Are you a bad Customer when buying cars? Why you must change!
Why do your care? It should be the salesman’s job to serve me! Well, truth is, if you lie, cheat, and treat the person you are working with like dirt then you can expect your experience to be long, unproductive, and reciprocated. In a previous post I discussed tips to spot a lying car salesman. Before you jump to conclusions did you do any of the following:
Stretch the truth about your credit score? Discuss the perfect condition of your door dinged trade-in?
Bring in an add and ask them to match it only to turn them down when they do?
Expect the salesman to sell the newest year model in high demand under invoice?
These are just a few things you can do to distill trust in the person you are working with. If the salesman does not have trust or respect for you, what is his incentive to give you the best deal? Sure he wants to sell you the car, but he is not going to give you his best deal.
Negotiation is a two way dialog that involves trust, respect, and strategy. I have always found it is better to be honest up front and strategically reveal the disadvantages of your position that you know are going to come up.
If you have a trade in that is upside down by $2K, no need to keep that information hidden and then act surprised when they tell the same thing. By carefully revealing the known disadvantages they can’t be used against you later in the negotiation and it lays down trust to your opponent. They will have less incentive to try to tweak the numbers in their benefit and it will save you time in your negotiations.
One of the biggest complaints you here about from car salesman is about customers that come in and demand the 0% APR, tell them they have good credit only to find out after the deal is negotiated that the customer has horrible credit and can’t qualify. In this case the customer has weakened their position and in all honesty would you want to give this person the best deal after they just wasted your time?
If you end up with a bad car salesman, remember you can always leave and find a good one, but make sure to ask yourself:
Was the car salesman bad because I was a bad customer?
This is very important, because there are great salesman that can appeal to bad customers. These salesman are very good at identifying these types of customers and have tactics that allow them to negotiate a far better deal for the dealership. The car salesman is not being dishonest of unethical, they are just playing a better game of negotiation and playing a bad customer’s emotions. Whenever emotions are used, you will lose. Whether it is in investing, purchasing a house, or buying a car. You must set your emotions aside, have your facts ready, and come to play the game.
Happy car shopping! Working to find you Value!
