Real Secret of Best Car Showroom Discount

I read a supposed industry exposé with a smile. Forecourt insiders spilling the beans on how to nab the often elusive discount on your new (or new-to-you) wheels.

Many of the assumed techniques seem no longer to apply.

Acting like you're not really interested. Heading for the youngest salesperson. Looking for slow moving stock.

All fallen by the wayside, it seems. In its place, the over-riding advice was all about timing.

Anyone versed in Enterprise tech vending will wince at this. Year-end incentives in particular infamous for creating many a frenzy among seller and buyer alike.

Then there's the three other Quarterly giveaways. And to lesser extent (often dependent upon size of vendor) end-of-month offers.

One issue with this, stems from the resultant 'hockey-stick' sales linegraph. Skewing multiple orders to the final moments of the accounting period.

You can diminish your unique value-add to that of an inferior rival. You can demolish all the groundwork put in for a long-term top-dollar client at the behest of forced urgency. Needlessly slash margin, and likewise commission, gifting those that'd be buying anyway your sweet bonus. Then there's the potential jam in delivery bottleneck from more delivery promised than can actually be undertaken. And perhaps most damaging, the expectation that can get set in your precious marketplace, whereby your once-off, never to be repeated, super discount becomes your normally accepted price tag.

Then what if your attractive offer goes unrequited. Only for them to come back a few days later, demanding you honour the price you gave back then, despite you insisting it was time-limited?

Whilst a first offer can on occasion be fair and agreeable all round, why give off the whiff of desperation that proposing a discount or rapidly accepting such a request can emit?

The less commoditised your offering, the less price pressure you ought face.

Yet the fact remains, everyone loves a bargain. What solution buyer doesn't want to be able to revel in telling their peers, bosses and family how they 'got a deal'? No matter the extent to which no other option may be available regardless.

Savvy buyers will know the looming closing-off of the books can release cash their way.

Those of us that have been able to succeed on the 32nd of the month will know of the brinkmanship.

Yet there are tools on hand to help in this.

Maybe an underpinning one, is to have a special slice of the marketing budget sanctioned for just this purpose.

I've been among Salesteams where there is an implied discount pot.

Beyond such safety net and potential accelerator, the extra bonus then on offer to divvy up unclaimed discount by the salesforce helped create a sharp focus on brutal qualification, showstoppers and solution selling mastery.

Lastly, when the need is known to be great, one which you alone can sate, wherever possible a discount ought not be in return solely for a month-end signature.

The true star will have plenty of other negotiating currencies on which to bring more into the deal. Whether from the classic volume increase and later upgrades to implementation timelines and legacy reporting and beyond.

Although let's not forget, that a proper sales process is also one that removes the need to discount. How close is yours to that?