How To Pre-Plan Your Demo Route

Nothing spoils a demonstration more than a traffic jam, a road under construction or a bad or dangerous road situation. You’ll need two or three routes so you can always make sure you avoid heavy traffic, construction, and so you can make sure they get a chance to drive the vehicle the way they’ll use it.

• Plan in their type of driving. You won’t win awards with Bob by having him drive around in city traffic if he spends 90% of his time on the highway. The same is true with Betty. If she’s just going to Walmart on Saturdays, don’t bother worrying about hitting the freeway.

Your customers need a chance to see themselves driving this car or truck to work, see themselves using it to haul the kids around town or see themselves taking their vacations in it. And that means a quick spin around an auto center just won’t cut it. It can’t, because it doesn’t let them drive long enough to develop that mental picture of ownership.

• Take right turns only. Crossing traffic in a strange vehicle is always more difficult than turning right. Make it easy, select your routes so your customers will be able to keep taking right turns to get back to the dealership.

• Plan in light traffic areas. Know your route and know when and where traffic builds up, and then change your route whenever you need to.

• Remember that 86% of your prospects are flexible and will end up buying something different than they told you they wanted initially. If you can make the vehicle make sense to them, it’s easy to switch from an automatic to stick shift if you can show them how easy it is. If they thought they wanted a bigger engine, the demo is the time to make them understand they don’t need it. If they wanted smaller, the demo is the time to show them they need bigger.

Your demonstration is the best time to help them make that mental switch from what they thought they wanted to the vehicle you have them driving now.

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