I will tell you as a salesman for over 20 years for $20K - +1 million $ software. They fuck with your plan every year. That's just the way it works in the game. Being on the other side as an owner, I understand it, but I haven't done it yet. I do have a new rep I'm about to hire who is asking for the moon. I won't give him everything he is asking for but "he has to eat" so it will be higher to start and then decrease over time, because I need him chasing new business, not getting fat dumb and happy off the existing clients. I worked at one company where we didn't even get paid on the repeat business, because you have to chase the new stuff for the company to survive. I also understand the older guys getting the good stuff. Happens everywhere. I've had the midwest as a territory at all 3 sales jobs I had in software for at least part of my time. For me that was the best territory, because people are straight shooters and you can close a deal on a handshake. I really didn't like the California territory even though I had it at different times with all 3 jobs too. Same with the North east which I had for a little while 2 times....in both those territories the buyers will F..K you every chance they can. I had a deal out here in Newport Beach with an Indian guy. We charged for software by retail or warehouse locations and number of users. We negotiated and had a deal and a price two times. So I deliver the software and computers and registers to this retail Shoe store in Fashion Island which is a high end place. After he has it for awhile, he wants to add another location and doesn't want to pay for it. We go back and forth for awhile. I go to the CFO of our company and tell him, can we please write a check to the guy for exactly what he paid and I will go pick everything back up. Take the commission out of my next paycheck because I don't want to deal with this a..hole for the next xx years. A deal is never a deal and this guy wants to continually renegotiate and it wasn't worth the $2-4k I made off the deal to talk with him anymore. Only time in my career that I remember returning a system and paying back my commission. We had a great contract and there is no way he would have gotten a penny back from us, because we did everything by the book and the software worked. He was surprised when I showed up with a company check and a van, and said here is your money back, we don't want to do business with you.
"Your mother is a whore!" "$50 for locking lug nuts?!?! you can lock onto my lug nuts for $40!" "Throw it in for free or I'll shit on your desk!" "You like f@cking middle aged men? 'cause you're sure as shit trying to f@ck me!" "No, I don't want to talk to your manager. I saw your manager! I've heard your manager talk! Your manager is a f@cking retard!" "I'm leaving but I am coming back. With my husband and he's bringing his inbred crazy cousins and they are gonna f@ck you and everyone else who works here up!" All shit I've heard said to car sales people.
I'm thinking that would be less desirable. LOLOL Even though mine doesn't get nearly the mileage I wish it did any longer, some mileage is better than that.
Nah man, not anymore. I just tell them my deal, give them the reasons, tell them the figures and they take it or not. I'm too old to get wound up over trivial shit. Having said that, I did make $5000 on a car that I ordered, had delivered to the dealership and got banned for life from that dealership when they tried selling it to another customer.
We lost a good friend a few years ago (a Mercedes salesman) because he wouldn't answer his f^*&*ing phone and I bought the Mercedes from a competing dealer. Now he won't talk to us
It's a thankless job with long hours and a lot of frustration. A few This is pretty much it in a nutshell. Only thing I'd add is a car dealership is one of the more entertaining jobs to spend 14 hour days at. In the end I think the turnover should tell you everything you need to know about whether or not it's a good thing to get into. On the other hand, plenty of people make good money at it, but the majority do not.
Yea that’s pretty crappy on his part. You can’t get every deal, just the way it works out. I’ve gotten deals when I held my cool when I lost the deal. After the product doesn’t work as promised, sometimes they come back to you. Also lost my cool just this past Friday, which I should never do. Guy yelled at my parts guy and hung up on him. Then was raising his voice to my salesperson. So I got on the line and was talking with him and he made some smart ass comment about this is what he was going to do and what do I want.....and I stupidly blurted out “how about a piece of cake”. Had nothing to do with the context of the call, but I was just fed up with him and he would never be a good customer. Anyway I shouldn’t have done it, but you can’t please everyone, even though I usually try to.
As someone deeply roooted in the car business in general , car sales is not easy. I worked at a Bentley / rolls Royce dealer for about 18 months . Worked way harder than I wanted to, and made way more money than any 24 yr old should be making . I deal with car sales guys every day now , some are good guys , some are bad guys . If you put in the time , effort , and are a people person it’s a great way to make 6 figures. Like any job, it has its bullshit days but it’s rewarding when you do good work and make good money . It’s a great learning tool for future opportunities. I took my experience from car sales and grew it into a transport business. The sales techniques I learned sellling $250k cars to high net worth/ high ego people benefits me every day in some way . The camaraderie, competition with your coworkers and water cooler talk is quite fun . It’s like a more degenerate version of the bbs .
It's on here somewhere. Short version I got the build cost sheets, the dealership costs and the mark up sheets (stuff you could not get in those intrawebs days) from a disgruntled ex employee and I haggled over the most trivial, non nonsensical shit (you want $50 for the cigarette lighter, it cost you $5 at the build) and just f@cked them up over the 6 weeks it took to negotiate and order the car. The stuff he sent also had stuff you could get in the US that they the US division of the blue propeller brand said you couldn't. No badging, some weird paint. . . It was a freaky, essentially an M3 wagon with a race seat, the unrestricted euro V8 (might have been the 6, can't remember what came in the M that year), manual trans with euro gearing and was one of those "We made exactly 1 for the US" cars. They called to tell me that the car was delivered, I went to get it and the manager was selling it to some dickhole. "Blah blah blah, problem with your car, it's not in. . ." "Yeah it, it's right there with some people crawling all over it. I'll take it home NOW." Yadda yadda.
I actually enjoyed my time as a car salesman. I think it comes down to the dealership. I sold for a one price dealership, think Carmax but 7 new franchises and a boat load of used cars. Not having to “ask my manager” and draw up a four square took away a lot of the bullshit. The group was honest and the environment was fun. I could talk about cars all day but unfortunately I wasn’t very good at getting people to buy them from me...there were some weeks the porters made more per hour than me. As others have said it’s long hours, EVERY Saturday open to close, and at most places the better you do the worse somebody got bent over.
Had a good friend try it several years ago. He loves cars, bikes and just about anything with an internal combustion engine. I' have never seen him so miserable as when he was trying to sell cars.
A while back I looked into becoming a BMW salesman. I feel like I have some knowledge and enthusiasm for the brand so I went and met with the sales manager at the local dealer. I quickly realized that I wouldn't be dealing with likeminded customers because the general BMW customer doesn't know what they're buying - other than the brand name. Plus the dealers don't want to deal with enthusiast customers AT ALL. They (we) are demanding and nitpick everything apart - and want every little thing fixed under warranty. I also don't have the personality for this job. I'd want to tell everyone to go f@ck themselves... I will say that not every successful car salesman is a total sleezebag. I'm pretty sure Kris Wall works his ass off and he's an ok guy...
Don't know much, mostly out of the country but have sat TV on the boat. Cooking 16 hours a day see the carvana/ vroom adds plus others. The big dealerships went to one off pricing years ago. Maybe you have a sales guy if your serious talk to his manager?? I think those days are done unfortunately for the cars salesman. Just like blockbuster. Why do I have to pay you a commission, to pick out the exact car/ truck new or used online. Your not really selling/informing me anything that 5 minutes on Google tells me the good/bad of the car/ truck. Good for the old guys in the business of the art of selling something to a customer, but unfortunately now with the internet it's out there
When I first started in the mortgage business, my boss was a former GM at a car dealership. We were given leads and were told to call them at least 3 times a day until they told us to fuck off! Smile and dial....it SUCKED! Plus we had to process our own loans, which got in the way of calling leads as you were constantly chasing documents from the clients. Moved to a much better company and now only really required to put the loan together and move on to the next. As for making good money, it's there but you have to work for it. My manager closed fifteen million worth of loans a few months ago which probably made him $200k that month!
That's why I quit, my best sale ended up with the customer paying 6 grand more than they should have/could have. I couldn't do that, didn't sleep that night and never went back.
Its an awful exchange...adversarial from the start..i hate buying cars. Cell phone stores were on my list as well but they seem to have changed their model at our T Mobil store.
