The Satisfaction of Deciding

You have to admit, there is a certain degree of satisfaction once you have made a decision. There is feeling of relief, a feeling of the ability to move forward. Right, wrong, or indifferent, the decision has been made. Now you have to live with it. Now you have to make the best of it.

Everyone, unless you are hiding under a rock somewhere, has heard me talk about the purchase of my Jeep and my experiences with my order. During one of my virtual training classes yesterday, one of the salespeople asked, whether or not I test drove my Jeep before I bought it.

To give you a little context, yesterday’s class was on the “Buy You Lunch” close. In this close, the customer tells the salesperson that there is no need to take the vehicle for a test drive because they had driven the vehicle elsewhere. The salesperson uses the idea of showing the customer something of value the other salesperson did not, with the offer to buy them lunch if they can’t. During this class, we not only discussed how to move forward with the demonstration drive, when the customer says they don’t want to drive, but we also discussed why it is so important that the customer goes on the demo drive. Build excitement, paint the mental picture of ownership, and as one salesperson put it, build the ether.

So, now that you are caught up, there I was preaching the importance of a demonstration drive, and I get called out about if I went on a demonstration drive before I bought my Jeep. Before I talk about my response, I want to preference one thing, car people are typically an outlier case. We are not the 80% customer that we train and practice for.

Back to my Jeep and did I test drive it before I purchased it. The fact is, I didn’t test drive my Jeep before I bought. Another fact is, I had never even sat in a Jeep before I bought mine. I had also never driven a hybrid vehicle prior to ordering my Jeep, let alone a plugin one.

All of these facts weighed on me before I placed my order. I spent hours on the Jeep website and the different Jeep forums, trying to determine exactly what I wanted. Buying the Jeep was going to be a dream come true for me. This was going to be the first vehicle that I bought, for me and that I wanted in over 20 years. I was excited and a little nervous because I was not sure what I wanted. What engine? What trim level? What kind of tops? What kind of doors? And the list goes on and on. There were so many choices, what if I make a mistake. I must have built and configured my Jeep a hundred times in the month before I ordered it. In fact, if I would have determined the exact configuration, I wanted on the first day I started this process, I would have had my Jeep at least a month earlier than I got it. After weeks of agonizing over the exact build for my Jeep, it was time to get off the fence about things and just make a decision and get this Jeep ordered. The fact is, with the current chip-shortage I was running out of time to get my Jeep because I was losing my current car, to my son who was getting his license in a few short months.

So, I picked up the phone, called my dealer, and got my Jeep ordered with my latest configuration. We discussed a few items, made a couple of tweaks, and he said, “are you sure this is what you want?” With a nervous confidence, I said, “YES!”

And that was that. The decision has been made. Immediately, all the thought and energy I had put into deciding the options for my Jeep, were gone! I was no longer thinking about, am I making the right decision, what if I make the wrong decision, what if it gets here and I hate it. I was now thinking about, things like, what kind of wheels and tires do I want to get, how am I going to store my hard top, and many other after-market plans. I had moved forward. I was now beyond the decision to buy the Jeep and with that decision I experienced a sense of satisfaction, of relief, and a sense of accomplishment.

Now some may say that I could have backed out or changed my mind and not taken delivery, however, I don’t work that way. I am a man of my word, when I placed my order, I was committed. I had decided this was my next vehicle and I was moving forward with excitement.

Prior to my virtual training class yesterday, this article would have ended here, however I feel it is my duty to expand on my lack of a test drive prior to purchase.

I was committed to buying this Jeep, and I was going to buy virtually no matter what. I was even very excited about buying it. However, once I saw what my payments were going to be, a little bit of that excitement faded. This is one of the heftiest car payments I have ever committed to. Signing the contract and committing to the payment, was the first time since I placed my order that I had pause about buying the Jeep. All of those doubt-based questions came flooding back, because I still had not drove the Jeep yet.

Now, fast forward to now, three weeks into ownership, and I have to say I LOVE MY JEEP! I am I absolutely love it. I believe I not only made all of the right decisions, but the Jeep has exceeded all of my dreams and expectations. When the salesperson asked me whether or not I drove my Jeep before I bought it, I think back to how I felt signing that contract and how I feel now. If this was a more normal sales situation, and I was not a car guy that used his connections to get a deal and skip the process, if I had gone through the process, if I would have been given a value-based presentation, and a enthusiastic demonstration, I would have been feeling the excitement I am feeling now when I signed that contract, and I know I would have been willing to pay more based upon these feelings.

This article comes with two morals. One, help you customers feel the satisfaction of deciding. Use your experience and expertise to guide them through this decision so they can move on to more important things. The second moral is, don’t allow your customer to skip steps in your sales process, because the decision has already been made. A value-based presentation and enthusiastic demonstration drive will enhance the customer experience and maybe even get them to pay more. I would love to here your thoughts and feedback. Email me at: joe@ditln.com, let’s chat!