Chapter 17: Personal Selling and Sales Management

The secret behind Tesla’s phenomenal sales strategy:

Tesla’s sales tactics are ultra modern, fast, digital and ultimately causing shock waves because they level the playing field by putting the buyer firmly in the driving seat. What are they? Simple. No middleman. No dealerships. No extra hurdle. In other words, they’ve made it quicker, easier and more enjoyable to buy a car. No wonder the dealers are up in arms.

So what are these tactics?

Tesla showrooms are nothing like traditional car dealerships. They’re modeled on Apple stores – located in large shopping malls and surrounded by state of the art technology. Instead of parking lots and pushy salesmen, Tesla showrooms are a place to experience the vehicles rather than buy them.

In fact, you can’t buy one even if you want to. You can view the models, learn about the engineering process and schedule a test drive, but purchasing a Tesla happens online – direct from the company’s website. As such, the bricks and mortar element of the process is more about stimulating interest, building desire and wooing the customer with an enjoyable brand technology experience while the digital aspect secures the sale.

Leapfrogging dealers

Those opposed to Tesla’s business model cite the protection of traditional car dealerships and thousands of jobs as their chief motivation. And since Tesla’s model cuts out the dealership, and once you get past the price tag (some $80,000), it allows a new generation of technologically-savvy, environmentally-aware customers to avoid dealers altogether.

Revolutionizing the sales process

So it’s a case of Tesla revolutionizing the car sales process while traditional dealerships remain unwilling to adapt or embrace change.

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Unfortunately, with the latest generation of car buyers preferring to browse online rather than heading to a dealership, the dealerships will need to change their attitude if they want to remain a relevant part of the sales process.

And as Tesla starts to work on models that cater to the middle market sales will surely only grow further, so it’s high time dealerships evolved their attitude and approach to selling EVs or risk becoming extinct