Transcription
Progressive Thinking and Motivation to Sell More Cars with Melissa Granke
Courtney: When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Patrick: A car salesman.
Courtney: Said no one ever!
Patrick: I'm Patrick Hennessy and this is the Be Less Typical in Car Sales
podcast, a real life account of the car business that breaks the perception of
what it’s like to be a car sales professional. During the show, we're going to take
you into the lives and minds of those that have found success. So ignite your
passion and get ready to learn effective hacks to streamline your success and
boost your income.
Courtney: So is that your pitch, it's pretty good. Previously on Be Less Typical,
Amy, an internet car sales professional, explained how she leveraged customer
reviews and Facebook to share her brand of Sunshine with her friends and
customers. If you haven't already, you might want to go back and listen, but
don't just take our word for it. We might be a little biased. One of our test group
listeners, who's also my sister-in-law, called me the other day to discuss the
episode and the first words out of her mouth were…
Rachel: So I have a confession to make.
Courtney: What's that? She tells me that she shared our sneak peek recording
with a friend of hers to get a second opinion, and they decided to try out a piece
of advice that Amy gave on the last episode, and this is what happened.
Rachel: Had an award that I recently won that I didn't want to toot my own horn
or put it out there as "Hey, look at me I won this award," but what Amy said
about her award and how she shared, shared it with her clients and tagged them
all and tagged all the people that helped her get that, I thought was really
awesome, and so I did it. I posted instead of just on my business page, post on
my personal page and tagged all the clients I'm friends with and also my friends
and family and had more likes and more interaction with that post than I did
when our baby was born last November.
Courtney: That's awesome!
Rachel: So way to go because I think you’re going to have a bigger following,
and you’re going to reach a larger crowd than just your car people.
Courtney: It worked!
Rachel: Yay!
Courtney: That's awesome! On this episode, we meet Melissa Granke also
known as the Ohio Car Girl. I found Melissa on Twitter. She came up in my
People to Follow recommendations. Curious as always, I found my way to her
Twitter feed, then to her website, ohiocargirl.com. I read her blog, visited her
Facebook page, and last but certainly not least, I ended up on her YouTube
channel where I found many videos, one of which is titled "What to Expect
When You Visit Me at Spitzer Motor City." Of course, I had to watch.
Melissa: Thank you for scheduling a visit with me. In order to save you time
when you get here, I'm going to do a few things to prepare for your visit. Here's
a quick preview.
Courtney: The video is a time lapse of what Melissa does to prepare for her
customer appointment. She hangs up the phone, finds the keys for the vehicle,
walks the lot and finds the vehicle. She gets in, starts the car and drives through
the dealership parking lot then through the service department and into the
carwash bay. I watch the carwash. Once the car is clean, she drives out of the
service department and backs the vehicle into a spot at the front of the
dealership. She hangs a tag on the rearview mirror noting “Reserved for you,”
and then she gets out.
Melissa: Thank you for watching. When you arrive, you can be sure I'll have
your vehicle cleaned up, washed and parked in front waiting for you. I can't
wait to meet you. If you have any questions at all, please call me
(330)348-4323, and if you do need to adjust that time, please let me know, so
that way I can make sure I’m available for another guest. Thank you so much,
and I look forward to meeting you.
Courtney: Wow! Melissa's friendly face, sweet voice and demeanor had me
wondering, how does this girl do it? It seems like she’s everywhere. By the time
I made it back to my Twitter feed, Melissa has mentioned me in a tweet, and
later in the day when I check my email, once again I find Melissa and a follow
up email from her YouTube station telling me to check out other videos she's
created.
Patrick: Intuitively, we reached out, and after a short conversation about our
show and our goal to break misconceptions about being a sales person in the car
business, Melissa agreed to be a guest and share her secret sauce.
Courtney: When Melissa was a little girl she wanted to be a veterinarian
because she loved animals. Melissa didn't end up a veterinarian though. Today,
she is a successful car sales person. However, she did have a professional career
before getting into car sales. So, let's begin there.
Patrick: In her former career, Melissa was the director of development for a
non-profit organization. She was in charge of direct target and campaign
fundraising. However, after some family changes, she decided that the
responsibility and proximity of her job to home wasn't the right fit anymore.
Courtney: So she decided to look for a new job. The requirement, the job must
be close to home.
Patrick: She gets hired into what she considers an entry-level position at a car
dealership near her home. This is approximately 2010. Her new job title,
internet manager, and as she describes it, an appointment setter.
Melissa: I was an internet manager technically, so I was an appointment setter. I
would take all of the incoming internet leads. I was at a Chevy store, and it was
getting about 300 plus leads a month, and I would do all the calls and follow-up
with them, and then when they come in, they would ask for me, and I would
introduce them to a sales person and then turn them over.
Patrick: Within six months, Melissa's way of doing business and her results get
noticed by the owner.
Melissa: And she wanted to provide a good car buying experience. She wanted
to make it no pressure for the customer and make sure that they had the
information they needed and myself coming into the business, no background in
the car business whatsoever, naturally that's what I did because I just treated
people how I would want to be treated. And so I think that got her attention, and
she said “I like your approach of how you’re doing things, and I think that you
could expand and teach other people to do this for the whole organization.“
Courtney: So this internet manager role leads to an opportunity to create a
Business Development Center or BDC as it's known in the dealership world for
the entire auto group. Not a small undertaking in a 15-store organization. And
she earns respect in that role by increasing closing ratios by approximately
10%, and after that, Melissa transitions into a sales manager role all of which
lead her back into her current position.
Patrick: Today, Melissa is in internet sales, and I wondered, what was the allure
that brought her back into sales? Why was the sales position more fulfilling
than a management role?
Melissa: Where I made that transition back because I enjoyed working internet,
and I liked talking to people and reaching out. And I'm fairly tech-savvy, so it
was an advantage to me to be able to send out videos and have texting and
include different ways to communicate with people. But I also enjoyed being in
front of them face-to-face and helping them go through the process and giving
them options. And a big part of what I had done from the beginning was to try
to give people as much information as I could to help them make the right
decision, and so really if that's your goal, the most fulfilling part of that is faceto-face with them and helping them actually find the right car.
Patrick: And she deems herself lucky because she works for a dealership that
she describes as progressive, and I would have to agree. The dealership and
Melissa are doing business in a somewhat untraditional way, less typical if you
will. Melissa describes what a progress dealership means to her.
Melissa: To me progressive is you post the pricing up front, you answer
questions, you give people the information, and if they leave without buying,
obviously you still want to try to close that customer. You’re going to ask some
questions and make sure that you've explored every opportunity, but that they
still leave happy and feeling like they had a good experience so that you have a
chance to get them back if they end up down the road deciding that that's the car
that they want to go with.
Patrick: Melissa goes on to describe how this progressive transparent way of
doing business impacts the customer experience. She tells me about a customer
she's been working with for the past week, a customer who in my experience,
may have been blown off by other sales people.
Melissa: It's very easy to give up, and if you just stick with people…I had a
lady who came in this week on Monday who was looking at a Patriot, her
dream car was a Jeep, but she was on a very limited income. She had had an
accident about a year ago, and she had to get a monthly payment of $150. And
the Patriot leases are our best lease, and it just still wasn't…we were at 220. We
talked through it, and she said “I just don't think I can do it. I'm going to talk to
my kids and whatever,” and I just kept in touch with her all week, and we ended
up determining that a used car might make more sense for her, but she wanted
something Certified Pre-Owned with low miles, and she had a long wish list of
things that she wanted. And I talked to her for 30 to 45 minutes every single day
this week, and on Friday, she took delivery of a car.
Patrick: Sweet.
Melissa: And it was just building a relationship with her. She told me on the
phone, she said “I believe that you’re being honest with me,” because she was
going to go shop around and see if she could get some less expensive leases.
And so I said “Well, what cars are you going to look at?” And I pulled them up
with her, and I showed her the lease specials and did the math with her and
showed her how to shop. And so she ended up not going to any other
dealership. She talked to me all week long until we found the right car for her.
Patrick: Yeah, you are now her go-to person.
Melissa: Absolutely.
Patrick: No matter where she’s at, she’s going to call you to double-check and
that's…
Melissa: Right.
Patrick: That's the only thing you can really ask for is to make sure you’re in the
loop whenever she's making a decision.
Melissa: Yeah, when the customer says to you, “I trust what you’re saying, and
I'm not going to go anywhere else because I know that you’re being honest with
me,” you know at that point you have a customer for life.
Patrick: Yeah.
Melissa: You have made a relationship with that person.
Patrick: For sure.
Courtney: Wow. Building customers for life, treating customers how she would
want to be treated, the service that Melissa is providing to her customers speak
volumes for her integrity. She's willing to educate her customers not only on the
vehicles and programs available within her dealership, but also those offered by
her competitors. This truly is progressive.
Patrick: And this is Melissa's code of ethics.
Melissa: The only way you’re going to grow and have a successful business is
to treat people right, and it all comes down to the experience.
Patrick: Her strategy is pretty simple.
Melissa: I don't think you can force anybody to do anything. I think that you
can provide them with a really good experience, try to show them that you’re
genuine, give them the information that they need, suggest maybe some
different ideas they hadn't considered, and then at the end of the day, if you give
them a really great experience and you help them solve their problem, you have
a good chance that you'll sell them something.
Courtney: So how exactly does she do it? How does she provide information to
potential customers while building her personal brand? What's the time
commitment involved and what's the payoff?
Patrick: First, Melissa tells me that she’s learned from those who have found
success in the business already. She uses what others are doing as inspiration
and then puts her own spin on it.
Melissa: I have learned from looking at so many other great people that are
doing this. A lot of what I have learned is to have something that is memorable.
So my website is Ohio Car Girl because my name is Melissa Granke. Who’s
going to remember that? So I’m trying to find something that is definitely
memorable and to really brand yourself and then from there, I've just tried to
reach out on what I think are the most high-value social networks. There's a ton
of social networks that you can get involved with, but in my experience, I think
Facebook and YouTube are probably the two most impactful ones at least right
now, but really just trying to be a source of information. I think if you’re trying
to build a brand online, I don't think that you can really sell yourself because
they haven't met you. They don't really know who you are, but you can sell a
belief system, and you can sell a strategy of sharing information to where
people know that you’re a trusted resource and somebody that they can go to.
Patrick: Okay, so she starts with something memorable which Melissa is. If you
look at the video she's producing, they are memorable, personal and
informational. They are untypical. You don't see many car sales people giving
advice to customers on how to shop or what to expect as they walk into the
dealership. Then for the added warm and fuzzy feeling, Melissa gives out her
personal cell phone number.
Courtney: Essentially, Melissa is building rapport through video. Most of her
videos start with a quick intro. Melissa is on the screen, smiling of course. She
introduces herself and then goes into one of three things. One, a vehicle or a
product review or two, an overview of a feature within the vehicle and its
functionality or three, a how-to video teaching how to shop, what to look for,
questions to ask, or other areas of information customers should be aware of to
make an informed purchase decision. All of her videos end with a call-to-action.
There's a rolling screen that looks like a business card, and it includes her
picture, dealership information, website, and of course, her personal cell phone
number.
Melissa: I only give out my cell phone number, my business card. I only make
calls from my cell phone. That's the only number I use. But I will occasionally
get people who see my video, and I'll mention in my videos what dealership I
work at, and they'll call directly through the dealership phone number and ask
for me.
Patrick: The investment? She has an iPhone which she uses to shoot the video.
No incremental cost to her. She uses the free app on her iPhone called iMovie to
edit. Once again, no incremental cost. She has purchased two pieces of
additional equipment, a tripod and a Bluetooth remote which she tells me she’s
paid approximately $50 for and her time investment, less than 30 minutes.
Melissa: And it took me maybe 15 minutes to shoot the video and about 5
minutes to edit it and about 5 minutes to upload it. So something that I'm doing
at home on my couch pretty much last night.
Patrick: Not only does Melissa post these videos to YouTube, she strategically
uses them on Facebook, and she has come to view Facebook as a marketing
tool. She's not too worried about page likes. She's more interested in the amount
of views her videos are getting. She does spend a little bit of money to promote
her posts, typically videos she's produced.
Melissa: I started doing what I did on Facebook because I found that the
traditional ‘make a page and get people to like you and like your post’ didn't
really work. Facebook had changed the model where you post something and
six people see it out of your 75 likes or your 100 likes or your 200 likes, so I
pretty quickly decided I really didn't care how many likes I had, but I was just
going to use it as a marketing tool because I felt like you can spend a couple
bucks and sell a couple of cars, what better investment is that? We ran an ad for
a lease special that we had and off that lease special, I spent $40 to promote it
on Facebook, and we sold three cars.
Patrick: Wow.
Melissa: So I mean where can you get that kind of return on investment?
Courtney: A golden nugget of advice, upload native videos directly through
Facebook, and it will increase your visibility versus linking out to YouTube.
Patrick: And the return on investments speaks for itself.
Melissa: And it's pretty amazing because for five or ten bucks you can get three
or four hundred people watching your video. And you can target the area. So I'll
target only within ten miles of Cleveland, Ohio because that's where my
dealership is located, and within ten miles of Cleveland, Ohio to have three or
four hundred people that are in the market looking at jeeps, watching my video
with my name, with my dealership and my contact information, it definitely
drives people into the dealership for you.
Patrick: Interestingly enough, Melissa also sees Twitter as a channel for sending
traffic to her website, ohiocargirl.com. She uses Twitter to connect with
customers, industry experts and influencers.
Melissa: Twitter actually sends quite a bit of traffic to my website though. So I
know that that's driving traffic to my website. If I get a lot of traffic from
Facebook and a lot of traffic from Twitter to my website, but I spend money on
Facebook to promote, I don't spend any money on Twitter to promote, and yet
it's still one of the highest referring sources for my website.
Courtney: So Melissa spends the majority of her effort on YouTube and
Facebook, but she also uses Twitter, and she has her own website, and she
blogs. And her ultimate goal for doing all of this…
Melissa: I want people to know who I am. If they know who I am and they
know how to find me, I have the chance to sell them something. And if I have a
chance to sell something to lots and lots of people, the end of the day, that's
better resources for my family and for me to live the life that I want. If I'm
giving you a video telling you how to calculate what your payments should be
or a blog post telling you whether or not you should finance at a credit union
where I'm actually being independent and giving you pros and cons of the
situation, then I think for somebody who stumbles upon me online, they’re
going to see that I'm somebody that truly is vested in making sure they have the
right information to make a good decision.
Courtney: What's interesting to me is that not only does Melissa understand
how her efforts are impacting her business and her brand, she equates about
15% of her sales to her social media effort. But she's also using this activity as a
way to learn and grow.
Patrick: At times, Melissa listens to three hours of audiobooks or podcasts per
day. She tells me she wants to know everything about everything.
Courtney: Are you kidding me? When does a mom, who is also in car sales
have time for that?
Patrick: She tells me she listens in the car or while she’s getting ready for work.
This girl is committed to growth, and she's willing to share what she’s learning
and her insights with other sales people in the dealership. This surprises me a
little bit. Chefs don't share their secret recipes, so why is Melissa willing to
share her secret sauce?
Melissa: If I'm doing everything I can to get my name out and I have 15 other
people doing the same thing, the net result is going to be more results for the
store which means we have more money that we can invest in growing the store
even more.
Patrick: Clearly, Melissa is a team player. She has what I like to call a givegive-give mentality. She's willing to share what she's learned with others,
customers and coworkers because she ultimately wants to help her dealership
grow and create customers for life. This is inspiring because she believes all of
this effort is her responsibility, just part of the job. It's another step she can take
to provide for her family and control her destiny.
Melissa: It's a challenge every day, but the reward then is if you put in that
effort you can earn a really, really great living. I'm a single parent. I had my son
when I was young, and we live in a beautiful house. He goes to excellent
schools. We get to take nice vacations. We get to drive a nice car. And we have
all of the comforts because of the car business, and I'm grateful for it. And it
takes a lot of effort, but at the same time, there's a great reward there.
Courtney: Shortly after we talked to Melissa, Patrick and I were chatting over
coffee.
Patrick: The biggest thing I've heard people say and I know that is most
important when someone’s new is for them to learn the product, so they can feel
confident and comfortable with customers with the multitude of questions they
can get. She is doing that by marketing herself. She's doing it all at once. She's
learning product while videotaping herself, and the rehearsal and the walkthrough and production of that in a very short amount of time is helping her to
learn how she's going to talk to customers. And I think that she's just taking
what kind of questions she's getting when she has those interactions, and then
she researches it a little bit and puts her answers on paper and records it in a
way that she can put it online and answer multiple people’s questions just like a
lot of companies are doing nowadays where they'll just answer question after
question and build a website around that to build traffic.
Courtney: So the golden nugget of advice from Melissa is that you can be the
creator of your own destiny. You can take control of learning product
knowledge while at the same time promoting your personal brand and helping
customers find the answers to questions they’re searching for.
Patrick: I think that's the main takeaway. I don't think that you’re going to walk
in to any dealership as a newbie, and 99% of the stores out there aren't going to
give you a training platform that says here's the best way you’re going to be
able to market yourself. You’re going to fall right into step with what has
always been done, and it's not until the management or ownership sees someone
succeed on their own going rouge almost, like Melissa did.
Courtney: Within reason.
Patrick: Within reason, she takes the car home at night, and she does her thing
in her driveway for 15 minutes and then post it up on YouTube, and all of the
sudden, she's got a little buzz around her and that's when they'll start realizing
that “Huh, there's something good going on here.” They’re not going to tell you
to go do that though.
Courtney: And all of this will result in you being a more confident, successful
sales person.
Patrick: A special thank you to Melissa Granke, the Ohio Car Girl of Spitzer
Auto group for being a guest on the show and to Rachel for sharing her social
media success.
Courtney: Our theme song is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. And a
special thank you to Patrick for creatively collaborating with me even when he
didn't want to and was keeping his hands over his ears while I was trying to
collaborate.
Patrick: If you or anyone you know are conducting car sales in a less typical
way, please reach out to us. We want to hear your story, and there's a chance
you could be featured on an upcoming show. Message us on Facebook or
Twitter, @BeLessTypical or on our website belesstypical.com, and don't forget
to subscribe in iTunes.