Why the Phone Is Still More Powerful than the Internet and Social Media, Combined.

In the automotive world your connections to people are everything. The Internet connects everyone on this planet instantaneously. Social media like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn are being used multiple times a day to catch up on the latest news, find out what your friends are doing, get attention and to market yourself. Yet there exists one device more powerful than all of that—the phone.

The phone is more powerful than all of these other technological developments. The phone is money.  And every person has one. In fact, there are more cell phones on the planet than people, with an estimated 7.8 billion devices! In the USA alone there are just under one trillion phone calls per year!

Think about it. You spend more time with your phone than any other device, and you keep it closer to you than even your kids. The same holds true for your prospects that can help you take your business and your sales to the next level. Before you dismiss this all as obvious, consider that 65% of adults even sleep with their phones nearby! And think about how much time you already spend on the phone calling prospects, following-up, generating leads, and most importantly answering inbound calls.

The phone is a powerful business weapon, whether it’s for making contacts with customers or making cold calls to get new customers. The phone is integral to your success in the auto industry and for a number of reasons most people are terrible at using it, or worse, they avoid a phone call and shoot out an email instead. In fact, Salesforce suggests that 92% of all customers use the phone before making a purchase and 85% claim to be dissatisfied with the interaction.

You may have been led to believe that you couldn’t sell cars over the phone—Which isn’t true, of course. Being in front of someone is most effective, but it’s very expensive and can cost as much as 8X more than a call.  In addition, it’s almost impossible to scale out face-to-face meetings because of the time they take. The goal is to get as many people in front of you at the dealership so you can get them in a vehicle. You cannot keep your pipeline full without using the phone to get people in the door. Calls are immediate and powerful if you can get the right person on the phone and know how to use that time effectively.

According to Pew Research over 46% of adults only have cell phones and no longer use a home or office phone. Combine that with the fact that over 50% of e-Commerce traffic comes from mobile devices and it’s clear that the future of connecting with people directly is over the phone, especially in the business world.

At the age of 26 I was shown how to use the telephone to effectively qualify leads, reduce time spent pitching new prospects, determine decision makers, and to keep my pipeline full with appointments. After getting just the introduction to proper phone use my income immediately doubled; I went from making $3,500 per month to over $8,000.

Here are 3 tips on how to handle phone calls properly and help you increase your auto sales immediately.

1. Words Matter.

One wrong word on the phone can blow your chance. You can no longer say things like, “I hope I’m not bothering you…”

2. Time is a Killer.

You cannot spend time on small talk with prospects. That’s the old-school mentality—you must get in and get out. You may only have 2 minutes to get an appointment, find out who the decision-maker is and find out their needs. Use your time effectively.

3. Voice Inflection and Tone.

It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it. There are ways to say things so that a customer never forgets you and your pitch—they are called hooks and tone control.

Other than your commitment and attitude about success, the telephone itself will be one of the single most important tools you use in building your brand, your company, and your revenues.

I put together a webinar to show you how to make millions on the phone at www.millionsonthephone.com where I go in depth on the topic of phone sales, incoming calls, prospecting and follow-up.

You will learn:

• How to Handle Price on the Phone

• How to Use Price to Fill Up Your Pipeline

• How to Get Past the Gatekeeper

• How to Create Urgency

• How to Close on the Phone

• How to Separate Yourself from the Competition

• How to Qualify the Buyer Over the Phone

• What to Never Say on the Phone

• How to Increase Your Show Rate 500%

• How to Increase Your Close Rater Over 200%

• How to Use the Phone to Make Millions of Dollars

• How to Follow-Up the Unclosed Buyer

It’s amazing how changing just a few phrases on a phone call will keep a customer from shopping the competition. Or how asking for an appointment with just a slight change in the inflection of my voice improved my show rate on appointments by 500%! It was like magic when changing my opening changed the buyer’s immediate impression. And how little urgency strategies could move a buyer from seeing me next week to wanting to see me today.

You can access the webinar 24/7 on-demand, at www.millionsonthephone.com. Get the eBook, watch the webinar and hustle the phones so hard your pipeline will explode.

Be great,

GC