# Getting into retail car sales



## ollienoclue (Jan 30, 2017)

Seem like good salaries on offer in this sector, worth having a go?

I've got 5+ years of solid sales experience, customer facing, in a very different setting but big numbers involved.

What are the downfalls?


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## WHIZZER (Oct 25, 2005)

Hours worked ....


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## Nanoman (Jan 17, 2009)

If you've got sales experience and want to develop I'd suggest trying to get into IT sales. Even at the entry level if you're half decent you can make £50k in the right company, that's achievable even in a telesales role. 
£100k a year is realistically achievable once you've learned the ropes. If you're good and in the right role £500k isn't unheard of. 

Try finding people in car sales making that kind of money.


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## davies20 (Feb 22, 2009)

Nanoman said:


> If you've got sales experience and want to develop I'd suggest trying to get into IT sales. Even at the entry level if you're half decent you can make £50k in the right company, that's achievable even in a telesales role.
> £100k a year is realistically achievable once you've learned the ropes. If you're good and in the right role £500k isn't unheard of.
> 
> Try finding people in car sales making that kind of money.


Where do i sign up???!! :doublesho:doublesho

As for carsales - its always been on my list of jobs i'd never want to do!

Looks like a typically rubbish, long hours, many weekends, high pressure sales role - no tar!


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## voon (Apr 28, 2010)

500K? lets not get ahead of ourselves. If that number was even worth mentioning in a more commonly done job, we'd all be rich salesmen. That's liek saying if you manage to become the CEO of Apple, you might make quite the money.


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## Nanoman (Jan 17, 2009)

voon said:


> 500K? lets not get ahead of ourselves. If that number was even worth mentioning in a more commonly done job, we'd all be rich salesmen. That's liek saying if you manage to become the CEO of Apple, you might make quite the money.


Get a decent job at a global vendor and you'll find plenty of the top sales guys getting £100-£200k OTEs and occasionally achieving £500k or even £1m in a year. £25k basic and achievable £7k quarterly bonus in a call centre for entry level jobs for people who have never worked in the sector aren't rare.

Edit: Just clicked on one recruiter i know. These are his last 5 posts:

£80k-£100k basic packages... phenomenal commission...
6-Figure basic... uncapped OTE ... significant benefits package
£200k OTE + benefits ...
£70k-£85k basic ... benefits and a double uncapped OTE
up to £120k basic .... significant uncapped OTE... Top earners here making in excess of £500k!


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## Nanoman (Jan 17, 2009)

Nanoman said:


> Get a decent job at a global vendor and you'll find plenty of the top sales guys getting £100-£200k OTEs and occasionally achieving £500k or even £1m in a year. £25k basic and achievable £7k quarterly bonus in a call centre for entry level jobs for people who have never worked in the sector aren't rare.
> 
> Edit: Just clicked on one recruiter i know. These are his last 5 posts:
> 
> ...


Another edit:
I'm not saying it's easy to get one of these jobs and you won't start off on this but a 'good' salesperson can start off making £50k and it's only going up from there.

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## voon (Apr 28, 2010)

Sure, if you're the top seller of a company, I've seen people live really well with new, large BMWs in their garage.

Just saying topsellers aren't common and that people shouldn't get too extremely $$$ coated eyes by such a post.

Maybe the original poster just loves cars, though, which aren't common in IT


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## Nanoman (Jan 17, 2009)

voon said:


> Sure, if you're the top seller of a company, I've seen people live really well with new, large BMWs in their garage.
> 
> Just saying topsellers aren't common and that people shouldn't get too extremely $$$ coated eyes by such a post.
> 
> Maybe the original poster just loves cars, though, which aren't common in IT


My point was you need to be really good at car sales to make £50k. If you're just good at IT sales £50k-£100k is achievable and if you're really good £500k plus isn't unheard of.

Last time I heard a figure Arnold Clark basic salary was under £10k for a new start sales person and you only get 1 day off mid-week plus you have to work evenings.

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## DimitriUK (Jan 18, 2017)

Nanoman said:


> If you've got sales experience and want to develop I'd suggest trying to get into IT sales. Even at the entry level if you're half decent you can make £50k in the right company, that's achievable even in a telesales role.
> £100k a year is realistically achievable once you've learned the ropes. If you're good and in the right role £500k isn't unheard of.
> 
> Try finding people in car sales making that kind of money.


Seriously a city average managing director makes around 500k and there are around 2k of them, how many right roles selling to the Arabs and Russians bentleys exist in the uk?


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## ollienoclue (Jan 30, 2017)

What exactly do you 'sell' in IT?


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## FJ1000 (Jun 20, 2015)

DimitriUK said:


> Seriously a city average managing director makes around 500k and there are around 2k of them, how many right roles selling to the Arabs and Russians bentleys exist in the uk?


Are you referring to 2,000 Sales Managing Director roles in the City of London?

Or just 2,000 Managing directors?

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## Nanoman (Jan 17, 2009)

ollienoclue said:


> What exactly do you 'sell' in IT?


Software, hardware, services, consultancy...

The easiest way in I'd suggest is to find out who has a large regional sales office within a commutable distance. Where are you based?

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## ollienoclue (Jan 30, 2017)

Nanoman said:


> Software, hardware, services, consultancy...
> 
> The easiest way in I'd suggest is to find out who has a large regional sales office within a commutable distance. Where are you based?
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Somerset. Near the edge of the swamp bit, 30 miles Southish of Bristol.


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## Blackroc (Dec 10, 2012)

Car sales looks interesting until the reality hits you..

-You are in a minimum wage job and are self employed. You will get a 'basic salary' (dependant on brand it could be £750-£1200 p/m) but like any self employed roll you have to be motivated and put in long hours to earn good money

-If you have never worked in the field before, you have no leads or customer base to work with, so they give you sheets of phone number and names and get you to cold call each and everyone on the list. This could be at 8.00pm at night or getting you to work days off if sales are slow

-Its a 6 days a week job, pretty much every weekend is a given that you will be working

-You dont get paid until the customer collects the car, so that big ticket high priced (and high profit) car that has an 8 month wait wont yield you any cash for a while!

-Small and Medium cars pay you £40-£80 per car per sales

-You are under SERIOUS pressure to sell paint protection, PCP and Finance deals along with difficult to shift cars to customers

This is just the tip of the ice-berg along with stuff that goes on behind closed doors (customers are not thought of in the priority they should for a start!!) 

There is a huge turnover of Car Sales teams and its for a very good reason!


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## ollienoclue (Jan 30, 2017)

The hours of work don't worry me too much.

Any other suggestions for 35 year old who wants to find a useful career?


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## PugIain (Jun 28, 2006)

Sod car sales. I know a lad who works loads of hours a week and even with a bonus or two earns less than me. He has to dress smart, be polite.
I earn about 300 a month more and I only work 3 days a week!

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## ollienoclue (Jan 30, 2017)

Everyone seems to earning shed loads of cash for doing something very easy or straight forward. It is quite depressing. At this rate the wife can go back full time and I will be the stay at home Dad.


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## Caledoniandream (Oct 9, 2009)

Not wanting to rain on your parade, but there are no magic jobs that make you shiploads of money from the start.
After 40 years in transport and being very specialised I can make a very good living in a couple of days with consultancy.
I use to be a director and transport manager for a global Haulage company, made very good money and did a lot of damage to my health, average of 100 hours a week, and more than 40 weekends away in a year.

I worked my way up (when it still was possible) from a driver to a director, this was through hard work dedication and self studies.

I gave it all up for an average job with average pay, but have freedom and little hours (max 35, average 20 odd) 

There are only very few big earners in the world, whatever you do, the stories are in general bigger than the real world
There are very few car sales guys (or kitchen sales guys) who do big business, and are mostimes specialised in fleet spec, and fleet sales.
You can only sell so many Ferrari's a year, but you can with the right eye for detail sell a hundred Astra's to a fleet owner. 

If you want a look in car sales have a look to get a job at the rental companies, like Enterprise and try to get on the the commercial side, it won’t make you rich but it will open you eyes. 

A good mate of me is a commercial mechanic, and he makes more per week than his boss, apprentices start at £14 an hour and work their way up, plenty of hours to make, you won’t get rich, but you certainly can make a good living (if you want to put hours and graft in) 

In sales and in the likes of accountancy, consultancy even lawyers etc, there are only a small percentage that make big buck. 
You make more money in a specialised production facility on shifts than what the average graduate makes.

Unless you have a trick up your sleeve, that you are very specialised, or know something that other people don’t know, you will always have to work hard for average money.


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## davies20 (Feb 22, 2009)

ollienoclue said:


> The hours of work don't worry me too much.
> 
> Any other suggestions for 35 year old who wants to find a useful career?


Not sure if their are many around you, but I'm in the quarrying industry, all be it I'm in production of high purity lime on kilns - but either way quarrying is a good payer :thumb:


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## FJ1000 (Jun 20, 2015)

Have a long hard think about what transferable skills you have. That’ll dictate what options are open to you.

In my industry (finance) it’s all about what skills you have - and you get people with massively different backgrounds in roles because their skills fit. For example, the first employer I worked for (an investment bank) hired a number of ex-military people - because they had excellent leadership, problem solving and process management skills.


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## Shiny (Apr 23, 2007)

I know some people love targets, but after 15 years at my previous place of employment, under new management, my insurance job changed to a target based role, servicing & retaining existing customers but focusing on new business (it's not really possible to manage an existing account and then spend all your time touting for new leads and new business). 

Anyway, i forget the exact figures, but i had something like a £50k premium growth target, worked my **** off to achive this and more, hit something like £95k growth, which in reality was much more when you take into account renewal retention was circa 90%.

Then my largest customer at the time went pop, who paid circa £50k, so i lost this through no fault of my own. Review meeting came, no recognition of the hard work, bottom line was £50k target and I had only hit around £45k, despite new a business growth of over £95k. The company was £45k better off for my efforts, i didn't get a penny in bonus or a pay rise. 

I left the following year, now have my own business, we have targets to aim to, but hey if we don't reach them, we don't reach them. Nobody can predict rate increases or deacreases, the state of the market or the stability of their customers. We just monitor to make sure we aren't losing customers as a result of our customer service, professionalism etc.


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## ollienoclue (Jan 30, 2017)

davies20 said:


> Not sure if their are many around you, but I'm in the quarrying industry, all be it I'm in production of high purity lime on kilns - but either way quarrying is a good payer :thumb:


Loads. This is near the Mendips, limestone, basalt, tarmac, please is like the surface of the moon on google maps.


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## davies20 (Feb 22, 2009)

ollienoclue said:


> Loads. This is near the Mendips, limestone, basalt, tarmac, please is like the surface of the moon on google maps.


Not sure what skill base you have. But might be worth looking at them. Albeit if you don't want sales & prefer rock 😂😂


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