payment on a car here Saturday.
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So there you go with another salesperson.
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That s great.
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And then, well, I don t want to get into it because he may be listening.
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So anyway, the thought that the thinking there is that let s all make sure that we don t do that to people because I m sure
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there s something in the back of that person s mind or anybody s mind who feels like, well, you know, I followed up with them and sometimes they don t get our emails too.
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And so we have to make sure we as sales professionals make sure that we re following up in a
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in a very timely manner, because people aren t going to wait today.
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With the supply chains, with products that aren t in high supply, and there are a lot of demand, people will move on if you don t give them the offer and say, look, here s what it s going to take.
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And I think we can jump to the offer a little bit quicker than we used to, because people aren t in that think it over mode as much.
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Yes.
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And all of us have done this.
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All of us have.
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Absolutely.
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For whatever reason.
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either forgotten to or have some resistance in our mind that keeps us from that next phase follow up when it s in the end of the process for whatever reason.
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Whether it s a fear of success, that s a real deep psychological thing, or just sloppiness in process or whatever.
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We forgot to get back to someone.
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The other thing I think salespeople are notorious in this case, I m not sure this is what happened with this fellow.
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because he owed you something.
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But we tend to do that outbound reach, and then I don t hear from you, and I just let it sit.
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Especially if I would have reached out to you, because he may have said, well, yeah, I emailed Billy, and I never heard back.
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Maybe it went to your spam.
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I m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.
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It could be.
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He sent the numbers, and it went to your spam.
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And four days went by.
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He s got to act soon as right, right?
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He s got to say, that s weird.
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I didn t hear from Bill.
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In a nice way.
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In a nice way, yes.
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Yep.
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Have to do that.
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So check yourself on that.
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Check yourself and say, where do I have a tendency to do that, to let things sit?
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Or I say, checkbox.
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I emailed it over.
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Never heard back.
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You know, that could have happened.
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And I think your response there to the mentality, like if I say to somebody, and we talked about human nature last episode, and we talked about my anger issues with easels.
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But if I say to somebody, I m going to get back with you Monday at noon,
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And it s Wednesday, and I m like, oh, god, I totally spaced it.
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I may put it off because I don t want to face the person saying, well, you must not want to work with me that much.
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So I may, yeah.
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And I think that happens a lot, too.
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And we never would admit that, but I m admitting.
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We have to.
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I don t do that so much anymore.
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But in my younger years, I would kind of personally feel like, oh, god, now I screwed up.
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Now I want to avoid the issue.
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Sales shame.
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Sales shame.
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Sales shame.
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It s a thing, isn t it?
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It is.
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That s a good story.
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Well, I m glad it worked out.
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You got your car.
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Yeah, we re picking it up here in the next couple days.
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I m glad.
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That s really, really great.
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This is so great to get a new car.
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Isn t it great?
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It is.
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I just love getting new cars.
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It is.
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I haven t had one for six years, but that s another story.
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You deserve it.
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You deserve it.
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Does my wife listen to this?
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She s going to be upset that I said that.
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Why?
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It s an issue at her house.
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Well, because you run the car through the business and cash flow in the business.
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trying to grow and expand, do we really need a car payment?
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I m like, okay, it s really.
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But your car s probably paid for, right?
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Oh yeah, for real.
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It s got 170,000 miles on it.
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Oh, does it really?
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We can also take, but you can do, you know, if you take a section 179 expense reduction, depreciation expense the first year, and you save all that tax money.
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Right.
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So it s actually a tax thing I m looking for, but that s not how it s going at our house.
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Anyway.
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170,000?
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Miles on my car?
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Yeah.
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I drive, yeah.
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Oh, I know you drive.
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No, it s a lot.
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You ve had a good success with that car.
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Oh, yeah.
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Pretty good.
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Pretty good.
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Yep.
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And I m the greatest take care of things guy.
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Caretaker.
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Caretaker of things.
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All right.
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So let s get to the matter at hand today.
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13th.
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By the way, it was my birthday on the 11th.
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Oh, happy birthday.
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Two days ago.
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That s right.
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52.
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52.
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It s funny.
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You get to these 40, 50.
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52 is like, eh.
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Okay.
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Yeah, well, nothing special happens, you know what I mean?
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I know.
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But when you re 30, oh!
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Totally, totally.
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But no, good birthday.
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Went to a concert with my siblings, which was fun.
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Good.
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All right, so the 13th, we re talking again, second part series, second episode, a two part, a three part, oh my God.
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Keep that in there, Travis, would you?
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Second episode in a three-part series, it doesn t, I deserve it, is what do we do the week of the 13th?
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We re trying to get you really dialed in on your behavior.
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So I ve got a couple of things written down here to do this week, the 13th, that will really start to wrap things
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uptight and then get things going for January.
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You ve got a couple.
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Yeah, I ve got two.
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Yeah.
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I ve got two.
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They re kind of the same.
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We might have the same ones.
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Yeah.
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I think we do.
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So in honor of the December to remember event, I ve got plan your jam.
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Plan your January.
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You need to call Lexus.
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And this is a time where
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It s, I think, you know, we always, we typically plan the next month in the last week or two.
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But I think this month is different.
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I think you need to start planning your January this week.
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And even down to, who are you going to call?
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Spend a few hours on it.
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I think you mentioned a couple hours, three or four hours.
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I mentioned to the insiders last week that there is this model of planning that is you spend one hour planning your day, which sounds exorbitant, but this is a CEO kind of high performance.
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They spend an hour planning their day, four hours planning their month.
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and eight hours planning their quarter.
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So if you re planning your quarter, you take a whole day and you scope it out, plan it out.
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I like that.
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The question then becomes, OK, well, where am I going to find those four hours to plan my January?
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If four hours for the month is the right amount of time, you ve got to find it.
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I would do it this week.
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I think as things start to slow down a little bit, maybe it s the end of the week.
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Maybe it s next week, but I think this is a good week to plan your January.
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And I would also plan not just your behavior and actions, but what kind of content are you going to put out to your audience, whether it s a LinkedIn article or a series of videos, or
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Whatever it is, I would plan that out, too.
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That way, you re not faced here on January 1st, oh, I ve got to write an article or I have to do something.
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Get it done now.
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Just scope it out.
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You can even just outline it.
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Get it ready for prime time for January.
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Beautiful.
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And I would, so I did have that also.
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And I did put hours to it.
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And whatever, I put two hours.
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Bill said four.
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But don t just go for 20 minutes.
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No.
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Right?
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Don t just dabble.
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Literally go away.
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I always talk about this being coffee shop activity.
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Get out of your normal, I say office now.
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People aren t in offices.
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But out of your home, get out of your normal work style, workplace, get your stuff turned off, and plan.
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And think about what January is going to look like for you.
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I think it s really, really important.
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A secondary add-on to that.
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is I want you to, this week, the week of December 13, think about putting a goal for yourself on how many appointments you can get confirmed for the first two weeks of January.
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And just have a little game with yourself.
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And you might say, you know what?
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I m going to do some outbound behavior this week, the week of the 13th, asking people to meet with me the first two weeks of January.
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So January 3rd, that first week, and then January 10th, the second week.
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And just make a little goal for yourself.
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Say, you know what?
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I would love it if by the end of this week, by the end of the week of the 13th, which is the 17th,
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I have confirmed five appointments.
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It could be end user appointments, existing customers, maybe connectors.
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But just put a goal down.
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What I don t want you to do is just kind of haphazardly send a bunch out.
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And just see how it goes.
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And my experience has been with our own clients is that if you put a number down and start going after someone, something like that,
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Odds go up that you actually get it, or you get more of it.
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Then you will come back to a full calendar, which most people will love to do.
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They ll hate it Sunday night.
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I always say that.
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You ll hate it Sunday night the second.
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You re like, oh, I got all those appointments set.
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But man, it s great.
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It s really great.
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Last week in our episode, we talked about going back to the people who maybe you forgot about this year.
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This is a good list that you can draw from.
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I mean, you ve got people that you re in process with now, of course, but in the strategic alliances and referral partners and things like that.
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But this could be, you could find 30 people, and you might get your 5 to 10 from those 30.
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Yeah, and I love the idea to combine those.
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Whatever you call that, a go-back list.
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Let s name it something.
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So your go-back list, I think that s almost better for this January stuff, because it s a little awkward to, I haven t talked to you since February and say, hey, you want to get together tomorrow?
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Yeah.
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I think it s almost better if you say, hey, I went back through some old opportunities, some old contacts.
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I m trying to get my calendar booked up for January to start fresh and want to see if you had any time
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you know, these three hours on these days or whatever.
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I think that s a great thing to do.
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I think that sounds a lot better.
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Yep.
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And remember to keep track and set a goal for yourself.
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Just have a little game with yourself.
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Say, you know what?
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I m going to try to get five booked.
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And they ve got to be confirmed.
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Make sure that they re confirmed.
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Yeah.
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My last thing here is we talked about this for the week of the 6, but now it s really important.
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any contracts that are going to get signed.
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So if someone is giving you a verbal yes, you have got to babysit the process this week.
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Because people start to disappear.
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People start leaving.
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Right?
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And so people are like, hey, we re good to go.
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We re all set.
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I just got to get my CFO to get signature on this.
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We ll be all set.
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And you think you ve got a deal, and you don t.
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And what they don t know is that CFO is taking off for the holiday break on Wednesday.
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And you ve got to make sure you babysit the process.
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So ask those questions.
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Are they in town?
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When are you meeting with them next?
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When are you scheduled to get with them to get signature ink on paper, get the docusign done?
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Make sure you re really, really tight on that language and that process stuff.
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It s really important.
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That s so true.
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Because it will just disappear, won t it?
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They do.
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In fact, I would even say they re starting to disappear now.
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They are.
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This week.
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So I think you ve got through this week, and then people will be checking out.
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So this is a great week to do those things.
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So get those things done.
1
SPEAKER_00
Get it on your calendar.
1
SPEAKER_00
We wanted to get this to you first thing on Monday, the 13th.
1
SPEAKER_00
And again, if you re listening to this post facto, that s OK.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you can.
1
SPEAKER_01
We ll do the same thing for President s Day weekend.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we ll do it.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s a really big exodus for a lot of buyers really, you know, hit the slopes on President s Day.
1
SPEAKER_00
They do, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
Actually, they do.
1
SPEAKER_00
They actually do.
1
SPEAKER_00
So anyway, if you have not joined us on our LinkedIn in our LinkedIn community, make sure you go to advancedsellingpodcast.com slash LinkedIn.
1
SPEAKER_00
That ll take you right there.
1
SPEAKER_00
And we have 12 to 13,000 at last count people there.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so we re going to be communicating with you all there as well.
1
SPEAKER_00
So join us.
1
SPEAKER_01
Last episode of the year for the event selling podcast next week that will be coming to you on the 20th will be our last.
1
SPEAKER_01
What do I do this week?
1
SPEAKER_01
Plus, we re going to do a live unboxing video of a really kind gift that a listener gives.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, we haven t opened yet, so.
1
SPEAKER_01
We don t know.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re hoping it s not anthrax or explodes.
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SPEAKER_01
So if this is the last time we talk to you, we ve really enjoyed it.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s been fun.
1
SPEAKER_01
If this package explodes or we die of anthrax, then at least we know what happened.
1
SPEAKER_01
All right.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s it.
1
SPEAKER_01
See you next week.
1
SPEAKER_01
Bye.