It is getting tougher and tougher to sell cars these days.

I had a pretty good year last year selling cars. So far in 2007 I only have five units burning gas: four in January and one this month. I know its winter, but other salesmen have regular sales numbers right now.

I just can't figure out what it is that I'm doing wrong. Sure, customer walk-ins are down but my share of repeats and referrals is down to nothing. Any new customers I talk to are either credit criminals or tire-kickers--not exactly prime car selling material.

If I don't pick up my sales numbers I'm going to have to find another line of work. You have no idea how much it sucks chasing down customers in this cold weather. Starting cars and doing anything outside this time of year is even worse. I wonder what it must be like selling cars in a warmer climate?

Maybe I'll get the chance to find out a lot sooner than I thought.

I'm on a hot streak right now. For the first two working days of July I've sold four cars. It took me almost three weeks to reach that figure last month. For the record, I sold two on the last day of June for a total of six units burning gas. Not good enough. I have to average eight per month. In order to have an eight car average at the end of this month I need to sell eleven total. Only seven more to go in twenty more days of work.

Even though I'm working on salary and not commission, I still have to reach a certain sales goal each month or else my management team gets angry at me for being a slacker. After a certain period of slacking I get put on probation for three months. If during that three month period I don't sell at least eight each month I can be fired.

As I'm rapidly finding out, selling cars is 10% perspiration and 90% luck. For example, I had sold one truck last Saturday morning to a be-back customer and was heading out the door when I literally stumbled across a fresh-up who ended up doing a two-fer, or a two car deal. If I hadn't been in that door at that exact moment then some other salesman in my dealership would have gotten the two-fer instead of me. Now that's luck.

Most of the customers who buy from me are fresh-ups rather than be-backs. Very rarely do I get people returning to the lot to buy a car. I never give up on them but I don't expect them to come back once they depart the lot after their first visit. That's one of the laws of car selling: sell people a car on their first visit or else you won't get another chance.

Selling cars is such an unpredictible business, eh?

Its June the 20th and thus far this month I've sold only four vehicles.

I need to reach nine units this month to even out my average at eight. If I sell only four then I need to sell fourteen next month. Everyday I sweat it out to see if I can squeeze a sale out of thin air. As a new car salesman there is no such thing as repeat business. Old-timers have hundreds or thousands of customers to work for repeat business. Me? I have to depend on the kindness of strangers walking in the dealership each day. Of course you have to fight for the fresh ups with all the other salesman, new and veteran alike.

Compounding the process is the byzantine method of getting deals into the Finance Office. First, there are only two F&I people in our office to handle the business process. There isn't a clear method of bringing in new deals for them to work--you just have to stand there until they have an open moment so you can see who is ready for a fresh deal. With only two people on this end of the business deal it can take a while to get a word in, especially if one of them is off that day or out to lunch. Today, for example, I waited almost thirty minutes to bring a new deal into the F&I office because we only had one business manager working. He was signing out a customer at the time so I just had to wait my turn. Meanwhile, my new customer is cooling her heels in the showroom as I try and push her deal before the ONLY pair of eyes in the building that can do anything with the paperwork.

You really have no other option to get the process started than to wait for a business manager's time. Sure, they are incredibly busy and they do a hell of a lot of work, but it is ridiculous to make a customer wait a long time just to put the deal in front of a manager.

Again, today I put the deal in the office after a half-hour of waiting. Then I had to wait with the customer for another fifteen minutes before the business manager came out to meet with her. In that time the customer changed her mind about the deal and wanted more for her trade in than we had agreed to earlier. So the business manager turned the deal back over to me without even transmitting the application. I then turned to a sales manager for help in a process we call the T.O. (turn-over) whereby the customer and sales manager talk over the deal in an effort to negotiate their positions. This step usually works in the dealership's favor as there is little room in the deal to move towards the customer's point-of-view.

So then I had to resubmit the whole deal to the business manager again. More waiting. The sales manager cut the customer loose after a few minutes without completing the deal, which means that unless the customer comes back on her own tomorrow I have lost a deal.

Basic Car Salesman Rule #49: Customers who have to wait have time to think about all the reasons why they don't need to buy a car.

Corollary to Rule #49: If a customer leaves the dealership without a deal being signed the same day the chance of them ever seeing your happy face again is practically Zilch.

And people wonder why turn-over is so high in the car sales business.

Ephiphany at 3 a.m.

Its early morning as I begin this newest entry in my blog. For whatever reason I've just had a revelation about the life of a new automotive salesman. It was so powerful that it moved from a dream in my unconscious mind to a full-blown, all-consuming epiphany crossing over into the arterial flow of my completely awake brain.

Whew!

As you know by now, I've been a "Personal Vehicle Advisor" for almost three months. In that time I've sold twenty cars to a wide variety of individuals and families from all income levels in my local area. To be exact this is my twelfth week of selling cars, which averages out to 1.67 units (new or used, car or truck) per week. At that pace I'll put about 86.67, lets call it 87, vehicles on the road in a full year. Not bad you might say. Sure, eighty-seven cars seems like a lot but our top salesman will probably put 180 units out in the same period, or about 3.46 per week. So I'm doing about 52% less gross than our top guy.

(Okay, stick with me here for the declaration of my ephiphany, its coming soon I promise!)

As I've said before in earlier posts, there is a lot of waiting in the life of a car salesman, especially in the life of a new salesman. I work an average of fifty hours in a five-day week, which includes every Friday and most Saturdays. Out of that fifty hours I probably spend about three hours with each car sale, so that is 5.01 hours or one-tenth of my week actually selling cars. Lets figure another hour to prep and deliver each car sold to bring us up to 6.68 hours for the week in the role for which I was hired: to sell cars. The other 43.32 hours of my average week are spent in a varierty of ways including: phone calls, meetings, parking new cars, lot duty, delivering chocolate-chip cookies to area businesses, and whatever else a F.N.G. (F***ing New Guy) is told to do. Which all leads me to say that for most of my working day I do nothing but wait for a customer to talk to--at least fifty percent of my day is spent staring out at the lot or walking the lot looking for customers to ply my tradecraft.

(Getting closer to my point very shortly.)

I do everything I can to turn lookers into buyers but if there is a lull in traffic onto our lot there isn't much I can do. Now we have sixteen full-time salesmen working for the company, of which only twelve are on hand at any one time because of their floating day-off. Just imagine: twelve hungry salesmen beating down the walls to sell you your next vehicle! Theoretically there should be a lot of help available to potential buyers, especially when you multiply the number of salesmen times the number of hours we each spend looking for someone to sell something to during the day.

Still with me? Good, because here comes the revelation in a round-a-bout way: with all this time on the collective hands of our current sales staff, our management decides that they need to hire more people to sell cars. Woah! I'm already wearing out shoe-leather (or whatever they make shoes out of these days) walking from one end of the lot to the other looking for ups (walk-ups, drive-ups, etc...) to talk to and now that is going to get harder with more people on our sales team. Sure, its old-fashioned competition but it strikes me as an interesting way of doing business: putting more sharks in the tank without increasing the size of the chum bucket? Hey, I'm not criticizing my management but it certainly seems counter-intuitive to an efficient operation by hiring more people to sell to an already tight flow of potential customers.

So, in my dreams this morning this question keeps popping into my head repeatedly, "why do we need more salesmen?" until it finally lands on my skull like an elephant dropped from a plane without a parachute: its all about survival of the fittest car salesmen. If one person can't sell enough cars to a finite crowd of potential customers then you just hire someone else to work the same territory without getting rid of anyone; that way, natural attrition will force some pissed-off salesmen to leave voluntarily when they realize that there is a lot more competition to sell their next car. Clever, eh?

Already, as a F.N.G. I am scorned by most of the senior sales staff for taking away their potential clients. Even though we qualify all of our ups ("who are you working with?") so as to not get involved with someone else's customers it only is natural that new salesmen will pull a portion of sales from the O.T.'s (Old Timer's) into their portfolio. Now you add even newer F.N.G.'s to the mix and it makes for some very happy salesmen. Ha.

But from a management viewpoint I suppose it makes sense: instead of spending money to increase traffic for the current sales staff you just hire new sales staff in the odd, but vain, hope that the F.N.G.'s will push up the sales by picking up some of the crumbs the rest of the sales force have somehow missed in their patrol through the car lot. Not very likely that trained salesmen would miss a chance to make a buck but hey, its worth a shot, right?

But, please, please, don't mis-understand my point here or think for a moment that I'm complaining about my job. No! I love my job as a car salesman. I really do. I get paid to talk to people and drive new cars that I could never afford to own. Pretty cool. No, instead, my issue is with the business model at work here and not the people behind it. I think what I'm saying in my own sweet pedantic way is that there seems to be a law of diminishing returns at work here but maybe there is something special about the car business that I'm not seeing.

Any thoughts?

There are many long periods of boredom in the daily grind of a car salesman.

My typical day at the dealership starts at either 8:30 or 11 am, depending on the shift, and ends at 5:30 or 8 pm. On those mornings I'm at work early I attend the sales staff meeting where we hand out sales leads that have been generated from the internet or phone calls. This meeting usually last about 30 minutes.

After that I head down to the sales floor to check out the action or take a tour through the car lot to see what's new for the day.

Sometimes I make phone calls to my list of leads or send email if that's requested. Most of the time I leave a message for the contact because I very rarely talk to anyone at the listed number. Caller ID takes a lot of the mystery out of phone calls.

Once I've made a go at my list of contacts it becomes a waiting game. I walk the lot looking for fresh "ups" or anything else thats happening at the moment. My tour takes me back through the sales floor in a circular pattern. Along the way I stop to talk with other employees if I find no customers around.

Sometimes I actually get lucky and find some potential customer looking at a car. Most of the time I hear "I'm just looking" in response to my question "Can I help you find someone or something today?" Hell, if I had a dollar for everytime I've heard "just looking," I could drive a new Porsche instead of the truck I have today.

Its really not that exciting though, despite my attempts to make it seem glamorous. I stand around the lot doing nothing but watching the clouds pass overhead or peering into the cars trying to glean some little-known fact about the vehicle.

I wear a pedometer to measure my steps during the day. I average about four kilometers a day on my rounds through the lot. I get more steps in if I don't sell a car.

Last month I sold seven cars, one short of my eight-car minimum, in twenty-two days of work which is about one every three days. I wish I could make that one car every two days so I don't have so much lot time on my hands.

But, hey, I'm not complaining. I love my job. I love working with people and I love the rewards involved in the car sales process.

I just wish it was a little more exciting more than it is.

Howdy. I'm still selling cars in my second full month at the dealership.

My total is now fifteen vehicles since March 25th--three in March, eight in April, and four so far in May. I just need to get four more out for the rest of the month and I'm at my average. I'd like to sell ten a month but I'm not going to be greedy in my first year.

In all, it is going very well--at least as well as can be expected. So far, I'm learning all that I need to know about the process and the vehicles I sell. With time I'll only get better, I'm sure.

Let me share with you a little bit of what I've learned in my first few months. Just call the these points some wise advice to car buyers. Some of you might find this funny, but a lot of people I see at the job have some very unrealistic ideas about buying a new car or truck.

1) Your old vehicle is not worth nearly as much as you think it is.

2) Your credit history is also probably worse than you think it is.

3) The negative equity (when you owe more on your car than it is worth) on your trade-in CANNOT disappear or be "eaten" by the dealership when buying a new car. It can, for a price however, be buried deep in your next car deal.

4) Unless you put a lot of money down on a new car you most likely cannot buy a $40,000 vehicle for only $300 per month.

5) If a "true" price (or lowest price) store tells you upfront that they have a bottom-line price already on a vehicle then they cannot lower the price any more than it already is.

6) Contrary to most money advisors, borrowing money to purchase a new vehicle is a complete waste or your resources since any vehicle depreciates in value over time unless it is a rare, one-of-a-kind, or custom-made automobile.

7) A lease is almost always your best method of acquiring a new vehicle unless you drive more than 20,000 personal miles per year or plan to add a lot of accessories.

8) The easiest way to put a salesman off your trail is to NOT say "I'm just looking" but rather a simple "I cannot purchase today." If I had a dollar for every time I hear "I'm just looking" I can promise you I wouldn't be selling cars anymore.

9) As a salesman I'm out there to help you make an important decision in buying a car so the more you tell me about your wants and needs the better I can answer your questions. I cannot read minds. If I could I certainly wouldn't be selling cars.

10) The buying of a car is a time-consuming process that involves credit agencies and more personnel than just a salesman. The time-line cannot be rushed just for you because you think you're more special than any other customer.

Keep these facts in mind and you'll have a more enjoyable car buying experience. Well, if not for you, at least I'll have a more enjoyable experiencing dealing with you on the sales floor if you keep these facts in mind.

Wow! It's been a whole month without a post on this site. Sorry. I won't be able to keep my audience if I don't post a lot more frequently, eh?

Let's see... After one month (plus) in car sales I'm still employed. For the month of April I sold a total of eight (8) vehicles. That is my minimum level of sales I have to reach each month in order to stay employed. My goal is ten vehicles a month. I was in Hawaii for four days in early April so I missed some prime chances to sell more than I did. Next month I should make ten without problem.

I like selling cars. It can be frustrating at times given the long waits for customers who I can help. I greet a lot of customers on the lot or in the showroom who say "I'm just looking" and they turn away or hurry back to the safety of their cars. Some people must think that I have some incredible mind control powers and I'm going to make them buy a car despite their objections. I have no magical skills that enable me to sell anything. I'm just one normal guy who wants to help as many people as I can in the difficult process of buying a car. I'm not some ogre trying to paw my way into your wallet. At least not yet. Ha.

People should remember that I'm trying to be helpful without being pushy. Hey, I've been on the other side with you many times in all my years of owning cars, so I know what it is like to feel intimidated or nervous in the face of the "BIG BAD CAR SALESMAN." It's not like that at all. Sure, I want to earn some sales, but NOT at the expense of your satisfaction. If you have a bad experience buying a car from me then there is something wrong in the way I'm doing business.

Car buying is an emotional experience. There are large sums of money involved and sometimes competing viewpoints especially when you are shopping with your spouse or carefully chosen advisor. I know all of that and I'm not trying to make it any more difficult for you--in fact, I'm trying to defuse the situation so you don't feel so defensive or nervous. Car buying should be exciting and enjoyable. At least as far as it goes with my end of the operation. I can't control what the business office does for your purchase or what figure my sales manager offers you for your trade-in, but I can try and be as helpful as I can in the selection of your new vehicle without being aggressive or intimidating.

If you want to know the truth, and I know you do, it is YOU who holds all the power in a car buying situation. All it takes is a firm "No" from you and the deal is over. You control how long the process will take buy simply saying "yes" or "no" to any offer you are presented. The longer you waffle or display indecisiveness in your buying process the longer you will draw out the purchase.

More truth: saying to me "I'll think about it" or "I'm just looking" or anything that is open-ended is just delaying the process. As a salesman I'll stay with you as long as you have questions or there is hope that you will make a purchase. If you want to get rid of me in your car-buying process just give me a firm answer, one way OR another. Indecision only piques my interest in helping you make that final decision, which, research has shown, only favors me in the long run: the more time I spend in your presence gives me the edge in selling you a car.

And that, my friends, is a little psychology in the Art of Car Buying 101.