How Not To Sell A Car

Buying a Spanish Car - The Car In Question When It Was Cleaner

Buying a car in Spain is a law unto itself. Really, buying a Spanish car should be simple just like anywhere else in the World but that doesn’t seem to be the case when you are buying from Spanish Entreprneurs (Is that how car dealers should be referred to?).

Let’s look at the case should we. If you know somebody is travelling 130 miles to come and see one of the cars you have in your car showroom what do you do? Obviously the client, me in this case, is interested, you don’t travel 130 miles for no reason do you? So come on make a list. Some suggestions:

1) Clean it
2) Move it to a place where it can be viewed, ie the doors can be opened and the car can be walked around
3) Fix the little things that may well put somebody off, broken hinges on visors etc…
4) Have all paperwork to hand
5) Have your sales face on.
6) Make sure it is as described?

Now what really happened?

1) OK it was cleaner than my car but then again we had just driven 200km to get there.
2) Place it in a space that would be challenging even for a mini even though we are talking of a seven seater (Supposedly but more of that in a minute) Surround it with other cars on a car park for ten cars where you have managed to fit twenty at least.
3) I found eight small things broken on looking at the inside usually involving hinges and visors and the like.
4) I didn’t see any paperwork. You know, the full service history etc… There was a description of the car on the windscreen, without mentioning the kilometres done, but nothing else.
5) Yesterday was Friday, not Monday and not 9am so I expect a warmer reception on arrival. Some acknowledgment of my existence would have been nice
6) Here’s the rub. When you describe a seven seater car should it not have seven seats as described rather than six as the reality is?

So I mentioned all of the little irritating things, my body language showing that I wasn’t overimpressed arms folded, scowling at the wife who had made me drive for two and a half hours to get here, (on the plus side I got to use my Blackberry’s GPS in Alicante) Don’t get me wrong the car wasn’t bad just not right for us, the six seats was a dealbreaker, and in that situation what do you do to try and sell a car? Maybe offer a discount? Perhaps give a guarantee, oh didn’t I mention it didn’t have one? Even offer to deliver it to Valencia along with the discount and guarantee?

Funnily enough no. His reaction was to get angry with us, no those are the wrong words, the correct ones are “to show mild irritation” when I wanted to listen to the engine. (It started up first time and sounded nice and to give them credit they had cleaned the engine so it looked good)

So what is the point in this entrepreneurial blog? Well how do you treat your clients? Do you go to the mild irritation level when you are questioned? Is your attitude that you are doing me a favour by selling me this product like this guy or can you actually use empathy?

I have found a website this evening which acts as a search engine for cars for sale in Europe. In Spain there are 1291 Kia Carnivals for sale on the site. Did the guy think I didn’t have much choice? He needs to get out more. Spanish Entrepreneurs strike again. Now do you see why Spain is the Klondike?

Originally posted 2010-01-23 01:35:55. Republished by Blog Post Promoter