Mastering Objections: Turn ‘No’ into a Lifetime Customer

Up players, coming at you live from Adam's Automotive, another episode of Master Tech to Millionaire. Eventually I'm gonna come up with a better intro where I don't have this crazy radio voice, but we are here with Glenn Piccolo talking today about one of our favorite subjects of all time, key pillar of the concept, overcoming objections. The point of this episode is typically when people come into training, we get an amazing weekend full of training. It's a firehose of information, but people have to catch their flights in the late afternoon on Sunday. So usually 20 or 30 or 40% of the class has to filter out before we get to this section. So we wanted to make this as a resource for, you know, when you're in the Uber on the way to the airport or when you, uh, when you've boarded and you can, uh, capture all the content, uh, while you're on your way home. So without further ado, introducing Glenn. How you doing, Glenn? Hey man, I'm doing great. This is fun.

I love overcoming objections. It's one of my favorite things. 2 deals. Are you a salesman? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I closed it. All right. So, uh, let's get into it. Overcoming objections. Uh, I'm, I've got the actual slide deck next to me, so I'm gonna be going through this. Um, Glenn, you are a master at overcoming objections and I want you to introduce us. What do you think, uh, fundamentally, what do you think makes you a master at it? Well, um, man, great question. I like to get the yes, right? I like to— I like the challenge of overcoming it. I like to be able to, you know, just have somebody buy into what we're doing, basically. And, you know, the one thing I've learned more than anything is it's really avoiding the objection altogether is kind of like the, the cheat code. And there's so many things that we do and teach before you even build up to, you know, to, to getting to the point of where we talk about

overcoming objections, but Um, I don't know. I mean, it's just, I feel like, why wouldn't they want to do business with me? I must be missing something here. There must be something off, right? Like we must've done something wrong if they're not wanting to fix their car with me. If we found a concern with it, I mean, if it needs to be done, why wouldn't they want to do it? And so just the challenge of being able to overcome that and really finding out why. I think the biggest thing is the, the, you know, the industry uses the customer's objection as their excuse. Matter of fact, I was talking to a technician the other day and Uh, you know, he was telling me, yeah, like I actually thought like when a customer told me that, or when the customer told the service advisor that they were selling their car, I just figured they were actually selling their car. And I'm like, no, no, no, that's not, that's not what they're doing. Right. And so the technicians

actually buy into that as well, which I found to be pretty interesting. So, okay. Customers, this is how we open up the segment. Customers are designed in a lab to say no to your, to your face. We live in the best industry in the world. And part of the reason it's so good is it's a non- discretionary needs-based spending consumer business. What that means is nobody— I make the same joke in training every month— nobody goes home for Christmas and is praying or asking Santa Claus for a $2,800 rack and pinion to be put on their 2011 Toyota Sienna. It doesn't work that way. But when they get a nail in their tire, they have to get it fixed. It is something you have to get fixed because if you have a flat tire, you can't get to work. You literally cannot do anything in your life. Outside of your house. It's crazy. That's why it's the best business in the world. But people are pre-programmed in our industry. Customers are

pre-programmed to say no. And I think it's to validate their own thesis. Like, I think most customers come in with, you know, the industry has a reputation of, uh, don't get taken advantage of, find somebody you trust, make sure that they're not lying to you, especially if you're a female customer. And so they're coming in like hands up and, you know, They're ready to, they're ready. They're ready to go 10 rounds and they're coming in and they're looking for, until you've won their business, uh, for a lifetime, you know, high lifetime value spend customer, those that just throw the keys at you. The first sale that they ever come in for, they're looking for any reason to validate their own hypothesis, which is, man, I just fired my last shop. I fired every shop that I've ever been to since I've been driving a car. And here's all the reasons why. It's because they didn't do good work. It's because they lied to

me. They took advantage of me. They didn't do what they said they were going to do. And so they come in hands up like this. And when you're overcoming objections, you got to remember that they are pre-programmed to say no. And the way that you overcome that primarily is to be very well-practiced and prepared. What Todd identified over the years is there's really only like 10 objections. They all say the same thing. They all say, you know, I'm selling my car. And then they, uh, you know, they come back 6 months later. They say, yeah, I'm still selling the car. Uh, hey, I'm just going to park it. Hey, I need to talk to my spouse. Hey, I don't have the money. I don't have time for that today. And so the assumption of sale is something we talk about too in training. Hopefully you haven't left the program before we got to that. It's so powerful. It's so powerful. You know, yesterday, yesterday, Glenn, I was actually at the doctor's office or maybe 2 days ago and,

uh, a podiatrist, you know, and he literally assumed me so hard, so hard. He was like, all right, so we're going to go ahead and get started on the, uh, the injection today. You know, it's just a steroid thing. It'd be really easy. And I go, no, no, no, I'm not going to be doing anything today. And he goes, oh, it's not a big deal. Uh, well, it's really, it's not a big deal. We can have you in and out today. And he tried twice to assume hard. And I had to be like pretty clear with him. I was like, no, I am not going to be doing that today. I have a lot of things going on my schedule. So you assume the sale, you are so confident, which is what I want you to talk about, uh, in a minute. But they still say no because they're pre-programmed to say no because they don't want to spend money on their car. And it's typically some place along the way where you dropped the ball. It isn't just right in that moment. It's somewhere that you dropped the

ball along the way. So, Glenn, I want you to tell 2 stories. I want you to tell the Mustang story, and then I want you to just talk about that confidence and that, uh, that urgency, that passion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Mustang story. That's a funny story. So this was many years ago. Uh, my brother was actually at the shop and he was getting his, uh, his oil changed and he was in the waiting room and there was another customer in the waiting room that was also getting their oil changed. And so back then we would go and present in the waiting room, which we don't do that. You know, we always present at the car now. Uh, but we, I, you know, I walked in there and I presented, you know, to the, uh, to the customer, uh, a couple of maintenance items on his vehicle. And he looks at me and he goes, ah, no, I'm not getting any of that done. Yeah. I'm about to get rid of that vehicle. So just the oil change today.

And so I leave and I walk out of the waiting room. Well, what he doesn't know is that I know somebody in the waiting room and I find out later So after I left the waiting room, the— he was, he was there with his son, and his son, uh, looks over at him, he says, Dad, we're selling the Mustang? And he said, no, son, that's just what you tell the car people whenever you bring your car in for the oil change and they try and sell you extra things. And I was like, holy cow, that's so crazy. So like, we're literally training, right? We're training constantly on how to overcome objections and You know, the, um, you know, the defense is training the next generation at the same time. It's literally crazy. They're literally recruiting 13-year-olds to tell you, we're selling the Mustang, sir. We're not working on the car today. We're selling the Mustang. Okay. So that's super good. And then just urgency. Do you have any

thoughts on that? Like just that passion, like conviction, you know, we tell people to put their hands on the vehicle to have that conviction as if you were talking to your mother. So you have any thoughts on that? Yeah. I think like the passion has to match the presentation. I think that's very important to make sure that the, the, uh, two line up there. And so what'll happen a lot of times is people will not have a good presentation, but they might have passion. And so, uh, or, or the other way around, they might have a lot of passion but no presentation, or, you know, vice versa. However I said that, I may have said that backwards. But so as an example, like, customer needs a ball joint. Ball joint has, you know, excessive movement in it. Everybody knows that's dangerous and a wheel can fall off a car. Okay, and so they, they can tell that to a customer, right? They can go in and they can say, man, Mr. Customer, like, this is

dangerous, this needs your immediate attention. They can say all the words, but did they have a great presentation? Did they show-sell that? Did they let the customer put their hand on the wheel and feel it when they, you know, when they move that ball joint back and forth? Did they do a great video presentation with great moto visuals and explain that to the customer? You see right there, you might have all the passion in the world, but if you have no presentation, well then they don't line up. The customer thinks you're probably just another shop trying trying to sell them something. And then it could go the other way around. You could have a great presentation. Hey, Mr. Customer, look, this ball joint's bad. It's, it's dangerous. And then no passion behind it. Like, yeah, you could wait on it, or, you know, it could fall out, you know, in a year, or it could fall out tomorrow. And that, which is crazy. I don't ever like to hear that

because if it could fall out tomorrow, it could fall out tomorrow. And that's really all that I'm worried about, right? Because I'm not gonna see this customer, one, for 6 months probably, but also look, it's dangerous. It needs your immediate attention. So to be able to take the, uh, the urgency and then match it up with with the presentation is where you really avoid objections altogether. Yeah. So, okay, before I get into the psychology of how customers deal with objections internally, I want you to go even deeper on the presentation, you know, and I'll chime in here. Most people think the skill in sales is to just pick up the phone and close the deal, but we like to think about it as offense and defense. You know, the customer's on the defense. It's our job to move the ball down the field and score. And The analogy I make in training is where do you typically score from in football? You score from the red zone. You, you know, you want to be on the

1-yard line where it's a kick-in. You know, if you're winning the Masters, you want to be 3 feet away. You know, you want it to be a tap-in really. But what a lot of people do when they're trying to overcome objections is you, they don't realize that you're actually on defense and they try to, uh, you know, the customers put you back on defense. You're back on your heels. They said no. For some reason, and you're trying to jump the route and do a pick 6. Like you can technically do that, but from a percentage basis, you're way less likely to score on defense than you are on offense. So we talk about Key to Key for 2 days, um, about moving the ball down the field and building a great presentation to get you prepared to sell the job over the phone or in person with the customer. So do you have any more thoughts on that about putting a great presentation together? And playing offense? Yeah, I mean, it starts with saying yes. It starts

with being nice. It starts with that shop tour, right? And so when you have a shop tour, you get to really learn exactly how to close the customer. They tell you, right? If you ask the right questions, they are going to tell you how they need to be closed. Okay, so, um, you know, there's— I have so many examples of this, but just one fresh on my mind that's, you know, just a recent one. So we have to always remember the customer just fired their last shop. If it's their first time here, they fired their last shop, right? So why did they fire their last shop? See, most people make it transactional. Customer walks through, gets behind the counter. Hey, how can I help you today? Oh, my brakes are grinding on my vehicle. Okay, perfect. We'll get it checked out for you. And they could be very nice. They could be very accommodating. Hey, we'll get it checked out for you. Would you like to wait or would you like a ride home? And all those things can

happen. And that's great. Okay. Or they can say, oh my gosh, thank you so much for coming in, knowing translation. I've never been here before. The last shop I was at fired, you know, I fired them because they did XYZ. We'll find that out here in a minute. And now I'm here for you to check my brakes. So we hear a translation. Okay. So now I'm going to say, oh man, thank you so much for the opportunity, man. It's your first time here as well. That's crazy. Where have you been going? Right. And they're going to tell me, I say, hey, take a walk with me, man. It's your first time here. I want to show you around. We love to just do a shop tour. Just let you see our facility. Can't believe it's your first time here, but thank you so much. Boom. And then we walk out the door and then we walk out the door. We start asking those questions, right? Oh, so where have you been taking your vehicle? Oh, what happened over there? Was there anything? Is there anything that

they did that we could do differently? I mean, we want to make sure that we get you taken care of. And so like, we just want to know exactly what's important to you and, you know, how come we can, how we can serve you. And so that's a great question, right? And so this one a couple of weeks ago, he says, um, look, honestly, I've been going over to the dealer. I bought this car brand new at Lexus, um, zero miles. And I've been going over there for, I think it was 16 years or 10 years. I don't remember. It was a long time. And he said, you know, I've been working with the same advisor, uh, the whole entire time since I bought the vehicle and she's gone. She's not there anymore. And I don't know where she went. And so I've been getting your flyers in the mail. Perfect advertising, shared responsibility. We get the car and now it's time to execute. So I've been getting your flyers in the mail and, you know,

I just want to give you guys a shot since, you know, she's gone. And so I knew right away this, you know, his pain is loyalty, right? He wants to deal with one person, right? He didn't say they were too expensive. He didn't say they take too long. Matter of fact, he was like, you know, I don't really care how long it takes. I just felt very comfortable because she always knew everything about my car. And so now I know exactly how I can use this for the presentation to avoid the objection later. Okay, so I get that information. I'm like, I need to put this guy with one person. I need him to know that person's schedule. I need to know his Carfax history so that I can say, hey, look, I have all your records from Lexus, and now I am now your service facility, and you don't have to worry about it anymore. I've got you with this, um, you know, seasoned advisor. I know that's important to you. So when you come in, you only have to deal with this advisor, and this is their schedule.

And so now you have peace of mind knowing— see, I I didn't have to get into, I can pick your car up and deliver your car. That wasn't his pain. I didn't have to get into anything with pictures and videos because it was never a transparency thing. Not that we're, you know, we're still going to do all those things, but very important to identify the customer's pain. So as a part of moving the ball down the field, see, we've got to get in the red zone. So ball gets kicked off. That means boom, I've got the phone call and then the car comes in and now, you know, I'm on the 20 and I'm going to start advancing the ball. Okay, and so I'm gonna do a shop tour, and now I move the ball a little bit more. And then I'm gonna show them our presentation station and what they can expect once we inspect their vehicle. Now I move the ball a little bit more, and I move the ball a little bit more. And then I'm gonna update them, right, in a timely fashion, fast,

with speed. I'm gonna move the ball even more. And now by the time it's, you know, it's go time to pick up the phone, I've already advanced the ball. See, uh, we had one just the other day. Kobe walks up to me, he goes, Whatever that car needs, it's sold. And we say that all the time. We haven't even checked the car, huh? Who wants it? So it was a lady that he had a common interest with, that she had something in her car. He identified it. He had a common interest with it. The golf clubs in the backseat. It's like common interest. He starts going through his library on his phone and they start looking at stuff. It's like, oh my gosh, that's so cool. Da da da da da. And then next thing you know, he walks out and he goes, whatever that car needs, it's sold. And so see, we just eliminated whatever the objection was gonna be. We really eliminated it. I mean, probably 90% because we built that relationship with the customer.

So, uh, avoiding the objection is gonna be number one. We'll talk about how to overcome it, but avoiding it is a big deal. It's fire, dude. You're, you're saying, you're saying exactly the right stuff. Basically, like, you know, and, and, and new customer intro works hand in hand with this. We talk about the new customer intro, we say, We, we open with this. We say customers make buying decisions based on pain, and it is our job to identify the pain as quickly as possible. And you might be thinking to yourself, what does that mean? So let me give you an example. How do we get a new customer? A customer comes into our shop and they're 47 years old and they're a lawyer and they've lived in the neighborhood for 20 years. Where did we get that customer from? Most people say advertising, or they called in, or they just walked in off the street. I would argue that they've been driving a car since they were 16 years old, and they've probably been serving,

servicing their car since their early 20s. And we got that customer because some other provider that used to service their vehicles messed up somehow. They either dropped the ball or they were, uh, you know, not honest, or the prices were too high, or the quality of the work. And it is our job to identify the pain so that we can cater our presentation directly to that customer. So I'll give you an example. I say the exact same thing every single time. I give the features and benefits for about 90 seconds. I start walking and they follow me. They come out into the shop and I say the same joke every time. I say, hey man, we've been here 47 years almost. What took you so long? You said you lived in the neighborhood 20 years or whatever. And he's going to go, oh, I heard about you guys. You know, I always see the Christian thing on the sign. I love the sign. And, you know, I've just been taking it to the dealer and like, You know,

I just, I guess it was, it's time, you know, or whatever. Maybe he mentions the mailer and I'm going to say, oh, okay. So, um, cause what's happening at that moment is I am remembering that I've been trained and that this customer has fired the dealer and every other shop that that car has ever been to since they've been serving, servicing the vehicle. So I'm trying to identify the pain of why he is my first-time customer for the first time. And turn him into a lifetime customer that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars over their, over the lifetime of their, uh, service with us. So I'm gonna say, oh, well, what went wrong? Like, is there something that they did? Is it, is there anything that I can do to make sure that, uh, we give you great service today? And bang, I've got 100 benefits. I've got pickup and drop-off. I've got quality technicians, clean pictures and videos, warranty, uh, hand wash and vacuum, loaner vehicles. I've got amazing

technicians with great benefits and happy people. We're nice. We, we're open 7 days a week. And I do not know which benefit is the optimal benefit for communicating to this customer that, hey, I got you. I'm going to take care of you no matter what for the next 20 years of our relationship fixing your car. And I'm going to use that in my presentation. I'll give you another example. One time I was selling this guy brakes and he said he was about to leave and go out of town to Christmas, uh, on a road trip to Indiana. And I said in my presentation, simple as that, I said, man, and you've got a 3-year warranty, 36,000 miles. Nationwide, key, nationwide. So man, if you're on the road to Indiana, God forbid something happens on the way back, or you hit a pothole, you're going to be covered coast to coast. Or I said something like that. And he, it was a laydown. It was a great presentation. He approved the sale right away. And I know we're

talking about objections, but objections are actually a signal that the customer is increasingly experiencing pain. If it's a laydown, that's easy. They're not, the laydown customers are not the ones that ultimately are the ones who will do anything for you. They vouch for you. They refer you to their friends. They'll pay any price when they're signaling, I have an objection and I'm in pain right now. And every time you guys look at my car, I try to— you try to sell me something. If I can solve— amateurs sell, professionals solve— if I can solve their pain on that instance, And that's why I get so excited about pain. That sounds like a weird line. That's why I go, I get so excited about objections because it's like, okay, if I can solve this objection, they're mine for life. And I know exactly what their pain is. I'll give you one final example. We were talking to a gentleman, uh, maybe I shouldn't say his name here,

but he was, uh, he was here at the front counter this morning, actually, Glenn, you might know who I'm talking about. He's been coming since 1989, uh, is what he said. The first ticket I saw in the system was 1997, but you know, we've been around a long time. Multiple CRMs. I'm getting somewhere, I promise. He says, you know, I've been coming here a long time. I get to talking to him and I'm like, I wonder what his pain was because he's a lifetime superstar customer. And I say, hey, like, you know, so why did you start coming to us in the first place? He says, well, I was actually taking my car to our competitor who's right across the street. You know who I'm talking about, Glenn, um, independent. And, you know, they just, they worked on my car and it was just shoddy work. Like the whole engine basically blew up. Like I'm paraphrasing, but it was effectively I took my car to another provider and everything was fine. The service was fine. The price was fine.

It wasn't that, but there was some huge issue, a recheck. He had a huge recheck and the other provider, rather than fixing that pain, they were like, oh, it wasn't our technician. Oh no, it was this. Oh, it probably needs this. It wasn't our fault. And my dad's rule, it costs a lot of money to be right. They argued with the customer and what happened out of that? Adam's Automotive got a lifetime customer and his entire network since 19— the '90s, you know, like that's so many years and his family and like, who does he know? Because he had the ultimate pain, which was a recheck. And we were able to resolve that issue at our facility. And so if you ever have a customer who comes in with a recheck, even if you're right, if it is a good customer, reasonable, they live in a nice house, they're willing to spend money. They're a reasonable person. Man, if you can solve that pain, that is how you get the key tosser customers

who just literally just throw the keys at you, whatever it needs, Glenn, let me know when it's ready. So do you have any final thoughts on that before we get into the scripts? Uh, um, yeah, I just think the, the most important thing is like that you can show your true colors to a customer, right? That's some of the best relationships are built from those, like just what happened to that guy that came over here. Because he had a bad situation over there. Well, guess what? That happens both directions, right? And so how do you avoid that? How do you follow up with customers? How do you make sure that you are in front of those deals? Because some of the best relationships are built out of maybe a recheck if you handle it the right way. But I know that's a whole nother deal. But this is more about overcoming the objections. I was more trying to position it like, how do you avoid it? To begin with, right? And it's that shop tour.

It's getting that information. And so just another couple of examples real quick on that. You know, the one guy has been going to Lexus for 10 or 15 years or whatever. We figured that out real quick. You know, another, another customer is like, look, you know, the last place I was at, they just, you know, I don't know. I don't, I don't think I needed what they said. It's like, perfect. I'm going to take you right over to my presentation station. And then look, let me show you what you can expect from us. And I tell the customers too, predictability of the industry and predictability of their habits, which I'll get into here in a little bit. Predictability of the customer's habits, but predictability of the industry. And I say, look, let me kind of explain, walk through how it works. So in most repair shops, what's going to happen is when you turn your keys in to the advisor to get the vehicle inspected, they're going to take that key, give it to

a technician, and now the technician is going to inspect the vehicle, pass that information back to the advisor, and then the advisor is going to call you up and share that information with you. With an estimate, right? What we do differently is we're going to inspect all the vehicles right here in Bay 1. I'm going to take them— I'm at the speed rack at that point when we inspect the vehicles. So if I call you to tell you you need something on your car, I've personally put my eyes on it, and there's— it's not secondhand information. So that, see, that ties into transparency. But I'm also going to send you an amazing video with an animation explaining exactly what needs to be done on your car, so you don't have to worry about that with us. We keep all these big glass windows here. We bring people into our shop and here's the reason why we are fully transparent. See, I, I can overcome that objection. See, that's an objection that you can, you can catch

on the front side. So basically we're trying to figure out what the objection is on the front, on the shop tour, so that we can combat that before we even pick up the phone. So you're exactly right. We have set the stage now as we move into these scripts for offense and defense. Your job is to move the ball down the field. Tom Brady is the best in history at reading the defense and using that as his strategy for moving the ball down the field. And, you know, what I'm trying to say is the only time you're actually overcoming objections is when they, you have thrown an interception, you have fumbled the ball somewhere and you are back on defense. And what I'm trying to encourage everybody is the game is not over. Most people say, button it up. They ain't got no money, you know, button it up. They're selling the car. They just give up. It's like, oh, well, you know, we didn't score. So I'm just going to literally not even try anymore. But the

game is still continuing until we believe the, the, the sale is not, uh, over with until the car is fixed by us or somebody else. And if you think that customers are telling you the truth, go into your missed sales from the last week, check the Carfax history, and what you'll see is on some of them, they have literally gone the next day to get the car fixed by some other provider across the street for probably the same price. Because what happens is they get the brake check, you know, they go to you know, insert competitor, and it's pretty much the same price as you. And the second opinion always wins. And even though they're like, oh yeah, Glenn was right, they're not going to pull their car out of that second shop and bring it back over to you. Just— they're not coming back. They're literally not coming back. So the game is not over, and it is our job to overcome objections, get the ball back so that we can score. And psychologically,

here's how I like to think about it. I'm going to use the example of every single time I come in here, you guys try to sell me something. I'm going to give you the script first and then we'll break it down. Here is how I would respond. Man, Mr. Customer. So what I'm hearing you say is every time, you know, cause, cause remember, remember they might say it over like 3 or 5 minutes and they might be talking. And what your job is to, is to distill the signal that they're experiencing and repeat it back to them. So here's my script. I'm going to say, man, Mr. Customer, I'm so sorry. What I'm hearing you say is every time you come into Adam's, our shop, You know, it just feels salesy, like we're trying to sell you something. Is that sound about right? And they're going to say, yeah. And I'm going to say, feel, felt, found. I'm going to say, I totally understand how you feel that way. I have personally felt that way when I've gone to other facilities,

other service industries. I, nobody likes to feel sold. What we found, however, is, you know, typically we've dropped the ball in communication and, you know, you're not obligated to buy from us, but we are professionally obligated to tell you the state of our vehicle and If I'm being honest, the worst phone call we can get— I know you're upset now, but you're going to be way more upset if 2 weeks from now you're halfway out of town on a road trip to Indiana or Dallas and you're broken down on the side of the road. Maybe there was a nail in your tire and there's something that I could have done to tell you about that and prevent that. So I'm trying to prevent that phone call. So man, if there's anything that I can show you on your car, would you mind if I take you out and show it real quick? See, that is a pre-planned and rehearsed script. I'm not reading that off a piece of paper that is in my head. And what did I

do there? First, repeat back the objection to them. Repeat. It's psychology. I learned this in premarital counseling. If I come home from work and my wife, she says, hey, you didn't take out the trash. And that's frustrating me. Guess what? I'm on defense and I got to get back on offense. What do I do? I have 2 options. I can listen. And I can repeat back what she's concerned about and validate and empathize, or I can become combative and argue. I can say, well, you know, I had a long day at work. You have no idea how much is on my plate. And if you're a married person in the, on this, uh, on this podcast, you know how that's probably gonna work out for you. That's not an effective way to communicate. Customers make buying decisions in order to avoid pain, and people wanna hear validated, known, understood, listened to. I'm going to repeat back the objection to them because one of two things will happen. Either they will

agree with me or they will clarify what the actual objection is. So if I say every time, you know, if I say, if I repeat back to them, they will either say, yeah, that's right. Or they'll say, well, so let's use the, I know I'm going for a bit here, but let's use the garbage example. When I come home from work, I'll say, so what I'm hearing you say is, you know, I come home from work and I just sit on the couch and it's frustrating that Um, I didn't take out the garbage. Is that right? Okay. I use that skill. She will either say, yes, that is what frustrated me. Or she will say, you know, it's not actually that something happened 2 weeks ago. You also left the dishwasher, um, full. And, and if I'm being honest, I, I, I probably stewed on that for a while or, or whatever. So I, I'm paraphrasing here. What I'm trying to get at is she will clarify if she will clarify if there's something deeper and the customers will too psychologically. So one, I'm gonna repeat back the

objection. I'm gonna get exactly what the pain is. Then I'm going to insert feel, felt, found. I totally understand how you feel that way. I've felt that way too. What we found is comma. Then I can overcome the objection because I've understood exactly what their objection is, the pain. I validated them, listened to them, related to them, understood, apologized, insert script, professional obligation. You're not obligated to buy from us. You're going to be more upset at me if I don't tell you this and you're broken down on the side of the road and I could have done something to prevent it. I'm telling a story. I'm painting a picture of them on the side of their road with kids in the backseat and a broken down car in 100-degree weather in Houston, Texas in July. I'm not doing that if I'm a customer. See, I am back in the game and I'm open. Like I am back in the game. I'm back on offense. If, if a customer says

no to that presentation with empathy, they're not buying. You know, they're, they're, they're the 8% of customers I think is the number Tommy Mello says. Like some customers you're just not gonna deal with and they're, we call 'em Bay 1 customers. But most customers, most service advisors use the objection as an excuse to just give up. They literally just give up. So we're gonna get into the scripts. Uh, you know, I'm in a hurry. We're gonna get into some of these, but Glenn, do you have any final thoughts before we get into the difference between a shield and a objection and an actual objection? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think everybody has to remember that customers will lie to you. Okay. That's probably the most important thing for people to really recognize. Okay. I, I've had people say, You ever had somebody— I know you've seen this— where they say, oh yeah, they're going to come back on Friday. I'm like, they're not coming back on Friday. You got to understand they're lying

to you. The customers lie to you because, see, if you do all the things that you do, you're nice, you do a shop tour, you do all the things you said you were going to do, and then you have to tell them the price. And you know what? They can't look at you and say, I'm not buying from you because I just don't trust you. Or I don't like your price, I'm gonna get a second opinion. They won't tell you that, okay? And so you have to remember that the customer is going to lie to you. So that's the important part of finding out what— you got to dig a little bit deeper. And so we'll get into it when we get in the scripts of how I like to try and get that information out of them. But I think it's very important to understand that don't fall for it. It's translation. I tell my guys all the time, if a customer says, hey, look, hey, I'm gonna park the car for 2 weeks As an example, okay, first of all, who's parking their

car for 2 weeks? That's not happening. Okay. So it's like, okay, here's translation. Hey Glenn. Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. I can see that definitely needs to be done. I'm just going to go ahead and park it for a couple of weeks and then I'll figure it out later. Translation. Hey Glenn, I'm going to go get a second opinion tomorrow. Car's going to be fixed probably by this time tomorrow. And I can't tell you that to your face because you're really nice to me. And so I'm just going to tell you that. I'm gonna go park the car for 2 weeks. That's a reality. Don't fall for that. You have to dig deeper. So let's get into the actual objections. How do you overcome objections now that you've set the stage for offense and defense psychologically, understanding, empathizing, validating, moving the ball down the field, the system? Okay. Well, now you gotta learn the scripts. Most people just regurgitate the script, the scripts. So, you know, they'll say, well, your price

is way too high. And then I've seen managers all throughout my career. They say, no, our price isn't too high because we've got the best technicians and we've been here 46 years, total integrity. And they just get excited. That I just trained them on this script and they're going to regurgitate the script. That is not how you do it. You do all the other things first and then you insert the script. So if you're listening, driving a car, you can't see this on YouTube. Also quick plug, we, uh, you know, just moved all of our content to Auto Shop Answers YouTube channel. Please like and subscribe. And it's not really for us to grow follower count. It's because there's probably somebody in your network who needs to hear this. They need to get better at training and taking care of their people. So Uh, if you've got somebody in mind, please go subscribe to our YouTube channel. Uh, put the notifications on, on Spotify, whatever you gotta do, and send it to

a friend, send it to a service advisor, send it to somebody in your network. Help us, uh, get this information in front of more people. Uh, we wanna be helpful and give content away, uh, that's been helpful for us. So let's go through the scripts. Todd predicted this, you know, over the years. He, he, he basically not predicted it. He recognized the patterns and how customers are predictable. And he realized there's only actually a few objections. And if you're driving a car listening to this, um, you've probably heard all of the following options. Every time I come in here, you guys try to sell me something. I'm in a hurry today. I need my car today. Can I call you back? Yeah, I'm just gonna wait on that. I need to talk to my spouse. That's way too high. I'm gonna sell the car. I don't have the money. Um, I can get the part on Amazon for $20, so on and so forth. I got a guy who can do it for half price. They're all the same. Literally the customers, 90% of them,

will say the exact same thing every single day. And it's your job to have high agency and determine what the real pain is. Solve that pain. Amateurs sell, professionals solve. Solve that pain. And if they'll buy once from you, they will buy a million times from you. We have the data to prove that if they don't spend over $250 with us on the first visit, they're probably not coming back. And their lifetime spend for that first 12 months is like $360 or something. If they spend over $1,000 on that first visit or they spend, no, no, actually it's like over $500 or something. If they'll buy that first visit, the average ticket, did you know this is actually $2,300 for the first year? If, if we get a big sale on the first visit, because if they'll buy once from you, they'll buy a million times. So let's go through these. Some of these are shields and they are solvable very easily. And some of them are real objections. So let's go

through this. I'm in a hurry and I need my car today are pretty much the same thing. And it translates to, I need transportation. And if you can fix that problem, I will spend my money with you. Because they're not saying it's too high. They're not saying they don't trust you. They're not saying they're selling the car. They're saying, I need my car to get around to and from work. And there are 2 things that you do or that can happen. The objection or the script is offer a solution to transportation in the form of Uber, Shuttle, loaner car, rental car, whatever you gotta do. Can your wife come pick you up, et cetera? If they say, oh, okay, then great. You got the sale. If you have a loaner car and they take it, guess what? You got the sale. Or it's a shield. They will say, oh no, no, no, no, I can't do it because insert objection or whatever. You know, you're trying to get to the root of it. I'm in a hurry. Need my

car today. Our shield all day long. I'm gonna wait on it. Also a shield. Yeah, we're, you know, I'm going to wait on it. Look, mamas do not put their babies in a broken car. You got terminal cancer. And I hate to be a, uh, you know, hyperbolic here, but, you know, Glenn, you talk about the second voice all the time and you're the doctor and your car's broken, dude. And I want you to be listening to this. You might be thinking, oh, I could keep an eye on it. Our customers do not want to keep an eye on it. And if a ball joint could go out tomorrow and it could last 2 years, guess what? That means there's a 1% chance potentially that customer's ball joint could come out of that car and they could flip on the freeway and kill people. And that, that also comes down to the passion and the urgency like we talked about at the beginning. Because look, if somebody says, hey, look, you got a ball joint, it's got play in it. And you

know, you could wait, you know, may last a couple weeks, may last a couple months, then guess what? They're not gonna buy it, and then that actually could happen. The second voice is so important. You know, we say over here it's our superpower. There is a psychological, like, reset that happens in someone's brain when you exit the conversation and then somebody comes back into the conversation. So I'll give you a good example. If I'm your podiatrist, yeah, okay, I could have closed you, okay, because I would have said, hey, look, I'm gonna leave the room, okay, you had to go, you had stuff to do. You were in a hurry, weren't you? And I would have said, hey, look, Joe, um, hey, no problem. I totally understand. And then I would have had somebody else come in and go, hey, Joe, look, I know you're in a hurry. I know you got stuff to do, but this is super important. We need to get this injection shot done today. Like what

now? Does that create a different sense of urgency? See, if, if, if you identified a tumor, which a tumor is, um, a ball joint that's about to, you know, that's separated and is about to break. I've identified a tumor and now I am going to come in and I'm going to present that to the customer. And guess what? We are the auto repair shop that's going to sell things to customers because they already have that programmed in their mind. Okay. And so now I say, hey, Mr. Customer, I completely understand. And this is where, like, see, I have to— I can't have a customer that has buyer's remorse, right? I need to make sure that they feel good today, tomorrow, next week, next year. So if I apply pressure to the customer in that situation, well, guess what? The customer may or may not buy. It either may push them away even further or they may feel pressured into it and then they're going to regret it later. Now, what if I

was to say, hey, Mr. Customer, I completely completely understand. And then I leave that conversation, and then we re-strategize. And I said, look, here's the situation, customer. It's obviously, um, we can figure out what the objection is, but then I'm gonna have somebody else come in, okay? And I'm gonna have somebody else come in and say, hey, Mr. Customer, look, I know you were talking to Glenn, and I know you want to hold off on this, but this really needs your immediate attention. We need to get this taken care of for you. So if a doctor was to say, hey, look, you have a tumor, we need to get that removed, and you were like, look, no, I need to go home and I want to figure this out and get it scheduled. And then that doctor left and another doctor walked in and said, hey Glenn, look, I know you wanted to wait on getting this tumor removed, but we need to get this taken care of right away. Um, do we need to get your wife on the phone? What do we

need to do? Let's, let's figure this out. You see, you have to figure out how to take the pride and ego out of it. And then when you have a situation where there's something that urgent You have to be able to bring somebody else in to explain that urgency because remember, you're just a shop. You're just a car shop trying to sell somebody something that they think they don't need. And so that second voice is, is crucial in that situation. I'm glad you, uh, you, you went on that because I want to clarify again, sense of urgency and conviction. And you might be thinking to yourself, especially if you're a technician listening to this, these are a bunch of fast-talking salesmen, you know, They are salesmen, they're front of the house service advisors. I assure— I can assure you customers do not think about the car in the same way that technicians do. They think about it more similarly to the way that service advisors perceive their experience

with the vehicle. So I don't know anything about cars. Okay. My wife, you know, she lives actually out of town and I commute back and forth. I want to take my wife's car into the shop. I want it to be perfect. I do not want to keep an eye on it. You know, if there is a tumor in your lungs and a doctor shows you the MRI, I'm not keeping an eye on it. I'm like, every day that goes by, I'm— that's urgent. So the doctor's got to put a good presentation together for me. Part of the conviction is the longer you're in this business, the longer in my career, I've gotten so much conviction. Because I remember the first time you showed me a ball joint, Glenn, you were like, you feel that? And it was pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And I was like, yeah, but that's— it's like barely moving. I remember thinking that. I remember being like, okay, okay, okay, I see what you're talking about. It's like, so that's not supposed to move? Do you remember me like asking you

that? I did not know, but your passion convinced me. And then you showed me an animation. You're like, yeah, see that ball joint that's like in your shoulder? It should be rock solid. If it's moving around, basically it's like your shoulder coming out of its socket. And like, this is a 6,000-pound vehicle. A ball joint can come out, it can flip your car. And it's like Okay, wow. And the longer I've been in this career, I've seen cars get towed in off the side of the street with a ball joint that had popped out, and I've seen cars on the side of the freeway that have a ball joint popped out. So part of it is passion, conviction, and a sense of urgency. And Todd is the GOAT of all GOATs at this. He sells with a level of passion and urgency that I've never seen before. Kobe, superstar shout out, he is extremely good at this. There's a lot of people that I can't get to that are good at this. But we are never trying to

scare the customer. Most people just do that and they scare the customer because they skipped the steps on the shop tour. They skipped the relationship building. And that is where you drop the ball. You're trying to throw a Hail Mary from the 80 yard— from 80 yards to score a touchdown. No, dude, move the ball down the field, build a relationship, put a video together, read a script to them, personalize the script to that customer, overcome their pain. But what I'm saying is, Get conviction and tell stories in your mind. And I'm going to ask you, if you're listening to this, can steel showing on your tires flip over a car and kill people on the freeway? Yes. Can brake fluid leak? You know, can your pedal go to the floor, your brakes don't work, and can that kill people? Yes. Can grinding brakes cause a fluid leak? Can your brakes stop working and then you hit somebody on the car and kill them? Yes. And I'm not trying

to be hyperbolic or extremist, but it's the truth. And it applies to more than just that. What about weak suspension components? I, I had to sell myself on why those are a safety concern because it's like, okay, well, what about your struts leaking? Is that a safety concern? Yes. Have you seen those videos of an evasive maneuver? What if a dog runs in front of your car? You have to get out of the way. You got 80,000-mile struts on your car. You're flipping your car versus brand new MagneRides. Like you're going to handle that car much more efficiently if you have new tires. The ultimate story for conviction for me, hood struts. Are hood struts a safety concern on your car? Trunk latch? Believe it or not, yes. And how the story I tell customers is I was going to a wedding one time and the, uh, the groom comes down the aisle and his right arm, he's not moving his right arm at all. Okay. And he's got this huge bandage on the back of his neck. And I'm like, oh my

gosh, what happened? Come to find out, he was getting his suitcase out of an Uber after he landed from the airport Monday of his wedding week. Trunk latch, hood strut, whatever you want to call it, is weak. And it slowly closes and then all at once slams on the top of his head while he was getting, uh, his suitcase out of his car, out of the Uber. And he slipped a disc or something in his neck. He had to get emergency surgery 2 days before he went down the aisle. Do you think I tell customers that story? Like, I literally tell customers that story. I'm like, I'm not making this up. If you are broken down on the side of the road or you're getting something out of the hood of, uh, out of the trunk of your car, this literally happened. And I'm not trying to like scare you into Um, like that, that could happen to you, but there's probably a 0.001% chance that could happen. And I just wanna make you aware that this is something we

can get fixed. It's not like we can get this fixed right now. Like I can get started on it. Do you need anything outta your car? It really needs to be done. And then I'm gonna put my hand out and shake their hand and overcome the objection. So rambling a bit here, but conviction is another root fundamental principle. It's less about the words in the script. It's more about how am I delivering those words in a way that I'm empathetic? Understanding, problem solving, passionate. Well, that's why you have to like put your eyes on the vehicle, right? If you're selling the job, you have to put your eyes on the vehicle. You got to remember, technicians think differently. Why? Because if their car breaks down, they can fix it on the side of the road. They come to the shop every day. We come to the shop every day, right? We do an example all the time about, um, in training, if anybody here's check engine light came on Monday morning and you're on your way to work and your vehicle

was driving any different way and wasn't driving any differently, does it even hit your page? No, you don't even think about it. Okay, guess what? Our customers freak out by that. Okay, there's so much that comes with a check engine light in a customer's mind. You got to understand, they go— they don't go to the shop every day. You may go to the shop every single day, and if you don't get to it today, guess what? You get to it tomorrow. The customer starts having all this anxiety that comes with that, right? Like You know, how am I going to get the kids to school? And how much is it going to cost me? And what shop am I going to take it to? And da da da da, the list goes on. Okay. And so technicians, they will keep an eye on something and if it breaks down, then they can fix it. And so, and they can get to it when they want to. So that's why it's so important for us to inspect the vehicles and put our

own eyes on it, because that gives us the conviction, right? Also to be able to inspect vehicles objectively. Right? Some technicians don't like doing certain things on certain cars, and other technicians love doing those same things on those cars. I tell people, hey, look, you want to figure out how your inspection process is working? Here's what you do. Take a car, have 5 different technicians inspect the vehicle, and how many different write-ups are you going to have? You're going to have 5 different write-ups on it. So we get to inspect all the vehicles at the speed rack, and then now we know exactly what needs to be done. And we don't get to make a decision for a customer. Hey, Mr. Customer, is this something you want to wait on? We have to sell it with with urgency? So I'm in a hurry, need my car today. Easy. I can solve your transportation a million different ways. Or you're going to tell me the objection. I'm going to

wait on it. People don't put their babies in a broken car if it's a safety concern. Get conviction on why most things on a car are a safety concern. Dude, dead battery. You get stranded in the Texas heat, man, you're stranded. So many things can leave you stranded. A belt breaking off your car, immediate safety concern. And I've seen it time and time again. Conviction. What about, can I call you back? Okay, this is a good one. Can I call you back is very difficult to overcome because what happens typically? They show up at your shop 30 minutes later and it's at the worst time. The car's not put back together. You got 16 customers in your waiting area and now the guy's blowing you up. Uh, put my car back together. I got a second opinion because what's happening when I, they say, can I call you back? Translation to, I'm about to get off this phone and I'm gonna call 3 other shops to see if you're ripping me off and

charging me too much. And the other shop is probably gonna just gimme some lowball price and I'm gonna be like validated. And think that I'm smart for getting a second opinion. And I'm just going to take them at face value. I'm not going to ask any probing questions to make sure it's apples to apples. And then I'm just going to show up at your shop and pretty much blow you up at the front counter in front of all your other customers. That's what I translated in my mind. So 2 things. One, I'm going to say, hey, are there any questions I haven't answered for you? Is there anything like, can I actually call you back in 20 minutes? I'd love to take this off your plate. Because I'm trying to signal to them that I'm willing to solve problems. And 2, if they just say, nah, nah, man, it's fine, I'll call you back. I know that they're gonna show up. They are going to show up at the shop and you need to be prepared. Uh, so be prepared, have it show staged for a show sale.

Um, do you have anything else on this, uh, before we keep it moving? Yeah, I think, uh, scheduling the call is what makes it important, right? So look, I know you're super busy today. I have other customers I'm working with and I don't wanna miss you. So why don't we go ahead and schedule a time? Because like Joe says, they will show up and everybody listens to this. You know exactly what we're talking about. You're sitting there and you're, you've, you're thinking you're waiting on approval and they're going to call me back later. They're not. They're going to show up at your shop and they are going to say, uh, I'm here to pick up my car. And you're like, where's the car? What's going on? Who's, you know, and it's, you're on defense. So, uh, get in front of that, schedule a time. The other service advisor that doesn't know anything about it. I'm here to pick up my car. Okay. Is it done? No. You guys tried to rip me off. It's like,

Just get in front of that. That's a tough one. Okay. This one's one of my favorites. Talk to my spouse. And I like to frame this as talk to the decision maker. And the story I tell in training is, you know, a lot of you listening to this, you might be in a college town or near a college town. And I want you to just paint a picture in your mind, 19-year-old girl, she's a Pi Phi. She takes her Jeep Wrangler into your shop. Okay. Who's paying the bill? Not her, her dad or her mom. And you've, you know, you've spent 47 minutes listening to this podcast so far. You've spent 2 days at Key2Key. You're trained, you're an assassin on overcoming objections, empathizing, validating, understanding, but she's not paying the bill. So what do you do? You present the work to her and she's gonna say, okay, can I call my dad or mom? And you put a great presentation in front of the customer for, uh, fixing the, uh, death wobble on her,

on her Jeep. She brought it in for an oil change or a tire pressure check or something, but you identified that it's got the suspension components that are messed up. She's going to call her dad who lives 4 hours away, by the way. And she's just at college for the semester. And she's going to say, this is, this is her presentation to her dad. Dad, dad, I took my car in for an oil change and they're going to, they're telling me it's $2,000. What do I do? And she's freaking out because she thinks she's in trouble or she caused it somehow. She like, customers literally think that they think they caused the problem on their car. And so how's that going to go? Daddy's going to show up at your shop 4 hours later with a shotgun or threaten to kill you over the phone. And you're not going to get that sale. That's like the impossible. That's a pick 6, man. Ball's already in the end zone. You're done. You're done.

You are done on that deal. And I've personally experienced this. You know, we were trying to get in touch with this lady's mom. Couldn't get in touch with her. She came in mama bear mode, literally blew my head off in front of all these customers. I took her out, showed her the axle that was broken. She was like, just didn't care. It was impossible. Because she was redlining, you know, her blood pressure was over 100 million and there's no chance. There is no chance because she's in fight or flight to protect her kid. How do you overcome that? Glenn, you have a great script on this. How can I take this off the customer's plate to get in front of that? Yeah. So I like to ask the customer, 'cause you can't, there's certain ways you can't say that, right? Or you can offend somebody, right? So it's like, look, I completely understand. I'll tell you what, why don't we do like a 3-way call? They may have some questions that I haven't answered for you yet,

and so I'd love to be able to either get on a 3-way call, we can all figure this out together, or if you'd like, I can just take it off your page. I'd love to do that for you. Would that be something that I can do for you? And then more times than not, they'll be like, oh yes, absolutely, can you do that for me? Or they may take the 3-way call, or they'll, you know, let me have them call you back. It's important that Everybody gets the same presentation. The decision maker has to have the presentation the same as the person that is passing that information along to them. Otherwise, you're like Joe says, you're just another auto repair shop that's trying to sell somebody something that they don't need. Da da da da da da da. So you have to get the presentation in front of the decision maker, and that's a great way of doing it. Love it too. A 19-year-old like Sig Ep at UT, like. He, he would love to not have to do that.

You know, like the girl in the first example, she would love to not be the person to call her dad saying that she needs $2,000 because that's how she thinks about it in her mind. Oh my gosh, like dad's going to have to spend $2,000 on my car. Like, how do I like make sure that he's okay with that? Like, take that off her plate. Take it off her plate is how you would— how I would frame that 100%. So we got 3 more and they're amazing. They're the most common ones. These ones are not shields. They're typically the truth. And the first one is selling the car. So Glenn, you know, I could probably let you riff for an hour on this. Selling your car is the most common one that we get that most people think is unsolvable. Um, because it's like, man, you can't replace the bells and whistles and the new car smell and the Apple CarPlay and the new car. And a lot of customers actually think that they're going to sell the car because

they have been advertised propaganda by the Kelley Blue Book company, you know, because here's the dealership's model. The dealership's model is give you a great warranty for 30,000 miles. Everything's going to start breaking down when you do the 10,000-mile oil change. And then at about 35,000, 40,000, 50,000 miles, you're going to be out of warranty. What they're going to do is they're going to kitchen sink the customer with a $20,000 estimate of all the things that are going to break on their car and all the services. And then they're going to upsell you and say, dude, why spend $18,000 when you could just spend $1,800 a month and get a new 2026 Range Rover? Like, I got you here, come into my finance department and they got you in debt for life. And it's the worst. Rich people know this. It's a depreciating asset. It's a terrible investment, but that is the dealership's business model. We are in the business model of fixing cars and providing great service,

but we can't replace that new car smell. However, it's math. Glenn, you wanna walk the people through how you overcome this objection? Yeah. Yeah. First of all, I get super excited about this objection because I'm so confident in it because it's not even me overcoming the objection. It's math overcoming the objection. I get very confident. So there's 2 types of people. There's one that actually plan on trading in the vehicle and one that may say that, but, you know, they're, they're just saying that in the moment. That's a good, that's a kind of a good way to get out of it. It's like, hey, I'm about to get rid of that vehicle. And then they, you know, they leave and you know that you guys have all seen it out there. It's like they come back, they show up every 6 months with the same vehicle that they're quote unquote about to trade in. And so I think a lot of people probably have the idea that I'm going to trade in this vehicle. And then what

happens is They go down to the dealership. Uh, it's an emotional decision, right? They, they, they don't want to put any more money into the vehicle. It's an emotional decision. And so they go down to the dealership and then once you start, you know, they, they kind of go like on a roller coaster of emotions, right? And so what happens is once they start to try to wrap, they, they kind of start rationalizing like what it would be to get a new vehicle and the whole experience at the dealership. And then how much does it cost? And then do we really want to put all that money into it? And then all of a sudden they're like, you know what, maybe why don't we get a second opinion? And then they go get a second opinion and it validates what we told them needed to be done. And maybe the price is a little bit less or maybe it's the same or whatever. And then they fix the vehicle and then that vehicle shows back up

at your shop 6 months later. I truly believe that is what happens. But math, okay, it's pretty simple math. So first of all, the Blue Book value on a vehicle is designed— I don't even know what that's designed for. I guess it's just— I guess that's what it is. It's the Blue Book value. The Blue Book value is what someone else is willing to pay you for that vehicle. It is not what that vehicle is worth to you. That's very, very important. So the Blue Book value, I'll give you an example. I had a customer in here, $3,000 repair on a car that's worth $2,500. Now this lady's looking at me like, how can I spend $3,000 on a car that's worth $2,500? My son tells me that is an awful decision. You should never do that. So I'm like, okay, well, let's, why don't we do this? Why don't we talk together, you, me, and your son, so that we can kind of work through the numbers together and just, you know, just make sure we're all on the same page. So she's like,

okay, that's fine. So I've got the son now, and it's me and it's her and the son. And the son's like, he's like, you're trying to take advantage of my mom. You are trying to sell her a $3,000 repair on a car that's worth $2,500. Like, how do you sleep at night, right? And I'm like, man, this is actually a great investment on this vehicle, okay? First of all, he's trying to go and have her spend $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, whatever it is, on a $3,000 problem. So that's step number one without his money too, by the way, that's mom's money. Right? So it's like Dave Ramsey says, don't take financial advice from your broke brother-in-law at the Thanksgiving table. It's like, everybody's really quick to go and spend money that's not theirs. So mom, go spend $50,000 on a car, even though you have a $3,000 problem. So I'm like asking her, she's like, well, I'm not going to get a new car. Oh, perfect. Oh man. I get even more excited. She's like,

I'm going to get a used car. I'm like, okay, well, let me ask you this. Okay. Your car here is, um, you know, a car that's been well maintained. You, and I kind of went through some of the history of the things she's done on the car. I said, look, man, this is really a great car. I go, let me ask you a question. Okay. If you're going to buy a used car, what if this car was sitting on the lot right now and you could buy this car right now in perfectly good order for $3,000? Would you buy this car? And she's like, I never thought of it that way. Well, that's essentially what you're doing because here's also the cycle of the used car. So if I, when do people trade in cars, by the way? The worst possible time. The worst possible time because they just paid off that 72-month, I mean like loan or whatever. And now the car's out of warranty and they want to, they actually will go buy a new car because they're like, this one's

out of warranty and now I need all these repairs. And so I'm gonna go spend another $70,000, $80,000 so I can have a car that's quote unquote under warranty. And then they're back in that cycle again, right? So this lady, it's like, and the other worst time is, or not worst time, but the other time people trade their cars in is when something happens on the car and it needs a big repair. And so they go and just like we were talking about why they trade their car in, well, They got this big repair. They've been programmed to trade the car. Well, guess what happens? That car is now going to be sitting on the lot in 2 weeks, cleaned up, and it's going to be sold to somebody else. And it's still a used car. Right. So I'm able to break this down with this lady with just doing math. Look, the tax alone on a new car is going to be more than the repair itself. See, a lot of people, they just can't frame it up that way. So one thing I like to do is, okay, if the

customer is going to trade their car in, I say, look, what are you looking to get? Let me— if we're not going to fix this car, let me kind of help you walk through your new purchase, right? What kind of car are you looking to get? Let me pull the Carfax on it. Let me pull the, uh, like TSBs. Let me pull the recalls. Believe it or not, there's a lot of issues with cars built after COVID when they had, um, you know, they had, uh, shortages. The chip shortage— everybody knows about the chip shortage. Everybody knows about you know, production coming, you know, coming to a halt in 2020 and then mass production after COVID. And so quality control went down. There's a lot of cars with recalls. Let me look through those and see before you make a decision. Let me help you make the right decision. And so we start kind of breaking it down. And by the time I kind of just walk through the whole process with them and educate them,

they typically end up fixing their car. It's very, very rare that somebody is going to trade their car in that I can't convert them into fixing the car. I think it's actually one of the easiest things in the world because nobody's ever really just done the math with them. They have been programmed that when you have X amount of dollars on a car that Blue Book value is worth this, you have to trade it in. It's not about Blue Book value, it's about replacement value. And when you can really frame that up for the customer, it becomes very, very easy to overcome. Glenn, I, I saw this, this reel on LinkedIn the other day and it was the ultimate persuasion sales tactic. Okay. And effectively it is figuring out how to get the customer to come to the conclusion themselves instead of you explaining it to them. And I think you naturally are really good at this because you kind of just put the math in front of them. And then how many times does the customer call back 30 minutes later

after they've thought about it? They've thought about going down to the dealer, spending a whole day there financing it, having to get, you know, a credit check for a new car. And then they call back after they've come to their own conclusion, uh, and they approve the sale. So let's, uh, let's, let's paint, let's paint a picture here and I'm just gonna see how this goes. This is a concept that we're exploring. Let's say, okay, the guy said that the ultimate persuasion is when you put 2 connected ideas together in front of them, like 2 Legos on the table in between you and the person you're negotiating with. And you just let them sit there and you let them connect it. So I'll give you an example. You know anything about the Dallas Cowboys in the '90s, Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones? Like, you know, the dynasty. Okay. So the headline, this is the ultimate persuasion headline, is 2 things. Okay. On one hand, Tom Landry, the head

coach for 20 years. And on the other hand, Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson. If the headline is head coach Tom Landry of the Cowboys fired after 20 years. So that's Lego number 1, comma, Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson spotted at a diner together. Details to follow after the break. What conclusion are you coming to in your own mind without specifically telling them? The customer, the people watching the news is going to think, oh my gosh, dude, is Jerry Jones going to hire Jimmy Johnson? That's his buddy. He went to freaking, they worked together at Arkansas. I can't believe he's firing Tom Landry after 2 Super Bowls, 28 years or whatever, rather than the headline being the conclusion, which is the things that I just said. If the customer comes to the conclusion themselves, it's 10,000 times more likely that they buy into that conclusion because they came up with it. Okay. And so the example in our world would be

new car payment versus financing payment and let them come to their own conclusion. So I wouldn't say, think about it. Financing it with the dealer is $1,800 and we could finance this repair for $300 a month for 6 months. It's, we're way lower than them. I would say it's something like, let them talk. What are you thinking about doing? Okay. Oh, well, I'm thinking I'll probably trade in for a new Range Rover. Okay. And like, what, like what's the monthly payment on that these days? What do those things go for? $100,000? And they're gonna say, oh yeah, I think I paid $1,800 a month before I, um, before I, uh, uh, got out of the payment or whatever. The Audi, you know, the, the famous example that we talk about in training. If I continue having a conversation, um, at the end, okay, if I, if I continue having that conversation and before I hang up, because I'm, I'm not, I'm kind of soft retreating at this point, I'm gonna have a second voice come in. I'm gonna

have Glenn come in. If I say at the end of that conversation, you know, hey, just, I know you probably don't need this. It's a Range Rover. Um, you know, I'm not trying to say anything, but we can actually finance this, um, this repair. You know, I know it's a $4,500 repair, but we can actually finance it. Uh, for like $800 over the next 6 months, and then you'll be free and clear. It's no credit check. I'll just let you guys make that decision. Um, if you wanna use that option, uh, and then I will talk to my manager and we'll, we'll get it buttoned up and ready for you to go. And it is so tempting to, to say the, the part that is the conclusion, the, the, our price is lower than their price and financially it doesn't make sense. But if they stew on that for 30 minutes, If they stew on it for an hour and they go, okay, $1,800 a month for 5 years versus $800 a month for 6 months. And, you know, man, I really don't want to come to the dealer. Okay. I, it's,

it's no big deal. I'll just put it on a credit card. And then they call you back and they've made the decision in their mind that you've come, that they've come to their own conclusion. They don't know that you put the 2 things juxtaposed right next to each other. It's like 100% close ratio. I mean, they're calling back, they're going, yeah, They've realized in their mind and the leverage that we have is most service or most customers do generally understand that new cars are a terrible investment. So selling the car to get a new one is a freaking terrible idea. And selling the car to get a used car is an even worse idea because it's somebody who just traded it in because they needed a big repair because they didn't maintain the vehicle. And then the dealership is going to freaking power wash that engine. They're going to open the hood and be like, look at Grandma's old Range Rover that has 28,000 miles on it and was driven to church all day. You know, like they're getting

somebody else's problems and it's a dice roll of if it's some train wreck waiting to happen. So any final thoughts on selling the car before I get into, uh, that's too high? Yeah, I, that's a funny story of, I had a Range Rover customer that thought his car was under warranty, so we took it to the dealership. He usually comes to us. Next thing you know, he's calling me. He's like, Glenn, the heads are off right now and they're having to do this big repair. Can I get it towed over to you? So that I can have you put it back together. Now let me just— for those of you not listening, or for those of you listening, if you have a Range Rover show up at your shop with heads off of it and, uh, and a box full of parts in the back, first of all, that's not gonna be a happy day for one technician, but that's just not a good deal. That is a, that is a bad deal. And so I'm like, man, you're already in it now. Like, you're, you're like, you're deep into this thing.

He's like, look, you're right. I tried it. I said, have you tried to sell it to them? Will they buy it from you right now? He's like, no. He's like, I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet, get it fixed, put it back together. But as soon as it's back together, I'm selling it. Like, I'm trading it in as soon as it's back together. And I'm just thinking to myself, somebody is going to be buying that car in 2 weeks, 37,000-mile Range Rover, great deal, and have no idea that the heads were just off of it, you know, 2 weeks ago. And that's just going to be a bad deal. It's really easy, you know, to frame it up for the customer if you just kind of slow it down. And I'll tell the customer, look, and this is one of my favorite lines, is look, if it's time to replace a car, I'm going to be the first one to tell you. I will tell you, this is not one of those times. See, I have to be able to separate the emotion of money they've just spent. That's where a lot of it

comes in. I just spent X amount of dollars on this car over this past year and now like it's too much and I have to draw the line. But see, they can't disconnect from the money they already spent on the vehicle on the past 3 visits. But I can't look at it like that. We have to look at this decision today objectively. I can't tie into the $2,500 or the $5,000 that you spent 2 months ago. We have to look at it today. What is the math on this decision today? It's fix this car for $3,000 today and you have a car for $3,000 that's in great shape, or you go spend $75,000 on the new one. And it's really easy when you do the math with the customer, but just walk them through it. I'm trying to solve their issue. And when you slow it down and you pull up TSBs, that's— I sent one to a guy last week, so I sent him a text message of all the TSBs and the recalls on this vehicle that he was about to trade his car in for. And I'm like, man, let me send this over to you.

I've looked it up. Let me help you. At least if you're gonna buy a car, let me help you find the right one. Let me find you something good, you know? So I send them over and I sent it over to him and he goes, oh my gosh, that's on that car? And I'm like, yes sir, that's on that make and model. That's, that's all the recalls and the TSBs for that vehicle. And he's like, wow, I just Googled some stuff myself. It looks like there's even more than that. And then that fast. You know, he, he, he just, he gets it. And so just help them make the best decision. That's really what you're trying to do. You're trying to help them make the best decision. And the best decision is 99.9% fixing the car, not replacing it. And the cheat code is he came to his own conclusion. I'm thinking about this a lot. Like if there's a headline and it says, you know, America is going to war with Iran, And then comma, in other words, in other news, Donald Trump spotted with leadership

in North Korea. What conclusion are you going to come to in your mind? You're going to be like, oh my God, dude, are we like, what's the deal here? And you're going to figure it out in your head. And that's what happened with that customer. He started Googling it himself and you just planted the seed. And it's very difficult. People want to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and explain why it doesn't make sense. But everyone knows what it's like to be on a first date with somebody who's just talking the entire time. They're not letting you talk or think. And you have to just listen to them. When you come to the own, when you come to your own conclusion that the decision is the right one to be made, it's like an unbreakable close. Like they're going to buy. And Glenn, I think you're the master at planting the seeds, which are true by the way, that the math never ever makes sense. And I'm gonna be the first one to tell you, um, when it, when it does. So anyway, and stories,

you know, like I have so many stories in my arsenal of those situations. My truck being a perfect example of that. Like I could go buy a new truck, but my truck works mine. And I know it just cost me way less to just keep my truck. And I had to replace the transmission on my truck. And it's like, I either replace the transmission on my truck, which costs a lot to do, or I just go and pull up to dealership, trade it in, and then just sign the papers, and you just have another truck. But it comes with everything that comes with a new vehicle. And it's like, man, it's just a— it's just an easy decision to make. It's such an easy decision to make. I just have to help guide the customer, make the right decision. And it becomes very easy. It just becomes very, very easy when you can help them. 80— like, I was reading something the other day, and this is so true, is the best closers in the world spend 80% of their time not closing. Yep. Just listen.

But who scores all the points? The field goal kickers. They only play like one play a game and they freaking score all the points. It's like, because they have the, the, like, the, the running backs who run it on the 1-yard line. Guess who does all the work? The linemen moving the ball down the field the whole freaking game. But the, the close, everyone thinks about the points, the close. It's like, no, it's the whole offense. The whole playbook works together. So we got 2 more plays in the playbook. Um, that's too high and don't have the money. That's too high. We hear all the, all the time. And we talk about oranges versus apples, you know, apples to apples. What are we selling? Oranges. And if my brake repair is $1,000 and your brake repair is $600. What is the difference? We call it the gap. We are selling the gap. We are making a presentation on a $400 difference on why our price is worth it. And we're trying to basically convince the customer,

hey, we sell oranges here. We understand that your pain is at the last place you took it to, you know, they took advantage of you. They weren't integrous. You know, they had low quality work, whatever Whatever the pain was, we're trying to validate, empathize, understand, but we're trying to show them, hey, we utilize tools like RepairPal. We want to make sure we're priced into the market. But man, when you choose to do business with me for $400, you know, and brakes might not be a good example. Let's say it's, um, let's say it's, you know, the example in front of me is a transfer case issue, $7,900. And the guy was just negotiating like crazy. And, uh, you know, he said he had a $7,500 estimate. From another place down the street and we Googled it and it's a guy with a shop in a back alley, you know, which no hate, no shade if that's where your shop is. But you know, we've got a higher property tax, we've got higher bills,

so our prices are just higher. And in his price, $7,500, our price is $7,917.40. So $7,900 versus $7,500, what's the gap? It's about $400. So for $400, you Make the decision to do business with me and my family. 47 years, man. We're gonna take quality pictures and videos. I got you. I'm never gonna put you in a situation where you're not taken care of 7 days a week, nationwide warranty, whatever they're saying, whatever the, you know, you're in a loaner car. Like I, you, you have access to me and my team 7 days a week, dang near 24/7. We've got people on staff overnight. I will be there for you for $400. See, I'm not selling. I'm selling oranges for $400. I'm not selling apples at $7,900 and trying to beat the guy who's selling the apples for $7,500. I saw an advertisement one time and it said, we will not be beat on price on any tires. We will match any price. And I translated it in my head to, there is absolutely nothing I can provide you other than a low price.

If anything goes wrong, you're screwed. And customers understand this because Spirit Airlines went out of business. Frontier Airlines. If you fly on Frontier Airlines, which I have, you are so anxious the whole time if anything goes wrong because the app doesn't work. You can't get anybody on customer service. You're screwed if anything goes wrong. And we're not Frontier, dude. We're United Airlines. We're the Ritz-Carlton. We are a premier. We're not Walmart. We're Target. You know, we're a premier retailer where, hey man, if anything goes wrong, I'm going to take care of you. I sell oranges here. And I'm gonna build a presentation where it's the gap that you're selling. It's $400. It's not $7,900. So Glenn, uh, I wanna hear your thoughts about this. You also tend to call the customers, uh, competition in front of the, the competition in front of the customer. And you've got some great stories that I'd love to hear. Yeah. Yeah. So remember

when a customer's comparing prices, they're typically not getting all the information, right? They're comparing apples to oranges. So one of my favorite things to do is I'm going to call the competition right in front of the customer, or I'm going to call the competition and I'm going to record the phone call. I started doing this back probably 20-plus years ago when Just Brakes came out with the $99 brake job. Oh, I got it here. For those of you— I got it. Y'all, I don't know, y'all, you may not— you don't remember this, Joe, but, um, they had this brake job and it was a 4-wheel brake job and it was like $99.88, I think was the price or whatever. And it's like, oh my gosh, dude, what a bait and switch deal. So what I started doing was I would quote a brake job out to a customer and then they'd be like, oh, I'm going to pick it up and take it over to Just Brakes. They're doing this $99 brake special or whatever. And so what I would do

is I'd get on the phone when they came to pick— I just wait till they come. When they come to pick up the car, I would say, okay, let me call— which, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to call Just Brakes and I'm going to show you that they're basically just trying to get you in the door and they're going to they're going to switch the price on you. That's not a realistic thing. So I would get on speakerphone and I would call and I would say, hey, um, how much do you guys charge for a brake job on a, you know, 2012 Honda Accord? And they say, oh, we've got a special, it's $99.88. Okay. And I'd say, oh really? So let me ask you this, because I took it to one of your other locations and they're telling me it's going to be like $500 and I need, you know, kind of some explanations. Why is it not? And they're like, oh well, let me see here. Okay, so yeah, on that car you have to do, and they start like basically like unraveling

on the phone. And the customer would go, oh yes, go ahead and fix it. They would literally just say go ahead and fix it because it's not a real thing. It's a bait-and-switch deal. And I said nobody can do $99 brake jobs. They would just literally go out of business. And so I, you know, I learned that many, many years ago. And so now I just love to call the shop because look, at the end of the day, The, the shop that's on the other end of the phone is not trained. They are not pros. They don't have a great presentation. They don't have anything to offer other than the price. And matter of fact, if you call the same shop 3 times, you're going to get 3 different prices. So here's what I do. I, and I get so calm. I'm so confident now in doing this. When I talk about the predictability that I will tell the customer exactly what I'm about to do. And what the other people on the, on the other end of the phone are going to say before I even make the phone call.

And they're like, how do you know that? I'm like, I do this all the time. I know that. So, all right, so here's a good example. So we have a customer, um, she comes in, she's getting a brake check on her Land Cruiser. This is the Land Cruiser that has the, the hub-style bearings where you got to take the bearings out and all that stuff on the, on the front to do the brake job. I mean, it needs pads, it needs rotors. It's a $2,500, uh, brake repair with all the bearings and everything that needs to be done. Brakes are metal to metal grinding, and the girl brings it in for the brake inspection. So we get it inspected. This is on a Sunday too, by the way. This is at the end of the day on Sunday. So she comes in and we inspect the brakes. She's super nice. Uh, we show her the brakes. She doesn't know what she's looking at. She's just, you know, just like a typical customer. They don't know what they're looking at, by the way. And so we inspect the

brakes on it. We get a presentation together. She's like, I need to talk to my dad. So we try and get in front of the decision maker. We need to talk to dad on this deal. And so, hey, can we talk to your dad? She tells me, you don't want to talk to him. And I'm like, man, I really want to explain it to him. You know, she's like, just tell me what it's going to cost and I'll relay the information. He's super busy. So I'm like, all right, no problem. So we get it all together. She actually sent him the video over and she comes back in. She says, hey, I need you to put the vehicle back together. My dad said I need to take the vehicle. And I'm like, wow, these brakes are grinding. These brakes are dangerous. You shouldn't be driving like this. Like, is there anything we can do? Is there any way I can like just help? You know, can I talk to your dad? I don't know if he understands the severity of it, but like,

I'd really like to talk to him. This is dangerous. And she's like, no, he doesn't, you know, he doesn't want to talk to anybody. He just wants you to put the vehicle back together. So I'm like, all right, no problem. Now we're re-strategizing. By this time it's like 4:30. It's on a Sunday. And we're re-strategizing and we're like, man, what are we going to do? It needs to be done. So a couple of minutes goes by or whatever, and guess who walks through the door? Dad. Dad walks through the door. He walks in the front office and he looks at me and he says, I need you to put that vehicle back together. And he's got his finger at me. I need you to put that vehicle back together right now and pull it up to the front. And I'm like, oh wow, this is going to be tough. Right? But I'm not just gonna like lay down. I mean, it's unsafe. So I'm thinking, okay, look, I'm gonna take him outside, I'm gonna show him the brakes, I'm gonna show,

sell it. It's gonna be a layup, pretty simple deal. Hey, Mr., uh, Mr. Customer, I'll call him. Mr. Customer, can you take a walk outside with me? I just really want to show you before I put the wheels back on. He's like, I told you, put that vehicle back together and pull it up front now. And I'm like, oh wow, this guy's serious. All right, so Go out to the team. Hey, I need this vehicle to start going back together like right now, and I'm gonna go back in and talk to him, but he needs to see this thing moving or he's gonna freak out. So I, um, get it back. Did we start getting it back together? Now I'm gonna go back up in the front office. He's standing up by the fish tank with his daughter. They're sitting there, they're kind of whispering off in the corner, and I'm like, man, I don't understand this, man. Like, these brakes are dangerous. So I asked him, I said, hey, uh, Mr. Customer, can I ask you a

question real quick? He's like, what? I said, did you— did we do something wrong? Or did you get another estimate somewhere? I'm just trying to figure out because the brakes are unsafe and like, man, you can't drive on these brakes. Did you get another estimate? And he was like, yeah, I did. I got an estimate down the street for $1,600. You guys are trying to charge my daughter $2,500. You're trying to take advantage of my daughter. Good luck. And I'm like, oh man. So, man, I completely understand, right? Feel, felt, found, right? Like, you know, you hit him with that, like empathize for a second. But I said, look, man, let me ask you a question. Where did you get the estimate from? So he tells me. So I said, hey, would you mind? Would you mind if I called them? And he's like, sure. Now he's ready to prove me wrong. He's ready to be like, oh yeah, I want you to freaking see you try to take advantage of my daughter. So he's like, sure, you can

call. So I'm like, perfect. So I dial him up on the phone. I got him on speakerphone. And they answer the phone, and it's very unprofessional too, by the way. No script, you know, horseplay going on in the background. I hear guys, you know, just being not pro. So I ask him, I give the vehicle information, I give all the details on the vehicle, right? And I'm waiting for the price. Now typically the price is going to be different. It's going to be a different price than he got on the phone, and right there it just starts to create some uncertainty and doubt in the customer's mind because I just called and they gave me one price. Now I'm calling, I'm getting a different price. And so that usually works. So they give me the price and he hits the number on the head, same exact price the guy gave me. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like they nailed it exactly what he told him. So then I asked the magic question.

I said, let me ask you a question. What kind of parts are those you're putting on? And he tells me the parts and I won't say the parts name, but he tells me the parts and I go, oh yeah, no, no, no, I don't want those parts. Those are those, those are those cheap parts from that one vendor. And he goes, well, yeah, but that's all, that's all we have available. You know, that's all we have. They're the only place open today. I'm like, okay, I don't want those parts. I know those parts are cheap parts. I really don't want those parts in my car. I've had those before. And he's like, well, that's all I can get. And I said, well, what about like if I want dealer equivalent or like OE equivalent parts? And he goes, well, I can get a price on that tomorrow, but that's going to be way more expensive. And I'm like, Oh, really? Okay. Thank you. And thank you. Click. Hang up the phone. He looks at me, he goes, fix it. And he literally just walks

out the front door and he approved the job. And it's like so simple because all I had to do was find out the difference. I had to prove the apples and oranges deal to the customer. So, so many times when I call up and it's a second opinion and it's another estimate, I can literally just say, hey, what kind of parts are those you're putting on my car? Hey, what's the warranty on those? Who's the technician that's working on the car? And when I start asking those questions, the other shop They fall apart or they start getting super frustrated because, man, they don't— they don't want to do it. It's like, who's this customer calling me, asking me all these questions? I'm the professional. They literally will get frustrated on the phone. They will tell you they're about to put cheap parts on the car. They will list the part names. I can go take that part name that they just told me. I can go and I can run it through Google and I

can just show the customer about those parts. And there's forums of how cheap those parts are. And the customer will literally be like, oh wow, I didn't really understand that. Thank you for explaining that to me. And that becomes a sale. See, that's the difference of taking a no, right, and go and saying, hey, the customer thinks we're too high, they ain't got no money, not our customer. Or I can actually educate the customer, put the time and energy into it, and then prove to them why my deal is actually better and better value. And then they end up buying from you and they love you for it. Boom, boom, dude. That's the part in the class where people just start going crazy because it's like, freaking hell yeah. Excuse my language, Glenn. You're a closer. You are a closer. Boom. Deal closed. Details, when I tell in the class, I tell it a little bit different, but I don't wanna throw any particular people

or vendors under the bus. But you guys that are listening know the cheap parts that are out there. Yeah. I won't say any names. In one paragraph, here's my elevator pitch on exactly what you just said. It's simply, let's pretend we're United Airlines and you're getting a projection customer. How confident would you be saying to them, look, Mr. Customer, here's what's going to happen. You're going to go call Frontier Airlines. You're going to get a cheap price on the front end. But guess what happens? They're going to charge you $70 to carry on your bag. You got to pay $25 to $50 to pick a seat. Uh, did you know that it's $25 to even talk to a customer service representative at the front counter when you check your bag in? Like, I learned that the hard way. Uh, you want to check your bag, you want to check your golf clubs. Good luck. What happens if your golf clubs get screwed, like get lost? You're screwed. Like, and I can so confidently say that if I'm an

executive for United Airlines, because that's their business model and customers understand like, oh yeah, there's a reason I don't fly Spirit because I tried it one time when I was 18 years old to save some money and buy nice or buy twice. Like you either get a good deal. One time I bought a bike from Walmart, $114, because I couldn't believe that they were $800. This was in 2017. Chain broke straight off first pedal. Within 5 minutes of breaking it, no warranty, $114, just gone, literally gone. And as you get older, you just realize like buy nice or buy twice. There's no such thing as a free lunch. There's no such thing as a good deal. You get what you pay for and you gotta have the customer come to their own conclusion. That's the best part. Call the competition in front of the customer and have them come to their own conclusion. And I can guarantee you're gonna close some deals. So last one, I don't have the money. You know, there's 2 types of customers who use

this as an objection. Pretty simple. Those who have the money and those who don't. And how do you tell the difference? Let's say a customer goes, yeah, I really don't have the money. Customers aren't very good at lying. You can tell. And the way that I overcome this objection is I offer financing. I say, okay, great news. You actually don't need money. You just need, uh, you know, I can actually pay for the car, the repair today, and you can pay me back over time. Like, how does that sound? What if it just, you don't have to pay any money. You don't need the money. Okay. 2 responses to this. Number one, oh, I didn't know y'all had payment plans. And I hear that all the time in the calls. It's like, oh, okay. Yeah, great. I didn't know y'all had that. That's a yes translation. If you can find me the money, I will do business with you. And if you remove all the friction from me having to get that money, but if you can find it for me, I will do business with you.

Or 2, they're gonna say, oh yeah, it's not that, insert other objection there. Because guess what? The person who, you know, the person who's got a 6-car garage underneath their house, they don't, they don't know how to respond to that because they have never filled out a credit application. Somebody who is familiar with that, here's how you tell the difference. They will tell you their whole life story because it's embarrassing. It's actually humiliating in America to tell people that you don't have any money. And so in order to protect yourself psychologically, you're going to tell the truth, which is, man, my wife just left me. My dog died, man. My car, I just spent $6,000 on my refrigerator and my house. I, I'm getting paid in 2 weeks. They will just tell you their life story. They'll tell you, man, like I've heard this. Oh, you can try my credit, but my credit is effed. That's the truth. They're telling

you the truth. That translation means, okay, this is a customer who has no money. If you can give them a quality financing option and find them the money, they will do business with you. And if they're saying, yeah, no, no, no, no, no. If they give you some other objection, they're on their heels. You can tell they're lying. It's something else. If it's something else, I'm going to say, perfect. Okay. I totally understand you're not interested in the financing. Is there anything that we did? You know, like typically, Glenn, customers don't leave our shop. Typically, Mr. Customer, customers don't leave our shop like this is an immediate safety concern. Is it something else? Is it, is it my face? Is it my face? You could tell me if it's my face, Glenn. Do you not like my face? I can go get somebody else. They've got a better face than mine. Like, and I'm gonna start jacking with the customer. I'm gonna make, make jokes, not make fun of them, but I'm gonna,

I'm gonna be funny. I'm gonna be lighthearted. And I'm just gonna ask them point blank at that point. What is the objection? Like, what do I have to do to solve your problem? And the solution is offer financing problems, uh, financing, uh, uh, options for customers who use this as an objection. And you're either gonna get the deal or you are going to, um, identify that this customer is just lying to you. They're just literally lying to you. And you have to ask them point blank, what's the objection? So Glenn, you made an observation a while back that these customers typically don't negotiate. Uh, do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, well, different types depending on which financing you're talking about. So you have kind of like your, your key tossers, money's no problem type of people. They just spend money with you. You have your kind of middle of the road, which is probably a majority of the customers. I'd say it's probably

the largest percentage of the customers which are going to be kind of like they, you know, they have good credit. They, you know, it's like your typical, like, you know, you know, 2-car family, you know, a few kids, you know, soccer practice, you know, that, that, that type of like demographic, right? Um, and so like depending on what type of option you need, those are the people that are a little bit probably, I think, more kind of diligent with their time spent, energy, the ones that get second opinions, the one that are like actually going from one shop to another. They have the money, but they just don't want to spend it all right now. And it's like they're trying to— they're more budget conscious, that type of person, like the more of the planner type. And so that is a really good candidate for like Synchrony, 6 months no interest, or even sometimes you can even push it out to a year no interest. And that, that customer right there

is still the type of customer that still is trying to get a deal because they understand I'm paying it over 6 months, but they don't look at, okay, I'm paying this much out over 6 months they're looking at the total amount that they're actually spending, right? It is zero interest, but they're still saying, well, I'm spending $2,000, whether I spend it over 6 months or I spend it over, you know, if I spend it today, it's still $2,000. The other level of financing is the person that you're saying, my credit's effed, I ain't got no money, right? They'll tell you straight up, right? That person is not negotiating. I'm sorry, they just don't negotiate. They don't, because if you find them the money, They are going to get it fixed. They're not going to ask for a discount. They're not going to ask for a deal. They want to know how much the monthly payment is. You know why? Because that's their world. They live in a world of payments. It's not what I

can afford, it's what payment I can afford. It's really what got them into that hole to begin with. The people that have typically like, like bad credit because of those reasons are people that are more payment conscious than like actual budget conscious. Like, I can actually afford to do this. And so I've learned that the people that qualify for the lower level of financing, typically they are never negotiating anything with you. And, you know, hey, look, if you find them the money, they're going to fix the car. And, you know, some people might look at that like, how could you do that type of financing? And you guys know the companies I'm talking about out there. They're very common in auto repair. That's just what they are. And because, look, if we don't fix their car, one, somebody else is going to fix it. And they're going to use that type of financing for them. Bad part, that's like not going to actually fix it and they're going to

be in a worse situation or a worse situation, right? Or they can't, you know, they can't get their car fixed and they can't go to work and then they can't keep moving. And that's important. They got to put food on the table. So, you know, that's the world they live in. Um, you know, the people that are in that situation, but they're thankful and grateful that you have that option for them. You got to really be able to cater to everybody. And, um, you know, you just have to get to the root of it. I don't know how many people I was thinking about this recently, like how many people that actually don't have the money, like that have the money that say that? I don't know. You know, you're like, how many people like have the money and be like, no, I don't have the money? It almost seems like a pride and ego thing that somebody wouldn't say that. They would use a different, like a different excuse. You know, I really don't hear it that often in my experience. I don't

have the money and then they lie. It's like, like typically you say I don't have the— they don't say I— they say I don't have the money and then you offer financing and then they just 80% of the time they vomit on you like, oh, my dog just died or whatever. Whatever the problem is. So that's it. That's, I think you're right. I think you gotta be super like somebody, I don't know, like for someone to be like, oh no, yeah, I can't afford that. I don't have the money. But they actually do. That's like a different level of like, I don't know, I just don't see that very often. Offer financing every time. Like if you can, I remember, shout out Vic Nagy, you know, he's a stud. He offered financing and it was what got the deal. The guy was like, oh, I didn't know y'all could split it up. Okay, yeah, let's do that. And he's doing, shout out Synchrony. We love Synchrony. And he's, filling out the application and he goes, all right, Mr. Customer, uh, I need

your annual income. And he goes, uh, like $750,000 a year. It's like, um, okay, this is like a $1,400 repair. Like, are you sure? You know, like you're doing the math. You're like, that's $60,000 a month, dude. That's like you make $2K a day. You can pay this bill in a day. Like, what are you doing? But some customers just don't want to move their money around. They got it all flowing into their investment accounts or whatever. They don't want to move their money around. So offer the financing more than you think and sell the payment, you know, $4,500 over a month or $800 a month. What's, what's, there's a reason car companies, you know, car companies sell the payment, MSRP car payment, $649 a month. They don't sell, hey, you're going to be paying $98,000 for 5 years after interest and all the extra bells and whistles. They sell $649 a month. So Netflix, you know, they don't sell, you know, $300 a year. They sell,

$2,349 or whatever their deal is. So anyway, that's it, man. What a great episode. I think the difference, and I'm curious your thoughts to close, but I really think the difference, I think there's 4 shops in the world. There's Anywhere USA, it's going to do $60K to $100K depending on the location. They don't even try. That's it. And then you start trying, you know, and I think you do $100K to $150K and that's, you know, you're just trying, but you don't have a business model. And I think then you come into Key2Key, Um, and that's how you get to $300K. It's like, wow, you just take pictures and videos and do a shop tour and be really nice and answer the phone and say yes. $300K. I think the difference between $300K and $400K, $500K, $600K, $900K, $1 million, you know, the shops that we're running that are doing that, you know, we've got shops in multiple markets. We got, I think we've got like 6 shops now in our network

that do over, have done over $600K. You know what I think the difference is? Fundamentally, first principles, it's Do the people in the front of the house have high agency? Are they willing to not give up, unblock themselves, solve problems, and overcome those objections? Because so many people will just be like, yeah, not my customer, bay one, they don't have the money, and they just give up. Defense wins championships. And when you're on defense, you got to overcome objections. I literally think it's the, the difference. Those couple of sales per day where it's like a reasonable customer and it's like, how can I just not give up? And how can I have high agency and how can I solve problems? See, overcoming objections is just identifying pain and solving the problem. And I'm not telling you every customer, you gotta, you gotta be realistic. If you have 13 waiters in your, uh, waiting area, I'm not asking you to go

through 17 steps on every single one of them and overcome the objections and triple team and tag team. 'Cause guess what's gonna happen? A lot of 'em are gonna say no. And then they got an oil change that took 3 hours and then you get a bunch of 1-stars. I'm, you know, if it's a customer or a car you don't wanna work on, you know, really bad. If it's a total TNG, definitely not gravy, totally not gravy, probably not gravy, it's cam phasers and you're trying to overcome, like, be realistic. Every single customer might not be, you know, I don't think it's worth it to build a business model where every single customer we're having 7 attempts at getting them to say yes. But I think, man, those deals every day that come in and out of the shop where it's like, that's the difference between $300K and $500K shop. Is, I mean, what's $200K divided by 25 working days if you're Monday through Saturday? That's like $8,000

a day. That's only like 4 deals a day. And that's the difference in my opinion. So gimme your thoughts on that, Glenn, as we close. Yeah. Yeah. There's no doubt about it that that's the difference of a shop that executes versus a shop that doesn't. I know that for sure. That's one thing we talk about in here all the time is like, look, if we took our and we went over to that company across the street, we are going to have a way bigger day than they would have. There's no doubt about it. And if that team came over here— see, each shop is gonna do a certain amount each day just by existing, by opening the doors, right? A shop could be— maybe it's $2,500 a day, maybe it's $10,000 a day. I don't know what that number is, but I know that just by opening the doors and order-taking— hey, I need brakes on my car— and then, yes, here's an estimate for the brakes, and they say, okay, go ahead and do the brakes. Brakes. And that's order taking. That's easy.

Everybody can do that. That's not a sale, that's a laydown, right? And that's necessary and part of the process. But the difference is what happens when that customer says, you know what, I want to wait on those brakes, or I'm going to park it, or I'm going to trade the vehicle in, or whatever. And you can convert every single day. A lot of people think that because of where we're located that we just have BMWs, Land Rovers, and Mercedes that pull through this shop all day long, and there's people are tossing the keys and it's $5,000 a car. Not the case. That's not the deal. We have the same customers that everybody else has out there. We have people that don't have the money. We have people that need to talk to their spouse. We have people that are trading in the car. We have all those things. The difference is we have a system and a process that we can actually strip that down, not use the customer's objection as our excuse, and then we can run

big days— $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, all the way up to $84,000 a day. On the $84,000 day that we did We, we turned over some deals. We saved some deals. We had to show, sell in person. We had to overcome— I'm selling the car probably multiple times that day. That's a lot of revenue too, by the way, in one day. One day sold $84,000. We had to overcome some stuff. So always remember that, like, the shop is going to do something just by being open, the doors being open and existing. The difference of what do you do to move the needle? And so, you know, over here, I— so for a lot of my career, I would have situations that would happen and I go, if I wasn't here, that wouldn't happen. Okay. That's happened many, many times over the course of my career. Wow. What if I wasn't there that second when that customer walked in the door and just— they were about to leave the shop and I converted it to stay and then

it turned into revenue. And over time, over learning this concept and just building the right team, Everybody thinks that way now. And so I love that. I love the fact that now I don't— all these things that happen now where I'm like, wow, if I wasn't here, would that have happened? I'm like, if I wasn't here, that would have still happened. And that's what I love. So yes, 100%, Joe, um, it's executing. It's the difference of converting the nos into yeses. That's what takes it to a whole nother level. It's fundamentally— it's what we open with in training. There are 3 levels to the business. Level 1, you are the business. If I wasn't here, that happened. Level 2, you build the business, you train every day, you distill your judgment into your team to where you know that when you sleep at night or you're off on your 2 days, that the people that are running the business when you're off are thinking like you think, you know, you have distilled your

judgment by training them over years into their brains. And then guess what? If you go on vacation for a week and a new person starts, I know Jaybird is going to be training that person the way that Glenn thinks. The business starts to build itself. That's level 3. And I want to commend you that you've built a great business with us for Blaylock, uh, and, and the Houston market and Auto Shop Answers. Um, because we're in level 3 now. I'm so grateful the business is building itself. And fundamentally, the fundamental principle— I used to think overcoming objections was just saying the right words. Like, oh, if I say the right words, the customer will just understand me and I can explain them to death. But really, it's fundamentally the first principle is the most successful people in the world solve the biggest problems. They solve problems, man. The iPhone solves so many problems and now they're a $5 trillion company. Nvidia solves

so many problems. Fundamentally, people that solve problems and are good at them, good at solving problems, have high agency and they get rewarded financially in a capitalistic society. Like low agency people, most people, dude, they just give up. They're a victim. They say, well, man, I'm not successful because this is my situation. It's like most people just give up. They don't unblock themselves. They run into a problem and they're like, I can't figure it out. So I'm just going to give up. It must be the economy. It must be tax season. It must be the rodeos in town. They don't got no money, button it up. We've heard it all, dude. Industry excuses. Yeah. I went out of business because insert the thing. It's Christmas time. You know, they're overextended in January. You could basically go Dang near through the whole calendar. Let's try. Yeah. January, they spent all their money on Christmas. They don't got any money. February, low car count, 28 days. They're not

gonna have a record month. March. Yeah. Spring break. They're going outta town. So they're, I mean, we're gonna have no customers that week. April's tax season. We're gonna have to wait till after April. Well, May is vacation. School's getting out, so the customers are leaving town. June, you know, can't wait for June and July because we're, it's hot outside and, uh, there's AC season. Great. August is back to school, so we're gonna have no customers in August. September is always a bad month because, you know, people are getting back into the rhythm. Labor Day, you know, they're going to college football games, they're out of town. Like, that's always back a bad month. October might be good because people are, you know, October might be good. 31 days, you know, September or November though, Thanksgiving. So we're like, there's no chance we're going to be busy because people are, uh, they don't have time to do their errands because they're going out of town.

And then Christmas, dude, they're spending all their money on Christmas. Like, they don't have any money for car repair. I could make up every excuse in the book and I've heard them all. I've heard the rodeos in town my whole life before Todd changed our family's business. Fundamentally, high agency people that say, yeah, that's an excuse. I'm going to figure out how to unblock myself, no friction. And I'm going to figure out how to solve the problem here. And what's the root problem? The whole thing about overcoming objections is listen more than you speak, identify the problem. And the customer is literally telling you, if you can, if you can, if you can fix my problem, I'll buy. If you can serve me and fix my problem, whatever my real problem is, and it can be any number of things, I will buy with you and I will do business with you. So anyway, that's an hour and 40-minute pod. This is sick. I, this is,

this fires me up. I'm ready to go close some deals. I know Glenn, you are. Um, got anything else for the people or, or is that the pod? And one final thing, October, nobody's getting excited about October, Joe. I'll close with that. I'm just telling you, Summer's over, man. October, that's like the start of the— that is the start of— we're about to hit the slow season. So just FYI, like, it's gonna be 50 degrees on— yeah, on Saturday. It's like, man, it's gonna be— man, the heat's gone. You know what I'm thinking? High agency, dude, we're about to get 50 low tire pressure checks on that first cold front, and I'm gonna PMI those cars. Oh, I love it. I'm gonna PMI those cars. I'm gonna sell some tires. It's gonna be a $1,300 ticket average, and we're gonna crush it. So man, change your mindset, overcome objections. That's the pod. We'll see you next time. For more information, reach out to Todd Westerland

at 925-980-8012 or visit autoshopanswers.com. You can get more information about Key to Key to Callbacks, uh, Courtside. We have a VIP Rack Attack Day where you spend an entire day in the trenches with our team learning this perfected business model. Uh, we offer leadership classes. As we have an AI academy. And also get more information about Auto Shop Callbacks. Uh, we have auto tech training. We are literally your one-stop shop. Once again, that number for Todd Westerland is 925-980-8012.