Am I your car guy?

This is my first blog for driving sales. I would like to share perspective from the sales floor. My first post is about how I started in this business. I look forward to sharing my experiences and ideas from the sales floor.

 I was working in the Aircraft industry for years. The industry pays well as aircraft parts produce large profits. Then came 9/11/2001 the industry as a whole took a major hit. I made it until 2003 before my number came up.I was laid off. I could not make the money I did outside of the aircraft industry with the skills I had.
My wife and kids were out of town when I was laid off. I decided I wanted to get into sales because I thought If I hustled I could make the type of money I needed to survive. I read in my local paper that a local Chevy Dealer was hiring.
I put on a tie (one of three I had at the time) and went down to see what I could do. The GSM met with me and told me about all the money I could make. He asked me a few questions then bought in the business manager who asked a few more questions. The Manager said to me “you were laid off yesterday yet you put on a tie and came in the next day, I am going to take a chance on you.”
So I start the next Monday. Sunday I go to the airport to pick up my wife and kids. We were at the baggage return area and my wife asked me what was wrong? I told her I had bad news and good news… The bad news is I lost my job while you were gone. The good news is I am a Car Salesman! You should have seen her face.
Monday comes around it is two other aspiring salesman and me. We all go to a room upstairs to be trained and taught enough to get us down to the sales floor. One guy did not return from our first lunch break. The other did not show after a few days. During the training I am invited in to observe on a Saturday. I was sent to the deli with a gigantic food order for everyone. Here I am fresh off a job where I got big overtime pay for Saturday work two weeks prior to sitting in a deli with a tie on waiting for the food order. “I’m asking myself what the hell am I doing here?” Some how I stuck it out and started on the following Monday.
It was my first day I counted eleven salesman and only ten desk. They fired a guy that morning problem solved. So now I settle in at my first desk ever.From that desk over the next few weeks I saw them hire every guy with a heart beat. I guess when the GSM said he would take a chance on me was just words. That was an early lesson in my new career. I really liked the guys and I grew up around cars so this was fun.I thought to myself I must make this work. I really like coming to work everyday. I asked the boss where the plaque was for top salesman? He showed it to me and I told him I would be there soon. He then told me not to forget “you are still a f*%* rookie.” I could not get over how Managers can be so nice one minute then very short and uninterested the next. Well he ended up getting fired and It took me two months to sell the most cars and then I was on the plaque eight of the twelve months the following year. I am sure my trainer would have been proud of me but he was also fired.
The formula for becoming a car salesman in 2009 consist of two important things:
A good severance package from your previous job and a wife who can make enough money to carry you for four to six months.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Selling Skills, View from the Sales Floor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.