Car Salesman - good job?

asim · 16 Jul 2006 at 02:02

Thought I'd stick this in motors since its all about cars.

I'm thinking about what direction I want to go in interms of my life and career. I have a networking degree, a cisco qualification but I'm not an IT guy, it bores me.

Anyway, I'm a car enthusiast and I know its something thats going to stick with me for the rest of my life. My thoughts were to somehow get into the car industry and becoming a car salesman seems to be the first logical step. I know its not dreaming big, but from there I'd move bigger and better. Its just about gaining experience in sales/car industry so that I can go somewhere with it.

Onto my question. What does the job entail? I'm assuming its set basic salary with commission as your bonus or something of that sort. Is there more to it besides meeting customers and trying to sell them cars? How much better does the pay get?

Basically any advice on this thing would be helpful. Seems kind of strange to step away from IT which would lead to a lot of money and go to something that maybe hit or miss. But I need a first step to get into the car industry.

Advice?

Thanks
Asim

-westy- · 16 Jul 2006 at 02:03

Don't you think that working with cars every day would kerb your enthusiasm/hobbyism?

BIGWEB · 16 Jul 2006 at 02:06

just done the exact same thing. I have a degree in software engineering and was working for a bank but I love cars so i just thought I would go for it. Its amazing! so rewarding! the hours are crazy but the money can be aswell. theres guy regulary earning £6000 a month doing it. i will earn about £3500 this month and I have only been doing it 2 months.
I would recommend it to anyone with a passion for cars. any questions mate msn me

BIGWEB · 16 Jul 2006 at 02:07

-westy- said:
Don't you think that working with cars every day would kerb your enthusiasm/hobbyism?

This has worried me a bit. most of the other lads doing it see cars as 'metal' now and arent what i would call enthusiasts where they once might have been.

asim · 16 Jul 2006 at 02:12

BIGWEB thanks for that response.

About losing the enthusiasm. Well I guess that is always a problem with anything that you do. But I know my goals are to get into the industry then find a way to work my way up and maybe setup a dealership for performance cars with a tuning garage. I dont necessarily want to be the guy tuning the cars but do want to be running the operations.

I'm confident with my ability to talk to people and I'm hoping that there are techniques to selling cars that could aid me since working on commission can be quite a difficult thing.

BIGWEB what kind of hours do you work?

Scania · 16 Jul 2006 at 02:27

Working (a few years back) as a Car salesman did more to ruin my love of cars than anything else.

Imo, a crap job that I would'nt go back to.

Then again, I did work for a citroen dealer, had it been BMW or similar, the experience would have at least been enjoyable!

Oblivious · 16 Jul 2006 at 12:38

R124/LA420 said:
Then again, I did work for a citroen dealer, had it been BMW or similar, the experience would have at least been enjoyable!

Doubt it, whilst Citroen is urghh, it will be just as bad for all car salesman. The politics, boredom and backstabbing make it an awful job. I could only see it being enjoyable if you dealt with company fleet sales etc.. but even then.

Maz · 16 Jul 2006 at 13:29

I gave up the opportunity to go to Uni to do a Automotive Engineering Degree to do it.

I've been doing it 3 years now.

Love it, work a few hours.

I work every weekday except Thursday, 9 - 7.

I work every Saturday 9 - 5.

Every other Sunday 11 - 4.

Easy job, and where I work we have none of the politics, banter is good so none of the boredom, plenty of customers so sell a few cars.

And none of the backstabbing because we're quite a close team, I mean 3 of us regularly go out drinking together and we go out with all staff once in a while.

Paywise - I get to drive around in a brand new car which gets replaced every 3-6 months all my motoring expenses paid for including fuel.

And this year I'm on target to earn at least £40k

asim · 16 Jul 2006 at 14:24

Theres a couple of opportunities at a Renault dealership. They require no experience, basically looking for trainees who want to get into the car sales business. The hours are pretty much like yours Maz. If you dont mind me asking was the pay as good in the beginning? Or was it something that took time for you to work upto? At renault the basic starting salary is 10k.

I'd hope to gain experience and move to a dealership that sells exotic cars.

Bigsy · 16 Jul 2006 at 15:55

Maybe I've just had bad experiences with car salesmen involving cars bought by friends and relatives...I've been a long with them and some of the sales patter I've heard is just shocking. It's always struck me that the people who get ahead are generally the ones which don't let things like integrity get in their way.

It's not something I could do, I mean there has to be situations when you know the car isn't suitable for the customer, and/or you have to gloss over/hide bad points about the car knowing full well it would blow a possible sale if the customer realised.

Maz · 16 Jul 2006 at 17:07

asim said:
Theres a couple of opportunities at a Renault dealership. They require no experience, basically looking for trainees who want to get into the car sales business. The hours are pretty much like yours Maz. If you dont mind me asking was the pay as good in the beginning? Or was it something that took time for you to work upto? At renault the basic starting salary is 10k.

I'd hope to gain experience and move to a dealership that sells exotic cars.

I was quite lucky I started as a Junior Salesman in 2003 for 6 months I progressed quite quickly.

My starting basic was £7.5k then £8k obviously I was making commision aswell.

My basic salary now is still only £10k, but I do sell a lot of cars and I have been at my current location for 3 years so I do a bit of repeat business.

BIGWEB · 16 Jul 2006 at 18:39

i work 9-8 mostly 4 days a week, 9-6 on sats and 11-5 on sundays get 1 weekend off a month (which i tend to not take at the moment) I change my car every week and can near enough pick what car i want to drive. one lad is a total gasher there and has ****** me over 4 times this week after ive helped him loads so I will make life hard for him now. All the rest of the guys are cool. I will make circa £40k this year If i carry on like I am now and thats all new buisness because ive only been there 2 months or so.

The job is great. at the end of the day you will work long hours. Drive nice cars and make good money. It's been the main cause of splitting me up with my model girlfriend tho :eek:

(she was a cow anyway in the end though

)

go for it mate

Maz · 16 Jul 2006 at 18:41

BIGWEB said:
i work 9-8 mostly 4 days a week, 9-6 on sats and 11-5 on sundays get 1 weekend off a month (which i tend to not take at the moment) I change my car every week and can near enough pick what car i want to drive. one lad is a total gasher there and has ****** me over 4 times this week after ive helped him loads so I will make life hard for him now. All the rest of the guys are cool. I will make circa £40k this year If i carry on like I am now and thats all new buisness because ive only been there 2 months or so.

The job is great. at the end of the day you will work long hours. Drive nice cars and make good money. It's been the main cause of splitting me up with my model girlfriend tho (she was a cow anyway in the end though )

go for it mate

Do you work is a car supermarket or something?

You work every sunday?

Serj · 16 Jul 2006 at 18:43

BIGWEB said:
The job is great. at the end of the day you will work long hours. Drive nice cars and make good money. It's been the main cause of splitting me up with my model girlfriend tho (she was a cow anyway in the end though )

go for it mate

I like the way you added in the 'model' girlfriend part.

BIGWEB · 16 Jul 2006 at 18:48

Maz said:
Do you work is a car supermarket or something?

You work every sunday?

I work for a small arnold clark motorstore and yes i work every sunday apart from my weekend off.

and as for the model part i was just stressing it to show that I have made some sacrifices