Hi there. If we haven’t met, my name is Mr. Car Sales Story. I’m the sales-career writer who started selling Audis right after graduating from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

I accomplished everything that followed with the help of two friends from college that started selling cars with me. We quickly found out that with the right attitude, we could make substantial incomes selling cars. I’ve started this blog to share what it took to get to $200k+ per year selling cars. If you are curious about what I think of the car sales career, I have a nice write up on if car sales a good career.

I’m writing this post to use as a permanent “Hello!”

I’ve written almost 50 articles so far, and I plan to keep going!

“I hear Mr. Car Sales Story writes great stuff about car sales, BDC, managing internet leads, and closing deals, but what can he teach me right now?”

 

Car Sales Career – The Mega-Post

We’ll start with a rant, which links to a bunch of other stuff. You can right-click any of those links and open them in a new tab for later. If you get through every link, you’ll be well-equipped to dominate your new career.

For seven-plus years, I’ve been preaching a different brand of car sales from what you’ve heard in the media. The standard line is that the car sales career is about head to head negotiation, a total grind of a job that pits buyers versus sellers. You work your butt off all day every day, make a living, and slowly gain a few extra pounds from all the pizza.

Mr. Car Sales Story’s advice? Almost all of that is nonsense: Your current idea of car sales is slow, inefficient, and holding you back. You could be making tens of thousands of dollars more while working less.

What happens when you can make more and work less? You stick with car sales instead of giving up after six months to a year like so many people before you. You get a jump start on making healthy living and quickly line your path to financial freedom.

And the effects are surprising: if you can work this advice into your career early on, you could have an incredibly lucrative (and relatively short) working life, leveraging a network of contacts to sell millions of dollars in cars every year.

So remember my freaky numbers at the start ($200k+)? There was not really any magic – my friends and I just worked hard and failed fast, learning the whole way along.

Car Sales Career Step 1: Getting the Job

The first step is this: create a killer car salesman resume and win the interview.

…Let’s say you have no experience, never had a job. Guess what? It’s still possible to get a job at a car dealership, just generally not starting in sales. If you read this blog and want to get into this type of career, I recommend just getting a foot in the door any means necessary. Many successful six-figure salespeople started as porters (moving cars). It helps if you know someone at a dealership from high school or a mutual friend…

Car Sales Career Step 2: Working Hard and Selling Cars

Time to master the basics: how to sell more cars at a dealership. It’s key to remember that you are the responsible party in all this. The fact that you are on this site means that you have taken some responsibility for your continued success!

…First things first. You need to be able to read the hand you have. The idea of being able to “tell a buyer” is not some voodoo magic that you need to go to school for…

Always come back to the basics.

After you’ve got the basics down, rev your engines, and start using enthusiasm to sell more cars. It’s important to remember the golden rule of car salespeople buy from people they like. If you can get your customers to fall in love with you, you will find that overcoming objections will be a walk in the park.

Having the combination of routine, curated expectations, and a strong mindfulness practice is the key to being mentally prepared for difficult conversations. If you are prepared, you will be able to maintain a “safe space” while having crucial conversations with customers.

Car Sales Career Step 3: Mastering Your Pipeline

Ah, the most crucial difference between a great salesperson and a superstar: using proper follow-up.

Build templates that solidify your processes. The follow-up email after phone call sales template is an underutilized tool to spur sales.

Use them to:

• Protect against memory failure from customer’s “fight or flight reflex”
• Revisit strong rapport building from the call
• Allow for easy continuation of the conversation

Car Sales Career Step 4: Transitioning To Internet Sales

First things first: you need to learn the market. Determining the market is what allows you to work your internet leads efficiently. Once you have a handle on the market, you need to up your game to compete in the competitive internet sales playing field.

You need to learn that people online have a hard time trusting others.

I learned a valuable lesson though, which is pretty simple: The Internet, combined with stress, makes trusting others difficult.

Why should I expect my customers, who are shopping online, trying not to get taken advantage of, to trust me off the bat. I didn’t trust doctors that were trying to help me!

So that’s the thing. Most of us have some form of this internet over confidence. We disregard people who know in favor for popular opinion and anecdote. We read sources and then figure ourselves experts.

After you’ve learned the market and upped your game, you need to start focusing on your efficiency. Key to this? Working within your CRM and mastering your templates and analytics.

Car Sales Career Step 5: Managing a BDC

Calm down; this is where it gets complicated. You are now managing employees that are probably hourly plus bonus. They think differently, work more standard hours, and need to be hired and trained with grace.

Start by building a healthy and happy team. You want to pick the right people for this position, keeping in mind the unique challenges that a BDC faces. It can be stressful at first- try visiting my list of automotive BDC tips and finding help there.

If you have set up a strong team, the next step is to optimize their BDC workflow.

Here is my break down of the first 7 days of email/phone/text cadence that is optimal for your BDC dealership workflow…

Finally, finish up your work by making sure that the Automotive BDC templates are on point!

Transitioning From The Car Sales Career

I get it. Life at the dealer can be overwhelming. It can also be fantastic. It tends to fluctuate season to season, day-to-day. If it’s been a few months and you want a change, try watching my interview with my friend who left car sales for technology sales for another option.