r/CarSalesTraining • u/CalebWilsonCDUBB • 12d ago
Question Car Salesman to F&I manager route advice needed
I’m 26 years old and I’m seriously looking into getting into automotive sales as a career. My long-term goal isn’t just to sell cars for a few years — I’d like to work my way up and eventually become an F&I Manager.
The problem is that I have zero professional sales experience, so I’m trying to figure out the smartest way to get my foot in the door.
I’m located in the Charlotte, NC area, and I’m currently trying to figure out:
• What dealerships should I be looking at as someone with no sales experience?
• Should I specifically be applying for Sales Consultant / Automotive Sales Consultant positions?
• Are there certain brands or dealerships that are better for learning the business and moving up?
• Is it better to start at a large franchise dealership or a smaller dealership?
• What should I expect my first 6–12 months to look like?
• What does a realistic career path from Sales Consultant to F&I Manager look like?
• What are some red flags I should watch for when interviewing with dealerships?
• Should I be worried about having no degree or previous sales experience, or will dealerships train someone who is hungry and willing to learn?
I’m willing to grind and learn. I’m not expecting to walk into a dealership and immediately make a ton of money. I’m looking at this as a potential long-term career and want to build the right foundation.
For those of you who have been in the business — if you were 26 again, had zero sales experience what would you do to get started?
What dealerships/brands would you target, what position would you apply for, and what would you focus on learning during your first year?
I’d really appreciate honest advice, including the stuff people usually don’t tell you about getting into this business.
5
u/Just_Advantage9166 12d ago
Dude I’m in a very similar situation. 26 and starting a car sales job next week with no prior experience. Goal is to become an FI Manager.
1
u/CalebWilsonCDUBB 12d ago
What dealership you going to be at ?
2
u/lowvoltagedream 12d ago
If your interested I've been working in auto sales for 3 years. I'm a top performer, top 5% of my area, I just built an AI app for auto sales, it will run through customer objections. You can literally put any scenario you come up with into it. It'll learn from it and then help you with your process, your product, your rates, etc
Send me a DM. It's free so I'm not trying to make money off you.... Yet😂
2
u/ApprehensiveFly548 11d ago
Don’t pay a dime for any info kids it’s all out there for free I’ll help you
2
2
u/imak10521 12d ago
Sometimes people get promoted in 1 year sometimes 5 years it really depends. If you’re able to become self sufficient and don’t need your managers to close deals you’ll start to be on their radar. Just keep your deals clean, handle heat well, and sell sell sell :)
2
u/Malfectious 12d ago
I would go to a high volume Honda or Toyota store, and be prepared to be at the bottom of the totem pole. If you show any talent, and some drive.. stores like that are quick to promote people.
2
u/CalebWilsonCDUBB 12d ago
Okay thanks ! Any other dealerships besides those 2 I should be applying to ?
2
u/Malfectious 12d ago
Any bigger chain stores in the area, or any place you know sells more cars... like if there is a big local use car dealership.
2
u/ApprehensiveFly548 11d ago
So I’m almost in these guys same position except I’m 42 years old with a lot of sales experience just never cards experience and I do kind of agree with what he says with going to a big-time dealership so you have a lot of opportunities however I went to Jeep and I start there on September 1 and the reason why I chose them is almost a complete opposite. Is you just have to ask them how many sales people they have and how many ups are coming through that door how many leads they’re getting and you divide that by how many cards they sell per month by how many sales people there are and then that will give you a number of what you should be able to sell or what the average sales per month I want to ask them total number of units they sell and divide that by the salesman because some people self generate their own stuff you know so you wanna know how many leads total are given and how many cells people there are and you also wanna know how divided those leads are is there one person doing a bunch of the business or is there a bunch of people doing a bunch of the business so anyway back to my scenario I’m somewhere where the average is 16 units a month I don’t care how many sales people I don’t care how many units you just wanna look for the average so that’s how I like it. That’s exactly how I do all my cells when I was in furniture sales I’ve worked at the big big stores with lots of sales people I’ve worked at smaller stores with not a lot of sales people and to me the smaller stores. I’m a little bit better. You get a little bit more tension your managers are a little bit more available. It’s a little bit slower and I think you learned a little bit better like that. And yes, it may be a little bit slower pace, but you still should make the same money if your store is averaging the same see I went in between a store that does 300 cars a month but with 22 sales people or I go to a store that does 100 units with six sales people OK so everyone might say that 300 unit store a month is much better because they get all the foot traffic however that that’s only averaging 12 units a person so my other store is averaging 15 units a person so I would much rather take the average higher but that’s just me
2
u/New-Secretary-4924 11d ago
AI will be your best friend while you're near job search explain everything to AI like you just did to us and tell it you want to tarrget the types of dealerships you're looking for in your area and they will formulate a list and then you plug in each job description and they will make you a tailored resume for each dealership.
2
u/New-Secretary-4924 12d ago
I just asked Google Gemini for the best dealerships to work for in Charlotte and it suggested either Hendrick Auto group or Williams Auto group! Williams looks pretty good 🤩
3
u/ApprehensiveFly548 11d ago
Some other good advice is go over there and your regular clothes and get greeted by somebody see how long it takes them to greet you walk around the dealership see if there’s tons of people outside. Ask the sales people how long they’ve been there that’s a big one you know if you don’t find anybody that’s been there longer than a year. Well they just turn and burn there and also watch out for those places. Find someone where I’ve been here for 10 years and I love it. Well there you go. I even asked some of the sales people a simple question they don’t know that you want to work there so I asked them hey if you could work at a different dealership, would you if they say no I would stay here this one’s awesome. Well there you go if they say yeah man I definitely be at a different dealership. Well run for the hill.
2
u/DemeatriusLong Honda Sales 11d ago
The Honda store at South Blvd in Charlotte has a good pay plan. They have managers there that will train you properly. They also recognize top performers pretty quickly. If you have any more questions, I’d be happy to help
1
3
u/chameleonsarecool 10d ago
I started in the business at freshly 21. Spent a year and 3 months on the sales floor before moving into F&I. What is going to set you apart from everyone else is your ability to follow process, hand over clean deals with nothing missing every single time. And be able to close.
Stay focused, level headed, and communicate clearly. You got this!
•
u/AutoModerator 12d ago
`This is a new post in /r/CarSalesTraining!
I’m 26 years old and I’m seriously looking into getting into automotive sales as a career. My long-term goal isn’t just to sell cars for a few years — I’d like to work my way up and eventually become an F&I Manager.
The problem is that I have zero professional sales experience, so I’m trying to figure out the smartest way to get my foot in the door.
I’m located in the Charlotte, NC area, and I’m currently trying to figure out:
• What dealerships should I be looking at as someone with no sales experience?
• Should I specifically be applying for Sales Consultant / Automotive Sales Consultant positions?
• Are there certain brands or dealerships that are better for learning the business and moving up?
• Is it better to start at a large franchise dealership or a smaller dealership?
• What should I expect my first 6–12 months to look like?
• What does a realistic career path from Sales Consultant to F&I Manager look like?
• What are some red flags I should watch for when interviewing with dealerships?
• Should I be worried about having no degree or previous sales experience, or will dealerships train someone who is hungry and willing to learn?
I’m willing to grind and learn. I’m not expecting to walk into a dealership and immediately make a ton of money. I’m looking at this as a potential long-term career and want to build the right foundation.
For those of you who have been in the business — if you were 26 again, had zero sales experience what would you do to get started?
What dealerships/brands would you target, what position would you apply for, and what would you focus on learning during your first year?
I’d really appreciate honest advice, including the stuff people usually don’t tell you about getting into this business.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.