Would you buy a new car from Johnny L.A.?

Hell with that noise, old bean. I’d walk.

Here you are, unemployed and selling your possessions, and you’re now expected to pony up $350 for a job you already doubt you’re suited for and for an employer who is tightfisted with prospects? The fact that the dealer never so much as mentioned this is a big red flag, to me.

Walk, walk, walk. Did you read the “Confessions” link above? Do you see yourself in this industry? Walk, my friend.

350 for a seminar? I’d walk if I were you.

Walk? Run. Fast and far, Johnny. Heck, you’d be better off as a bartender, if you just want some steady income to supplement/support your camera work.

At the end of the class, the instructor played some music. Old Dude next to me asked, ‘Is that a digital music recorder?’ I told him it was an iPod, and that I need to get one of those someday. Hot DMILF (sorry, but she really was attractive) said, ‘You know, iPods cost $349.’

More to the point: If I shoot my short film economically (4:1 ratio) it should take about eight 400’ rolls of film. $349 is three and a half rolls of film. (Actually, I seem to have an ‘angel’ – someone who will front the cost of the film; but I’d like to be able to pay for at least some of it.)

This actually gives me an ‘easy out’. I’m going to attend the seminar today (since payment is just required to ‘graduate’) so I can get some more insight into the car biz. (I think there might be a script in it.) When the time comes to part with cash I can tell the guy that I have a short film in the works, and that the fee for the class is half of my film stock budget. This will do a couple of things: First, it will allow me a graceful way of dropping out. Second, it will pretty much ensure that I don’t get an interview. This will allow me not to turn down a job I’m not really thrilled with, since it wouldn’t be offered anyway.

I am still looking for a job. Got a few potential leads from Monster, CareerBuilder and USAJOBS this morning. But I’ve ‘sold out’ before. I could have not taken a couple of good jobs, and turned my energies to filmmaking years ago. Now I’ve met a guy who has a busy videography studio, who wants to produce his friend’s short, my short, and a feature; plus the weddings, depositions and commercials that make up the bulk of his business. I’ve already learned the basics of the JVC GV-500 miniDV ENG camera and have gotten to use my camera dolly and the producer’s jib to good effect. I can get Final Cut Pro training (for free) any time I want. If I persue this path, I can eventually get paid for doing what I enjoy.

In the meantime… I’m still looking for a day job. I’m ready, willing and able to work. But I’m loth to pay three-and-a-half hectobones for an unguaranteed position in a field that I’m not really interested in.

Yeah, run away Johnny, especially if you think the job isn’t what you want to do. I thought it was what i wanted to do, and i still hated it.

I sold new cars for a year back in my younger days, before i came to the United States. It was in Sydney, Australia. I was 20 years old, and had been working as a cellarman and bartender for a couple of years after dropping out of college in my second semester.

I saw an ad in the paper for trainee salespeople at Holden dealerships around the state (Holden is the Australian arm of General Motors). I had always been a bit of a car nut as a teenager, and i had no real career plans at the time, so i thought i’d give it a go. The ad was placed by the car company itself, not by a particular dealership, and the idea was that they would select a bunch of young trainees, and we would each be placed in a dealership as close as possible to where we lived. After an initial interview, there was a three-day training seminar (no charge to us). Of the hundred or so who made it to the seminar, about 25 were chosen.

I was placed in a dealership near Manly, on Sydney’s northern beaches, which was pretty close to where i lived at the time. It was a relatively small dealership, with a monthly turnover of about 50-60 new cars (some of the larger dealerships sold in the hundreds per month, and i’ll bet the newer superstores they have now probably even get into the thousands). There was the Dealer Principal (that’s the guy whose name is on the door, and who is essentially GM of the whole operation), then there was the New Car Sales Manager (my direct boss), and four salespeople including me. Outside the new car area, there was also a used car section, a spare parts section, and, of course, a workshop where maintenance and repairs were performed.

To cut to the chase, i hated just about every minute of it. This is not to say that selling cars must always be a horrible job; it just was at the place i worked. A lot of this had to do with the New Car Sales Manager, who was a complete asshole. He was what they called in the industry a “one-shot” guy, or a “burner.” That is, he was so focused on getting as much as possible out of each deal that he ended up “burning” customers and ensuring that he got very little in the way of repeat business. A good sales manager is willing to give up a little in order to maintain a good relationship with the customer and get them back in three years time when they’re looking to buy another car.

The thing i hated most was cold calling. As the most junior person in the dealership, i had to call businesses and private homes from a master phone list and try to sell them a car. You think getting telemarketing calls trying to sell you long distance telphone service is bad? Try getting calls from someone asking you to fork over 20 grand on a new car. I got roundly abused by quite a few people, and i completely understood their position. I loathed and detested every minute of that, and made any excuse possible to get out of the office and away from the phone.

I also spent quite a bit of time calling on businesses and seeing if they were interested in changing over any of their company cars. This wasn’t quite so soul-destroying, because many of these places had purchasing managers or fleet managers whose job it was to maintain the company’s vehicles and turn them over when they had outlived their usefulness. Most of these people saw me as just another salesman, and i got some decent business out of some of them.

Dealing with businesses was different from dealing with private individuals, because for the businesses the bottom line was the one and only key. They usually got quotes from three or four dealerships, and if your quote was the best, then you got the deal. With individuals, money was important, but it was also important to be friendly and receptive to their needs. I had more than one person who bought a car from me, even though i wasn’t the cheapest dealer they had been to, because we got on well.

The problem in cases like this is that it’s often the nice people who get screwed. I remember one couple who wanted to trade their old-but-well-looked-after car on a new Calais, which was the top of the line and, in 1989, cost about $A38,000 with a 5.0L V8 engine and leather interior. The used car people offered $6,000 for their old car, and the couple didn’t haggle at all, either over the price of their trade-in or the price of the new car. So the dealership ended up making a profit of almost $6,000 on that car (at a time when profit margins of <$1,000 per car were not unusual), and i made almost a grand in commission. And i felt awful, because they were really nice people, and it would have taken me very little effort to get a couple of grand knocked off the top of their deal or added to the price of their trade-in.

Of course, you can argue that paying list price for a car isn’t really getting screwed, but no-one pays list price, and everyone haggles over the price of their trade. I did feel somewhat better when i delivered the car to them, because they were obviously so happy with it. Also, we had initially told them that it would take a week extra because we had to make a special order on one with leather seats, but i moved heaven and earth to get one from another dealer so they could have the new car in time for their Christmas vacation, and they were extremely grateful.

But still, i think for me it was my asshole Sales Manager who made the whole experience such a nightmare. He would even insist that we hand the new cars off to their owners with no more than about a gallon of gas in the tank, basically enough to get them to a gas station. Now, i had always thought that, if someone spends $20-30,000 buying a new car from you, the least you can do is make sure that they drive away with a full tank.

In the end, i stuck it out for exactly one year. That year, i made $35,000* before tax. I know that doesn’t sound like a lot now, but to a 20-year-old with no debt and few expenses in 1989-1990 that was a pretty decent income, especially as the job came with a company car (or a “demonstrator,” as they are called) and free gas. It allowed me to put a few grand away, and as soon as a year was up i quit and left for Europe and North America on a two year working holiday.

  • The job was wage plus commission. The commission rates were quite low, but the base wage was about $8 an hour, which meant that even if you had a bad month you still made enough to pay the rent. Of course, more than a couple of bad months would usually lead to dismissal. I sold almost no cars in my first three months, but that was sort of an extended training period where i was learning the ropes. I got some latitude because i had specifcally been taken on as a trainee; an experienced salesperson who sold as few cars as i did in those months would have been fired.

Very interesting link. We’re getting close to buying another car, and it was very informative to read about the salespeople we’ll soon be dealing with.

JohnnyPNW, you mentioned an office job in your OP. Can you pick up some temp work or something? I know it’s not the best work in the world, but it’s usually steady and 8-to-5 M-F, so you can plan your videography career around it.

Dang it, I forgot to say that Unemployment Insurance usually just suspends your claim while you work at temporary jobs if you keep them informed, so you can keep a claim going for a long time that way.

I’m registered with Manpower, Inc., but they say they don’t have anything in my line of work. I’ve sent my résumé to Manpower Professional.

And now, onto today’s seminar…

We ‘dressed down’ and went in pairs to various car dealers in the area. ‘Secret Shopper’ kind of thing. We went back to the class to share our experiences. The Sales Manager sat in on our pre-excursion role-playing and on our reports of our ‘secret shopping’. No doubt he was sizing us up for our sales potential.

Tomorrow we have to give a 3-5 minute presentation in front of the sales staff. After that, everyone will be interviewed individually. While the inteviews are being done, the AutoMax guy will collect money for the seminar. Guess who’s not going to pay.

I think it’s pretty sleazy that a fee was not mentioned until the end of the first day. Typical sales tactics: Isolate your customer (get us all into a room together, where it’s difficult to just walk out), make them feel obligated (‘Look at all the information we’ve given you!’), put the bite on them (‘You mean you sat there even after you knew there would be a fee? If you don’t pay us, you won’t get your certificate!’). Yeah, I’ve gained valuable knowledge. If nothing else, then my eyes will be wider open next time I buy a car. But I never agreed to a fee. They never said, ‘Pay now or get out.’ If they want to continue giving out information and letting us meet the sales staff, then that’s their worry for being sleazy. And if I ever do decide to be a car salesman – excuse me, ‘transportation consultant’ – then I’ve learned some skills.

The guy who sold me my Honda was a technician who became a salesman who went back to being a technician. He was awesome. Totally mellow guy. I would buy a Honda again anyway because I’ve had NO problems with my car (knockin’ on wood now hoping fate isn’t being tempted) but if he were still a salesman I’d do business with him again. But I agree with whomever said Hondas sell themselves. I had my mind made up before I even met my salesperson.

Yeah, I should have finished readin’ the thread. To me this just sounds like a way for them to make a bunch of money with a sales seminar. Glad to hear you aren’t paying. Good luck. I hope you find something that will work with the film stuff.

More power to you!

As Izzybella says, it sounds like a scam designed to rake in cash from the seminar, rather than a genuine effort to get employees.

I have to hijack this thread.

My sister called and said that my mom is not doing well. We’d thought she’d had two months, but now we’re hearing two weeks. The other night my mom was crying ‘Momma! Momma!’ in her sleep. Last night she told my sister good-bye. I’m not going to the seminar today. I think I’d better stay close to a phone.

Well, that sucks. Really sorry to hear it, and i hope your mum isn’t in any pain. Take care of yourself.