Most pay plans only pay you after a car is physically delivered to the customer. I have taken deposits on ordered cars and not gotten paid till six months later when the car was actually sold. I have also had a couple of instances where one sales person sold the car, had the car ordered for the customer and then quit before it was delivered and I got the commission instead.
Could be just depends how the pay plan is set up at the dealer. It also depends on what the turnover is like at the dealership. Plus a lot of those people will flake out over their 99 dollar deposit. I have had people flake out of 2,000 dollar deposits when they knew in no uncertain terms that there was no way they would ever get their deposit back. If people will do that over 2,000 dollars, they will do it over 99 dollars even easier.
The pay plan is everything cause if it sucks, like mine does, it can be very hard to make money. My pay plan is fine when there is decent gross in the cars you are selling but it really only rewards MSRP or close to MSRP sales. The moment you have to discount a car by more then 1,500 bucks or so you start making 150-200 bucks a car which isn't enough money with our low volume.
My pay plan stinks british, and it's done by the week all the way to the end of the month.
1st car of the week=15% of the gross after all charge backs, etc.
2nd car of the week=20% of the gross
3rd car of the week=25% of the gross
4th car of the week=30% of the gross
The 1st-4th car gets bumped to 30% and that is as high as the retro back goes.
5th car of the week is 35% on that deal
6th car of the week is 40% on that deal
7th car of the week is 45%
8th car of the week is 50%
9th is 50% and so on.
Only one guy I've seen hit 8 cars in a week and he has 21 years worth of a client base. As I said I have 3 out for the month and had 8 deals go south on me yesterday because we couldn't get em' approved or they didn't like our price !!! 2 of the vehicles I was selling of that 8 were money losers and would of been sold way below trade-in !!! If you sell a loser all you get is a spiff of a $100 bucks and it bumps your percentage in your 1st four cars up 5 % So to make this pay plan work you better deliver your cars all in one week and the most I've delivered in one week was 3 or 25% of the gross. We had one sales lady sell 12 cars last month and only made $1700 commission or roughly $100 over her guarantee "draw" !!! She quit last week !!!
So british, I feel your pain buddy !!! You are probably doing much better than me and I laugh when some say go sell Honda's or Toyota's hell it's a revolving door at their lots !!! 30-40 new car salesman on the floor and when a "up" is out on the lot scanning the lot well 3-4 salesman race to the car and jumping on the hood to speak to that customer. The lowest seller of the month each and every month is showed the door !!! Yeah I really want to work in that type of a enviroment !!! Good Grief !!!! :mad:
The bottom line is automobile sales are extremely slow and some pay-plans are better than others. I've been here since the middle of January and am on my 4th F&I manager !!!! :surprise: I'd have to count on my fingers and toes to add up all the people that have left since I've been here and more/less the same type of thing is going on at other lots except a select few where the employee is respected and appreciated and those places are very hard to get in !!!
I'm going to go work for a contractor/partner of AT&T in sales !!! I'm going to give it a run and if I don't like it well I will do something else. I'm skeptical and would be a 1099 employee but hell anything is better than working all the long hours I do for peanuts !!!
-The Rock
P.S. Any breaking news on the AA strike ???? :confuse:
"You are probably doing much better than me and I laugh when some say go sell Honda's or Toyota's hell it's a revolving door at their lots !!! 30-40 new car salesman on the floor and when a "up" is out on the lot scanning the lot well 3-4 salesman race to the car and jumping on the hood to speak to that customer."
Sorry, rock, if I knew that I would not have suggested it...I think I can appreciate your frustration...I really thought I was bringing up a suggestion that you had simply tuned out because they were non-UAW, and maybe a nudge would have you reconsider...obviously I was wrong...
Kinda like the Law of Unintended Consequences...I thought I was helping, and I only made it worse...kinda like Bush invading Iraq...
a guy on a Kia fan website lives in Manistee, Michigan, and says that that dealership sells Kia's like hotcakes. They are one of the busiest Kia dealerships in the nation. This guy is a huge Kia fan and lives, eats and breathes Kia. He is only 14 years old but knows more about Kia than anyone I've ever seen post on the net.
Anyway, what would you say about selling Kia's? You might look in to it, man. He makes it sound like they can't keep enough Kia's on the lot for people's needs. Have you ever heard of this dealership in Manistee, Williams Kia?
Go easy on the Teamsters. They send me a nice check every month. The Alaska Teamsters have done a much better job of investing my retirement money than the Feds have with their SS joke of a retirement. Local 959 Teamsters Retirement Trust had the foresight to buy up hundreds of acres in Indian Wells CA when it was just worthless desert next to Palm Springs. Last time I checked the resort complex built with our money brought in a return in the neighborhood of $400,000,000. Not all Unions are poorly managed. It helps when the members are active and not sheep.
I was thinking the "Teamsters" union were actually the drivers of livestock teams pulling freight. When motorized vehicles began to appear, the teamsters union covered those drivers also, as many had been driving wagons before.
Same job, of moving freight, but with engines instead of livestock.
Don't know if that covered Stage Coach drivers or Train Engineers. :confuse:
The Teamsters may be the most diverse Union in the country. In Alaska they have a large portion of the communications workers. Here in San Diego they have Price Club employees that are now Costco. The old RCA Global Communications was Teamsters world wide. That is how I ended up a Teamster. I tried to get my son into the Union. Kids these days think they can beat the system. At least his wife has a good job with the State of AK.
you need to try to get in to high line stuff. Much better hours, usually a better pay plan, and no you don't have to be a snob to sell Mercedes, Porsche, BMW, Audi.
Just do your research on a particular brand, and go sell yourself. You can do it Rocky.
rocky should be selling Cadillacs and other GM's, that's what his forte is. I haven't seen him respond to my post about William's Kia up in Manistee, Michigan. I wish he would address that, it's in Michigan and Greg says they can't keep Kia's on the lot long enough. It is one of the best-performing Kia dealerships in the nation.
One of my co-workers just came from a Kia, dealership and he said unless you like making a $500 gross which you only get 27% of well its hard to make a living on that !!! 27% is only like $135 bucks thus you better sell 30 of them a month iluv. It's just not going to happen "realistically" because our # 1 Kia, dealership where I applied at last fall doesn't have any salesman moving those kind of numbers !!!
To be quite honest I've done a lot of research on pay plans and interviewed at a few dealerships. The dealerships with the lowest turnover are the ones that treat their employees good, pay them well, and don't flood the floor with salesman !!! We have a few such dealerships that are very hard to land a job with. The high end dealerships don't pay quite as well as you think dhamilton. In fact one such group that sells Mercedes, Volvo, Volkswagen, has a high turnover.
Was scanning some articles on American Axle and found one http://blog.mlive.com/followthemoney/2008/05/american_axle_strike_ends_have.html- - ) where they were asking for comments on their coverage of the strike. This comment from a former AA worker was interesting: I worked at AAM for 11 years, I left in 2005 when a $50,000 buyout was available. The contract before this last one was the last "easy contract" there was going to be, I knew the end was near. I went back to school with the help of the tuition assistance (which was not widely used I might add) and eventually got a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I paid for the last two years on my own. I left the soft pillow of the UAW for something unknown, I did this with 4 children, needless to say I had plenty to lose. I graduated on a Saturday and started a new job the following Monday, making similar money to AAM. As far as I am concerned how could you as a AAM worker not see this coming, you should have been prepared you have no one to blame but yourself. This is not corporate greed this is the reality of business on a global scale. You priced yourselves out of the job market. Greed is not a one way street. Please do not tell me you are fighting for middle class America because you are not. We were overpaid for what we did plain and simple, how can you justify a forklift driver or someone who cleans the bathroom making that kind of money, you have no defense and your arguments are invalid. The ride is over now it is time to work in the real world and time to find out exactly what your skills will bring on the open market.
Americans work more hours than probably any other workers in developed countries. It is not the American worker, but the greedy CEOs that have offshored everything. If you step back and think about the original intent of all of these trade agreements (or should I say, how they were sold to the people) was to open up markets to goods manufactured in and by Americans, not to dismantle America's manufacturing base and industry and ship it off to China or to Mexico or to whatever other country that had no regulation and/or environmental or labor laws!
The thing is, history (and Ross Perot) teaches us that these exact things would occur as capital is loyal to no country, but it is the people that must demand it.
There was a time not too long ago when there wasn't a chance in hell that an American would purchase a foreign made car or purchase other products manufactured in a country like as China!
Now that the big 3 have gotten their suppliers to take on lower wages so the parts they supply to the big 3 are competitive with the other US suppliers Toyota turns the screws onto their US suppliers and say either reduce cost to China levels or good by. So it looks like there will be more cuts at the big 3 suppliers needed to remain competitive with the import suppliers. AA and others will have to reduce cost somehow to China levels so the big 3 can remain competitive. Just no break here.
Toyota is putting the squeeze on its North American suppliers, trying to bring component costs in line with parts from low-cost countries such as China and India.
Company executives won't say how much suppliers are being asked to cut parts prices. But they want the entire North American supply chain "globally cost competitive" by 2010.
Toyota is halfway to reaching that goal, said Chris Nielsen, vice president for purchasing at Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Inc. The effort began a year ago.
For example, Nielsen said stamped metal or interior parts sourced in the United States must cost the same as the parts that could be sourced in China — "from a total cost standpoint." That includes the cost of transportation, material handling and other factors.
Nielsen said gains made so far were "low-hanging fruit." He said the next wave of cost cuts will be more difficult to achieve.
Suppliers have taken note of Toyota's tougher stance. A new OEM Supplier Relations Study by consultancy SupplierBusiness in the United Kingdom and Automotive News Europe suggests that only BMW among global automakers has intensified its push for price cuts more than Toyota in the past year. More than a third of the 133 suppliers who responded to the survey were North American.
"They are more focused on this than I've ever seen them in the past," said a supplier CEO who asked that his name not be used. "They've had other cost-reduction programs, just like everyone else. But Toyota has made it clear to all of us that they are really concerned with getting North American costs in line with the rest of the world."
Toyota also must weigh the political ramifications of shifting part of the $30 billion it spends annually on purchasing in North America to places such as China or Vietnam. Toyota's growth in the United States has come with criticism that it still imports 45 percent of the vehicles it sells in North America. By comparison, Nissan and American Honda Motor Co. import only about 20 percent of their vehicles.
Local parts sourcing also remains a sticky issue as many U.S. suppliers reel from depressed production volumes at Chrysler, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors. Trade data from the U.S. Commerce Department show that Japanese parts exports to the United States in the first quarter totaled $3.54 billion. That volume is roughly the same as in the first quarter of 2007, even though North American vehicle production was about 10 percent higher at that time.
Very well said pal !!! I respect the guy in pf_flyer's post for going back to school to earn a degree in mechanical engineering however not everyones circumstances are the same. Why should a american blue collar worker have to compete doing manual labor with some chinamen living in a grass hut, eating snakes, so greedy CEO's can make a extra buck !!! I personally believe it is very unpatriotic, disrespectful, to all our veterans that have served the country and died for the well being of our country, and now the ubber wealthy slap them in the face by enslaving 3rd world citizens to make a buck !!! :mad:
I do not see anything wrong with paying a janitor or machine operator a livable wage. A Mechanical Engineer, should obviously make more but now because of global competition their wages have dropped in many engineering fields. Engineers, in the 1980's in many cases using GM, as a example made $80,000 a year. Now those same engineers start out at $35K a yr. at GM/Delphi !!! Not everyone is college material, nor should it be a requirement to live the american dream. Sending every Tom, Dick, Harry, to college who probably shouldn't be going only lowers the standard. What does a degree buy ??? A home mortgage size debt ??? I've done some research and discovered it doesn't buy you as much in salary as one thinks. Outside of a few high demand fields it helps but doesn't guarantee you a spot in the upper middle class thus not everyone is mentally capable of doing those "high demand" fields so we are suppose to send those folks to the soup line ??? I would like to believe we are a better country than that but like lemko, I probably should of lived 40 years ago when people had some nationalism left in their bones and were happy when their neighbor got a good job and improved his family's situation. Today that neighbor would look down upon them with jealousy and hate and say he's overpaid. This is the type of mind boggling stuff I've personally unfortunately witnessed !!!
is that no one objects to paying a janitor a living wage, but at some point, the skill level must be brought into play...and, it simply is NOT worth that much to pay someone to sweep a floor...just because they have a mortgage and 4 kids, that does not add any value to the job...
I am NOT being elitist here, but a 14 year old can sweep a floor and a 16 year old can put stock on WalMart shelves...these are jobs that, while the company may need its floors swept and its shelves re-stocked, it is barely worth minimum wage to pay someone to do it...
I personally believe marsha7, that everything would eventually be "in order" like it was 40 or 50 years ago. The american "small business" guy virtually has a impossible time getting started when his larger rivals are manufactoring a similar product in China, using slave labor. I believe we can have affordable, well made, products made by americans in this country if we focused on internal competition. If a foreign rival wants a piece of the american pie, well they better manufactor it here in this country. China, has basically eliminated imports so U.S. company's have to build it their if they want to sell it to the Chinese, population. We lose out on jobs, tax revenue, creativity, not to mention I and others look at it as a national security risk, losing our manufactoring capacity. I personally know the Chinese, have "front company's" flying the american flag that are trying to gain access to U.S. military contracts. Another major problem is the Chinese, have no respect for trademarks, patents, etc, which further angers business. Marsha7, I'm not saying somebody sweeping a floor needs to make $30 an hour but if the machine operator was making $20-25 an hr. perhaps the guy sweeping the floor should make $10-15 an hour or perhaps one of his other duties requires more skill like fork truck duty or oiling the machines. It's getting to the point now where college grads like a guy in mechanical engineering are making what machine operators did 10-15 years ago and the machine operator due to global competition is making what janitors did in the same time period while the cost of gas, food, transportation, housing, keeps going up leaving many family's strapped !!! I think that is where lemko and I, are going with this conversation. We also see the blue collar worker losing his voice with the reduction of organized labor, but I have a good feeling that a revolt against the "same old washington" will be finally heard next november !!!
but I have a good feeling that a revolt against the "same old washington" will be finally heard next november !!!
The only way Congress will get the picture, and they are the problem, is to vote EVERY incumbent out of his seat. When the American people realize that incumbents are the problem with our system of government we may get some good tariffs and a level playing field. Not with anyone currently in Congress or running for President.
That should also go for the good old boys in the Unions also.
RAPUATO, Mexico - Antonio Martinez used to pay smugglers thousands of dollars each year to sneak him into the United States to manage farm crews. Now, the work comes to him.
Supervising lettuce pickers in central Mexico, Martinez earns just half of the $1,100 a week he made in the U.S. But the job has its advantages, including working without fear of immigration raids.
Martinez, now a legal employee of U.S.-owned VegPacker de Mexico, is exactly the kind of worker more American farm companies are seeking. Many have moved their fields to Mexico, where they can find qualified people, often with U.S. experience, who can't be deported.
"Because I never moved my family to the U.S., I was always alone there," said Martinez, 45, who could never get a work permit, even after 16 years in agriculture in California and Arizona. "When I got the opportunity to be close to my family, doing similar work, I didn't even have to think about it."
American companies now farm more than 45,000 acres of land in three Mexican states, employing about 11,000 people, a 2007 survey by the U.S. farm group Western Growers shows.
"Employers can't find legal workers to replace this huge number of illegal workers," said James Holt, an agricultural labor economist and independent consultant based in Washington. "Their only option is to go where the workers are."
Farm workers at U.S. companies in Mexico make two or three times Mexico's minimum wage of $4.80 a day. But they still earn far less than the average $9.60 an hour that field workers in the United States made in January 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Juan Antonio Linarez, 19, makes a tenth of his U.S. roofing income at Taylor Farms de Mexico's vegetable cooling plant in Guanajuato. But he has health insurance and can live nearby with his family _ without the dangerous and expensive trek across the border.
grant everything you say about China as true, why does that change the fact that sweeping the floor and stocking the shelves is NOT worth more than $5.35 an hour???...why do you have difficulty with the concept that some jobs are inherently low skilled and not worth much???
Would you pay the kid mowing your lawn $35 an hour plus benefits???...c'mon, rocky, some jobs have little value simply because there is no skill required in doing it...if you could speak Burmese, you could take a Burma immigrant straight off the boat and train him to sweep the floor in about, oh, 5 minutes???
Just because someone make their own personal decision to stop their skill level at floor sweeping is no reason to pay more than 5 bucks an hour...IT AIN'T WORTH IT, no matter what anybody says...
but a 14 year old can sweep a floor and a 16 year old can put stock on WalMart shelves...these are jobs that, while the company may need its floors swept and its shelves re-stocked, it is barely worth minimum wage to pay someone to do it...
Bob, I know you're not trying to be elitist, but the fact is, a 14 year old CAN'T sweep a floor M-F, 7-4, because they're in school,and a 16 year old CAN'T stock shelves from 11 pm-7am because labor laws won't allow it.
Now, is the job worth more than $5.35 ($5.85 in a couple months)? It's not that I don't see your point, as I do, but (illegal immigrants not withstanding) if those companies have a tough time finding people to do the job, and have a high turnover rate amongst the ones that do, then the pay HAS to go up.
I don't expect ANYBODY to be able to buy a house or have a couple new cars in the driveway doing those jobs, but you SHOULD be able to rent a modest apartment (a studio or 1 br) working a steady 40 hrs at one of those jobs. If you live in an area where rents are $800-1000, a month, then $10-12/hr is no less reasonable than $7-8.50/hr would be if the rents are $500-700.
Now, having said that, I don't think it should be incumbent on employers of these type jobs to have to support unhealthy lifestyles either (somebody trying to rent a 4 br house because they have 5 kids and a wife to support). We all have to learn to live within our means.
I respect the fact everyone wants top pay but you need to WANT it. Joining a Union doesn't do it anymore. I started collecting garbage. But I wanted more....here I am.
We compete globally and things will change even more. Good question...Can US manufacture great products and be competitive?
Jobs changed from the past and robots do the repetitive tasks. We need to change to make sure we do knowledge work.
> Toyota is putting the squeeze on its North American suppliers, trying to bring component costs in line with parts from low-cost countries such as China and India.
Is this the start of the predicted move of the foreign car plants to cheaper areas as a next step. First they don't like the costs of US production and it has to compete with foreign countries in the homeland and then next will be that it's cheaper to build the whole car there, as many still build 55%-80% of their cars there. When they've eliminated the US builders, that would be an easy move with no resistance. The buyers will just keep on buying them.
Years ago, the garbage trucks used to come up our 400' drive way to empty the cans. There was a driver and one guy on the back. The collectors had to manually lift the cans over the lip on the rear of the truck. Hydrolic lifts and special cans came along much later. He had to sit the cans on a platform, then climb on the platform and empty the cans into the truck.
I would generally help them if I was there. I would hand the cans up to him, on the platform. Sometimes on hot days I would offer them a cold drink and we would take a break in the shade.
One day the guy at the back, "Shorty", seemed to be in a super mood. I questioned it, and he told me that he had gotten a promotion, and the following week he would be getting his own truck and route. He was so excited and his enthusiasm was contagious. Then he got quiet and looked me straight in the eye and said, "I'm not going to stop there. I'm going back to school, and some day I will have my own collection company." I didn't see him after that day.
He did just that. His Refuse Management company is the largest and still the only one in our area with the trucks that are a one man operation. There is a hydraulic arm that the driver operates from the driver's seat. The arm picks up the specially designed container, dumps it into the truck and sits it back into the exact spot it came from, if the truck is sitting still. Steering wheel is on the right side.
I know this for a fact! Shortly after going with a new company, I filled a complaint because the containers were ending up on the drive way after being emptied. A well dressed man came by to answer the complaint. He looked vaguely familiar. He said they usually answer complaints by phone. But when he saw mine, he wanted to do it in person. He shook my hand and said, "You probably don't remember me. My name is Shorty. We used to sometimes take a break under that tree." Then he told his story.
Point is, that the young man had a dream and the will to follow it through. He understood that hard work and education are the keys to success. He didn't bounce from one company to another, doing the same thing day in and day out, and complaining about life. He met life on life's terms, and made a success of his life.
I 100% agree with your post !!! One other issue that is often overlooked and that is our education systems. Degree programs today require so many B.S. classes that have zippo to do with the focus of study and are just another way to soak people out of money. I personally would like to see our education system more along the lines of European/Scandinavian country's. Oops I might of just opened that can of worms for thinking that way !!! :P The bottom line is large corporations will exploit where they can given the current global circumstances. The fact that corporations can off-shore or go south with zero consquences still to this day goes to show you just how little of a voice the common people in this country have and perhaps its a good thing that the guy offering the most "change" from the same old washington is leading in all the polls.
Degree programs today require so many B.S. classes that have zippo to do with the focus of study
Don't forget the human factor there as well. Your choices determine YOUR fate for the most part, not some evil force that's looking to keep you down.
A few weeks ago I was visitng a friend's tire shop/garage and a couple of customers were hanging around chatting, and there was this old timer sitting next to a guy who had graduated college about a year ago but couldn't find a job. Someone asked him what his major was and he replied, "14th century Russian poetry". And the old timer says, "You thought THAT would get you a job?" :P
China is brutal, cruel and has no consideration for the welfare and rights of its own people.
For years now China has been keeping its currency artificially low even as its economy has boomed, and it's factories produced billions of dollars of cheap goods.
Why would China do this you ask?
Simple...China did not want it's own people to buy the very products they were making in the factories. They wanted to keep the value of their currency artificially low, and pay the factory workers pennies on the dollar. The Chinese people would not be able to buy the products, which allowed them to ship their crap out to Wal-Mart stores across America so US citizens could enjoy a great bargain.
As they say on the infomercials that wake you up at 4 AM... Wait... There's more!
American consumer spending was fueled primarily by debt spending. Home equity loans on houses, massive credit card debt were all the rage for the past decade and someone had to buy that debt. Guess who? It was China who would buy the American debt allowing American consumption to continue, fueling China's manufacturing economy, fueling America's consumer spending economy, buying American debt, which would keep the Yuan artificially low vs the American dollar so that Americans could continue to afford cheap Chinese products.
The sick cycle carousel continued until 2005 when China began to revalue its currency, and as the American dollar continues to collapse the whole situation is about to spin into economic disaster.
pf: that is so true...they tale up these silly majors in, say, the history of art, and, unless they work in a museum, wonder why nobody hires them...what was he thinking when he did that???...one answer: he thought he would work for Daddy and just went to college to "expand his mind", which, may not be a bad thing, but may not lead one to employment...
cooter: I was not referring to child labor laws, and yes, they should be in school, but the SKILL level is certainly one that a schoolkid could work in a summer job...I was at Chik Fil-A and a 14 year old kid asked for an application...he stated that he was 14 but that he had a work permit...obviously the state of GA regulates this, and he had the required permit...so, yes, he could work summers and after school and weekends sweeping floors and stocking shelves...my point being that a 30 year old who performs that work is still only worth $5.35 an hour, if that...it is the WORK that demands no skills...if the WORKER has other skills they should use them and do other work...
Yeah, but I don't think even he could imagine back then it would be this bad. Nixon, despite his faults had a brain and in my personal opinion he would not allow our trade deficit to reach the levels it has. Now Reagan............ :surprise:
American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. said today that it has a $1.4 billion backlog in new business beginning next year through 2013 -- almost all of which will be sourced outside the United States. American Axle, which spun off from General Motors in 1994, last week settled on a new contract with the UAW for its U.S. operations. In a conference call with analysts this morning,
Would you pay the kid mowing your lawn $35 an hour plus benefits???...
They're getting that and more already in my neighborhood. Plus, it's tax-free money.
The going rate is around $40 for someone to mow the average lawn in my subdivision. I can mow and bag it in an hour with a push mower. The guys with the commercial riding mowers could probably mow it in 30-40 minutes.
That's the main reason I mow my own grass. Maybe I should start going door-to-door and offering a $5 discount off whatever they're paying now.
They're getting that and more already in my neighborhood. Plus, it's tax-free money.
The guy on the lawn mower isn't getting paid anywhere near that. Have you priced a commercial lawn mower lately? They are expensive, not to mention the truck and trailer to haul it. Add gas, maintenance,wages, and hopefully some profits, $40/hr is probably about right.
Just hope the UAW doesn't unionize your lawnmower man. It'll cost $80 to get it cut, he'll mow over your hedges, take 5 breaks, and put a picket line around your house and call you a scab if you try to mow it on your own. LOL;) Just kidding of course.
my point being that a 30 year old who performs that work is still only worth $5.35 an hour, if that...it is the WORK that demands no skills...if the WORKER has other skills they should use them and do other work...
Bob, no doubt, if you have the skills, you should aspire to do better. However, Chick-fil-A can hire the 14 yr old just like the moms they hire, because they have the shifts available to accomodate them.
Think of it a diiferent way; many companies pay a shift differential for 3rd shift. Generally, it's 10%. Now, the SKILL SET is still the same for that job, but they pay an incentive to get people to work off hours. Now, Walmart could hire a 14 yr old to do a job (let's say janitorial) from 4-7 pm, plus weekends, and get away with paying minimum wage. They could hire a mom to do it from 10-2, and the same thing applies. But if they need someone FULL TIME, 40 hrs/wk, the game changes. SAME skill set, different game.
Could they get a retiree to do it for minimum? Sure. But, how many want to? I say the wage required has as much to do with incentive to get you in as it does with skill set. In this case, incentive to work full time, as opposed to overnight.
Another thing would be area (combat pay????). Pushing a broom takes the same skill in NYC as in El Paso, but obviously is worth more doing it for the Ritz Carlton as opposed to a Motel 6.
So while I'll reiterate that pushing a broom is not meant for the guy living in a Mc Mansion raising 5 kids, the value is based on more than just the skill set it takes to do the job.
My post regarding the Garbage collector was to illustrate how determination to succeed can and will win out, when that determination is applied.
He could have continued hanging off the back of that truck complaining how he should be making more money.
My oldest son is staunchly hanging on to the belief that he can live large selling cars. He has been hanging on to that dream for many years now, yet the pay just seems to be getting lower and lower. Yes, there are or were people making good money in that arena, but they are few and far between. He just can't seem to grasp the fact that a $10 per hour steady job would pay better than the commissions he gets for 60+ hours on the car lots.
Folks that sit around demanding more money for their non skilled jobs, will still be doing that years from now. They also complain that management salaries are too high.. The cure for them is to get the necessary credentials to qualify themselves for those high paying management positions. Then they can sit around and talk about how the wage earners are earning too much.
I do all my yardwork and some neighbors were coming by and asking me how much I'd charge for the work I do. I'm not a landscaper and I hardly think I'm that good, but maybe others think I am.
Comments
The pay plan is everything cause if it sucks, like mine does, it can be very hard to make money. My pay plan is fine when there is decent gross in the cars you are selling but it really only rewards MSRP or close to MSRP sales. The moment you have to discount a car by more then 1,500 bucks or so you start making 150-200 bucks a car which isn't enough money with our low volume.
1st car of the week=15% of the gross after all charge backs, etc.
2nd car of the week=20% of the gross
3rd car of the week=25% of the gross
4th car of the week=30% of the gross
The 1st-4th car gets bumped to 30% and that is as high as the retro back goes.
5th car of the week is 35% on that deal
6th car of the week is 40% on that deal
7th car of the week is 45%
8th car of the week is 50%
9th is 50% and so on.
Only one guy I've seen hit 8 cars in a week and he has 21 years worth of a client base. As I said I have 3 out for the month and had 8 deals go south on me yesterday because we couldn't get em' approved or they didn't like our price !!! 2 of the vehicles I was selling of that 8 were money losers and would of been sold way below trade-in !!! If you sell a loser all you get is a spiff of a $100 bucks and it bumps your percentage in your 1st four cars up 5 %
So to make this pay plan work you better deliver your cars all in one week and the most I've delivered in one week was 3 or 25% of the gross. We had one sales lady sell 12 cars last month and only made $1700 commission or roughly $100 over her guarantee "draw" !!! She quit last week !!!
So british, I feel your pain buddy !!! You are probably doing much better than me and I laugh when some say go sell Honda's or Toyota's hell it's a revolving door at their lots !!! 30-40 new car salesman on the floor and when a "up" is out on the lot scanning the lot well 3-4 salesman race to the car and jumping on the hood to speak to that customer. The lowest seller of the month each and every month is showed the door !!! Yeah I really want to work in that type of a enviroment !!! Good Grief !!!! :mad:
The bottom line is automobile sales are extremely slow and some pay-plans are better than others. I've been here since the middle of January and am on my 4th F&I manager !!!! :surprise: I'd have to count on my fingers and toes to add up all the people that have left since I've been here and more/less the same type of thing is going on at other lots except a select few where the employee is respected and appreciated and those places are very hard to get in !!!
I'm going to go work for a contractor/partner of AT&T in sales !!! I'm going to give it a run and if I don't like it well I will do something else. I'm skeptical and would be a 1099 employee but hell anything is better than working all the long hours I do for peanuts !!!
-The Rock
P.S. Any breaking news on the AA strike ???? :confuse:
Sorry, rock, if I knew that I would not have suggested it...I think I can appreciate your frustration...I really thought I was bringing up a suggestion that you had simply tuned out because they were non-UAW, and maybe a nudge would have you reconsider...obviously I was wrong...
Kinda like the Law of Unintended Consequences...I thought I was helping, and I only made it worse...kinda like Bush invading Iraq...
Hey I do appreciate the suggestion but I'm not "snotty" enough to sell honyota's !!!
-Rocky
Anyway, what would you say about selling Kia's? You might look in to it, man. He makes it sound like they can't keep enough Kia's on the lot for people's needs. Have you ever heard of this dealership in Manistee, Williams Kia?
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
I know it's probably tongue in cheek, but that would be the Teamsters Union's area of expertise.
I was thinking the "Teamsters" union were actually the drivers of livestock teams pulling freight. When motorized vehicles began to appear, the teamsters union covered those drivers also, as many had been driving wagons before.
Same job, of moving freight, but with engines instead of livestock.
Don't know if that covered Stage Coach drivers or Train Engineers. :confuse:
Kip
Just do your research on a particular brand, and go sell yourself. You can do it Rocky.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
-Rock
-Rocky
Any news on AA ???
I worked at AAM for 11 years, I left in 2005 when a $50,000 buyout was available. The contract before this last one was the last "easy contract" there was going to be, I knew the end was near. I went back to school with the help of the tuition assistance (which was not widely used I might add) and eventually got a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I paid for the last two years on my own. I left the soft pillow of the UAW for something unknown, I did this with 4 children, needless to say I had plenty to lose. I graduated on a Saturday and started a new job the following Monday, making similar money to AAM. As far as I am concerned how could you as a AAM worker not see this coming, you should have been prepared you have no one to blame but yourself. This is not corporate greed this is the reality of business on a global scale. You priced yourselves out of the job market. Greed is not a one way street. Please do not tell me you are fighting for middle class America because you are not. We were overpaid for what we did plain and simple, how can you justify a forklift driver or someone who cleans the bathroom making that kind of money, you have no defense and your arguments are invalid. The ride is over now it is time to work in the real world and time to find out exactly what your skills will bring on the open market.
The thing is, history (and Ross Perot) teaches us that these exact things would occur as capital is loyal to no country, but it is the people that must demand it.
There was a time not too long ago when there wasn't a chance in hell that an American would purchase a foreign made car or purchase other products manufactured in a country like as China!
Toyota is putting the squeeze on its North American suppliers, trying to bring component costs in line with parts from low-cost countries such as China and India.
Company executives won't say how much suppliers are being asked to cut parts prices. But they want the entire North American supply chain "globally cost competitive" by 2010.
Toyota is halfway to reaching that goal, said Chris Nielsen, vice president for purchasing at Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Inc. The effort began a year ago.
For example, Nielsen said stamped metal or interior parts sourced in the United States must cost the same as the parts that could be sourced in China — "from a total cost standpoint." That includes the cost of transportation, material handling and other factors.
Nielsen said gains made so far were "low-hanging fruit." He said the next wave of cost cuts will be more difficult to achieve.
Suppliers have taken note of Toyota's tougher stance. A new OEM Supplier Relations Study by consultancy SupplierBusiness in the United Kingdom and Automotive News Europe suggests that only BMW among global automakers has intensified its push for price cuts more than Toyota in the past year. More than a third of the 133 suppliers who responded to the survey were North American.
"They are more focused on this than I've ever seen them in the past," said a supplier CEO who asked that his name not be used. "They've had other cost-reduction programs, just like everyone else. But Toyota has made it clear to all of us that they are really concerned with getting North American costs in line with the rest of the world."
Toyota also must weigh the political ramifications of shifting part of the $30 billion it spends annually on purchasing in North America to places such as China or Vietnam. Toyota's growth in the United States has come with criticism that it still imports 45 percent of the vehicles it sells in North America. By comparison, Nissan and American Honda Motor Co. import only about 20 percent of their vehicles.
Local parts sourcing also remains a sticky issue as many U.S. suppliers reel from depressed production volumes at Chrysler, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors. Trade data from the U.S. Commerce Department show that Japanese parts exports to the United States in the first quarter totaled $3.54 billion. That volume is roughly the same as in the first quarter of 2007, even though North American vehicle production was about 10 percent higher at that time.
Very well said pal !!! I respect the guy in pf_flyer's post for going back to school to earn a degree in mechanical engineering however not everyones circumstances are the same. Why should a american blue collar worker have to compete doing manual labor with some chinamen living in a grass hut, eating snakes, so greedy CEO's can make a extra buck !!! I personally believe it is very unpatriotic, disrespectful, to all our veterans that have served the country and died for the well being of our country, and now the ubber wealthy slap them in the face by enslaving 3rd world citizens to make a buck !!! :mad:
I do not see anything wrong with paying a janitor or machine operator a livable wage. A Mechanical Engineer, should obviously make more but now because of global competition their wages have dropped in many engineering fields. Engineers, in the 1980's in many cases using GM, as a example made $80,000 a year. Now those same engineers start out at $35K a yr. at GM/Delphi !!! Not everyone is college material, nor should it be a requirement to live the american dream. Sending every Tom, Dick, Harry, to college who probably shouldn't be going only lowers the standard. What does a degree buy ??? A home mortgage size debt ??? I've done some research and discovered it doesn't buy you as much in salary as one thinks. Outside of a few high demand fields it helps but doesn't guarantee you a spot in the upper middle class thus not everyone is mentally capable of doing those "high demand" fields so we are suppose to send those folks to the soup line ??? I would like to believe we are a better country than that but like lemko, I probably should of lived 40 years ago when people had some nationalism left in their bones and were happy when their neighbor got a good job and improved his family's situation. Today that neighbor would look down upon them with jealousy and hate and say he's overpaid. This is the type of mind boggling stuff I've personally unfortunately witnessed !!!
-Rocky
P.S. pf-flyer, appreciate the post !!!
That is freaking ridiculous !!! That is a perfect example of why tariffs need to be implemented otherwise their is no end to it !!!
-Rocky
I am NOT being elitist here, but a 14 year old can sweep a floor and a 16 year old can put stock on WalMart shelves...these are jobs that, while the company may need its floors swept and its shelves re-stocked, it is barely worth minimum wage to pay someone to do it...
A machine operator is a different story...
the "same old washington" will be finally heard next november !!!
-Rocky
The only way Congress will get the picture, and they are the problem, is to vote EVERY incumbent out of his seat. When the American people realize that incumbents are the problem with our system of government we may get some good tariffs and a level playing field. Not with anyone currently in Congress or running for President.
That should also go for the good old boys in the Unions also.
RAPUATO, Mexico - Antonio Martinez used to pay smugglers thousands of dollars each year to sneak him into the United States to manage farm crews. Now, the work comes to him.
Supervising lettuce pickers in central Mexico, Martinez earns just half of the $1,100 a week he made in the U.S. But the job has its advantages, including working without fear of immigration raids.
Martinez, now a legal employee of U.S.-owned VegPacker de Mexico, is exactly the kind of worker more American farm companies are seeking. Many have moved their fields to Mexico, where they can find qualified people, often with U.S. experience, who can't be deported.
"Because I never moved my family to the U.S., I was always alone there," said Martinez, 45, who could never get a work permit, even after 16 years in agriculture in California and Arizona. "When I got the opportunity to be close to my family, doing similar work, I didn't even have to think about it."
American companies now farm more than 45,000 acres of land in three Mexican states, employing about 11,000 people, a 2007 survey by the U.S. farm group Western Growers shows.
"Employers can't find legal workers to replace this huge number of illegal workers," said James Holt, an agricultural labor economist and independent consultant based in Washington. "Their only option is to go where the workers are."
Farm workers at U.S. companies in Mexico make two or three times Mexico's minimum wage of $4.80 a day. But they still earn far less than the average $9.60 an hour that field workers in the United States made in January 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Juan Antonio Linarez, 19, makes a tenth of his U.S. roofing income at Taylor Farms de Mexico's vegetable cooling plant in Guanajuato. But he has health insurance and can live nearby with his family _ without the dangerous and expensive trek across the border.
Would you pay the kid mowing your lawn $35 an hour plus benefits???...c'mon, rocky, some jobs have little value simply because there is no skill required in doing it...if you could speak Burmese, you could take a Burma immigrant straight off the boat and train him to sweep the floor in about, oh, 5 minutes???
Just because someone make their own personal decision to stop their skill level at floor sweeping is no reason to pay more than 5 bucks an hour...IT AIN'T WORTH IT, no matter what anybody says...
Bob, I know you're not trying to be elitist, but the fact is, a 14 year old CAN'T sweep a floor M-F, 7-4, because they're in school,and a 16 year old CAN'T stock shelves from 11 pm-7am because labor laws won't allow it.
Now, is the job worth more than $5.35 ($5.85 in a couple months)? It's not that I don't see your point, as I do, but (illegal immigrants not withstanding) if those companies have a tough time finding people to do the job, and have a high turnover rate amongst the ones that do, then the pay HAS to go up.
I don't expect ANYBODY to be able to buy a house or have a couple new cars in the driveway doing those jobs, but you SHOULD be able to rent a modest apartment (a studio or 1 br) working a steady 40 hrs at one of those jobs. If you live in an area where rents are $800-1000, a month, then $10-12/hr is no less reasonable than $7-8.50/hr would be if the rents are $500-700.
Now, having said that, I don't think it should be incumbent on employers of these type jobs to have to support unhealthy lifestyles either (somebody trying to rent a 4 br house because they have 5 kids and a wife to support). We all have to learn to live within our means.
We compete globally and things will change even more. Good question...Can US manufacture great products and be competitive?
Jobs changed from the past and robots do the repetitive tasks. We need to change to make sure we do knowledge work.
Regards,
OW
Is this the start of the predicted move of the foreign car plants to cheaper areas as a next step. First they don't like the costs of US production and it has to compete with foreign countries in the homeland and then next will be that it's cheaper to build the whole car there, as many still build 55%-80% of their cars there. When they've eliminated the US builders, that would be an easy move with no resistance. The buyers will just keep on buying them.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Years ago, the garbage trucks used to come up our 400' drive way to empty the cans. There was a driver and one guy on the back. The collectors had to manually lift the cans over the lip on the rear of the truck. Hydrolic lifts and special cans came along much later. He had to sit the cans on a platform, then climb on the platform and empty the cans into the truck.
I would generally help them if I was there. I would hand the cans up to him, on the platform. Sometimes on hot days I would offer them a cold drink and we would take a break in the shade.
One day the guy at the back, "Shorty", seemed to be in a super mood. I questioned it, and he told me that he had gotten a promotion, and the following week he would be getting his own truck and route. He was so excited and his enthusiasm was contagious. Then he got quiet and looked me straight in the eye and said, "I'm not going to stop there. I'm going back to school, and some day I will have my own collection company." I didn't see him after that day.
He did just that. His Refuse Management company is the largest and still the only one in our area with the trucks that are a one man operation. There is a hydraulic arm that the driver operates from the driver's seat. The arm picks up the specially designed container, dumps it into the truck and sits it back into the exact spot it came from, if the truck is sitting still. Steering wheel is on the right side.
I know this for a fact! Shortly after going with a new company, I filled a complaint because the containers were ending up on the drive way after being emptied. A well dressed man came by to answer the complaint. He looked vaguely familiar.
He said they usually answer complaints by phone. But when he saw mine, he wanted to do it in person. He shook my hand and said, "You probably don't remember me. My name is Shorty. We used to sometimes take a break under that tree." Then he told his story.
Point is, that the young man had a dream and the will to follow it through. He understood that hard work and education are the keys to success. He didn't bounce from one company to another, doing the same thing day in and day out, and complaining about life. He met life on life's terms, and made a success of his life.
Kip
I 100% agree with your post !!! One other issue that is often overlooked and that is our education systems. Degree programs today require so many B.S. classes that have zippo to do with the focus of study and are just another way to soak people out of money. I personally would like to see our education system more along the lines of European/Scandinavian country's. Oops I might of just opened that can of worms for thinking that way !!! :P The bottom line is large corporations will exploit where they can given the current global circumstances. The fact that corporations can off-shore or go south with zero consquences still to this day goes to show you just how little of a voice the common people in this country have and perhaps its a good thing that the guy offering the most "change" from the same old washington is leading in all the polls.
-Rocky
Don't forget the human factor there as well. Your choices determine YOUR fate for the most part, not some evil force that's looking to keep you down.
A few weeks ago I was visitng a friend's tire shop/garage and a couple of customers were hanging around chatting, and there was this old timer sitting next to a guy who had graduated college about a year ago but couldn't find a job. Someone asked him what his major was and he replied, "14th century Russian poetry". And the old timer says, "You thought THAT would get you a job?" :P
For years now China has been keeping its currency artificially low even as its economy has boomed, and it's factories produced billions of dollars of cheap goods.
Why would China do this you ask?
Simple...China did not want it's own people to buy the very products they were making in the factories. They wanted to keep the value of their currency artificially low, and pay the factory workers pennies on the dollar. The Chinese people would not be able to buy the products, which allowed them to ship their crap out to Wal-Mart stores across America so US citizens could enjoy a great bargain.
As they say on the infomercials that wake you up at 4 AM... Wait... There's more!
American consumer spending was fueled primarily by debt spending. Home equity loans on houses, massive credit card debt were all the rage for the past decade and someone had to buy that debt. Guess who? It was China who would buy the American debt allowing American consumption to continue, fueling China's manufacturing economy, fueling America's consumer spending economy, buying American debt, which would keep the Yuan artificially low vs the American dollar so that Americans could continue to afford cheap Chinese products.
The sick cycle carousel continued until 2005 when China began to revalue its currency, and as the American dollar continues to collapse the whole situation is about to spin into economic disaster.
cooter: I was not referring to child labor laws, and yes, they should be in school, but the SKILL level is certainly one that a schoolkid could work in a summer job...I was at Chik Fil-A and a 14 year old kid asked for an application...he stated that he was 14 but that he had a work permit...obviously the state of GA regulates this, and he had the required permit...so, yes, he could work summers and after school and weekends sweeping floors and stocking shelves...my point being that a 30 year old who performs that work is still only worth $5.35 an hour, if that...it is the WORK that demands no skills...if the WORKER has other skills they should use them and do other work...
My motto: Don't complain, Don't explain.
Regards,
OW
-Rocky
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
American Axle, which spun off from General Motors in 1994, last week settled on a new contract with the UAW for its U.S. operations. In a conference call with analysts this morning,
They're getting that and more already in my neighborhood. Plus, it's tax-free money.
The going rate is around $40 for someone to mow the average lawn in my subdivision. I can mow and bag it in an hour with a push mower. The guys with the commercial riding mowers could probably mow it in 30-40 minutes.
That's the main reason I mow my own grass. Maybe I should start going door-to-door and offering a $5 discount off whatever they're paying now.
The guy on the lawn mower isn't getting paid anywhere near that. Have you priced a commercial lawn mower lately? They are expensive, not to mention the truck and trailer to haul it. Add gas, maintenance,wages, and hopefully some profits, $40/hr is probably about right.
Just hope the UAW doesn't unionize your lawnmower man. It'll cost $80 to get it cut, he'll mow over your hedges, take 5 breaks, and put a picket line around your house and call you a scab if you try to mow it on your own. LOL;) Just kidding of course.
Bob, no doubt, if you have the skills, you should aspire to do better. However, Chick-fil-A can hire the 14 yr old just like the moms they hire, because they have the shifts available to accomodate them.
Think of it a diiferent way; many companies pay a shift differential for 3rd shift. Generally, it's 10%. Now, the SKILL SET is still the same for that job, but they pay an incentive to get people to work off hours. Now, Walmart could hire a 14 yr old to do a job (let's say janitorial) from 4-7 pm, plus weekends, and get away with paying minimum wage. They could hire a mom to do it from 10-2, and the same thing applies. But if they need someone FULL TIME, 40 hrs/wk, the game changes. SAME skill set, different game.
Could they get a retiree to do it for minimum? Sure. But, how many want to? I say the wage required has as much to do with incentive to get you in as it does with skill set. In this case, incentive to work full time, as opposed to overnight.
Another thing would be area (combat pay????). Pushing a broom takes the same skill in NYC as in El Paso, but obviously is worth more doing it for the Ritz Carlton as opposed to a Motel 6.
So while I'll reiterate that pushing a broom is not meant for the guy living in a Mc Mansion raising 5 kids, the value is based on more than just the skill set it takes to do the job.
Heck, filter water and bottle it in your basement. Anything.
Regards,
OW
Regards,
OW
No way, that "screams" dead end job to me. Sure it may pay fairly well, or at least it used to, but that would be a last resort option for me.
He could have continued hanging off the back of that truck complaining how he should be making more money.
My oldest son is staunchly hanging on to the belief that he can live large selling cars. He has been hanging on to that dream for many years now, yet the pay just seems to be getting lower and lower. Yes, there are or were people making good money in that arena, but they are few and far between. He just can't seem to grasp the fact that a $10 per hour steady job would pay better than the commissions he gets for 60+ hours on the car lots.
Folks that sit around demanding more money for their non skilled jobs, will still be doing that years from now. They also complain that management salaries are too high.. The cure for them is to get the necessary credentials to qualify themselves for those high paying management positions. Then they can sit around and talk about how the wage earners are earning too much.
Kip
Regards,
OW