Job Inspires Little Respect : Car Salesmen Wheel and Deal With Image Problem

He lives in an almost impenetrable world of fast talk and crafty deal-making. He works when others are at rest. He speaks in a private lingo, using words such as “spiffs” for cash bonuses and “Larrys,” as in “Larry Laid-Outs,” for dumb customers. A leering Willy Loman in a leisure suit, he even has his own inexplicable fashion sense.

The car salesman, an American classic.

Buyers know him as the guy who turns automotive fantasy into reality for only $500 down and $250 a month, not counting tax, license and dealer preparation costs. No credit, no problem. He will go to the mat, since his survival ultimately depends on the number of cars he sells. “What kind of monthly payments can you afford?” is practically the salesman’s mantra.

His moves are as smooth as rich Corinthian leather. He will offer next to nothing for a trade-in, then use it as leverage against the price of a new car. He will tout prices at just above sticker price, never mentioning the profits that come from manufacturer’s bonuses. He will even tug at a buyer’s heart strings with strategically placed photographs of his family.

“It’s odd,” said Mickey Garrett, head of a car dealer’s watchdog agency. “When you buy a suit you pay the price on the label. But for some reason it’s like war when you buy a car.”

It’s a battle that engenders bad feelings on both sides of the bargaining table: from sellers who say they are victimized by high quotas, changing tastes and a fickle economy, and from buyers who say that salesmen, with their high-pressure tactics, are the victimizers.

Yet the ritualistic dance goes on, be it on the showroom floor, where the buyer and seller face off with all the abandon of kamikaze pilots, in newspapers advertisements touting “dealing days” and “low, low, low prices,” or in television commercials where pitchmen such as Cal Worthington offer to stand on their head and eat bugs to satisfy customers.

Worthington, a soft-spoken and savvy businessman who has made millions from his corn-pone television act, said the art of selling a car has changed little in five decades.

“The seller’s image developed after World War II, when there was a lot of quick money to be made and you could get a lot over the asking price,” said Worthington, who started selling cars in 1945. “That’s where our image got real bad, and we’ve managed to maintain that.”

Joe Girard, a celebrated lecturer on salesmanship who is recognized in the Guiness Book of World Records for selling 13,001 cars, said car sellers are stuck in a cultural time warp.

“Nothing changes,” Girard said. “A lot of them still wear diamond pinkie rings, gold chains and silk suits. They smoke cigars. If they only knew how much business that costs.”

In Los Angeles, where practically everyone of age drives, car salesmen are almost as ubiquitous as the automobiles they sell. There are 17,000 of them in Los Angeles County alone, working at 3,500 new and used car dealerships that peddled more than 100,000 autos last year.

It’s a profession that inspires little respect--it ranks just above nuclear decontainment work in job desirability surveys--and less loyalty. Journeymen sellers, driven by the chance to push more popular models, frequently job jump from one dealership to another, only to be replaced by apprentice salesmen who are often recruited with tales of six-figure salaries.

At Galpin Ford in the San Fernando Valley, 64-year-old Harry Manoff, wearing an ensemble that includes three gold rings and a gold nugget bracelet that sparkles like a set of highly-polished hub caps, is the man in charge of training the car salesmen of tomorrow.

Manoff tells his charges that selling is simple. All you have to do is hit up everyone you’ve ever met, be it a friend, relative, business acquaintance or the man who mows your lawn.

“Make your gardener happy and he’ll send you other gardeners,” Manoff says. “Everybody buys cars. Everybody in Southern California needs a car. Why shouldn’t they buy it from you?”

Manoff’s 10-member class contained only one woman, a former school teacher who said she quit because she could make more money selling cars.

She was a rarity. Car dealers say that on average, less than 10% of each dealer’s sales force is made up of women. At Longo Toyota in El Monte, the nation’s leading automobile retailer, four of the 42 retail sellers are women. Manager Greg Penske said he would hire more if they applied.

“If I could find more women I would,” he said, “because they are very strong sales people. Women buyers feel comfortable with them and the men like dealing with them.”

A good salesman--or saleswoman--will earn anywhere from $75,000 to $200,000 a year, and even mediocre ones can pull down $40,000, industry experts say. Dealer profits are tougher to pinpoint. However, those who follow the industry say they earn in the neighborhood of 5% to 20% on each sale, even in cases where people come armed with the latest consumer-oriented pricing guides.

“The point is to find out what a person wants, then make him feel he really needs it,” one salesman said. “Most of us will push to get a person to take a car, because once they take it they’re probably going to keep it, especially if their neighbors have seen it.

“A lot of the time, even if I have a deal, I know that I’m going to come back out to try to jack the price up some more,” added the salesman, who asked that his name not be used. “If I can raise the price by even $500, that’s $100 more that goes into my pocket.”

Most salesmen apparently are naturals. But for those who stumble when confronted with buyer resistance, there’s a $99 guide book called “The Automotive Sales Script Book,” which provides 722 responses to the most frequently heard customer concerns.

“While your competitors are racking their brains to think of an on-the-spot response to an objection or stall, you can simply glance down the page in the appropriate script book section and find the right response,” an ad for the book states. For instance, when a buyer starts to back off over the price of a car, the seller can turn to the “Price Is Too High” section.

There, he will find rejoinders such as this one: “The sweetness of low price is quickly forgotten when you have to deal day after day with the bitterness and low quality.”

Given such tactics, and the whole adversarial nature of the salesman-buyer relationship, it’s no wonder that some customers feel buyer’s remorse before they even step inside the showroom door. But dealers and salesmen say the buying public, having grown accustomed to bartering, is now part of the process. “The customer has been trained to haggle, and in most cases he’s well educated,” said one salesman who asked not to be named. “They don’t want to trust us.”

Bert Boeckmann, owner of Galpin Ford and two other dealerships, said efforts to eliminate the haggling from the car business have failed. “Dealers have tried to go other ways,” Boeckmann said. “They’ve even put fixed prices on their cars. But those dealers are the ones who have gone broke. Most people want to bargain. This is a horse-trading business.”

Reigning Horse-Trader

In car-dealing circles, the reigning horse-trader is a 56-year-old grandfather named Jules Weisberg of Longo Toyota.

Weisberg sold 555 cars last year, sometimes in batches of five and six a day. On busy days he can often be found with two customers at once, scooting back and forth between them in the golf carts that Longo salesmen use to navigate the dealership’s 21-acre car lot.

Weisberg’s brand of salesmanship is based on a total commitment of resources. He works six days a week, doesn’t believe in lunch breaks and rarely leaves the dealership before 9 p.m. When he’s not selling he’s usually standing in the parking lot under a broad-brimmed straw hat. “I’ve frozen my butt off,” he said. “I guess I’m either aggressive or stupid.”

Much of Weisberg’s down time is devoted to customer relations. He makes follow-up calls to all buyers. So does his wife, Cynthia. The two also keep a computerized list of customers, and next year they expect to launch a semi-annual newsletter touting sales and new car models.

Weisberg earns in the neighborhood of $250,000 a year for his work, enough to afford a four-bedroom house with a swimming pool on the 14th green of a Northridge country club. He is also rewarded with cash bonuses, trips to Hawaii and Rolex watches.

“This is a very competitive business,” he said. “I’m competing with guys in their 20s. They must wonder what I’m taking. But I get a lot of satisfaction from being No. 1.”

Weisberg doesn’t look the part. His ensembles, which usually include a buttoned-down shirt, a conservative tie and wing-tipped shoes, are understated. Yet the former clothing manufacturer clearly possesses the salesman’s gift of gab. “Are you two related?,” he asked a young couple. “Yes,” the woman said. “He’s my husband.” “Boy,” Weisberg replied. “You can’t get any more related than that.”

He is also a student of human nature, innately attuned to what makes buyers tick. Firm but not pushy, he allows customers time to fully disengage from their vehicles before approaching. Then he gradually ingratiates himself. Children are fussed over. If it’s hot, he offers the buyer something cold to drink. If they’re browsing, he backs off far enough to put them at ease. The trick, he said, is determining what people are looking for, even if they don’t know.

Weisberg accomplishes this by asking a series of questions. “Have you been looking for long? What’s your price range? Are you prepared to buy today? Do you have a trade-in?”

Getting the buyer to take a test drive is vital to the deal, as is persuading them that they won’t find a better price elsewhere. “You can go to 20 dealers and come back and I’ll still give you the same price that I’m offering you today,” he said. “I’ll work with you.” Later he told another browser: “I’ll help you any way I can. It’s a saying, but it’s true.”

Perhaps to his advantage, Weisberg refrains from hard-sell tactics until he senses that a deal is about to fall through. Then his silly grin gives way to a look of grim determination.

“What am I doing here?” he asked one startled couple. “Making a fool of myself?”

The ploy worked. Weisberg made the deal and the couple got a new pickup truck. After escorting them into the financing office, he wiped his brow and sighed.

“This is a real high,” said Weisberg, who went on to sell two other cars that day. “In this business you’re generally either real high or real low. You’re a king or a bum.”

Like many salesmen, Weisberg regrets that car sellers suffer from a poor reputation. But he said that he can only be responsible for adhering to his own ethical code. He cannot spend his days dwelling on every infraction perpetrated by ever other seller.

People who monitor and regulate the automobile industry say that he would have plenty to worry about. Nearly 3,000 complaints were lodged against new and used car sellers in Los Angeles County last year, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles. Twenty-three dealers lost their licenses and eight were placed on probation. During the same period, 44 salesmen had their licenses yanked and 20 were disciplined. Another 45 were denied licenses.

Statewide, there were 12,000 complaints. Eighty-eight dealers lost their licenses and 50 were placed on probation. Licenses were taken away from 181 salesmen across the state.

Most discipline cases involve allegations of lying or failure to deliver promised goods, officials said.

Tim Bissell, chief investigator for the Los Angeles County Department of Consumer Affairs, which monitors the industry, said complaints against car sellers are as common as ever.

“It’s a bread-and-butter thing,” Bissell said. “It’s like landlords and tenants. Some sort of misrepresentation is at issue in every dispute, because of the tricks they play.

“One of the big problems is dealers sending people home with new cars when their financing hasn’t been approved,” he added. “When the financing doesn’t go through, the dealers often send their finance companies out to demand a higher down payment or a higher interest rate. Then they berate the customer and make him feel guilty about having the use of the car.”

Bissell estimates that dealers make $1,500 to $4,000 on each car sold. (The salesmen make anywhere from $50 to $500 and above for their end of the deal.) He contends that this is largely due to the addition of “worthless” amenities, such as costly upholstery protection.

Michael Botwin, an assistant state attorney general specializing in consumer law, said many dealers also drive up prices and confuse customers by using “turnover systems,” wherein the buyer is passed through a series of sales people, each of whom slightly alters the agreement.

“The buyer will be met by a greeter who does not talk about finances, money or any of the nitty-gritty of the deal,” Botwin said. “Once the buyer decides what he wants, he is turned over to a manager who is known as the closer. The closer does the hard-core negotiations. . . . The thing that they want is for the customer to make an emotional commitment to buy the car.

“Once the deal is made, another person takes over. He says they can’t do that deal, and he whittles away even more. It’s the negotiating edge that makes turnover houses so successful.”

Angry and Distrustful

Han’s Groschel, who punctuates his first name with an apostrophe, recently purchased a Ford Bronco. Like any wise buyer, he researched the market, compared prices and spent days visiting different dealers. Nonetheless, Groschel said he came away from the experience angry and distrustful.

Different dealers quoted him different prices for the same car, with each claiming to have the lowest price in town, Groschel said. Others tried to sell him in-house financing that was far costlier than what he could obtain privately. Almost everyone misled him, he charged.

“It was unbelievable,” said Groschel, a respiratory therapist from Covina. “I’d call and ask if they had a certain car in a certain color and they’d say, ‘Sure, come on down.’ But I’d go down and they wouldn’t even have the right color. They’d just lure me in with lies. You can’t pity them, because they’ll swallow you alive. You have to be as rude as they are.”

In an industry that has never been known for self-restraint, these types of problems are gradually gaining more attention. One reason is that dealers are ever-more dependent on repeat business in the ultra-competitive environment that exists. Another is that manufacturers, mindful of buyer loyalty, closely monitor customer satisfaction surveys at their dealerships.

At Longo Toyota, which sold more than 20,000 cars last year, salesmen are prohibited from smoking on the showroom floor and from wearing loud clothing or sunglasses. Each potential hire is interviewed by six managers and more than 70% of the work force is college-educated.

Boeckmann of Galpin Motors said his managers closely scrutinize the results of customer questionnaires, reprimanding or firing salesmen who fail to earn good marks from buyers.

More than 180 dealers also belong to the Greater Los Angeles Motor Car Dealers Assn., a group devoted to driving bad dealers out of business. In conjunction with the Department of Motor Vehicles, the association recently launched a Blow the Whistle Campaign, in which buyers are encouraged to report dubious advertising claims and suspicious selling practices.

Spokesman Garrett said most dealers are honest businessmen who are dragged down by those seeking to make a quick buck: “When I got started in the business we used to brag about owner loyalty. Well, that’s gone. . . . When business gets bad, dealers have a habit of pushing the limits of the law. And when that happens, people are usually misled.”

Luis Estrada knows all about the car seller’s image problems. As the senior vice president of the Independent Automobile Dealers Assn. of Southern California, it’s Estrada’s job to help polish the image of the most tarnished of all automobile salesmen--the used car dealer.

Estrada, who co-owns Trader Vic’s used cars in Pacoima, said the image is unjust. He contended that most sellers make a real effort to place buyers in affordable, quality cars.

“The common conception is that we’re crooks, and that’s just not true,” Estrada said. “All you ever hear is the bad stuff. But the number of bad apples is actually very small.”

Estrada’s 1,780-member organization has been in business since 1957. It encourages members to report illegal auto selling practices and frequently trades information with the Department of Motor Vehicles, which does not distinguish between problems involving new car dealers and used car dealers. The group also donates cars to needy groups, such as student driver classes.

At a summer conference in San Diego, about 100 used car salesmen participated in a series of seminars on pending auto legislation, loan financing and insurance costs. In between, they met at a retreat outside town to eat barbecued beef, listen to country music and reflect on the car seller’s lot in life.

“People still talk about the white-shoed, crooked car salesman,” said Jerry Cowgill, the group’s irrepressible president. “Well, that day is done. We’re family people. But it’s hard to get that message across, even though all of us are concerned about improving our image.”

Opie Hendricks, the group’s secretary, said he would personally seek out anyone who violates the law. “I’ll buy the rope to hang ‘em,” he declared. “That’s how I feel.”

Others complained about the public’s reaction to the job description. “I’ve been in business 20 years and my wife and I belong to every charitable group in town,” one dealer said. “But when I tell people what I do, they just shake their heads and walk away.”

If anything, car salesmen know they are a long way from establishing trust with the public. One dealer introduced himself as the owner of “Toilet Motors.” Another boasted a sign that says, “Miracle Cars. If You Get a Good One, It’s a Miracle.”

At one point in the conference, Cowgill found himself arguing the merits of a $15-a-year dues increase, and the membership wasn’t buying. Finally, the president of the used car salesmen’s club threw up his hands and pleaded, “Trust me.” Everyone laughed.