I hear that the motor trade uses this forum, so thought i may as well ask this question here.
How do i get in to car sales?
I am 18, well 19 in Oct, and really want to get in to the motor trade but dont quite now how to go about it. Hope you guys can help.
Chears.
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Steve, If you are bent on a career in sales, I suggest you write to all your local dealers expressing your interest, and then follow up with a phone call, they will like that! ( Much of your time will be spent following up enquiries on the 'phone.) Be sure that you have some knowledge of cars to back up your application. Keep an eye out for job advertisments too, and keep on trying. I think your best bet will be the 'cold call' myself, as you may well rule out any opposition. You should have a clean licence, enjoy meeting people, like long hours and weekend work, and be personable and presentable. If you do write, you should use 'I' instead of 'i', and get someone to check your spelling. Many people may not care whether or not you can spell or not, and what does it matter, but some will, and it would not do to fall at the first hurdle would it?
Good luck and,
cheers
Mike
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Think again-listen to your Mum & get a proper job! Wish I had!!
Mark
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Remember, they will only want you for one thing: to sell. That means selling cars, selling finance packages, selling insurance, even selling paint protection. Take a look at 'California Dreaming' by Lawrence Donegan (ISBN 0-670-89136-3). It's a novel, not an evangelical text book, so it's an easy read. And it really tells you what's involved in selling cars.
HJ
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I had a notion on these lines when I escaped from the RAF in 1949, rather than do hard things. I think they spotted that while I liked some cars very much the truth was, as I know is the case now, that the only person I can sell things to was myself!
Besides, my mother went prompt critical - sorry HJ!
Think carefully, Steve. Is it just to be among cars you want, or to sell them?
Would you like selling anything else?
HJ makes an excellent suggestion.
Good luck, Tomo
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"California Dreaming" £11.54 including postage at amazon.co.uk
Fell into temptation myself, though I'm usually a non-fiction old owl!
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I wish i had studied harder at school and found a better way to earn a living,it is not easy anymore,if it ever was!
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I was on Amazon today too, Tomo, buying my own birthday present from SWMBO. Well I couln't think what else to tell her I wanted, except another rusty Opel Monza, and I'd have had to buy that myself anyway. (Fat chance).
Perhaps HJ should have one of those Amazon buttons here, then we could all go onto Amazon via that, and earn the site a few extra pennie.
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Very good point Tomo.
>>Think carefully, Steve. Is it just to be among cars you want, or to sell them?
One problem you will probably encounter is insurance Steve. Most motortrade policies will only cover over 21 years old so dealers employ people in there twenties. (experienced this problem myself a few years back).
I know someone who offered to work for free in a BMW dealership at weekends as a 'meet and greet' person.They are now in full time employment with the dealership as a salesmen and earning a good living.
Best of luck
keep us informed on how you get on
Steve G
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This thread put's me in mind of the car salesman on The Fast Show, "selling cars is like making love to a beautiful woman"!
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Some lucky guys even earn their living at that; but there are sure to be downsides. < >.
Bono Estente Poosycat!
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Wow, didnt expect to get so many relies, thanx guys.
I dont know whether i would want to sell other tuings other than cars, but my passion for cars is really drwaing me in to this work, as it hink when you are enthusisatic about something, its much easier to sell the idea to other people.
I may try sending some letters to motor dealers, as someone mentioned, but if its somehting i want to do, i'll find my way in somehow.
I did see an advert on the seat web site looking for a trainee sales exec, about the 19 - 20 age range, so i'll keep my eyes out for more of them.
Thanx again and any furhter suggestions would be gratefully recieved + any traders offering me jobs!!!
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The thinking is this...
"If you are going to be a good salesman and able to sell many cars, then you will already be able to sell yourself. If you can't convince a showroom to take you on, then you probably couldn`t convince somebody to buy a car"
If telephone, get a negative, and stop, then you will have failed the first test. You need to push, persist, nto give up, convince, persuade, or whatever else you can think.
Try and think, or read the suggestions, as to the many ways/tactics that a Car Salesman will use to sell cars, and then try to emulate those in selling yourself to a Sales Manager who wants a trainee.
Failing that, find a used car lot and take a job as a car washer on the condition that you can have a go at selling cars as well from time to time. If you are any good, neither you nor the business owner will have any interest in your continued car washing.
The experience will also stand you in good stead for further job applications.
A warning from my point of view though - I doubt that a car salesman has much time to indulge an ethusiasm for cars. He needs to be an expert in selling them, not fixing, maintaining, driving them.
The stuff an enthusiast knows is not neccessarily what a salesman needs to know.
I know nothing, or next to nothing, about cars, but I bet I could sell them. The skill is the sales expertise, not the product knowledge. Product knowledge you can get from a book, salesmanship generally not.
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Well i already have a job as a car cleaner in a car dealership, been there for about four years, and from watching the sales guys i think i would like the job. I have had a few instances where i have been talking to cusomers and this one time, only a few weeks back, one bloke said "urll go far with customer service like that".
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Like Mark wrote, if you walk into a car showroom and persuade the sales manager to give your a job, you'll get a job. Forget writing letters.
HJ
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Do not think me unkind if I echo HJ.
"Forget writing letters".
To be blunt, you are not terribly good at correct writing, but any time I bought a car the only writing involved was filling in spaces in forms.
I begin to think you believe in yourself, which will communicate itself to clients.
Appearance and presentation has much effect on me, and I am sure others. Be prepared to be "square", or whatever it's called now.
Have you put out any gentle feelers where you work?
Cheers Tomo
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Do not think me unkind if I echo HJ.
"Forget writing letters".
To be blunt, you are not terribly good at correct writing, but any time I bought a car the only writing involved was filling in spaces in forms.
I begin to think you believe in yourself, which will communicate itself to clients.
Appearance and presentation has much effect on me, and I am sure others. Be prepared to be "square", or whatever it's called now.
Have you put out any gentle feelers where you work?
Cheers Tomo
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To be blunt, how rude you are tomo.
Couple of typos and you've written the guy off as a dyslexic idiot. What a supercilious post.
Lucky they had spaces in the forms so you knew where to write eh?
He wants a job and is asking in exactly the right kind of place and right kind of way and you belittle him. No need for that.
At least he didn't post twice.
btw "square" might win over some but not all clients. Squares maybe.
Feel free to flame if appropriate. I like this group but just felt that line was unnecessary in your post.
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I can spell well, but I do make a few mistakes when writing a quick post in a forum such as this as it doesn't really matter too much.
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>
> it hink when you are enthusisatic about
> something, its much easier to sell the idea to other people.
*very* good point, Steve, "enthusiasm will always sell more than indifference".
Beware though, giving good advice in that job will sometimes hit your pocket, and you may sometimes be under pressure to give advice that ypu don't believe in.
that's the reason this site exists, to inform the car buyer who would otherwise perhaps only be told what the trade wants them to hear.
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I've just got £550 for a 'J' plate Metro 1.1L. Perhaps I should consider a career change?...
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Steve,
Arrived to this a bit late but on reading your post first I was going to advise doing 6mths car preparation/tea-making at a dealers, then to advise doing a "meet and greet" job at a showroom over the weekend (one of my customers does this for Peugeot and also helps out at the sort of displays you see in the big shopping centres - she loves it). Both jobs ought to be easy to find at anything from the main dealers to the back street grot.
Then I see you already have the intro by working on the cleaning bit for years and the "meet and greet" has ben advised.
What I have to say is you can't project the impression of a potential sales guy to your employers or you'd have been asked before now. This isn't meant to be unkind because you will only move forward if you get noticed for what you want to do. Ask a friend or contact in the firm what you need to do to get noticed, or perhaps hop to another dealer in the cleaning job and then be a far more positive person in that new position so they see you as a "cleaner who should really get into sales".
Good luck.
David
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yeah i hear what your saying and agree, but the main reason no body has said anything is because i am still at school at tehe moment. It has been commented on that i am good with customers though by my sales manager.
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Come on guy's. He can't spell (chears), doesn't use the shift key (i) and refuses to punctuate (dont)!
Oh, he want's to work in the motor trade? Sorted...
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Guy's shouldn't have an apostrophe.
Pot/kettle?
21st Century education, and also email & internet accepted style, reduce the requirement for absolute accuracy in written communications.
Like it or not, it's the way it is.
I use a different style of grammar in online chat than I would ever use in speech or writing.
I also enjoy good sarcasm but none of this has reached that standard. All your pickiness is achieving is to insult the guy, along with the motor trade too on occasions.
There are plenty of equally poorly spelt/punctuated/constructed posts throughout this forum and I've never before seen de-constructive and personally insulting comments in the way that have appeared under this post, which I thought showed an admirable piece of initiative.
But then I suppose you will know better. Some people just don't know when to shut up.
Btw I was happy to see some of the advice here was useful, albeit negative. I'm only referring to the one or two smarta$$es who think it's clever to mock.
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1. "Guy's" = A fair cop.
2. The post = Freedom of speech et al.
3. The content = Monday morning playtime. Must try harder!
Chill man...
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To be even more blunt, how rude *you* are rude_tomo. Why pick on Tomo when Mike Harvey made a similar point in his excellent second post on this thread? In any case, I don't believe Tomo was attempting to belittle Steve atall, just giving him some sensible pointers concerning self-presentation.
PJ
PS Most of us, particularly Rita, appreciate how easy it is to post twice, especially if a computer may have gone offline whilst one is drafting a post.
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Thanks again for your help guys, but arnt we goin a bit of the point now with all these posts about my spelling?!!
P.S I'm not having a go and think this forum is great and very helpful, much better responses than the ones i got at AE.
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"The main reason no body has said anything is because i am still at school at tehe moment"
What, Steve! Not even your English teacher? Things must be worse than I thought. More seriously, good English may indeed not be a prerequisite to posting in this forum but, even though I may only be a bus driver, I know that it will certainly help you a great deal in life in general, not least in the cold climate of jobhunting.
DD
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Oh for God's sake, his English isn't bad.
You pathetic people...I hope your kids get a better response when they show some initiative in job hunting...if you are capable of kids, that is.
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I'm actually doing A level english language at the moment and have been predicted a grade C. To be fair guys, how you can tell how good my english is from reading a few messages, escapes me. In forums such as this I just try and communicate my point rather than using my best english, because to be honest I dont see any point.
Thanks again to the majority of you that have been very helpful.
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Steve,
I have no intention to be rude and I don't think I was, just honest.
Something you may consider is, if you fail to use your best English, you may in fact fail to convey correctly the point you are seeking to make; as indeed it seems I may have done.
Good luck, Tomo
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Steve's English may indeed not be bad, but it certainly is not good either, and no one, least of all you, is doing him any favours for the long term by suggesting otherwise.
Nothing pathetic either about the overall encouragement I offered Steve the better to achieve his goal, so I suggest you have the courtesy to try harder to understand my earlier post, "if you are capable that is ..."
DD
PS As higher rate tax payers in their twenties, all five children will appreciate your good wishes for their future, if not your descent to the personal abuse of their poor old Dad.
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AS King of the Typos, which I really must be, I'd agree.
However, ignoring the reactionary stuff, people are not to know one way or the other how your English really is, only how it appears at first glance.
I might not quite leap to such a definite conclusion, but Tomo and DD and the others were trying to help.
And even Tomo was quite amazingly polite for him (smiley, Tomo, a smiley is here).
The point is well made though, that ALL parts of presentation matter, even those, such as writing, which don't seem all that relevant to selling a car.
And as for "rude_tomo" - steady on lad, nobody was being *that* rude and they were trying to help.
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