Selling cars was like getting a PhD in human nature but without the pain of paying $60,000 a year to some overpriced college and taking on student debt to make it happen.
Selling dresses on the road, being a schmatta salesman was worth a Masters degree. Manufacturing and selling fur coats was where I earned my Bachelor degree in selling and human nature.
Where I also learned that 'paranoia improves peripheral vision'.
Peddling new and used cars was where I relearned a basic life lesson that nothing happens until something is sold. Steel mills don't run, dresses are not manufactured unless they can be and are sold. It's all bullshit until the hammer comes down on a sale.
The nicest guy in the world, as soon as he steps into a new car showroom or onto a used car lot, becomes the biggest prick that ever lived. The car salesman is his mortal enemy who is trying to fuck him, while the salesman looks at the prospective buyer as just another born again asshole that he, the salesman, has to fucking seduce.
Dredging up prospects, in addition to walk-ins to the showroom, was not for wimps or sissies. I learned early on that a prospect walking into the showroom had to ask for me or he became the 'up man's' mullet.
Women never shopped for a car alone. They always came in with some asshole who was on an ego trip trying to show the gal how clever a negotiator he was and earn a trip to the sack or something, whatever that something was.
To generate prospects plus the walk-ins, there were two more basic ways to go.You could put 'wouldja takes' on the windshields of a gazillion cars. The cards said, 'Would you take 'X' dollars for your car?...Call me or come by the showroom!, etc.
To ensure that when a mullet I generated would come in and ask for me; my `wouldja take' cards had my picture (wearing a bow tie) on the cards. The guy, not knowing my name from Adam's fucking odd ox, would ask for the guy with the horn rimmed glasses, wearing a bow tie.
Cold calls on the telephone, the second prospect generator, were a must for me. In those days you could get lists, by towns, of people who owned what cars. So, 5 days a week I made 20 phone calls, every morning to housewives asking if they would like a good trade in value for their car. Had a lot of phone calls ending with a slam in my ear and a few positive responses.
By then I knew, for sure, that I was in a percentage business. I had to to get a lot of turn downs to get to a winner. I figured out that every time some asshole slammed the phone in my ear, I made $2.50 (at least $20 in today's dollars). After five to ten cold calls you've heard every smart ass answer you'll ever hear.
BTW a mullet is an easy to catch fish.
Relatives and walk-ins were also an important part of generating a sale. But fortunately for my relatives none lived close by. There was nothing delicate about the negotiations, with the walk-ins or others.
High-balls or low-balls were the real theme. A high-ball was used to be sure the mullet came back. I never used a high-ball, where the salesman gives the prospect an unattainable potential trade-in value for his car thereby ensuring that the prospect would come back.
My approach was not misleading, just getting the facts.
A prospect who had already stopped at other dealerships would come by with a car worth, we'll say.$1,600. After walking around the car, kicking the tires and taking it for a spin, I would say that if I spoke like a Dutch uncle to the sales manager he would probably go to $1,100.
The prospect would literally scream, '$1,100? Are you crazy? I've been offered $1,800!'
Everyone knows that in shopping for a car, even a preacher will lie $200. I then knew that the best number the prospect got was $1,600 and told him that the sales manager would probably go to $1,700.
So he got $100 more than he was previously offered and $100 less than it was worth. Both the prospect and sales manager were in Hog Heaven. And me as well.
Being a furrier and then a traveling 'schmatta peddler' are almost too unreal to believe. For the next time.
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