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Ask people if they'd consider a job in car sales, and most people would respond "no, I just don't have the right personality for it." That's the wrong answer, obviously, because in their negative affirmation they've actually just considered a job in car sales, then dismissed it, but I'm avoiding the point: most people don't see themselves as salespeople. I was, and still am, one such person.
Initially, I felt as though I wouldn't ever want to be such a pushy and persistent sort of person. Salesmen all seem gimmicky and shady, and even those who are likeable have a necessary bias to convince you to give them money. The fragility of relationships established between buyer and seller is never far from mind, like two vagrants, one possessing firewood and a lit fire and the other the fresh carcass of a day's hunt, calling out to each other from across a river, the surface recently frozen, neither willing to cross for fear of drowning, but both desiring to establish the trust necessary to generate a mutually beneficial transaction of the resources necessary to sustain their lives.
However, even with my preformed reluctance to participating in such transactions, I pushed myself into the cold wild, dedicating myself to the potential of a career in car sales. I watched videos, listened to audio books, and read books about the business. I cast aside my ego to venture forth naked of all but my curiosity and desire to achieve.
The weekend of my engulfment into car sales was highly unusual. The company owned three car lots, and had gathered each lot's used cars onto one lot, touting itself as the biggest used car sale in the area, or what I referred to as the largest used car sale in the history of the universe. There were roughly six sales representatives from each dealership present at all times, resulting in around 18 people standing, sitting, and walking around in anticipation of the daily catch, and that is really the analogy that best describes car sales: fishing.
Car dealerships are like bodies of water, each body possessing certain types of fish susceptible to specific baits and tackle. Modern dealerships straddle the line between stocked pond, in which the fishing experience is engineered so as to eliminate the unpredictability of a wild environment, while still offering food and access to wild fish through the tributary rivulets contributing to its water levels. The sales representative must possess the standardized tools that serve consistently for the generic fish, and a hodgepodge of collected that experience dictates will serve well in specific situations.
That weekend, the best bait to use was dynamite. I pushed myself in front of the other salesmen, addressed as many customers as I could see, regardless of appearance, smell, attractiveness, height, skin color, and otherwise, and without any previous experience and training, in two days' time sold two vehicles, all while earning the ire of 15 other salespeople who, apparently, believed that it to be the responsibility of the fish to jump into the, and here I cannot even say outstretched net, but I suppose to jump onto the shore of the lake, flop around down the road to a hardware store, sneak in through the back after an employee walks back in from a smoke break, wait for a clumsy customer to knock a hammer to the floor, swallow the entire hammer, flop back out through the back door at closing time after the employees leave, travel back down the road to the shore lined with fishermen, cough up the hammer into the air so that it falls back onto the fish's skull, and await the fisherman who, after chatting with the other fisherman about last night's adventures, happens to notice, while scanning the ground for cigarettes with a hint of remnant tobacco, the dried, suffering body of their day's catch lying unconscious on the sand.
It was a good start to my future career in car sales. Following the weekend sale, I sold a new car to a woman who I'd somehow established such a bond of trust that she felt comfortable telling me stories of her fake breasts, and how showing them to police officers had saved her from more than one ticket. I closed out that month by earning enough money from commission to have beat my projected earnings.
After the sale, the monotony of day to day car salesman life made itself apparent. In between the intensity of hooking a catch were periods of waiting, a mixture of both patience and anticipation, requiring the maintenance of a subtle level of stress, just enough to trigger an excited response at the potential of a bite.
In the second and final month of my employment, I managed to keep myself, with an infinitely less developed customer base, right on the heels of the veterans. Where the other new guy hadn't sold a single car, I'd sold 3.5, and the veterans ranged from 2 to 5. I was enjoying myself, the unique situations with each new customer were like private screenings of never-before-seen movies, each with a script composed by life itself, limited in my experience only by my own desire and ability to focus on the details.
Enter: General Manager. To a point, I had been working directly with a sales manager and other sales representatives. In each of these people was a level of empathy that allowed for a mutually supportive relationship. None of us wanted, or seemed to want, the others to fail, and we all shared with each other the thoughts necessary to contribute to our successes. However, every employee, no matter their diligence and dedication, must some day be away from work.
For those unfamiliar with U.S. car dealerships, sales people are encouraged, and often required, to turn over unsold customers to management as a last effort to convert a customer into a sale. Also a common practice is for sales people to 'touch the desk', or report to a manager with details about a deal being worked on, which allows the manager to, ideally, impart wisdom or advice that will contribute to the realization of a positive final transaction.
While dealing with
ah, fuck it. i don't want to write anymore, but it seems a waste to just throw this away.
Initially, I felt as though I wouldn't ever want to be such a pushy and persistent sort of person. Salesmen all seem gimmicky and shady, and even those who are likeable have a necessary bias to convince you to give them money. The fragility of relationships established between buyer and seller is never far from mind, like two vagrants, one possessing firewood and a lit fire and the other the fresh carcass of a day's hunt, calling out to each other from across a river, the surface recently frozen, neither willing to cross for fear of drowning, but both desiring to establish the trust necessary to generate a mutually beneficial transaction of the resources necessary to sustain their lives.
However, even with my preformed reluctance to participating in such transactions, I pushed myself into the cold wild, dedicating myself to the potential of a career in car sales. I watched videos, listened to audio books, and read books about the business. I cast aside my ego to venture forth naked of all but my curiosity and desire to achieve.
The weekend of my engulfment into car sales was highly unusual. The company owned three car lots, and had gathered each lot's used cars onto one lot, touting itself as the biggest used car sale in the area, or what I referred to as the largest used car sale in the history of the universe. There were roughly six sales representatives from each dealership present at all times, resulting in around 18 people standing, sitting, and walking around in anticipation of the daily catch, and that is really the analogy that best describes car sales: fishing.
Car dealerships are like bodies of water, each body possessing certain types of fish susceptible to specific baits and tackle. Modern dealerships straddle the line between stocked pond, in which the fishing experience is engineered so as to eliminate the unpredictability of a wild environment, while still offering food and access to wild fish through the tributary rivulets contributing to its water levels. The sales representative must possess the standardized tools that serve consistently for the generic fish, and a hodgepodge of collected that experience dictates will serve well in specific situations.
That weekend, the best bait to use was dynamite. I pushed myself in front of the other salesmen, addressed as many customers as I could see, regardless of appearance, smell, attractiveness, height, skin color, and otherwise, and without any previous experience and training, in two days' time sold two vehicles, all while earning the ire of 15 other salespeople who, apparently, believed that it to be the responsibility of the fish to jump into the, and here I cannot even say outstretched net, but I suppose to jump onto the shore of the lake, flop around down the road to a hardware store, sneak in through the back after an employee walks back in from a smoke break, wait for a clumsy customer to knock a hammer to the floor, swallow the entire hammer, flop back out through the back door at closing time after the employees leave, travel back down the road to the shore lined with fishermen, cough up the hammer into the air so that it falls back onto the fish's skull, and await the fisherman who, after chatting with the other fisherman about last night's adventures, happens to notice, while scanning the ground for cigarettes with a hint of remnant tobacco, the dried, suffering body of their day's catch lying unconscious on the sand.
It was a good start to my future career in car sales. Following the weekend sale, I sold a new car to a woman who I'd somehow established such a bond of trust that she felt comfortable telling me stories of her fake breasts, and how showing them to police officers had saved her from more than one ticket. I closed out that month by earning enough money from commission to have beat my projected earnings.
After the sale, the monotony of day to day car salesman life made itself apparent. In between the intensity of hooking a catch were periods of waiting, a mixture of both patience and anticipation, requiring the maintenance of a subtle level of stress, just enough to trigger an excited response at the potential of a bite.
In the second and final month of my employment, I managed to keep myself, with an infinitely less developed customer base, right on the heels of the veterans. Where the other new guy hadn't sold a single car, I'd sold 3.5, and the veterans ranged from 2 to 5. I was enjoying myself, the unique situations with each new customer were like private screenings of never-before-seen movies, each with a script composed by life itself, limited in my experience only by my own desire and ability to focus on the details.
Enter: General Manager. To a point, I had been working directly with a sales manager and other sales representatives. In each of these people was a level of empathy that allowed for a mutually supportive relationship. None of us wanted, or seemed to want, the others to fail, and we all shared with each other the thoughts necessary to contribute to our successes. However, every employee, no matter their diligence and dedication, must some day be away from work.
For those unfamiliar with U.S. car dealerships, sales people are encouraged, and often required, to turn over unsold customers to management as a last effort to convert a customer into a sale. Also a common practice is for sales people to 'touch the desk', or report to a manager with details about a deal being worked on, which allows the manager to, ideally, impart wisdom or advice that will contribute to the realization of a positive final transaction.
While dealing with
ah, fuck it. i don't want to write anymore, but it seems a waste to just throw this away.
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Anonymous (93.128.137.206)
