Private Car Sales

Taking Car
Buyer Calls

Private car sales - taking calls from buyers...
The 7^th of 14 steps on how to sell your car private party

Ahhh, taking calls from prospective buyers, the fun part of private car sales. Talking to complete strangers...Some nice, some not so, some weird, some annoying and some that just want to grind every penny of profit out of your sale.

Welcome to the world
of a professional car salesman!

A key to speaking with potential buyers on the phone, is that it's important to relay a certain sense of excitement about the vehicle.

You don't have to come across as a circus promoter, but drab and dry will not excite the buyer and may give the impression that there is not a sense of urgency to see and buy the car now.

What Taking
Calls Is All About

The phone call is very similar to print advertising, the ad you ran was to get the phone to ring and the call is to get an appointment. In fact, it is beneficial to use some of the power words and phrases from Step 6 - Write Effective Ads.

This section is not titled how to sell a car over the phone, because that's exactly what you don't want to do. The phone call is all about building more excitement.

You want the potential buyer to want to come see the car and you want to keep them from focusing solely on the lowest price you'll take. Keep it short, exciting and set the appointment!

To help set the appointment and to build some urgency, you can hint that you have several potential buyers set to see the car and/or have been getting quite a few phone calls.

When you do set an appointment, get the potential buyers name and phone number.

A lot of people will flake out on appointments and won't call you to let you know they won't be making it. Getting their phone number will save you a lot of idle time waiting around for someone that will never show.

Don't Negotiate
Over The Phone

If potential buyers want to negotiate over the phone, I'd try to steer the conversation back to seeing the car first. In fact, I wouldn't negotiate at all over the phone.

If they persist and want to talk you down, they are probably only going to buy the car if they can "steal" it. I've found these people tend to be flaky and usually won't even show for the appointment.

I personally do not take these people too serious and if I were you wouldn't invest much of my time with them. There are other people out there that will appreciate the car for what it is and will be willing to pay more for it.

If someone is not necessarily haggling, but asks if you are flexible on price, I'd simply say, "all offers will be considered, when would you be able to come over and look at the car?"

Now that you know how to take car buyer calls...
What would you like to do next?

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< Go Back To Step 6 Write Effective Ads

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Move On To Step 8 > Meet and Greet

Or you can...

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