Why do you love selling cars?

This is a question I love to ask dealers. Usually, if I’ve had a chance to get to know them, I can guess. It’s usually one of these four things:

1. The thrill of the chase. The do-or-die, make-it-or-break-it lifestyle of a salesperson is an exciting way to live.
2. You make more when you sell more. Of course, you make less when you sell less, too, but that’s all in the lifestyle of a salesperson.
3. You love cars. Who better than you to help someone find the right vehicle for themselves or their family?
4. You love people. This was my reason when I was a salesman. And if you were there for any of my Catch and Keep customer strategy presentations this year, you were probably nodding along with me. Either way, if this is your reason, we should talk; we’d get along well!

My Catch and Keep customer strategy is all about people because the automotive business is all about people. Yes, technology has changed. Shopping is different, navigation is different, communication is different.

But that really amounts to a big change in the people we sell cars to. And I wanted to speak directly to today’s dealers about today’s customers. I wanted to arm all of you with all the insight I can, so you can be successful in a today that’s very different from yesterday.

Long-term thinking in a short-term world

The first pillar of Catch and Keep is that you have to know your customer — this means every car shopper and car owner you interact with. You need to build a modern database that tracks the relevant details about modern customers, and segments them accurately so you can communicate more effectively. That’s what Pillar 2 is all about: right message, right time, right channel. Which brings us to today’s topic, Pillar 3. It’s time to commit.

Commitment is a tough term for anyone who knows what today’s customers are like. They buy a car from one person, have their service done somewhere else and switch it up again when it’s time to trade in. Many dealers think they’re lucky to get one sale out of anyone; the idea of repeat business feels a little too lofty. But it really shouldn’t be, if done right. Try to think about businesses that are successful long-term by only living off new customers. There probably aren’t many.

Let me tell you about a dealer I work with, Scott Rainville of Apple Automotive Group in York, Pa. Nearly a quarter of his customers, 22 percent, have been customers for a minimum of 18 months. In car terms, that’s a long time!

How does Scott do it? How do you keep customers coming back when they always have options, and they always go with the best one? You make sure your dealership is always the best option for every customer. When you know your customer (Pillar 1) well enough to get the right message to them every time, in the right way (Pillar 2), you can absolutely hang in there for the full lifecycle. That means you get the vehicle sale and the add-ons. You get a good customer review that leads to referrals.

You get their maintenance throughout ownership, you get the replacement parts business and then, sure enough, you get a good trade-in or at least another vehicle sale.

So, how do you make Pillar 3 possible at your dealership? It’s surprisingly simple:

You change your mindset

“The lifecycle mindset is something dealers have to mature into,” Scott told me. And he couldn’t be more right. As we all know too well, there’s a lot of pressure to sell every day, so today often feels like the most important day of your career. That feeling is even more intense for dealers who are young in their careers, who haven’t yet gained the perspective it takes to see the value of repeat business. But repeat business is the only way to grow your dealership successfully, so the mindset shift is critical.

Scott and his team knew they had a big hurdle to clear with their sales team, so they set up some advanced training on how to use their technology to nurture a more profitable customer and a longer customer lifecycle. Their CRM logs evolving communication preferences, service history … everything that illustrates the experience their customers are having with their vehicles and the likelihood of any upcoming need they might have.

And their employees are trained to know their customers well enough to identify additional opportunities beyond the offer that’s currently on the table. Some things they might do, for example, are meet and greet customers in service, understand their customers’ current mileage and vehicle wear and tear, stay up on any of their customers’ lifestyle changes, as well as alert customers to current OEM offers that might be to their advantage.

You tune in

To help build trust, which is crucial in any committed relationship, Apple’s dealers are encouraged to interact with their customers no matter where the customers are or how they prefer to communicate. That means the dealers are trained to create and maintain their own social media identities. On Facebook, Twitter and beyond, they can respond to customer questions and comments quickly, and learn a great deal about what happens with buyers between big purchases.

There’s something to be said for a dealer who can talk directly to his customer base while they’re already online, where they make most of their biggest purchase decisions. If you’re available at critical moments, you become memorable, and that’s what you want. You make yourself easy to find and easy to talk to, and you’ll be the easy choice when they’re ready to do business.

You widen your territory

Here’s an aspect of modern technology that dealers should use to their advantage and often don’t: The Internet makes geography irrelevant.

Say you have a solid digital presence — a user-friendly website with strong SEO and complete listings that include great photos. It’s very possible you’ll attract customers from cities and towns you’ve considered outside of your region. You might even sell a car to someone who flew to get to you — someone who did his homework and found the right car for the right price on your lot instead of any of the lots closer to home.

Now, with a one-and-done mentality you might think, “This is great! I made a sale today. I’m pretty encouraged that this guy came so far just to buy from me. But I’ll probably never see him again. Moving on!”

Not so fast. Long-distance customers still have long-term potential. When you’re selling with a customer lifecycle mentality, Mr. or Mrs. Out-of-Town Buyer gets classified in your database as an out-of-towner. That means you don’t bother him or her with things like oil change coupons. But you do reach out to him or her with news and updates about the vehicle and anything else that shows you remember and appreciate them and their business.

Here’s how this leads to repeat business: Give out-of-towners a good experience, and they’ll tell their social networks. They’ll give you a good review that people can read, again, in any region. They’ll consider buying add-ons from you because they already trust you. And, when it’s time for the next vehicle purchase, they’ll be back. You’ve just landed yourself loyal customers in another state. Plus, you never know who they know or who they’re related to that might just live in your community or around your dealership.

You take the plunge

Pillar 3 might be my favorite, because frankly it’s where you can really experience a difference in your work and your results — no matter who you are or why you do what you do. The thrill-seekers will have that many more opportunities to chase. The money-minded among us will obviously like how much more money they make in a lifecycle compared to a single sale. If you love cars, or just love selling good things to good people, you’ll have more of that. And it will be more rewarding.

If you made it this far without the fear of commitment overcoming you, I have one task for you: Find out what your number is. Figure out how many of your customers have been with you — doing actual business with your dealership in any capacity — for longer than 18 months. Think about what kind of training you need to do with your team to move people into a lifecycle mindset. And then get ready to talk about how to tie it all together and transform your dealership when I’m back right here with Pillar 4!

Sean Stapleton is the vice president of sales and marketing for VinSolutions, a Cox Automotive company.