Episode 206 - Two Simple Keys to Closing Sales in Auto Repair Shops

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening. My name is Rick White from 180 Biz, and this is my just one thing. So first of all, I'm going to ask you all to share this video, right? I think this is a really important one. So the reason why I'm suggesting you share this is because I think there's a lot of people struggling with closing right now. And I don't mean closing your shop. I mean closing sales, right? There's a lot of stinking thinking going on right now. It's the tariffs, it's the economy. Nobody wants to buy. It is absolutely untrue. People are still buying repairs. You know, it was funny. I was talking to somebody last week, and they said, I think my customers have got to stop watching the news. And I said, respectfully, I think your staff, your advisors have got to stop watching the news, because, man, it just fills you with doom and gloom. I wanted to share with you guys what's really worked well for me and still does, by the way, for closing, okay? For closing sales. Okay? So here's the first thing I want you to talk about. For me, when I started in sales, it was all about what I could sell, what I could convince other people to buy. And I realized a long, long time ago that closing came from confidence. Right? My ability to close well came from my confidence level. But I want you to step back and think about this for a second, okay? I truly believe that confidence is a killer for closing. I think it's great for closing. Not a killer. Not a bad thing, but a great thing. But I want you to understand where that confidence comes from. Right? Most think, at least it's been my experience. There's a lot of people out there that think confidence comes from making a lot of sales. And to a degree, that does. Right? But the focus is everything, and that's where my confidence comes from. See, there's two. There's two.

Two different kinds of focus you can have. You can. You can focus on fear, right? And you can focus on rejection, right? That. That's the problem. Fear, it comes from rejection. And. And it comes from not making the sale, failing, right? So you get that fear that kind of comes up before you make a call or you talk with somebody. That fear is coming. Either a fear of being rejected or a fear of failing. So here's what I want you to do real quick. When you have fear, who are you focused on? When you are afraid, who are you focused on? Think that through for just a second. Put it in the comments. So here's what I want you to understand. The moment you can take yourself out of the picture when it comes to closing, it changes the game. So I'm going to give you what I think are the two core.

Factors in being.

A great closer. Number one, and first and foremost, is caring.

You gotta care about them, you gotta listen to them. For you, it's a car. To them, it's their life. You know, you don't know what's going on. And you can start to dig in a little bit if you're just willing to tilt your head a little bit and listen, right? But the first thing you got to do is be caring. You got to care about them. Because for me, caring equals confidence. Because it's not about me, it's about you. Does that make sense? Here's the second part of this that's really amazing. It's curiosity.

Stop trying to show people you're credible. Stop trying to prove you're good enough. Instead.

Be curious. Nobody cares how much, you know, nobody cares how much.

You can talk about. Nobody's going to listen to you until they feel listened to. That's something worth writing down. Nobody's going to listen to you until they feel listened to. And this is something I've really got to work on sometimes. In my personal life, I'm pretty good with it, you know, in my professional life and, you know, dealing with the rest of the world, I got to do a better job on the inside with my. With my inner circle, if you know what I mean. So what do you got here? After presenting all the good, along with any investment opportunities and backing up with amazing stuff, right. Is to ask for the sale, you know, that's it. Just, you just let them know. And honestly, for me, asking for the sale is, would you like me to help you? Right? That's the way I see asking for a sale. Would you like me to help you see? Because when you're afraid, right? When you're fearing rejection or you're. Or you're completely focused on making a sale, right? Dollars, the world stops at the end of your nose. And there's this concept called perception of self interest. When your perception of self interest is high, resistance is going to be high because people can sense it, okay? People can sense it. So one of the things that I do a lot is I walk into a conversation, I don't care with who it is, I just walk into a conversation and I expect nothing, right? I expect nothing.

Okay? Why? Because I'm caring and I'm curious. I care about you. And I'm curious. I don't even know if I can help you yet. Let's see what's going on. Tell me what's happening, right? You know, hey, my car's having this problem. Man, that sounds like that's really a tough thing to go through. How's this impacting you? And you start to walk through this process, you know? And for me, I am big into relational selling. I really am. I don't. I feel like you make a sale, you got a transaction, you made some money, but if you create a relationship, you've made a fortune. And I really believe that to the very core of my being. So when you step back and you ask yourself these things, how are you showing up? See, I never judge myself when I'm selling. I never judge myself on whether I made a sale or not. That's not my success point. It is my ruler. I use that to judge my effectiveness at how caring and curious I am. Okay? So anytime I go and I make a presentation with somebody and they say, nope, I step back and I say, okay, how could I have been more caring? Right? How could I have shown more caring? How could I. How could I have, you know, been zero, you know, kind of expectant, expecting anything? Sorry, I got chewed up on that word. But then also, was I not curious enough? Did I not ask enough questions so that I really got to see the world through their eyes? Because when you really do that, well, you're not a salesperson. You become an assistant buyer. You're an advocate for your client and for the vehicle owner, because they don't know who you are. Like, if you got regular clients that come in all the time, there's kind of that, that, that, you know, pitch and toss, give and take kind of thing going on. But when you're dealing with somebody new, this is where it really shines through. Okay? So I hope this is all making sense to you all. How much time do I have left? I got less than a minute. So confidence doesn't come from closing the sale. Confidence comes from measuring how effective you were. From caring and from curiosity. That's where confidence comes from. So with that being said, thank you, everybody. Please share this video shop owners roundtable, second Thursday of the month, June 12th. Love to have you in there. 7pm Eastern. And also we have our Pocket Business Genius webinar series, which is really awesome. Would love to have you in there. Any questions? We have links. Feel free. Let's rock and roll, everybody. I want you to have a great week, and I want you to go make some money. Take care, everybody. Bye bye.