Sarah Rohr

I was recently in the market for a car. Unfortunately, my trusty family Toyota Corolla was rammed and totaled by a double cab Dodge Ram (aptly named), leaving me, my husband and our 10-month-old baby without a car. Luckily, with the insurance settlement we were able to begin the search for a new vehicle.

We are cheap folks. 

We don’t buy new cars.

I sense that even when we can really afford a spiffy car, we will still opt for a deal and get a used car.

Which means that we are entering the wild and unruly world of used cars.

In this world of used cars, I am brushing up on my bargaining skills, my personal b.s. / lie detector, and as a business person, I am reviewing good selling techniques and really atrocious ones.

Take for instance the digital tool called Yelp. I Yelped “best used car dealers + the name of my city.”

It dragged up a whole mess of bona fide auto sellers whose customers were singing their praises.

I read review after review about a man, lets call him Ralph for our purposes... who was hailed as a Jedi of car salesmanship, a gentleman and a scholar. I called the dealership, I asked for Ralph and told him my story and my needs. He then began to tell me why my choice to buy a cheap car was a bad one, he gave me his philosophy on car buying, he told me about cars he had that were greatly over my budget. Let’s take this point by point… never tell a customer they are making a bad or wrong choice, that is not how to educate or even change a mind, it will most always backfire, it turns the listener off completely. 

If someone didn’t ask your philosophy on a given subject, don’t share it as though your professorial knowledge is something they want. (Ironically, that’s what I’m doing right here in this article. So it goes.)

And finally, give the customer what they ask for; showing people things greatly out of their reach does not fulfill their need. As product and service providers it is our job to make our customers feel seen, heard, understood and honored. Even and especially when we don’t agree with their choices. 

After I got off the phone with Ralph, I was irritated and then I remembered the word “Mansplaining” which is defined as: 

Verb-informal

Gerund or present participle: mansplaining

(of a man) explain (something) to someone, typically a woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing. “I’m listening to a guy mansplain economics to his wife.”

This interaction did not make me leery of reaching out to other car salesman, though my ears were perked to hear some real respect and honesty…which is where Daniel comes in (his actual name–because he deserves to be honored and recognized). 

When I called he gave me great descriptions of each car. He said, “We only sell cars that run well and have clean titles, and we play no games.” I broke my husband out of work early so we could drive the 45 minutes out of the city to this man’s lot.

In the first handful of cars Daniel showed us, he pointed out one that was greatly over our budget, and seeing our dismay he did not repeat that selling tactic for the rest of the hour and a half we were on his lot. I noticed his office was tidy and uncluttered, it was warm and inviting, he had festive decorations up, and the office looked like a very well organized place of business. Daniel himself was kind and listened to our needs. When a car didn’t meet our standards he offered a thought or two about why they might not be up to our specifications, though he did not harp on the subject or deny our claims, which was impressive in and of itself. He treated me with the same respect and regard as my husband, when he was speaking it was to both of us.

Daniel said, as we were collecting our belongings to leave, “Buying a car should be like buying milk at the grocery store (only a bit bigger and more complicated), where you know what you are getting, its quality and how much you are actually going to pay for it.” He then genuinely wished us the best and said he hoped we’d find what we were looking for, not mentioning that the sale would not be his, as he did not seem have what we needed.

I left, saddened that I would not get to buy a car from him. That’s the hallmark of a great salesman.