Let Your Customers Buy What They Want

By Kit Sullivan

You know what sounds good? Just sitting back, relaxing and letting your customers buy whatever services they want. I know what you’re thinking: “If only that were true, and it actually worked.”

Well, boys and girls, I’m here to tell you that it does work, and that this is exactly what you should do if you want to enjoy happy customers, have higher-than-average tickets and realize an increase in your return-customer base.

To understand just what this seemingly crazy idea really means, let’s examine a couple of fundamental truths when it comes to any person’s motivating desires and actions. First and foremost, you must realize that no matter how good you may be, or how good you may think you are at “influencing” your customers to follow your recommendations to purchase an extra service or part from your shop, that you can never, ever “make” someone buy something. In fact, it is darn near impossible to make anyone, no matter how forceful, coercive or physical you may get, to do something — anything — that they don’t want to do.

Nobody — no customer, child, spouse, employee, citizen, soldier or prisoner — can be made to willingly do something they do not want to do. That is an impossibility.

There are no tricks, mental or otherwise, no techniques, no arguments, no opinions, no “long lost secrets” of salesmen from generations past, that can force a customer to buy any part or service that you may recommend if it is against his will to do so. No sheet of paper showing the actual “manufacturers recommendations,” no fancy printed poster with endorsements from the “ABC Automotive Council” touting statistical reasons why a particular service is necessary, and no aggressive “scare tactic” that some less-than-savory technicians resort to will ever be able to force any customer of yours or mine to agree to buy any service that they just don’t want to buy.

Accept that simple truth and you will be miles ahead of your hard-working competition right away.

Now, on the other hand, if somebody does want to do something it is difficult to stop him or her from doing so. And if someone wants to do something strongly enough, then it is very difficult to stop them. And if they really, really want to do something, it is darn near impossible to stop them from doing it no matter how hard you may try.

Think about the last time you were in a shopping center or grocery store and some petulant child was throwing a screaming, crying fit because his poor mother refused to buy him something he wanted. No matter how much the frazzled mother may try to convince “junior” to stop embarrassing her by throwing his tantrum, if the little guy doesn’t want to stop, he most often does not.

Why? Well, I think you all know the answer to that — because the child knows that if he keeps it up, “mommy weariest” will eventually cave in and give him whatever he wants. And you know it will work every time you see that kid doing that. How do we know it works? Because it has worked in the past — if not, he wouldn’t be doing it now! Even a child understands that concept: If it works, keep doing it; if it doesn’t work, stop doing it.

Your customers are much the same — although I sincerely hope they are not throwing screaming tantrums in your shop! By “much the same” what I mean is that no matter how much you try to convince them that they may need something extra today, if they really do not want to do it, then you just ain’t gonna make it happen.

So, if we all agree that you cannot reasonably make anyone do something they just do not want to do…and that you probably cannot reasonably stop anyone from doing something they really want to do…then we all should come to the realization that if we stop trying to make, convince or coerce people to do things they don’t want to do, and start trying to influence people to want to do the things we are recommending, then a higher percentage of your customers will willingly agree to purchase the services and parts you are recommending to them!

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