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Anyone here sell cars?... for a living (general career advice welcome)
Lankysean
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I've been looking for a new job for awhile now, actually since I started the one I currently have because it ended up not being what they originally described. Over the last few months I've been browsing around on Careerbuilder and Indeed just to see if anything catches my eye. Long story short I almost always see advertisements for car sales people, never the same dealership but still pretty often. I currently work in a noncommissioned sales position (I have worked commission jobs before though) and I was thinking this may be a good industry to look for a better paying job. So I was just wondering if anyone has any first hand experience working at a dealership, I'm looking for day to day stuff what to keep an eye out for etc.
Lankysean on
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I will say that you see ads for car sales people because the turnover is REALLY high. It's a tough gig, and it runs mostly on commission. At the dealership that I worked at, the most successful guy was a popular guy in high school 20 years ago, and he kept up his contacts. Most of the local people went to him. The guys that tried to rely on walk-ins did not last long.
1) In my opinion, you should almost never agree to a job that only pays you commission, even if you're a hot shot sales guy. Consider why a business would think that it's better to pay you a percentage of the money it makes on your sales rather than a standard wage (it's usually because the business knows that the sales market for their product is volatile, so they don't mind paying you a little extra in the boom times in exchange for getting free labour when things are bust).
Every car sales position I saw was commission only.
2) Never pay someone to work for them. It's almost always a total scam: the company knows that the position involves high turnover, or worse, knows that sales figures are pretty bad, so this is a sort of buffer income for them.
A LOT of car dealerships have some 'training program' or whatever other bullshit that they want you to pay for up front, with some promise to later refund this money after you get your first 'X' sales.
If you can find a dealership that will pay you wage or salary + commission, though, I'd say go for it.
A commission sales person is still entitled to at least minimum wage, right? although if you didn't make at least that, you'd probably quit pretty fast.
I know at carmax (a big, fairly 'legit' car place) they are paid a fixed amount per car, it's not a percentage. (OK, I don't KNOW it but I spent a month or so testdriving luxury cars and I got one sales guy to eat lunch with me and drink at said lunch, and that's what he told me)
I host a podcast about movies.
Not in my former good 'ol fun times province of Alberta. Again, laws / policies may differ depending on where you live and all that.
In my old stomping grounds, if you sign an employment contract agreeing to accept sales-only payment (I forget the precise legal term), you are fucked (well, unless you're a hot shot who happens to get on board during a market boom).
A lot of places have decided to offer minimum wage + sales anyway, I imagine just to maintain company policy congruency, but dealerships weren't among those places last time I looked into it.
If you're going to get a job doing wage + commission work, make sure the wage alone is sufficient to live on. It should be able to cover your rent, food and at least your basic utility expenses. You don't want to suddenly get fucked-over and be unable to make rent or, y'know, eat food during a bad month.
Yeah I'm pretty sure I couldn't, the place I was looking at most recently offers a base salary but it's not very good $350 a week. Most places don't offer a base salary at all and that's just too risky. I think this is a career better left so someone more aggressive then I am when it comes to sales. Welp back to the old job search...
Out of curiosity, since you were looking into vehicle sales, do you live in a larger city that might have an aircraft dealership? This might seem waaaay out there, but the biggest success story I know of for direct sales was an uncle of mine that sold Learjets to millionaires. Very soft market, actually, and they offered a competitive wage along with the commissions.
Just a thought.
That isn't how sales works. The compensation is structured around sales. You don't get a gold star for showing up, you get it for closing.
It is not for everyone.
There are actually a lot of minor airports near me but none of them sell/rent aircraft, they are more like private parking lots for people that already have the craft. Anyway, this was just another fruitless venture that came about because I'm trying to get out of retail.
or boats. markup on boats is fucking stupid high.
I host a podcast about movies.
it's not three years ago. It really depends where you live in the country. I live in Salt Lake, and everybody is just kind of motoring around, ignoring the recession in the rest of the country.
I host a podcast about movies.
I'm pretty sure that in the entiriety of the US this is incorrect. If you are a server your hourly pay is under minimum wage. However if wage + tips is still under minimum wage, the company you work for has to make up the difference to get you up to minimum wage. At least that was how it was presented in the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.
Even if that was the case, minimum wage is not where I need to be. I currently make $13/Hr and to pay all my bills I need to make at least $10.54/Hr for at least 32 hours a week... ideally I'd like to earn about $40,000 a year so I have enough money to pay all the bills and sent aside a decent amount of money each pay period. Also, many dealerships that I've seen do not offer health insurance and that's just a good way to get murdered in medical debt. Unfortunately I have no real skills (or education) other than sales and customer service with a bit of mid level management in a retail environment. The problem comes down to not being able to afford to go back to school, and not being able to make enough money to go back to school without actually being done with school... it's a really crappy situation to be stuck in and I just can't figure out what to do about it.
and your quota is around 5 a pay period, so you'd have to make your nut to keep your job.
you also get bonuses based on selling warranties, service agreements, directing them to internal finance, etc which are not really hard sells on the late model used stuff they mostly work with.
They probably do a small salary plus a minimum commission draw.
If you have some sales sense, you could really make money there, and they do have benefits. It's actually my "back up plan" if something sours where I'm at - I knew so much about the cars on the lot when I walked in, and then I ended up pushing the salesguy out of his seat and showing him how to navigate their computer system...the manager came over and asked me about working part time.
On a couple job websites they list "sales associates" as making 20-76k with an average of 39,000
Again, though, this is just one chain, and it's one of the more above board - but it also has a kind of low, flat, volume based commission setup.
I host a podcast about movies.
TylerJ on League of Legends (it's free and fun!)
First off if you are already doing sales I would say it's worth a try if you can find a "good" dealership to work for. I worked for two different dealerships and they had different compensation but both ways were typical of how things work in most dealers. One place you were either a new car sales person or a used car sales person. I sold new cars and got 20% commission on the gross profit of the car, plus a weekly salary fixed regardless of sales numbers, I am not sure how the used only folks got compensated. I forget exactly what the fixed weekly pay was but I think it was around $300/week, again 15 years ago so take that into account. The other place I worked was still the 20% commission on the gross but you could sell new and used, with a "draw" salary. I think the draw salary was like $200/week and if you sold zero units that week then you got your $200 which would be "payed back" from any future sales. This was pretty typical of the industry. Most new cars the dealership would make anywhere from $0 to $2600 profit on, there was a minimum commission of $50. Used cars could be all over place but it was where you really made your money as the dealer might only have $8000 in a car they can sell for $12000. There was also a bonus structure that changed depending on the time of year but most often it was thing like selling 3+ cars on Saturday & Sunday would get you another $100 -$200 depending on time of year and other factors. Then monthly bonuses based on total sales which was something like 15/month =$150, 20/month = $250, 30+/month = $500 and other things like this. I once got a $1000 bonus above commission on a used car that had been sitting on the lot for a very long time, again "good" dealerships have these kinds of things to drive you.
My first year I made a little over $30k, which was typical for a first year car sales person. My second year I made $60K, and my third year I made about the same, this was when my "drive" to sell and do this for a living was burning out and as soon as you lose the taste for it you just can't be good at it anymore. The top sales person was making about $120k/year.
I would only suggest someone trying this out if they have some savings to fall back on for the first month to see if it will work for you. It's a very hard industry things might have changed but when I was selling my schedule was 6 days a week open to close which was about 62 hours/week. Most weeks I would end up working 7 days because I would often have someone picking up a car on my one day off.
From what I see now I think dealerships have cut back on over all hours of operations and are not making people work as many hours as they see the burnout but this of course can all depend on the dealership.
My last bit of advice is that for the most part just about everyone has had a horrible car buying experience and this jades them for all future purchases so overcoming and thriving in that environment is for sure not for everyone. The real key is finding a good dealership that is really about reputation and doing right by customers.
It's about a writer they sent to be a car salesman and report back on what it's like.
The sizes of engines, bhp and torque, gas mileage, suspension, transmission, differences between models, weight, storage capacity, do the rear seats fold down, how do you turn on the lights on the inside and out, etc.
I can understand if you're working in used car sales, as the cars come and go a lot and you often don't have the time to learn everything about each car. But if you're selling Subaru's, I expect you to be a damned expert at something. I shouldn't be sitting there googling the thing on my phone in front of you because you do not know.
Dragosai, any shopping tips? One thing i did was I switched cars buying this subaru - got them to pad my trade on an infiniti m45,at 9%, got the trade value in writing and came in w my own loan at 2.5 and applied it to a car that was on sale...i think i made some money for my time that way...
I host a podcast about movies.
You are right, I looked at their website and almost every position they have on it says "4 year degree or x years of experience". I didn't see anything that was in my whole "customer service and sales" department but I'll keep an eye out.
As for carmax, I gotta say Ive never even heard of them, I wonder if they are in NJ. I don't mind working under a quota system but only if they are achievable quotas. My last job had quotas that where impossible to meet, they expected you to sell 10 phones a day but the store would only get 8 customers a day and there where 3 employees working there each day. I'll look into them as well.
Wow has that actually happened to you? That's bonkers, as a general rule I try and learn everything I can about what I'm selling. I'm already fairly knowledgeable when it comes to cars as they are a hobby of mine and I spend a fair bit of time researching them. When I get bored I often look into my "next" car even though I just bought one a year ago... I actually had an amazing buying experience when I got the car I have, I went completely through the dealerships E-sales department, did 99.98% of the work over the computer and phone, when I went down to the dealership all I needed to do was sign my paper work and hand them the check for the down payment. I wouldn't mind doing e-sales actually but I never see opening for that.
Most particulars don't matter. Who cares how many HP or torques it has or whether or not it has 4 wheel independent suspension so long as you enjoy the driving experience? If you need to know the trailering capacity cause you're hauling a boat around then wouldn't you find that out for yourself from edmunds or somesuch instead of asking someone whose primary motivation is to sell you any car on the lot? Knowing the difference between the models is useful, though there's a sticker on the thing that tells you what's on the car along with the EPA ratings for mileage (if you chose not to do any research before walking onto the lot).
The modern car buyer does a shitload of research on his own and will very likely know more about the car than the salesman, so if your goal is to sell cars I think it most important not to waste anyone's time, do follow up calls/emails, cultivate a friendship with the sales manager, and generally not telegraph fakeness to your prospects.
It'd be great if sales guys were experts in their field, but I'm never going to trust their word anyways when I'm dropping or borrowing 5 digits to buy something that I'll be using on a daily basis. If you can get a service guy to talk candidly about a model that'd probably be more useful.
No, i mean he wanted to put me in the infinity so bad, he piled on trade value rather than reduction in car price..., i got that trade offer in writing, then came in a day later and applied the written offer of trade to a much cheaper car.
The infinti is cool, though, I'm probably going to get an m56x sport when my subaru is paid off, if subaru doesn't do a legacy gt in their new longer body (i need the headroom)
I host a podcast about movies.
The search continues!!!
When I was working as a diesel technician, one of our regular customers (Volvo trucks dealership) went to Toyota to try and buy three top-of-the-range Landcruisers.
He's old and crippled, and favours sneakers, trackpants and knitted jumpers over a suit. The sales guys wouldn't even talk to him.
He bought three fully kitted-out Land Rover Discoverys instead. With cash. Dude's worth tens of millions...
The salesperson should know every fucking detail of the car they are trying to sell, especially if they work for a brand dealership selling new cars.
If you have a lot of experience in a retail environment or is a sales position, look at cell phone sales. There's a commission element plus an hourly rate (this ratio depends greatly on whether you're direct, working for AT&T Verizon etc, or indirect, working for an authorized retailer) but the high turnover of retail works in your favor here if you're any good. Good salespeople rise to the top, everyone else looks for greener pastures.
Best technique for sales is up for interpretation, but are you really going to trust a commissions-based salesperson to provide you accurate information on something you're going to spend or borrow $20K+ to buy? When buying a house are you only going to base your purchase based on the word of the seller and listing agent?
I host a podcast about movies.
I actually work at a cell phone store now, used to work for tmobile before my current job. I'm trying to get away from retail in general. I have some managent experience so I'm thinking the next step is office manager for an eye glasses place or something along those lines. Still customer service but not sales per say. I'm actually going to reopen this as there is still some good advice going on here.
I think everyone knows someone with a story like this. However, no one ever tells the story of the crazy homeless guy that wandered into a Mercedes dealership and fucked up an S Class because the salesman didn't judge a book by it's cover.
:P
Actually this is really not so true, sure you would think this should/would be the case but it's not really the most important thing at all.
Very few people really care about details of a car that much that they will ask the dealer about them. Most people will get such data online anyway. I found that maybe 1% (mostly engineer type people being that 1%) of car buyers I dealt with really had technical or detailed questions, most asked questions that they already knew and that anyone could see right on the window sticker.
When all is said and done most sales are made because the customer "bought" the sales person, not the actual product. I had a lot of customers that came to me, then shopped at another dealer yet came back to me to buy the car, even sometimes at a worse price, because they liked how they were treated better by me then at the other place.