Posted on 10/23/2018 4:25:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
This past week, I went to five car dealers in an upper-middle-class suburb of Los Angeles to see what SUV I'd like to lease. I wanted to patronize local car dealers because I want them to stay in business.
In each case, I experienced the following: I was greeted pleasantly upon entering the dealership. A young salesperson asked if he or she could help me. I told the salesperson the model I was interested in. He or she made a copy of my driver's license and returned with a key to the car, and off we went.
In every instance, the salesperson was sweet, unenthusiastic and largely ignorant of the car in which I was interested.
All of them answered most of my questions -- such as "Is this SUV available in all-wheel-drive?" -- with some version of "l'll look it up."
I began car shopping many decades ago but have rarely gone to dealerships in the last 25 years (I generally drove the cars of advertisers on my radio show). My recollection of my experience in earlier days is that car salespeople (especially those of foreign cars) were car enthusiasts. They were passionate about cars in general and very knowledgeable about the particular cars they were selling.
But in every instance this past week, I felt I knew more about the car, from doing some research on the internet, than the salesperson did.
It seemed to both my wife and me that these car dealerships hired any decent young person who applied for a job, and that these young people regarded selling cars as no different from selling shoes: It's a job. It requires you to show up on time, be polite, accompany potential buyers on a test drive, look up answers to questions on your smartphone and go home at the end of the day. Their interest in cars was not necessarily greater than drug store employees' interest in hair brushes. Selling cars is just a way -- one of many others to come -- to pay the bills.
My wife saw in the answer "I'll look it up" one possible key to the problem: If the young people we interacted with this past week are representative of their generation, many do not feel the need to know much, because all the information they need in life can be found via Google.
I focused on another issue: While these young salespeople were unfailingly pleasant, none of them evinced passion.
I remember young (and old) car salesmen who loved cars. Sure, they would exaggerate a car's qualities, but they knew all about it -- inside and out. But this past week, not one of the salespeople said anything about the car during the test drive. Unless I asked questions, their only words were "Make a right at the next corner."
It makes me wonder what young people are passionate about in our time: favorite TV shows and actors? Music? Video games? Sports? Global warming?
If a 65-year-old salesman seems to be doing little more than going through the motions, we understand that perhaps we have met a modern-day Willy Loman. But a passionless 25-year-old? That's just sad.
Do the car dealerships know this? Do they care? At one time, the general critique of car dealers was they were too pushy. If my experience is at all typical, I can assure readers that pushiness is no longer a problem. The only thing any of the dealers pushed was free bottled water.
I am aware that every generation laments "In my time ..." But that doesn't necessarily invalidate what follows.
In my time, young guys -- I can speak with greater knowledge about men -- had hobbies/passions. And ambition.
If I were 25 years old and had a job selling cars, even if I had other aspirations for my life, I would still aim to be the best car salesman in America. That's what we refer to as ambition.
I would learn everything I could about the cars I sold. I would learn how to advocate for the cars without being pushy. During the test drives, I would say a lot more than where the customer should next turn. In addition to talking about the car, I would ask customers about themselves.
I detected little ambition in the sex previously known for professional ambition -- men. But no one should be surprised. Many young men have been coddled by parents and by society. If you receive a trophy just for playing, why try to win? If self-esteem is given to you without having to earn it, why try to earn it? If the government will take care of you, why work hard? Anyway, ambition in men is probably now considered a form of "toxic masculinity."
Perhaps most importantly, young men have been given the message that women have no need for the support of a man. Women, they have been told all their lives, are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves and any children they might have.
So, then, if the government will take care of you and your income is not necessary to support a family, why be ambitious? Why push yourself to succeed?
Talk to the young men in your life and ask them if they are ambitious. Don't be surprised if they answer "I'll look it up."
The Hyundai was subsidized by the Korean government which isn’t fair to the US worker. We need a tariff and we need it now.
I’ve found that millennial are a mixed bag. Some slackers but others who will work as hard as anyone you’ve met. Just like every generation before, not everyone will be cut from the same cloth. Your son sounds like a motivated, conscientious hard worker.
Memes.
This.There was a time when people were passionate about railroads - because they were new, and had distance-shrinking speed and power.
In fact, as a side note, I enjoyed reading an old socialist tract because it argued so assiduously that a worker’s council could help make the right decision on whether/when to transition from the production of steam locomotives to diesels! It was written just as the airlines were about to eliminate the market for long-distance rail passenger service . . .When you and I were young, Maggie, automobiles were still the big thing. Detroit was at its zenith - but the reality was that if you were just starting out, it was time to go into software/digital electronics. Not cars - or airplanes, either.Another funny side note to the issue of knowledgeability of auto salesmen:
I was buying a minivan and the salesman was pretty good - but when he got to the point in his pitch where he explained the controls for the A/C it was plain that he was in over his head. As a mechanical engineer, I waved him off and explained A/C operation to him.When you turn on the A/C, the fan has to be on or the evaporator will frost up. He knew that much, I think. But I explained that the A/C compressor automatically works as hard as it needs to to chill the evaporator to a set temperature which is colder than you actually want the air in your environment to be. If it were designed to chill the evaporator only down to the temperature you want to live in, the relative humidity would skyrocket, probably to 100%.
But to understand A/C operation, the first rule is that the A/C works as hard as you tell it to according to how high you select the speed of the fan. Because air moved thru the evaporator warms the evaporator - and the compressor automatically works to keep that temperature down. The higher the fan speed, the harder the compressor will work.
When you first start up the A/C, the car will ordinarily be hot, and you will be fine with the cold blast of 100% humidity air that the A/C puts out. But if the cabin of the car gets comfortably cool, there can be a reason to actually add heat to the air coming out of the evaporator to reduce the humidity in the car (of course that heat comes from the engine coolant, so it doesn’t cost anything).
Exactly. In the next few years cars will drive themselves. The very best thing about a car is driving it.... and they're going to take that away too.
I think that is what happened to the GOP in California. Conservatives were so disgusted with the RINOs that they refused to support them against their Democrat opponents, reasoning that voters would eventually get so disgusted with the Democrats’ performance in office that they would throw them out and elect real conservatives. Better not to endorse a RINO, they said, but let the Democrats punish the voters with their policies and wait for the voters to get fed up and demand real change.
Unfortunately, after giving up every single statewide office, they are still waiting...
You know the first 5 seconds after you ask a Home Depot employee if they know where to find a product whether they will be helpful or not.
The blank stare and wandering around the store is a dead give-away. I can do that on my own. I don't need a salesperson for that.
Anyway, have you noticed that Home Depot prices doubled after they wiped out half of the hardware stores?
But in every instance this past week, I felt I knew more about the car, from doing some research on the internet, than the salesperson did.
____________________________
In 2010, I walked into a Toyota dealership and told the young salesman I was interested in a Venza. He said; “What’s that?” I turned around and walked out. Believe you me, his boss came running after me to assist me.
Granted most people in 2010 might not know that Toyota had a model since 2009 called the Venza, but a salesman?
Ambition? Other than the son of a car dealer likely to inherit the business, what kind of sorry excuse for a kid would dream of being the best car salesman in the world? No one.
This is about a work ethic and the loss in our society in teaching the next generation what that means. Ive had all kinds of jobs that had nothing to do with one another from forest fire fighter to cable man and chef to IT consultant and a whole bunch of things in between. In each I strove to be the best I could be because that is the contract one makes with an employer when taking a job, that you will actually DO the job not just collect a paycheck. Its about personal honor and the value of my word as much as anything else.
The young man really has no interest in extreme personal wealth or minor notoriety for being the best salesman, Im not motivated by such things either but, if he had taken the job then he should be putting the effort in to do it correctly which in this case means in part learning all there is to know about the product line.
On your death bed having worked one more hour of overtime or selling one more car wont matter, knowing you have lived a life of pride in what you do and maintaining personal honor will.
I'd never heard of a Venza either....but...
I'd blame the manager, not the salesman. As a manager, it's my responsibility to ensure that my employees have the knowledge to answer most of the basic questions that they'll receive in the course of the day. "Show me a base model of Toyota" certainly falls into this category, while, "Does the interior come in all leather, in this specific shade of fuchsia?" would warrant a "IDK, gimme a minute to look that one up....".
That his person wasn't aware of a basic model of car shows that the manager wasn't doing his job. Or that his employee wasn't worth a hoot and still put out on the salesfloor, which is just as bad.
I just now watched that very same commercial!
i vote for what I want, not what I think others want.
I’ve never sold cars, but I’ve been in the industry.
A good manager could care less if his sales staff knew what a Venza was or not. Could care less if they knew the product or not.
All that management cares about is if the sales staff can follow hard core sales techniques. To the letter. Without deviation. Follow the script.
And then there’s Trump.
I didn’t vote for Romney. As atrocious as o was, he had enough of a resistant congress in the last 6 to give some restraint.
Had Romney been in place with a cooperative congress I believe things would’ve been worse by the time we got to 2016.
Trump is only here now due to the preceding O.
” Used to be that cars were distinct from each other, had “prsonalities”, and were evocative of pleasant/nostalgic thoughts.”
—
Really?
I always considered a
car as just a means of transportation-——something to get me from point A to point B.
.
When I sold cars I realized how much the EGO of the buyer mattered.
If someone said they only wanted a practical car, you worked on that image. Of course, if they were buying a new car, you knew they weren’t that practical.
For most others, you used the looking-glass-self: Imagine how you would look in this car. Your friends will love it. Datsun used to sell their cars as “The Ego Trip.”
*shrug* that is your choice
I sold cars in the nineties. We had regular training and competitions in walk-around presentations of the various vehicles features and benefits. It was a very competitive environment and we spent our own money on additional sales training. Most of us worked at least sixty hours a week at the dealership, often more; much more. But we were on straight commission.
No sell=no eat. That may be the difference
Then the trend towards salaried sales staff began; no more competition; no more incentive. I moved into management before we got there. I retired twelve years ago. Haven’t been in a dealership since d;^)
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