anyone a car salesman here?

J45SON

J45SON

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i have been offered a new job selling cars but haven't handed my notice in yet as i want to take a couple of days to think about it.

my dilemas are:

1. leaving a relatively well paid job in I.T. sales, good basic but commission structure is changing due to the company being taken over.

2. hours i will work will go from monday to friday 9-5:30 to 6 days a week, 2 late nights to 8pm.

3. the potential to earn mega bucks selling something that i have a passion for.

i have been wanting to do car sales now for about 12 years and now that my family is a little bit older, 2 boys, 2 & 4 years and married last year i think it's time to take the jump.

has anyone got any advice? i feel like i need to have a fresh start.

thanks
jason


ps. i forgot to say, i'll be working for a big car dealer based in a renault dealership. my thinking is mass sales.
 
I'm not a car salesman, but can offer you some general thoughts. When I was deciding on a career years ago I decided to keep my love of cars purely as a hobby, and seperate from my job - I don't know whether this was the right thing to do or not, but it made sense at the time. Having said that I am on my 3rd career now!

A change is good in my opinion if your are stuck in a rut and not happy where you are - we are at work too much in this country so it is essential you enjoy your job IMO. If your family security is such that now is a suitable time to swap careers then do it. At the end of the day if it's not for you with Renault then there will be other car sales jobs, or try again in IT - the break from it may kill or cure your boredom with it. So I would say if the opportunity is there for you then do it!

You have obviously discussed with your wife the implications of working the additional hours - I work shifts and love them as they both give me variety and also time off in the week when everyone is at work.

On a slightly more negative note - the current financial climate is uncertain, house prices faltering, interest rates climbing, fuel going stupid etc - its possible that this may affect peoples disposable income in terms of vehicle expenditure. And if so then it could in a worse case scenario be 'last in first out' - unlikely, but never say never!

I've probably not mentioned anything you haven't already considered. but these are just my immediate thoughts :salute: Good luck with whatever you decide - I do often wonder whether my decision to keep cars purely a hobby was the correct one ......
 
To be honest right now isnt the right time to switch to the car salesman industry... the market is really slow, no one is buying cars right now, so really not a good time to get into the business, especially if the new job has a low basic, the hours are long, and i dont know whether you've worked in sales before but car sales are long! Tough industry, you've got to out weight the good from bad but if your relying on commision, then dont switch now. My advice anyway.
 
Jase,

You cant really go wrong with an IT job, where as if you are going into car sales and you dont really have much experience in car sales, is it worth taking the risk in the current climate??

Dont mean to pee on your fire, but all im saying is think carefully on whether it is worth it, the IT Job, is no way as stressful and pressurised as a sales job, and if you got targets etc to meet and you dont, remember you will be on a trial period, and if you dont cut it within that time, where will you be??

Its just my opinion, but remember at the end of the day, the choice is YOURS...
 
well as so often in sales it comes down to cash.

I hold my hand up and say Ive followed the cash route and the job satisfaction route... at the end of the day, in any decent sales job you work hard you get the cash. So if your sure you can do that, and will be happy doing that Id say go with it.

I wouldnt myself swap from IT (where I am too) to cars, I'd just swap to a different arm of IT. At the end of the day the margins are wayyyy higher in IT area than car sales.

Saying that, I hear its good to be an emergency plumber in London at the moment...
 
How strange, I used to be an account manager in IT and made the move to car sales. I was in IT Sales for 3 years and car sales for 3 months before walking out it was horrible, late nights, no weekends, very boring and quiet and times, cold calling was involved, managers were proper little Hitlers. It was an all round terrible experiance for me. Then again IT Sales was not to hot either, I guess all sales jobs are similar like that. Also as mentioned, not the best time to be a car sales person with everything that is going on.
Stay in IT IMO, car sales is a not a pleasent place to be. I am IT Technician now and love it, although car sales can pay well sometimes and thats its only plus point, it can be very stressfull, and the basic wage, OMG the basic wage!
 
I went for a couple of interviews once to see what it was like, glad I never went that way. The basic salary was shocking, you were expected to sell loads of cars to hit the OTE figure quoted, you need to be able to live off the basic salary because if things go wrong and you cannot work for sometime then thats what you live on. Also given the fact that salesmen know nothing about cars because the customer is always right ....... yeah !!! If it was a presitige marque then the cars tend to sell themselves but in a cut throat world of mass market cars ... forget it.
 
Do not do this mate...60 hour weeks, no social life and constant stress if you've not met your targets...:sadlike:

I did it for two years and now I'm back in IT and although it's not the most interesting job, I can't argue with 35 hour weeks, a pension, and a guaranteed salary each month.

One important note: do not listen to people who tell you there is mega bucks in car sales. There's not, unless you have exceptional talent and a complete lack of interest in the world outside your job.

I will never work in the motor trade again!
 
well there we have it then... IT is the way forward! :rtfm:


:jester:... good luck what ever you chose fella. :)
 
Wouldnt want to do it myself, looked a few years ago when I was still in sales with BMW but in business to business rather than general public. Glad I didnt get it in the end as although there was good perks it would of been massive hours and gargantuan efforts to hit the targets & earn good dosh. I changed tactics completely 3 years ago & now im a part-qualified accountant with about 1.5 years left to till i qualify earning good money with much better prospects. Great thing about being an accountant is you can work for any company you like really as they all needs accountants, granted the work can be dull sometimes but thats why accountants change their jobs frequently!

My advice is stay in IT, but perhaps look at a different area, it'll be safer in the long run!
 
your an accountant! BORING!!



;) seriously tho... I love my accountant... worth their weight in gold.
 
cheers guy's for your advice.

I know car sales is a hard gig. Long hours is something I did in the past and when the family were a bit younger it was difficult. The basic is a non-existant £8,190 which is sooo much lower than what I'm on just now, but considering the high volume I "could" achieve this makes it worthwhile thinking about.

Although I have a boss who gives me flexibility in what I do, our company was bought over at the start of the year and they are changing the way our commission is paid plus I have to deal with an incompetant accounts department, so with them not invoicing correctly, I don't get paid the right amount every month and it is a daily battle to get it sorted. They are also not investing in our part of the business and we need resourses. I sell Oracle and Business Objects training as well as Sun & Sybase etc so the market I deal with, Finance, Oil & Gas and Private sectors are all feeling the crunch.

My salary is not a big as it should be because of these restrictions, which is ******* me off big time.

Cheers
Jason
 
Kontraband said:
your an accountant! BORING!!



;) seriously tho... I love my accountant... worth their weight in gold.
Click to expand...


Im not a practice accountant, im a corporate accountant (as in I work in an accounts department for a company, Virgin Media in my case!) so I get paid even if I do no work at all for a week!!


@J45SON, it sounds to me like your more disgruntled with your current company than the kind of work you do, perhaps you should just consider a shift to another company with a different product within IT? Retail car sales is just too hit & miss for me, you hear so much about lying salesmen desperate to get their sales up.
 
Nickynibbles said:
it sounds to me like your more disgruntled with your current company than the kind of work you do, perhaps you should just consider a shift to another company with a different product within IT?
Click to expand...

sounds like a plan - i'll think about it over the weekend. i didn't hand my notice in this morning - kinda chickened out i think if truth be told.
 
J45son, i was in the same situ as you, majorly peeved with the company I was with and I was looking at all sorts, but in the end i got another IT job and its so much better, at the end of the day, its what you are good at, and nowadays its too risky to think abuot changing and having a go "cz it might be ok" if you have a mortgage and kids, i wouldnt rock the boat, as you have to remember where would you be if you didnt have what you are getting now??
 
I sold caravans for 10 years, i left to work in IT sales a year ago and would never work weekends again. After working 6 day weeks, having every third weekend off and every tuesday it drove me slowly insane. Working bank holidays sucks the fat one too.

I now work 5 days a week for more money. Knowing people in car sales, unless you were working for a prestige marque i'd be surprised if you would even earn 35k a year.
 
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