Sales Love Cat - Larry Merritt

Integrity Solutions Sales Trainer, Ron Willingham, spent a day with car salesman Larry Merritt from the Tom Jumper Chevrolet dealership in Atlanta, Georgia. Ron was doing some training for the dealership but he wanted to learn all he could from and about Larry Merritt. Larry was already in the Guinness Book of World Records for having sold 12,000 cars in his career. He averaged 60 retail units a month for a twenty year period. To put that in context:

The average car salesperson sells around 8 per month
The star car salesperson sells around 15 per month
The superstar car salesperson sells around 20 per month.

Again, Larry sold 60 per month for twenty years running. Absorb that for a minute.

Ron shares in his book, The Inner Game of Selling, when he met Larry he was nothing like he expected. He was very soft spoken, an average sort of guy you would expect to meet at a service club or PTA meeting. Ron was of course eager to find out Larry’s secret, but he found out Larry didn’t really have a secret. He used no tricky sales closes, hype, or magic formula.

He did do a few things that anyone could do. His son helped him with a card file of customers (this was before the day of personal computers). He kept their names, ages, birthdays, anniversaries, children’s names and ages, and special interests. Larry spent a minimum of a couple of hours every day writing notes to his customers on their special occasions. He watched for accomplishments and wrote notes of congratulation. He sent out regular mailings. He called customers just to see how they were doing. He never stood out on the showroom floor, but instead had his customers come into his private office.

When Larry got a referred sale, he’d send flowers or gifts to the customer who gave the referral. Ron came to the conclusion the only difference between Larry and other car salespeople was, they saw themselves as selling cars. Larry saw himself as serving both his customers and the dealership.

Willingham mused, “Every time I drive by a car dealership and see salespeople bunched together like hawks, ready to pounce on anyone with the courage to walk up to them, I think of Larry and how he did the business so differently.”