So I recently did a thing. A rather big thing for the first time. I got a car. It was kind of a big deal to me because I’m in my early 40s, and I haven’t had a car since I was in my late teens because I have lived in Manhattan for most of my adult life. Having a car wasn’t a necessity because of where I lived and the fact that most of my significant other or close friends had a car.

I made a decision to get my own car when I realized that with two rambunctious puppies it actually was a necessity plus I leave the city every weekend.

Choosing the kind of car that was right for me and my lifestyle was the first step. I knew really nothing about cars. I knew that I wanted an SUV because I am the most comfortable in a bigger car and I knew that it needed to be an all-wheel drive car. Everything else was negotiable.

I also knew that I did not want to be upsold by a car salesman. You hear stories about how it can be tricky to negotiate with car dealers but times have really changed.

Just like in the legal industry, relationships are everything. So when I was looking for someone to help me buy a car, I asked around to my friends, family, colleagues and clients about the kinds of cars they drove and once I determined the brand that I wanted, which was an Audi, I did a lot of due diligence to find a dealer that someone knew. I did not want to go into a dealership blindly as a woman.

It turned out that one of my clients lives next door to an Audi salesman who worked in Milburn, New Jersey – lucky for me! Joe Sasso was terrific. He took really good care of me from the moment we first started texting to the moment he sent me off in my brand new car with an Audi first-aid kit in the trunk. He’s even putting on my permanent license plates for me this weekend.

Joe made the process very smooth as did his team, especially the finance manager Asish who helped me with car insurance, and the lease approval and paperwork. Every single form I had to fill out was done electronically with an iPad and within minutes. It was quick and efficient. That’s putting the customer first as we also do in professional services marketing.

The DCH Milburn Audi dealership made the entire car leasing process as stress free and easy as possible for me.

When I picked up the car, the gas tank was full, it was pristine in terms of being newly washed and the dealership sent me off with a smile and a selfie as you can see.

Sometimes it’s not about relationships and it’s about basic marketing tactics and a good website, lead gen forms, and of course a good product.

One of my clients recounted a story to me about how she was in the market for an electric SUV, and so she went online and filled out a form at a few dealerships and only one person got back to her in a timely manner.

He asked her if she wanted to take a test drive, which she did later that day, and he wound up closing the deal.

Some of the dealers she messaged never even bothered to get back to her. So sometimes it’s about simply being responsive. And in sales that is such a simple yet essential function.

So I guess the moral of the story is that everything in life is really about relationships, Word of mouth, marketing, putting your best foot forward at all times, following up, making the process easy and efficient for your customer, having a quality product and responsiveness.

Let’s all make sure that we abide by these principles every day and everything that we do professionally as well.

PS – If anyone can teach me some tricks about parallel parking correctly, please send me a message!

Visit the DCH Milburn Audi Dealership.