Tire Kickers

In Sales we talk occasionally about tire kickers, specifically whether a given customer or prospect is a "tire kicker". But what does that mean? The term may not make sense to people who've learned English as a second or third language, and even some native speakers may not understand how it's relevant to all selling.

I'll start with a solid, basic definition:

A tire kicker is a person who appears interested in making a purchase, but never makes a buying decision. Tire kickers frequently engage with sales teams by asking questions and raising objections, consuming staff time and resources without ever committing to a deal.

So, basically, a tire kicker is a time-waster. But why do we call them tire-kickers? What if the stuff being bought and sold has nothing to do with tires?

Etymology of the Tire Kicker

The term "tire kicker" comes from automobile sales. It literally refers to the act of kicking a car's tires— a test buyers would use many decades ago to determine if a car was in good mechanical shape.

From there the term was broadened as a derisive metaphor for customers who'd visit a car dealership and waste a sales person's time. Tire kickers would ask to be shown different cars, have their questions answered, be taken for test drives, and even haggle for price concessions, all with no intention of buying.

Today, even though kicking a car's tires to determine if it's in good shape is a thing of the past, the term tire kicker persists because the problem it refers to is timeless. And as you can see upon thinking about it for even a moment, it's not specific to car sales. Everybody in sales needs to keep an eye for which customers are serious prospective buyers worth investing time and effort in selling to, and which are just tire kickers who'll waste their time.

Found Money: $50 Gift Card

I was combing through old emails in my work account today (trying to get to "Inbox Zero"— though that's another story!) and found a pleasant surprise. A $50 Vanilla Gift Card.



I won this gift card back in November for participating in a customer survey*. The email with the details quickly got buried in my inbox and slid out of sight. If I hadn't gotten the idea of trying to get to "Inbox Zero" during a boring stretch of a few hours with no meetings this afternoon I might have lost this forever.

When Are Surveys Worth It?

I put an asterisk next to "customer survey" above because I participate in very few surveys I'm invited to. Ditto "contests". Unless I've got a compelling issue I want to draw attention to, a company needs to make it worth my while to give feedback.

• An offer of, say, 50 frequent flyer miles is not going to buy my time. Depending on the program that's worth at little as $0.50.
• 500 miles, though? That's worth $5 on the low end, up to $10 on the high end. Now I'll consider it. The miles have got to be for a program I care about, though. 500 miles with an airline I rarely or never fly is worth nothing.
• Often the offer is a store branded gift card. That's only interesting if it's a store I like. A $5 Starbucks card doesn't motivate me because there's nothing I want at Starbucks.
• Cards like the Vanilla Gift Card are great rewards because they're Visa cards and thus usable nearly anywhere. It's the closest thing to cash you're likely to get. (Cash is king.)
• Finally, I won't play for a chance at a reward. "Enter and you can win up to $100!" means "You will most likely get nothing."

An example of these rules in practice: Last month I clicked through a customer survey about a product I use at work. The offer was a $10 Amazon certificate. Yeah, that's a store branded card, so not as good as cash, but c'mon, you can always find something you like at Amazon. I decided $10 was worth a few minutes of my time. ...Particularly because I actually use the software in my job and wouldn't mind seeing it improved based on my feedback.

This $50 card, though, that's a nice one. What did I do to earn that? Well, it was a contest. I know I just wrote that I don't do contests, but this was one at work. In a department-wide meeting we were all challenged to a knowledge test. That changes the payoff matrix. I participated because my colleagues and managers were watching. Then I earned the top score. $50 gift card, cha-ching!