Car Biz: What's It like, selling cars? Could I do it?

Sometimes people ask me : What's it like, selling cars? Could I do it?


These questions come up more often in troubled economic times, like now. Inquirers usually are considering their own options, and wondering whether they could do what I'm doing.

I enjoy responding to these questions. I'm not a lifelong car salesman; I've mainly been an educator, and I was in the Air Force from 1967 to 1973, right after my college graduation. I've lived in more than a dozen states and seven other countries.

I'm interested in vocation, and have taught psychology and human development, centered in the area of counseling. I've been moderately successful in car sales. But I'm no oracle or expert. I don't have national data or controlled research on these matters. I've worked in (only) three dealerships, in Lexington, KY, Santa Fe, NM, and now in Webster (Houston), TX, and have sold mostly new cars, mostly Hondas (with a sprinkling of preowned vehicles of various kinds). For briefer periods, I have also sold vehicles from Toyota, Lincoln, Mercury, Volkswagen, and Oldsmobile (before Olds became extinct). So I hope readers will share their responses--especially folks with greater expertise or different experience than mine. A well-rounded discussion would serve people who want solid answers to these questions.
Some considerations:

• Selling cars requires a lot of time. Fifty or sixty hours a week is a relatively light schedule for beginning sales reps who intend to make a living. I worked 9 AM to 9 PM, six days a week, for a couple of years; now, I have a base of referrals and returning customers to supplement the first-time clients I serve. And I've throttled back to 60-70 hours most weeks. If your time is limited, or you have other significant demands on your time and energy, it will be difficult to succeed as a newcomer in this line of work.
• Motor vehicle sales is competitive. Probably each dealership has its own unique mini-culture. but generally, newcomers have to shoulder their way into an established pecking order, and succeed as independent agents. [If you talk to a customer and sell her a vehicle, someone else loses that opportunity; don't expect your successes to be uniformly well-received by colleagues.]
• On the other hand, the field is open and very democratic. If you sell cars, you're welcome; if you don't, you won't be around long. There's room for a great diversity of styles in performing the essential tasks. One essential for success would be perseverance. Other strengths that are very important would be independence, optimism, effective communication skills and good time management. Enthusiasm, high energy, and a capacity to accept frequent rejection help a lot.
• Turnover is massive. Nationwide, the most frequent tenure for a motor vehicle sales consultant is two months. Many try, few succeed. Even among the survivors, many make frequent moves from one position to another.
• Consequently, it's relatively easy to get a first-time job in vehicle sales. It's not a prestigious profession. The gatekeepers are pragmatists: credentials matter little--current performance is what counts. A person who can be presentable, has a driver's license without excessive violations, and can pass a basic background check and drug test is likely to be given an opportunity.
• It's an equal-opportunity field. I've seen no evidence of systematic discrimination, and my own sales force is as diverse as any group I've ever seen or belonged to. Everybody is welcome, and all have to prove themselves--over and over: you go back to 'zero' at the beginning of every month! For whatever reasons, though, the sales forces I've seen have been disproportionate only with respect to gender--the field seems to attract and retain many more men than women. Without confirming data, I think that an enterprising woman might create a proportionally larger niche for success, if she were able to overcome or bypass the barriers to success all sales reps encounter.
• It helps if you can give yourself a couple of months' trial period before concluding that you'll succeed or not. Some employers recognize this by providing a modest salary for a limited time at the beginning of one's employment. Most vehicle sales reps eventually are paid straight commission: your income is tied to the profit you generate for your employer. Some newcomers have their best days, weeks and months at the very beginning of their attempts to sell motor vehicles; freshness, naivete, and simple heat-seeking focus outweigh other factors. Others take much longer to manage all the factors involved, and are lame at first, but improve steadily or even logarithmically as they develop.
• Capacity to work hard and postpone gratification clearly are positive elements.
• The most effective vehicle sales reps make six-figure incomes; they are an exceptional elite. The most typical veteran vehicle sales reps make living incomes. And many vehicle sales reps barely scrape along, without a safety net, and frequently fall away from the job. A handful nationwide probably are in the $300,000-700,000 range. A slightly larger elite are in the $100K-300K range. Competent sales reps generally earn $50-100K.
• The income tends to be seasonal. In the markets where I've worked, November and February were low-volume months; sales were usually good in March, a bit flat in April, and swelled through May, June and July to a crescendo in August, then subsided in September and October. The first couple of weeks in December were flat, then there has been a rush to and after Christmas, and for a week or so into January. This year, the economy has obliterated that pattern. The market is troubled, and no former patterns seem to apply to our present situation.
• At any time, though, successful sales reps must manage their expenses well. They are able to save up when sales are good, and tide themselves over when sales are lean. Those who live check to check are not well prepared to flourish in motor vehicle sales.
• Now would be an ideal time to start a lucrative career in motor vehicle sales. Periodic corrections, even without general recession, typically happen every 10-12 years in this market. We've had a deeper dip than usual, but the market seems to have bottomed and started recovery. And a correction typically is followed by steady progress for a decade or more. Get in now, and you could ride the escalator for ten years or more. In any case, a creative minority usually does well when everyone else is struggling, in vocational development as in many lines of endeavor associated with money.
• Motor vehicle sales rewards effort, consistency and skill. The harder you work, and the smarter you work, the more you make. I'm sure many fields might claim this, but I don't know of many where my observation confirms this principle as clearly as in this vocation. You can always improve--the learning curve is open-ended. It's a great field for men or women who border on the obsessive-compulsive, enjoy keeping score, and want to be rewarded for their focus.
• In my opinion.