Paula Cole asked a few years ago, and it bears repeating during this tough economic period..."Where have all the cowboys gone?" This past weekend, I met one that is worth telling you about.
On Sunday afternoon, my wife and family decided to have a little "family day" that consisted of us going to a few open houses and then visiting a couple of car dealerships. My kids initially resisted, but later loved tearing through the open homes (Sorry realtors!) We like to do this because it is a great learning experience to share with our kids what's really important. We always do a debrief after each home and discuss what they liked, what they didn't like, what we have at our current house, etc.
The highlight of the day was when we went to a few car dealerships. Here in Texas, because of the labor "blue" laws, dealerships can only be open one of the two weekend days. If they're open on Saturday, they must be closed on Sunday and vice-versa. Most chose this pattern, but a few like to "swim upstream" and close on Saturday to be open on Sunday. We chose to visit the ones that were open on Saturday and close on Sunday. Even though I worked in the car business for nearly 16 years, my wife summed it up when she explained to our oldest daughter when she asked "Why are we going there, they look closed?" My wife answered in her usually honest way by saying "This way we won't be bothered by any pushy salesperson!"
That's when we met him...The Cowboy! We visited the Park Place Lexus dealership in Grapevine, Texas expecting to be all alone, browsing the hundreds of new/used vehicles un-bothered. To our surprise, there was one lonely salesperson there to greet us. Now he was not pushy or obstructive to our mission, and many dealers post "inventory takers" at their lots on Sundays. That is to say, many Ford, Chrysler, GM, Hundai, Kia dealers. Here was a Lexus dealership doing the same! I was shocked, amazed and simultaneously horrified by our encounter.
How bad is the economy that a salesperson at the cream of the crop Lexus dealer in the country has to have "inventory takers" on the lot on a Sunday? This dealership won the Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award and the State of Texas Quality Award "equivalent" for goodness sake! Our salesperson, David greeted us with a great smile and was dressed casually for the Sunday (Except for the $7,500 watch he was sporting!) He was doing the same thing that other "less than" dealerships have to do to get sales leads.
Here's the bottom line...He was there so that he could sell a car or two in the coming week. He was missing the football games so that he could build his sales leads for the coming week. Was he successful? From the look of his portfolio notepad with all the names he had written down, he was getting the leads. Will they all buy from him? Who knows! But don't miss the point, he was working just as hard, if not harder, to do his job.
What do you do that others won't or aren't willing to do so that you can be the best in your position? Do you want to sell more, even in this economy? Here's an offer for you...The week of November 17th we'll be hosting an "Influential Sales" webinar series. You can read about it at http://www.pathosleadershipgroup.com/. We'll be discussing how you can get the "Influential Edge" to compete and win in today's tough economy. I want you to be a part of this webinar! Send me an email at sp@pathosleadershipgroup.com and I'll invite you to a complimentary overview, or "test drive" on how we perform our webinars for maximum impact!
Sam Palazzolo
President & Chief Influence Officer @ Pathos Leadership Group - Home of the Influential Edge!
Visit us at www.PathosLeadershipGroup.com
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