Always wondered about this one-car salesmen appear to make good incomes, and the work isn’t physically hard-you basically take people out for test drives, then browbeat them into signing away $15-45,000 for the latest and greatest vehicle.
The down sides (as I see them):
-longhours-you have to work many nights till 9 PM, and weekends
-long stretches of boredom-waiting like a spiderin his web, for customers to enter and get snared
-you have to be really pushy, and bear down on your customers to sign
-you probably get called lots of bad names, when the customer decides he didn’t really want that new car!
So, car salesmen-is this an OK job? Do you like it? And-how much turnover in it is there-seems to me you see a lot of different faces in the showroooms!:dubious:
Not a lot of people can be good at it so they recruit by the hundreds and burn out the ones that don’t have it. I did okay at it for a while but couldn’t stomach what I had to do to make a living. I wasn’t asked to be unethical but I couldn’t stand constantly having to “work” pwople. You’ll see some really perverted twists of logic. If you really rape someone on a deal, just rob them blind and make and obscene profit they’ll love you and you’ll never hear a complaint. If you give someone a sweet deal and make no profit or actually take a loss they will hate you and be a thorn in your side until you die.
I have no doubt you can be successful and ethical and make a lot but it will take you a long time to reach that level. In the meantime you’ll be eating dollar store mac and cheese.
I second Padeye. I made the mistake of taking a car sales job this summer - they expect at least 70 hour weeks and ridicule you if you don’t come in on your day off. The “managers” I worked for were the most unprofessional people it’s ever been my misfortune to know, and they worked just as hard to rip off the salesmen as they did the customers. And I was bringing home more money on unemployment than I was selling cars.
I’d advise you to skip it. Not all car sales jobs will be as bad as the one I had, but do you really want to risk it for that one-in-a-hundred job?
IMHO it’s better than being a lawer, politician or insurance salesman. But just barely… 
also new car salespeople rate better than used in my book.
I sold cars for a year in 1986 after I moved to this area (Eastern Shore of MD) so my (now ex) wife could be close by her mother and father. I decided to try auto sales because when I was a Radio Shack Manager (and a quite successful one) I had a client who sold cars in the Mclean VA area and he extolled the virtues of being a car salesman and he always seemed to have plenty of loot to burn. It appeared to be a better bet than trying to sell tractors.
It was a multi-brand auto complex so you got to see different pay structures. Some commissioned people were paid fairly well in the Toyota-Mercedes dealership, but those in the Honda-Isuzu dealership (like me) were essentially a pair of shoes. Even though I moved a number of cars the compensation was a joke and I made less in 1986-87 than I had ever made before in my life, even as a Radio Shack trainee. It wasn’t really “sales” as you were expected to qualify the customer, be a charming tour guide and then bring in the assistant manager for price negotiation.
The true “sales” end was essentially taken out of our hands. There was some practical merit in this as I am sure many salespeople would have given away the farm to make the deal as we were paid 50- 200 per unit sold + a near minimum wage base. We were not paid on profit so there was no incentive to hold profit dollars for the delearship. That was the manager’s job and it was bit humilating to essentially be seen as chimps. We were forbidden to possess payment calculators as that was the finance guys job. The theory behind this was that Hondas “sold themselves”. We were simply qualifiers and tour guides.
It was something of a shock because I had previously always been a top performing salesperson and the absolute pittance I made for the year ($ 13,000 -14,000 IIRC) convinced me to switch to commercial real estate sales where I quintupled that income in the first year and was able to be a true professional.
But, I will say this for car sales. In my previous job as a Radio Shack trainee/ Manager I thought I was “selling”. I was always top of the district and region in personal sales, but after selling cars I realized I wasn’t really “selling” at Radio Shack. I was essentially being a very effective clerk. If you are allowed to take a car sale from greeting to closing the deal, that is as close to pure selling as it gets. You have a commodity item and you have to convince the customer to get it from you and not someone else who will give them roughly the same deal.
Car sales is a tough, tough gig to make real money at as a floor salesperson unless you are selling high volumes or high end vehicles. If you don’t have a hide like an alligator, a strong competitive streak and optimism to burn choose something else.
I second what Kilter and Pad had to say. I was selling new and used motorcycles/ATV’s/watercraft. I really enjoyed most of the customers, but the scum I was forced to work with was unbearable.
I made pretty good money by being honest and upfront with people. The scum I worked with made much more by lying, cheating and stealing. I got tired of it pretty quick and it became “just another job” but with some cool perks. I got to ride pretty much every new motorcycle released between 1990-1995, and meet some cool industry people (all of whom forget about you the second you leave the business) and take used bikes home everynight. Got to spend a 3 day weekend with a Ninja ZX-1100 (back when that meant something).
Not a “bad” job, but certainly not a great one, either.
Beer taste-tester. Now there is a “great” one!