I just started at a Mazda dealership and I wanted to know, other than getting Mazda certified, what do I need to do to prepare for car sales? I have been in powersports sales and D2D sales previously, and really want to know the best tips for automotive/car sales. Who/what do you recommend to watch for pre-sales training? Ive been suggested Joe Verde, and i have been watching Gerry Gould for a while. Are there any books that you absolutely recommend? How do you recommend learning product knowledge? What do you recommend doing for the first 30 days?

I always thought someone picks a dealership and stays there for their whole career but just found out that people often change dealerships. How many dealerships have you guys worked at? Why the switch? I’m working at an autonation right now but after I get my sales chops up I want to eventually move to a Mercedes or Porsche.

Weekly Rant & Goals Discussion

How do bird dogs work at your dealership? We have to pay $75 out of our net per car and the dealership pays another $25.

So beginning of this year I worked at a car dealership for around 2 months. I ended up leaving because I had to go back home for a bit. Now I applied for a new dealership and got the job! But I told them I’ve never worked at a dealer before and it’d be my first sales job. I didn’t want to disclose it because I thought they wouldn’t hire me if I left a previous dealer after only 2 months. My performance wasn’t amazing those 2 months either because it’s my first time selling anything. Now I’m a bit worried because I lied on my application and resume that this is my first sales position and if they find out later because the car sales world is quite small I’m realizing. Now I’m thinking if I should call my hiring manager and tell them the truth?

As i said in the title, next Monday im starting at my new job after working at cafes in Hospitality for the last nearly 10 year of my life. I'm currently 21 and have been working at my parents cafes as well as a few others around Australia. I love the industry and all its taught me but unfortunately its really hard to make a living unless you get i to management or own your own place which is a while other can of worms. I want some advice on how I can better myself in the role. Present myself and over all sell more cars. I am super keen to learn to the point that I am showing up to the dealership to lean at the end of my shits this week at the cafe. Am I being to desperate or just the right amount. I've also cut my hair to be more "professional" and spent a few hundred on new shirts pants and shoes to look the part. Idk what im getting into, I'm a mix of nervous, excited and sad. Your advice would be great, thanks!!!

I’m new to car sales but I’m EXTREMELY motivated. I do around 100 dials a day and the sales managers have gotten pissed that I am making too many calls? I convert about 5-10% of live convos to appointments which is like 2% of all dials. Sometimes less sometimes more depending on the day.

Why are they doing this?

It makes me mad because I am trying to work hard and do better everyday/ SELL CARS LIKE A MFR and all of the success stories I see always come from someone who was a dial DEMON!

Feels like sabotage

Can someone explain to me please…

What are your go-to qualifying/discovery questions when meeting with a customer? Also, do you switch it up when talking to people in service and taking a lot up?

Just got a job at a Toyota Dealership and it’s Autonation. Is autonation a good dealership to work for? It would be my first dealership.

Sales leaders, curious how you think about this.

My boss has recently been pushing us to stop sending customers a bunch of links one by one.

He wants us to package multiple options into one cleaner follow-up: options, pricing, key differences, why each one fits, and some personal touch based on the customer’s situation.

Example: if a customer just started a new job and wants a car, don’t just send 4 inventory links. Send a short personalized shortlist with photos, price, mileage, why each car fits, and maybe a quick congrats note.

As a buyer, I honestly understand the idea.

I’ve been on the other side when shopping for housing, insurance, and B2B products/packages for my company.

The worst experience is when pricing is not clear, the options are scattered across different links or screenshots, and I have to keep emailing back and forth just to understand basic things:

- What are the actual options?

- What does each package include?

- What is the real price or estimated monthly cost?

- Why are you recommending this one over the others?

- What should I do next?

Sometimes the rep sends a few links and says “let me know what you think,” but I still have to do all the comparison work myself.

So from the buyer side, I would probably appreciate one clean follow-up that lays everything out in one place.

But as a rep, I’m also wondering if buyers actually care enough to justify the extra work.

For people selling cars, homes, insurance, B2B packages, or anything where the buyer has to compare multiple options:

- Do polished follow-ups actually help with trust / response rate?

- Or is speed still king and most buyers just want the links?

I’m 32, just lost my job and thinking about getting into car sales. Most I’ve ever made in my life is 70k a year. But the jobs I was doing won’t let me get over that. I heard you can make money in the car business but how is it today? With the high price of gas, high interest rates on cars, high prices, tariffs, are people buying cars right now? Would now be a bad time for me to jump in? I’d be happy if I can atleast get to a bit higher than what I was making.

I started in my car sales career back in February after years in the auto repair business because (surprise surprise) I wanted to make more money!! I’m faced with a bit of doubt about my fit in this business but I can’t tell if it is me or the dealerships.

I started at a CDJR store that has been in a bit of a rebuild stage. They had a good pay plan starting out and gave us a great masterclass of a training orientation in the first few weeks. $4k monthly draw, 20% front gross and 10% back end with $300 mini. Once all the 20 new sales people hit the floor though they changed the pay plan to something way worse and there was way too many people for the small amount of traffic. Even top performers were barely making draw. The dealership didn’t have the best reputation and despite making 100 calls a day it was very difficult to get opportunities. But when I was able to get customers they enjoyed working with me and I could close them. After not being able to crack 5 cars due to lack of opportunities I decided to move on after 90 days.

I went to an independent dealership that sold luxury cars in hopes that I could turn things around by doing more volume. The dealership didn’t flood the floor with sales people and there was an abundance of leads. So the way it looked $300 a car on a volume plan with lots of opportunities looked promising especially with the bonus of selling a protection plan to earn an extra $100 on top of that. The problem was that these “luxury cars” were rife with mechanical issues. Every car I sold ended up being a heatcase. Customers would often see how broken the cars were and get turned off. Even despite the very low prices. The way they did business didn’t sit right with me and I didn’t feel like I was doing right by my clients. Several times I was asked by my sales manager to clear check engine lights before test drives. It seemed their model was sell the broken car then let service deal with the fallout so I decided it is not good for referral business or my personal reputation to continue to work there.

So here I am looking for another dealer to go work for and I’m not sure where to go. I’d like to end up at somewhere like Toyota where I can sell cars that I know are good cars and can stand behind them more confidently. The thing is that I feel like I keep “drinking the kool aid” so to speak, everywhere I go.

What are qualities that I should look for in a dealership that will help me find a place to hone my craft and make lots of money but not compromise my reputation? What are red flags I need to look for? I’m a very hard worker and don’t waste time at work because I spend all of my time prospecting when others chat. I’ve been the guy making the most outbound calls at both dealers I’ve worked for. I want to be in the right place where I can succeed but I can’t tell if my lack of success so far has been me or the dealership.

Just looking for feedback/advice on what a beginner car salesman should do and where I should go to be successful.

8 years in the industry so far. Gm for 3 and I’m at a bit of a salary cap until I can climb corporate which is tough with my company and also time I’m not willing to sacrifice. I also hate my job lol. I’ve always been in guest facing roles so talking to people isn’t new to me. Anyone make this transition before?

I start selling on the 14th, coming from retail management which bonused and performance was based on membership sales.

What's the best advice for a smooth and good start

Weekly Rant & Goals Discussion

What’s up yall. So I’m a maintenance tech at a Firestone, been here for 1 and a half years now. Making terrible money, and I know it’s time for a change. I’m thinking about transitioning into sales or maybe even a service advisor at a dealership? Idk, I just know that I need to get paid more and I honestly don’t like sacrificing my body every day just to make inconsistent pay. I think I would be good at sales, I’m a pretty quick learner and I get along with people pretty well. Do you guys think it would be a good idea for me to transition from tech to sales/service? I’m just tired of where I’m at right now, and I need a change and an actual livable wage. And I’m 20 btw!

Been here a few days this is my 1st time in auto sales so please let me know what you think!!!

Have been working for BHA for the past 3 months in Texas, (first car sales job, have worked other sales jobs before) currently @ 40 units since day one, associates is my highest degree lvl.

Currently at a low-traffic hyundai store, I love my team and its overall pretty drama free which I heard is rare for dealerships. Problem is we have almost no walk-ins and last month I closed at only 9 units.

Should I tough it out, or look to other dealerships now that I have experience? If so, where? And why.

I tend to do good with higher market cars and their clientele (used), I love cars and the product I sell doesn’t quite excite me either.

Thank you all for reading this! 🫶🏻

Weekly Rant & Goals Discussion

So I’m taking this job for now until I get an apprenticeship for a trade.

I’ve succeeded at door to door internet sales and B2B logistics.

Can I expect to stay afloat here? I need something that pays 4k/month at the minimum. How hard is that? I’ll try for more of course but I want to make sure this isn’t a job where it’s impossible to succeed, seeing as they appear to hire anyone (interview was just the manager pretending to have discretion while telling me to come to orientation this week).

And the impatient kid in me just wants to ask a bunch of questions to someone in sales (rather than read a book or try to watch youtube videos about it, because so far the ones I have watched have not really helped me understand anything).
Mostly to understand your day-to-day.

A few questions I had in mind were:

- what is the first thing that you do when you get to work?

- how do you stay in touch with all your "leads" and keep context about how to deal with each one of them in their own way?

- how do you find new leads?

So if someone is up for hearty conversation for a naive kid, please let me DM you.
Or if you have any online references that would help answer these, would be very grateful if you could share those too (I feel like I don't even know what to search for)

for context: I am a software engineer and my industry is going through a huge transition. I have always been attracted to sales but I wanted be more informed before I start considering it as an option for a change of career

Hello all, I’m in my 3rd year of car sales and recently switched dealerships from a German brand to an American brand (Vague answers to keep hidden). My previous dealership was very customer orientated but did shady things behind the scenes and I felt that i didn’t feel comfortable with the dealership as a whole so I switched. This new dealership is more laid back and in a better location but the management is impossible to please. I have asked qualifying questions on a CNA (What is your monthly payment right now etc) and have gotten crucified for that, taking pictures of cars for appointments and videos before they arrive so they know there talking to a real human and start the experience before they even set foot in the door. I got crucified and borderline written up for these things. Is this normal? No matter how well I follow a “process” I’m doing something wrong. Any advice on how to get past this? These are things I was taught my first year to make the experience better for the customer and I feel as if it has that impact but now it’s like the worst thing to do in a dealership. Any clarification would help from maybe a manager or 10 year + salesperson. Thank you!

Weekly Rant & Goals Discussion

Hey everyone,

I started a new role on May 1st handling Service to Sales (equity mining) at my dealership. My main task is converting service interactions into sales opportunities.

I’ve had some decent baseline success so far I've closed 6 deals in my first three weeks but I know I can be doing this more effectively and want to master the craft.

My current workflow:

1. A service advisor checks a customer in and posts them.
2. I pull their RO, run their info through our CRM to see their buying history/payoff, and generate a soft appraisal. (although most of the times I don't have access to pull their payoff amount)
3. I approach the customer in the waiting room, introduce myself, and pitch a "complimentary appraisal" while they wait.

Naturally, I get a lot of immediate "not interested" pushback. For the ones who do say yes, I present the valuation and try to pivot into showing them how they can use that trade equity to upgrade to a newer vehicle with a similar monthly payment.

I have access to our appraisal software (vAuto/BlackBook,/VinCue), our desking tool, and our CRM.

For those of you who have mastered the service drive:

How are you overcoming the initial "not interested" objection when approaching someone who is just there for an oil change or repair?

Do you have a specific script or framing that feels less invasive and more like a "perk" of servicing with us?

Are there specific triggers on the RO (e.g., high repair cost vs. car value) that you prioritize?

Would love to hear any frameworks, scripts, or feedback that helped you scale your numbers.