Confessions of a Used Car Salesman #1: The Beginning

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After 15 years of working my way through the golf course management industry, from starter to GM, I have set off on yet another life changing direction, selling used cars.

This decision to switch careers was not necessarily voluntary. Declines in revenue and membership at the golf club forced the owner to jettison some salaries and I held one of the positions that were eliminated. I quickly realized that their wasn't much demand for a man in his mid forties that had stayed in one industry too long.

Suffice to say, the market for aging ex golf pros isn't particularly on fire.

After an intense job search had exhausted the advertised opportunities without much of a response, I had to scratch my head and come up with a new direction. I wasn't exactly an executive or a specialist per se. I was a golf course manager. It translates to exactly nothing but schmoozing, with some bookkeeping, clerical and management duties.

Where was the place in the job market that would happily accept a schmoozer of any age, over a young, tech savvy new graduate. The answer: SALES

I had always avoided becoming a salesman in my professional life. I found the concept of selling someone something that they didn't realize they needed, both amoral and sleazy. Making an effort to get in front of as many potential customers as possible, for sales is really just a numbers game.

OK, now that I realized that I was going into sales, the next question was, what am I going to sell?

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My wife pointed out to me that the used car dealer we went to for our last two cars might be a good fit for me. They had been rather easy to deal with and they always carried quality inventory. I mulled this idea over for a good 48hrs, until I saw an advert that they were hiring. I interpreted this as a message from God. God was telling me to sell cars.

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I started training on November 1st and selling on the 11th. Since then I have sold eight cars and one motorcycle. Not enough to hit bonus in that period, but still encouraging.

Selling cars is unique experience, in it's own way. Unless your customer is paying for the vehicle upfront, they essentially have to confess all of their financial dirty laundry to you, in order to get approved for financing. You realize very quickly that most people have no sense of their own finances. They don't know how much money they make, how financially impaired they are on their current vehicle or that tax and interest must be factored into the purchase of a vehicle.

People are surprisingly ignorant, more so than I had previously thought, which is staggering to me. My office isn't as much a sales force, it's more of an automotive social services for the general public. We are more like counselors than we are like salesmen.

It seems to suit me fine, the car business, moving metal as we say. I fit in and it isn't very stressful. As I start writing on Steemit again, I will surely have plenty of stories to tell from the sales floor of the dealership.

Peace,
Sheeps

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