A small working glossary of car biz slang
Used car salesmen. We're the scum of the earth. The dredges of society or as The Mouthpiece once said " Dawg, we're the juice at the bottom of the trashcan." We're also the horses that drive this chariot of American free enterprise. We are the true face of capitalism. Our M.O. is predatory deception.
It's not our fault really. We work exclusively on comission which means it's to our benefit to get as much for our product as we can. We get paid a percentage of the profits of every car we sell. This means that if the dealership purchases a car for 10K and I sell it for 11K then I get paid a percentage of 1K profit (that's 11-10 for those of you keeping score at home). So, it's not about how much a car costs to us it's about how much it's been marked up.
Now this isnt a job like most jobs. Most jobs you go to work, you service clients whether they be internal or external, you rent your time for money and go home with a predetermined amount of income at the end of the pay period.
Selling cars is different. Oh, we have clients but our income is based upon how well work with (and work) our clients. To make matters more interesting, every customer we have wants to make sure we make as little money as possible. No matter what the price of the car, people think it's too high. People think they can offer you 12K cash for a 32K dollar car and you'll all of a sudden meet them around back with the keys, take the cash and go to Visions for a 12k dollar heroin party. We had a Suburban on the lot marked at $13,991 and everyone was trying to buy it for around 11K So yesterday we marked it to $11,991 and we had 2 offers on it for for around 9k. Everybody wants to ride big but very few want to pay big.
Needless to say a certain amount of "creativity", as Chainsaw would call it, is inherent in the business. Ultimately, what's a fair price is what you and the customer can agree on as fair. Coming to the agreement can be the hard part though. And this would be all fine and dandy except for the constant threat of eviction and/or repossesion looming in the periphery of each sales transaction. For the customer, it's about finding a car they like that fits their needs and (sometimes) their budget. For us, it's about whether I can pay my car note this month (please God) or if I'm gonna have to pull my ski mask out of my drawer and go "trick or treating" at Emory this weekend.
The sales process is all about control. You can't sell a person you can't control, period. Control isn't about giving orders, although sometimes it does involve giving orders. FC, once had a customer who was going to walk from the table until he yelled, " NO, SIT DOWN!!! WE'RE NOT DONE YET!!!" (I don't know why but one exclamation point is never enough. You never need, like 3 periods or 3 commas...?) But you gotta get people to like you before they trust you and they have to trust you before you can lead them and you HAVE to lead them if you want to sell 'em. Even if you all can do all that THEY have to be able to buy and you have to find a car that they like AND can afford. A lot of people have cocaine plans with weed money. The sheer number of factors that have to align for a sale to happen are astronomical. CA (get well soon, homie. We miss you.), said it best, "Bro, anytime we sell a car, it's a miracle."
So as you can imagine selling cars is a culture all its own and as with any culture we have our own lingo. I've taken the liberty here to define a few choice terms that are part of my everyday lexicon selling used cars.
The Lot: The place where the cars are parked that we sell.
The Floor: Not an actual place but refers to the amount of salespeople on staff.
The Point: The place on the lot where salespeople wait for customers to show up. The point it's not so much a particular place but a strategic vantage point you try to get over other salesmen. Sorta like boxing out in the paint in basketball
Up: The verb form means to greet a customer on the lot and begin the sales process. The noun form refers to a customer that you have just greeted on the lot. So, I up customers on the lot and that person becomes my up.
Blow Out: When a customer leaves before the sale is completed
Blow'em out: To get rid of a customer usually one who can't buy or is wasting time.
Bogues: Pronounced like vogue with a B. Derived from the english word bogus. This terms applies to someone with fucked up credit (600 or below). It's not that we hate bogues. Truthfully they're the lifeblood of our business. But most of the time they are psychologically taxing to deal with. 1) The Big Homie has a wonderfully dark sense of humor. Most of the time it's a struggle to get people to admit they even want a car. So as a salesman, when you meet someone who openly expresses that they want a car, you should be happy, right?
I remember the first time this happened. Ol' girl had to have a car, Too-day!!! She just wanted to be under $400 a month in a 4-door car. I show her this white 02 Altima with 46k miles. I demo the car. She loves it. By the end of the test drive she was "licking the paint." We're walking back to the showroom, both of us, excited as hell. We laughing, joking... having a goood ass time. I get her to fill out a credit app and go take the app to LG. LG put her info into the system, looked at the screen and recoiled in horror
LG: Eeewwwww, She rotten dawg.
AS: Rotten?
LG: She gotta 427 Equifax and 474 Transunion.
Chainsaw: She's a bogue.
AS: Bogue?
Chainsaw: She ain't never paid nobody in her whole life. She ain't even paid attention.
AS: So, what are we gonna do?
LG: She got cash?
AS: Yeah, she's got $500
Chainsaw: Look, you need to blow her out and get you a customer.
This is the problem with bogues from a work standpoint. 1) If you're not careful you could waste a lotta time with them; time you could be spending with someone who could actually buy.
2) You get all excited because you think you gotta lay-up and you find out you got nothing. Meanwhile, everyone else on the floor has upped customers that they end up selling. This psychologically taxing process of hope, excitement, dissapointment, frustration, anger I've since learned to guard myself against. As a rule of thumb, if someone is eager to get a car, I know that statistically the chances of them being in the 500's (if I'm lucky) are almost a lock. The 1st thing I do is get a credit app. This saves both me and the bogue time and me heartache. The only thing that's more frustrating than a bogue who can't buy is a bogue who can buy but doesn't want what they can afford. The term I have coined for this phenomenom is cocaine plans with weed money. First off, the interest rate a bogue is gonna get is going to be AT LEAST 17 percent and that's IF they're lucky. More than likely the rate is gonna be in the low twenties. This means that the can afford about 3/5 the car for the same monthly payment as someone with decent credit. As a black man, the irony of this has not gone unnoticed.
Point being that when they want a car with leather, roof and power seats and they wanna be under $300 a month and I, inevitably, show them to the '02 Taurus/ '99 escort/'00 neon that they can actually afford, 9 times out of 10 they get mad at me, like I was the one NOT paying their bills. The only thing you can do at this point is blow 'em out. Old Man Gates used to kick at their car and scream, "Punt, Muthafucka!!!" as the bogues would drive away.
2kool4skool has a great approach for dealing w/ bogues that I'm gonna adopt, though. He has fun with them. For instance one time a bogue was trying to buy a $30,000 Maxima and be at $300. So after, he pulls the guys credit and sees he's rotten. He gives him a menu that has him at $300/ month for 72 months..... with $20,000 down. Dude gets all upset like "I ain't got $20,000 to put down!!!" To which 2kool replies well that's what it's gonna take to get you at $300 a month. He'll also cuss at them from time to time. The trick is to be completely professional for most of your presentation but if they say something rediculous, cuss at them. I.E:
2kool4skool: The price on this Altima is $21,990
Customer: $21,990?!? I'll give you 14 for it.
2kool4skool: Fuck no!!!
or
Customer: I saw a Maxima down at Town Center for 21.
2kool4skool: Shiiit, you shoulda bought that one.
or
2kool4skool: 9k for an '05 Sentra, No fuckin way.
It's fighting fire with fire or in this case the rediculous with the rediculous. Now, you can't do this with everyone but apparently this technique even works on old women.
How can I ever work anywhere else?
It's not our fault really. We work exclusively on comission which means it's to our benefit to get as much for our product as we can. We get paid a percentage of the profits of every car we sell. This means that if the dealership purchases a car for 10K and I sell it for 11K then I get paid a percentage of 1K profit (that's 11-10 for those of you keeping score at home). So, it's not about how much a car costs to us it's about how much it's been marked up.
Now this isnt a job like most jobs. Most jobs you go to work, you service clients whether they be internal or external, you rent your time for money and go home with a predetermined amount of income at the end of the pay period.
Selling cars is different. Oh, we have clients but our income is based upon how well work with (and work) our clients. To make matters more interesting, every customer we have wants to make sure we make as little money as possible. No matter what the price of the car, people think it's too high. People think they can offer you 12K cash for a 32K dollar car and you'll all of a sudden meet them around back with the keys, take the cash and go to Visions for a 12k dollar heroin party. We had a Suburban on the lot marked at $13,991 and everyone was trying to buy it for around 11K So yesterday we marked it to $11,991 and we had 2 offers on it for for around 9k. Everybody wants to ride big but very few want to pay big.
Needless to say a certain amount of "creativity", as Chainsaw would call it, is inherent in the business. Ultimately, what's a fair price is what you and the customer can agree on as fair. Coming to the agreement can be the hard part though. And this would be all fine and dandy except for the constant threat of eviction and/or repossesion looming in the periphery of each sales transaction. For the customer, it's about finding a car they like that fits their needs and (sometimes) their budget. For us, it's about whether I can pay my car note this month (please God) or if I'm gonna have to pull my ski mask out of my drawer and go "trick or treating" at Emory this weekend.
The sales process is all about control. You can't sell a person you can't control, period. Control isn't about giving orders, although sometimes it does involve giving orders. FC, once had a customer who was going to walk from the table until he yelled, " NO, SIT DOWN!!! WE'RE NOT DONE YET!!!" (I don't know why but one exclamation point is never enough. You never need, like 3 periods or 3 commas...?) But you gotta get people to like you before they trust you and they have to trust you before you can lead them and you HAVE to lead them if you want to sell 'em. Even if you all can do all that THEY have to be able to buy and you have to find a car that they like AND can afford. A lot of people have cocaine plans with weed money. The sheer number of factors that have to align for a sale to happen are astronomical. CA (get well soon, homie. We miss you.), said it best, "Bro, anytime we sell a car, it's a miracle."
So as you can imagine selling cars is a culture all its own and as with any culture we have our own lingo. I've taken the liberty here to define a few choice terms that are part of my everyday lexicon selling used cars.
The Lot: The place where the cars are parked that we sell.
The Floor: Not an actual place but refers to the amount of salespeople on staff.
The Point: The place on the lot where salespeople wait for customers to show up. The point it's not so much a particular place but a strategic vantage point you try to get over other salesmen. Sorta like boxing out in the paint in basketball
Up: The verb form means to greet a customer on the lot and begin the sales process. The noun form refers to a customer that you have just greeted on the lot. So, I up customers on the lot and that person becomes my up.
Blow Out: When a customer leaves before the sale is completed
Blow'em out: To get rid of a customer usually one who can't buy or is wasting time.
Bogues: Pronounced like vogue with a B. Derived from the english word bogus. This terms applies to someone with fucked up credit (600 or below). It's not that we hate bogues. Truthfully they're the lifeblood of our business. But most of the time they are psychologically taxing to deal with. 1) The Big Homie has a wonderfully dark sense of humor. Most of the time it's a struggle to get people to admit they even want a car. So as a salesman, when you meet someone who openly expresses that they want a car, you should be happy, right?
I remember the first time this happened. Ol' girl had to have a car, Too-day!!! She just wanted to be under $400 a month in a 4-door car. I show her this white 02 Altima with 46k miles. I demo the car. She loves it. By the end of the test drive she was "licking the paint." We're walking back to the showroom, both of us, excited as hell. We laughing, joking... having a goood ass time. I get her to fill out a credit app and go take the app to LG. LG put her info into the system, looked at the screen and recoiled in horror
LG: Eeewwwww, She rotten dawg.
AS: Rotten?
LG: She gotta 427 Equifax and 474 Transunion.
Chainsaw: She's a bogue.
AS: Bogue?
Chainsaw: She ain't never paid nobody in her whole life. She ain't even paid attention.
AS: So, what are we gonna do?
LG: She got cash?
AS: Yeah, she's got $500
Chainsaw: Look, you need to blow her out and get you a customer.
This is the problem with bogues from a work standpoint. 1) If you're not careful you could waste a lotta time with them; time you could be spending with someone who could actually buy.
2) You get all excited because you think you gotta lay-up and you find out you got nothing. Meanwhile, everyone else on the floor has upped customers that they end up selling. This psychologically taxing process of hope, excitement, dissapointment, frustration, anger I've since learned to guard myself against. As a rule of thumb, if someone is eager to get a car, I know that statistically the chances of them being in the 500's (if I'm lucky) are almost a lock. The 1st thing I do is get a credit app. This saves both me and the bogue time and me heartache. The only thing that's more frustrating than a bogue who can't buy is a bogue who can buy but doesn't want what they can afford. The term I have coined for this phenomenom is cocaine plans with weed money. First off, the interest rate a bogue is gonna get is going to be AT LEAST 17 percent and that's IF they're lucky. More than likely the rate is gonna be in the low twenties. This means that the can afford about 3/5 the car for the same monthly payment as someone with decent credit. As a black man, the irony of this has not gone unnoticed.
Point being that when they want a car with leather, roof and power seats and they wanna be under $300 a month and I, inevitably, show them to the '02 Taurus/ '99 escort/'00 neon that they can actually afford, 9 times out of 10 they get mad at me, like I was the one NOT paying their bills. The only thing you can do at this point is blow 'em out. Old Man Gates used to kick at their car and scream, "Punt, Muthafucka!!!" as the bogues would drive away.
2kool4skool has a great approach for dealing w/ bogues that I'm gonna adopt, though. He has fun with them. For instance one time a bogue was trying to buy a $30,000 Maxima and be at $300. So after, he pulls the guys credit and sees he's rotten. He gives him a menu that has him at $300/ month for 72 months..... with $20,000 down. Dude gets all upset like "I ain't got $20,000 to put down!!!" To which 2kool replies well that's what it's gonna take to get you at $300 a month. He'll also cuss at them from time to time. The trick is to be completely professional for most of your presentation but if they say something rediculous, cuss at them. I.E:
2kool4skool: The price on this Altima is $21,990
Customer: $21,990?!? I'll give you 14 for it.
2kool4skool: Fuck no!!!
or
Customer: I saw a Maxima down at Town Center for 21.
2kool4skool: Shiiit, you shoulda bought that one.
or
2kool4skool: 9k for an '05 Sentra, No fuckin way.
It's fighting fire with fire or in this case the rediculous with the rediculous. Now, you can't do this with everyone but apparently this technique even works on old women.
How can I ever work anywhere else?
posted by heathen saint at 9:04 PM
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