Donning his shiniest suit, PADDY COMYNreturns for a day to his previous – and brief – career as a car salesman. But while times are tough on the frontline of one of the sectors hit hardest by the recession, he finds staff are as enthusiastic about 'selling the metal' as ever
WHAT IS YOUR perception of the car salesman? Is it of a slippery operator in a shiny suit, with an insincere, toothy grin and eager, firm handshake? Or is he a trusted friend who has looked after your motoring needs for generations? Everyone has his or her own story about car dealers. Some think they are always out to make a fast buck, at any cost. Others vent frustration at failed attempts to attract their attention in the showroom or even receive a call back.
Today, I’m here to see the other side of things. It is 8.45am on a Monday morning and I am in the sales meeting of Hutton Meade, long-established Nissan and Hyundai dealers in Dublin, and there is a new member of staff for the day. Me.
Firstly, some disclosure. I’m not entirely new to all this. Before I started out writing about cars, I worked in a Dublin city dealership for a brief period. I wasn’t very good at it. I never fully grasped all the processes involved in selling. And perhaps I just wasn’t ruthless enough. I wanted to help people choose, not sell to them.
We are sitting around the table in the staff canteen. Tales of holidays and hurling quickly turns to business. Back when I last was at a sales meeting, the internet wasn’t widely used and the pen and paper was king. This time around things are different. There is a print-out of “open enquiries”, which are customers who have come in and asked about a car. The deals have yet to be completed, but there is every bit of detail on the prospective customer, from their trade-in to whether they wandered into the showroom, called on the phone or were referred online. It is a slick system and everyone knows what everyone else is doing. Things, it seems, have changed.
But then again, they had to change. The last few years have been a torrid time in the motoring sector here in Ireland. Recession bit hard as a lack of available finance and falling consumer confidence lead to a dramatic drop in sales in 2008. Many dealerships that had over-stretched themselves with big showrooms and expansion, either through coercion or vanity, closed overnight.
This is a tough world. Imagine receiving the majority of your yearly salary in the first three months following Christmas and having to make do with a fraction of that for the rest of the year. That is the reality of the car salesman. Before we get letters from the Equality Tribunal, yes there are female sales staff but they are very thin on the ground in Ireland. Receptionists aside, the showroom floor remains a man’s world.
There is friendliness to the sales meeting, but you know that at the end of the day it is every man for himself. “Every member of the sales staff is an entrepreneur and it is up to them to create their own business,” explains Jonathan Meade, one half of the name over the door and director of the company. “The showroom area is theirs. They need to keep it clean, look after it, and present it in the best way.”
Scrappage brought some respite, giving Irish customers an excuse – and, perhaps, the public’s permission – to return to the dealerships once more. But on a quiet Monday in August, with scrappage gone and several weeks to go until the busy Christmas period, it’s time to roll up the sleeves.
Paddy Hillick is the sales manager for the dealership. “People have this perception that garages are on their knees and that they can offer half the value of the new car and the dealer will have to take it.
“You enjoy a bit of banter and a bit of a battle but sometimes it goes beyond that. What annoys us to the bone is if we spend half an hour with someone, pick their car, agree the cost to change, shake hands, take a €200 deposit and fill out an order form, people sometimes continue on shopping, and might come in and say that they have got a better deal – that is frustrating.”
We are released like greyhounds from the traps into the showroom, but there isn’t anyone out there. Some service customers sip coffee and watch Sky News and the four cars that are being delivered that day are being lined up, dressed in their Monday best of polish and tyre paint. One is the new Hyundai i40, which is going to a fleet customer. A Nissan Tiida goes out to an older gentleman. A used Nissan 350Z awaits its new keeper too. Just €15,000 bought that 3.5-litre V6 powerhouse. There is value, but flicking through the stock list shows a distinct lack of used cars. “We have about 50 used cars, but we could do with around 100,” says Hillick. “Since there were so few new cars sold in 2008/2009, there is a lack of used stock from that time and we are actively buying in used cars to sell.”
August is a quiet time in every car dealership. For the sales staff it means trawling through their existing customer base with offers to entice them back into the showrooms. The promise of a newer car, without the worry of an NCT, is the lure. The obstacles are practical ones. “Our son is going to college, so we can’t upgrade,” comes one reply.
Some customers do come into the showroom. The quality of some of the trade-ins is horrific, as is customer expectations of their car’s value. One of my new sales colleagues spends a painful amount of time with a Mercedes owner who is eyeing up a new Hyundai. His car is worth €1,000, at most, as offered by one of the traders the dealership uses. The customer is audibly incredulous. He has been offered €6,000 for the same car from a Renault dealership against a new Mégane. Renault’s discounting is hard to compete with for other marques and you can see that it is a source of irritation for the sales staff competing against it.
You would need to be thick-skinned to sell cars. Customers come in armed for a fight and now not just with an attitude, but with a Google-load of information. They know (or think they know) how much their car is worth, having studied the used-car forecourts, and any difference between this is deemed as theft from the salesman. “Every car we get in would tend to require around €700–€800 worth of preparation before it goes on to the forecourt,” says general manager Nigel Brennan. Cars in dealerships like this come with history checks, a warranty and as much security as there could be with a used car.
A front-loaded registration system means that dealerships have difficulty managing cash flow, they have to plan their stockholding with military precision, and there will be days like today where it is all too quiet.
The showroom reminds me a little of a nightclub. The lads all line up facing the windows, watching and waiting for new prospects to arrive, before carefully and subtly making their move. There is charm, flirting, and phone numbers exchanged, but more often than not, rejection. But they love it. The banter, laughter and excitement and the knowledge that a busier period is just around the corner makes up for any heartache and it’s infectious.
My day is drawing to a close and I’ve a fresh perspective. There are still car dealerships out there getting it wrong, with poorly prepared cars and poorly trained staff. This isn’t one of them though. I shake hands with the lads, who have been patient, helpful and kind.As to my sales commission, well I’m happy to let them reinvest it in the business. It should cover the cost of a couple of scones for Friday’s sales meeting.
For a video diary of Paddy Comyn’s day at the dealership, visit The Irish Times Motors Blog at irishtimes.com/motors
