Truck salesmen are idiots

BigToe wrote:

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"

Consider the sales person's point of view...

Their dealership may have the policy of whoever greets the customer first gets the customer, and therefor gets the commission (or part of it) if the customer buys.

Hence the "pouncing" as soon as you arrive. Their haste to help you might be because they are literally competing with every other salesman on that lot in the first few seconds of your arrival. They are not racing toward you for how attractive you are. They are racing each other for the opportunity to earn a tiny token to help feed their family that night.

So after you tell them you are just looking, they still stick around. Why? Because their sales manager decreed that if they DON"T stick with you, then you are fair game for another sales person to take over, and they lose out, even though they were the first to greet you. So they follow you, and even when you ask them to leave you to "think" or to talk it over with your spouse in private, they move a certain distance away, but they still hover. They HAVE to, because either they will lose their commission, or lose their job. Often times both.

Imagine if you had to work under those circumstances?

Do you think they grew up dreaming of being a car salesman? Do you think they harbored career aspirations to cater to online expert know it alls who act like jerks to them? Do you think they can't wait for another day to play brake light reverse light games with insensitive adults, training their children to be just as insensitive, who feel free to fart around on the private property of an employer who demands that every customer who enters the lot be catered to?

Many people who sell cars do so as a last resort. Their situation is already desperate. They cannot afford a single one of the cars or trucks that you know so much about. They may be struggling through a career transition, when their manufacturing job got outsourced overseas. They may have returned home from 10 years as a combat soldier, without a college degree or any work experience in a civilian trade. They may have earned a doctorate degree in the Ukraine, and are here to escape the conflict. They may have raised a family as a stay at home parent, and through a sudden divorce after the kids are grown, find themselves needing to earn a living in a world that passed them by while they were attending to their children. They may speak 5 languages. They may have traveled the world. They have have done anything. Or nothing. But they are human beings.

Treat them like it. They might surprise you, and treat you like a human being also.

Treat them like "idiots", and, well, you might already have experienced what to expect.

There are so many misconceptions of what happens in a dealership. Some are fairly accurate and others so far afield as to be laughable. Yes, for some being a salesman is a "last resort" but for many it is a rational choice and even others do dream of being a a car salesman.

Any large dealership will have several people approaching six figures and many others far exceeding that figure. Many employees are highly professional, well educated, and well respected in their community. Most all dealership owners started on the sales floor as the "idiot" and ultimately became multi-millionaires and there are several who appear on the list of the world's billionaires.

For every complaint you read about the "hovering" salesman you can read another about shopping in a dealership where nobody would offer to assist them. As a dealer, you spend a vast amount of money in an attempt to attract the consumer. You build an attractive and expensive facility, advertise, stock it with expensive merchandise, and contrary to popular opinion, spend heavily to train your people. When your investment does produce a possible consumer, you certainly do not want that person wandering around your facility unattended.