Stories from the Sales Frontlines

13783793813833842003

Comments

  • lrguy44lrguy44 Member Posts: 2,197
    Just remember, Luck is where preperation meets opportunity
  • joel0622joel0622 Member Posts: 3,299
    Glad you are happy with your purchase Richard. I logged on and the first thing I looked for was to see if you had posted yet. Enjoy your new car!!!!!!!
  • jipsterjipster Member Posts: 6,299
    congrats on your new wheels richard. :)

    madmanmoo, you may need to change your handle to something a little more dignified with some snob appeal, since you're going to being selling "porches" ... maybe sirbovine? ;)
    2021 Honda Passport EX-L, 2020 Honda Accord EX-L, 2011 Hyundai Veracruz, 2010 Mercury Milan Premiere.
  • carhag2000carhag2000 Member Posts: 207
    Hip Hip Hooray! The 07 Element is delivered and paperwork is signed...They even promised to give me 5's on the parts of the survey that directly affected me. Perserverance and good manners pay off sometimes.
  • carhag2000carhag2000 Member Posts: 207
    I have as much respect for a hard working farmer/rancher then I do anyone. Probably stems from the fact I was raised on a cattle ranch.

    A friend of mine who is self made and very wealthy told me once that he would rather deal with a man who carried a lunch bucket to work then a briefcase. He was right.
  • snakeweaselsnakeweasel Member Posts: 19,617
    Here is the thing about BK. Once you are discharged there is allot of work you have to do to get back on track.

    Thats very true, first thing someone has to do a few months after discharge is to get a copy of their credit report and make sure that everything is being reported correctly. Make sure that the BK is being reported as discharged and make sure that all the discharged debts are reported as such. It doesn't take much and it has almost immediate results in a credit rating boost.

    However if they had their BK discharged in 1999 and they only have a mid 600's credit rating after clearing that stuff up something is wrong. I have come across people about a year after BK that haven't cleaned up their credit report (some issues with the BK) that have keep their nose clean after the BK that were in the 600+/- range. I had a couple that was a year out of BK but there was one or two things from the BK still on their report and their current mortgage wasn't being reported. They were just shy of 600 scores.

    2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D

  • cotmccotmc Member Posts: 1,081
    "Luck is where preperation meets opportunity"

    NO.. NO.. NO!!

    Oops...

    Oh, sorry, my bad...

    When I saw a car salesman mention the word "opportunity", I feared this might be another one of those "Mr. Opportunity" commercials...
  • greanpea68greanpea68 Member Posts: 1,996
    Congratulations Moo...

    Will you give a two week notice or just walk in with a box and say have a nice day?

    Is there really such a thing as a two week notice in the car biz? ;)

    That's the best way to leave right after you get your bonuses! :P

    Good Luck

    GP
  • cotmccotmc Member Posts: 1,081
    Cool! CONGRATULATIONS!!! :D

    We'll look forward to hearing your new stories. I hope the better job conditions, the higher salary, the more-professional co-workers, and the fewer work hours don't detract from your trademark comic edginess. (Is "edginess" a word??)

    I've never owned a Porsche. For that matter, the only time I visited a Porsche dealer was when the local Audi dealer shared the same showroom with Porsche. Thank goodness the Porsche salesmen did a great job of steering me away, toward the $25K A4 1.8T. :blush:

    Remember to keep a straight face when quoting option prices to your potential customers. It's amazing how much a metallic paint upgrade, or a little carbon fiber trim, can cost on such a small car! :surprise:
  • nthenthe Member Posts: 414
    here is and ideal up that i haven't seen mentioned:

    The customer who drives in with a rental car. No trade in to deal with, they probably just wrecked their car, and you know they are in the market, and are buying within the next week.

    Another great ideal up for me is one the sales manager talked to first on the phone, cause just about every time he talks to someone and gets them to come in, they end up buying the car, such as what just happened this morning. The SM does all the work, and all I have to do is go for the test drive. Can't get much better than that. :)
  • lrguy44lrguy44 Member Posts: 2,197
    Actually, my ideal up is a customer I sold before whose lease is expiring.
  • jmonroejmonroe Member Posts: 8,989
    Actually, my ideal up is a customer I sold before whose lease is expiring.

    Ok, enough of this IDEAL UP stuff. What is your worst UP and don't tell us it's the first one of the day...like when you get UP to go to work. :surprise:

    Even us guys who aren't in the biz know about this type of an UP. ;)

    jmonroe

    '15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl

  • greanpea68greanpea68 Member Posts: 1,996
    madmanmoo, you may need to change your handle to something a little more dignified with some snob appeal, since you're going to being selling "porches" ... maybe sirbovine?

    Maybe he could be called the " The Bull" or " The Rhino" :P
  • joel0622joel0622 Member Posts: 3,299
    Ok, enough of this IDEAL UP stuff. What is your worst UP

    Anyone wanting to trade in a financed Hyundai :D
  • cotmccotmc Member Posts: 1,081
    Oooh! Oooh! Can I be a guest salesguy for the day and respond to this one? I feel like I have learned so much from your discussions. I want to share some of the ideas I have learned!

    Here is my "Twilight Zone" Up:

    1:00PM: A very prim and proper customer arrives at the dealership on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. She is carrying a notepad and HP12C in her hand. When greeted, she demands to see every version of Altima on your lot.

    1:30PM: After showing her several models of the Altima, she decides she would like to test drive an Altima 2-door SE with leather.

    1:50PM: After the test drive, you both pass by the new Maximas while walking back to the showroom. She notices a shiny black Maxima SE, and mentions she forgot all about the Maxima. She requests a test drive in the Maxima.

    2:10PM: After the Maxima test drive, she indicates she might need more cargo space. "Let's take a ride in a Murano before I rule it out."

    2:30PM: During the Murano test drive, she indicates the guy at ABC Nissan offered her a new Murano a few months ago for only $23K. How much lower can you go?

    Not wanting to take a thousand dollar loss on this vehicle, you try to change the topic. "We have an excellent lease deal on this." She replies she might have trouble getting a good lease due to her bankruptcy two years ago.

    "Don't worry, I have $500 cash for the down payment. I also have a trade-in that is in excellent condition. It's a 2001 Daewoo Leganza LX, the top-of-the-line Leganza, with only 38,000 miles on it!"

    3:30PM: You and your manager discover she still owes $10K on that top-of-the-line Leganza loan!

    5:00PM: She finally agrees to take a look at a 2004 Sentra. However, she is very unhappy with reality, even though you worked with her for over an hour to trim the price as low as possible. After 4 hours of biting your tongue and doing everything possible to make this sale, you net $120.

    5:45PM: She is even unhappier with the 15.5% financing she received from F & I.

    Two weeks later, your CSI score arrives.
  • carhag2000carhag2000 Member Posts: 207
    Oooh! Oooh! Can I be a guest salesguy for the day and respond to this one? I feel like I have learned so much from your discussions. I want to share some of the ideas I have learned!

    Wow COTMC have you been looking over my shoulder!
  • extech2extech2 Member Posts: 120
    Dear Host, I've written a completely unscientific report regarding why all Japanese cars look the same. It would be helpful for any sales professional who is confronted by a customer complaining that he can't tell apart his wife's Accord from his daughter's Camry without checking the VIN number on the upper dashboard. Please advise me where to post it. The report's title is "Algore Pronto."
  • tidestertidester Member Posts: 10,059
    I think that should be someplace in Automotive News & Views.

    tidester, host
    SUVs and Smart Shopper
  • chikoochikoo Member Posts: 3,008
    I can't believe you have not seen Cars. you should be flogged for this atrocity ;)

    The darn best movie in almost 10 years. You can see it again and again and you will not be tired.
    Kudos to Owen Wilson (Lightning McQueen) and Larry the Cable-Guy(Mater).

    Mack, my son has the same 2 favorite movies.
    He either wants to watch cars or spiderman.
  • obyoneobyone Member Posts: 7,841
    Was that Cantonese or Mandarin? Most speak Cantonese, and they speak it loudly. Those that speak Mandarin are usually less vocal.
  • chikoochikoo Member Posts: 3,008
    Financing started with a 7.99% rate but since I had a beacon score of 830 I pushed for a lower rate. Bless his heart, I had him call his best banker three times trying to get the rate lowered.

    Time and again, I read over here how people with a beacon over 720 were offered rates well above prime (or new car rates).

    Few years ago, when I had NO credit history, I got a 4.9% finance rate on a new car.
    some years down later, my wife who also had NO credit history got 6.5% interest rate on a CPO Lexus.

    In short, I am confused why F&I even proposes such high rates to people with good credit when we, with NO credit could get better, without haggling.
  • chikoochikoo Member Posts: 3,008
    Yipeeee......just be careful.....management will now look to you to sell all the old new cars :) :P
  • snakeweaselsnakeweasel Member Posts: 19,617
    I have seen cars, its a good movie but not the best in the last 10 years, not even the best of 2006.

    2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D

  • isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    That's pretty accurate but don't let the Hyundai fanatics read this. They don't believe it!
  • snakeweaselsnakeweasel Member Posts: 19,617
    Cantonese.

    2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D

  • sterlingdogsterlingdog Member Posts: 6,984
    I didn't know that but I was surprised when we started talking interest rates. I had figured that he would jump right out there with a 6%. I did notice that the different insurance discussions seemed to keep bringing the rate down. If I hadn't purchased the GAP, which I really wanted, I wonder if I would have ever gotten the rate down. Like you, I am confused on that point as well.
  • joel0622joel0622 Member Posts: 3,299
    Richard, just enjoy your car and don't worry weather or not you could have got another .25% off the rate. The other poster was talking about CPO cars. Yours was not a CPO car, his rate was lower but he paid more for a CPO car then an non-CPO, so in the big picture depending how much more he paid it could be a wash.
  • jmonroejmonroe Member Posts: 8,989
    Anyone wanting to trade in a financed Hyundai :D

    Why am I not surprised to hear this from you? :P

    jmonroe

    '15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl

  • obyoneobyone Member Posts: 7,841
    One of the things that makes the movie cars so special is that you can watch it over and over. Can't say the same for 300.
  • sterlingdogsterlingdog Member Posts: 6,984
    Thanks Joel. By the way, you didn't evaluate my deal. Don't worry about my feelings. I'm just curious. As an F&I guy, do you think that I did excellent, good, fair, or poor?

    By the way, I accidently ran into a picture of you and your wife on Edmunds. She is absolutely lovely. You two look like we did 30 years ago. Still, my wife has held her own but NOT me. After the army life and now the car biz, you are one lucky fella to have kept that pretty lady. It's weird but car biz folks always have good looking wives. I guess you make it and they spend it---keeps them happy.
  • obyoneobyone Member Posts: 7,841
    Having a good looking wife has more to do with selling yourself rather than having a ton of money. Isn't that right Joel?

    Not to mention a salesmans lack of fear of rejection.

    Oh and congrats on the new ride. I didn't look back at your previous posts...was that a Hyundai?
  • sterlingdogsterlingdog Member Posts: 6,984
    I just thought of something. No wonder my wife has held her own. She's had the brow lift, the lid lift, the bag reduction, and the chin work. I won't begin to tell you what it cost. Better work hard. You've got some serious finances to look forward to in about ten years! If she ever reads this site, I'm dead meat.
  • sterlingdogsterlingdog Member Posts: 6,984
    Come on now. I'm not too bright but---a Hyundai?!!!!!!!!
  • epineyepiney Member Posts: 462
    here is and ideal up that i haven't seen mentioned:

    The customer who drives in with a rental car. No trade in to deal with, they probably just wrecked their car, and you know they are in the market, and are buying within the next week.


    I was that up once. Except it was a corporate relo, not a wreck. They refused to let me go for a test drive because I did not have an in state license yet as I had not gone to the DMV. :confuse: I was in such a hurry to buy a car, the guy I eventually bought from took the first offer and returned with a big smile. I was his baby seal that month. :sick:
  • cdnpinheadcdnpinhead Member Posts: 5,635
    It's that Hong Kong thing.

    Mandarin is the "official" language of China & Taiwan too, for that matter.
    '08 Acura TSX, '17 Subaru Forester
  • jmonroejmonroe Member Posts: 8,989
    Oooh! Oooh! Can I be a guest salesguy for the day and respond to this one? I feel like I have learned so much from your discussions. I want to share some of the ideas I have learned!

    You don't really believe all that stuff the guys in the biz post about UP's, do ya? Maybe one guy might have had a bad experience and the rest of them repeat the tale as if it happened to them. There can't be as many as they cry about. ;)

    And if any of them had an experience anywhere close to what you described, they probably deserved it for the way their predecessors treated that buyers grandfather. :D

    jmonroe

    '15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl

  • joel0622joel0622 Member Posts: 3,299
    Well thank you Richard, your not the first to wonder how a women like that settled for a guy like me :D At the time I just figured that it is because chicks dig paratroopers.

    Money had nothing to do with I can promise you that. When we were first married we had to save up to order a pizza and rent a movie once a month. We lived in a 400 SF apartment that was a converted attic in some peoples house in upstate NY at FT Drum that you could only stand up straight in half of it because of the roof line. We used to dream about if we could only have a combined income of $30K we would be on easy street :D But hey when you are in your early 20's its easy to live on love.

    Now we are both successful in our careers and I would give anything to be living back in that apartment trying to scrape enough change together to buy gas and hoped it lasted till pay day. :D
  • joel0622joel0622 Member Posts: 3,299
    I was in such a hurry to buy a car, the guy I eventually bought from took the first offer and returned with a big smile. I was his baby seal that month.

    Ok if your ever in Nashville and need a car, from the Airport go north on Donelson PK, when you come to the intersection of............. Oh hell just call me, I will come pick you up for a deal like that. :D :shades:
  • jmonroejmonroe Member Posts: 8,989
    If she ever reads this site, I'm dead meat.

    I suggest you take that convertible out for long drive. Maybe even get some flowers and think about what you're going to say when you get back, because I just linked your post to an e-mail and hit the send button. :(

    BTW, do you have enough hair to blow in the wind when you put the top down. Isn't that the fun of owning a convertible. :surprise:

    Enjoy your new wheels, if only until you get home. :D

    jmonroe

    '15 Genesis V8 with Ultimate Package and '18 Legacy Limited 6 cyl

  • nthenthe Member Posts: 414
    "Anyone wanting to trade in a financed Hyundai "

    seems to me, its the ford financed customers who are the worst off here! :P
  • nthenthe Member Posts: 414
    "Come on now. I'm not too bright but---a Hyundai?!!!!!!!! "

    yet you bought a chrysler????!!!!

    you know what they say about people who live in glass houses.....
  • greanpea68greanpea68 Member Posts: 1,996
    Anyone wanting to trade in a financed Hyundai

    LOL..................
  • obyoneobyone Member Posts: 7,841
    Hey didn't Jim Press, the guy who brought Toyota to no.1 in the US of A, now work for Chrysler? Oh yeah but he hasn't had any time to make any changes...sorry bout that.
  • isellhondasisellhondas Member Posts: 20,342
    Ah...I started to say the same thing but I bit my tongue!

    Fords aren't exactly stellar when it comes to resale either!
    :P
  • greanpea68greanpea68 Member Posts: 1,996
    "Twilight Zone" Up:

    Your twilight zone up happens more than you think. Ussualy takes a little bit more of your time. Bet you are pretty close.
  • nthenthe Member Posts: 414
    although out of the used chrysler, honda and ford i have sold this week, only the ford made me more than a mini

    03 escape
    02 pt
    07 civic
  • sterlingdogsterlingdog Member Posts: 6,984
    I see that there is no honor among thieves---err husbands. Hair? What hair? Don't you remember in August when I wrote that I got my head shaved and got an earring? Had to do something to keep up with the wife.
  • sterlingdogsterlingdog Member Posts: 6,984
    You brought back memories of 40 years ago. We had the same attic apartment---$60 a month furnished including utilities! Our one car payment was $30 a month---a silver 1964 Pontiac Tempest sedan. We were in heaven---the first car either of us had ever owned. Our total income was $400 a month GROSS---her teaching salary and my job in the university library while I finished up my masters degree. The remaining money went to buy some food, pay off our college loans, and save for the next summer. Teachers didn't get paid but 9 months out of 12. You had to be careful or you would be in financial trouble. Three years later our first house cost $13,000. Forty years and ten houses later, our current home cost $325,000. Go figure!

    BTW, you're making me nervous. You didn't comment on the car deal. Don't tell me that after all of my time at Edmunds.com that I screwed up again. Wonder what Mackabee will say? Hope he isn't too sick today. Those treatments can be hell.
  • lrguy44lrguy44 Member Posts: 2,197
    Did she really get her head shaved? :shades:
  • joel0622joel0622 Member Posts: 3,299
    Hell we trade for them every day with no problems :D
This discussion has been closed.

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