One of the oldest, and most popular, closes in selling is called the “Puppy Dog Close.” Now, you probably know that I’m not a big fan of overly complicated closes – but there’s nothing complicated about this one. It’s simple. When a pet shop has a family that’s on the edge about buying a puppy (please leave aside the pet shop vs. shelter concerns – for what it’s worth, my dogs are rescue dogs), they offer to let the family take the puppy home overnight, and if they don’t want to keep him, they can simply bring him back.
What percentage of those puppies do you suppose ever come back? My guess is less than 1%. I know the puppy dog close well because I used it to great effect in selling cars (same concept, you send the people home in the new car overnight). So, would’t you think that I’d spot it a mile away and be invulnerable to it? Yeah….I would have thought so too….but I guess not. But at least I was the victim of a perfectly executed puppy dog close, and if you want to use it, you might take some tips from what happened to me.
It’s the fault, I think, of Hot Bike Magazine. They organized an event called the Hot Bike Tour – a traveling motorcycle rally that stopped in five cities in five days (Spirit Lake, IA; Mitchell, SD; Rapid City, SD; Sheridan, WY; and Billings, MT). One of the sponsors of the tour is Victory Motorcycles. Victory’s slogan is “Ride One and You’ll Own One.” Pretty gutsy slogan, don’t you think?
A few weeks before the Tour, I received an email offering me (and any other Longrider – a rider who had signed up to ride the entire Tour) a chance to trade bikes with Victory for one segment of the Tour. The concept was simple. If I was selected, all I had to do was show up at the drop off location for the first day, give them the keys to my bike, collect the keys to a new Victory, and enjoy the ride to the next stop. The next stop would, of course, be at a Victory dealer. Long story short, I filled out two surveys and I was selected, as was my wife.
I showed up and picked up a new Victory Cross Country. My own bike is a Honda Valkyrie, which I had felt set a high standard for a long distance touring bike. And after over 200 miles on the Victory, all I can say is, “WOW! What a ride!” I felt just like a family with a cute new puppy. And it was nearly as tough to give the Victory back as it would be to give back a cute puppy. No, I didn’t buy a Victory on the tour, although I was sorely tempted. But my next bike will be a Victory, and that change might come soon.
So, what did Victory do right that you can do, if your product or service lends itself to a Puppy Dog Close?
- They qualified me. The first survey that I completed basically assessed what I ride, how I like it, and what I knew about their motorcycles. Apparently I passed, because the second survey homed in on my impressions and experiences with their brand, as well as some qualifying questions to see if I was, realistically, a potential Victory buyer in the future. They also asked what model(s) I was interested in riding.
- They made me feel special. The pickup of the bike was a VIP quality experience. They had a nice welcome packet for each rider (there were about 40 of us that got this opportunity), and the Victory employees took the time to go over the bike, its features, and its controls individually. I felt like I was gold plated and very important to them by the time I turned the key. What can you do to make your customers feel important and privileged by getting the chance for their own experience of your product?
- Allow the user freedom to experience the product in their own way. The trip between Spirit Lake, IA, and Mitchell, SD, has multiple routes. Some chose back roads, some chose interstate. Personally, I mixed them because I wanted to see what the bike could do in each type of riding. But what was important was this – they simply gave me a dropoff deadline and said, “Have fun.” There were no structured rides or routes designed to highlight the positives while alleviating negatives. I could experience the bike in my own way. The more structure you have to your product experience and demonstration, the more suspicious your customers will be that you’re hiding something.
- Create an opportunity to close the sale. It was quite convenient that pickup and dropoff was at a Victory dealer. That way, should the rider be so moved, they could walk inside, select a bike, make a trade, and finish the tour on their new Victory. Don’t think I wasn’t tempted. This one seems very obvious, but I’ve seen attempted Puppy Dog Closes that had as the ending experience some event where it wasn’t possible to complete the sale. But, there’s one more characteristic that can make all the difference in the world.
- Your product must kick tail, and not even take time to take names. I can’t stress this enough. If you’re basing your sales on a close that allows your customers independent, unsupervised usage of your product, your product must be awesome. You must have 100% – or near 100% – confidence that, whatever your customers are using as an alternative, will shine. Remember “Ride One and You’ll Own One?” This isn’t just a slogan, it’s a nearly accepted fact in the motorcycle world. In fact, some Harley riders in South Dakota said the exact same thing to a Harley rider who hadn’t ridden a Victory. “Hey, don’t get one one of those things unless you’re open to buying one.”
Done right, the Puppy Dog Close can be a great way to finish off a deal. Done wrong, it’s just an expensive use of product. For Victory, it has worked (I saw riders buying bikes during the Tour) and will work (my next big bike will be a Victory). Perhaps you can score some sales Victories of your own.
