A car salesman sells used or new cars to the potential customers on behalf of a company or for a multi-brand car dealer. He markets for the company brand either from the showroom premises or directly meets the customer at their residence or office.
A car salesman is either paid a salary with incentives or on a commission basis. Not many dealers give a fixed salary for a car salesman. He or She would have to sweat it out to make a decent earning. Many salesmen earn a good salary from a reputed car dealer or a showroom.
A day in the shoes of a salesman
A car showroom normally opens early around 8 in the morning. The salesman should be present early to check out his work schedule and plan for the day by placing banners, offers, and colorful balloons.
The salesman should be well prepared about the sales and get a briefing from his senior or the manager or owner of the showroom. If his previous day was not good then he should try to compensate for it and work extra hard to impress the manager.
After getting prepared the salesman has to wait for the first customer to arrive. The arrival starts around 10 and the salesman has to greet and welcome all customers entering the showroom. Many customers do not like a briefing from the salesman which could not be avoided by the salesman. The salesman should be with the customers at all times till they leave the premises irrespective of their attitude.
Customer’s phone number, address and their preferred model of the car should be noted down by the salesman for a latter-day briefing. The data has to be stored as the customer might even come back after many days or even many months.
Apart from the model’s rate, the salesman should also inform the customer about the additional cost for the car including tax, car insurance, and accessories charges. If the car salesman works in countries like Ireland it will be very hard for him to convince the customer about the high cost of Car insurance in Ireland. Car Insurance Ireland is phenomenally high but which could not be avoided as it is compulsory in Ireland.
The car salesman would sometimes be with the customer for the whole day for test driving and for financial dealing if the customer needs a loan. The whole deal might fall through because of the financial conditions which are out of control of the salesman. After working hard for a booking the deal might not be closed for various reasons.
A car salesman has to toil the whole day till late night to close the deal to earn a decent commission. Their day does not end at 5 PM or even at 8 PM, and sometimes it might end around 11 PM, if the customer is shaky. A cash sale of a car is easy to close, but a financial loan for a car is hard to finish as there are many conditions attached for a car loan to pass through.
Sometimes, it might take two to three days to satisfy a customer regarding the model and worthiness of the model. The commission sometimes has to be split between two salesmen if the customer has come to the showroom twice or thrice.
At the end of the day, the salesman has to prepare a report and submit to the higher authority before leaving the showroom. The car sales is a tiresome job because of the competition in the field, it takes a lot of energy to convince a customer if the customer has not locked down on a particular car model.
A successful car salesman should be energetic and should love his job to become a successful salesman.
