Stories from the Sales Frontlines

qbrozen

Well, last year at this time, "they" were predicting 3.00 per gallon and that sure came to pass!

oh, i had sources predicting WAY higher than that. It was quite the discussion here at work, and I was trying to put out the fire while "news" stories were getting passed around saying $5/gal. Wish I had saved them to share. Oh well.

mark156

yes, Bill, you are right, it was from Bill Heard Chevrolet in Collierville off 385.

Mark

british_rover

I scanned in the Land Rover Way brocure. It has some nice points in it but not all the details.

If anyone would like to see it I can email it to them sometime tomrrow and I will also try to make a brief post about the program.

corvette

Wow, you are dedicated! Sure, send it along, it will be a nice break in a very long day at school.

black_tulip

$4/gallon won't happen this year. Maybe next but not this year. At most it will peak at $3.50.

And, you base this on what?

Care to share your crystal ball?

snakeweasel

And, you base this on what?

Market indicators, the economy, past trends in gas prices. Unless something big time happens, like nuclear war in the mid east or another hurricane takes out refineries you won't see anything much above $3.50. My best guess would be $3.25 give or take then adjust that for individual markets.

Of course the economics of it is not an exact science but its better than running around screaming that the sky is falling.

mark156

Snakeweasel, nothing has to happen for the prices to spike like crazy. Just the thought of a nuclear incident with Iran will cause prices to go through the roof. When people get jittery, they do crazy things.... the stock market and oil market are the same way.

I say we will see at least $4.00 by the end of the summer. ($4.00 reg. $4.25 med $4.50 prem). If something does happen, like a hurricane, more war, etc... the prices could go higher. Two years ago a barrel of oil was about $25.00.... now $70 plus! OUCH! Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride! :surprise: :mad:

We are already at $3.08 for prem and the summer driving surge doesn't start until Memorial Day.

M156

travler

If there is an ADM on every car on the lot I'll walk away. If it's a showroom car or a demo, and I have other choices I'm ok with that. They're just displaying the available accessories. Also, what do you get for the money; fluff or tangibles? If it's really something useful like door guards or mud flaps, and I want or need it that's ok too. But if it's just an "appearance" package for $500 I'll feel like the dealer's integrity is shaky.

travler

....or they could teach them their own bad habits. :

snakeweasel

Snake, nothing has to happen for the prices to spike like crazy.

Yes there has, its called spring and our oh so wise government has mandated that the gas we use in the summer has to be different than the gas we use in the winter. The switch over doesn't do much for the supply which of course increases the price. Add to that that over the next month or so demand will slowly increase as we head into the summer driving season. It happens every year.

I say we will see at least $4.00 by the end of the summer.

Not unless something major happens. In the next few weeks you will most likely see a roll back of prices then another surge mid to late May. Barring some unforseen event you won't see $4.00 gas for at least a year.

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride!

Yeah its being a bumpy ride but I really don't think the sky will fall.

mark156

Well Snake, we don't agree..... I hope that you are right, but I smell $4.00 a gallon gas from where I'm sitting. :surprise:

M156

bigdveedubgirl

$3 $4 Or $5 I dont care....All I know is I put $10.00 in my truck real quick and it is right above the "E". When I bought my truck in O3 It was 45.00 for a fill up. It will cost me $75.00 now.

british_rover

I added some photos to my carspace site.

it is here
http://www.carspace.com/british_rover

I also just decided to up load my scans of the Land Rover Way stuff as well but I have to do that when I get home.

mark156

I like the tent for the LR3, how much does that cost?

M156

british_rover

With the connecting tunnel a little less then 800 dollars. The sides roll up as well or you can just roll up the plastic part and leave the mosquito netting.

Once the sun goes down and I have less glare I will take some more pictures but right now the sun is killing me.

black_tulip

...but I smell $4.00 a gallon gas from where I'm sitting.

I hope snakeweasel is right, but my money is with Mark on this one. We shall see..

mark156

I'm getting ready to take a 2 week trip in a motorhome that will get about 8.5 -10 mpg. It's a 2006 39 ft. 300hp cat diesel, 4 slides... I'll drive it about 1,500 miles. The motorhome has a 90 gallon fuel tank so I'm thinking at 8.5 miles per gallon on a 1,500 mile trip at $3.75 a gal... I'll spend about $661 on fuel. Not bad for a fun vacation over two weeks. Diesel fuel has been more than regular in California.

Happy Motoring. M156

jmurman42

Here in Maryland they just passed a mandate where the MTB additive has to go. It will be substituted with Alcohol, which will be trucked from the Midwest. Our prices here will definately be 3.50 for regular unlead mid-summer.

Funny thing, when gas is 2.75 for regular, the Internet inquiries are steady...with the threat of 3.00 those same inquiries sky-rocket.

I figure it would need to be approx 5.00 a gal for a Hybrid to financially pay for itself...as opposed to a regular gas engined Civic.

corvette

I think MTBE is going away everywhere.

british_rover

a bunch of phots to my carspace page along with scans of some Secret Land Rover Way documents. Hopefuly no one from Land Rover will see them or they will send the SAS, SBS and MI6 after me.

http://www.carspace.com/british_rover

I also added a bunch of pictures from stuff around the dealership today.

mark156

Thanks for sending more pics... I really enjoyed looking at them. That tent could come in quite handy for those who like the outdoors but don't want to sleep on the ground. Very cool attachment!

M156

snakeweasel

Didn't GM have something like that tent for the Aztek?

mac24

Interesting pics.

What is LR Way #5: "Bid to Buy"? Sounds like an invitation to haggle to me.

mark156

Snakeweasel, the only difference with the Aztek, is that the tent should have covered the WHOLE suv, boy, was that an awful mistake for GM. :confuse:

Mark

british_rover

Bid to buy should not be on there anymore I just forgot to scratch it out. Land Rover discontinued that program.

Basicly Bid to buy was a program that said once a retailer puts a number on a trade in he/she is commited to buying that vehicle at that number even if the customer does not buy a vehicle from the retailer.

Basicly it was an attempt by Land Rover to prevent or at the very least discourage retailers from over allowing on trades.

Over allowing is just not a good idea anyway and is just a good way to get yourself in trouble so we don't really do it. The flip side of that is if you have a car and 49,500 dollars is all the money in the world for then showing the customer 50,200 is ok. The trade is really only worth 49,500 but the 50,200 looks better and is a small enough increase that you are not backing yourself into a corner when it comes to discounting the new car.

Now because most other Land Rover dealers did not even bother to follow the bid to buy procedure we would use this to our advantage.

If someone comes in and is shopping us with another dealer then balks at the trade value we give them because it is much less then what the other dealer said then we could do this.

US: Did _____ mention the Bid to Buy program?
Him: Uhh no. What is that?
US: Hmhh well that is odd if they are folowing the procedures of the Land Rover Way then they should have mentioned bid to buy. Bid to Buy means that whatever number a Land Rover dealer puts on a trade then they are commited to buy that vehicle even if you don't buy a new car from them.

This always makes the person go hmhhhh.

It also throws the ball completely into their court. If they were being on the up and up with us and the number they said was the number the other Dealer put on it then they can go and hit them with the Bid to Buy procedure. Now if the other dealer over allowed a large amount on trade just thinking the would offer no discount on the other side then they are screwed.

If they back up from their original trade value then they look sleazy but if they follow through with the purchase then they just paid way to much for a used car and did not sell a new one either.

It also covers us cause we don't know if the customer is being honest with us or not. He could by lying saying that dealer A offered him so much more for his trade hoping we would at least split the differance with him.

This only happend a couple of times but in every instance but one that I can remember after we told the customer about bid to buy and they went on their way we never heard from them again. So either they were stretching the number that the other dealer gave them or the other dealer was on the up and up with them and they did the deal. I know there are a handful of used cars that I have pre-sold, for example there is a Supercharged Range Rover that when the guy trades it in 18 months from now I already have a buyer for it, so maybe this other dealer knew they had the guys trade pre-sold so they put a strong number on it.

There was one instance where we told the guy about bid to buy and he went off to talk to the original dealer. As soon as he mentioned bid to buy the dealer started back tracking from his original number. Started saying that the guy who put the number on his car was not here right now and he might have made a mistake.

That guy came back to us and did the deal with hardly any more fuss at all.

corvette

Pretty cool stuff! On the secret documents, are you supposed to go over everything on the list with all your showroom visitors? That could get kind of tedious if someone were just out killing time (and didn't want to waste your time or theirs).

smittynyc

I hope snakeweasel is right, but my money is with Mark on this one. We shall see..

Ditto -- regular at the Sunoco near my subway stopped jumped from 3.03 in the morning to 3.13 in the evening yesterday. It seems practically inconceivable to me that we wouldn't hit $4.00 this summer. Remember, we've got 20+ hurricanes to look forward to.

I had some routine maintenance done this week at the dealer. Next door to them is a GMC dealer, and I walked past their back lot on the way to the bus. They had row after row of new Yukon/Denali/Envoys just sitting there gathering dust.

Question--if we get $4+ gas for an extended period, how low will dealers go to get rid of the things? $10000+ under invoice?

snakeweasel

Ditto -- regular at the Sunoco near my subway stopped jumped from 3.03 in the morning to 3.13 in the evening yesterday.

From your handle I would guess your in New York City, I would expect places like that (or any downtown major metro area, plus Alaska and Hawaii) to be a different story. I know that gas in the Loop can be as much as 50 cents or more than the surrounding suburbs and gas down state can be 5-15 cents less than the burbs.

That being the case certain areas might see prices approaching $4.00 or even more, but those will be the exception.

Regular unleaded around here is about 2.75-2.80.

michaellno

Question--if we get $4+ gas for an extended period, how low will dealers go to get rid of the things? $10000+ under invoice?

I suspect that there will always be a market for the large SUV's -- large families, families that tow trailers, etc. I think what will happen is that the "casual" buyer of these behemoths would be turned off based on the fuel costs, but the flip side is that there may be "bargain hunters" who see $10-12K off of MSRP (or invoice) and think that it's a screaming deal.

I know my sister and BIL just unloaded their '03 Yukon Denali (12MPG) for a Honda Pilot (MPG unknown, but it's gotta be better than 12MPG). They have 3 boys, ages 8, 5 and 2, so they still need the 3rd row seating. Plus, they live in San Diego, so I'm sure that gas prices are around $3/gallon already.

Heck, even if they only average 18MPG in the Pilot, that's a 50% increase in mileage.

Current national average for regular unleaded is $2.78 -- I predict that the average will rise to about $3.25 over the summer. We'll see.

british_rover

That card is really for when our quarterly Land Rover Way auditor comes in. They expect you to go over everything listed on that card. I don't do that with every customer because like you said it would take to long and after talking with someone for a few minutes I can feel out what type of things they are more intersted in.

The Land Rover auditors are supposed to show up in Land Rover gear and are supposed to act like a customer. In reality they generaly show up looking like an advertising salesperson and are dressed in typical business casual attire. During the audit your are expected to go over all of the stuff on the card, our centre manager actually made it up and condensed about 10 pages of stuff onto that little 5x4 inch card, and you are expected to do the six point walk around.

The six point walk around is an over view of one of our three vehicles and their is a little procedure you are supposed to follow. The auditor picks the vehicle and we just go over the car starting at the front passenger side corner of the car and working our way around to the drivers seat.

So to the couple of people on here that always say something along the lines of, "I always know more about the cars then the sales people do," well obviously they have never bought a Land Rover before.

au1994

well, for what its worth, I passed my local Ford dealer this past Saturday and he already had an Expedition and F-150 out front advertised as 9k off.

au1994

I agree that there will always be a market for the SUV's. For those that pull large trailers, very large families and those whose jobs or hobbies truly require off road (read: low range) capability. But for the most part, this could really start to push folks to cross overs or wagons. I know it will me. When I get rid if my 4Runner, my shopping list will include Subaru wagons and cross overs like the new Ford Edge.

As for the bargain shoppers, you can bet that a few will pounce on some great deals. As I said in another post, my local Ford dealer is already offering 9k off Expeditions and F-150's. I'd still have to put a pen to paper and see of the true cost to own makes 9k a deep enough discount.

snakeweasel

So to the couple of people on here that always say something along the lines of, "I always know more about the cars then the sales people do," well obviously they have never bought a Land Rover before.

While when I first start looking at a particular car I may not know much about it and may not know much when I first walk into a dealership to look at it. But I usually spend considerable time researching cars that interest me. That usually includes, but not limited to, reading everything about the car, including the owners manual (if I can get one) and talking to anyone that owns one that wants to talk about it.

Trust me by the time I walk in to buy the car, be it Toyota, Buick, Ford or Land Rover, there is NOTHING a salesperson can tell me that I don't already know. All I need them to do is negotiate the price and take my order.

snakeweasel

You're right, as long as there is a need, be it actual or perceived, there will always be a market.

The thing is that after the masses get used to higher gas prices any thing more than a minor drop in gas prices and you will see a renewed interest in SUV's.

Lets say gas does hit $4.00/gallon (national average) and stays there then SUV sales will be practically null. But then it drops down to $3.00 you will see people getting in line for those good deals you see now on SUV's.

jmurman42

I received an Internet inquiry form a customer on a Civic Hybrid w/Navi and a bunch of added equiptment on it.

I responded with an itemized breakdown of everything and received a call from him shortly after that. He liked the price and how our response came back with the itemization.

Civic Hybrids with Navi are pretty togh to get quickly and that issue was overcome after that due to the responses he had received from other dealerships. He said he sent 15 total out and had the vast majority with vague quotes or no pricing at all...some didn't even respond.

So anyway yesterday I get a call from him that he is coming into put a deposit down on the car.

Later, I get a page that I have a customer waiting. My guy is dressed in a bright yellow leather motorcycle body siut...definately not the Hybrid owner look. We go back to my office and start talking. He apologizes for not getting back to me quicker as his "pet" was sick.

I asked what he had as a pet.

"A Thompsons Gazelle"

:surprise: "A WHAT?"

Evidently he has a friend in Texas that raisies these things and he got one that was one week old and bottle fed him. I guess that the gazelle is now a couple of years old and is house trained.

Simply amazing! The things that you find out every single day in this business.

british_rover

Trust me by the time I walk in to buy the car, be it Toyota, Buick, Ford or Land Rover, there is NOTHING a salesperson can tell me that I don't already know. All I need them to do is negotiate the price and take my order.

It is not a good idea to speak in absolutes like that. What you say might be true for some makes but our cars are just packed with too much technology. Even most people that own them don't know everything about them. A small percentage of people that own these vehicles and really get into the lifestyle know as much or in some cases more then a good sales guide but that is a small percentage of people.

Grommet is a good example of that. In some cases he knows more about Land Rovers then I do because he has owned so many and he is driving them everyday. I drive them everyday too but my commute is only 5 minutes and I normaly drive a old Diso not one of the new models.

mark156

Like I said in an earlier post, I think we'll see $4.00 this summer. I don't have a crystal ball but I lived through the 1973 gas embargo (just started to drive). I've watched the markets ever since. Maybe that's why I became an Accountant :confuse: I like numbers and statistics.

I like to watch trends and it seems like the cycles happen very fast now..... whether it be gas prices, clothing fads, furniture fads, even car tastes. People don't keep their cars as long as they did 15-20 years ago (Terry has said that many times).

I'm like snakeweasel in the fact that I know almost everything there is to know about the car I want to purchase. When I zero in on something, I read everything I can about it. All I need is a person to write it up.

But, I like to hear what the salesperson has to say. Everyone perceives things differently and I like to see what angle the salesperson will have. If I throw in a negative about something, I want to hear how they will spin it. I like to see how people react to things. :P

-mark156

snakeweasel

It is not a good idea to speak in absolutes like that. What you say might be true for some makes but our cars are just packed with too much technology.

So are you saying its impossible to find out that information? If so I would disagree with you on that. I tend to do a heck of a lot of research on any car that tickles my fancy (until I dismiss it for whatever reason), FWIW I have already started researching potential replacements for my daily drive that I hope to keep a few more years (I do so now simply because if bad luck happens and I have to replace it sooner, like if I would have rear ended that Land rover [his fault] this weekend at a much higher speed).

Even most people that own them don't know everything about them.

So? I have know people that couldn't comprehend everything a ball point pen can do. That doesn't mean I cannot dig around and find everything about them.

perna

So? I have know people that couldn't comprehend everything a ball point pen can do. That doesn't mean I cannot dig around and find everything about them.

Is the confrontational attitude really necessary? You seem to like to argue for the sake of arguing. It fills the boards with clutter, please stop.

snakeweasel

Is the confrontational attitude really necessary?

Maybe you are posting this to the wrong person, just because I am replying to a statement someone else made doesn't mean I am confrontational. Other no one would have a discussion on these forums.

sky23213

... the sky is falling.
No, not anymore, I left the sport about a year ago after our dropzone closed and our baby daughter was born ... Oh, u mean gas prices :P . Sorry, couldn't help it , and I agree that doomsday is not here yet, no $4.00/GAL this year. There'll always be panic spikes, some media frenzy, but we in the Midwest are pretty lucky as far as price increase due to decreased supplies, just like after the hurricanes last year. Here in the Twin Cities area there are, I believe, two refineries and about 90% of the crude comes by way of Canada, according to an article I saw recently.

Kirstie_H

Let's bag the personal comments, please. Any more will simply be deleted without notice.

Also, we've got some great discussions on the Automotive News board about gas prices. Let's take that conversation to one of them and leave this topic for sales stories. Thanks!

bolivar

Oh, mister host, please let me put one more somewhat off topic message in here.

Just wait till you get somewhat older.

I've got a 5 month old vehicle. I know it has an electric rear window. I did all your research and I knew it. And I bought the dang thing 5 months ago. And I had opened the window a couple of months ago. But a few days ago I was going after my Subway and decided to open that rear window. And looked all over the dash for the button. Among a host of other buttons - seat warmers, 4 wheel drive lock, traction control, dash reset, plus all the 'usual' buttons.

Couldn't find it.

Got to the Subway. Looked some more on the dash. Got the manual out. Oh, yes, there it is, amoung the 8 other buttons on the drivers door panel. Zipped that window open.

Just wait. If you live a while longer, there might be lots of things you forget. And even need a salesman to remind you of.

Getting this onto track - I could have driven to the dealership and asked my salesman for help. He then could have written this up in here.

Oh, yes, the radio. Does anyone know how ALL those buttons work on the radio?

jipster

Does anyone know how ALL those buttons work on the radio?

I do.

snakeweasel

I did all your research and I knew it.

Did you really?

Couldn't find it.

Nope doesn't look like you did.

hummer13

When I was selling cars (I'm now on the aftermarket side), the ratio of what I call "Edmunds Customers" to non-Edmunds was about 1-in-15. Then again, I'm at a Hummer dealership, which I think lends itself more to an impulse buyer. How often is it for you other sales folks seeing an Edmunds-type customer vs. a normal buyer?

1racefan

How would you describe an "Edmunds type buyer"?

jescue

I think he means customers who research before they shop.We have 4 brands at our store and there is a difference.The typical Audi or Saab buyer usually knows about the cars,the pricing,and what the trade is really worth.With our Jaguar customers it is more a matter of emotion and impulse.

snakeweasel

I would think he means someone who has spent time on these boards researching vehicles and seeing what everyone says about them. As opposed to someone who only knows what they have seen on TV spots and advertisements in newspapers and magazines.

1racefan

I guess I am also curious as to exactly how the average "Edmunds type" buyer negotiates vs other buyers - from the salesperson's perspective.