Where do car salesmen, or any salesmen for that matter, learn their trade? Do they study sales in college or do they somehow get a job selling (cars for example) and then learn as they go, like an apprentice program? Any car salesmen on the Dope?
I ask because my oldest son is out of work. He has never really been IN work that much really. His personality would suggest some sort of job where he meets and communicates with people, something he is very good at and loves, and that suggests sales to me. He would make a good used car salesman actually. But how does one start in that line of work? If there are training programs that will teach someone how to sell I would enroll him. If you have to get the job first I’ll start looking for ways for him to do that.
Walk into a dealership and sell yourself. They will take care of the rest.
Here is a piece from Edmunds on a reporter who became a car salesman to see what really goes on. Not meant to dissuade the choice of job in any way, but he seemed to get a job pretty easily.
IANA car salesman but I can’t imagine selling cars is all that different than selling anything else; it’s primarily a matter of being personable and being knowledgable about the product, in this case cars.
When I was out of work I always saw tons of auto sales jobs being advertised in the paper. It wasn’t something that interested me but they always caught my eye with their claims of “BIG commissions! Earn $100,000 your first year! Paid Training! No experience necessary!” which gives me the impression that a lot of dealers are willing to provide any training that is needed. I’d imagine there’s a pretty high turnover rate in that industry what with the economy and the general transient nature of the job (grass is always greener at the next dealership down the road).
I don’t know where you are in VA but I looked in the Washington Post and quickly came across this job in Woodbridge. I’m sure there are many more just like it everywhere.
Awesome replies so far. Thank you. I like the idea of “sell yourself.” Woodbridge is within easy driving distance. My son will not be in the area for another month but when he gets here that will be a great place to start looking. If he was here now we would be in the car tomorrow morning.
Usually, this school is reserved for manufacturer’s warranty administration people. However, another version is available through the local used car dealer who takes prospects under their wing.
While it seems sarcastic at first, these things exist in training classes at manufacturers and within dealerships. Of course they are not called “liar school.” They are called sales training or customer satisfaction training and so forth.
Used vehicle sales is still horse trading. Both sides of the deal are attempting to best the other individual. This is why I always buy a vehicle from a private owner. At least then I have a chance.
PS. Sales is the only occupation where you can actually earn what you are worth. If your son is good, he won’t take much training before succeeding.
Most sales jobs have training programs that teach you ways to sell. Believe it or not these actually work. I worked in hotels as a revenue (handles reservations) manager. And when we trained our agents and made them use scripts to the letters ours sales would increase by at least 50%, if not more.
There are definite techniques that work and those which don’t.
You also have to meet sales quotas or you’re gone. So that weeds people out very quickly.
But how do you get into them? Do you get the sales job first, then they train you or is it possible to do the training through a trade school or something? I’ve done some light searching and there are lots of places to get vague “business” training but no sales training places have jumped out at me.
I have never seen a shortage of sales jobs advertised. I think getting an entry-level sales job isn’t hard if you show that personality in an interview.
A lot of companies with entry-level sales want you to be “trainable”. Which I think means you are impressionable enough to be wiling to follow the training to the letter and not ad lib. They frown on having people with too many of their own ideas. But if they take you, they will indoctrinate you with everything you need to know.
Since most salesmen work on commission, there’s very little risk for the dealer. If your son doesn’t sell any cars, he’s not going to get paid. They are only going to keep so many salesmen on staff because there’s nothing worse than too many sales people competing with each other for customers, it reflects poorly on the dealership.
When I was a used car salesman in Virginia Beach, they held their own “salesman” course on how to sell cars. It was about a week long, they had a book, and that’s about it as far as training goes. The rest will be your ability to “read” people correctly in terms if they are actually buying/browsing and the ability to “haggle” correctly. As, there is a certain skill involved, like with fishing, to jiggle the bait the right way and resist the right way to get them to bite and hold on.
Also, at first we were not full-fledged car salesman in that we did not have a car-sales license. That was after we sold a few cars. The only difference is that w/o the license you can’t talk price so the manager took it over from there.
As far as compensation is concerned it will vary on the dealership and if you are FT/PT. Most dealerships have what is called a “draw” for FT sales which allows them to have a certain amount of money per month in the off-season. But, you have to “earn” that money back through sales and there is an expectation that you will actually be selling cars.
The rest of the places/PT people will be commission only. Payout is a percentage of the net for the sold car and has little or nothing to do with the actual sales price. This payout can vary widely as some cars were obtained cheap and needed no repairs and little detailing and other cars may require a lot of repairs and extensive detailing.
My suggestion would be for your older son to pursue a degree in something like sales or business management. Or, at least go to a local community college and get certificates in business. That way it will be easier to get placed into a management position. As, most managers get a kicker based on their sales divisions earnings.
In case your are wondering, I did not make a whole lot of money. This was partly due to the fact that I started in the fall and quite in late winter. Also, as I was really good and determining if someone was going to buy or not, I was quite successful at finding a car the people liked and pitching it to them. This sounds good until you find out that the manager was splitting your sales with the FT sales staff so that they would have “something” in the terms of sales. So, I ended up making half as much as I could have due to that. I made a little over min wage. Being FT would not have helped in the terms of sales as I was there during peak hours and I was the number one sales guy after the managers.
When I was unemployed I applied for a sales job at the local Honda dealer. They brought in a trainer from someplace and held training for at least a week. The catch was that if you wanted your certificate you had to pay something like $395 – a bit of information they don’t tell you until just before the end. As it happened, my mother died and I had to leave the class just before ‘graduation’.
Everything I know about being a salesmen came from reading that Edmonds article already referenced. That, and watching Glengarry Glen Ross.
IOW, how do you learn to sell cars (or real estate) successfully? By becoming an unfeeling, uncaring, lying, manipulative, douchebag! Or so it would seem…
The bottom line is, they will hire almost anyone, but what they are really looking for is a sociopath. Those are the ones who make it and stick around. If your son is a sociopath he will do well, otherwise he will have to find honest work.
