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Stories from the Sales Frontlines
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The Dodge Volt looked much more interesting in concept stage, but still has some appeal. Seeing where all of this leads will be very cool. Sometimes I wish I was born later so that I could see what would happen 100 years down the road. All the science fiction will become real!
Where's our freaking time machine?!
Many uncivil replies are being deleted. If you have questions about why, ask via email. This is NOT the place to ask about deleted posts or to talk about disruptive members, or any members for that matter.
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2015 Kia Soul, 2021 Subaru Forester (kirstie_h), 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 (mr. kirstie_h)
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Compared to you guys I’m a real greenpea but if I got my start like you did, I’d be gone and I wouldn’t have returned. :shades:
jmonroe
'15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl
Maybe it was 1997? Can't remember and when they changed formats all of got rolled back to 2001.
That was a real bummer for me. I was almost vested and I lost a week's vacation!
Yeah....after the changeover, all of our Edmunds benefits started all over again.
j....there have been plenty of times where I said "enough is enough" and took my ball and stayed away. As I'm sure you (and isell) can attest to, we've seen a lot of knuckleheads come and go. There have been the people who know everything. There have been some people where the car dealerships are the "evil empire". There have been other people who viewed both buyers and sellers as the people who needed to be "one upped". There have been salespeople who thought they knew everything. And, there have been buyers who thought the same. In both instances, they were wrong. I've even made my fair share of faux pas.
Fact is, everytime I log in to read messages, I learn something new. Some of it I wanted to learn. Some of it I could have done without.
Always...always a surprise when I log in, which is why I keep coming back.
Most of those people have been "lurkers" I never realized how many people read and never post.
Yes, a lot of people have certainly come and gone.
Yeah, I've been around all that time. I definitely remember isell already being here.
Are you the only one left?
they had a gt 500 on the showroom floor.
they floated out 1k over msrp.
Did you ever do upper control arm shafts in one of those old T-Birds?
Talk about a B****H! of a job! Dangerous too!
i could pick that back up if needed.
speaking in another language, anyone know how a BXLE works?
Branch on less than or equal? I suppose that fits this forum if we need to branch back to topic if the current thread is less than or equal to what is expected?
tidester, host
SUVs and Smart Shopper
these manufacturer sales are tempting, although our family won't need another vehicle for about 6 months.
Anyway, all this talk of nostalgia.....I just was asked out on a date. She wants me to go see "Hairspray".
I feel old.....I don't know what "Hairspray" is. I guess it's pretty popular? :confuse:
With a hit ratio like that I ain't holdin nothin back from here on.
I've always believed in giving an advance warning
jmonroe
'15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
And that is what killed my fathers oil prospecting and survey company. He just couldn't survive on 8-10 dollar oil with the borderline wildcatting they were doing.
There are quite a few real wildcat oil companies that are going to collapse in the coming months if oil falls to the 50-60 dollar level.
Yes, they used to be together a few years ago, but they are splitting them up. Have you checked if they are still together?
To get this back on topic, in Greenwich, CT where I used to take my VW for service, they now have the VW, Audi, and Porsche dealerships right next to each other. I wonder how much cross shopping there is?
And you stayed?
Just kidding Isell. I enjoy your posts, but the set up was just too good to pass up.
A friend in the repair business once told me that "mechanics have a lot in common with women of the evening. Men give you money to do strange things with your body".
(Gee I hope the Host doesn't delete that....
DUKE23-You seem to think very highly of yourself due to the "25 years you've been in sales." Can you tell me exactly what you sell? I know plenty of old-timers who've been sellng forever, but don't know much andjust do enough to survive. So please elder- statesman of the sales front, enlighten the rest of us "children " >
I will indeed youngster, Plese reference the above fore mentioned email and I will be glad to educate you. "DUKE23-You seem to think very highly of yourself due to the "25 years you've been in sales." Can you tell me exactly what you sell? I know plenty of old-timers who've been sellng forever, but don't know much and just do enough to survive. So please elder-statesman of the sales front, enlighten the rest of us "children " I am most pleased you have passed puberty and had your first beer. Now as I asked I sell . Please adequately explain how credit default swaps work as they relate to the current environment. Secondarily please explain the failure of Fannie/Freddie . Well kiddo, not only have I survived without my daddy's book. But I have prospered. I speak truth to clients, they rather like that. I apologise but you are rather beneath the level I respond to. How's your Jefferson County doing ? Lord, what I put up with. Why don't you google third party externalities. You've bit down the wrong tree kid ,unless you want to google and answer wrong. Lord the trials and tribulations I put up with. Btw, I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you. Relax all it's an old spy joke. Let's just say it's a highly regulated industry that has to answer to government agencies with three and four letters. But of course you could have been " clued " in had you responded to my well advertised email. Busted are you kid. Side note,The arrogance of youth,those old has beens. Work an honest job for the first time in your life and I might repect you, Btw respect has to be earned. The preceding has been said in the most respectful way. Just as southern women say bless your heart and really mean it.
Would you believe that I was in a 50's 356 a few years ago? :shades:
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Ah, memories, it's probably been awhile since you've gone through a dump too. Everything is so automated now. And for those of you not familiar with software, it's not what you think.
Ah, memories, it's probably been awhile since you've gone through a dump too
I'm in the software business ....and that's funny
"A friend in the repair business once told me that "mechanics have a lot in common with women of the evening. Men give you money to do strange things with your body".
In the words of Sargent Shultz, I know No thing,Nothing. But in the words of tiny Tim, God bless us one and all. Tia.
"Gee, it's old home week.... " Shock, I actually respect Isells posts though he does not in return, 13 years. But being a pragmatist and willing to get beyond all that , I am willing to say we agree to disagree. But I'll be here, no fly by night am I.Now could we have some sales stories for crying out loud ?
"Ah, memories, it's probably been awhile since you've gone through a dump too. Everything is so automated now. And for those of you not familiar with software, it's not what you think. "
Cobol, Fortran. To think they once gave prizes to those that could compose code in the least. These days in the days of large hard drives and msft, it's gitterdone.
matt.....I think the opportunity to do just that is in the here and now. You've got store closings, consolidations. Prelude to some of this is the flittering away of Oldsmobile and Plymouth. Mentioned it before, GM, Ford, Chryco have wanted to trim the amount of dealers they have for years. Franchise laws and the cost to do so was huge.
Now, the marketplace is doing it for them. Heard is just one example (on the GM side) of what's probably happening with smaller GM dealerships.
GM tried to go to a "one price" model with Saturn. Open up any newspaper and you'll see Saturn ads including rebates, special financing, etc. They may not let you make your own offer. But, they sure are discounting.
If ever there was a time to go to a one price structure, that time would be now. Customer would have to adapt. But, if one of the big manufacturers decided to do it, across the board, the customer would eventually adapt. And, the others would follow suit.
Then again, it will probably go on as it's always been....even in tough times, like the manufacturers and dealerships are seeing now.
I see Bob Lutz's face all over the place these days. Mostly, he's touting the Volt. But I have to wonder what would happen if he came out and said "every car GM makes is now 15% off the former MSRP price"? No special financing. No rebates. No incentives. No dickering.
Dealerships get a flat 5% commission directly from GM for every unit sold. No holdback.
I have no idea if that business model would work. Maybe you adjust the MSRP a bit....maybe you adjust the commission rate to the dealerships a bit. But, I bet, at least initially, there'd be a surge into the GM showrooms.
Just looking at what a place like Kerbeck, who's specializing in Corvettes, is doing....they're already discounting their product by nearly that amount, anyway.
Those dealerships that can't survive, need to go away. Let the marketplace weed them out.
But, then... we'd all want half of that 5% in an additional discount...
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I have learned that whatever the price is, even when we misprice a car, without fail, people ALWAYS want to dicker!
Don't feed the trolls (I'm not saying Fandi is a troll just yet, but he def. was baiting duke).
Remember what happened to Mack when he bit on the troll's bait.
I go to the dump about once a week. I see a lot of computers there. None I'd want to go through the garbage to retrieve.
:P
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
I've done that "gotta make the numbers" routine for many years. Get to the end of the month (in my case, end of the quarter) and the easiest way to "hit" the number is to start whacking away at margins.
But, if a car company resisted that temptation, stuck to the plan, eventually, people, manufacturers, dealerships would adapt.
Probably never happen, though.
There have been some dealerships that have been successful at it, though....the afore mentioned Kerbeck. We've all seen how Fitzgerald has done it, too.
I think the government will have a hand in from now on. It will never go back to the old way of doing things.
Americans are funny ducks. They want "free market" but they also want to be protected from insecurity. Can't be done.
If you can't stand the thought of being flattened, wiped out, demolished, etc.every now and again, then you have to choose a more paternalistic form of capitalism seems to me.
There are quite a few real wildcat oil companies that are going to collapse in the coming months if oil falls to the 50-60 dollar level.
BR....that may very well be. But, those wildcat oil companies must have just sprung up recently. The $25/bbl is very, very recent history. If the wildcatters were around, certainly they were making money then.
As the old adage goes, those who ignore history, are doomed to repeat it. Way too many similarities today to what was happening in the '80s.
Market conditions (weaker global growth, much lower demand, with no evidence of recovery) isn't positive. Even as supply was/is being restricted, it hasn't stemmed the tide downward.
Can't say I'm real sympathetic to the oil industry (as if you couldn't tell). The run up couldn't be sustained. It had no legs in economic terms. It did little other than to put the world economies in a tail spin. And, for what? Some short term profit gains for a few?
You make an interesting observation regarding "one price" systems. Thing is, we have never seen a successful (read sustainable) implementation of such a system. It is an attempt to remove negotiating on price from the customers hands. All it does is shifts it to broader market machinations, and the customer still maintains some power. You correctly note that I can not make an offer at a Saturn dealership, but I can wait for them to discount the price, or I can simply go to a competitor. I am reminded of a quote about there always being someone who can make something cheaper and sell it for less. (usually attributed to John Ruskin, a decent observation, but some of his conclusions were misguided) Besides, we have laws that effectively prevent such systems from taking hold, I think primarily because taken to their natural conclusion you arrive at socialism. (extreme, I know) The other extreme of "one price" is monopolization, and we have laws to prevent that as well.
"One price" really doesn't exist even in segments we think they do. True, the car market is one we think of as inherently involving negotiations, but you can negotiate price on anything or wait it out or just shop smart. Just yesterday I bought $80 worth of shoes for $16.50. I wasn't really looking for shoes for myself, but the end of the season and the sellers need to clear out inventory worked to my favor. I had been wanting to replace my rugged sandals and lightweight hikers for a while. Lands' End's loss, my gain, but I don't think I threatened Lands' End's success.
They ran it for 2 months and apparently move more cars percentage wise than Toyota, Ford and Chrysler did compared to last year. I don't think they could sell cars at that price all year and stay in business, but maybe something similar with a little more mark up would work.
2018 430i Gran Coupe
2018 430i Gran Coupe