Career change? Car salesman

[cbfair]

I recently made a career change into sales (not cars) for the first time. Given all your certifications, you're likely no stranger to this but you should prepare yourself to study constantly for a period of months to achieve success and years to maintain it.

Product knowlege, presentation skills and closing skills are vitally important and not always intuitive. Anyone who's money motivated and generally outgoing can be great at sales but most who try for the first time fail due to a lack of discipline in the area of study and practice. Plan to buy many books and digest them all. Keeping a notebook of daily interactions and lessons learned (usually through lost-sales) has helped me immensly.

Sales is also a field dominated by people with healthy egos; but a dedicated student must frequently check their ego at the door and ask for help from more experienced sales professionals. As soon as you think you've learned it all and can coast on auto-pilot, you might as well quit because your time is limited.

my .02,

cbf

[groo]

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Keeping a notebook of daily interactions and lessons learned (usually through lost-sales) has helped me immensly.

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An extremely large upside to learning sales in a car dealership, is that there is always a more experienced sales person, the sales mgr, whose income is dependant on your customer buying. These sales managers are unlikely to let you blow it. For all their other faults, they are great teaching resources and will make you a great deal of money. Since it makes their jobs easier and makes them more money, they want you to learn, you need to be a sponge.

Also you will go through the sales process many times most days and therefore learn it more quickly.



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As soon as you think you've learned it all and can coast on auto-pilot, you might as well quit because your time is limited.

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It is very common to see a new car salesman get off to a blazing start, only to "forget" how to sell 3-4 months in. It's usually because they have really "forgotten" how to be teachable. It's so common as to be a cliche, but it also seems to be a part of the learning process. Try to avoid this, it will cost you a lot of money.

[Nato76]

Thank you all for your comments. It is a tough decision. If I didn't have any responsibilities it would be an easy decision. I like to take chances but I have to really think about this one. Should I stay in a comfortable 9-5 job or take a chance to make a lot more money.?