car sales jobs?

[easytoremember]

I've seen a few people hiring, and have applied for a few positions with a few companies. I have my BS and over 6 years of sales management experience.

Anyone recommend a place? or say to stay away from place x?

Thanks for the help!
Chris

[Waver]

Can I just say, dont do it at all?

[easytoremember]

y not?

[Waver]

many reasons, i do all right, however if you have never had a comission job, then dont do it

[easytoremember]

i used to work comission at circuit city. That's where I met neal steffek actually. Loved it. I made four figure checks working 20hrs a week

[Waver]

Car sales is a completely different game than retail, trust me. The days of making 3k on one sale are over. Best advice, if this is a career path you want to take, ask what kind of traffic they have, ask to see how many they sold the previous month, ask about the pay plan, and ask what the percentage of deals written/deals delivered are.

I am telling you this though, starting in January, the car sales business slows down till about march or april........you might want to think about getting into it then.

[JC70SS]

Talk to Crawlin or Johnny-2K. My uncle is a auction buyer for Wilde Toyota and he told me the other day he would rather work at Menards than sell cars!

[Crawlin]

Talk to Crawlin or Johnny-2K. My uncle is a auction buyer for Wilde Toyota and he told me the other day he would rather work at Menards than sell cars!

This....




I had a larger response typed up, but the bottom line for this is, you gotta do what you gotta do. If this is all that's available, then you gotta grab it and make the best of it.

If you have dreams of being the "nice honest" guy, that will all change within the first couple weeks. You can still be polite and respectful and helpful, but there is a degree of slick willy that you need to have. I was just plain old tired of it, and the hours, and the salespeople not following their training, etc... So I went back to school.

If you have ANY hesitation calling up someone that owes you money, this is not for you.
If you have any hesitation going around asking for pizza orders when you were a boyscout, this is not for you.
If you have any hesitation with calling someone that treated you like crap, this is not for you.

I can give good advice on how to work effectively if you end up deciding you'll give it a try though.

PS - you can have your experience and your B.S. on your resume, but don't talk about it in an interview. If I was interviewing someone, and they kept focusing on that, all it tells me is that you are unwilling to learn to do things the way I want you to in regards to "management" of your duties and responsibilities. It's great in the real world, but in the car business, it doesn't mean crap to be honest. The better sales people were the ones WITHOUT degrees. The old "street" vs. "book" smart analogy

[easytoremember]

I don't talk a lot about my education typicaly, thanks for the tip on staying away from it.

So my question then would be if you say

[QUOTE][/If you have ANY hesitation calling up someone that owes you money, this is not for you.
If you have any hesitation going around asking for pizza orders when you were a boyscout, this is not for you.
If you have any hesitation with calling someone that treated you like crap, this is not for you.
QUOTE]

and the exact opposite is me, then would this be for me?

[Crawlin]

if you have no probs with that small stuff, then go for it. One of the biggest problems that we had was getting the salespeople to follow up with their customers. Maybe they felt the customer didn't like the car? Maybe they didn't think the price was good? In all of that, you still have to call them, and alot of the people would be afraid to do that, or just lie to us(most good stores/dealergroups have a trackign system to see if a number has been dialed OUT, so we know if you did call or not)

I don't mean any disrespect about the education stuff, I'm just saying what we've seen from experience, that's all.

Like I said, if you do decide to try it, figure you'll make maybe $2000 your first month and then maybe 2500-3000 as an average. Like Nick said, the business is in what we call the "deep dark 100" where the snow and weather don't exactly bring people out in droves, so it is slow.

Like I said, I can give tips on how to bring business to you if you don't really mind "cold-calling" people. Once I got past that fear, I could supply my own business without having to wait for people to come in.

The business is all numbers/percentages. If you talk to 100 people, 50 will make an appointment, 35 will show, 20 will work numbers, and you'll sell 12. That kinda thing. On average, 12 cars should pay you $2500 if it's average new/used. That would be bare minimum. Now if you can get ahold of 200 people, those same percentages roughly apply, and you'd sell 24 cars and make $5000. Again, just rough thrown out there numbers.

The hours are long, it's boring if you don't have something to do. That was my incentive to get ahold of people, to end the boredom, haha.

And you don't really have to pay attention to my numbers, go blast them out of the water and make a better living for your family. That's incentive enough for alot of people.

[easytoremember]

cold calling eh? so I imagine there's a customer database to pick from, or is it more working my own leads and getting out the white pages or...

I'm unfamiliar with cold calling in car sales, but interested.

[Crawlin]

well there's three ways to think of it....

1.) you can sit and wait for someone to show up
2.) you can make friends with someone in the business development center if the dealership has one(there were two girls in the Braeger one when I first started. After 3 months I was back there with them ;) )
3.) create your own leads (not the white pages)

Option #3 expanded-
sit in the service department with those guys. talk to people with 5-10 year old cars in for service. see when their next buying timeframe is and get their number from the service advisor to call them later in the week. Find out if they've been in a couple times before. $300/month in fixing average is the same payment as a $300/month new car in some people's rationalization, you just need to make them see that ;) . Get the list of all the people that have come through the service department. Cross off the people with newer cars and people with only oil changes. Cold call the people that spent $500+ on their service.

My personal favorite and what worked the best was to call the people that listed their cars in the Journal or Autotrader. Get a rough estimate for a trade in from your manager and call up the person. State of WI if you trade in your car, you don't pay sales tax on that amount.

So 20,000 car, 10,000 trade in, you really only pay sales tax on 10,000.

If you can explain it right, let's say the car trade in is worth 10,000. But they are asking $11,500. Technically since they are saving sales tax on $10,000, they are getting 560 extra if they are milwaukee county, so in reality they are getting $10,560. If you can explain it right ot the customer, about paying the $100 for the ad in the journal and having people call and say they are gonna show up and then don't, and people coming to your house that you don't know, etc.... and lowballing you with a 10,000 offer, and then working out a deal for $10,750 or even $11000. In the end, is 300-400 and waiting a month really worth their time?

If you phrase it right, it works. Not for 100%, but atleast you are trying to create business for yourself.

[GTSLOW]

if you have no probs with that small stuff, then go for it. One of the biggest problems that we had was getting the salespeople to follow up with their customers. Maybe they felt the customer didn't like the car? Maybe they didn't think the price was good? In all of that, you still have to call them, and alot of the people would be afraid to do that, or just lie to us(most good stores/dealergroups have a trackign system to see if a number has been dialed OUT, so we know if you did call or not)

I don't mean any disrespect about the education stuff, I'm just saying what we've seen from experience, that's all.

Like I said, if you do decide to try it, figure you'll make maybe $2000 your first month and then maybe 2500-3000 as an average. Like Nick said, the business is in what we call the "deep dark 100" where the snow and weather don't exactly bring people out in droves, so it is slow.

Like I said, I can give tips on how to bring business to you if you don't really mind "cold-calling" people. Once I got past that fear, I could supply my own business without having to wait for people to come in.

The business is all numbers/percentages. If you talk to 100 people, 50 will make an appointment, 35 will show, 20 will work numbers, and you'll sell 12. That kinda thing. On average, 12 cars should pay you $2500 if it's average new/used. That would be bare minimum. Now if you can get ahold of 200 people, those same percentages roughly apply, and you'd sell 24 cars and make $5000. Again, just rough thrown out there numbers.

The hours are long, it's boring if you don't have something to do. That was my incentive to get ahold of people, to end the boredom, haha.

And you don't really have to pay attention to my numbers, go blast them out of the water and make a better living for your family. That's incentive enough for alot of people.

Chris that's so fucking funny! They work the recruiters I work with the same way! You call 100, contact 10, 5 will do an appointment, 4 will show, 2 will go to meps, and 1 will actually qualifiy. Sad thing is lately 85% don't even qualify that walk in. Car sales and recruiting are 100% alike. Some people don't qualify at meps physically and some people don't qualify with their credit/down payment.

[easytoremember]

meps?

[SSDude]

Military Entrance Processing Station

[Waver]

Chris, I couldnt of said it better my self.....sometimes you get lucky, most often, with out hard work, the first few months is hard because of no customer base.........it is what it is....Like I said, you wont get rich in this business.

[easytoremember]

a couple places I applied at say "guaranteed 2500 / m first 2 months at one place and first 3 at another"

I understand the pay is various, but on avg Id be looking to make an average of 3k a month. Possible?

[Crawlin]

absolutely. like i said it's all numbers. just get yourself in front of more people and your income will keep going.

you CAN make a nice living. I know quite a few 75k/year salespeople. BUT, they are either younger guys who hustle pretty damn well, or they are older guys who've been in the business 10+years who don't need to take fresh "ups", they only work with previous customers and referrals.

show that you are good with sales, make friends with the managers, and you can advance a bit faster and get into something without worrying about commission only.

when i was at braeger, i only sold cars for 3 months. after that i still sold cars, but only to my internet customers. I had a $500/week salary, demo, and the pay plan was really nice, $150/car for the first 5, then $250/car next 5, then 300/car next 5, etc... I could average 20-24 cars. Most of the time I would even pass the customers off to an "experienced" salesperson, and I would split the money. So I did less work, still got paid a little bit, and the salesperson loved me for the easy deal. Allowed me to go back and keep in contact with more people quicker to get them in faster. When we started the BDC, they changed the payplan because we increased sales so much, we were making too much money, haha.

Like Nick said, you need to figure out how many cars they sell/month. Find out if it's a split floor(meaning you can sell used and new). Some places only allow you to sell one or the other. What is the percentage commission? Do they have a sub-prime finance manager to help when your customer has not so perfect credit, and do you still get paid the same when that happens?

And that's the one thing I hated about this business. EVERYONE was out for themselves only. Meaning, each departments pay plan is in competition with another. Meaning, you need to keep profit in the car to make money. BUT, the used car manager needs to sell units to hit bonuses for his payplan, so he'll blow out a car that you could have held money on just to hit his own bonus. Then you have the general manager that only cares about units as well, and will put too much money into a trade to get a new car sold so he gets the manufacturer's bonus, but that screws over the used car manager, which then screws over you since you never had a chance to make money on it. THEN, when it gets safetied by the service tech, they come up with all sorts of little bullshit items and just do it and charge it to the car, so then they get paid the 4 book hours of work for the 1 hr they spent, which makes them money, but the 4 hours gets charged to the car's "final cost" so now lets say thats $400 less profit you could make on it, etc..... And it keeps going.

As for the guaranteed stuff, they basically do that, give you a $500-600/week salary. BUT, that means you do NOT make commission on the cars. In "most" cases, that means let's say you are a rockstar right out of the gate. You sell a couple new cars, but mostly used, and your commission would have paid you $3500, well because you are new, they put you on that plan, they still just pay you whatever that guarantee is. So make sure you ask them about that. If I make more commission than my "base" guarantee, do you get to keep it?

[easytoremember]

interresting point. I've heard before how everyone is in it for themselves, but that really explains it......

that will be interresting to see how it plays out.

you said you sold for 3 months... how did you get promoted so quick?

[Crawlin]

i was good :)

i made friends with the manager of the BDC(business development center). I used my computer experience and graphic design experience to put together a couple of direct mail pieces so they didn't have to pay an outside company $100's to do it. SO he put me on the internet side of things to help the girl who was the GMBuypower Manager/Internet Manager. I ended up selling more than she did, they got rid of her, I took her place. They then brought on an "assistant" from the sales floor, and we sold even more. There was a couple months where I had a new pay plan each and every month cause they kept changing up how they wanted things done. That sucked, but you take advantage of it however you can.

So like I had said earlier, use your experience the "right way" and describe it the "right way" and you can do the same thing. You are a computer guy in a way, explain how what you do might be beneficial to the internet sales department.

Best way to advance is to think of new ways to increase business. When I went to Heiser, one of the other internet managers and I came up with an idea to list new cars as "demo's" on the autotrader website. So they would be put on the "used car" side of things. We'd discount them like normal, add in all the rebates, and there was the price. Now if you went shopping for let's say a Chevy Malibu or a Toyota Camry. And the average used car price for a 2009 was $18,000 with 15k miles on it, but just above it you saw a dealer "demo" 2010 with 700 miles on it for $19,000, which one would you go see? Now when they got to the dealership, we'd apologize that we had just sold that car, but in an effort to make it up to them, we'd sell them a brand new one for that same price if they were interested.
A- that made them happy
B- they 90% of the time didn't negotiate any further cause they thought it was a hell of a deal
C- got people to call into the internet department like mad, which increased that overall number of people I talked to

Now we got yelled at eventually by autotrader, but we just toned it down, instead of actually having EVERY new car listed like that.

That is what I meant by, "slimy". Yeah it's kind of shitty to "lie" to the customer in a way, but sometimes people just don't know how close the price of a new car can come to that of their used car. So you can rationalize to yourself you were "informing them" of the deals. Usually better interest rate and terms for their loan, and had better chance for referrals.

[Red97GTP]

Chris, if you're good with computers, which i think you are, look into doing an internet sales gig. That's what I'm doing for Boucher Nissan in waukesha. It's a good way to start because the leads come right to you. No need for cold calls to orphan owners. Is look into a job for you at my store, but our floor is packed with salesmen already.
If you have questions about anything in sales, feel free to ask, I've been doing it for about 3.5 years.

[Red97GTP]

Damn double post.

[easytoremember]

thanks for the info. I'll try to use my IT knowledge to get my foot in the door...