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Successful salespeople have control of their customers. They control their customers by leading them though a system (salesmen’s seven steps) that increases their odds for a sale. The very best salespeople can do this effortlessly and will usually put the customer under the impression that they have no idea what’s going on. (See the KISS Method).
As in most sales professions, it is necessary to have a system in place that will result in a sale. However, some car dealers have taken this methodology to the extreme. This extreme behavior can be traced back to dealerships known as "system houses". These dealerships are called "system houses" because they put all customers though the same process. Unfortunately, these systems were designed to the keep the customers at the dealership until they purchased a car. As one can imagine, the customer's experience could quickly become a nightmare. The core belief of these "system houses" is that the salesman must maintain control over their customers at all times. Sometimes, even extra commission would be paid to the salesman simply by demonstrating this "control" of their customers.
For example, a salesman could earn a "Spiff" if they were able to get the customer to kneel on the wet ground and look under a car. Or, they would direct the customer to climb in the trunk to demonstrate the massive storage space. These examples of customer control would earn the salesman not only extra “spiffs”, but the respect of their colleagues.
Of course, treating customers like this does not help the reputation of the dealership and in the past it wasn’t very important. However, customer satisfaction is more relevant with current dealers, (see the CSI article on this website).
Although not many of these "system-houses" are still in existence, their methods created a culture of focused salesmanship and have defined the current sales processes. These elements have had a lasting effect on how salesmen behave in most modern day dealerships.
NLP
A basic example of how salespeople try to control their customers can be found in what they say. For example, salesmen may end
 their comments with a question that will provoke a repeated “yes” response from the customer.
For example, a salesman might repeatedly end their phrases with the question“…do you see what I’m saying?” In the hopes the customer will respond with “yes”.
They hope over time the customer will be accustomed to agreeing with them and become more easily controlled. This can be considered a form of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Meaning it may be possible to program a customer's response or at least make them more agreeable during the negotiation.
Similarly, salesmen may “Acknowledge and Ask” during a conversation with the customer. They will say that they understand what the customer is saying (Acknowledge) and then redirect the conversation by asking a question (Ask). They do this to keep the dialogue within their sales framework. Count how many times you hear a car salesman answered your questions with “I understand, but let me ask you this…”
Follow Me
Verbal commands are another effective "control" technique. For many customers, it feels unnatural to question the salesman's simple requests, so they do what they are told. Essentially, the salesman basically tells the customer what to do (like the extreme example of the salesman having the customer climb into the trunk of car).
The best example of this technique is the “follow me” command. This is performed when the salesman says “I want to show you something...follow me”. Then the salesman spins around and walks away from the customer. Almost always, the customer will follow the salesperson. This method is often used to lead the customer into their office and to begin the negotiations. One may be surprised how well this works, no matter what the customer would like to do, when the salesman says “Follow Me”, the customer will usual follow.
The Turn
Of course, not every customer will fall in line with what the salesman would like them to do. When a salesperson feels like they are losing control of the customer, they must "turn" the customer to a new salesperson. A “turn” is simply when a new salesperson takes over from where the previous salesperson left off.
For example, the original salesman may be having difficulty convincing the customer to take a test drive. At this Point the first salesperson would introduce (turn) the customer to a brand new salesman. This change of salesmen is strangely effective. Many times, customers will be more agreeable after they have heard the same information from more than one salesman.
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