I’ve got a really great idea for car dealers everywhere. The way they do it now is just not working for me. They need to have a separate set of salesmen for women.
When I go shopping for a car with my husband, the first thing the salesman does is open the hood. Guys think this is really impressive, but I might as well be looking at the Greek alphabet. Then they start talking about numbers and letters. “It’s got a 920 V8 with 35 million cfc’s and 0 to 150 in 35 seconds.” I am totally unimpressed. It would be like me making my husband listen while someone carried on about the qualities of Gucci versus Versace.
You see, I wouldn’t buy that car no matter what because the color is ugly. I don’t care about the numbers and letters. Fact #1: If a car is an ugly color, a woman won’t buy it.
Guys kick tires. Women feel the seats. Guys check out the stereo system. Women check out the glove compartment. Men look to see if the steering is tight. Women feel to see if the steering wheel “feels right”. Fact #2: If everything doesn’t “feel right”, a female won’t buy a car.
Friends of ours shopped Consumer Reports for months before selecting just the right car for their teenage daughter. After homing in on a make, model, and even the right color, they went for a test drive. The daughter said the dashboard was goofy and wouldn’t be caught dead in the car. Fact #3: If the dashboard is goofy, female won’t buy a car.
My daughter wouldn’t look at a car unless it had drink holders for the front seat. No exceptions. We shopped acres of cars and the first thing she looked for was drink holders. No holder, no deal. The salesman was very frustrated. He kept trying to show us the engines. Fact #4: Women like drink holders. Lots of them. Everywhere.
Other important female features include mirrors on all visors, how cute the overall car is, and whether the doors sound good when you close them. If they go “ching”, that’s bad; if they go “ka-chunk”, that’s good. We don’t care about belts and RPMs and cylinders, but if a perfectly good engine makes a thwacking sound we don’t like, we won’t buy the car. Facts #5, #6, and #7: A car should have lots of mirrors, be cute (or beautiful) and have nice sounds.
So, car salesmen of the world, take heed! If you see a woman coming to buy a car, your pitch ought to be something like this:
“I’ve got some REALLY CUTE cars in some PRETTY colors with AWESOME cupholders everywhere, and lighted mirrors on BOTH visors. It’s got an engine, but that’s not really important. I don’t hear any thwacks, but you’ll have to come listen for yourself. And I think you’ll like the sound of these doors closing … I mean this lady yesterday said these were the best sounding doors she had ever heard.
SOLD.
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