Hiding Premium-Unleaded Careers in Plain Sight (Part Four).
To Live and Die in the Sale
“If the restaurant-people would’ve forgotten my syrup again, I would’ve clear-clean punted the breakfast across the restaurant, making the biggest scene any of them have ever faced!” — Rufus, after ordering breakfast from the same restaurant he just disavowed three days earlier.
—
So of course, the sale I’d gotten on Saturday with the help of Rufus was the only car I sold.[1]
Whenever I made phone calls, the prospect either hung up, blocked my number, or sent me straight to voicemail. The emails I sent never got a response back. When I met customers on the lot, it soon became apparent that I knew next-to-nothing about how cars worked or even the approval process regarding credit and down payment. As a result, they ended up asking for someone else or leaving and not coming back. I was adrift in a sea without a life-raft and the sharks were circling.
On the first Monday of the third month, I was standing out on the lot when Rufus emerged out the front door, holding some papers. “Hey Sam, follow me for a minute would ya?”
Curious, I went inside and followed him to a back office where a table and two chairs made their home. He gestured for me to take one and he took the other. Stacking the papers together he laid them out and folded his arms. Instead of his normal state, he looked sad; melancholy even. Both eyes were not only the same size but they started narrowing.
“Sam…one car in two months, I don’t know what to tell ya. I’ve been given orders from up above that while we respect your ability to come to work on time, you’re obviously not cut out to work here.”
I wanted to protest how this was unfair since I’d spent most of my time doing the mandated-training modules that taught you the auto-sales process as well as the vehicle specifications. Then I thought back to how Aaron and Lindsay were already selling about 8 cars by their second month and reality won against my excuses.
I’d been defeated by my own lack of confidence.
“Now, since we still love what your attitude and punctuality have to offer, we’re willing to put you in the service department. You’d be detailing cars, making above minimum wage…and you’d also get union benefits on top of that.”
I thought about working in a hot, factory-like setting cleaning the inside and outside of cars for eight hours a day, five days a week. While I retain the utmost respect for people who do those jobs, I stared at the official termination-letter/job-offer and then stared back at him.
“Tell them I don’t want it,” I said, still somewhat miffed that the managers had sent the ringmaster out to make cuts instead of themselves. “Tell them to give me another month.”
Rufus regarded me with a look of surprise and for a minute, I thought he’d protest but after mulling it over, he grabbed the papers and said “Well, I’ll see what I can do.”
He left the room. I waited for what seemed like a lifetime. Then he came back with a sour expression and folded the papers in front of me again. “Well unfortunately Sam, they said push has come to shove, and their final offer is being in the service department…take it or leave it.”
I switched between looking at termination slip and his crinkled face. From what I could tell, as much as he preached ‘underpaid actor-ship’, Rufus looked like firing me was the last thing he wanted to do. There was no hiding or acting out of this — here was a man who actually felt hurt when he had to let people go. It wasn’t his dealership — granted — but at the same time, I was faced with a ringmaster who was losing one of his performers — and in his perfect world he would be able to keep all of them.
“Well, I’m going to have to decline their offer,” I said. “Where do I sign?”[2]
“Right here.” Rufus pointed to a dotted line.
Already making a list in my head of other places I could apply to, I shook hands with him and walked back to the BDC to clean out my desk. Two of the salespeople gave me strange looks when I tossed my business cards in the trash. “Sorry guys, it was fun while it lasted.”
I exited the dealership and walked to my car, trying to calm down. I was angry, frustrated, yet resigned all at the same time.
I should’ve seen it coming from a mile away.
But I was angry with myself for not at least doing more to prevent it.
The Slow and the Curious
“Yeah, I got a huge snack collection in the cabinets at home. That’s why my girlfriend’s skinny and I’m not.” — Bobby.
—
It wasn’t necessarily the firing that upset me. It was the fact that I was given an opportunity to change my life’s financial situation and I’d done nothing. Most of the time, I’d used the justification of ‘training’ to get out of talking to customers or shadowing the veterans. I’d spoken with Aaron several weeks before — after he was fresh off his $7000 month — and asked if he knew much about cars.
“Not really,” he said. “I just try to treat the customer right. Make them want to come back is all.”
Really? I asked myself. That’s all?
I’d had success with my last sales job, though we were paid by a combination of hourly pay and bonuses which amounted on how much you sold. Since I outpaced most of the other people there, I figured I could make a transition to straight-commission easily — despite moving from products I knew everything about (electronic systems) to products I knew nothing about (cars).
But this was a different world entirely.
Not only was it higher stakes — if you didn’t sell, you didn’t eat — but you were expected to learn the process quickly. If you messed up a form or didn’t ask for a referral, you were subject to a stern verbal beatdown courtesy of the managers (usually Hector). This in turn led to higher stress among the associates and an environment where it was sometimes you vs. your coworkers instead of just you vs. the customer.
As it turns out, taking time to learn about cars was not permitted. If you didn’t have at least four or five cars under your belt by your second month, then they shooed you out the door. If that wasn’t fair to you, then tough — life isn’t fair. Hector would further like to remind you that there are winners in life and there are losers in life (and if you weren’t him, you were a loser).
Okay, I made that last part up. But you get the picture.
So while I was upset that I would now have to look for another job, a nagging feeling arose in the pit of my stomach, something that threatened to bring my whole worldview crashing down.
Was I just not hungry enough?
Maybe I didn’t really want ‘it’ after all.
The Game
“Whoever has the most money at the end wins the game of Life, don’t you know that?” — Anonymous internet comments across many forums.
—
Like I mentioned before, I’d gone into the job excited at the opportunity to earn the fabled ‘middle-class-income.’ Although any salesperson worth their salt will tell you that if a ‘middle-class-income’ is your goal in sales, then you’ve already lost the job and should probably find something else. Go play the game of Life somewhere else. We’re busy winning all the Millionaire Estates cards. Go collect your bankruptcy checks when you play Trouble.
The other people my age earning the high-five-figures and six-figure-incomes was what really made me sit down and reflect on my place in the job market. If Aaron, Lindsay, and Bobby could walk in and make that kind of money, then why couldn’t I? Were they made of different stuff than I was? Was I doomed to languish in a dark financial pit forever?
As I drove home back from the dealership, the following conversation replayed itself in my head:
Sam, be honest with yourself, do you want to achieve success?
Yeah.
Did you want to do it selling cars?
…
Did you?
…No. Not really.
Well, there you go.
—
So this leads me into where I am today.
I am back to being gainfully employed with another day job involving sales — and miraculously I’ve not been fired. Because of my past failures, I’ve tried studying the process more closely and develop new techniques. In addition to my day job, I’ve been working on my true-aspirations; to work for myself entirely through writing, blogging, and other online business ventures. I’m much happier now than I was attempting to sell cars — even though, all things considered, I was still happy trying.[3]
So I learned two key things:
I wasn’t going to have a career selling cars (at least not right now. If through happenstance I end up at a dealership again, I now know enough to where I could probably sell the bare minimum required).
And I needed to start doing what I really wanted to do.
Which was writing.
Both for myself and for others.
Every now and then I still think about the cast of characters I met during my experience. While some remain less than favorable, all it takes is for me to remember the Gospel According to Rufus and I smile when thinking about the first time he discovered how fishes possess natural flatulence. I smile when I think about Lindsay greeting the customer and making them feel at home.
Somehow, someway, I still smile whenever I sit down to write — or head off to work — and those fabled three words The Man Who Sold Too Much always spoke at the first dealership still echo in my mind, I let them pass without rolling my eyes.
‘All righty then.’
All righty then indeed.
The End
(This is the fourth and final part of Hiding Premium-Unleaded Careers in Plain Sight. You can find Part One, Part Two, and Part Three on my profile).
[1] The dealership was kind enough to provide a 3-month guarantee before they paid you on straight commission. This was done to help people still getting their feet wet in auto-sales since a good portion of their time involved completing mandatory training modules set by the manufacturer. This is how I still managed to stay afloat without selling hardly anything.
[2] What I should’ve done was the classic ‘you can’t fire me, I quit!” approach. However, when dealing with a tempest of varying emotions, you never end of making the correct decision. My friends will attest that I usually end up making a poor decision even when thinking straight, so ridicule me as you see fit.
[3] The key word here being try. As Yoda from Star Wars (1977) would say “Do or do not. There is no try.” The same wisdom can be applied to sales and business.
