“Luxury Isn’t About Price” How to Deliver Premium Experiences That Raise Gross | Marion Cain, Founder of ACE & Creator of Kharisma Mastery
The Dealer Playbook
“Luxury Isn’t About Price” How to Deliver Premium Experiences That Raise Gross | Marion Cain, Founder of ACE & Creator of Kharisma Mastery
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Car
Dodge Spirit
The Dodge Spirit is a car that was made in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It's a four-door sedan, which means it has a lot of space inside for passengers and luggage, and it was a popular choice for families because it was affordable and reliable.
Term
tire and wheel
A tire is the rubber part that makes contact with the road, while the wheel is the metal part that holds the tire. Together, they are essential for a car to move safely.
Company
Brembo
Brembo makes brakes that help cars stop better and faster. They're popular among car enthusiasts and in racing because they work really well.
Term
true cost of ownership
True cost of ownership is how much money you spend on a car after buying it. This includes things like repairs, insurance, and gas, not just the price you pay at the dealership.
Term
extended warranty
An extended warranty is like insurance for your car that covers repairs after the original warranty runs out. It helps you avoid paying a lot of money for unexpected problems.
Term
maintenance
Maintenance is the work you do to keep your car running well. This includes things like oil changes and checking the brakes so your car stays safe and reliable.
Term
gas mileage
Gas mileage tells you how far a car can go on a certain amount of gas. If a car has better gas mileage, it means you'll spend less money on fuel because it uses less gas to go the same distance.
Term
new tires
New tires are brand new tires that you put on a car. They help the car grip the road better and make it safer to drive.
LIVE
Talk to me about in a rapidly evolving technological landscape, ensure that the essence, the authentic essence of the individual is coming through. You're not going to do it with a bunch of clones. Everybody can't act and behave the same way. Everyone has to add their own spice, their own authenticity to the whole sales environment. So, as technology increases, the race for the customers' mind and their heart is going to change because the people that just want that frictionless experience, they're going to go online.
But the people that want to come into the dealership, they want a luxury experience. You said, what do we want? We want a luxury experience. Right. And that is not mutually exclusive to a luxury product. No, think about this, Mike. When you're selling, whenever you increase someone's status, they'll pay more. Whenever you decrease someone's status, they're never going to pay more and they're not going to give you a good review. However, people don't understand. It's not about the location of where you're at. You are the difference. This feeds into something that you've talked about.
Closings is understanding how the brain decides. So, walk us through the first 90 seconds of that luxury delivery so that the client feels that status that you're talking about and safety before they are even talked to about terms and conditions. It's all about positioning. One of the things that I enjoy most about producing the dealer playbook is hearing from you. The messages that I get of people who are getting so much value out of the podcast applying it to their day-to-day workflows and finding a thriving
career right here in the retail auto industry. It means the world to me. And you know, one of the ways that we make doing this possible is through my agency FlexDealer. And, of course, in the spirit of providing value, I think this is a perfect time to head over to www.FlexDealer.com to show even further support for you. My beloved DPB gang. Right now, if you go to my website FlexDealer.com, you can get a full free PDF of my number one best selling book. Don't wait, dominate. And the reason I think it's so special,
is that a lot of the topics that are discussed in this book are even more relevant today than ever with this surgeon popularized AI and people wondering, well, what can I do next? How can I have a competitive advantage? Well, that's all here in this book. And so I'd love to be able to offer you a free copy of this. If you go to FlexDealer.com, it would mean the world to me because that is how we continue to produce this show for you.
Mary and Kane is the founder of ACE and creator of Charisma Mastery, a science based system that gives sales and F&I teams practical verbal and nonverbal tools to attract, convert, and inspire customers. You know, we love talking about that stuff here on the playbook.
He trains leaders and sellers across industries on owning the room and turning trust into revenue and hosts the Charisma Mastery podcast heard by business owners influencers and consultants aiming to scale their impact. Mary and Kane. Thanks so much for joining me on the dealer playbook.
Thanks for having me as such an honor and a privilege. Long time listener.
Oh my gosh, let's go now. Now I'm blushing. Now I'm blushing. We've, we've, you know, obviously we connected just what a couple, maybe six weeks ago. Yeah. And New Jersey and New Jersey, where we're both speaking at an event out there. You know, super inspired by your presence, which is something that I want to talk to you about. Perfect. I think in a world that is accelerating, especially from a technology perspective where there's a million
and one ways to communicate with people, communication diminishes. And part of that is that we don't get to experience the essence of a person in their authenticity. Yes.
Some rolling into Jersey. He's wearing a nice suit. He smells good shoulders back all the things. Talk to me about from your vantage point. How, how do you in a rapidly evolving technological landscape, ensure that the essence, the authentic essence of the individual is coming through.
And that, that is 100% nail on its head, the real direction that we need to go to, especially when you're considering sales and you're considering increasing the margins in your store, you're not going to do it with a bunch of clones.
Right. Everybody can't act and behave the same way. Everyone has to add their own spice, their own authenticity to the whole sales environment.
Because nowadays people in the past, they used to show up to the dealership based on the name on the on the marquee. Right. That was the name on the marquee. Now you're actually starting to find folks are following the sales person from dealership to dealership.
So as technology increases, the race for the customers mind in their heart is going to change because the lower level stuff the people that just want that frictionless experience, which is fine.
They're going to go online, but the people that want to come into the dealership, they want a luxury experience with luxury touch points.
And at the same time, they want to have what you call a portable story. They want to have something that they can talk about and then relate to their friends and stuff later on.
So that's the main thing that I add and that I talk and I teach and I preach. It's just about being not just your authentic self, but your best self.
And that attracts people as opposed to most training. It's more reactionary. You're reacting to that person. When you're you show up as your best self, you're actually pulling people into your orbit.
And then at that point, you're not just worried about selling them that car. You're thinking about how am I going to sell them their next car and sell all their friends cars and it's a different. It's a different level of thinking. It's a huge paradigm shift.
I'm even like my brain is about to ooze out of my ear right now because what I'm thinking about is you said, what do we want? We want a luxury experience. Right.
And that is not mutually exclusive to a luxury product. No, no.
Not at all. Think about this mic, right? Yeah. Yeah. When when you're selling, whenever you increase someone's status, they'll pay more.
Whenever you decrease someone's status, they're never going to pay more and they're not going to give you a good review. However, people don't understand, it's not about the location of where you're at.
You're at. You're the difference. Take for instance, an airplane, right? You have coach, you have business. And then what else do you have? First class.
We're all going to get there at the same time. However, there's certain status levels.
And it doesn't matter the amount of seats. Those 10s, 12 seats in the front can generate as much revenue as the 40 in the back, which is bananas. Right.
So it's all about having that mindset and understanding that we're not going to win the race to the bottom mic. That's not going to win. That's not especially with technology.
We're going to technology AI. They're going to be able to scoop up those low bottom the quick deals that people want to get in and out.
They're going to scoop those out. But the folks that want to come in and they want to go through the process. That's what's going to make the real differentiator and the whole setup.
Because when they come in a CU mic, they come into your dealership. You have to realize they're passing about five of their dealership. They could about that same car from.
But if they're going to come and they're going to come see you, you got to be different. You got to stand out. You have to have a force multiplier.
Interesting. This feeds into, you know, something that you've talked about the secret to more closings is understanding how the brain decides.
Oh, yes. So walk us through the first 90 seconds of that luxury delivery, you know, from whatever it is eye contact or how we talk our cadence, our essence.
So that the client feels that status that you're talking about safe and safety before they they are even talked to about terms and conditions.
Man, that's fantastic. That's a fantastic point. It's all about positioning. And so it's how you set your positioning even before the person walks through the door.
And so you have to have it set up from the first contact from your BDC. It has to be set up from your from your from your parking lot to your receptionist to even to when you first walk up immediately.
Because the things have changed a little bit, Mike, I don't know if you've noticed really in the dealership now, we have a different generation.
These younger guys talking to them, no shame, but you have to talk to them and that'll tell you honestly, they've never walked up to a girl and asked her out.
You laugh. No, dead serious. You got at least seriously asked them like it's almost you taught them it's like a foreign concept. Now it's more of an internet experience.
It's a mutual, you know, a crowd crowd type situation. But just to walk up to someone and ask for their number or even just strike up a conversation that foreign concept.
Yeah. So when you're training that type of individual, you have to understand a little bit more. And I'm glad you nailed it down. It's a little bit more than just walking up to the individual and having that stock store greedy, right.
It has a lot to do with how your inner your inner belief, but the same time your thought process that OK, I'm not just trying to sell this person a car.
I'm trying to I'm creating a lifetime relationship and experience. I think it's more important to then focus on how you would introduce yourself, how you would talk about yourself.
Because a lot of times people get wrapped up into their whole bio and where they come from and different things like that. But in reality, they need to be sucked into your orbit. So take for instance, how would you introduce yourself to an individual?
Like how would you, how would you tell them about Mike and your experience and where you're at and why you're there? What would you say?
You know what? That's a good question. I think my my introduction actually is more about them than it is about me elaborate. What do you mean?
So I don't know, I think as a genuinely curious person, I'm more interested in learning about what motivated you to come in. Like I think about I think about attention spans.
If somebody's willing to get into their car drive 25 minutes in traffic show up at my my business and and walk through the doors with the perception that they probably have about a car dealer.
And I'm I just want to be warm and and no like low pressure, kind of like we've known each other our entire lives, you know, hey, welcome in. I'm so excited. You guys are here. My name is Michael. I'm here to serve you today.
I'm curious. What what brings you in? How can I best help you out? How can I best serve you? You know, it's it's more like what what's your motivator? Why do you want to be here?
So it's interesting you mentioned that because when you first walk up. Yeah, it's very important. What most people do is they they walk up.
You know, they see the person. They kind of do that doom stroll all the way up to them. Don't make real eye contact. Right. Yeah. And you know, there's a who are you here for.
And then everybody's kind of scrambling around to see.
I don't like that because I hate the way it makes me feel when someone does it to me.
You know, so I'm looking for 100% is what you call luxury touch points.
A luxury experience. So what you know is even before the person's coming, I have your phone number. You have my phone number. Right.
I know where you're pulling into a lot. We'll call a car you're in.
Who you are before you even showed up. My crew. We're looking you up on Facebook. We're googling where you're googling where you live. We're googling to see if you purchased cars from us in the past.
We're looking to see your service history. Right. So what's going on is that there's none of this figuring it out. I think we're opening the door for you.
It's just it's a different. It's called the luxury touch points. So what happens is is a lot of times folks walk up, you know, not making eye contact.
You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, looking down.
And it's more of a meek type experience. At that point, you have to understand this whole process is from the beginning, you have to realize the way you approach.
That's each one you're you're actually losing the sale and you're actually losing how much money you make the way that that's why I look at it is as a hose. Right.
You want to make sure that that hose is running freely the more that hose is kinked. Right. The slower the water is coming out. Right. But what happens is if you have it on blast.
Man, it's it's it's effortless experience. So what you want to do is start off with open posture.
Shoulder's back. Put your hands on your chest. Raise that up along. Get your neck eye contact. First thing I want you to tell me is the color of the person's eyes. Right.
Then I want you to tell me the color of the kids eyes. Right. Then I want you to be looking for context clues on the car that they that they came in on.
Right. You want to look at that immediately. So then when the person comes in welcome hands out welcome to so XYZ most it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure to see you today.
How can I help you boom boom boom you're walking straight in how are you going to get this car going you walk right into you have to have the whole setup that you've known the person forever.
Yeah, you already know. Okay, you're here. You're looking for this car on this time. Okay, here's a time constraints. We started out here. We're going to make this process quick.
We're going to go through it. You're going to have the water ready. You're going to have the snacks ready. You're going to have everything ready to go.
So when you have all those things all set up. The person sits up and they recognize they're in a different place. They're in a different environment. Right. And so those are the things that change.
But the reason why I asked how would you introduce yourself because what a lot of people don't understand is in order to create a better experience, they have to know about you.
And when they know about you, they're more apt and open to open up about their true their true feelings because at that point, this stops to become a transaction.
This becomes a real interaction. Right. So me for my my introduction. I break down and I talk about like why am why am I here, you know, because they want to know why is a guy from the South from Boston and you know from Boston down the South, right.
And I just let them know, hey, I came down here. My dad, my dad was going through cancer treatments and I wanted to be within the last days of his life.
And this is, you know, where we set up when we set our family up, but I love the car business. I love serving people. And even though I'm here under bad circumstances, it's a blessing that I'm here with you today.
You know, so it's a whole set up where when you're able to be a vulnerable and you're able to talk about a lower level of your point, and then you're able to talk about your journey in a very quick second.
And then how why I went through that journey and how I'm here to help you, that creates a completely different dynamic, completely dynamic.
Hey, does your marketing agency suck? Listen, before we hop back into this episode, I know you know me as the host of the dealer playbook, but did you also know that I'm the CEO of Flex dealer?
An agency that's helping dealers capture better quality leads from local SEO and hyper targeted ads that convert.
So if you want to sell more cars and finally have a partner that's in it with you that doesn't suck, visit flex dealer.com. Let's hop back into this episode.
Yeah, it gives them something to reciprocate on. I wrote down. I wrote down margin compression. In other words, don't be your own margin compression.
Right. It's like because you, you know, to your earlier point, you're leaving money on the table, you are compressing your ability to provide an experience, a luxury experience, which is going to translate to whether they stay and feel comfortable or leave empty handed.
Right. And it's like sometimes we talk about all these other outside factors. What I like about your narrative, Marion is, is no, I'm the one in control. Yeah.
I'm not going to be a victim to whatever. Like the reason I lose a deal and the reason I win a deal is the same common denominator. Me. You. I love it.
And you've been, and you've been there. And what's interesting is people that work in dealerships, they see it all the time. That's why they have TOS.
Because someone else comes in and they're able to magically turn a deal around that you thought that had no chance and reverse engineering that from a psychological standpoint.
You recognize that what are the clues behind that individual and the person that just started what's crazy is when individual first start selling cars, you want to know what's nuts Mike, they sell a lot.
You ever notice that your first couple of weeks, they don't know anything. They keep their mouth shut and they actually sell a lot of cars. But what happens is after they go through training and they start to learn.
They actually start talking themselves out of deals. Then the bell curve hits back down. Then they become an expert. They go back to not talking as much.
And then they go, then they really start hitting their groove. They go back to selling a lot of cars. So you start to understand there's the sub communications.
So what changed with myself a lot is I used to be a stadium speaker. So I would speak in front of 10,000. My largest crowd was 40,000 outside San Diego Qualcomm stadium.
So when I first started doing F and I first started getting into management, I started recognizing that the same qualities that I needed to go one on 10,000 were the same qualities I need to go one on one.
Tonality, gestures, eye contact, pitch, pace, power, illustrations, applications, future pacing. All of those things tied in together, that creates the show. That's what people want. That's what they'll pay top dollar for.
100%. So that changes everything and then mix with chat GBT and AI. Boom. You're on fire.
Well, and it's funny to bring that up because I think about this probably more than I should, but what do you mean?
This idea of what you just said, whether it's 10,000, 40,000 or one.
What people are not used to today is someone that knows how to articulate carry themselves are confident.
So in that engagement, this makes perfect logical sense to me because chances are that person who is in front of you doesn't know how to communicate effectively.
Awkward.
And so the minute they are met with you, I think a lot of people was because they think that that's going to drive them away.
No, it's actually going to breathe confidence into them. Yes. Yes.
It's going to make them lost.
It's never lost. It's always transferred. Yes.
I love this because I'm a firm believer that a saturated market or a cluttered market provides the best opportunity to stand out.
Yes. Yes. I love it. I love it. Drop me in the middle of a city. Drop my crew in the middle of a city.
We are breaking records immediately. I want it to be saturated. Right.
Because I mean, I think about you can't stand up and lay down at the same time.
And if you're doing what everybody else is doing, guess what? You're laying down.
And we have kind of a pandemic of sorts in the auto industry because everybody wants to know, well, what's the other person doing?
Right.
Cares. Right.
To your point, stand up.
Stand firm. Be confident.
Inspire others by the way that you carry yourself. You don't even realize the tangible impact here.
Be on selling a vehicle or the transaction is that you might have just sent somebody back home on their way with a desire to to go away.
You know what? I want to live like that.
I want to carry myself like that.
I want to go be a positive contributor to now my sphere of people, my community.
And to me, that's the really exciting, cascading effect of all of this is that you're not just selling a car.
You are impacting somebody's life and sending them on their way to go impact people's lives.
That's the really exciting thought process for me here.
Exactly. And Mike, people, when you understand is when you're walking to that dealership, you're purchasing a car.
A lot of times people do purchase vehicles for more utilitarian purposes.
Right.
A lot of times it's an identity shift or it's a reinforcement of who they want to be or more importantly where they want to go.
And that's the gap that you're selling because you're not just selling that vehicle as a mode for them to get to the next level.
To to to affirm their level of status to affirm where they want to go.
You're showing them I'm going to help you get there.
You might be spending a little extra money on this, but I'm going to support you.
I'm going to make sure that this is not just an investment, not ingest into this vehicle, but into yourself.
And when that person can see themself on a next level and then they can see that they have an ally in you.
That chain, that's the big game changer.
You're sitting there.
It's it's a difference.
It's like with my F and I crew.
It's it's such a huge paradigm shift when we talk about we sell platinum's.
So in order to sell a platinum package, you have to spend $10,000 extra dollars.
And then when you get to the point where and that requires in 15 minutes, you not only have to create security.
You not only have to create trust.
You know, I have to have them like you, but you only have to create a compelling argument that this is something that is going to not just benefit you.
Because they know it's going to benefit you, but them.
And that's the no brainer way to go.
That right there has to be communicated.
That has to be communicated elegantly and has to be communicated concisely.
It has to be computer communicated simply.
And it's very easy, but it starts with the internal shift.
People take cues from you on how to treat you.
Right.
So that is the big thing that's out there.
And in past training, folks don't understand you were actually buying that individual's certainty.
You were buying Grant Cardone's certainty.
You were buying Andy Elliott's certainty, right?
But the next level right now is I want to buy Mike's certainty.
I want to buy Marion's certainty.
Right.
That's the stuff.
That is the difference because it's just that thing.
That's the same thing that happens with a lot of the training.
You adopt someone else's personality and you only can go to you get to that level.
And then you have to go back and go again.
But think about this.
When you have your own your own script.
You have your own process.
You have your own setup that creates and makes you a perfect person.
At that point, you're continuing to tweak that and no one can take that from you.
So make sure that you don't have that.
You're continuing to tweak that and no one can take that from you.
So mix with chat GBT.
It's fire, right?
So what I recommend is I have all of my folks take a personality test.
Because the first thing you want to do is you want to know who you are on the inside.
You want to know your norms, your more is how you view the world.
And you want to be able to peel back some of layers of stuff you were taught,
but stuff that actually that you believe.
Then what happens, I like the Myers Briggs.
And so they have about 32 different setups, ETNF and J, different stuff like that.
You plug that into chat GBT.
You say, this is my personality type, right?
Then I teach my students on how to quickly read the other person's personality.
You can get a very basic baseline of what the person, the person's personality is like,
whether they're a logical thinker or whether emotional thinker, whether they make decisions fast
or they make decisions slow.
You can do this from context clues where they do for work.
You plug all that into chat GBT as well.
That's their personality type, your personality type, their personality type.
Then you just plug in what type of car they're looking for.
You tell me, just ask them, how should I sell this person?
What do I need to avoid?
What do I need to say?
What actually, what things would actually resonate with them?
Would I need to stay away from, right?
Then at the same time, you get a nice game plan and that's structured,
not just to an open person, but that specific person.
They have three kids.
They have, this is their job.
So take, for instance, I had one of my clients, he called me the other day and he was so excited
because he had this heart surgeon that came through.
And he could see in the past, this individual, he buys a lot of cars but never bought anything.
He makes $4 million a year as a heart surgeon, family practice.
What you thought to find out with a lot of folks that are affluent,
they really don't believe in, they self-insure.
They only buy insurance when they have to, but it gets to a certain level.
They don't believe in it.
When you have that customer, it's like an in and out situation.
He plugged in not only his personality type, but he plugged in that he hasn't bought in the past.
He's more of a type personality, more a logical thinker.
He makes decisions quickly, but also put in that he's a heart surgeon.
And so what I really teach is the order to sell, you have to be able to go into the person's world.
And most importantly, you have to make analogies that relate to them.
So you plug in for every single product, for every single setup in the process.
You want stories, stories sell facts repel every single time.
So what happened with that one with this student is he was able to find someone that comes through all the time,
never buys any products, but he stopped them.
And he said, just like you wouldn't go into your surgery without a lead apron.
It's not advantageous for you to buy this car without tire and wheel.
Right.
So you know the reason why that stopped me, Mike, is I call myself an educated person.
I didn't know heart surgeons wear a late apron.
So apparently that why they're doing, they're doing such precise work.
They have to do x-rays and they're wearing a lead apron the whole time.
And so that actually is one of the reasons why they get paid so much is because they have a,
a shorter career span because they're wearing such a heavy apron.
Usually they have a 15 year window.
And then after that, they start to have back problems.
That's also another reason why there's not a lot of women that are heart surgeons.
I digress.
It's like basketball players, you got to make all the money.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Same way.
But when he stopped and he said he brought it into his world and he said, yeah,
I'm not going to expose myself to all that radiation.
I'm never walking in there without the lead apron.
He was just like, you know what?
You're actually right.
I actually had straight my wheels a couple of times and that slowed me down.
You know what?
Add that on.
So that's the little basic stuff that chat GBT and having all the resources at your disposal.
And just being maximum have maximum preparation.
Yeah.
That's that's the huge difference in creating a luxury experience is the ability to be well prepared
but also be extemporaneous at the same time.
Yeah.
I love that you are giving us practical insights about how to scale the human.
Not replace them, right?
I think there's a lot of people talking about like, oh man, it's going to replace me.
No, no, no.
In this equation that you're talking about, you used it for preparation and insights.
But the implication here is that the human being still has to have the soft skills,
the desire, the ability to articulate the presence, all of the delivery mechanisms
to bring those insights to life so that they're real for the other individual.
And it's all about the connection.
Everything is about connection.
And so when you, when you're focused on connecting with the individual,
and like I said, feeling it's all about empathy, feeling that person's pain in your heart.
Yeah.
And truly, truly, truly feeling that.
So you have to realize what the pain points are and what is really important to that individual.
So that's the reason why you need to have a whole, I have a whole prompt and stuff set up
that you know, you plug in where the person lives, where their job is,
what they do for work, how many kids they have, what's their trade look like,
what car are they thinking about?
Right?
Because what happens is that when you have the process coming through and you see that type of person,
you see if that person is more of a aggressive intuitive type person,
you want to sell them more on the technology and in the features.
Right?
Of all the tech.
Because that right there, they like to talk about all the tech that elevates their status.
Right?
Yeah.
Another person on the other side, that's more of a logical thinker.
You know, you want to give him what you call portable stories.
You want to talk about how the break, the break calipers are brimbo Italian breaks.
You know, I mean, you want to get real into the details because what they value
is being able to share those stories with other people.
Right?
Then you want to have with those folks that are very logical,
you want to have it set up so you quickly can do what you call a true cost of ownership.
True cost of ownership.
What that means is if you take the decision to walk out with this car over here.
Right?
As opposed to taking this car right here, you have to realize, you know what?
This next couple of months, you're going to have to get some breaks.
You're going to have to buy a new warranty.
You're going to have to, you know, do you know, get new maintenance,
pay me for a new maintenance package?
You guys call true cost of ownership.
And the gas mileage is on better on the new car than the old car.
So you start to help the person see from a fiscal standpoint that they're actually losing money
staying in their past life.
That you're actually, you know what?
Creating a more frictionless experience when you step into the new car.
You have, you don't have to worry about maintenance.
You don't have to worry about warranty.
You got new tires.
You have peace of mind.
So you can focus on what makes you money.
What makes you great.
As opposed to sitting here chasing chasing dimes trying to hold on to your old car.
So when you create that different type of experience in that level,
that changes everything.
It's a game changer.
Okay.
Well, we're going to need a follow-up here.
I got through about five times out.
We, we got us, we got to fit inside that morning commute.
That's okay.
Okay.
Okay.
But we're going to have to have you back, man.
What a, what a delightful conversation.
Mike, before we go.
Before we go.
Just to kind of share something with you real quick.
Yeah, tell me whatever someone stops me.
They always asked to see my dominoes.
Right.
And I always carry these dominoes with me.
And as a new audience,
I just want to just really introduce why this is important.
Reason why it's important is you always set up your dominoes on your desk before you start work.
Right.
And you recognize that in order to knock these dominoes over,
you can do it one by one.
That takes a lot of energy.
Yeah.
The way you maximize things is line them up.
And you just hit one and it knocks all of them over.
So when you start your day,
your process like that,
as a manager,
as a GM,
as a salesperson,
right,
you become a force multiplier.
You become a person.
You completely shift your day
because you recognize that one action
that you do,
compounds in leads to other actions as well.
You set up your paperwork correctly.
You greet the person correctly.
You go through,
you do your demo correctly.
You track,
you stock your trade correctly.
You do all those things because you can see at the end,
this is going to equal a great deal,
not just for you and the customer.
A lot of times people don't understand they're wasting so much energy,
you know, knocking one or two things over
and that's the same thing with technology right now.
We have so many different options.
And what we have to do is start to line all those options up.
So you knock down one,
and it takes a whole deal down.
Ooh, my true.
We're not focused on selling one car a day.
We're focused all our time is,
everything is set up to sell three cars.
Right?
Every time somebody comes in the F and I,
it's set up to supply the platinum package.
It's set up to,
but you look at it in the credit.
I'm looking at your credit
and I'm seeing the interest rates on all your cars.
I want you to get all new cars on all these cars.
You know, we have one of my dealers.
Everybody was trying to figure out how they had their rate
for coming in the door.
It was over a hundred percent because they were so adept
at going into the credit and selling the person multiple cars
because they just knew they had a process.
And that process is all about just hitting it once
and you knock all the dominoes down,
not just doing all these things in a silo.
So I don't want it to go.
But I just really want it really to push that out there
because that's really the crux of my teaching.
We got to leave them wanting more now.
Okay.
How can those listening and watching connect with you?
You know what?
I would just reach out to me on any of the different platforms.
I do.
I focus a lot on Facebook and Instagram.
But I want people to reach out to me.
If you're struggling,
if you think you're about to lose your job, right?
If you're worried about supporting your family,
you don't know what to do.
You don't have the right training.
You might not be able to afford me.
I don't care.
Reach out.
I love people.
I want to help.
I've been there.
And so I feel that every person I can raise up,
every person I can support,
it creates a whole movement that not only changes the paradigm,
the way people view car salesmen,
but it gives people that energy
to help and inspire everyone else around them.
And that's what really creates a real movement.
And that's why I love what I do.
Let's go.
Marion Kane.
Thank you for joining me on The Dealer Playbook Podcast.
And we got to do it again, Mike.
Hey, thanks for listening to The Dealer Playbook Podcast.
If you enjoyed tuning in, please subscribe, share,
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Check back next week for a new Dealer Playbook episode.
Thanks so much for joining.
About this episode
Marion Cain, founder of ACE and creator of Kharisma Mastery, discusses how to elevate the car buying experience beyond mere transactions to create luxury interactions. He emphasizes the importance of authenticity and personal connection in sales, arguing that a genuine approach can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. Cain shares practical strategies for engaging customers, including the significance of first impressions and the use of storytelling to relate to clients. The conversation highlights the need for salespeople to adapt to a changing landscape while maintaining their unique essence.
Original notes
Guest Marion Cain (ACE founder; creator of Kharisma Mastery) breaks down a science-based playbook for dealership sales and F&I teams to own the room, deliver luxury touchpoints (on any brand), and turn trust into revenue. We cover the first 90 seconds, nonverbal cues, “portable stories,” True Cost of Ownership framing, and how to use GPT/AI to tailor your pitch to any buyer’s personality, without losing the human.
You’ll learn
- Why buyers now follow salespeople and how to stand out in a saturated market
- The luxury experience blueprint (even if you don’t sell a luxury marque)
- The first 90 seconds: posture, eye contact, tone, cadence, confident welcome
- Status framing that stops margin compression (people pay more when status rises)
- “Portable stories” that customers retell (and why they convert better than features)
- True Cost of Ownership: simple math that moves logical buyers today
- Personality-based selling with GPT: your type + their type → custom talk-track in minutes
- The Dominoes Method to stack actions and create 3-car days + F&I platinum wins
Timestamps / Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:38 Introducing Marion Cain and Charisma Mastery
05:03 Creating a Luxury Experience
05:46 Building Lifetime Relationships
09:42 Effective Introductions and Customer Engagement
14:36 Personal Stories and Vulnerability in Sales
16:01 Controlling the Sales Experience
21:06 Understanding Customer Psychology
23:49 The Importance of Personalization
28:07 Practical Insights for Scaling Human Connection
31:35 The Domino Effect in Sales
33:55 Final Thoughts and Connecting with the Speaker
Who this helps: Dealer principals, GMs/GSMs, sales managers, F&I, BDC leads—anyone driving grosses, CSI, and repeat/repurchase.
The Dealer Playbook
Michael Cirillo
0:00
35:11