Would You Like My vCard?

Would You Like My vCard?

The best ideas are typically simple, and this one is. We've been talking about this in our Motorcycle Sales Boot Camps, and the results have been great.

In today's competitive marketplace you need to pull out all stops to make a difference. One of those advantages needs to be that you are easy to contact. If a customer has to look up your dealership's website, call the central number and be dispatched to you...that's a lot of work for today's consumer.

Today you have to be one click away. You need to be "click-to-contact."

So ditch your actual physical business card, and create your vCard; a "virtual business card." (My wife tells me this may have a different meaning in some circles, but that's for another newletter!) Simply go into your phone contacts, and create a contact for yourself and voilà, you've got a virtual card.

Keep this in mind:

You want a great photo. Closer is better. Far too often people try and get themselves, their bike, the dealership and their dog into the photo. You have to remember this is marketing. The goal here is to have customers know what you look like!

Make sure you put your hardline, cell phone and your email address in this contact. This is called idiosyncratic communication. Boomers often want to call, Gen Xers may want to email, and everyone else will text. And you want to make sure you just a click away from any of that.

Give yourself a great and different title: Dream Maker; Motorcycle Maniac; Your Harley-Davidson Connection, and I don't care if it is: Master of Time, Space and All Things Motorized. Just be interesting. You should stand out and this is an easy way to do it.

Make sure you have the physical address of your dealership. This way your iPhone or Android contact will drop a pin and provide a map to your location, so should they want to come see you it's even easier for them to get there.

Then add anything else you might think is cool and will enable you to stand out.

Check out these great examples of vCards:

One Click to Connect

Once your vCard is ready, here's the plan: on the showroom floor on, on the phone, or via email inquiries, you simply say, "Let me give you my vCard." The customer almost always responds with, "Your what?"

And you say, "My vCard -- it's my virtual business card. It will have all my important contact information, including my cell phone number so I'm always just one click away from being able to help you with all things Harley-Davidson."

A great suggestion for when you are standing with a customer on the showroom floor is to text it to them immediately. Show them how it comes in, open it, and actually add it to their contact list. Other, more technologically advanced customers, will be able to do it on their own; but even for those people, you want to walk them through it until you have your contact information on their phone.

That's the game, get your numbers on their phone and make yourself the one who is easiest to contact. Then every day challenge yourself to get your vCard on as many phones as possible. You'll be glad you did.

Organization + Discipline = Accselleration™

Now, go sell something.

Talk soon, Mark

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