3 years ago I started in the automotive industry as a car salesman. I started this blog and I thought I would diligently begin my 90 day transformation. Instead the blog has stagnated while my sales education took off. Randomly at a lunch a few cousins of mine mentioned web design and I mentioned my website, in their disbelief I brought it up and realized I’ve missed writing.
Three years is a long time, so here is a recap.
From October 2017 til October 2018 I sold consistently over 12 cars a month at a Honda Dealership, which was good but not stellar by any means. I found that sales is very much like being interviewed in a speed dating fashion. Everyone wants to know the product or they wouldn’t give you the time and once they decide they want the product they start to wonder about you. During my first year of car sales I was offered at least five different positions unrelated to car sales which could have become great careers. I turned them all down because I believe when a company or a person takes a chance on you, you owe it to them to work until that risk has been justified. For me the risk taken is worth about a year as long as your employer is living up to their promises. I love selling cars, well, loved. The only thing that made it difficult was the new pressure every month, a great weight is lifted and then for a few days you can breathe easy before it starts again. “What have you done for me lately,” is a commonly heard phrase. I would do it all over and only do it earlier and better. I enjoyed interviewing and it eventually led me to a new position in which interviewing was part of the process.
At the end of 2018 I was offered a position in F&I (Finance and Insurance), arguably the best seat in the dealership. I was looking for another form of employment and this meant more training without needing to start at square one. The new position would entail intensive sales education without any cost (which I am all for). Also there was another big draw for this position: many of my peers told me it was extremely difficult. I went into car sales because it was the most difficult form of sales, aside from cold calls which sounded miserable, that I could think of. Then I discover there is another position in a dealership that is even more difficult and it is a promotion… I was all in. I spent about two to three months memorizing scripts to overcome new objections and learning simple closing techniques to garner a yes. And, it was an education. The various closing techniques seem endless and it can be argued each has an appropriate time and place, the simple close, the assumptive close, the candy close, the urgency close, etc… all are useful and all are effective. I know of some common closes but I have worked to tailor my presentation for the individual in a consultative approach using these closing techniques only when the right nudge is needed. F&I is more difficult as everyone said, but it is vastly more rewarding and the rate at which one learns is significantly magnified.
When I started in sales I knew I wanted to do the most difficult sales I could think of but I had no idea the most difficult sales I couldn’t think of would find me. I had to compete for my position in F&I and after watching 3 candidates who had been top salespeople start and quit the position within months it only made me want to succeed more. This was my opportunity to prove in an accelerated course my mettle in a sales position and practice the things I had been reading in my spare time. Of the four candidates whom I learned alongside with I am the only one who is still “spinning paper”. F&I is an extremely competitive position that I was fortunate to be given a chance at because management liked me. I saw this as a double edged sword, their support while also painting a target on my back. It was great to have the support but I wanted the opportunity to succeed or fail of my own accord, and I wasn’t the most popular F&I manager at the dealership so after a full year I left the dealership I started at by the end of 2017.
When my training was complete I worked two months in finance before leveraging my promotion to land a position at the dealership I had wanted to start at originally in sales. Instead of sales I started as a salaried manager, doubled my original offer (or so I thought, a story for later) and was given greater responsibility as well as a project to help manage. This would all be more than I was ready for and going in I knew this but I also knew that if it wasn’t going to work out it would be better to discover early on so I could change course accordingly. Well it worked out and I have been at the same dealer ship for two years as of October 2019 for a total of three years in the car business, one in sales and two in F&I.
I am here writing this because the sales experience and the stories I made along the way are fantastic and truthfully I wish I had written more of them down to remember. More importantly though in a brief three years to the exact date October, 3rd, 2019 I completed my three year goal which I had spoken aloud to one person, I bought a house. I didn’t pay cash, but I did it without a degree without any more debt (from education) and I didn’t have to take the path everyone insisted would lead me to success. Most of my life has been about that, wanting to do things differently so I could say with conviction (and be heard) it doesn’t have to be this way. After feeling the unfairness of education and seeing friend after friend struggle and wonder why after doing everything they were told to do, getting A’s and joining clubs, paying for things and being viewed as successful life was still so difficult and often unrewarding. I believe people should have opportunities, opportunities to do what they want and approach it how they want, and it shouldn’t always require 2×4 years of education and mounds of debt saddled at the start of life. Success is measured by happiness not prosperity and by personal achievement not diplomas, it has nothing to do with the tings you have or the commas in your bank account, it is a mindset influenced by the quality of your life.
Now I am happy, but no happier now than I was three years ago, the big difference now is I can tell people I’m happy and people believe me because I have what they perceive as a good life. I had a good life with nothing to my name but a couple boxes a drawer full of clothes, and the support of my friends and family. The reality of being without and happy is a harder pill to swallow, for an outsider looking in, but here on the other side it’s easy to see, I was as happy then as I am now. In fact the times when I am happiest have nothing to do with what has transpired in my career. The things that make me happiest are sitting down to write, playing my guitar, reading a good book and spending time with loved ones. More money has made me more appreciative, but not happier. I’m a much better salesperson now because of everything that has transpired but success did not help me meet happiness, I believe it’s the other way around.
– FACS
From A Salesman 