If you have ever had a good experience when buying a car, congratulations. The truth is, most people have good experiences when buying cars. But for some reason, many people are afraid of visiting a car dealership for fear of being manipulated into buying a car that is too expensive. Making a big purchase like a car and should be a well thought out endeavor. In this article, I’ll give you a few tips to make this as easy as possible.
First of all, car salesman are not evil creatures from planet doom. They are people just like you and me, and likely have a family depending on them. Sure, some use some pretty underhanded techniques, but when you know how the game is played, you’ll have a much easier time next time you buy a car.
Sticker price is one thing that give many people alarm. The truth is that no dealer expects anybody to pay full sticker price. Sure they’d love for people to walk in, look at the sticker price, and write out a check, but it doesn’t quite work out like that. Most dealers are happy selling a car up to ten or sometimes fifteen percent below sticker price.
Another trap people fall into is overestimating the amount they’ll get for their trade in. If you search the Kelly Blue Book, the estimate you’ll get will be inflated. When dealers estimate the value of your trade in, they use a whole sale estimate, which is often much lower than Kelly Blue Book. They are factoring in how much they’ll have to spend to get your trade in into condition to sell.
Another thing to be aware of is financing. While you can usually get a pretty good deal on financing at the dealership, it pays to shop around. Ideally, try and get pre-approved at your own bank before you go car shopping. That will help you to set a specific budget.
When you understand the price you’ll be paying, and the real value of your trade in, you’ll have a much better, and usually much quicker experience buying a car. When you let the salesperson know all of this information up front, the sale will go even quicker.
If you desire to learn the most authoritative Negotiation And Persuasion Techniques, have a look at George Hutton’s NLP Sales Tips page.
