Gifted Kid to Car Salesman

People are motivated by many different things in life. As a child, I found my niche early. I was a nerd, if you will. Think Hermione Granger with her hand raised high, bouncing up and down in her seat, eager to answer the question correctly. I sat in the front row, did all of the homework, obeyed all the rules, and had paralyzing anxiety at the mere thought of failure. The school once asked my parents if they were comfortable with me skipping middle school entirely. Fifth grade to high school freshman, just like that. Being this obsessed with perfection, it naturally followed that I was socially awkward. Very socially awkward. So thankfully, my parents passed on this offer.

When we are young, we naturally assume that if we do all things right, study, work hard, and follow the rules, success and stability are foregone conclusions. Or so I thought, as I worked hard to graduate with honors from the University of Tennessee, first with a bachelor’s degree, then with a master’s degree. It wasn’t until I finished school and went to actually apply for a job that I realized this wasn’t the case. Maybe it was partly the recession that started when the housing market crashed. Maybe it was the sheer number of college grads competing for jobs. Maybe I just hadn’t specialized in anything that translated directly into a specific career, i.e., nursing or engineering or something. Regardless, when I opened up Google and searched page after page of job postings, I was faced with an identity crisis. What could I do? Work in a call center? Become an administrative assistant? A probation officer? A postal worker? Go back and get a Ph.D.? Then I saw an ad that seemed promising…

“Do you want to make $60,000+ a year with no experience? We are willing to train you.”

“What the heck? Why not?” I thought.

About a week later, I arrived for my interview with the general manager of a local car dealership for a sales position. I was supposed to change the world. Instead, I became a car salesman (err...sales lady). I was so desperate to find any form of employment and feel like a productive adult that I was relieved when I received the call informing me that I had gotten the job.

Shortly thereafter, I arrived for my first day of work. I marveled at the sheer size of the building and the many expensive vehicles, none of which I knew anything about. It also didn’t take me long to realize that I was the only female sales consultant on the staff.

The thing about becoming a car salesman is that no one dreams of it as a child. It’s never anyone’s life plan. It’s what happens when all your other life plans don’t work out. And while there are a few academic types like myself, it attracts all kinds. Mid-career professionals who were either recently laid off during the recession or restless for a change and not sure what else would pay the bills. Guys who got out of the military and weren’t sure what else to do. High school graduates who balked at the thought of flipping burgers or unloading trucks or whatever. And the sharks. Those ruthless few that gave us all a bad name. Think Danny DeVito in Matilda in a tweed sport coat rolling back odometers, only slicker. And it turns out that the only thing worse than buying a car from one of these types is working with them on a daily basis. There were two men who worked as a team and made huge money who seemed to make it their personal mission to make me feel like I didn’t belong. Well, when one of them wasn’t hitting on me, anyway.

I soon realized that while getting a job in the car business is easy, keeping one is not. The sheer amount of product knowledge and negotiation skills necessary to make a deal with someone takes time. Plus, people shop around. They shop you versus everyone else in town, desperately looking for a slightly lower price or a car with features or a paint color that is slightly more perfect for them. Some can’t buy due to their financial circumstances. Some spend hours, even days, and sometimes weeks shopping, agonizing over every little detail, only to get cold feet that the thought of making such a large purchase or to buy something else instead. It almost feels like being ghosted by someone you went on a promising date with. In the words of a close friend and former co-worker, “There I was waiting by the window in my prom dress, and nobody showed.” After all of this is said and done, at the end of the day, a sales rep has to stay productive in terms of profits earned for the dealership in order to remain employed.

Remember that $60,000+ yearly income? That’s if you’re good. National average is closer to $40,000. Starting out is nowhere near that. You work 50 to 60 hours per week, including nights and weekends. Give customers your cell phone number so they can call or text you anytime with questions. And if someone wants to make an appointment on your day off to look at a car, you can either come in or split your commission with another sales rep. You clock in and out every day, and the dealer pays you minimum wage for your hours worked. At the end of the month, he totals up your minimum wage, or “draw” as it’s called in the car business, and subtracts it from your commission earned from sales. Commission is usually anywhere from 20% to 30% of the profits on each car deal. That doesn’t sound too terrible, right? Well, turns out it’s possible to be “in the bucket”, or make more in minimum wage than in commission and have a negative balance going into next month that you have to make up. This doesn’t happen often to seasoned sales reps, but it is pretty common for newbies, or “green peas.” And if you stay in the bucket long enough, there’s a point of no return where you get fired. Frick and Frack, as I nicknamed them, gleefully reminded me of this often.

I had struggled with depression and anxiety for many years, and at this point in my life, my anxiety over being in the bucket and my general sense of depression got the best of me on many days, as I sat there on one of the golf carts provided to us by Fred (or so we will call him), the cranky old multimillionaire who owned the dealership, along with several others. It was at this critical juncture that I would meet someone who would change my life. Let’s call him Sam. I’m not exactly sure why Sam sold cars, other than maybe he was good at it, and it afforded him a comfortable lifestyle. He seemed almost bored most days. Which was understandable, if you knew him. If there was one word that described Sam, it was cool. War veteran, college educated, super smart, world traveler, avid skydiver, jack of all trades and master of most. At first, I didn’t know him. And I was pretty sure Sam hated me, at least judging by his curt responses to my attempts at interacting with him and the glare he sported most days, as he kept to himself on the lot. Later, he would explain that the gruff exterior allowed him solitude. Over the years, he had seen many new sales reps come and go. Failing out of car sales was pretty common. He didn’t feel the need to get attached. In his own words, “I don’t bother to learn your name until you’ve been here at least three months. I don’t want these newbies following me around asking questions. How long have you sold cars? Is it easy? How much money do you make? What’s your life like? Are you married? Do you have kids? Do you have an office? Can I share your office? Do you know where they keep the plastic forks around here?”

I was a fish out of water. I was way in over my head. I had fallen from the ivory tower of academia and landed in car sales. Now, as it turns out, I was bad at that. Unbeknownst to me, the staff routinely took bets on how long a new sales rep would last. Only one person bet on me: Sam. Being a shrewd bettor, he decided to help me. He also later admitted that he noticed I seemed sad and wanted to cheer me up. “You used to be sad. Now you’re just quirky,” he said to me later after discovering my academic background, zany sense of humor, and potential to be good at sales. He never would tell me how much he won.

With Sam teaching me about cars and negotiating deals, as well as offering moral support on a daily basis, I began to succeed and learn to love my new life. Instead of feeling a sense of shame about becoming a car salesman, I enjoyed the odd looks it got me when I told acquaintances new and old what I did for a living. I was interesting, quirky. And I had money in my bank account. I bought my first new car. It was just a subcompact with a few features, but it was the nicest and most reliable thing I had owned so far, compared with the old junkers I was used to driving. I signed up for health insurance of my own. My fellow sales reps said I had gained a new confidence, and Frick and Frack grudgingly paid me respect. I was successful in an ethical way, not like the sharks. While Sam and I liked making a good profit, we didn’t lie to people and we always treated people with dignity. Life had handed me lemons, and I had been resourceful and creative enough to make it work for me.

I learned to stop fearing failure, to stop being so anxious, to stop feeling bad about the awkward parts of my life, and to be more open to the new adventures that the universe might throw my way. Whenever I felt dejected over a rough day at work or my dysfunctional home life living with my parents, Sam cheered me up. We had inside jokes. I told him about my father drunkenly trying a home remedy he had read about and accidently causing beets to explode from a blender, staining a spot of the kitchen ceiling pink. Sam told me about causing a literal shitstorm with a malfunctioning manure spreader on his parents’ farm. Or about the time he accidentally took out the electricity for an entire small town. He had looked awkwardness in the face and lived to tell the tale while laughing about it.

We had some fun adventures, too. I once sold a pickup to a woman looking to surprise her husband for his birthday. They were wealthy and lived in the nicest neighborhood of our city. Think mansions and old money. She wanted me to deliver the truck to their home and drive their trade-in back to the dealership. While most used car managers prefer to inspect a trade-in in person, they will do sight-unseen appraisals if the deal depends on it. You get a really good, detailed description of the car, and they put a conservative number on it. This upper crust lady gave me a description of an older sedan with some wear and tear and moderate hail damage, stating that overall it was reliable, had no mechanical issues, and ran well. The only hiccup in the plan was that the trade-in was a manual transmission, I couldn’t drive a stick, and the lot attendant had left early that evening. “Please go with me. I need this deal,” I pleaded with Sam. Although he would have rather been at home relaxing, he agreed to go. We arrived in the fanciest part of town to discover an old beater held together by bungee cord. As Sam drove it back to the dealership, third gear went out and the bungee cord came loose. One of the back quarter panels flew away on the freeway. We made it back to the dealership and handed the keys to our used car manager for an in-person appraisal. He visibly grimaced when he saw the car. As he circled around the lot in it, he leaned out of the window to yell, “This is the biggest piece of crap you have ever brought me!” “I think it holds the road ok,” Sam yelled back with a slight smile.

Sam left Fred before I did, but I had many more interesting adventures during my employment there. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the car business is the people you meet along the way. You see a different side of people when you sell them a car than you do when you meet them at the office, in class, or standing in line at your local coffee shop. You get an intimate glimpse at their financial situation, the good, the bad, and the ugly. You see the paralyzing anxiety many people experience when making a purchase that not only constitutes a significant commitment but also tends to express a bit of our personality. In this respect, a car can be considered a form of personal expression, just as a haircut or an outfit might. You see how couples interact with each other when making big decisions and how parents teach their children how to make some of their first major adult life choices. And ultimately, you learn that awkwardness, embarrassing moments, and bizarre situations are inescapable. You can’t outrun them. They lie in wait for all of us, so we must embrace them with graciousness and a sense of humor. They are an inherent part of life and human interaction. During my time in the car business, I collected more than a few anecdotes that serve as evidence for this valuable life lesson.

One morning on the lot, I approached an elderly lady and her daughter. The mom was looking to purchase a new crossover SUV after many years of driving her old one. She was incredibly anxious, and the daughter was visibly frazzled. As we returned from test driving the new SUV, I heard a page over the intercom, “All available sales to the showroom.” I thought to myself, “That can’t be good.” Fred had rented a giant inflatable fox, the mascot for a company well-known in the car world. It had tie-down lines and stakes similar to those of a large camping tent, a wind machine attached to the back to blow it up, and stood roughly the height of a telephone pole. I watched as my fellow sales reps tried and failed to inflate the fox to its full and imposing height. A power struggle broke out between two especially type-A salesmen over who was in charge. In the course of the struggle, the wind machine became detached from the back of the fox and it deflated, falling on one of the would-be leaders of this endeavor. He flailed wildly trying to crawl out from beneath the fox, finally emerging winded and a bit red in the face on the other side. The mother and daughter and I watched the entire spectacle, laughing until we couldn’t breathe. All nerves dissipated instantly. They invited me to lunch with them at their favorite Mexican restaurant and bought the SUV when we came back.

On another occasion, I agreed to drive with a wealthy local man out to his horse farm to show his wife and children the new diesel pickup we had special ordered for him with every bell and whistle available. On a curvy country backroad just outside of town, another driver crossed the double yellow center line and clipped off a towing mirror. We arrived at the horse farm, where an excited little girl dragged me into the barn to show me her pony, a cute gray horse that looked friendly at first but then attempted to bite me. I looked a bit stressed after the customer dropped me off at the dealership, holding the wayward mirror on my way to the body shop with my sales manager trailing behind asking me how it went. The guy still bought the truck.

Fred was known for being miserly, often leaving the building at fifty-something degrees in the winter to save on his electric bill. It was no surprise that he skimped on small maintenance items as well. While his buildings were large and imposing from the outside, standing out like the Taj Mahal for all to see and admire, he nickel-and-dimed his way through life in every other way possible. I had just finished negotiating a long and grueling car deal with an older couple one evening. They agreed to buy, the gentleman went out to retrieve their insurance information from the trade-in, and the lady went to the restroom. The bolts holding the toilet seat to the toilet were so old and rusty that when she went to do cleanup after finishing her business, the seat and the lady fell right out into the floor. She came back clutching her injured wrist, while my sales manager’s fiance ran to get her an ice pack. With great embarrassment, she explained what had transpired, but still purchased the car. The poor toilet seat lay where it fell for a couple of weeks until Fred agreed to have the maintenance man reattach it.

One night while negotiating a deal on a truck with a particularly budget-minded and savvy negotiator, I discovered that the customer had narcolepsy. He informed me of this right before dozing off on the paperwork. His wife had left him there to go shopping, on the assumption that he would be driving home in his new vehicle. I loaded him up in the truck, drove him to his house, called his wife, as he had lost his keys, and deposited him on his front stoop half asleep, while we waited for her to arrive. He purchased the truck the following day.

On another occasion a middle-aged lady came by to purchase an SUV for her family. She confessed to me that she was struggling with the concept of getting older and trading her usual sleek luxury rides for a family vehicle. She expressed some interest in a brand of SUV that had been traditionally associated with elderly people but more recently associated with Matthew McConaughey, who had just starred as one of the sexy male strippers in Magic Mike. I pointed this out to her. “He is hot,” she agreed, signing the buyer’s order with a laugh.

During my gifted kid days, I was painfully shy. I didn’t make jokes. I didn’t make eye contact. I couldn’t make people feel at ease. Rather than dissipating the tension of an embarrassing moment, I usually made things even more awkward. Over the course of learning to sell cars, I learned to interact with people from all walks of life, found my sense of humor, and found my confidence. Because the car business was never short on awkward moments. It was like leaving the professional, serious world of academia and running away to join the wild west. But I had learned to embrace life and embrace the awkwardness in the process.

Eventually, Fred, now in his mid-to-late seventies, decided to retire. Or perhaps the car business drove him to break up with us. In the months before he handed us over to our new owner, I saw the bizarreness of the car business on full display. Before retiring Fred decided to build a state-of-the art new building for one of his many franchises. In his ever-consuming search to save money, Fred selected the contractor with the lowest bid. During the night, a massive chandelier fell from the raised ceiling of the dealership and smashed the most expensive car in the showroom, totaling it. In the morning, we all gazed in wonder at the exposed and apparently dry-rotted plywood that formerly held this massive fixture in place. A few weeks later, at Fred’s dealership across the street, a sales consultant panicked while rearranging cars inside the showroom and hit the gas instead of the brake, propelling a new SUV out of the floor-to-almost-ceiling glass wall separating the showroom from the front porch outside. We watched from a distance as the firefighters smashed out the rest of the glass with their axes and as Fred paced angrily in front of the scene, waving his arms and shouting what one could only assume were four-letter words. Sam and I had always joked that someone would eventually do this. I texted him a picture of the carnage. I was supposed to have a stodgy, respectable job. How was this my life? But I didn’t beat myself up over it anymore. I just laughed.

I experienced a fresh wave of anxiety when our new general manager arrived. He was a stocky man with a taste for expensive clothes and the personality of an angry drill sergeant. He doubted my soft-spoken, more roundabout way of selling cars than seemed less determined than the means employed by some of my peers. As he watched me work, he came to respect my way of doing business and proudly introduced me as one of his top sales consultants. I learned a great deal from him, and although I was mildly terrified of working for him at first, I am glad for the opportunity to learn from him, as it helped me further my career and provide for myself. In my second month of the new regime, I sold twenty-four cars. Over twenty a month is rare, to put this in perspective. As I approached twenty, Sam texted me every few days for an update.

I worked for the new owner of Fred’s franchise for a bit before moving on to work for another dealership. This new outfit was a family-owned, multi-franchise group that was well-known locally. I made new friends along the way, attended some raucous parties with my fellow sales reps, played beer pong for the first time ever, earned a couple of salesman of the month awards, and even made enough money to become a homeowner before moving on to my final job in the car business, a small, older dealership in my original hometown one county over.

That’s the thing about the car business. Stability is almost nonexistent. The great white whale that we are all hunting but never capturing. We catch a glimpse of it now and again, just enough to renew our spirits for the next effort at chasing it down and finally maybe reeling in this rare creature. Maybe you’re in the bucket, or business is slow, or your new manager (and there always seems to be one) isn’t as good or as decent as the previous one, or the pay plan changes for the worse, or you get a call from a friend across town offering you a spot that sounds better than your current one. Maybe you are just worn down and hoping a change will fix the burnout. We move around frequently, and we all know each other from somewhere. It’s not ideal, but my fear of instability and change finally left me after a few years of this lifestyle.

Although I was good at selling cars, I felt that something was missing from my life. The car business is simultaneously all-consuming and often uneventful. The hours are long, but many of them are spent standing on the lot waiting for a fresh “up” once all your calls have been made. This is at once relaxing and stressful, as you aren’t making any money unless you are in front of a customer. Sometimes the hours drag by. I didn't mind when I kept mostly busy and spent the intervals cutting up with Sam and my other friends. However, this dealership was almost out of business, which became apparent to me shortly after my arrival there. There never seemed to be enough customers to go around for the dealership’s small staff. Advertising was minimal, the building was outdated, and the owners either couldn’t afford or refused to purchase inventory. A full, well-stocked lot attracts traffic, and we were visibly barren. It was when I realized my talent at solving the morning crossword with a local customer who would often stop by to have his car serviced and chat with the sales reps, that I knew I had to make a change.

I think Robert (or so we’ll call him) knew this as well. Being the general manager of a car business was a second career for Robert, an active person nearing seventy who was not content to sit at home. After retiring from a separate line of work, he had taken an offer from the wealthy family that owned the dealership several years back and decided to give the car business a try. At first glance he was cantankerous, but once you got to know him, he was kind, genuinely cared for people, and had a very dry sense of humor that often made us all laugh. He was a sort of father figure and mentor to many younger employees, including myself. Seeing my boredom, he offered to train me to become a finance manager.

Becoming a finance manager is frequently a sales rep’s first step toward management, which was something I felt I needed if my relationship with the car business was to be of the long-term variety. I was struggling financially at a car dealership without customers, but I agreed to stay, seeing this as a valuable opportunity to gain experience and move forward in my career. However, I was worried by the downsizing I saw happening all around me. First our previous finance manager was let go by the family that owned the dealership. While I felt bad about being his potential cheaper replacement, I continued my training. Next the detail department closed for part of the week. I was now spot-cleaning my own sold units, when the occasional customer wandered onto the lot and purchased. Soon, a sewer pipe cracked open out back of the dealership, creating a small cesspool that was definitely noticeable to anyone with a sense of smell. Visits from plumbers who attempted to patch up the old building became a frequent occurrence.

In the end, downsizing got me, too, as the finance department closed completely shortly before the brothers who owned the dealership sold everything. A car dealership without a finance department was unheard of. But the managers now took on the task of getting deals approved at the banks and finalizing the paperwork with buyers in addition to their regular duties. Robert could tell I was simultaneously let down, hurt, and completely burnt out of selling cars. He was compassionate as he encouraged me to pursue a second career, maybe something with more stability, something that could ultimately make me happy. In the beginning of my journey, I had told a friend who was surprised by my career choice that I intended to sell cars for as long as I was having fun and it was paying the bills. The time had come. But I wasn’t afraid anymore. Things seem to work out with enough persistence, resourcefulness, and open-mindedness to life’s next adventure. Being a fish out of water isn’t a bad thing. It’s a chance to see a new side of life and explore a new part of who you are.

Epilogue: I now have a stable job that I love. I’m happier than I have ever been. But I wouldn’t trade the journey for the world. People look a bit surprised and laugh when I tell them I was a car salesman for five years. Every time someone suggests two truths and a lie as a party game or icebreaker, I usually win. As Sam used to say, I’m not sad anymore. I’m just quirky.

FYI, here’s the source credit from the cover image:

Raedle, Joe/Getty. 2015. Business Insider. businessinsider.com/car-salesman-tricks-2015-7. (June 20, 2021).