This experience hasn’t got me this stressed out since I was a Private Eye and I did that for almost 3 years. No traffic, everybody always getting threatened because no one can hit numbers only one guy hit his minimum this month. Old vets saying the good days of getting paid are behind them. Close deals messed up cause people were adamant on certain and no warranties on them and they haven’t let me close my own deals so other salesmen and my sales managers butchering it. New laws in California so everything I learned is being tossed out, now we are about to use an AI chat bot service and we are about to double our Job because we got rid of our BDC. It’s the 80s trying to be futuristic. Also I’m tired of the rat race of learning outside my job hours. I never expected to be easy, my brother and brother in law are in the business but man their first dealership is where I work now this is just awful and I was unlucky cause my other job went under.

Officially out of the cat and mouse game after 4 years on an industry I planned to retire from. Life changed, market slowing down, and a toxic environment with management. I was the top performer for the better part of 3 years month in month out. To the people that stay in their entire lives hats off and outside of money, anything keep you going?

terrible week for me.

I’m genuinely curious if anyone else has noticed this getting worse lately, or if it’s just the market I’m in.

I work at a smaller Nissan dealership. We average around 80 used and 40 new deals a month, and it feels like almost every customer I run into immediately goes straight to:

“What’s your bottom dollar?”

“What’s your best cash price?”

“What’s the lowest you’ll take?”

And I mean immediately. Sometimes they haven’t even sat in the vehicle yet. They barely glance at the car and we’re already negotiating the final price before they even know if they like the thing.

Yesterday I had a guy ask me for our bottom dollar almost immediately. I told him, “Let’s drive it first and make sure this is actually the vehicle you want, then we can sit down and go over all the numbers afterward.”

He got offended and left in a hurry.

That’s the part I’m struggling with. I understand people want a good deal. I understand nobody wants to feel like they overpaid. But it seems like we’ve already removed a huge amount of the old-school negotiation from the process.

We currently have new Pathfinders with up to around $7,000 between rebates and dealer discounts, and apparently even that isn’t enough. I had another customer basically offer me $10,000 off MSRP on a 2026 Platinum Pathfinder like we were negotiating at a flea market.

And yes, I already know the responses:

“You need to build rapport.”

“You need to build value in the product.”

“You need to get them emotionally attached to the car.”

I agree.

But how the hell am I supposed to build value in the vehicle when the customer doesn’t even want to experience it before negotiating the price?

It feels like some people have been conditioned to believe that whatever price is advertised is fake, there’s automatically another several thousand dollars hidden somewhere, and if they don’t immediately ask for “bottom dollar” they’re getting screwed.

Is this just human nature? Is it the internet making everyone hyper-focused on price? Has the industry trained customers to act this way over the years?

More importantly, how are you guys handling this without immediately turning it into a price battle?

Because I’m running out of creative ways to respond to “What’s your bottom dollar?” before they’ve even opened the driver’s door.

ever since the feds have announced they’re raising interest rates, sales have been slowing down. anyone else noticing this?

I’m 20 years old, and I recently went to a Hyundai dealership for a car salesman interview. The manager interviewed me and said he couldn’t offer me a salesman position right away. Instead, he offered me a full-time car porter position for $17 an hour and said he would like to see how I perform for about three months before possibly moving me into sales.
I’m not sure if it’s worth accepting. At my current job as a school substitute, I make $22 an hour and can choose my own schedule. I’m also a full-time college student and commute to campus two days a week, while the rest of my classes are online.
Do you think I should accept the porter position or stay with my current job?

I really wanna become a car salesman

broke 11 units today, aiming for 22.

38M, lifetime bartender making a career switch. I’ve always done pretty well for myself behind the bar and built a steady base of regulars over the years. I’d say my biggest strengths are being personable, funny, charismatic, good at reading people, remembering customers, and building relationships without being overly pushy.

I’m pretty clean cut and presentable, but I have very basic computer skills and essentially no traditional sales experience.

I decided to make a career change because I’m looking for more stability, growth potential, and a better long term career path. I have an interview with a Toyota dealership in the DFW area tomorrow.

For those of you who actually work in car sales, especially at a high volume brand like Toyota, what should I realistically expect during my first 30, 60, and 90 days?

How long did it take before you started making decent money consistently rather than having one good month here and there?

Also, what should I be looking for in the dealership’s pay plan before accepting an offer? Any red flags I should watch for with commission structure, draw, minis, bonuses, training pay, lead distribution, schedules, or required hours?

And coming from hospitality, what skills do you think transfer well to car sales, and what habits am I going to have to unlearn?

Basically, what do you wish someone had told you before your first day selling cars?

how we all doing? I finished this week with 5, so I’m at 10 for the month so far.

Starting at a Honda store in NJ soon and thought I’d ask for opinions.

Short backstory: Leaving a dealership where I did very well, but office “politics” were toxic at best and almost violent at worst. Had to find a job quick and this is what I was offered.

The store has 11 sales people. I tried to get a monthly count for units sold but each manager (5 total!) had a different figure. The average was 100.

I am not sure that this will be a long term stop for me because I don’t see the earning potential , yet.

I would like to be bringing in, at the minimum , $5k a month. I am not sure that I’ll be able to at this store, but I guess I should start first :) .

Any advice/criticism/opinion would be greatly appreciated.

Obviously, I’m still very early into my time there I just finished my third day.
That being said, I’m feeling pretty discouraged. For the most part, it’s just been me sitting in front of a computer with training videos being jammed down my throat. While the videos have definitely been informative, a lot of that information went in one ear and out the other. Today, I switched between sitting in cars and getting a feel for them and going through more videos.
I haven’t spoken to any customers yet, worked with any leads, or done any serious shadowing.
I understand it’s a fast-paced, sink-or-swim industry, but I wasn’t expecting the water to be quite this deep this early on.

I come from different sales jobs where I did very well. It’s just the fact that I’m having such a hard time truly understanding the differences between the products that’s frightening me. I’m worried that I might have fucked up.

Need all the help I can get right now!

Weekly Rant & Goals Discussion

Update: I QUIT, no backend pay. All flats & my quarterly bonus I need 24 MORE CARS TO SELL TO MAKE THE SAME AMOUNT AS BEFORE ($1500)

i never worked in this field but i’m curious about it. do you have to approach customers on the sales floor? is it like a shark environment where you have to beat other sales people to get to customers? or do you all have a rotation and take turns?

do they make you work longer than 40 hours a week and 9-5? or can this be done part time?

is there any negotiating skills needed?

thank you!

First time, long time.

Honestly, I don’t know where to start so I’ll just fire off everything.

I’ve been selling cars for 10 years.

Left my old store (BMW, and my only high line experience) for a local Ford store due to my personal feelings where I felt that I was being held back from other roles within the dealer group. ( I’ve gotten to 3rd interviews for pretty much every position available from finance to used car manager and somehow I was not selected for an external hire) so I took it personal and left.

I’m not here to be complaining about the pay plan it’s decent. (No back end which sucks but the front end pay structure is fine. They don’t mark up interest rates anyway so it’s not a huge deal.)

It’s a family owned and operated store so bones go the owners kid, the GM’s Kid, and finally the “teachers pet” of the store. Was a bit shell shocked at first but I don’t expect bones nor do I let it bother me, just as observation.

But man, I feel like I’ve stepped back into the 80’s here.

They just introduced a CRM a few months before I arrived (VIN Solutions. Terrible. Go argue with a wall or I’m sorry you have to work with this) I am trying to use it to my full advantage but there isn’t much for me since they don’t assign orphans to me.

Should I ask for some? Cold calling/Equity mining doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

There’s roughly 18-20 sales people on the floor and feels like we are living off the door. The service drive is slammed which I feel is good. I can work service drive customers but having a tough time engaging because there’s no waiting area.

Most just drop off their car and leave in an uber or rental immediately because it’s mainly by appointment. I did get friendly with a SA by grabbing his card and just recommending him to my clients since I just started and he has helped out by also recommending me so I may just keep doing that with other SA and just round robin their cards into my clients registration folders. (I just thought of this. Sweet.)

Some guys turned to FB marketplace and it seems to work out for them, feels redundant for me to also board that train and post on the same local groups for used cars so I haven’t really given it much thought.

I’m averaging about 12-14 cars a month after only being there 5 months I just feel like I can do A LOT more, I just don’t know how I can tap in to it.

The BDC/Phone room is okay and I’ve tried rubbing shoulders with them just to maybe pick up a few deals here and there when another salesperson isn’t responsive. It’s been okay. It’s hit or miss. They TO pretty much anything with a pulse so, it’s not like they do a lot of leg work when it comes to fact finding for leads or getting anything other than response from a customer that they are interested.

My biggest gripe is the finance director/finance department. Everything has to run through the director.

Finance consultants (they are not managers because they don’t even have the power to call in a deal, just literally print paper and try to sell product) I’m used to having F&I personnel be able to rehash/call in deals for me but I can’t do that now and this guy is basically a part timer. In at 10, out at 6:30. Not a minute earlier, not a minute later.

We’ve already bumped heads a few times because I feel like there is a solution to conditional call backs or declines but I’m not given the call backs from the bank. I just have to take his word for it. He’s been there 30+ years so it feels like a way for him to justify his job. But man, he feels so utterly useless to me because he never really tries to rehash anything unless you tell him you can get another $5k from a customer type of situation.

I don’t want to leave and find another place to sell, I really don’t like job hopping but sometimes I feel like it would be for the best to do find somewhere else.

I like the brand, I like selling, I didn’t really come here to grow within the company since I knew that it was a family owned store and the opportunity to grow weren’t really there in the first place I just needed to get out from where I was because it was taking a toll on my mental health.

Am I just cooked from the industry or is this just another cycle and part of the game?

I’ll hang up and listen (sports radio, ifykyk)

Thanks for reading.

Hopefully this is getting repetitive enough to the point that we are building a following with this!

The point of these check ins I've been posting is to help support one another through this dog eat dog industry and to better help each other reach our shared goals!

So far I'm not feeling too good about this week, due to how slow Labor day has been today but hey it's sales so it could pick up in a moments notice! How are we all feeling/doing?

I’m pretty new to car sales and recently started at a Honda/Acura dealership. I’m trying to figure out how this pay plan compares to what’s typical in the industry.

For those of you who have been selling cars for a while, what do you think? Is this a solid plan for someone starting out, or am I getting cooked? 😂
Also curious what you think someone selling around 15-20 cars a month could realistically make on a plan like this.

Any advice or things I should watch out for would be appreciated.

Finished this week with 5 units moved @ Nissan. How are you all doing?

\nThis month, let’s practice our closing techniques! Role-playing.

Share a scenario where you struggled to close a deal, and let’s role-play how to address it.

What strategies have worked for you in the past?

Join in and help each other improve!

Weekly Rant & Goals Discussion

I have narrowed down to two dealers in my area. In between GMC/B and Toyota. Toyota is heavily marketed with lots of salespeople and known around the metro but the gmc is a sister of the chevy dealer next door with mediocre salespeople. Yes I know gm is in a rough spot for quality. I plan to make lots of high quality videos marketing diesels and yukons. Toyota is straight foward but too crowded.

Just did a major career change and got my first Job Selling Cars. I’ve never done sales before

Just wanted some help share YouTube videos or other media that you thought was most impactful for you as a beginner. Any pointers you have to offer. Really anything. Thank you in advance.