Selling with intent: how to deliver what buyers want
By Anna Townshend

A master salesperson will sell specific products to a specific person for specific reasons. This detailed sales process focuses on the customer first, then the product. If a salesperson can’t determine exactly what will get the customer buying, then he won’t be a consistent top seller.

Many customers may not even know what they want when they first come to the dealership, and that’s where the master salesperson earns his living. This article offers selling tips on how to deliver what buyers want by:

• determining what is motivating them to buy
• matching those desires with an exact model
• giving the customer no choice but to make the purchase.

Determining a customer’s buying motive
It’s the job of a master salesperson to determine what potential buyers want without specifically asking for it. This is easy to understand, but requires a lot of hard work to accomplish.

Some customers may come to the dealership armed with information gleaned from the Internet, and all they want to know is whether you have their boat and at what price.

However, even with these customers who tell you what they want upfront, they might not be telling the whole story. To initially determine what general boat type would best suit a customer’s needs, the master salesperson asks lifestyle questions, such as:

• What size family do you have?
• What kind of activities do you enjoy?
• How much free time do you have to spend on the water?
• Where and how do you spend your vacations?
• Have you ever owned a boat before?

There are two questions that any salesperson should avoid asking initially, and they are:

• How much do you want to spend? No one wants to spend money. Any figure the customer offers is probably less than what he really intends to spend. All you’ve really done is prematurely started the customer thinking about price, rather than benefits.

Ideally, the salesperson wants to sell a product’s value—it will give the customer the greatest satisfaction for the price he can afford. While the buying process is still dictated by a customer’s finances, the focus has moved to what will give the customer the most enjoyment. 

• Do you have any particular type of boat in mind?  It’s important here to distinguish between selling a customer what he needs and what he wants. Finding out why a customer wants a boat is essential to determining which product is right for him. Also, a sales pitch that concentrates on how the product will fulfill the customer’s personal motivations will keep him focused on what he wants to buy, rather than what he should buy.

Fitting the puzzle together
The goal of any boat sale is to match a customer to a specific size, style, and price range that peaks his interest. Fitting the pieces of a puzzle together requires some time and effort.

With what you’ve learned about the customer personally, you should have a general idea of the appropriate size, style, and price range and can start putting the exact puzzle pieces together.

To help the customers narrow down his choices, try the following suggestions:

• Focus his attention first on one particular model as a test.
• Tell him some of its specific advantages, specifically what the product will do for him.
• Try to get a formal agreement from the customer about what you’re showing. If there is enough agreement, it can lead right to a close. If the customers has any doubts, questions, or objections, this is when he’ll bring them up.
• Listen to what the customer says, and don’t immediately rush to refute him.
• Use his objections to help you sell. One product’s drawbacks may be another’s advantage.
• Continue showing models in this way, and you’ll eventually hit on the one that makes him want to buy.
• Pay attention to your customer’s reaction(s), and he’ll let you know.

Be careful not to show customers scores of models with no rhyme or reason. Providing too much information will only serve to confuse customers. If they’re overwhelmed, you won’t get an accurate reading of their desires.

Getting them to pull the buying trigger
Once you’ve found the product that peeks a buyer’s interest, determined why he wants a boat, and identified a particular model that fits those wants, now is the time to convince the customer. Try the following tactics:

• Show him the boat. Have him touch it, get into it, drive it. If you don’t have access to the water, show him pictures of the boat in action, preferably on DVDs.

• Prove every statement you make about the boat’s features. Have him thump on the hull, for example, or examine the displays and controls for their specific features and how they work.

• Cite actual experiences. Written or verbal testimonials can be powerful positive motivators, especially if the prospective customer knows another of your buyers. If possible, tell him about his neighbor’s purchase and subsequent satisfaction.

• Repeat your main sales points. Many times, repeat them. Be clear and specific and offer facts, figures, names, charts, or pictures to back up your points. And listen to the customer (and observe the quiet ones). Make sure the customer understands your points and believes you.

• Talk the customer’s language. If a customer speaks simply and to the point, do the same. This customer won’t appreciate a long-winded explanation of ‘what this product will do for him,’ no matter how well-intentioned this presentation may be. Match your enthusiasm and energy to that of the customer.

• Speak as though the customer already owns the boat. He’ll get used to hearing the words and ideally, envision it as his own. Pause during your explanations so that the customer can agree with you. He’ll get used to saying ‘yes,’ and you’ll also clear up any misunderstandings that may arise during your talk.

• Use the word ‘you’ often in talking to a customer. Not only does this personalize the conversation, but it also makes the customer realize that you’re talking to him and him alone. It will also allow the master salesperson to bring up the buying motives and desires that were discovered earlier in the sales process. A customer won’t listen to you, unless you listened to him as well.

People purchase boats for many different reasons, motivated by a complex and unique combination of wants. To get a customer to pull the trigger, the master salesperson must convince the customer that the product you’ve matched him with satisfies all his desires.

Even if a salesperson does everything right, some customers may still hesitate to pull the trigger on buying a boat. Many struggle with making big purchase decisions, especially in this economy, for personal reasons or ones that have nothing to do with the product itself. These are called objections, and we’ll offer a future e-ssentials article aimed at helping a salesperson creatively handle a buyer’s objections.

---

Anna Townshend is assistant editor at Boat & Motor Dealer. She can be reached by phone at 847/647-2900, ext. 1308 or via e-mail: atownshend@boatmotordealer.com.