DEALERSHIP SALESPEOPLE AND MANAGERS
It’s a cliché that the dealership experience is riddled with innuendo,misrepresentations and outright falsehoods. To help understand why the (^)
game is played that way, put yourself into the shoes of the typical salesman(or woman, but for the sake of this example, let’s assume a male) at a
dealership for a moment.
He’s “on the floor” five or six days a week, for eight hours or more. If he’sworking on a deal, he’ll often go home at nine or 10 at night, and then show (^)
up the next morning to complete paperwork or follow up with other leads.Working “bell to bell” is incredibly fatiguing; the frustration level is
compounded when times are slow and all he has to do most of the day ispace the lot.
The salesman’s compensation is commission-based at most dealers; ingeneral, he’s paid about 20 percent to 35 percent of the gross profit (called (^)
“gross” for short) on each sale. With the exception of a few moreenlightened dealerships, if he even has a salary, it’s minimal and certainly (^)
not enough to sustain any sort of lifestyle. For him, it’s sell or die.
While he may make several hundred—or even a thousand—dollars sellingan expensive SUV or pickup truck, many of his deals are “minis” where he’ll (^)
make $50 or $100 selling a low-profit, small car. Note that some dealers claim they don’t pay salespeople on commission, but they do offer