Welcome to The Selling and the Motor Trade Podcast, an association with Symco Training.
This is the weekly podcast where we share best practice tips and ideas on how to sum
more cars, improve your service department and generally put more profit into your dealership
or dealer group.
I'm your host, Simon Bogut, and some of you probably already know me as Skippy.
I would start by saying thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast.
Hi, and welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade.
This is going to be another one of those episodes that sales managers, business managers, transaction
managers, a showroom manager, whatever you're called.
Sometimes dealing with selling finance in a car dealership, this is one that you really
want to not just listen to, but maybe share it with your sales people because I was in
the dealership a week ago and a business manager, a great business manager, said to a sales
person how are they funding the car, directly how you're funding the car.
And the sales person said, I know they're cash and you know what?
The sales person believed that the customer was cash.
And here's my theory, because that sales person, he is from their manager all the time.
How are they funding the car?
My concern is that our sales teams go out directly to customers and say, how do you
fund them the car?
Mr. or Mrs. Kelly.
It's one of the worst things I think you could say because so many customers still in 2026
say cash.
You think, why do they say cash?
I think they say cash because they think they're going to get a better deal.
It's almost been ingrained into us from such an early start in life.
In fact, if you get a plumber, an electrician, someone comes to your house and does some
work.
How much for this job?
That's going to be $1,500.
Mate, how much will you do it for cash?
You know what?
That electrician might say, all right, I'll knock a bit off because they'll put the cash
in their pocket and won't pay tax on it.
Do you think our dealerships, our PLCs, the businesses can take that, 80,000 euros and
just put it in their pocket and walk away?
No, they can't.
But then sometimes I was in Ireland and some of the credit unions would say, ah, get your
loan from us and then you're a cash customer.
You might get a better deal.
Now, my understanding and lots of countries around the world, and of course, this podcast
deals with lots of different countries.
So if you're sitting there thinking, ah, hold on the UK, we can't do it that way.
Listen, people listen to this in Canada and Ireland and Australia.
So we're trying to be all things to all people here, but please be careful.
Make sure you check the legislation in your state, your country where you're working.
But still, the principal, don't just say, how are you funding the car?
I still think lots of people are going to say, cash, they feel like they're going to get
a better deal.
But I know in lots of places, it's illegal to give a customer a better deal.
If they take cash, actually, we dig into it even more.
It's actually a little bit silly because most of them, we make some commission when we sell
finance.
But actually, the customer might get a better deal if they say, well, actually, I want to
finance it and I want all your insurance products to come in as well.
Okay, because the sales manager might look at the whole deal and go, you know what?
I might do a skinnier deal on the metal because all of these value added products.
But again, it's that question.
Don't ask how you're funding the car.
Now, don't take it the real way.
I can hear some of you guys yelling at the radio there, you're going for a run in the
treadmill thing.
Oh, no, no.
We've got to ask that question.
I'd like to know how the customer's funding the car.
Of course I would.
Let's just change the wording.
Why don't we just look at the customer with a customer and say, hey, Mr. and Mrs.
Customer, how many payments do you have left?
Or I went to your next payment, or if you're selling PCP in your market, what you guaranteed
minimum future value or when is your guaranteed minimum future value to or whatever it's called
in your franchise, okay, your minimum future value.
When is that true?
You see, each one of those simple phrases assumes customers have borrowed money for their car.
And if they've borrowed money for their current car, guess what?
They're probably going to borrow money for their next car, okay?
So they're just some of the question I like and ask.
How many payments have I've left?
Hey, when do you have an experiment, or when do you guarantee minimum future value to
it?
Now, if they say, oh, no, I'm going to outright, again, I might even still go down there,
something for it.
Oh, great.
Well, where are your payments when you bought the car?
Okay.
Now, let's explore that.
If you're selling some sort of PCP, okay, a personal contract purchase or personal contract
plan, your customer might know what it is because they've seen it on your manufacturer's
website and it's all advertised there, okay?
But if you get someone who doesn't, you might go down a simple route of, oh, is that something?
Most our customers have.
We give them a minimum price, what the car's going to be worth for neither three or four
years time.
Hey, Mr.
Customer, would you like to me to get your minimum price or your car's going to be worth
in three or four years time?
Well, you have to take note of that.
Great.
What we'll do is we'll find out the exact model of Tiguan you're interested in.
Then my boss, a lady good player, has got a computer in there that will work out the
minimum price of that car in either three or four years time.
She then certainly deducts one.
From the other, works out the figures and smaller fit in between.
Most people just find part of the car they gave use to nowadays, not the whole car, okay?
Now we're getting into the customer's psyche that, hold on, that's what everyone else does.
Everyone else is doing it.
Maybe I should look for that.
And again, if you've been through any of some coast training, you know we're a huge advocate
of the four square deal presenter.
This is a menu selling where we offer every product to every customer every time.
Go down the assembly route because you'll be amazed how many times customers say, oh,
what APR is on that payment?
Well, someone that was pretending to be cash beforehand.
That's the first thing we do.
So business maturity, sales maturity, don't say directly to your sales person how they
funded the car.
Use the same wording you'd want them to use with customer money, okay?
Just tell them and say, how many payments have they got there?
A Wednesday next payment's good, okay?
A Wednesday guaranteed minimum, or how much is their guaranteed minimum future value?
If you start wording it that way every single time, yes, what, monkey, see monkey do, might
be a bit patronizing, but your sales people start asking that in the right way.
And that in itself, you'll get a lot less people saying, or a lot less sales people say, oh,
no, no, they're cash, they're cash, they're cash.
Now you might say, well, do I really need to do that?
On this four squares, just going to put the deal in front of people anyway.
Yeah, I think we do.
Because I think more finance deals are lost through the face saving, because customers
are told you on cash.
How they come around and say, actually, you know what, I said I was cash because I think
I'm going to go a bad deal, but now let's look at the finance.
It's going to get a bit of hard to do that for some people, okay?
Because customers, egos, they might work there.
Yeah, here's something else you might want to consider.
Are you for customers, there's, oh, it's cash.
I was taught many, many years ago, and there's some good psychology around this, and say,
hey, what are you throwing at the payments?
That's five hundred pounds a month.
Great.
Just one you want to go up to, and the up to, that's actually called a pro, a type of question,
you'd expect, so I'll go up and say, and the right card be much stretch.
So I think this mark in 2026, I'm not going to do that at all, because here's my big concern.
And this is where I sat down in the studio, I wanted to talk about this particular point,
okay?
That may have worked a few years ago, but in 2026 when I'm recording this, think about
what inflation has happened the last three years.
Think about the price of your holiday three years ago to what it is now, okay?
What you're paying for fuel, okay?
What you're paying for energy in your house, okay?
Inflation has gone through the roof over the last three or four years, okay?
Lots of reasons why, okay?
And I think that's pretty much most countries that listen to this podcast.
Inflation's gone through the roof.
So a little phrase you might want to use with customers is pre-inflation.
So might roll something like this.
You're looking at the customer's car.
I mean, why'd I say, hey Mr. and Mrs. Customer, how many payments have you got left?
Or when do you next payment true?
Or, hey, what's your guaranteed moving future value, okay?
If they say, well, I've got four payments left.
Cool, okay.
And how much are your payments?
Five hundred a month.
Immediately, I'm going to go straight into it.
Right, five hundred months.
That's three years ago, I suppose with inflation now, that's more like 650 at the moment,
isn't it?
So this time you want to go up to, you see how we use the phrase there, conditioning,
okay?
Now that's pre-inflation with inflation.
That's more like 650 at the moment, isn't it?
So this time you want to go up to, because there are two ways.
If you don't do something like that, if you say to a customer, what are your current payments?
Five hundred a month.
This time you want to go up to, oh no, I wanted to keep it lower because the cost of living
it's going up.
You've got no chance of getting a customer in a similar vehicle that they bought three
years ago.
We keep them payments kind of lower than what it is at the moment.
Now, of course it depends on if they're on a lease or a PCP and what deposit they put
in.
I know all those things.
Just try this one, okay?
Hey, what are your current payments?
Five hundred a month.
Okay, that's three years ago.
So with inflation, that's kind of like 650 at the moment, isn't it?
This time you want to go up to, I loved that conversation early on, when we're looking
at the customers trade in, because actually at that stage there, okay, they're more likely
to open up because they're trying to sell their car to you.
Don't wait for this conversation, so at the end of the demonstration drive, I like to
try it in as part of my qualification to make sure we're not got the customer on too much
car for their budget.
Now, there will be some people say, ah, avoid the monthly budget question altogether.
And go say, I think there's a lot of merit in that as well.
If people have done 19 hours and 42 minutes of research, you could actually come to the
same conclusion by saying, hey, Mr. or Mrs. Customer, there's three or four different
models of Tiguan.
Which one you've been researching online?
Oh, it's the Bling Bling model.
Hey, great.
What's about the Bling Bling model that put it on your shopping list?
Okay.
Now, listen, how far did you go away with the along with the configurator on that Bling
Bling model?
If they answer that they have, and they want it in the iridescent snowflake color and the
retractable tow bar, they've been on the website, don't most manufacturers website
have some sort of finance calculator, some sort of offers there.
Let it be the bad person and tell people that, hold on that, Tiguan, you had it five
years ago for 500 a month, it's easily going to be 750 now, because they'd have a look
at it there, but let's go one stage further.
Do you have salespeople that believe we might be expensive on finance?
Are we expensive on finance?
You get lots of salespeople.
They really do believe that you're expensive.
They're mainly on used car finance, not new car finance, but is that really the case?
Now, again, this is where you need to talk about what country you're in, because there's
lots of variations out there, okay, but in the UK, we have one finance rate, we need
to offer customers, we need to treat customers fairly.
So your finance rate on used cars might be 12.9%, but the customer's been to AA car
finance online.
They've been to Marks and Spencer, Tesco's finance, okay, before you start talking about
all the banks out there and HSBC and what they're doing, and they might think, couldn't
us me, 12.9, they're kidding themselves.
I've seen this advertised for 8.9, 9.something, and that's again, when our customer is going
to say, you know what, I'm buying, I've got that sorted there.
There's my concern with that.
Two things.
Our sales person now believes we're expensive.
Are we expensive?
This comes back to where I was last week, I had a salesperson, good salesperson, not
a bad person.
Also the business manager, in this particular dealership, honestly believed we're expensive.
Now this deal, a group that I was in, I said, great expensive compared to, and I mentioned
some of these different places.
I said, let's go and have a look.
So clicked on a website.
If you're in the UK, go to AA car finance, and I'll say you can get used car finance on
a calculator from currently, and this is 2026, it's actually from 9.9% APR.
If your credit score is excellent, if it's good, it goes through to a 12 point, I think
it was 12.9.
If it goes to there, it goes through to 14%.
Now here's my real concern with that.
With AA car finance, what's the only way you can find out what interest rate you're going
to get as a customer?
Yeah, go and apply for the loan.
So when we get into that rate conversation with a customer, when a sales person gets
into that rate conversation, what's your APR, so many times we lose that battle because
of what customers are seeing effectively advertised.
Now I know in some countries, you have to have a representative APR, an average APR,
in Canada, I think they call it that, okay.
Don't quote me, people in Canada are saying no, it's not called the average APR, whatever
it is, but some sort of representative APR, but my concern is customers and egos.
It's like asking any man, are you a good driver?
How many of us as members say, yes, I'm a brilliant driver.
But are we all going to be as good as Lewis Hamilton?
So what happens is the customer does their research, 19 hours and 42 minutes of research.
You type anything into do with cars, into any search engine, up pops, lots of different
things for the customer to look at.
They see finance offers on AA, car finance, sorry, AA, we're going to pick on you now
because that's the one I looked at just last week or the week before I think it was, okay.
And the customer goes, ah, it's from 9.9.
If you're currently at 12, okay, customers think, you know what, I'm fine.
You're not going to deal with that.
It's only if they apply, but when can a customer come back and say, ah, I'm sorry, I don't
qualify for the rates at 9% I got that 14% because I'm actually shit to finance.
No customer is going to do that, their ego can't talk.
And it's not just AA, car finance, there's lots and lots of these people that have these
finance calculators on it.
In fact, I was in Ireland and they have Bank of Ireland, okay.
It's got, ah, in fine print, it's always in fine print.
They're advertising rates there at, ah, I believe it was 7.9% APR, okay.
It says in fine print, okay, ah, this is from 7.9%.
The actual APR will be worked out once you have, ah, I don't know, applied or something
like that, based in your individual circumstances.
And Ireland, we can't find anywhere on the Bank of Ireland what the average APR is.
They don't have, and some of your countries, they call it rates for risk.
They'll give a different rate depending on the customer's specific risk.
But put yourself into your salespeople's shoes.
They're the ones that are sitting there thinking, goodness me, we're expensive, okay.
And that's when you'll end up with your salespeople saying, are you going to finance
or, okay, ah, well, I can get it out, so what a rate, okay, you'll probably find that
because honestly, most salespeople just want to sell the car.
They're not concerned about you as a business manager or the business.
So we've got to make sure our salespeople don't believe we're expensive to business
measures.
Heads of businesses, ah, go and do the exercise with your salespeople, okay.
Always show them it's a firm APR, okay.
Go and show them your representative APR.
Go and show them so many times, okay, the examples that look like a really low rate
is a big old chunk of money over a long period of time.
You bring it back to the smaller chunk of money that the customer's borrowing from your
dealership, watch how that interest rate changes, okay.
So let's talk about the egos.
And this comes back to, ah, Amate Neal, who works with us, okay.
He's got a different approach.
I quite like this for a customer who says they are cash, okay.
Let's not have an argument with a customer, okay.
We might talk to the customer and say, ah, look in their gut, how many payments do you
have left?
Or when's your next payment due?
Or what's your guaranteed meaning for each other?
The customer says, no, no, no, it's a cash offer, sorry, it's a cash for me.
My mother always said if I can't afford it, don't buy it.
Or you might want to try this approach.
This is one for a guy called Neal Wertruss.
He'll turn around and again go down the assumptive route.
He'll turn around and say how many payments you have left on your car, when's your next
payment due, or what's your guaranteed meaning for each value?
He'll wait to people say, ah, no, no, no, it'll be cash for me.
My mother always says if I can't afford it, don't buy it.
Well, he won't have an argument with the people and say, hey, that's no problem.
I'll get Sarah our business manager work out of cash off of it for you.
So you're starting to work with the grain.
You might say something along the lines that might be the best option for you, okay.
There's no resistance there.
But tell you what, I'll get Sarah our business manager just to send as you check it, just
to make sure you get the best deal you can.
Or I'll get Sarah our business manager just to check to make sure you get the best offer
you can.
Okay.
The best deal you can there.
Again, there's a lot of, there's hard to get resistance from the customer on that one.
Now, when the customer says, no, no, it is cash for me.
Okay.
My mother always said if I can't afford it, don't buy it, it's always put me in good stead.
Let's make sure it is cash and not a bank conversion.
So we're going to start off by saying, well, what Neil says, Neil works for us, you know,
say, yeah, that's no problem.
I'll get Sarah our business manager to work out of cash off of for you.
There's no resistance.
Okay.
He might say something along the lines of, hey, that might be the best option for you.
Okay.
But then he'll turn around and say, hey, listen, when you talk about cash, are you talking
about your own savings or external lender?
Because there's some really good offers out there at the moment.
When I first heard that, I was like, okay, Neil, why are you telling customers there's
some really good offers out there?
You said, well, Simon, don't be silly.
30 seconds earlier.
They were telling you they're a cash customer.
Okay.
So you've got to almost stroke the customer's ego because it might be their ego that was
talking that said it will be cash for me.
So I'll tell you that one again.
He'll turn around and say, that's no problem.
I'll get my business manager, my boss will work out of cash off of for you.
But listen, when you say cash, you're talking about your own savings or external lender,
because there's some really good offers out there at the moment.
Notice how Neil didn't use the word, there's some really good rates out there.
He never said that.
There's some really good offers out there.
He stroke their ego for them to give the customers the ability to say, well, yeah, I
am looking at external lender.
Great.
No problem.
I'll tell you what I'll do is I'll get Sarah, our business manager, just have a look to
sanity check it.
Make sure you're getting the best deal you think you can.
Okay.
And listen, what I'll do is I'll get my boss, just have a look at it.
Make sure you're getting the best deal you can.
Again, he's avoiding the word rate there.
Okay.
He'll do that early on, looking at their car, no resistance, no fighting.
But before we put a deal in front of people, he might just say, oh, by the way, that external
lender, you look at that, how much were you looking to borrow?
50,000 euros.
Okay.
What term is that?
Okay.
48 months.
Okay.
Cool.
Oh, by the way, how much was that working out a month?
600, whatever it is.
Okay.
Cool.
And that's the information he'll give to the business manager stack of deal.
In fact, we don't care where the finances coming from, which credit union.
We don't care what rate it is because you might lose out on that.
Okay.
And again, the customer might not have actually got accepted on the rate.
And if you're up against the credit union, they're probably not going to be offering a
PCP.
Sure.
It might be higher purchase with a balloon, but it's not a PCP with the full ability to
return the car, retain it or renew it.
They're the three different options there.
So that last bit there, I'll just run through it very quickly.
He might just turn around and say, assumptively, how many payments you got left.
When's your next payment to?
What's your guaranteed moving future value?
Ah, no, no.
It's cash for me.
Okay.
No problem.
I'll get my boss to work out.
I'll call you.
Okay.
But listen, when you say cash, are you talking about your own savings or external lender?
Because there's some really good offers out there at the moment.
Now, without saying there's some really good offers, it doesn't work.
You got a stroke.
There you go.
Given the ability to say, yeah, I'm going to look at external lender.
Okay.
This is what it does.
I'll get my boss to have a look at just a sanity check it.
Make sure you're getting the best deal you can.
Okay.
And then before we get the deal, oh, by the way, how much are you looking to borrow?
What happened the number?
It doesn't matter.
60, 70,000.
Ooh.
Over how long is that?
60 months.
Okay.
And how much a month is that working out there?
Because that's three pieces of information you need as a business manager to rather stack
a deal.
Maybe get them into that leasing product, that PCP product, and show them what we can
do.
But actually the other people can't do.
Then we can get into the technical stuff like try party agreements, first line of funding,
why we've got halves and thirds.
I didn't want this to be a whole finance options and talk about all the advantages and disadvantages
of funding through a bank or credit union or by car dealerships.
That's probably a more in-depth one that we talk about our value added to training process
and out courses and all that sort of stuff.
This one was just more about letting the customers open up, keep an open mind to that
four square, the deal stacker when you put the offer in front of people instead of them
digging their heels and going, no, no, no, it's cash for me.
So anyway, try some of these ideas and see how they work for you.
And we'll see you next time, which by the way, the interview we got it next week, I
think you're going to be real impressed with.
This is a legend in the automotive management space in the UK.
This guy has, I think it'd be very, very impressed when we work out who it is and the business
is, I will say, that he's built and we'll see you then.
That just leads me to say that all details of this episode and other episodes on the selling
in the motor trade can be found on our website symcotraining.co.uk.
Go there to get a copy of our book, Words That Sell Cars.
Go there to sign up to a free trial of our sales fitness online sales training program.
Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bowkett through LinkedIn.
Thank you.