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Car Salesman Confidential: How To Read A Car Ad
A car pulled up in front of my dealership the other day, and an older gentleman got out and introduced himself as Dr. Faraz. I asked him how I could help him, and he told me he wanted to look at a new...
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Car Salesman Confidential: What’s the Deal With TrueCar?
A couple of weeks ago a middle-aged woman came to my dealership to buy one of our best-selling Bel Canto sedans. Before coming in, she had gone online and gotten a price quote from TrueCar. TrueCar...
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Car Salesman Confidential: From Hero To Zero
About two weeks after I started in sales, the dealership I worked for held a big “tent sale” (sometimes called an off-site sale) at the local fairgrounds. These used to be a lot more common. Two or...
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Car Salesman Confidential: Race and Stereotypes in Car Sales
A few months ago my dealership hired a young man of Middle Eastern descent by the name of Kamel, which means “the perfect one” in Arabic. Kamel’s name is pronounced Ka-MELL … not “camel.” which is...
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: Buying New vs. Buying Used
Deciding Is Harder Than It Once Was A lot has changed since I first started selling cars in 2004. In those days, I was working at a Nissan dealership, and every Altima S I sold came standard with seat...
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: Why Not Just Buy If You Like It?
When it comes to car sales, there is more bad advice out there than on practically any other subject. All of it is well-intentioned, but little of it is written by anyone with any experience in car...
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: The Haunted Dealership
One of the great benefits of working in car sales is the freedom. By that I mean, if I ever get tired of a place, or just want a change of scenery, all I have to do is clean out my desk and leave....
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: Pushing A Salesman Too Far
Every man has his limit. Those of you who have been reading my column since the beginning may have gotten the impression I’m some kind of “super salesman,” always nice and polite, a true professional...
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: Gorillas In The Mist
Every car deal has two 800-pound gorillas in it . . . but no one talks about them. Instead, all anybody wants to talk about is that little monkey sitting off to one side named Discount. What are these...
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: When A Commitment Isn’t One
Last time around we talked about some general strategies buyers use to get the upper hand in negotiating the price of a car. Most of them are pretty benign. But this next one is absolutely the most...
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Car Salesman Confidential: Making ‘Em Laugh
Call it the Gift of Gab or being kissed by the Blarney Stone. Whatever you call it, a good car salesman has it. They’re quick witted, good with words, and can hold a conversation with just about anyone...
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: A Clash of Paradigms
Imagine you’re Marty McFly from “Back to the Future” and you travel back in time to 1956. While you’re there, you decide you need something a little less conspicuous than a stainless steel DeLorean to...
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Car Salesman Confidential: How I Sell
At one dealership I worked at the General Sales Manager stood up in front of everyone in the Monday morning sales meeting and said “I’m sure all you old timers already know this, but in case any of you...
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: How To Use Carfax, Part 1
Everyone knows about Carfax, right? And everyone knows how to read one. Right? Well . . . no. A few months ago a couple came in wanting to trade their 2002 Ford Escort. They still owed money on it and...
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: How To Use A Carfax, Part 2
Before Carfax there was NOTHING. You had the car and you had the word of the seller to go by, and that was it. If the seller told you the car had never been in a wreck you had to take his word for it...
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: The Process Fascists
Golf is a great sport. I’m no good at it, but I still love to play. One of the things I like about golf is all the quaint little bits of wisdom you pick up along the way, like . . . “There’s no room...
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: 7 Tips for the First-Time Buyer
Everybody remembers their first car. Mine was a 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang, Guardsman Blue, with a 289 and a four-barrel carburetor. Although it was over ten years old when I bought it, it had only 1800...
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: What You Need to Bring
One Saturday a young couple drove all the way from a little town to buy a new car. We went through the whole process, from the meet ‘n’ greet to the needs analysis to the test drive, and then I sat...
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: Do Salesmen Have a Conscience?
A MotorTrend.com reader who goes by the name “leadpig” recently raised an interesting question in the comments section of my blog: “I appreciate your continuing to write things from the sales point of...
View ArticleCar Salesman Confidential: Good Negotiating Strategies
So here we are in the first week of 2017. It’s a new year and I’m betting a lot of people are planning on buying a new (or used) car sometime in the coming year. Think you’re ready for some good,...
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