Chapter 7 Exercises — The Meet and Greet

These exercises take the meet-and-greet from "I read about it" to "I can do it on the floor Saturday." The doing exercises in Part C matter most — say your word tracks out loud, not just in your head. Selected answers live in Appendix I; calculation/diagnostic items show a hidden answer where useful.

Difficulty legend: ⭐ basic · ⭐⭐ applied · ⭐⭐⭐ advanced/judgment · ⭐⭐⭐⭐ extension/research

Part A — Conceptual Understanding ⭐

Short-answer. One to three sentences each.

A1. Roughly how long does the first impression take to form, and why does that make the first thirty seconds of a customer interaction so high-leverage?

A2. Why does the opener "Can I help you find something today?" fail so reliably? Name both reasons given in the chapter.

A3. What are the three things that go into a customer's first read of you, in order — and which one is not your sales pitch?

A4. Define "rapport" in your own words, and explain why it should come before you ask "what kind of car are you looking for?"

A5. State the threshold concept of this chapter in one sentence. Then explain why the fact that "the customer walked onto the lot" is the key evidence for it.

A6. What does the chapter mean by the "pounce," and why does it cost Rick Bauer deals even though he gets to customers first?

A7. Why is "just act friendly" considered bad advice in §7.6? What's the better version?

A8. On an internet lead, what is the single most important factor in the first impression, and why does it matter so much?

A9. Why does "Can I help you?" work fine on the phone but fail on the lot?

A10. What is the "rapport bridge," and how is it connected to the needs analysis you'll learn in Chapter 8?

A11. The chapter says a smile "literally changes the sound of your voice." Why does this matter specifically for phone first contact, and what does it imply you should physically do before you answer a sales call?

A12. Explain the difference between being attentive and being predatory in how you approach a customer. Give one concrete behavior on each side of that line.

A13. Why does the chapter call the meet and greet "the cheapest place in the entire sale to win or lose"? What does "cheap" mean here?

A14. What does it mean that a customer who approaches you (rather than being approached) has "lowered their own shield," and why is that conversation different?

Part B — Applied Analysis ⭐⭐

Apply the chapter to specific situations. A short paragraph each.

B1. A customer walks in, you greet them well and they relax, and you immediately say "Great — so what kind of vehicle are you looking for today?" The customer stiffens slightly. What did you do wrong, and what should have come first?

B2. You're naturally a high-energy, fast-talking person. A quiet, reserved couple in their sixties walks the lot slowly, speaking softly to each other. Describe specifically how you should adjust your greeting — energy, pace, words — and explain why using the pacing compass from Chapter 3.

B3. A man is crouched at the tires of a used SUV reading date codes, checking the odometer, clearly knowledgeable and braced. Identify his likely customer type, his core fear, and write the opening line you'd use that respects who he is.

B4. Two salespeople both say the exact words "No pressure at all, take your time." One customer relaxes; the other feels hunted. Using §7.6, explain how the same words can produce opposite results.

B5. A web inquiry comes in: "Is the silver sedan, stock #2230, still available?" Write a bad reply (the "grab") and a good reply (the meet-and-greet done right), then label what makes the good one work.

B6. A customer says "I'm just looking" and your manager, watching, later tells you "you should've pushed harder, asked them what they were looking for." Using the chapter, explain respectfully why that advice would backfire — and what you'd do instead.

B7. Replay Jordan's first up from the Hook. List the specific mistakes Jordan made in those nine seconds (there are at least four), and for each, name the fix.

B8. An emotional buyer walks straight to a bright sports coupe, eyes lit up, and says "Oh, I love this." Then, almost immediately, "...but I'm just looking." Two different signals in two seconds. What's actually happening, and how do you greet someone whose "just looking" is contradicted by their obvious excitement?

B9. A customer comes in, you greet them perfectly, give them space — and then a second salesperson, not knowing you've got them, walks up and greets them too. Now the customer feels swarmed. Using the chapter's principles (and thinking ahead to floor culture), what should you do in the moment, and what should the floor have in place to prevent it?

B10. You're slammed: three customers on the lot, you're the only salesperson available, and a fourth just walked in. You physically cannot give everyone the slow, spacious greeting the chapter recommends. Triage it — how do you greet a fourth up well enough to hold them without abandoning the three you're already juggling? (Hint: a warm, honest acknowledgment can buy you time.)

The doing exercises. Write the actual words; then say them out loud.

C1. Write your three openers. ⭐⭐ Draft your three go-to openers in your own voice: (a) an all-purpose welcome-with-permission default, (b) an observational opener, (c) an honest-acknowledgment opener for the guarded customer. Each must be non-yes/no, mention no buying, and remove pressure. Then read each aloud and cut any word that sounds like a script.

C2. Write your "just looking" response. ⭐⭐ Word-for-word, write how you'll respond to "I'm just looking" — agreement first, then permission + your name + reframe-as-resource. Then write your re-engagement line for after you've given space. Rehearse both until automatic.

C3. Role-play: the spooked family, redone. ⭐⭐⭐ Re-write Carmen's "redone family" dialogue from §7.3 as a script in your own voice — same situation (family, young kid, the parents tense from the car ride), your goal being to greet the kid first, remove pressure, and let the parents volunteer their reason. Then, ideally, role-play it aloud with a colleague playing the family.

C4. Greeting tweaks for all five types. ⭐⭐⭐ For each of the five customer types (researcher, relationship, price, emotional, need-based), write one sentence describing exactly how you'd dial your greeting (energy, pace, words) to meet them — the same warmth, tuned five ways.

C5. Diagnose the bad greeting. ⭐⭐ Here's a real-feeling greeting: salesperson jogs out to the car as the customer is still parking, raps on the window with a big grin, opens the door for them, and says "Welcome to Summit! What can I get you into today?!" Diagnose every mistake and rewrite the whole approach.

C6. Phone first-contact script. ⭐⭐⭐ Write your phone greeting (the answer line), then a short script for a caller asking "Do you still have the blue SUV from your website?" — answering warmly, building a little rapport, and inviting them in as a natural next step, not a grab. Read it aloud with a smile and notice how the smile changes your voice.

C7. Your internet first-message template. ⭐⭐ Write a reusable (but human-sounding) first-reply template for an incoming web inquiry on a specific vehicle. It must: answer the availability question first, name a real person, offer one piece of genuine value unprompted, ask one easy low-stakes question, and remove pressure — all in a few sentences. Then write one sentence on the response-time standard you'll hold yourself to and how you'll actually hit it.

C8. The thirty-second self-audit. ⭐⭐⭐ Record yourself (phone video is fine) walking up and delivering your default greeting to an imaginary customer. Watch it back with the sound off first — what does your body say (posture, smile, pace, hands)? Then with sound — does your energy read as warm-and-calm or as the pounce? Write three specific things you'll change. (This is uncomfortable and worth it; the camera sees what customers see.)

C9. Build your "guarded customer" sequence. ⭐⭐⭐ For the hardest type for most people — the armored, short-answer, distrustful customer (think Marcus from Case Study 7.1) — write the full sequence in your own words: approach, Move 1 agreement, whether/how you'd name the fear (Move 4), your re-engagement offer (Move 3), and the one concrete promise you'd make if they said they'd been burned before. Rehearse it aloud.

Judgment, ethics, trade-offs. A paragraph or two each.

D1. The chapter insists that "you can't fake sincere — you can only become it," and that the most tactical thing you can do is genuinely care about the customer. Do you fully believe this? Argue both sides: is there a kind of "professional warmth" that's somewhere between genuine and fake, and is it enough? Where do you land?

D2. Rick Bauer is described as skilled, likable, and wrong about the model — not a cartoon villain. Why does the chapter insist he's not a villain? What does the book lose if we make the "bad example" a monster instead of a real, tempting, partly-successful person?

D3. "Naming the customer's fear directly" (Move 4 in §7.5) is described as both a powerful trust-builder and a transparent manipulation when it's an insincere memorized line. Walk through how the identical words fall on either side of that line, and what — concretely — makes the difference.

D4. The chapter says most customers who say "just looking" do eventually buy a car — the only question is from whom. If that's true, what does it imply about how you should treat an up that walks out today without buying? Connect your answer to the resilient-mindset idea from Chapter 6.

D5. A trade-off: giving a customer "real space" after greeting them risks them being approached by another salesperson, or drifting out the door unhelped. Hovering risks spooking them. Where's the line between "respectful space" and "neglect," and how would you know in the moment which side you're on?

D6. The chapter claims the ethical path and the effective path are "the same path" in the meet and greet. A cynical veteran tells you: "That's nice for a textbook, but the guy who pounces and grabs every up makes more deals than the patient guy." Using both this chapter and the economics from earlier chapters, build the strongest counter-argument you can. Then steelman the cynic — is there any situation where speed-to-the-up genuinely beats patience?

D7. "Name the fear" (Move 4) requires you to say out loud something the customer hasn't said. There's a risk: what if you name the wrong fear, or name a fear they didn't actually have, and now you've put it in their head? Discuss when this move is worth the risk and when you should hold back — and how you'd recover if you named the wrong thing.

D8. The Castillo case (Case Study 7.2) ends with Rick believing they were "tire-kickers who weren't serious." This is a self-protective belief. Discuss how self-protective explanations like this one quietly cap a salesperson's growth — and write the honest sentence Rick would have to say to himself instead in order to actually improve. Connect to the resilient-but-honest mindset from Chapter 6.

D9. Some dealerships still formally train the pounce — "be first to the up," "never let a customer hit the lot un-greeted for more than X seconds." Your store's manager rewards speed-to-customer. You believe the patient, calibrated approach from this chapter converts better over time. How do you reconcile working in a system whose incentives partly conflict with what you believe works? (There's no clean answer — wrestle with it honestly. Is there a version of "be quick to the up" that doesn't become the pounce?)

D10. The chapter draws a hard line: customers "can always tell" genuine from fake. But people are sometimes fooled by skilled manipulators, at least for a while. Is the chapter overstating the case? Argue whether "customers can always tell" is literally true, mostly true, or a useful exaggeration — and explain what changes about your practice depending on which it is.

Explicitly combine this chapter with named earlier chapters.

M1. (Ch 7 + Ch 3.) ⭐⭐ A woman in scrubs hurries onto the lot with a toddler on her hip and a car seat over her arm, scanning three-row SUVs, clearly stressed and short on time. Using the Chapter 3 customer-type read AND this chapter's greeting craft: identify the type, name what she's afraid of, and write your full first thirty seconds — the approach, the opener, and how you handle it if she says "I'm just looking."

M2. (Ch 7 + Ch 3 fear map.) ⭐⭐ Map each "just looking" handling move (agree / give space / offer help as a gift / name the fear) to which of the three fears from the Chapter 3 fear map it most directly soothes. Are any of the moves doing double duty?

M3. (Ch 7 + Ch 2.) ⭐⭐⭐ A researcher walks up and, in your greeting, asks a specific product question you're not 100% sure about. Using the Chapter 2 product-knowledge ethic and this chapter's "genuine vs. fake" principle, write exactly what you say — and explain why bluffing here would detonate the first impression.

M4. (Ch 7 + Ch 5 + Ch 6.) ⭐⭐⭐ You've had four "just looking" ups in a row this morning, no sale, and you're getting demoralized — and your next up is walking in right now. Using the Chapter 5 activity-to-income math and the Chapter 6 resilient mindset, write a two-sentence self-talk reset that lets you greet this next customer with genuine (not forced) warmth. Then explain why genuine warmth specifically requires that mindset (tie it to §7.6).

M5. (Ch 7 + Ch 4 / Ch 29 preview.) ⭐⭐ A customer who first contacted you online (where you were fast, warm, and helpful) is now walking into the showroom for the appointment you set. How does the in-person meet and greet change when you've already built rapport on the screen — and what's the one thing you must NOT do (hint: don't make them start over)?

M6. (Ch 7 + Ch 3 "service not seduction" + Ch 1.) ⭐⭐⭐ A trainee watches you give a warm, calm greeting, build rapport, and gently lower a customer's "just looking" shield, and says: "Isn't that all just manipulation with a friendly face?" Using the Chapter 3 threshold ("adaptation is service, not seduction"), the genuine-vs-fake principle from this chapter (§7.6), AND the Chapter 1 fact about where dealerships actually make money (so you're not desperate to grind one front-end deal), give the trainee a complete answer that distinguishes what you do from manipulation.

M7. (Ch 7 + Ch 2.) ⭐⭐ In the first thirty seconds, a researcher tests you with a specific product question. Connect this chapter's "first impression" stakes to the Chapter 2 cheat-sheet portfolio component: how does the product knowledge you prepared in advance directly determine whether your meet and greet survives first contact with a researcher? What happens to the rest of the interaction if you fail this test at the door?

Optional, for the motivated reader.

E1. Spend one hour as a "secret shopper" of first impressions — at a car lot if you can, but a furniture store, electronics store, or any commissioned-sales floor works. Note exactly how you were greeted, how it made you feel, whether you put up a "just looking" shield, and what (if anything) lowered it. Write a one-page field report mapping what you observed to this chapter's framework.

E2. Look up the general research on "speed-to-lead" / lead response time in sales (it's well documented across industries, not just automotive). Summarize what the data says about response time and conversion, and write a short argument for what your personal response-time standard should be and how you'd actually hit it. (Note: cite real sources; don't invent statistics — describe the finding if unsure of the exact number.)

E3. First impressions and trust are studied heavily in social psychology (e.g., "thin-slicing," the warmth-vs-competence dimensions of person perception). Read a reputable overview, then write one page connecting what psychologists have found to the practical advice in this chapter — where does the science back up the floor wisdom, and is there anywhere it complicates it?

Appendix to Part C — The Greeting Scenario Bank ⭐⭐–⭐⭐⭐

For deliberate practice. Pick one scenario a day. For each, write (or say aloud) your full first thirty seconds: how you read them, your approach, your opener, and how you'd handle "just looking" if it comes. There's no single right answer — there's a right direction (lower stress, build trust, honor the shield). Role-play with a colleague where you can.

1. A retired couple walks the lot slowly on a weekday morning, no kids, no rush, clearly enjoying the outing as much as the shopping.
2. A young man in work boots and a company polo on his lunch break, glancing at his watch, looking at pickups.
3. A woman who pulls up in a high-end car she already owns, gets out, and walks straight to your most expensive model.
4. A nervous-looking person in their early twenties, alone, who has clearly never bought a car before and keeps looking around like they're not sure they're allowed to be there.
5. A customer who walks in already irritated — "I called yesterday and nobody called me back."
6. A couple who are visibly mid-argument with each other when they walk in.
7. A confident customer who strides up to you first and says, "Okay, I've got forty-five minutes. Show me what you've got."
8. A person who is "just looking" for a family member who isn't there ("I'm looking for my daughter, she's away at college").
9. A returning customer who bought from you two years ago and just walked back in (how is this greeting different?).
10. A customer who is clearly a competitor's salesperson or a "mystery shopper" checking out the store (you're not sure — how do you treat them?).

Debrief prompt: After working five of these, look across your answers. Which scenario was hardest for you, and why? What does that reveal about your natural default and your growth edge (the §7.4 learning check-in)? Write two sentences.