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Why do you do business with who you do business with?....There are only 5 possible reasons
Why do you do business with who you do business with?....There are only 5 possible reasons
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About this episode
Exploring buyer motivations, Lenny Lawson delves into what keeps customers returning to businesses rather than just visiting once. Using fast food experiences as a backdrop, he discusses five key attributes that drive customer loyalty: price, product, service, access, and experience. He emphasizes that businesses need to excel in at least one area while maintaining average performance in others. The conversation also touches on how these principles apply to personal branding and job hunting, making it relevant for both consumers and aspiring professionals.
Topics:
buyer motivations
customer loyalty
business attributes
service quality
personal branding
Email Lennie at [email protected]
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Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Ford F150
"So if they go to my website and they can't figure out what to click on to get a price on a new Ford F-150, then they may just get impatient with me and go find another Ford dealer online."
Car
Chevrolet Silverado
"...back in the old days. We're liquidating our Chevy Silverados. Well, we weren't."
Select text to request an explanation
You know, I'm a lot more interested in what makes you come back to a business than what
makes you go in the first place.
I mean, when you go in the first place, it's an experiment.
But when you go a second time, it's validation.
Hey, folks, Lenny Lawson here, the car guru, and kind of looking at buyer motivations
today.
I've been thinking about that.
What makes people go someplace and return?
So yesterday, I went to a famous taco place, and I won't use names, but they're famous.
And I had a bean burrito and a hardshell taco and a diet Pepsi.
And it was okay.
I mean, it was semi-warm.
And so I didn't have any complaints.
I was really hungry, so it filled the void.
Day before that, I went to another fast food restaurant, the symbol of which is a female
with red hair and, well, I can't remember what she's wearing.
What does Wendy wear?
Oops!
Yeah, and it was okay, too.
I mean, I got a double, and French fries and a diet, I think it was a diet coke that time.
I shouldn't be drinking those diet drinks, but anyway, I should have got a water.
But the French fries were soggy.
The meat was kind of dry, and it was just a meh kind of experience.
Now, I know I've been on a fast food run.
The day before that, I went to Chick-fil-A.
And I ordered a cobb salad, and the lettuce was cold and fresh.
The salad dressing was even cold.
I got tea this time, and it was very good tasting tea.
They don't sell sweet and low, or they don't offer sweet and low.
You don't sell that stuff normally.
It's built into the price, but they don't have sweet and low there, so I had to settle
for Splenda.
But I was impressed.
I sat there and ate that salad and felt very good.
And I said, you know what, I'm going to come back to Chick-fil-A.
You know how long it had been since I'd been to the famous taco place?
Probably, gosh, five years maybe.
And the other restaurant, the fast food with the girl, probably a year.
And that was on a trip, and that was the only thing at the exit.
And you know, I really like going to Powell's, you know, the fast food place here in East
Tennessee.
Not because the food is that great.
It's okay.
You know, I could live with it, live without it.
The teas are wonderful, and there are other people that they swear by the different
stuff that Powell's serves.
But I just like the service.
I just like the smiling faces.
I like the freshly painted, or at least it looks like it's freshly painted building.
The landscaping is perfect.
There's no trash anywhere.
I mean I've seen people out there doing things that, you know, like polishing the bottom
of the flagpole.
Come on.
How many fast food places do that?
So, you know, I'm just using fast food as an example.
I could have used car dealerships since I'm a car dealer.
Fast food is just something we experience more often than going in to buy a car or get
it service.
Would you agree?
Maybe you're staying away from fast food, which is good for you.
You know, you're probably a lot healthier because of it.
But these are examples of my subject matter for today.
And that's the attributes that a business has that they can compete on.
What makes them a draw for customers?
So that's one thing.
The other thing is, what keeps the customers coming back?
I promise we'll get to cars at some point in this broadcast, but this is for a business.
You know, sometimes on this show we, I talk about things that will benefit you personally,
will benefit businesses, young people coming up in the world of responsibility and financial
independence.
You know, I want people to get off to a good start, whether it be for credit or how they
spend their money or whether or not they save their money.
I think this is all part of my mission.
So pardon me if I lump it all together into one podcast slash radio show.
So according to a book that I read several years ago, it's called The Myth of Excellence.
It's a great book.
And if you are thinking about starting up a business or currently involved in a business,
it could be a big business, primarily a retail business, somebody that serves the public,
not really a manufacturer, although many of the concepts could apply to, you know,
a second tier supplier, you know, to a larger company.
Goodness gracious, I have so many things going off, alarms, and that's another problem with
modern society is all the tech we have to deal with.
We're going to see more tech today or tomorrow.
I guess that Apple had their big shindig, so we're going to get an all new iPhone,
new iPhone users out there that, you know, supposedly it's going to be different, probably
more invasive into our lives.
So let's talk, let's continue down this path.
So what are the attributes?
I'll get to those here in just one minute.
Okay, so The Myth of Excellence, you know, it's an interesting title, isn't it?
What do you think that means?
You know, when I first saw the title, I said, okay, well, that's intriguing because
I was definitely in the business excellence striving mode.
I'm going to figure out ways to make my business just bulletproof.
So I started reading and then we're bringing up examples of different retail merchants.
A lot of example, like Walmart versus Target, Wendixie versus, you know, that was the
old grocery store.
I don't know, they're still Wendixies.
Wendixie versus Fresh Market, you know, they're all different experiences in this.
So they were talking about five key attributes that a business has to depend on in order
to be successful.
And I guess the main premise of this was that you have to be at least average or above in
three of the five attributes.
You have to be really, really good at one and excellent at one.
So what are the attributes?
They are price, product, service, access, and experience.
So I look at my business, I'm saying, okay, so I've got to be really, really good, excellent
at one of these.
How come I don't have to be excellent at all of them?
That doesn't make sense to me.
I'm striving to be excellent at all of them.
Well, the book or the title says that it's a myth that you can't be excellent at everything
and you don't have to be.
You have to pick the attribute and the secondary attribute that you want to be excellent and
good at and the rest of them, you can just be average.
Now, you can't be terrible at one of the others or two or three.
You have to be at least average at the other ones.
So let's give an example of a car dealership price.
Okay, so I advertise price, not real often because, you know, I can throw prices
out there that look so good and some yahoo will throw some prices out there that look better
and then it makes me look like a, you know, like I'm overcharging or something.
When his price has a big disclaimer that's in the fine print, you know, that says that,
well, you've got to add back $5,000 worth of fees and stuff like that.
So since most people don't read the disclaimers, then I'm in a disadvantage.
So why talk about price all the time?
I mean, I run payment ads, you know, I could say lease this vehicle or buy this vehicle
for $3.99 a month or $2.99 a month, but it's subject to a down payment.
And so I just don't feel like it's genuine or honest to do a lot of price advertising,
but I do want to be perceived as a place where you can buy a car for a good price,
a fair price, and it will be a competitive price.
So how do you promote that?
How do you advertise that?
That's a good question.
I've only been trying to figure that out for the C, 47 years.
All right, let's talk about product.
I'm a Ford dealer and I'm a Nissan dealer and I sell a lot of used vehicles and
I have a service department and I sell Ford and Nissan parts and I sell aftermarket
parts when I say aftermarket like Weathertech floor mats and Yakima luggage racks and
stuff like that.
So we sell all of those things.
We have a diverse product.
Is everybody in the market for a Ford?
No.
Is everybody in the market for a Nissan?
No.
You know, there's only a certain percentage of the market that is interested in those
products.
I want those products to be competitive.
I want people to respect those products.
A lot of people don't for one reason or another just like somebody may not like Hyundai or Kia
or, you know, Chevy or Ram, whatever.
People are going to gravitate towards certain brands just the way the business is.
But it's a level playing field as far as product.
As far as that Ford dealer down the street, he sells the same thing that I do.
So I can't really differentiate myself based on product.
I can versus a Chevy dealership, but, you know, trying to advertise to get somebody who's
a Chevy person to come by a Ford, that's wasted money as far as I'm concerned.
You know, all I need to do is attract all the people who want to buy Fords.
Well, that's not going to be possible because there's a lot of Ford dealers and there's
a lot of people that are a lot closer to another Ford dealer than they are to me.
So I can't compete on Ford, but I can be at least average, even though Ford is a superior
product to average, I think, and so is Nissan.
So that's product story.
Now let's talk about access.
What the heck is access?
How easy am I to get to?
Well for somebody who lives in Knoxville, not really easy, but for somebody who lives
in Greenville or Green County, I'm the closest guy.
I'm accessible.
But access doesn't just mean your physical location, it also means your internet location.
And how easy that internet location, your website, is to use and to get to.
How accessible is the information that the customer is looking for?
So if they go to my website and they can't figure out what to click on to get a price
on a new Ford F-150, then they may just get impatient with me and go find another
Ford dealer online.
So I have to be accessible in multiple different ways.
And once people do drive on to the lot, I know this might seem trivial, but it's not to me.
Can they find a place to park?
Is it hard to get around the lot?
Are the cars displayed in a neat and orderly fashion, or are they all mixed up?
All of this has to do with access.
How accessible are we to the customer?
So you have price, product, access, and then there's only two more things, service and
experience.
Well, service is, what do we offer the customer that maybe somebody else doesn't?
For example, we offer a lifetime powertrain warranty.
So the Fords and the Nissan's come with a factory warranty, but I invest a little
bit extra in my customers, and I offer a lifetime powertrain warranty.
Again, it doesn't cover everything that manufacturers warranty does, but it does
cover the most expensive parts of the car for how long?
For life, for as long as they own the vehicle.
It is not transferable, but it is a special service that we offer.
In addition to that, we offer complimentary maintenance.
Now a lot of different companies offer complimentary maintenance.
So we looked at our package of offerings and we said, let's go one step
further.
Instead of doing what some manufacturers do and offer one year, or two years, let's
offer three years.
So that's something else that we do that is hopefully attractive from a service standpoint.
And then do we offer loaner cars?
Do we offer, I don't know, free towing?
There's so many different things that dealers can do to make the service experience better.
The primary thing most people want, and I hope you'll agree with me, is if they
bring their vehicle in to get it serviced, they want it done quickly, they want it done
on time, and they want it fixed right the first time.
They don't want to have to come back and get it done the second time.
Would you agree with that?
I just think that a dealership that can respond quickly, get them in, get them out and do
it right, that's going to make an impression and that's going to make them want to come
back.
You know, like I'm not going to want to go back to some of those other fast food places
because, yeah, I didn't really get anything fantastic.
It was just okay.
And anybody can be just okay.
That's easy.
I mean, how do you be outstanding?
You offer something outstanding and then you do it.
You back it up.
You know, it's not all talk.
I see so many dealers say, we offer unbeatable service, really?
Based on what?
I mean, who said that you have unbeatable service?
Do you have some customer surveys that say that?
Did you win some kind of award?
You know, we have the lowest prices in the world.
You know, that's what they call an unsubstantiated claim.
You can't say that.
You can't say we'll beat anybody else's deal.
You can't say guaranteed credit approval.
You know how dealers get around that?
You've probably heard it.
They say no credit application refused, big whoop.
All that means is if you fill out a credit application, they'll take it from you.
It doesn't mean you'll get approved.
So these are all claims, service claims that dealers make and other businesses make
similar claims.
We are regulated by Nissan and Ford.
There are certain things that you cannot say.
We're not even supposed to say that we're having a liquidation sale.
We used to say that back in the old days.
We're liquidating our Chevy Silverados.
Well, we weren't.
We were just trying to sell them.
But liquidation sounds better, cheaper, doesn't it?
You know, the only time that you can legally say liquidate is when you're going out
of business.
Then you can use that word.
Otherwise, it's deceptive.
So got to watch out what you offer as far as services if you're not going to back them
up.
Okay.
So what's the final ingredient, the final attribute that will differentiate a business
from everybody else?
It's experience.
And so, you know, that's one of those nebulous things.
It's really hard to pin down.
What does it feel like to do business with you?
I mean, when you drive on to the lot, people, you know, they sense things that they don't
either say or really even acknowledge.
I mean, can you sense a business when you walk into it, whether it's, you know, well-organized,
whether they really care about their customers?
You know, I can.
All I have to do is go into their bathrooms.
You know, if their bathrooms are clean and they don't, you know, they smell okay
and they're clean, sorry.
And you know, they have enough towels and the customer waiting area is neat and organized
and not sloppy.
And you don't see trash cans overflowing.
You know, I walked into my shop over at the Green Outdoor, which is where we sell
tractors and mowers and things like that.
And granted, I mean tractors and mowers, they got a lot of mud on them.
You know, there's a lot of grass and things that will fall off of people's mowers
when we're servicing.
But you know, you've got to keep the floors looking clean.
And I saw some trash cans that looked like, well, if somebody puts one more thing on
them, then, you know, it's going to collapse or fall over.
I don't like that.
That doesn't go along with my standards.
So I went to the manager and I said, you know, am I going to need to empty these
garbage cans or are you going to do it?
He said, oh, sorry, boss, you know, and then took care of it.
But when a customer sees that, he may not shout at them, but it makes something
I call a subliminal perception.
You know, they used to talk about, you go to the movies and movie theaters
would put these little like brief millisecond of a picture of a popcorn
or a drink or something like that on the screen.
And you really didn't notice it, but your subconscious mind did.
And they thought that that would make you actually thirsty for some,
you know, coke or hungry for some popcorn or some milk duds.
And so they would flash these things up and this really did happen.
Okay, I remember reading about it.
And you know, if it's in, if it's written, it's got to be true, right?
They called it subliminal advertising and I think it was outlawed.
But it worked and, you know, that was part of their experience
manipulation, let's call it.
But customers today, they're a lot more savvy and they want to be entertained.
They want to be impressed.
They want it to feel good.
I just think about how I feel when I walk into a fresh market.
I've talked about them before or when I go through the line at Chick-fil-A.
And everybody's dressed nice.
Everybody is so polite.
Whenever you ask them to do something or give them an order or whatever,
they say it's my pleasure.
And the same thing at Powell's and I think of Dick Sporting Goods and
the Pottery Barn and there's so many businesses I could just rattle off
that it just feels good walking in there.
It's just so well laid out.
And you go to certain stores and the shirts and the pants and
everything are so neatly folded and the shoes are so nicely displayed.
It just makes you want to buy something.
And then you go into a business that's really haphazard and
disorganized and it just turns you off.
And see, one of the points of this book is that Gateway Ford and
Gateway Nissan is not just competing with other car dealers.
They're competing with the experiences that people are having at totally
unrelated businesses.
Because when you have a great experience,
it raises your overall expectations of business in general.
Okay, I'll be back in just one minute.
Okay, I am back.
So the myth of excellence, it's a good book.
I don't remember when it was written, probably 15 years ago,
maybe longer than that.
But I have gone back to that book multiple times.
I have talked about this very concept on this program.
I use it as a training tool for my people.
I use it as a subject matter for a speech that I make to
juniors and seniors in high school because it applies to us
personally as well, not just to businesses.
You think about it.
You think about price, product, service, access, and experience.
How would that apply to an individual?
You're trying to get hired by a business.
You've got a price, right?
That's your salary expectation.
The product is you and what you know.
The service is what you're capable of doing.
The experience is how you behave and the image that you
portray in front of the interviewer.
And you've proven that you're accessible because you're there.
You're there for an interview.
And what are you willing to do?
Do you have to move?
Do you have to relocate or something in order to be
able to work at this particular place?
I mean, it applies to so many different things.
And hopefully this little review of that will be
beneficial to you or somebody you know.
Well, thanks for listening to this edition of My Car Guru.
If you need me for some reason, 423-552-2020.
And if you are interested and you really
want to learn a lot of the stuff that we talk about on
this show and be able to use it every time you walk into a
car dealership, then send me your email address, text it
to me, 423-552-2020.
And I'll send you the 26-page My Car Guru guidebook.
And hopefully you'll still need me after I send it to you.
But maybe not.
Well, thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.
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