New Car Sales is a Different World

[Jim Boyd]

Compared with all of the other jobs I've had this one is a different world all together! So far the bosses have made it a point to tell us "green peas" to "stay stupid" and a lot of time is passed standing around talking with sales guys and bosses waiting on "ups". Once an "up" is greeted you have to get them in the "box". It is supposed to take about 20 "ups" to get one in the "box" but once in the "box" 80% of the time you will get a "close". Hours are 8:30 am to 6 pm and 12 noon to 9 pm every other day, 6 days a week. If I don't die from sore feet it will be from boredom I've never worked a job where they said to stay stupid and mean it Seems the less you know about selling cars the better you do They expect us to sell at least 8 vehicles a month with perks for selling more. Perks like days off! They turned my group loose on thursday and each of us has sold at least 2 cars with one getting 3. I've learned that the salesman doesn't really make much from the car sale (maybe $300 average) but makes a fair amount if you sell more cars, bumping you up into a higher percentage per car.
More cars= more money= days off.
Needless to say shop time has grinded to a halt. My feet were too sore to get out there today :-(

[Whaler]

I tried car sales several years ago. I hooked a good one and my team leader stepped in to help me close the deal. He ended up with half of my commission, I went to lunch and didn't go back.

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Thats funny. I think I remember saying that staying stupid was the best thing for you in the biz! You're managers know what they are talking about. You are parting with my advice of not spending down time in the bullpin chatting with other sales folks, as they are the last person who will ever buy a car from you! I know that sounds stupid, and certainly you are free to do whatever you want, but a lot of bad habits can be picked up from other salespersons such as negativity about customers (heard the term boges yet? Don't know the spelling but it basically is an qualifiaction of someone as a poor credit/substandard credit risk), eye ball qualifying buyers, etc. Yes, you need to spend some time with your fellow sales people both for friendship and professional reasons. You may need them to deliver a car for you on a day off and you don't want someone who is going to blow the deal or as to split the commission.
I don't agree with those numbers! I would say you can get 50% in the box and close 60%. We were required to get everyone in the box. That was a real joy. Those are brutal hours. If you get to the top of the pile can you make your own hours? There were a few of us that were allowed to work anytime we wanted, simply because we moved units consistently. If you can work core hours, you increase productivity tremendously.
Everything sounds exactly like what I advised. Sell units. Period. Doesn't matter if it is a "mini" deal (what is your minimum? ours was actually $50.) units get you to higher commission. What is your commission break down based upon units? I am not trying to add pressure but you can't live off of 8 cars a month. Not even close. 2 since Thursday is decent though. I mean you had nothing in the works and sold 2 in 3 days. Not bad. Wait until you have your first trifecta! Three cars in one day and go home early for a cold brew!
$300 is probably weak if you are selling new and used. The domestic market does have more margin that big three importers, but consumers are very savy today and beat you up pretty good on price for new vehicles. I imagine sales were very easy during the 0% financing deal and GMC employee pricing deals. As you probably know you can kill it on used cars. When I burst my sales cherry, I sold a used Nissan pickup with $3600 NET gross margin @ 40% commission (actually sold 25 cars 1st month and had max commission). When I walked back to the desk with a signed deal the manager looked at me and said "kid you just made your first G sellling cars". It didnt hit me until later that he meant I made $1000. I knew that was how I was going to pay my way through college.
Make sure you are eating plenty of bannanas. The leg cramps will be setting in soon! (seriously).

[Jeffrey Schronce]

I tried car sales several years ago. I hooked a good one and my team leader stepped in to help me close the deal. He ended up with half of my commission, I went to lunch and didn't go back.

That is great. I had a horriable job once working in a newly opened Office Depot as a Tech guy. Selling copiers, computers, etc. The store had NO volume and they were pounding on me to sell the stuff (and I wasn't even on commission!).
After a particularly bad meeting a team member and I went to lunch at Chilis. We had a beer. Then three. 5 hours later we faxed our resignation letters to the store manager with some strong wording. The funny part is that we faxed to him from a Office Depot 4 hours away a the beach!

[just4funsies]

Hey Jim... I know nothing about car sales (I'm PERFECT for the job, I guess). Maybe I'm not looking at this right, but why would you want to take a day off as a reward, when the other guys will be selling cars while you are gone? Seems like a very competitive line of work, and not such a good idea to let others outsell you...

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Using that logic one should work 7 days per week! In my experience working 6 days a week in a job like this is not very condusive to family and mental wellbeing. The key is being a top producer, manage your time, work key hours and days. Could easily be a 4 day a week job. Just work Fri 10 - 9, Saturday 10-9, Sunday 12 - 4 and Monday all day to clean up everything from all the sales the prior weekend. T, W, TH aren't much for selling cars.

[Raymonator]

Hey Jim... I know nothing about car sales (I'm PERFECT for the job, I guess). Maybe I'm not looking at this right, but why would you want to take a day off as a reward, when the other guys will be selling cars while you are gone? Seems like a very competitive line of work, and not such a good idea to let others outsell you...

Having sold cars for 20 years, I think I may know a bit on how it works. It's the type of job where if you snooze........you lose. Days off ??? Not too many "successful" salespeople can say they take many. It's one thing to deal with the competition, but you have to compete with the people you work with too. That is the way dealerships today want it too. They feel it makes for more aggressive salespeople. Some dealers want volume sales, and not neccessarily good grossing sales, therefore, a good salesperson can end up making only a flat of $100.00 per unit, because the manager doesn't care about gross but rather wants to to see units on the board at the end of the month. The usual commission for the sale of a new or used car is usually around 20% of the gross. Rarely do you see a salesperson really ever get that in actual money after all is said and done. Most dealers today don't really care how much profit (gross) they make on a car anymore because they have F&I's (Finance managers) to help get them extra cash on the back side, meaning, extended warranties, rust prooving and stuff like that, which are all big money making Kaching's or gravy, which again is why they don't care how much money the salesperson makes, just as long as he sells a another unit or gets someone into the box. It's a big rat race filled with false promises unfortunately, and it's usually the poor salesperson that ends up losing big time. Figure the hours one has to work to make it, and what your "real" takehome is, and divide that up by the number of hours you spend at the dealership, chances are, you'd probably make as much pumping gas, and doing less hours. Unless someone is really interested in becoming a professional car salesperson, and put in a lot of hours, but most of all be "thick skinned", chances are, most wannabe's won't make it. I certainly wouldn't want to raise a family, and own a home with a large mortgage with a non working spouse, on what the average car salesperson really makes these days.

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Absolutely right Raymonator. Dealer holdback of 3% of invoice for imported vehicles allowed a sale at near "cost". Volume pumped up that dealer holdback incentive. I always hated selling a $35,000 Maxima, making a $50 flat or mini commission, knowing the dealership got their pac, overhead, and dealer holdback and made a coupel thousand off the car. But like I said that volume allowed you to move up the commission schedule, so when you high grossed one you really took a nice chunk home. You are also right on target with the stupid F&I department. I actually had them lose gross margin on the unit, in order to add on warrenties, Life and disablity, etc. Talk about pissed! I wonder how all that worked out during the 0% finance deals? There was no way to hold 2 - 4% interest, thus loss of a coupel thousand per unit.
It is also a huge rat race. I only did it for 5 years, 3 in college and 2 out. I always made a good living, but I hated the rat race part of it. I only worked 5 days per week and sometime 4 depending upon my month, so I kind of disagree with having to work 60 hours a week to make this work. IF you can work key hours, then you can reduce your work week. I would not take a Friday or Saturday off (which was really rough on Saturday after a good night in the frat house!). We were closed on Sunday, one of the few dealerships that did. Nissans Infinity division tried to make the dealership stay open on Sundays, but management told them to come pick the cars up and he would stop selling them. Seeing that they were top 5 in the country Infinity relented.
There is no question it is tough. And you absolutely have to have thick skin. I wouldn't do it again. I would consider F&I, but I am not working all day on Saturday, so that is out. Plus I like what I do now.

[SteveJ]

I've always wondered; when 3 or 4 salesmen are standing together on the lot and a customer drives in, how do you decide who gets to make the sales pitch?

Steve

[just4funsies]

Ray and Jeff, your posts seem to reinforce what I am saying. Why would anyone feel that "time off" would be seen as a reward in the car sales game? Since the only way a guy can earn is to sell, why would he think it good to be lying in the rack somewhere while his less successful cohorts close the gap? I realize that everybody needs some off time, but it would have to be seen as a necessity, rather than as some kind of incentive for reaching a sales goal. Very strange.

[Deadhead]

Ray and Jeff, your posts seem to reinforce what I am saying. Why would anyone feel that "time off" would be seen as a reward in the car sales game? Since the only way a guy can earn is to sell, why would he think it good to be lying in the rack somewhere while his less successful cohorts close the gap? I realize that everybody needs some off time, but it would have to be seen as a necessity, rather than as some kind of incentive for reaching a sales goal. Very strange.

Because if you look at it on a "per hour" basis, he's not going to make as much money on a Tuesday morning as he will on a Friday night or Saturday. It may be worth losing the $5 per hour on a Tuesday to keep from being burnt out by the time the weekend roles around.
(Days and dollar amounts are assumptions used for illustration purposes only.)

[thiggy]

Hear is a very interesting (and long) tale of a new auto salesman (green pea). I found it most informative. http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying...2/page001.html

[Raymonator]

Because if you look at it on a "per hour" basis, he's not going to make as much money on a Tuesday morning as he will on a Friday night or Saturday. It may be worth losing the $5 per hour on a Tuesday to keep from being burnt out by the time the weekend roles around.
(Days and dollar amounts are assumptions used for illustration purposes only.)

In a perfect world, you would be correct, but sales or "victims" are very unpredictable. Sometimes what you may think will be a quiet day due to weather or whatever, is the day that the dealership will have a lot of walk-in's and tire kickers. Like I said earlier, it's the type of job where if you snooze, you lose. Never "assume" anything in sales, and when you think about it, if you take the word "assume" and break it up, it spells out making an "ass" out of "u" and "me"
Another thing is to never judge a book by it's cover. I've seen days where another salesperson had an up, and they would see this "welfare dressed" person in the yard looking at our most expensive model in the yard. I would say "Hey Joe, you're up, there's a guy in the yard looking a car" (he should have been watching the yard himself, instead of chatting with the girl from accounts payable in the coffee lounge) He'd look over, and "assume" the guy was just a tire kicker and couldn't afford that kind of car, and told me to go for it if I wanted to waste my time. I did just that, went out and gave the guy the same treatment as I would any potential, and ended up selling a $45,000 car, "CASH" and had him in the box within the hour. The other salesman had the audacity to try to claim half of my commission. The manager didn't see it that way. I can tell you, Joe didn't give up anymore "welfare looking" tire kickers after that.

[Jim Boyd]

Thats funny. I think I remember saying that staying stupid was the best thing for you in the biz! You're managers know what they are talking about. You are parting with my advice of not spending down time in the bullpin chatting with other sales folks, as they are the last person who will ever buy a car from you! I know that sounds stupid, and certainly you are free to do whatever you want, but a lot of bad habits can be picked up from other salespersons such as negativity about customers (heard the term boges yet? Don't know the spelling but it basically is an qualifiaction of someone as a poor credit/substandard credit risk), eye ball qualifying buyers, etc. Yes, you need to spend some time with your fellow sales people both for friendship and professional reasons. You may need them to deliver a car for you on a day off and you don't want someone who is going to blow the deal or as to split the commission.

The bosses already pointed this very thing out and pulled all of the guys with 2 months or less aside and said the same things and said to stick with the people in the room. You sure your name isn't Willie? You sound just like him

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Hear is a very interesting (and long) tale of a new auto salesman (green pea). I found it most informative. http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying...2/page001.html

I've read that before and it is definately a good read.

Speaking of good reads, there is a series of books authored by a guy named Joe Girard that are specific to auto sales. They are decent. I mean there is some typical stupid stuff in there like cold calling to sell cars under the guise of "calling a customer to deliver a car, but got the wrong number, so hey lets talk about great deals." Back in the day I had How to Close Every Sale and another title, which were specific to auto sales. Amazon shows there are a couple other folks with decent looking books on auto sales as well.