Why Jay Leno Won’t Buy A Ferrari

As a non “car guy” - I never would have known about dealing with Ferrari dealers. There’s a business lesson in this one. It’s all about knowing your audience in the sense of knowing who your fans are and seeing who you might make a super fan out of. 

With service. 

How you treat people matters. 

Massively. 

I never heard about giving somebody $25k in an envelope, or needing to buy two Mondials to signal your seriousness first, before having a shot at buying a multiple times more expensive car, or - wow Ferrari. WOW.  

I never considered what made McLaren or Porsche smarter than Ferrari in this sense. 

As Jay Leno tells it (emphasis added):

The smart thing about McLaren is the dealer service. I bought my McLaren, I paid exactly the sticker. Buying it was a terrific process. I had the car in six or seven months, my MP412C. 

They called me one day and they said, “Oh there’s an upgrade from 524 horsepower to,” I think it is, to 617 - do you want the upgrade?” I said, “How much is it” and they said, “It’s free. Just come on in.” “OK.” 

I brought it in, and when I bought it I said “I want to order the carbon fiber brakes,” and the sales guy said, “Do you track the car?”  I go, “No, I’m mostly street.” He goes, “Don’t get the carbon, save $20 grand, you don’t need it.” I said, “You sure?” He says, “Guarantee it.” In fact,” he said, “the steel breaks are better on the street because they work right away, you don’t have to get ‘em hot,” blah blah. And fine, it saved me $20 thousand. 

When I bought my Porsche Carrera GT, Porsche brought it here on a flatbed, they sent two mechanics to show me, “Here’s how you jack it up, here’s the jacking points, here you put these blocks in, here you go, here's how you do this.” You know - they sent me a jacket, here’s a book on the car, here’s a pen and pencil set, you know. Until the car showed up I felt like a customer. 

It’s like rich guys that go to a dominatrix. “Oh she kicked the crap out of me, it was great!” I mean, some guys like that. 

And they’re excellent cars (Ferrari). It’s not an indictment of the car, it’s just that I don’t want… you know, you’re spending a tremendous amount of money, you should be made to feel like a customer. 

OK so the dominatrix bit is really funny, and - 

Even if you’re selling a product, the way you treat the customer/client/human throughout the entire process matters.

(garden gloves)

Send this to your management team AND your marketing department: