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Originally Posted by why?
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.
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You're definitely giving salesman, and dealerships in general too much credit. There is always a hierarchy, period. Yes senior salesman generally have more leeway when it comes to talking to the desk, but the desk still puts together the deal. The goal of the salesman is the product, the goal of the desk is the money (dealership wants to make money BTW), and the goal of the finance manager is to sell backend products and paperwork. I think being in sales, and doing it gives a different perspective from working in the dealership in any other position.
Also, I never said anything about walk-in customers.
Caveat* Owner operated / buy here pay here / certain small volume dealers may be different.... I'm strictly talking about the average dealership here.