Figuring Out Buyer Behavior #2

In this exercise, I interviewed two mid-career divorcees and a retired widower. They were somewhat similar, but also strikingly different in their methods. It was fascinating to gather insight into what things that some may consider little, were significant in their purchasing decision.

Style was a very important part of the decision as they felt that it had to reflect their image, but pricing was a much larger concern for the retired widower who is living on a fixed income. In fact, style was such an important issue, that the color combinations almost had to be perfect. I was somewhat surprised by this because the styling and options can weigh heavily into the price. Seeing the two considerations as being front and center caught me a little off-guard, because I am more concerned about functionality.

When it came to selecting alternative options, they all considered the opinions of their children and their spouses. It seems that they had a great deal of confidence in their ability to be “current” about the latest trends and information. They gave a lot of that credit to the internet and social media.

When it came time to purchase, they all chose to go through a dealership, but they did so in different ways. One of the working adults chose a dealership that she had purchased a car with before. She felt comfortable there and financed the deal through a credit union. The other working adult purchased a car through a network dealership and was able to agree to finance it through the dealer’s finance department. The retired adult purchased a used car through a dealership because she knew the sales representative. Apparently, the sales representative is the son of someone she plays bingo with at her church group. She felt that she had established a comfortable amount of trust and paid cash for an almost new car that had very few miles on it at a substantial discount.

When I asked them about their purchasing decision, I asked them if they had any buyer’s remorse. The only person that did not give 100% positive feedback was the adult that purchased a car using the dealer’s finance department. Apparently, she had found (post-purchase) that she could have gotten a little bit better of a finance rate through a promotion at her local bank.

I was given quite a perspective about how attitudes and values change as your life stages change. Transitioning from one stage to another (single with no kids, married, married with kids, alone with kids, empty-nester, etc.) has significant impact on your purchasing decisions. I was really surprised at how much input they were willing to receive from their kids in the information gathering process.

In the end, I am discovering that a word-of-mouth marketing program, designed through referral based incentives, is probably going to be my best method for targeting this demographic group. I have to establish trust through enough presence in the digital markets, especially through social media, to entrust myself with them.

Tenacity and Paying it Forward

Since you are about to start this course, allow me to provide you with some advice. To begin with, there is an expected level of coursework that you must traverse. It is imperative that you master your time-management skillset to tackle the weekly demands of this course, while still managing the rest of your life. Secondly, be prepared to talk to a lot of people about things that you are not entirely comfortable about. It sounds crazy, because it is meant to take you outside of your sheltered comfort zone and thrust you into real life applications. Furthermore, when I felt like giving up, I always thought that I need this class to get my degree. Either take it and succeed, or let it get in the way of your goal. Finally, I would say that if you do not feel “tough enough” to take this class, you need to dig deep. Imagine that your survival depends on you passing this class. When you earn a degree from this University, you will never have to work for minimum wage again. Muscle through it, pass the class, get your degree, and live a better life.

Figuring Out Buyer Behavior

1.      I have identified several groups of people to target marketing to: young males, young single females, female middle-aged divorcees, and female widowers. For this exercise, I decided to concentrate my focus on female widowers.

2.      My interviews revolved around three widowers, two that live in my neighborhood and one that is a member of my parish.

3.      Two of the interviewees were actually looking to purchase a new vehicle in the next six months, while the other was looking a little more into the future. She was estimating about next February, when she expects to get her tax return money. She said that was what she was going to use for the down payment, so she wanted to wait.

4.      Here is where everything was very different. When it came time to understand information searching, they all had a different approach. One of the women started by looking at the sales ads in the newspaper. She indicated that she had no specific brand loyalty, just that she preferred to buy an American car. The second woman indicated that she spoke to people in our church group to determine which cars she should look at. The third widower was pretty tech savvy and started her search by surfing the internet. She would browse through articles within Car and Driver and Consumer Reports.

5.      During the course of these interviews, I learned that even though these consumers may be in the same segment, they are not necessarily the same. All of these women approached their information gathering in different ways. I also learned that they don’t share the same view on timing. Some were willing to exercise patience to tackle their transportation problem in a way that allowed them less financial anxiety, while others were living in “the now”.

In conclusion, this segment needs to be targeted on an individual basis. It is a fallacy to think that they fit snuggly into a “one-size fits all” demographic. Based upon these findings, I feel that it would be best to do a meet and greet session that allows me to survey their levels of comfort and anxiety so that I may provide the best service possible to meet their individual needs.

Napkin Idea

1.      I am a returning college student that works full-time as a Maintenance Training Developer and nstructor. I have twelve years of experience as a trainer and seven years of experience in the realm of instructional design. I am already doing what I find personally fulfilling. I develop and deliver training programs that help people function in a non-profit government agency. If anything, I would like to see my roles and responsibilities increase so that I could serve a greater good for the people of Orlando. If I were to start this business, I would probably generate a formalized training program and try and turn it into a licensing opportunity.

2.      The service that I am looking at providing is taking the stress out of the car buying process. I have a network of dealer sales representatives and factory trained technicians that I can leverage to help in this process. Sales representatives will help you identify the car that suits your needs. The technicians will be able to inspect the car, analyze warranty strength, and determine expected maintenance costs. The sales representatives will then be able to support you through the negotiations portion of the sales process to guarantee that you pay a fair price for the vehicle, not what the dealer wants you to pay.

3.      The people that I am actively targeting are those that are inexperienced when it comes to car shopping and those that suffer from anxiety in fear that they are going to be ripped off. In my experience working in a car dealership, this usually translated to single women (e.g. younger single women, middle-aged divorcees, and widowers). They had a tendency to feel like they were going to be victimized due to cutthroat, slick-talking car salesmen. The other group is younger males that have not yet developed the male ego that will convince them that they do not need help. This group knows that they are inexperienced, but do not want to overpay for a car because of it.

4.      I believe that people will be willing to pay for this service because it will offer them several benefits:

a.      The correct car – They will not have buyer’s remorse. We will work with them to make sure that the car that they have chosen is something that they will be happy with.

b.      Negotiation assistance – We will provide industry experts to help them make a deal that fits within their budget and ensures that they receive a fair price.

c.      Peace of mind -They will know that someone is there to help them stay in control of the entire process and fight for their consumer rights while getting the car they want at a price that they are comfortable with.

5.      I have the ability to leverage six years of dealership experience as a factory trained technician and a year’s worth of experience in automotive sales. This background has given me the insight to understand how people perceive the dealership experience and the opportunity that can be achieved from this. As I write this, there is no one that I know that has put together a business like this.

I am pretty comfortable with all of the elements of this plan, but I would like to have a better vision of my demographic customer target. In order to ensure that this business can navigate the start-up waters, I would have to perform more research to design an effective marketing campaign. I know that the start-up time will be extensive due to the need to pre-build a proper training program and secure all the proprietary licenses, but I feel that it could be very successful if done properly.

Elevator Pitch #1

Please click on the hyperlink to view my elevator pitch.


Elevator Pitch #1

Testing the Hypothesis, Part 2

I conducted a series of five interviews with people that fit into my target demographic. The results that I received provided valuable insight that I had not considered when conjuring this potential venture.

Who: The interviews that I conducted involved 2 divorcees (1 on disability, 1 close to retirement), 1 retired widow, 1 single mother with an adolescent child, and a young college student. Every individual fit my target demographic, which is ideally targeted prey by unscrupulous car salesman.

What: 4 of the 5 people fit my description as well as anticipated. They were actively seeking personal transportation and were prepared to negotiate pricing to obtain a vehicle. However, not all of them were willing to place their trust in the opportunity that I was trying to persuade them to. They openly listened to the idea, but there was definitely some skepticism that needs to be overcome in order to be successful. The most surprising answer was the young college student. He did not meet my need as I had anticipated. He was actually very nonchalant about purchasing his own private vehicle. He seemed to be indifferent about the idea and had several options whether he bought a vehicle or not.

Why: People that were inside my boundaries of execution were very open to the idea of having additional help in obtaining a good car at a price that we would help negotiate. They were comforted by the thought of having someone on their side throughout the sales process, especially price negotiations. However, woman close to retirement told me that her son would go with her when she was ready to purchase a vehicle. The single mother also told me that her father had offered to help her, mostly because he didn’t trust an outsider in such transactions. The young college student really provided me with the most discomfort. He had several apps that he could use to either procure immediate transportation (e.g. Uber, Lyft, and a public bus tracker), or he could use other apps to determine if he was getting a fair price on a vehicle (e.g. TrueCar, Cars.com). I was not aware of that type of competition.

	Inside The Boundary	Outside The Boundary
Who Is In/Who Is Not	1.      Disabled Divorcee 2.      Retired Widow	1.      Divorcee Close to Retirement 2.      Single Mother with Adolescent Child 3.      Young College Student
What The Need Is/What the Need Is Not	Ø  Providing a level of security and comfort through the process of car selection and price negotiations.	Ø  There are a group of people that have access to people that will help them, they are averse to strangers intermingling with such a sensitive purchase, and technology can assist them “just as well”.
Why The Need Exists/Alternative Explanations	Ø  The common answer was a feeling of vulnerability. They shared a sense of disdain, bordering loathing, for not only the car buying process, but the people involved in it.	1.      A couple of the interviewee’s expressed a lack of trust with anyone that wanted to help someone in the car buying process. One of them even said to me that, “we must be in cahoots”. 2.      Technology is an adversary that allows people an unlimited amount of information and is changing the way that they make purchasing decisions.

8A - Solving the Problem

There is a problem that I see people struggling with only once every few years, yet it is such a stressful situation that people will actually lose sleep over it. This “problem” that people seem to dread is buying a new or used car. A car is the second largest purchase that people will typically make, and they get very nervous about getting ripped off by a smooth-talking car salesman. I have an opportunity to sell people “piece of mind”. I intend to start a service that will assist car-buyers throughout the entire process from selecting the proper car that fits their needs, to negotiating a fair price, and determining if the extended warranties and extra packages are worth the value of the costs involved. I have a network of individuals that I can leverage, that all have experience working inside of an established car dealership. This will allow them to utilize their experience to “sniff out” some of the gimmicks, tricks, and tactics, that are commonplace in the automotive industry. This will ensure that our customers get a quality vehicle at a fair price.