Quote:
Originally Posted by Summerwolf
There is always a hierarchy. The salesman you are face to face with will not be in charge of numbers or financing terms. They will not be talking to banks and getting you the deal. They are a mouthpiece to get you on a vehicle and figure out what you need in a vehicle. All terms and conditions are worked through a manager who talks to the banks, and then a finance person who will also talk with a bank and sign the paperwork / sell you backend products.
People think the salesperson has some kind of authority, they don't. The vehicle pricing and working numbers is not in their hands. The only time I have ever seen a salesman have some kind of authority over pricing was when he was also the internet manager. So he did everything before the finance person did paperwork and signed documents, and that was a little dealership to begin with.
Have you ever worked in car sales?
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Again that is just not true. Some dealerships do it that way, but not all of them. Some dealerships also understand they can give the people that have been doing this a decade a lot more leniency and let them do everything their own way. A smart dealership is going to handle the sales person that is always top 3 or 4 in sales month after month, year after year, a lot differently then they are going to handle someone who has only been selling cars a few months and is just getting their feet wet. And if they don't do that they are morons.
Yes most dealerships will handle most walk ins like you mentioned. However if you don't want that normal bs all you need to do is talk to the host and tell them to let you talk to the highest grossing salesperson because you want a quick sale and you know exactly what you want. Sometimes you can go through the internet sales person or the fleet salesperson to get a similar type of deal.
And while I did try my hand at actually selling cars, I have a lot experience being around the industry and I've been able to see a lot of different things first hand for various reasons, whether it be friends with top salespeople or people who actually negotiate car purchases for clients, among other things like going to used car auctions with people just for fun.
The biggest problem dealerships have is a massively gigantic turnover rate. Dealing with a lifer can be night and day difference compared to dealing with a hack at the same dealership on the same day. A lifer can know exactly what his sales manager would say, can even know exactly what the sales manager will do on most cars on the lot. At the dealership I worked at the top 3 sales people were always the top 3 sales people and could write a deal they knew without question the sales manager would simply rubber stamp and would walk into the finance office with the customer and would walk them through that process as well. One of them never took walk ins because he had no use for them, he had his base of people and he'd been at the dealership so long he could remain one of the best salesmen without ever taking a new person.
There are tons of ways of manipulating the process depending on what your goals are. The reason most sales people suck is the exact same reason true car can make a business of porking everyone and pretending they are giving people a good deal. People don't like conflict and don't want to fight and learn everything once a decade or so.