When it comes to selling cars for a living one of the most important ways to obtain the information you need to make a sale is to ask questions. There are many different types of questions to ask when selling cars so you can proceed accordingly. The secret of getting information from the prospective car buyer involves much more than firing a list of questions at your customer because this will turn them off or turn them into Be-Backs in a hurry. You will give them the impression that you are the type of car salesman this is only interested in selling a car rather than helping them make a good choice which is sure to turn a buyer into looker.

Questions to Ask When Selling CarsThe questions to ask when selling cars must include those that will provide you with the information to qualify the customer, build rapport, discover their budget, discover their Hot Buttons and determine how they feel about their  trade-in or if they have one. We all know that some car buyers will open up and be more than happy to tell you absolutely everything including many things you don’t want to know, but usually they are tight lipped and secretive about providing information. When we work with the tight lipped automobile customer we have to be careful what kind of questions we ask them and when we ask them so we don’t appear to be what they call the Typical Car Salesman.

It is very hard to come up with an exact list of questions to ask buyers when selling cars because every situation and customer is different. The skill and experience of the car salesman is probably one of the best guides of what and when to ask the car buyer. However to help some of you think about the kinds of questions to ask and when to ask them I have put together a list of general situations and a guide to the type of questions to guide you through the process.

Types of Questions to Ask When Selling Cars

Rapport Building & Hot Button Questions:

These should be questions about vehicle likes, dislikes and preferences. Stay away from personal questions until you have built some rapport and some level of trust. Keep things light at first while trying to find similar interests or connections. Like where they live or work, primary driver, types of driving and desired options. You are trying discover information that you will use later to help close the deal while starting to build a relationship and a level of trust. The successful car salesman knows how to earn the trust of their automobile buyer and they do it by using the information they gathered by asking questions.

Qualifying and Budget Questions:

You need to be very careful about these types of questions to ask when selling cars. If you ask something that is too personal at the wrong time they will feel like you are prying and you run the risk of shutting them down which is common with the Green Pea. Your questions about qualifying and budget should assume the best and compliment them regardless of what you may be thinking. When your question or statement assumes the best your car buyer will usually come clean and tell you about any credit problems or limitations. When they start telling you about any problems they are ready for more probing and personal questions because they opened up rather than you trying to open them up.

Trade-In Questions:

The trade-in can be a very sensitive area for some customers so the car salesman needs to approach the subject gently. Some people are happy to get rid of their old car, but more of them think they are trading in a family heirloom that is worth a fortune. We know their car is not worth what they want unless it had a stack of money in the glove box. So the questions to ask when selling cars that refer to the trade-in need to be asked similar to qualifying questions until they open up and reveal their thoughts about the trade. Whatever you do, don’t talk trash about their trade. They can because it is their car, but don’t get caught telling them it’s junk.

They say that the person that is asking the questions is controlling the conversation, but sometimes you want the customer to think they are controlling the car buying process. This is done by the questions to ask when selling cars. Experience will teach you how you can control the situation while accommodating the car buyer through the use of questions and open ended statements. Of all the questions you ask do your best to avoid the questions that can be answered with a Yes or No. Try to use questions that they will answer with a Yes or provide them with two options. The more they say Yes, the more they will say Yes.  Most traditional car sales training talks about asking questions, but you usually need to change or adjust the process to accommodate the car buyer so you can close the deal. The good car salesman knows when to zig when others zag.

Later, Fresh Up on the Lot

KB

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