SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -

Generally speaking, industry studies have shown that consumers are willing to shell out a few more bucks for a certified pre-owned car. However, if the consumer is budget-conscious, the price premium on a certified car can be a tricky proposition.

At least that has been the experience for some dealers, including Rod Rowley, who said that led his dealership group and him to believe that “price isn’t the only thing that sells a car.”

Rowley, who is the vice president of new and used inventory at Larry H. Miller Dealerships, was speaking on the Top 10 Best CPO Ideas panel at Used Car Week in November with a few other dealer leaders in the pre-owned space, including his contemporary at another large dealership group.  

 “Obviously, you’ve got to be valid in the price, you’ve got to be relevant in the price, but what we find more and more are quality comments, quality photos really sell cars,” Rowley said. “They get people’s eyes on the car.”

During the panel, he gave the example of a sign hanging on the office wall of LHM Dealerships’ digital director, which reads: “Where’s the best place to hide a dead body? Page 2 of a search page.”

Rowley added: “So, you’ve got to be relevant with price, but you’ve got to tell the story with the car.”

Telling that story may also mean showing that car’s value, particularly if it’s CPO.

And training your staff to emphasize the value of CPO can be paramount, says Hendrick Automotive Group’s David Nelson, who was also on that same panel along with Auction Direct chief executive officer Todd Hoagey and Don Luke, principal at Bill Luke Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram (Auto Remarketing’s 2015 CPO Dealer of the Year).  LotPop owner Jasen Rice moderated the session.

“In training your staff, let’s face it, that’s absolutely critical, because that’s where the customer interface is,” said Nelson, who is the group’s director of pre-owned operations. “That’s when if they can’t sell the value proposition of a CPO, you’re not going to get paid back for your investment.  The hardest thing to do is to get salespeople — believe it or not — to sell the value.

“And so selling the value of the program, getting the ROs, letting them look what was done to the car, having them take pride in the quality, walking the lot. Actually doing those good, old-fashioned things like trade walks, look at it before, and then look at it after when we’re finished with it,” he said.

“It’s a vehicle and a product that you can be proud of, but you’re going to have be able to sell it to make the money,” Nelson added. “So we intensively train on the value propositions of each CPO program that we have.”

Both Nelson and Rowley agreed that using help from the automakers to train the staff in the stores is critical. Nelson also brought up an interesting point about what independents have taught them about selling CPO, as those dealers and others in the industry have built third-party programs to meet the needs of their customers seeking certification.  

“They had to develop their own programs to compete with that, and therefore, they developed the expertise of selling against CPO, which really made them better at selling CPO, period,” Nelson said. “And so they’ve really done a good job at driving us to do a better job at selling the certification program.”

Editor's Note: The above Used Car Week video is courtesy of NIADA.TV, which filmed several segments at the conference. 

This story is one of several features set to appear in the upcoming January edition of Auto Remarketing, our Leading Dealer Groups issue.