Funny things a Salesman Told You

1,542 · February 25, 2016

In Aug/Sept of 05, we were ready to buy are 1st tow boat and was going to buy brand new. Found a brand/model we liked at the Aug 05 boat show, accepted an invite from the sales gal to come in an demo one in a couple weeks. Arrive at dealer on the day of their special invite only demo day. Sales lady gushes about how good the boat performs as they spend the whole day yesterday out on it. Says they are getting cleaned and ready, so feel free to chat with the dealership owner while they get it ready.

he wants t know what options we are looking at, plugs it into the puter and spits out a price and says he can get the order in with only $15K down. I say thats fine but we are here to demo first. Want to make sure its what we are looking for, then we can talk price and down payment. He comes back with.....sorry, no demos today, that boat was just sold. Oh, really? Might want to tell your sales staff as they are prepping it for our demo since they played on a sold boat all day!

We got up and said Fyou very much an walked out.

Bought a bigger, better and more expensive boat, different brand, right off the floor at the fallowing Feb 06 boat show. To my knowledge, that dealer had/has gone through just about all the tow boat brands since.

2,448 · February 25, 2016

16 minutes ago, MLA said:

In Aug/Sept of 05, we were ready to buy are 1st tow boat and was going to buy brand new. Found a brand/model we liked at the Aug 05 boat show, accepted an invite from the sales gal to come in an demo one in a couple weeks. Arrive at dealer on the day of their special invite only demo day. Sales lady gushes about how good the boat performs as they spend the whole day yesterday out on it. Says they are getting cleaned and ready, so feel free to chat with the dealership owner while they get it ready.

he wants t know what options we are looking at, plugs it into the puter and spits out a price and says he can get the order in with only $15K down. I say thats fine but we are here to demo first. Want to make sure its what we are looking for, then we can talk price and down payment. He comes back with.....sorry, no demos today, that boat was just sold. Oh, really? Might want to tell your sales staff as they are prepping it for our demo since they played on a sold boat all day!

We got up and said Fyou very much an walked out.

Bought a bigger, better and more expensive boat, different brand, right off the floor at the fallowing Feb 06 boat show. To my knowledge, that dealer had/has gone through just about all the tow boat brands since.

I could take a guess

2,635 · February 25, 2016

5 hours ago, Bozboat said:

"Buy this boat and all of your dreams will come true."

Pedro, now a boat salesman.

What? Is this not true? Since buying a boat, many of my dreams have come true. Was still waiting for a few but has been a good start.

I want to touch on what LBJ said. It is absolutely true from a customer standpoint but doesn't always hold true from a production standpoint, as seen from the other side. We have a few "good guys" that sell some cars and have really good CSI (customer satisfaction index) and a few douch bags that sell a lot of cars but CSI sucks. The trick is to find a balance of the best qualities, which is really hard to find. To be honest, our top performers are a bit toward the DB side. I hear it all the time from clients, "that stuff just doesn't work on me", yet the people that have the "typical salesman" personalities outperform the "good guys" by a lot. It's kind of a weird position to be in when you're a manager for a company that would rather see high CSI than big profits, yet pays you based on profits with very little incentive for customer service. I heard it from a mentor of mine that to be a good salesman, you have to be honest, have a great personality, be a good listener, you know, all the other stuff that the "good guys" do BUT..., you have to have a little smidge of larsony too.

So, now that I got that rant out of the way, on to some of the other posts about getting a better deal somewhere else. There's soooooo many reasons that could happen so I can't really break it down, but o can tell you that I woulda rather sell one car (boat, trailer, magazine, etc.) and make $1500 than to sell 5 and make $200 each, so if I'm not making any money and you got a better deal somewhere else? Go buy it. Won't hurt my feelings. If you come in to rub it in my face that you bought it somewhere else because I was a douche, you better look in the mirror. I didn't want to get into sales because I didn't like salespeople. I learned that you don't have to be "that guy" but in all my years, I'm sure I have said some stooopid stuff. Probably a lot. I have also heard a lot of stupid stuff from all different walks. It's not a one way street

end rant

2,312 · February 25, 2016

6 hours ago, Bozboat said:

"Buy this boat and all of your dreams will come true."

Pedro, now a boat salesman.

I vote for Pedro!

February 25, 2016

When looking to buy a tow vehicle I went to the Dodge dealership in my Honda and could not get a sales guy to acknowledge me. Oh well, ended up buying a Chevy. I could not agree more, how you are dressed and what you show up in to the dealership in (either car or boat) directly effects how you are treated.

1,088 · February 25, 2016

I bought my 2nd boat, a Supra, from Dr. Doolittle. True.

When I bought my Malibu, I drove up to our meeting point and guy and his wife get out of their van to greet me. The first words out of the guy's mouth as he makes a fist and directs it at me, verbatim: "Dont try to f***ing lowball me, the last guy did and I sent that (four letter words) packing."

I ended up buying the boat, with a fair amount off the asking price They bought it new, and the wife cried openly as I drove it away. I haven't had to spend $1 dollar on any non normal maintenance item on this boat in 6 years. 1000 hours. Runs like a banshee.

Steve B.

3,012 · February 25, 2016

I agree with isellacuras that there needs to be a ballance. i understand the dealership is a business and they need ro make money, but at a certain point it becomes obscene. in the situaltion i mentioned the difference was over 5k, on a 35k purchase! Some times people juat try to screw you, and hope you will take it.

1 hour ago, jaciche said:

My dad always told me growing up to "make her happy now or prepare for the pain in the a$$ she becomes until she is happy!" Truer words have never been spoken!

2,448 · February 25, 2016

Tomorrow I will post a story about a beater truck driven by a down-to-earth humble wealthy individual who was treated the same way as mentioned by a few others. Love telling this story...

February 25, 2016

used to wear my U of A Engineering hat to car dealers as a young 20 something....... got to drive whatever I wanted. No hat... pretty much invisible

2,635 · February 25, 2016

1 hour ago, Ndawg12 said:

Tomorrow I will post a story about a beater truck driven by a down-to-earth humble wealthy individual who was treated the same way as mentioned by a few others. Love telling this story...

Love these stories. I broke into my current job on an NSX sale when I kid with a Jordan jersey, gold chains, hat on sideways and shorts hanging off his back side who came in and said he wanted to drive one. All the old dogs scattered and I helped the kid since I didn't know any better. He ended up paying cash for the car and it was a $2500 commission. Never get tired of telling that story. Changed the way I look at customers. That was within my first two weeks on the job in 2001.

Back on my rant... There's a fine line between not having enough people to help everyone when it gets busy and having so many salespeople that they're like vultures when someone shows up when it's slow. We have guidelines to help let people breath when they get there by not having more than 3 salespeople outside (staff of 18 sales people) at one time. Owner doesn't like ANYONE outside. While that balancing act happens, sometimes people go un helped. Nature of the business. On the other hand, if you had 14 salesmen watching you get out of your car, you would probably not like that either. If you're not being helped at a car dealership, ask someone for help. Sometimes it's not busy and all the salespeople are tied up doing other things. We try to always have at least 6 on shift at a time, 2 shifts per day so they overlap by about 5 hours. You get 2 on the phone, one checking on a car in detail, one grabbing a bottle of water, one pairing a Bluetooth for a customer who bought their car 2 years ago and one on a test drive, and bam! There's no help even when there's nobody there buying a car. It happens fast but if you ask for help, most of the time we can get someone free'd up to help within a minute or two. If not, myself or one of the other managers will go out and help fill in, but ONLY if asked. We have a 10 foot rule to smile and say hi to anyone within 10 feet. This helps reduce the folks that haven't been helped, at least on the showroom. People not getting helped and vultureism are bound to happen. Of course we try to keep it to a minimum.

This thread is gonna raise my blood pressure. Maybe I have a guilty consious edit: conscience.

Edited February 25, 2016 by isellacuras

February 25, 2016

We were buying a Mercedes and had our 6 and 4 year old with us........ they totally wrecked the "aura" of the show room. Kids were being pretty well behaved but still kids... a salesman came over to the kids who were in earshot and said we have a place for kids like you....... turned around and said to the salesman..... if you want to talk to my kids you talk to me..... got the long look down his nose and walked away ........ in the car deal we had discussed price at that point and in process of signing an offer...... i stood up and said to my wife I guess we are done here..... sales manager caught up to us in the parking lot..... wanted us to come back and in as many words supported his salesman "unfortunately kids can be distracting"...... bought from the other dealer at the same price....didn't do a drive by though.

2,635 · February 25, 2016

3 hours ago, DarkSide said:

I agree with isellacuras that there needs to be a ballance. i understand the dealership is a business and they need ro make money, but at a certain point it becomes obscene. in the situaltion i mentioned the difference was over 5k, on a 35k purchase! Some times people juat try to screw you, and hope you will take it.

It's a business decision not a personal attack.

February 25, 2016

Bought an Audi Q7 this spring...... first time for me.... wouldn't take my offer without my credit card....... told them I thought I was in an Audi dealership ... not Kia..... they were kinda hard to deal with but the price was the best available.... at the end I shook the salesman's hand and asked did you really think we would be shaking hands on a deal.... he said no......asked him if I had represented anything that was different than what I actually did... he said no...... final comment was he needed to put some trust in people once in a while.

I have a different view than most.... they kept talking about the relationship.... I kept reminding them for me this a transaction not a relationship.

February 25, 2016

Nothing is more frustrating than being instantly qualified by a salesman based on looks, age, or what you drive. Almost every time I go to purchase a car, this happens.

On the flip side when I sold wake boats, one customer of mine was a brother and sister who were 17 and 18 years old. They drove 3 hours from the other same brand dealership because the salesman wouldnt even acknowledge them. They didnt tell me that upfront, but I ended up spending less than an hour with them and their parents dropped 120k that day on a new boat. Needless to say the other salesman wasnt happy to see we dropped a boat in his territory.

2,054 · February 25, 2016

14 hours ago, jaciche said:

We've always spent most of our time at the big 3 inboard company's booths during the boat show. However, this year I saw a black and yellow sanger DXII that I liked and went over to get a closer look. Apparently the sanger dealers don't attract the most skilled salespeople as this guy had a few teeth missing and I had a hard time listening to his broken english. Here's the main points of his sales pitch about the DXII:

1. "This boat hauls a** up to 65 mph! You'll never go faster on the water in your life!" It had a base Chevy 350 engine

2. "A black and yellow boat really attracts attention on the lake. You'll be noticed like you've never been before." Until I mentioned that our current boat is a bumble bee

3. "This thing can take 3 foot waves no problem! It doesn't pound the water when encountering waves like most direct drives do."

Obviously salesman doesn't know what you use a DXII for. If you have 3' waves on the water, you're not using this boat unless a storm came up.

February 25, 2016

18 hours ago, Mackie 12 said:

I got a good one! When I bought my first (Current) boat was looking for specifically a ski boat, response, echlon, prostar, sportster type thing and under 20G. Well these are hard to find in Alberta in that price range but kept looking and found one at a dealer just outside of town. Called him, left a message, week later calls me back and we talk. he tells me it is a clients boat on consignment and such and we schedule a meeting to come up and look at it. So I pack up the family and drive to the dealer, get there and he tells me it is in the back, go ahead and take a look, never even comes to see me. Whatever, i go over and thru the boat as much as I really know about boats and decide it is what I am looking for. Go back inside to talk to salesman and say I would like to offer $17,500 (asking 19,500) and he tells me he will call the client/owner and get back to me, two weeks go buy and nothing! I even left him a few messages. here's the priceless part, while I was going over the boat i took a lot of pic's to review later at home, one was of the S/N. Well I had a buddy run the S/N to find the owner, got his info, called him and offered him 10G...........he accepted and I picked up the boat next morning with the same sales guy cleaning and prepping the boat.........it is really hard not to have that "Hey A$$hole smile" on your face in those situations.

Know exactly what you are talking about, had bought my LSV from these guys (I assume it's the same dealer), went back a few years later to upgrade and they didn't even bother to go out in the yard with me, I looked at another used VLX they had on the lot and offered them a few thousand less than asking (had to go back into the showroom to find the salesman as he sent a helper out to the yard to remove the tarp). He said he would get back to me. After waiting 45 minutes I walked. Found a brand new VTX at a US dealer (exchange was great at the time) and bought it. Have nothing to do with our dealer any more will drive to Cour d'Alene before going back to them.

February 25, 2016

47 minutes ago, 02-Scape said:

Know exactly what you are talking about, had bought my LSV from these guys (I assume it's the same dealer), went back a few years later to upgrade and they didn't even bother to go out in the yard with me, I looked at another used VLX they had on the lot and offered them a few thousand less than asking (had to go back into the showroom to find the salesman as he sent a helper out to the yard to remove the tarp). He said he would get back to me. After waiting 45 minutes I walked. Found a brand new VTX at a US dealer (exchange was great at the time) and bought it. Have nothing to do with our dealer any more will drive to Cour d'Alene before going back to them.

Referring to the only Malibu dealer in Alberta? I've had a similar expierence.

5,076 · February 25, 2016

12 hours ago, G-Mack said:

We were buying a Mercedes and had our 6 and 4 year old with us........ they totally wrecked the "aura" of the show room. Kids were being pretty well behaved but still kids... a salesman came over to the kids who were in earshot and said we have a place for kids like you....... turned around and said to the salesman..... if you want to talk to my kids you talk to me..... got the long look down his nose and walked away ........ in the car deal we had discussed price at that point and in process of signing an offer...... i stood up and said to my wife I guess we are done here..... sales manager caught up to us in the parking lot..... wanted us to come back and in as many words supported his salesman "unfortunately kids can be distracting"...... bought from the other dealer at the same price....didn't do a drive by though.

When I was a kid, I read every issue of every car magazine cover to cover. One summer I read about the Mercedes 6.9 450 SEL and how Clint Eastwood supposedly drove one. I made my dad take me to look at one. I was probably 12 and pretty much a dork. Salesman took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped off the door handle I touched, turned to me and said something rude. I don't remember what he said, but I will never forget it either. Never felt the same about Mercedes Benz after that day.

edit, I found the article, it is the article I remembered, but not sure it mentions Clint Eastwood or where that came from.

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/mercedes-benz-450sel-69-archived-road-test

Edited February 25, 2016 by Bozboat

6,192 · February 25, 2016

It was date night on our anniversary. We drove by a Toyota dealership and out front was a beautiful black Avalon Touring edition. My wife was like "That's my next car!". I knew nothing about them. We swung around, and looked at it, and talked to a sales guy. He was alright, not pushy, etc. He did say "At 33k miles, she's just getting broke in". I wanted to say "shut up". I drove it, and was VERY impressed. We left after 20 minutes, on to dinner. We talked about it at dinner, after the movie, etc. The next day I went back to get serious with them. Sales guy was not there, so I started back over with another guy. He could not answer squat of my questions like - what was done to the car to get it to "certified" status? What does your extended warranty include specifically? Could not produce documents on any of it. Kept talking to me about resale, great asking price, introduced me to the finance person, etc. I stopped them and was insistent - I want to see a written copy of the warranty, and I want to see specifically what was done to the car for certification. He left for about a half hour. I kept wandering around the showroom. Finally he emerges, and I'm on the back side of a Scion sign. I hear him say to himself out loud "Welp, looks like he got happy feet, on to the next one-" as I come around the sign and I'm like "I'm right here. Do you have what I asked for?" and he indeed had it. Made a deal, a great deal, and picked up the car the next day.

3 days later I get a call from the original salesman - "Just following up, do you want to take another look at that Avalon?" - "Well, I did, and we bought it. You were out the next day, so I worked with XXX". He hung the phone up on me. Nice.

1,748 · February 25, 2016

For me the funniest thing was my full blown argument about whether the boat I was looking at was fuel injected. Salesman said no. I said I'm looking at the fuel rails. Salesman said they were for emmisions. I said show me the carb. He said it was down in the engine. I said what about these 8 fuel injectors right here. He said they were knock detectors. Went on like that for 10 minutes. I left.

1 Boat · February 25, 2016

I've been shopping for a new truck for the past couple months and a one story stands out to me. Found a 2015 certified Silverado 1500 with the 6.2L engine in my color about 3 hours away in Raleigh. I see the price on both AutoTrader and the dealer's site is just north of $41,500 which really isn't bad for that setup. I call the dealership and ask a few questions about it including discussing the list price and tell him I'm not from the area but I am going to be up in Raleigh that coming weekend (true at the time). He says "great, looking forward to seeing you". I happen to do a page refresh the next morning on the truck and strangely the price of the truck has increased $1300 overnight. Out of sheer amusement I called him back and asked said "Hey, I noticed the price went UP on that truck". He proceeds to tell me that periodically they change their prices due to "market fluctuations". The truck had been on the lot since late November and I'm guessing my phone call was considered a "market fluctuation". I ended up saying I'd give him $40k for it but was open to negotiation. He said "He'd honor the first price but he'd be taking a $1200 loss on it at $41,500". I said, thinking to myself "if you're taking a $1200 loss at that price why in the bloody he11 did you list it at that?", no thanks I can't do that price especially since you tack on $599 for a non-negotiable doc fee. He growls "Call me when you change your mind". I literally chuckled into the phone and said "ditto". I'm going to a local GMC dealership tonight to put down a deposit on a special order Sierra with the 6.2L. The guys there were honest and straightforward. Refreshing.

February 25, 2016

The amount of dealerships that have refused to even talk to someone in their mid-20's is astounding.

I have an old spare beater car that I have made a point to drive every time I am going to buy a big ticket item. No mater what it is boats, street bikes, or cars. If you treat me like I'm not worth your time, your not worth mine.

I have a buddy that is the head tech at the local dodge dealership in town, the same dealership that wouldn't let me test drive a new fully loaded Diesel 3500 without "My parents." I make a point to stop by when I'm towing my boat with my very custom Dodge diesel truck. The whole dealership comes out to chat asking if I want to look at something new. They lost my business for good a long time ago.

3,012 · February 26, 2016

As I stated above, I found a dealer that trears me very fair, and as a result I have purchased a few vehicles over the past few years. The last car I bought. They had been moving cars around on the lot and so key was in it. I found my sales guy told him I wanted to test drive it. He told me to take it out right then, I didn't need to leave a copy of my license nothing, just drive it. I liked it really well, we came to a price, I told him I wanted to talk it over with my wife, no problem. I called him back, the next day, he pulled my file, had all the paperwork filled out waiting for us when we came back.

So some sales experience are very good.

2,635 · February 26, 2016

40 minutes ago, DarkSide said:

As I stated above, I found a dealer that trears me very fair, and as a result I have purchased a few vehicles over the past few years. The last car I bought. They had been moving cars around on the lot and so key was in it. I found my sales guy told him I wanted to test drive it. He told me to take it out right then, I didn't need to leave a copy of my license nothing, just drive it. I liked it really well, we came to a price, I told him I wanted to talk it over with my wife, no problem. I called him back, the next day, he pulled my file, had all the paperwork filled out waiting for us when we came back.

So some sales experience are very good.

That is the relationship that G-mack is not interested in having. With it being just a business transaction, G-mack will not get that type of treatment. As far as licenses go, I would reprimand my guys if they didn't get a license, regardless of who they are. We have a lot of liability when we send a car out with no dealer rep with them and not having the proper documentation. If anything happens on that short drive, there could be problems with the insurance company which could get ugly. I am not about taking that risk. You can drive it on your own but we will get the correct documentation to do so.

February 26, 2016

I spent almost 7 yrs as a porter at an Acura dealer thru high school and college. I learned more about dealing with people by just observing others than any school could ever teach me. In the end, we worked very hard to treat customers with respect and gave them incredible service when they returned the respect. That experience has allowed me to be a pretty successful sales guy in a relationship based, long sales cycle type of job. Quick turn, higher pressure close it now or never see the customer again didn't appeal to me.

I don't have time to type up even a portion of the stories but isellacuras is spot on with his comments. There's always that diamond in the rough that comes in dressed like eminem that is paying cash, but that salesman might have to wade thru dozens of time wasters to get that one. Depending on the traffic flow of the store and method for assigning 'ups', there's no one answer. You can't judge a book by its cover for sure. That said, I used to love watching the more DB oriented guys broom sh!t talkers with bogus credit who were just wasting time.

Only current story that comes to mind - was just buying a car for my daughter. She really liked the VW Jetta. I was intrigued by VW's "conquest cash" rebate - if you were an existing VW customer, you got $1k rebate. New VW customers got $1500 rebate but you had to finance the car. I wanted to scratch a check but would finance if I could pay it off after a couple payments. I asked the sales gal about terms about paying it off early, she pings the F&I guy. 24 y/o guy comes over...starts BS'ing with us. In the end, couple payments and I could pay it off. We were getting close to buying the car and the F&I guy goes on a rant to the group "my first ride was a 1988 Chevy S-10 with 150k on it. I paid $500 and drove it for years. I can't believe some people with more money that sense will just write a check and buy their young kids a car...what fools they are." I got up, gathered my kids and on our way we went

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