Hi welcome to Joe Bobs’ Auto Emporium, are you here for the big sale? Ok I did not work for Joe Bobs’ Auto Emporium but the sentiment was just the same. Out of the kindness of my heart I will leave real places and real names out of this story. We have all been there though. Well at least those of us that have been through the car buying experience. Buyers feel jittery, lost, afraid, among countless other things. I was not the buyer though. I was the seller. When you walked onto my lot, you became fair game. Us vultures on the lot would refer to you as the “up” It was our job to make sure you left the lot in a shiny new car. Or a dirty one, a used one, maybe one with a dent, or a bad tires, just as long as you left with one of our cars.

I arrived to work early everyday. The lot opened up at 9am, I would arrive around 7:30. I casually walked around the car learning everything I could about the inventory. It was important to know exactly what was available when customers started calling or coming in. Some days I would spend an hour or two hand writing letters to potential customers. I would get addresses from the service department of people who owned junky cars or maybe use a list of older customers that had bought a vehicle a few years ago. Either way it was about time they bought a new one. I had rent to pay, that was the least they could do. Right before the doors opened for business the sales manager would hold a meeting in the conference room. He would talk about the previous days sales figures and such. Sometimes he would put forth a contest to sell a particular vehicle. Dealers do not pay for the vehicles on their lot until the vehicle sells. They do though have a loan on that vehicle from the time it arrives onto the lot. In the meantime whiles a car is waiting to be sold, a dealer must pay interest on that loan, and pay the principle when the car is sold. The longer a car sits, the more interest, the less the dealer will make when the car sells. We were made aware of any car that had been on the lot for some time. If your looking for a car find the one with the lowest inventory number. Chances are this car has been there the longest and the dealer is most likely to be desperate to sell it. The same would go for used cars. After the meetings I went back to my desk and awaited our opening.