It’s 8:23 on a Saturday morning. You got here just in time because at 8:30 they lock the doors. Anyone who gets here at 8:31 has to wait outside. They’re not going to open the doors and let you in, no matter how much you bang on them. In fact, you might as well go home because that’s what the General Sales Manager is going to do after the meeting is over—chew you out and send you home for the day. That’s the ultimate punishment in the car business: depriving a salesman of the ability to make a paycheck. Can’t make any money sitting at home.
You have a little less than 7 minutes to grab a plate and fill it with food. This is the first sales meeting of the month, and the tradition at this particular dealership is to provide a nice catered breakfast to all the sales team the first meeting of the month. On the cabinet that runs the length of one wall, you see shiny metal trays filled with scrambled eggs, hash browns, grits (this is the South, after all), and your choice of greasy bacon or sausage. Each tray has a little can of Sterno underneath to keep it warm. And don’t forget to get a big “cathead” biscuit and maybe some honey to pour over it. Grab a cup of coffee or, if you prefer, orange juice.
You fill your plate, joking with the others in line, and then take your seat at the long table in the center of the room. Around you on all sides are the other salespeople. The “Big” twins are there, Big Money and Big Country, and so is the ex-Marine everyone calls Sarge. There’s also the crusty old Italian who doesn’t mind being called Dago, the guy with the world’s worst toupee, known as Jimmy the Hat, and the tall, lean, Porter Wagoner lookalike called The Kentucky Gentleman. The lovable old alcoholic everyone calls Cowboy because his last name is Wayne is there, too, and so are two or three Greenpeas who haven’t been around long enough to get a nickname. Everyone’s laughing and telling lies about how much money they made the day before. At the front of the room hanging around by themselves are the managers. You have the Finance & Insurance Director, Miss Helen, who was installed when the place was built 25 years ago. Then you have L.J., or Little Jay, the Used Car Manager, and Fat Albert, the other F&I person. If this had been back in the day, the whole group would be smoking. But smoking is prohibited now.
By 8:30 you’re halfway done when the General Manager stands and walks to the front of the room. Here’s where the description varies. My first GM was in his mid-30’s, a drummer in a rock ‘n’ roll band by night who ran a car dealership during the day. A real stickler for the rules, he looked and acted more like an ex-Marine than a drummer. He kept his hair cut short and came to work every day wearing a three piece suit, a crisp white shirt, a fancy silk tie, diamond studded cufflinks, and a solid gold General Motors 100 Club ring the size of a golf ball on his right hand. Mr. Flash is what I’ll call him. But the role of Mr. Flash could be played by anyone because GMs come from any walk of life and can look like anyone. Mr. Flash is respected. So when he walks to the head of the table and puts down his can of Rock Star, everyone stops talking and gives him his or her full attention.
And then it begins: the Saturday morning sales meeting.
The Saturday morning sales meeting is a staple of every car dealership in America. It might not always be on a Saturday; it might fall on a Monday, a Friday, or any other day of the week. But every dealership has meetings for the entire Sales Department once a week and sometimes more often. They are considered crucial to the dealership’s success. Rather than go through the nuances of the typical sales meeting, let me give it to you in its essence, boiled down to a single paragraph. This is the Cliff Notes version. They all begin with the following statement . . .
Now, this isn’t meant to be a beat down session, but . . .
And then they go something like this:
“You guys are all a bunch of limp-limbed, weak-&@!ed #&*%#ers who can’t do anything right! Let’s start with watching the lot. Yesterday, I had to up two customers myself. Two! And when I looked around to find a salesperson, all you guys were standing around playing on your phones. The next time I see a salesperson playing on his &$#@ phone when there are customers on the lot, I’m going to confiscate it. You’re not logging all your ups, either. And paperwork’s not being done right. It’s not Miss Helen’s job to finish your paperwork for you. You’re shortcutting the sales process. And we all know what that means, right? Short cuts mean short bucks! That’s right! Our grosses suck, our CSI is in the gutter, new car sales are down, and the next sumbitch I see not T.O.’ing a customer before they leave, I’m firing you on the spot. Now, if you don’t like any of that, there’s the door. Don’t let it hit you in the ass on your way out. If I wanted to, I could replace the whole lot of you with a bunch of trained monkeys from the zoo and they’d do a better job, too. Now, we’re really behind the eight ball this month, and we need a good day today. So let’s get out there and sell.”
At that point the salespeople all rise and, properly motivated, go out to greet the first customers of the day. You might think this is a joke, but it’s not. This is what passes for motivational speaking in the car business. Basically, the pattern is similar to what happens in boot camp: break you down, tell you how bad you are, then tell you to go out there and have a good day. Oh, and have fun while you’re at it. This speech, or some variation of it, has been given in thousands of sales meetings in hundreds of ugly, poorly lit rooms in hundreds of different dealerships across the land since Henry Ford sold his first Model A. If sales are down, meetings can be punctuated by the banging of fists on blackboards, the kicking over of chairs, or even the flinging of brand new laptops out the nearest window. Or if you’re the classy type like Mr. Flash, you might stop talking, wind up like Justin Verlander on the pitching mound, and hurl a gold plated $150 Cross pen across the room, catching a sleeping salesman right in the center of his forehead. That’s a great little attention getter. I’ve seen grown adults brought to tears by such treatment. Usually the attack is less personal and the language used less profane, but more insidious and more corrosive in its effect on your self esteem. Most of the time we salespeople shrug, let it roll off our backs, and get out there and do our jobs. Why? Because our families depend on us.
So the next time a salesperson walks out to greet you with a cheesy grin on his or her face, go easy. He or she might have just come out of a meeting like this one and that big smile took a lot of effort.
More Car Salesman Confidential here:
The Bump
Bad Negotiating Strategies
More on Negotiating
Good Negotiating Strategies
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