Happy People Buy Cars!

Happy people buy cars! That was the headline in my latest email from ‘Prosper Insights and Analytics’ www.ProsperDiscovery.com, one of roughly 80 research reports I receive each month. I like ‘Prospers’ stuff because it’s filled with lots of useful, real-time content analysis relating to customer habits, trends, concerns and motivators. If you’d like a PDF copy of the report, drop me an email and I’ll send it along.Old car had high mileage30%Wanted better gas mileage18%Tired of old, wanted new17%Car always in repair shop15%Old car ‘died’14%Financing/deals, incentives13%Style of new models12%Wanted better safety features12%Need another car for family11%Significant other wanted new10%

While the current ‘happiness’ trend is up, which relates directly to the February results we just experienced, the ‘happiness level’ is actually down a few points from the same time period in the previous year.  But, I for one, will take any upward trend and I’m hoping people will just turn off the television (except for your TV commercials) and get pumped and excited and happy and ready to buy a car.

My biggest take on Prosper’s latest ‘Happy’ report is the reason WHY people have bought cars in the past 6 months. Here are the top 10 responses in response to the question: “Which of the following motivated you to get a new vehicle.”

So, as you can see there were no stand out reasons other than #1, ‘car had high mileage’. And the good news is, we’ve got whole bunch more ‘mileage’ cars out there on the road just waiting for the right day, right time, right nudge that pulls them into the party.

Are your service advisors/service managers talking to ‘mileage car’ customers about the benefits of trading now? Are they picking up the phone/texting the sales manager when a clean ‘mileage’ vehicle hits the shop?

Are your salespeople on the phone with 4-5 year old customers offering a free inspection/appraisal and letting customers know their ‘mileage’ vehicle still has some good value ‘IF’ they trade now. After all, common sense is one of the best motivators of all. Everyone knows you ‘leave the dance while the music is still playing!’

Good selling…to happy people!