Lets Treat Car Salespeople Better!

"dr861" (dr861) 11/15/2015 at 22:28 • Filed to: None

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Eleanor for your time.

I’ve been working in sales now for almost 5 years. It’s not an easy job, nor a relaxed one. You always have to have your head in the game, be at your best, and always looking to do more. Anything less results in a half-assed paycheck, an angry customer, or an angry boss. It’s not for the weak by any means. What I’d like to present is the idea that we, as a society, should treat our salespeople better.

I’ve worked very extensively in Real Estate, mainly in Manhattan, which is one of the most competitive places in the world to attempt to live, or buy a home. The most difficult job for an agent working in Manhattan is getting new clients, and retaining those clients. If you have their trust, understanding, and friendship, than you are doing the job right. To be honest, it is more a business of relationships than sales, because most apartments in New York speak for themselves, we don’t have to sell them. When a client walks into an apartment, they know whether they are going to be able to live there or not. Nothing you say or do is going to be able to convince them to live in a place they will not live in, and nothing will take away the disappointment if they are not able to attain the apartment they would love to live in.

Aside from selling real estate, I also sold cars briefly. I can say very clearly and unequivocally, that my 2 1/2 month stint selling cars taught me more about actual SELLING than my 4 1/2 years in real estate.

We are all in sales in one way or another. When you want to order Pizza for dinner but your wife wants Chinese; the process of convincing her to get Pizza - Sales. When you meet a girl for the first time, and you want to take her on a date, but she’s taking some convincing... that’s sales too. Your selling yourself. But what actually happens when you walk into an environment that is a traditional haggling environment? Sales at it’s most apparent and direct form? Well, most people turn into complete and utter jerks.

The environment I am talking about is called a car dealership, and for most Americans, it will be the only place that they ever have to negotiate for anything.

Humans have a particular problem with people working retail. We are all guilty of treating those who work in retail badly just because of what they do. Some do it consciously, most do it unconsciously. You may be thinking “I would never do such a thing, I’m a great person to everyone I speak to!” and maybe you are a genuinely good person, but something happens to us when we walk into a Starbucks and someone just can’t give our iced coffee to us quickly enough. We walk in the door and are probably already late for work, and the barista is fumbling. There are tons of customers waiting but they can’t seem to get one order right. Most people start to think, “has he ever done this before?” or “I have somewhere to be, can’t this idiot get it right?” and we take it out on the person trying to help us. What we should be thinking is: “I may be late to work, but how long has the barista been here, on their feet?” or “Maybe this is their first day at work? I remember how hard my first day was....”. For some reason, we generally are not able to sympathize with the person making our heavily needed coffee.

For some we get this feeling in a restaurant, some in the back of a cab, some in a clothing store, but for most people, it happens in a car dealership.

Car salespeople have possibly the worst reputation in retail. In fact, calling someone a car salesperson, in itself, can be an insult, which is horrifying. Imagine how that must feel. Even if you’re a good person, even if you are there to try and help your customers as much as you can, even if you want everyone you meet to leave happy and pleased with the entire purchasing experience; that none of that matters just because of your job title. But lets get past how we’re going to treat a salesperson just because of their position, let’s get to what we want.

Most of us go in with the intention of getting the most expensive car we can for the cheapest price we can. Change the point of view. How would you feel if your salesman wanted to sell you the least expensive car for the highest price? You’d feel like someone was trying to take advantage of you. In fact, moreover, I think you wouldn’t want to deal with that salesperson at all, or that dealership either.

What I would like to argue is that the person who negotiates the salesperson down to nothing, the person that plays dealerships against each other, going back and forth until the salesman is making almost nothing and probably getting chewed out at some point by their manager, or the manager getting chewed out by the dealership owner because they’re posting too many cars at a loss... That person is just as bad as the salesperson who tries to sell a car at $5000 over list price.

The worst part, by far, is that the people who get the cheapest cars are the richest people. Stockbrokers, bankers, hedge fund vp’s, etc. They would come in and tear us to shreds. Do you know why they did it? For sport . Because they wanted to come in and flex, to show us how much better they were than us. To get one over on us. The person that was there to help them; the person that spent time making sure their car was perfect upon delivery, spending time to program their car properly and go over every single feature with them, and that followed up to make sure their experience was a great one.

Do you know why salespeople follow up? Because after delivery, that customer will fill out a customer satisfaction survey, and if that salesperson receives anything less than 10’s for every category, there is a good chance that they will not be eligible for ANY bonus. If you fall beneath a 9.4 for your ratings, no bonus for you my friend.

That’s what would hurt the most. Being talked down so far on price, that you literally made $100 dollars on the car you sold (which you would never see by the way because that went to paying back the draw against your commission) getting a bad rating, getting abused by a customer who was impatient, pushy, inappropriate, and flat out a terrible human being... all of that and the knowledge that your customer made $75,000 that month, and spent a week negotiating a $50 difference in monthly payment until there was no profit left for you.

Lets do the math on that:

Base salary at most NYC dealerships: $100 - $200 a week

Draw at most NYC dealerships: $100 - $200 a week

10 car sales to rich people who negotiate you down to nothing at $100 a car: $1000 for the month

Optimistically:

$1600 base salary and draw + $1000 for cars sold + $500 bonus if you stayed above a 9.4 rating - $800 for draw owed = $2300 a month.

That equals to a yearly salary of $27,600 before taxes working between 45 and 50 hours a week, 5 - 6 days (not including the extra time worked when a customer comes in 5 mins before closing). A.k.a. $11.29 an hour. And this is for someone who works in Manhattan, arguably the most expensive place in the US.

If every deal a car salesperson made was as bad as the deal we just discussed, than that salesperson would make more money working at McDonald’s, working 40 hours a week. And not all salespeople sell 10 cars a month.

So, the next time you walk into a car dealership, or coffee shop, or restaurant, or any other time you walk into a retail situation; before you engage, think, how would I like to be treated in this situation?

Some of the best people I’ve met work in sales, and you undoubtedly know someone who works in sales as well. So, lets treat them better, because in one way or another, we are all salespeople.

DrJohannVegas > dr861 11/15/2015 at 22:52

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I understand your feelings, especially those regarding the stigma around the career. But, the choice to enter a career where earnings potential is determined by how (relatively) high one can keep a price while still closing a sale is the decision of the salesperson. The very same process which offers good earnings (pricing negotiation) also offers the same risks. You don’t hear traders complaining that the market should treat them better.

The fact that the price is up for debate is what compels (and I choose that word carefully) buyers to seek the best possible deal, and the over-saturation of labor in the sales market, and over-saturation of retail options for many of these products is what gives buyers the leverage to push for ever lower prices. If selling cars was a bad gig, or as bad as some here on Oppo lament it is, the supply of salespeople would fall and the balance of leverage would shift back. I don’t push for a low price out of vendetta or animosity towards the salesperson, I do it out of reasonable self-interest. In the same vein, I’d expect counter-claims by buyers (“Let’s treat buyers better, they need a break.”) to fall on deaf ears. Again, not malice, but pure commercial interest. “It’s not personal. It’s business.”

Edit: I was going to leave this point out, but my mind itched, and I must scratch. 1) Paying more for a product is a miserable way to “help out” a salesperson if they only get a share of the profit, because every extra dollar I spend translates into only a fraction of a dollar for the salesperson. 2) If your earnings are determined by sales, not price, then you should rush to the minimum feasible price, thus saving yourselves and the customer time and energy. I bet that’d translate into more sales and better reviews than the traditional “repeated worksheets” model. Just saying: evaluate the incentive structure.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > dr861 11/15/2015 at 23:02

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I applied for a sales job once. They gave me a personality indicator test. I figured out how to cheat on the test; I was able to determine which answers they wanted to see. I gave myself a 93% on the test, not wanting to be greedy.

But here’s the thing: the perfect score on that personality indicator test would have made me out to be a ruthless, bloodthirsty executioner who cared not a bit about relationships nor what other people thought of me. Nothing could be further from what I am, so I declined the interview when they offered it to me.

I’m not saying it’s bad, just that it’s not me. Now I teach math to 7th graders.

Xyl0c41n3 > dr861 11/15/2015 at 23:14

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You’ve drawn a few conclusions based on false assumptions.

First, let me begin by saying that your basic premise, of treating people as you would like to be treated — aka the golden rule — is, indeed, something we all should aspire to follow.

However, some of the rest of the stuff you’re saying is extremely flawed.

Being on Oppo for more than five minutes is proof enough that people don’t go into a dealership looking for “the most expensive car” for as cheap a price as we can get. Yeah, we all have ultimate builds and dream garages, but most of us aren’t millionaires, and as such, we walk into dealerships looking for a car that can balance our wants and our budgets as best as we can manage. I, for example, went in looking for the cheapest car I could find that also ticked off a minimum set of must-have features. It wasn’t my dream car, but it WAS a car I could afford to pay for. I also did a shit ton of research before I ever walked onto the lot, so I knew exactly what I wanted. So I was especially annoyed that my salesperson kept trying to upsell me not only on available package options, but on the freaking model of the car, too. I still treated him with utmost respect, though. I wasn’t surprised at all, however, when a couple of days later, I got a phone call from the dealership’s sales manager informing me that my salesperson had been fired.

I realize some people walk into dealerships without researching what they want, or without even knowing what they want. I realize some people walk in with wads of cash or multiple platinum cards and the “bow before me, peasant” attitudes to match, but I think you’re stretching.

Also, this passage troubled me:

“When you want to order Pizza for dinner but your wife wants Chinese; the process of convincing her to get Pizza - Sales. When you meet a girl for the first time, and you want to take her on a date, but she’s taking some convincing... that’s sales too.”

So, your two examples of being a salesperson in private life are to convince women to do something they don’t want to do? That’s just more than a little creepy. I mean, sure, there’s something to be said for persistence, but if that girl you just met doesn’t want to go out with you, maybe that’s not a coquettish attempt to play hard to get. Also, why can’t you get Chinese this time? Or is your wife just a bad salesperson?

GTRZILLAR32-Now saving for Godzilla and a condo > dr861 11/15/2015 at 23:14

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As someone who is trying to make a career in car sales I just want to say thank you for posting this. It’s been almost 7 months since I started and for me I am still excited every day I go to work. I work at a top notch dealership that requires things to get done the right way and I think a lot of our customers appreciate that. However, customers still expect massive discounts on new cars and even used...in reality there is not much room for mark up because of the Internet. If we don’t advertise our best price people will go buy elsewhere, even to save a couple hundred dollars.

DrJohannVegas > GTRZILLAR32-Now saving for Godzilla and a condo 11/15/2015 at 23:18

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Why did you choose to go into car sales?

dr861 > DrJohannVegas 11/15/2015 at 23:22

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I completely understand and you are correct in many ways. Forking up extra money just to “help out” is not of interest to most. But consider paying a little more for your car to be something equivalent to a tip. It’s a big tip, bit it’s a big purchase. Just like when you sell your home, you pay the agent who sold it. It’s usually a large percentage, but they did a job for you that you could have done yourself, and you paid a lot for it. No one has to use a car dealer, you are free to order direct from the manufacturer. But you use a car dealer for the speed, price, and the fact that there is someone there to facilitate the purchasing process, and also be held accountable for it.

As far as a situation where the price is set, I agree that this would cure most issues in the car dealership process, but because there are very few dealerships that practice the “one price best price” methodology, leaves customers thinking that it is in fact not the best price, and wind up buying a different make, or from a dealership that offers to haggle. The dealership where I worked used to have a best price policy, and they suffered a loss in business. This situation would only work if all dealerships worked on set prices.

As far as “choosing” sales as a career, I think you will find that very rarely do people actively choose to work a commission based job. For many, a commission based job is the only option people have at making a larger salary when coming from a lower income background. Being a car salesperson is a job that people pick between jobs, no one intends for it to be their final career choice, just like working at starbucks, or being a restaurant server. Using someone’s career choice as an excuse to pay them poorly is a bit of a cop out if you ask me.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > dr861 11/15/2015 at 23:30

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“Car salespeople have possibly the worst reputation in retail. In fact, calling someone a car salesperson, in itself, can be an insult, which is horrifying.”

Could be worse... you could be called a used car salesperson ...

;-)

smobgirl > Xyl0c41n3 11/15/2015 at 23:32

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I had a little chuckle at your sales person upselling. When I went to look at the used Abarth I ended up buying, the sales guy spent the entire time trying to convince me I wanted a Fiat Pop... because I could pick whatever color I wanted. Or if I really wanted more power, the turbo would be plenty - I didn’t need an Abarth. The dealership is truly a different experience from a female point of view.

dr861 > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 11/15/2015 at 23:36

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There’s a difference between making the most that you can within reason, and gouging the customer. I’d say it seems like your assuming quite a bit about the employer that may have hired you without actually meeting them. Lets also be absolutely clear that this is a capitalist country and making as much money as you can is widely accepted as the status quo, but for some reason doing well as a car salesperson is viewed more poorly than earning $300,000 plus as a CEO of a fortune 500 company, when both have the same exact goal: drive profits up.

What I’m trying to focus on is why making more money, which is what we are all trying to do, is viewed so negatively in the field of sales. Everyone accepts paying $3.00 for a cup of coffee at starbucks when we know damn well that it costs them $0.50 or less.

No one I know describes me as blood thirsty or ruthless and that’s because I’m not. Suggesting that you have to be a shark or vicious to be a car dealer could not be further from the truth. The people that do the best in car sales are genuinely good people who want their customers to leave happy, and to retain them as a customer for life. That doesn’t happen by treating your customers badly.

dr861 > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 11/15/2015 at 23:37

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Lol that’s true, and I have been.

dr861 > GTRZILLAR32-Now saving for Godzilla and a condo 11/15/2015 at 23:38

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Nice buddy! Keep going!!!

DrJohannVegas > dr861 11/15/2015 at 23:39

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Thanks for taking the time to respond. I’d start by taking a bit of issue with two of your points: 1) Recall that, in many real estate situations, the buyers and sellers BOTH have agents, who are (at least in principle) supposed to negotiate in their interests with all of the attendant special knowledge about that kind of economic exchange. The same is not true for car sales. 2) Because of franchise laws, dealers (as a group) are not one option for buying a new car, they are the only option. (In many areas, rules regarding real estate markets and requirements for agents and the attendant additional fees are similar.) If I want a new car, I don’t “choose” to use a dealer, I am compelled to.

Also, if starting a dealer were an unprofitable prospect, no new dealers would arise. I’ll concur that collusion on pricing would be a good thing for dealers, although the competition would then shift to quality/service, and I expect the same discussion would arise in a different form.

As far as the final point on “choosing” sales: I think you’ve missed my point a bit. I’m quite aware of the challenges of income and class mobility. The thing which makes it an option which one would consider in the first place - the opportunity (real or perceived) for higher salary through commission - is the very mechanism which you target as the source of grief. Taking a job in commission-indexed-salary sales (in any field, not just cars) is like taking a bet on one’s self and hoping it pays off.

dr861 > Xyl0c41n3 11/15/2015 at 23:44

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I wasn’t trying to use Opponauts as the standard car buyer. That we are not. In fact, because we are car people by nature, we are actually the most irrational car buyers out there, because we want fun over cost.

Didn’t mean to use lady convincing in both examples, and it was totally unintentional. If it came out as creepy, my bad. I was just trying to use relatable examples.

I’m not trying to coerce women into doing anything... especially eat pizza against their will.

Xyl0c41n3 > smobgirl 11/15/2015 at 23:44

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Yuuuuuup!!

I shit you not, my salesperson tried to dissuade me from the car I wanted because it didn’t have a vanity mirror. A fucking vanity mirror. I thought that stereotype was just that, a stereotype. I legit sat there quiet for a beat because I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t kidding.

Other things he said to me to try to get me into a more expensive car:

It doesn’t have alloy wheels. (I’m perfectly fine with steelies).

But the steel wheels aren’t very pretty. (I already told you I don’t care about having steelies.)

This one has this super cool infotainment center! (I don’t care about satellite radio).

We tinted the windows on this one for you already. (That’s your fault, buddy).

We have it in red, and doesn’t it look nice? (The red paint was a $500 up charge and one of the few deal killers on my list was literally, “I don’t want a red, white, or black car. It can be ANY color but those three.”)

Then, sitting back in his office trying to work out the financing, he kept talking about the financing to my dad, who I had brought along for moral support more than anything else. My dad repeatedly kept telling the guy, “It’s her car, she’s paying for it. I’ve got nothing to do with it.” The guy’s sales manager, who took over my sale after he got fired, did the same thing.

dr861 > DrJohannVegas 11/15/2015 at 23:53

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I hear you about commission based sales, but firmly disagree that it is like taking a bet on one’s self and hoping it pays off. If that is your position when entering a commission based job, you will most definitely fail. The amount of work output is directly related to amount of deals closed.

Even if you are required to use a dealer where you live, I still believe that is not an excuse to pay them poorly. You don’t pay your waiter poorly just because they are a middle man between you and the kitchen. And in real estate, there are many many examples where only one side is using an agent, or even using the same agent to represent both parties (dual agency).

Xyl0c41n3 > dr861 11/15/2015 at 23:56

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Yeah, I know oppo isn’t a fair or representative sample of car buyers, but that’s my point. If even we aren’t out to get the lowest price at the expense of the salesman, then the average buyer likely isn’t, either. Most people just want something they can afford and that looks nice to them. Most people usually have to come to some sort of compromise.

As far as pizza or Chinese... Why not both? Dammit. Now I'm hungry.

dr861 > Xyl0c41n3 11/16/2015 at 00:00

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You should be right, but unfortunately that was not my experience. 90% of people who walk into a dealership will not walk out with a car, even if they are ready to buy at that instant, and even if we have given them our best price.

GTRZILLAR32-Now saving for Godzilla and a condo > DrJohannVegas 11/16/2015 at 00:23

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I have always wanted to work with cars but lack the technical skill to be a technician, not that I'd want to be. I hope to use my current job to learn about the industry/sales/service and try to continue my career in exotic car sales. If that's not what it is cracked up to be I can always go back.

E92M3 > dr861 11/16/2015 at 00:36

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It’s really unlike any other business. In most businesses the sales people are rewarded, and regarded the highest. Just an example a Software Company I used to work at. The sales guys made $300k+ a year. They didn’t even really know how to use the software. They would literally meet with potential clients, spout off whatever info the marketing person gave them, wine and dine customers, and collect huge commissions. They even had the developers doing their demos for them. The developers literally did all the hard work and made less than a 1/3rd of the sales guys.

In a lot of cases service advisors make more than the salesmen, as do some of the technicians. But it’s the salesman who put in 10-12 hr days, work every Saturday, work most holidays, have to wear a tie everyday, and have a horrible stigma. And after all that if they can’t meet the managers target they are threatened with losing their job. Could you imagine being a salesman at a Mitsubishi dealership? They must have an enormous turnover.

Biggus Dickus (RevsBro) > dr861 11/16/2015 at 00:55

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From the buyer pespective, I have zero obligation to look after what is in the dealers best interest. It sounds savage, but I’m only out for myself. That doesnt mean i wont be nice, but im not going to leave easy money on the table. From my experience, the best way to counter a negotiator like that is being willing to tell them to go pound sand.

Khalbali > dr861 11/16/2015 at 01:17

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I agree for the most part, I did sales for over a year before switching to wrenching a couple months back. My biggest issue was just how shitty and rude people were, my pay was generally a lot better than you describe in nyc. You don’t have to pay more for the car but at least have some respect for the salespersons time, don’t spend days test driving and negotiating and then buy a car down the street at a dealership you talked to for five min without at least letting me try to beat the price.

Factoriaflint > dr861 11/16/2015 at 07:56

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‘The worst part, by far, is that the people who get the cheapest cars are the richest people. Stockbrokers, bankers, hedge fund vp’s, etc. They would come in and tear us to shreds. Do you know why they did it? For sport . Because they wanted to come in and flex, to show us how much better they were than us.’

This happens in higher education all the time. Its frustrating, infuriating, and creates more problems than I care to count. Great post!

yamahog > dr861 11/16/2015 at 10:01

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Thanks for sharing, I used to work in a deli and in retail so I know how nasty people can be to those they perceive as “beneath them” and as a result I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt even if my coffee takes an extra 5 seconds or whatever :)

For what it’s worth, I had a very good dealership experience when I was test driving cars, so much so that I gave a write up and ended up ordering and buying an SS 1LE from the same salesman, and gave him perfect reviews across the board. It was a serious breath of fresh air to deal with him and the rest of their respectful, professional staff (as opposed to some of the crap you tend to get as a woman in the market for a new car). I appreciate that he follows up with me (and the dealership also sent me a birthday card!) and definitely refer friends to them if they’re in the market for a Chevy. I also think that calling ahead to request a test drive as opposed to just walking in during a busy weekend helps the sales staff know that you’re serious.

Butttt, (and I get this is just a tiny bit of your post), I do want to echo Xyl0 here.... if someone really wants to go on a date with you, they won’t need convincing :P

Frank Grimes > dr861 11/16/2015 at 14:13

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eleanor is ugly and needs to go on a diet.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > dr861 11/16/2015 at 14:49

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I hope I did not give the wrong impression in my comment; I certainly did not mean to ascribe anything to you at all. I only meant to say that I felt lucky to have it pointed out, correctly I think, that I am not cut out for the work.

There’s a guy that I know at church — I’m 51 and he’s 60 or 62 — who ran a floor covering business for many years and did quite well for himself. He used to brag to me about how much money his sales people were earning, all of it commission. The more his people made, the more he was making. And he drove a really hard bargain himself. Always. Really great guy, mentor and friend.

I am not a businessman. Not, not, not.

There’s a brilliant episode of This American Life about a month the reporter spent at a car dealership. I was really surprised by the drama of it all.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives…

Cheers!

dr861 > Frank Grimes 11/16/2015 at 16:13

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Get out.

Nauraushaun > dr861 11/16/2015 at 21:12

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Unfortunately I think it’s the nature of a salesperson. Trying to coax people into spending more of their hard-earned, or spending it on things they don’t want to spend it on. This isn’t true of other fields.

Given that the nature of the field turns human nature against salespeople, maybe the answer is not to be one. Similar to how, if you don’t like digging through people’s shit, you shouldn’t be a plumber.

Frank Grimes > dr861 11/16/2015 at 22:59

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nah.