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I'm considering a job change. Been a bartender for a while. Was looking at going back to school and still am. But, I'm not completely sure what I'd be going for and I'm starting to ask myself if going back is something that I want to do or something I feel like everybody expects me to do. If I'd be happy or not. But, I do know this. I have about $7,000 in debt as is. My bank account doesn't really go much past $500 after all of my bills. I was talking to a friend of mine who sells cars at a Superior dealership. He makes fat cash. This is what I understand from it: - minimum wage base - obviously make your money selling cars and you can make $50,000-$80,000 annually easy with a lot of hard work - once you establish a reputation for being able to sell cars very well and a lot of them, you can make your schedule basically. Which, if I wanted to take a random Tuesday off, sure. Do it. A week off? Do it. 4 months off? Do it. The job is still here waiting for you. - you're basically always on call with customers - you don't have to be an EVIL salesman. You can be honest and make yourself money while also helping customers make the decision that will make them happiest I've always been a great salesman, hard worker, and I am VERY sociable. I also feel like I'm very, very good at negotiating. My idea, if I have the right idea about all of this, is take the job. Save a TON of money (ton for being single without kids or wife and such), pay off ALL of my debt, save a bunch of money to go back to school on eventually, and be able to take time off and travel. Maybe go across the world to different countries and experience a lot of different cultures and still always have a job back here when I need to make some extra cash. Car salesmen, do I have the right idea?
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Oct 6, 2015 00:06
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I have not been a car salesman before, but I do have an employee that has & I have talked to him about it. You will make alot of money in a good month, and terrible money in a poor month. In general, it will be harder to sell cars in the winter months. You will work all sorts of ungodly hours and basically have no nights or weekends.
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Oct 6, 2015 00:25
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Right now, I'm averaging $2,500 a month. Sometimes it's closer to $3,000 a month.
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Oct 6, 2015 01:07
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Car sales is feast or famine. If you have a good month, save your money for when you have a terrible month. I'll break down your points. - minimum wage base - obviously make your money selling cars and you can make $50,000-$80,000 annually easy with a lot of hard work What you know is correct about minimum wage base, but you don't get minimum wage then whatever you sell is a bonus in your pocket. What it is, is a draw against commission meaning that if you make $1000 a month just in minimum wage and $800 a month in sales, you don't get $1800, you get $1000. The base is your minimum wage, once you break past minimum wage in sales, the extra is what you take home in taxed commission. If you make $1200 in sales, then you take home $1200 in taxed income. - once you establish a reputation for being able to sell cars very well and a lot of them, you can make your schedule basically. Which, if I wanted to take a random Tuesday off, sure. Do it. A week off? Do it. 4 months off? Do it. The job is still here waiting for you. If you don't want a job or to be known as "that guy" who nobody can count on, then yes that's a feasible schedule. Realistically though, no, you don't get to do that it's an 8 hour a day job working upwards of 6-7 days a week. It's not an easy business where you walk in sell something and everybody thinks you're god. It's highly competitive and honestly the money in the business isn't really in sales, it's in management+. - you're basically always on call with customers Sorta, not really. Depending on the dealership maybe? Carmax/other places with no commission no. Places that pay draw against commission which is how it sounds Superior dealership is, then maybe? If your customer comes in and you're not there or with another customer, then expect it to get sold by somebody else. - you don't have to be an EVIL salesman. You can be honest and make yourself money while also helping customers make the decision that will make them happiest This is quite true. We employed people who were lovely salesman and if we heard anything about it, we got rid of them. The best salesmen are the ones who are honest with the customer because we know we won't have to run damage control. It pays to know everything about your product. In all honesty, the best place to work if you're just starting out, if one is in your area, is Carmax. This will let you know if it.s something that you are really into without having to go the feast or famine route since they don't pay commission.
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Oct 6, 2015 22:55
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Selling cars is inherently a dishonest venture, dealers will pull shady poo poo they will ask you to pull shady poo poo, Even if you aren't an aggressive sales person you'll be required to play monthly payment 4 square, you'll be bonusesd to fleece trade ins and hide financing charges by lowering trade-in values or upping interest past what the institution is giving you. You'll be sending folks to the finance managers office to get good news that floor mats and a poo poo 1 warranty that covers nothing is only $90 a month more on a 60 month loan. Don't forget I'd you get both they'll thrown in scotch guard window etching and a licence plate holder (an $800 value) You'll be asked to not mention that car came from the Carolina branch of dealerships after the floods.
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Oct 10, 2015 02:54
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There is a great episode of This American Life about this that you should listen to: http://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/513/129-cars
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Oct 18, 2015 14:48
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How do these car buying websites (Truecar.com, etc) come into play?
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Oct 18, 2015 15:31
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Mister Kingdom posted:How do these car buying websites (Truecar.com, etc) come into play? They have deals with the dealers to secure the price/honor what the price is that's offered.
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Oct 18, 2015 20:19
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tater_salad posted:They have deals with the dealers to secure the price/honor what the price is that's offered. Yeah, I know that, but will car buying reach the "I saw it at Best Buy, but I'm going to order from Amazon" level?
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Oct 18, 2015 23:30
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Mister Kingdom posted:Yeah, I know that, but will car buying reach the "I saw it at Best Buy, but I'm going to order from Amazon" level? I'm not a car salesman but I've had to buy 2 new cars in the last 2 years (and 3 cars in the last 4) and it's always so shady. I wouldn't be surprised if it went that way. There are services now that just give you the flat price of the car, you can take it in and pay that price and leave. I didn't do it, as I play dealerships against each other to keep getting a lower and lower price until it isn't worth my time to continue. But I would embrace an option where you pick out the car and then use an online service to buy it. I still did it the old fashioned (if you want to call it that) way as I got a better price in the long run. If the Amazon type model included bypassing the "finance manager" and his high pressure rustproofing/fabric guard etc. bullshit I would pay extra for the convenience of not dealing with him/her.
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Oct 19, 2015 14:33
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Things to consider: The thing about taking weeks off randomly and not getting fired is only true if you're making six figures and the dealership is making millions off you and they need you. You will be treated like an entry level retail minimum wager if you're not making them big bucks, especially around holidays. Customers will absolutely hate you on a weekly or daily basis even if you do everything to not be one of the "bad guys". People will offer you literally half or 3/4 of the price of a car, and be angry when you try to explain 'no that's less than we paid for that car and even if it wasn't I don't set the prices'. Problems with the car? Maybe even a problem the customer actually caused? I never met the mechanics, who was that loving scumbag thief motherfucker salesman again? Let me check my cell phone. Time to make some angry calls!
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Oct 22, 2015 00:11
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JiimyPopAli posted:I'm not a car salesman but I've had to buy 2 new cars in the last 2 years (and 3 cars in the last 4) and it's always so shady. Back in the year 2000 a writer for Edmunds got a couple of jobs selling cars to get a behind-the-scenes look at things. Even then savvy people were starting to just contact the fleet manager saying they want model X with options Y and Z at some price between invoice and the actual dealer cost. That's 15 years ago when far fewer people were on the internet. I can't imagine that fewer people are bypassing the salesman now. Even now the article is a good read to get an idea of why walking onto some car lots can feel so scummy.
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Oct 22, 2015 17:34
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zYf9Uw-6Ak
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Oct 22, 2015 23:11
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extra stout posted:Things to consider: This is all pretty much true. It's also worth noting that the car business relies heavily on customer reviews. When you buy a new vehicle, you get a survey in your email, and you're asked to rank the dealership and the salesman from a scale from 1-10, 1 being awful, 10 being awesome. On this scale, 10 is 10, 9 is considered 7 and anything below 9 is considered 0. If you get a score below 9, your livelihood may be on the line. It's a pretty lovely and unfair system, and I've seen people get canned for getting an 8 on the customer survey. So yeah, cranky customers are not just annoying but can literally put your employment on the line. The customer usually don't see it this way, for them it's usually just another dumb survey to fill out, but expect to have a nice conversation with your manager if you get a sub-9 score.
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Oct 23, 2015 17:14
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89 posted:- minimum wage base Well this part is true. Don't kid yourself, there's no such thing as a car salesman who works on commission who isn't at least a little bit sketchy- your take home is a direct function of how much you can get people to spend over what the thing is worth. When you're having a bad month you can bet your rear end you are going to try and sell every worthless add on you can so you can feed yourself/pay off your debt. Even the "straight talker" is just another type of selling technique designed to put people at ease so you can sell them rust protection or whatever. Also keep in mind you are going to go from a job where you are generally liked if you aren't a dick to a job that is pretty much universally reviled. "I can't wait to go talk to a car salesman" said no one, ever. Your schedule will also be a solid 6 days a week and you probably will never reach the point where you can make your own hours if you plan on going back to school anytime in the next decade. Keep in mind that people with variable income also have the tendency to talk about their best months / weeks while omitting the part where they made nothing for weeks on end, I'm sure as a person in the service industry you know all about that. quote:- you don't have to be an EVIL salesman. You can be honest and make yourself money while also helping customers make the decision that will make them happiest ... I also feel like I'm very, very good at negotiating. What value do you think you are providing exactly that can't be figured out after 10 minutes on google? Also the second point contradicts the first, the whole point of being a good negotiator is to get more money out of someone for no additional value provided. Evil? No, but still nothing to pat yourself on the back about either. ifuckedjesus posted:I have not been a car salesman before, but I do have an employee that has & I have talked to him about it. You'll have Saturday night in most states since Sunday is usually closed by law (or by a law stipulating that the sale can't happen on Sunday even if they are open). Most places aren't open terribly late either. At least for the op on this front he'll actually be doing better than as a bartender.
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Oct 23, 2015 20:29
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89 posted:Right now, I'm averaging $2,500 a month. Sometimes it's closer to $3,000 a month. Thing is if you good experience you can be doing a lot better by simply changing jobs or moving to the right area. Why go to the bottom of the totem pole to something you might not be any good at when you are deep in debt?
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Oct 23, 2015 20:45
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I worked in service department a long time ago and I'll tell you right now - run far away. There are better ways to make a living. There's a reason a lot of salesmen end up divorced or single. You work your life away and have no free time. Free time is lost sales. Even the better salesmen are at a dealership all the time. Car sales is getting even harder as well. Salesmen are paid based on gross profit of a deal. The problem is with the Internet, people are getting much more savvy in buying cars so dealer profit is dropping, and so are salesman commissions.
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Oct 23, 2015 21:35
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I sold cars for right around 3 years at a large dealership network in northern Virginia, from Aug 2008 - Mar 2012. Keep in mind, I never sold cars on the floor. I was strictly internet sales, so I didn't have to deal with ups or anything like that. Long story short, I hated it. Things started out fine, where I had a rookie salary of either my commission or 2.5k / month, whichever was better. My dealership did this so that since you are new, you probably won't be selling many cars, and if you don't make any money in the first month, why stick around? It was basically a little insurance policy. This lasted for 3 months, which was basically how long my honeymoon period with the dealership lasted. My hours were abysmal. We had alternating shifts, either from 9a-5p, or 1p-9p. This would alternate each week, so one week I'd work MWF 9a-5p, TTh 1p-9p. Saturdays were 8:30a-7p, no exceptions. Each team worked every other Sunday, 11a-5p -- unless it was a holiday weekend, the last weekend of the month, or you were having a bad month and were expected to come in to help your sales. The "A" team had Tuesdays off, "B" team had Wednesdays off. This was your only day off, and you couldn't trade it or anything like that. If a holiday fell sometime during the week, everyone was expected to work 9a-9p the day before, of, and after the holiday, and then that entire weekend as well. Since I worked in internet sales, I didn't get paid on commission, unless it was a used car. My commission structure was $175 / car from 0-8 units. 8.5-12 was $225, 12.5+ $275. This did apply retroactively, so that was nice. On used cars, we got 20/25/30% of front end commission, again, based on sales for the month. We also got bonuses for hitting a certain number of cars sold, something like $200 for 8 cars, $350 for 12, and $500 for 15+. HOWEVER, if your CSI rating fell below a 9, you lost ALL bonuses. This could easily be a thousand dollar hit to your paycheck, sometimes for no fault of your own. We also got a "draw" every month, which was 800 dollars, paid twice a week. At the end of the month, they took this money back out of your commission check. It was basically so you had money for bills / food / etc throughout the month instead of all at once at your commission check. Our CSI survey asked you to rate the salesperson, the dealership, the inventory, finance, and the service department if you had any interaction with them. Dealership messy and I get an 8 out of 10, that drops my score. Finance try to pull some shady poo poo and include a huge warranty and not tell the customer, but the customer finds out and calls them out on it, and then gives the finance department a 1 out of 10, that really hurts my score. In addition to losing bonuses for the month when you drop below a 9, for every survey that WASN'T a perfect 10 across the board, my pay got docked 50 bucks. It doesn't matter if I got 15 10s out of 16, if that 16th one was a 9 not a 10, boom, there's 50 bucks out of my pocket. Management always treated us like children -- there was never any respect anywhere in the dealership. Not salesman to salesman, manager to salesman, salesman to manager, no where. Save for the one good friend you'll make there, everyone is out to get everyone it seems like -- which I feel is true because everyone there is your competition. Honestly, I'm surprised I made it 3 years in the business. The business didn't suit my personality, nor did my ethics really agree with what I was doing. But I had just moved to Washington DC, needed a job, and they hired me on the spot. One thing I did take away from my time at the dealership was on my very first day, my manager told me "Once you've had a job selling cars, you'll never have to be unemployed again. Car salesmen are a dime a dozen, and if you are ever out of work, you can go to any dealership, tell them you have car sales experience, and they'll probably hire you on the spot." Finally, I'll leave you with one of my worst experiences selling cars. It was the Friday before President's Day in 2009. Since it was a holiday weekend, everyone was expected to work 9a-9p that Friday. Anyways, I had been working with a customer for a few days now, and they were going to make the drive from Aberdeen, MD down to Springfield VA to pick up their new (to them) used car. Before they leave, they call and ask if their credit had been approved on this truck. I told them I didn't know since I don't handle that, but I'd speak to my manager and let them know. Talk to manager, who without looking up says "Yes, they're approved. Get them here." I call the customer back, tell them they are approved, and they say "Really?!" That sent red flags off in my head, so I went back to my manager, asked him again, this time explaining that they sounded very surprised that they were approved. He looks up, slams his hand into his desk and says "Don't ever loving second guess me again" "Ok, I won't" Fast forward two hours (so it is 11am now) and the customer gets there. I show them the car, they test drive it, they love it, we work the numbers on it, good to go. Except, when I take the deal to my manager, the same one who told me their credit was approved, he says that they have lovely credit, and there is no way they can get financed for this car. Well, gently caress. So I have to go break the bad news, and naturally, they are livid. They drove two hours to be told they can't get financed on this car. I keep talking to them, and my manager, and my manager thinks that they might be able to get approved on this second truck, which is located in Richmond VA at one of our sister stores. So, after talking to them some more, "virtually" showing them the vehicle online, working some more numbers, they agree. Except they need the car today, and it is now 5pm. So, my manager tells the customer no problem, and sends ME to go to Richmond at 5pm on a holiday weekend. Normally, this is a 4 hour drive round-trip from Springfield to Richmond. This time, it took me 4 hours just to get to Richmond. So it is now 9pm, I'm 2 hours from the dealership, and I call the customer telling them I have it, and I'll be back around 11pm. They tell me that they've already left the dealership, and are back at home. I say great, no problem, they can pick it up tomorrow. "Oh, no, that won't work, we need the vehicle tomorrow. Your manager said you could bring it to us tonight, here in Aberdeen." As you can imagine, I was beyond furious with my manager. That meant that I had AT LEAST 6 more hours of driving to do, starting at 9pm. I tried to call my manager over and over, but he kept sending me to voicemail. Anyways, I call a buddy of mine who worked at the same dealership, asked him to follow me to Aberdeen since I'd need a ride back to Springfield, and luckily he agrees. We get to Aberdeen around 1am, I call the customer, they come out, ask if they can test drive it, I tell them "Nope. I just drove it for 4 hours, she's fine. Take care." I get back to the dealership around 3am, and home to my house at 3:30am. I have to be at work the next morning at 8:30. I get there around 8:35am, with barely no sleep, and my manager had the nerve to yell at me for being late to the sales meeting. A month and a half later, I see the same truck that this whole fiasco was about back on our lot. I asked my manager about it, he says that the financing never went through, so the deal never happened. What does that mean? It means I worked an entire day, 17 hours, for no pay. No sale = no commission. That was when I knew I really had to get out. e: If you have any specific questions about selling cars, shoot them my way and I'll be happy to answer them.
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Oct 27, 2015 20:10
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Chaitai posted:One thing I did take away from my time at the dealership was on my very first day, my manager told me "Once you've had a job selling cars, you'll never have to be unemployed again. Car salesmen are a dime a dozen, and if you are ever out of work, you can go to any dealership, tell them you have car sales experience, and they'll probably hire you on the spot." English isn't my first language, but doesn't dime a dozen mean that there is a very large supply of salesmen? How would that make it unlikely to be unemployed in the future?
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Oct 27, 2015 21:13
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Per posted:English isn't my first language, but doesn't dime a dozen mean that there is a very large supply of salesmen? How would that make it unlikely to be unemployed in the future? this is a lesson in how if you're actually any good at fast-talking rubes you might be management material instead
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Oct 27, 2015 22:31
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Per posted:English isn't my first language, but doesn't dime a dozen mean that there is a very large supply of salesmen? How would that make it unlikely to be unemployed in the future? I think in this case, having a large supply of salesmen is the management 'ideal'. Since they don't get paid unless they make a sale it doesn't hurt to hire on another guy, and thats another guy out there pushing a car and adding to the competitive environment.
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Oct 28, 2015 13:19
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Blackchamber posted:I think in this case, having a large supply of salesmen is the management 'ideal'. Since they don't get paid unless they make a sale it doesn't hurt to hire on another guy, and thats another guy out there pushing a car and adding to the competitive environment. Yes, this is basically it. And since you have experience, you are already more qualified than probably 70% of applicants in the car business, meaning you stand out from the crowd a bit more than normal.
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Oct 28, 2015 16:48
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