Industry Voices | From 5% to 40%: How a Dealer Cracked the Code on Selling to a Diverse Customer Base

There is no “one-size-fits-all” strategy for selling cars and certainly no one strategy for selling to a diverse customer base. After all, no matter where your dealership is located, you will always find some kind of diversity in your customers – from age demographics (are your customers boomers or Gen Z?) to ethnicities and cultures, to financial profiles (prime vs. subprime) to regional background.

Here are five strategies for selling to a diverse customer base:

1. Identity Your Customer Demographics

Job one is to identify your base of potential and existing customers and then do a solid analysis of them, especially those nearest your dealership. Most dealerships have media partners whose job is to know this information, so they can help you understand key data like ethnic and cultural backgrounds, household count, income, etc. You can also hire consultants if you want to dig deeper; your OEM may also be a good source of demographic info.

Our analysis revealed that our dealerships have beautiful tapestries of consumers from Korea, to first-generation Mexican, Chinese, Persian, Armenian, Lebanese, Russian and more. We even have consumers from a U.S. Air Force base. Information like this is critical to have in your sales toolkit before moving on to the next step.

2. Educate Yourself About Your Customers’ Cultures and Communities

Commit to learning all you can about your communities’ cultures. What languages do they speak? What are their traditions? What is important to them?

For instance, our Honda store is located within a large Chinese community. We have learned that they prefer silver, white and red cars, and also expect to negotiate. For some cultures, buying a car symbolizes they are successful in the U.S., so it’s a big deal. They might bring many family members to the dealership to help advise on the purchase. We know our Air Force base customers are short-term, have relocated and don’t earn huge amounts of money, but they are all there to serve our great country. Each snippet of knowledge and nuance of preference will help you serve your customers better.

3. Communicate in Your Customers’ Preferred Styles

Make sure your dealership staff can speak to your community members in their preferred languages and use signage to advertise that. Some dealerships put no emphasis on this and miss some of their most basic customer acquisition opportunities.

Before working at Car Pros, I was told it was a waste of time to market to the Latino community in their language. Fast forward to today, where that is exactly what we do: 40% of our Car Pros Kia sales in Los Angeles are to the Latino community. Also, be mindful of different dialects. For instance, the most prominent in our Honda dealership’s Chinese community is Mandarin. So, we make sure that we are versed in that dialect.

Communicating to your existing and potential customers is not limited to using a different language. Every person who walks into your showroom is a potential sale, regardless of how they dress, the language they speak, or their culture. All customers want to be treated with respect, beginning with how you communicate.

4. Plan to Market to Diverse Cultures

Use everything you have learned about your dealership community to market to existing and potential customers in their preferred styles. General marketing is great for the general audience, via TV and in English. But if a large segment in your area speaks a different language, market in that language. Also, let them know you speak their language and feature people in the ads from their culture. Find out where they consume information, what outlets, newspapers and social media platforms they prefer, and advertise there. And do not rely on Google Translate; it lacks dialect specificity. Best practice? Recruit a native speaker to help you with your translations and sales interactions.

5.  Educate Your Staff

Every person who walks through your door needs to feel comfortable and welcomed by your team – from receptionist to salesperson to F&I specialist – and that the dealership is part of their community. Through coaching and training sessions, share your research with your team. Consider hiring staff who speak the languages and understand the cultures of your customer base. Teach your team to greet customers in their native languages. Targeting your diverse customer base where they live, communicate and socialize, and in their language, will make them feel welcome. Eventually, the word will spread within the community, driving even more business to your dealership.

I promise you that these steps can really pay off.

When we purchased our Honda store, sales to the Chinese community were just 5%, but after implementing the above practices, today, 40% of our sales come from that Chinese community – and this success has repeated itself across our dealerships.

Demonstrating that you want and value the business of every community member by communicating — quite literally — in their languages about financial status, age, gender and car-buying preferences is key to sales success and is a much more fulfilling experience for your dealership team, community and customer alike.