Start a Career in Car Sales
Are you passionate about cars? Do you know what makes one model better or worse than others? Are you great at interacting with people? If you answered yes, than you should try a career in car sales. While it can be a hard industry to break into, with some preparation and hard work, you can be a great car salesperson.
Contents
Steps
- Get a bit of sales experience behind you, learning some key skills. This is for your benefit and will help you with all of your interviews and potential positions.
- Gather a list of all dealerships within your working range with contact information. Consider the pros and cons of each.
- Look at the area you live in - Is it rural or urban? You don't want to work for a BMW dealership in a farming community or area. You don't want to be working for a Chevy dealership in an upscale and sophisticated area where image and prestige is everything. You're there to make money after all.
- What brand are you passionate about? Do you know everything about Fords or Porsche's? This is very important as it will affect your enthusiasm. If your just in it for the money then you'll go for the best pay plan and potential like a truck dealership in a farming community or Japanese maker dealership like Toyota or Honda in a predominantly urban area or a German/European dealer in a high income area. Environment is very important.
- Initially send an email blast, customising the emails slightly, to each branch manager. Make sure you get the following key points in:
- You are looking to break into the car sales industry
- Although you have no car sales experience you do have SALES experience and are a hard worker and will take on board any information he/she provides
- You are available immediately.
- You would like to come in for a chat with them.
- Be patient but persistent. The chances are you won't get that many responses, branch sales managers are very busy and often have many applications the same as yours. To make yourself stand out you need to call - remember one of the key skills of a car salesperson is perseverance - show this quality by calling to speak with the branch manager - if you can't get through make sure you leave a message stating your name and that you are calling for work.
- Get a vibe for the dealership and its management. Dealership management is very important. There are a lot of snakes out there and you will want to avoid them. Go in, in the morning and chat up one of the idle sales people and grill them about the working conditions and pay plans there and ask for advice. Chances are that they know a lot more than you about the various dealerships in the area. Do this again in the evening and chat up one of the evening shift sales advisors. You can do this as long as you feel comfortable.
- Impress during your interviews. After this process with all of the showrooms in your area, you should eventually get an interview. Here are some Interview tips:
- Make sure you are presentable, nothing but a suit will do here, make sure its ironed, your top button is done up, if a lady make sure if you are wearing a skirt that its not too low, knee length is preferable. (If a man make sure you are clean shaved)
- Ask questions - questions are key in the sales process - demonstrate your questioning ability by asking questions in the interview, remember this is a 2 way thing and you need to determine car sales is right for you.
- If any objections are thrown your way then make sure you handle them. As a salesman you will receive objections every day. A classic objection handling test by a sales manager will be " I don't think you are suitable for this position" make sure you ask WHY.
- Another classic interview test is "sell this pen" the easiest way to do this is by simply asking "What do you require a pen for" obviously the answer will be for writing THEN "well this pen is the best writing pen in the whole world, shall we go ahead with this sale then"
- Make sure you start and finish the interview with a firm handshake.
- Be direct and "sell" yourself for the position. At the end of the interview, ask the question "is the job mine?" If no then, "why?" Always demonstrate objection handling skills.
- Follow up. The interview process does not end when you leave the showroom, if you haven't heard anything by the second day, get on the phone and start the persistence again, this is demonstrating your desire to work and that you have this key skill of perseverance, you never know the sales manager may have had doubts, this could help seal the deal for you.
Tips
- Keep yourself educated. It'll save you time, money, and headaches. There are many inside secrets to the business that you won't know until you have a couple of years under your belt, so go out there give them your best.
Warnings
- Sales managers can be very up front and direct as can a lot of car sales people - if you are not prepared for this then you may not be successful.
