Sales – Small Stuff

For the past 6 weeks, we’ve had a delightful British PhD student continuing her research in our office as part of her program. Tomorrow is her last day in the office, so we put together a lunch seminar where we could all get pizza, and she could present some of her findings. It was all very interesting, even if the science of it went way over my head.

Part of her research involves Flow Cytometry. I won’t go into the details of her research (she’s about to publish a paper and still needs to finish her thesis), but one anecdote really struck me. She was discussing the wide array of experience of the subjects in her study (all flow technicians), and one of our colleagues asked if a particular skew in the data was due to inexperience vs. experience. She laughed and told us this story:

Every participant was asked how long they had been using this technology. In one group, she had an older man that said he’d been using this technology for 8 years next to a young researcher that had only been using it for less than a year.

Which one do you think had more experience, and therefore would have better understanding of the technology and data?

Obviously, she assumed the one with 8 years of experience would have the greater expertise and clearly accurate results. It turns out that the man who said he’d been using this technology for 8 years had only used the technology once… 8 years ago. The one that had been using it for less than a year used it on a daily basis and was far more accurate in his data analysis.

Now which one would you trust to use the technology or to read the data in the correct way? What if the results of the test determined the effectiveness of your cancer treatment or what the correct dose of a treatment should be?

I suppose it is all context and self-promotion. The first man wanted to be an ideal subject in the study with the confidence and bravado of an expert, even though his experience was simply +1 of the average person (those who do not work in labs). In contrast, the young researcher may have felt she didn’t have enough experience, and therefore would be judged unworthy.*

Who would over-inflate their experience? Almost everyone, you’ll find.

In my careers, I’ve had to vet many job applicants and decide whether or not they were worth interviewing based solely on their resumes. What is a resume used for other than self-promotion? It’s an audition on paper to get you in the door. Most (we hope) are truthful, but a lot that I have seen are… ‘enhanced,’ shall we say? (I also have opinions on multiple-page resumes, but that’s for another time.). We just recently had a situation in my office where a temp that was hired obviously did not have the Office suite experience she said she did.

When I was looking for a job, I certainly tailored my resume and my cover letters to highlight how perfect I was for the position they were looking to fill. I didn’t lie, though. Like the older man above, however, I did list software that I had used in the last 20 years, just in case one of my future employers exclaimed:

“He knows Artsoft (an out-of-date DOS-based ticketing finance system)! We must hire him!!”

In my mind, I was showing that I was adaptable and could easily become proficient in a variety of software and platforms, but I can see now how it may have looked like I was just throwing as many up there as I could. (Side note: On the train home this evening, someone had a backpack advertising Word Perfect. Remember that? Is it still in use?)

For my current position, I was specifically asked in my second interview (first face-to-face) if I knew PowerPoint. Without hesitation (thankfully), I said that while I was familiar with it, it had been many years since I had had to use it, so I would need to have a refresher. I went home that day, downloaded it, and familiarized myself before my next interview.

You see, my boss has continuously used it on an almost-daily basis for over 13 years. Based solely on the interviewer’s one question, I was afraid that she would ask me to do something complicated that I wouldn’t know how to do, and they’d find out I’m a fraud. Gradually, I came to realize that she wasn’t using it to its full potential – mostly because she has so many ideas in her head, she can’t take the time to make one thought look good before moving on to the next. So out of my own personal need for her brilliant ideas to come across in a more appealing and accessible way, I’ve taught myself tricks and functions in PP that she never bothered with. Now, we have fun coming up with graphics or animations to make the message more dynamic. Two weeks ago, she drew a crazy matrix of lines and boxes to demonstrate her point on a whiteboard. A colleague tried to reinvent it in a linear way, but it didn’t make sense. I recreated the confusing (to me, clear to everyone else) graphics directly from her drawings, and she thought I was the most brilliant person in the room (for a change) because it’s not something she could have done.

Now anytime there is a graphic needed, she sketches it up and I make it. Together, we bring our left brain and right brain focuses together to create a better product. It’s not about hours logged of experience, it’s about comfort with complimentary aspects of the software. I can easily put “proficient in PowerPoint” on my resume now.

Have you ever enhanced your experience to impress someone or to get a job? Did it work? I’d love to hear your stories.

*In a similar, though tangential, example, think of a senior sales manager and a junior salesperson. The manager left the field 10 years ago, but oversees, mentors and motivates the sales staff. The manager has overall experience in the industry and the staff has real-time, current experience in the field. If this were real estate, for example, which experience would you want most in your corner as a seller? The manager may know the history and have a long-view of the market, so he tells you to price at value to be safe, but the agent just sold the crappy house down the street for $30k over asking price because she knows what is happening in the current market, the inventory, and the buyers. Ideally, you want them working together.

When you look at my resume, it is clear to recruiters that my easiest and most recent marketable skills are in Sales. This is not my happy place, but I know that it is what I have going for me right now. In thinking about Sales positions to apply for, I have run through them all: Real Estate (I start classes today!), inside sales, Pharmaceutical, Tech, Auto, etc. I determined early-on that I definitely did not want to be a car salesman. The culture is not for me. That feeling was reinforced this week.

We are in a unique situation that we have never been in before, my husband and I. For the first time in our lives, we own our cars outright. I am currently on my third car. I still owed money on the financing of my first car (a black Dodge Neon named Effie) when I traded her in to buy my second car (silver Hyundai Elantra), and did the same with that one to get this one (dark grey Hyundai Elantra). My first and second cars had been run into the ground with some major problems, so it made more sense to trade-in than fix them. This one is in much better shape, it is paid off, and I hold the title (not the bank). I can see myself trading this one in within the next year or so for an AWD (Hello, New England Winters!) Hyundai Tucson. I would have chosen that last time, but for the color (white with gold trim) and the cost at the time. I am also in the enviable position of having paid my car insurance premiums before they were due, so I don’t have any car-related bills (other than gas) until 2017. This is a blessing during unemployment, believe me!

However, my husband has been bitten by the bug already, and he is also interested in the Tucson. As I am still unemployed, I don’t think this is the best time to be adding to our monthly expenses, but we went to a few dealerships to check them out anyway.

The first one we went to was the new location of the dealership we bought our last 4 cars from. They were courteous, knowledgeable, and appreciated our loyalty. The showroom was clean and well-ordered as was the lot, and the salesman came out to meet us after we had looked through the lot for a few minutes. We went for a test drive, we talked numbers and specs, we learned about the different features, and were not given the hard-sell by the manager. When it is time for my car, I’m going back there.

The second one we went to will never see my business, and it won’t see my husband’s if I can help it. We walked around the lot for a long time trying to see what they had. Where the other one had the cars parked together by model and year, this one was chaos. The 2016’s were mixed in with the 2017’s, the used cars with the new, and the different models all over the place. Service workers drove through with no regard for our safety, and no one came to talk to us, though we were out there for far longer than we were at the other place. When we walked into the showroom, do you think they jumped up to talk to us? No. My husband had to walk up to a guy in the back of the showroom to ask if someone could help him. That guy said that he was busy, but didn’t offer anyone else. There was a woman sitting at her computer watching us the whole time, but not volunteering. Only when both my husband and the other salesmen looked at her did she say she could help. We came to find out (in an very unprofessional conversation later) that she had had a bad experience with a trashy man at the end of her shift the night before, and when she saw us walk in, she “thought: Hell no! Not again!” Way to win-us-over, lady… Anyway, she talked in circles and a vagueness that wouldn’t have been noticeable if we hadn’t already been talking to other salespeople about the same models. She seemed distracted and not very interested in selling anything to us, though we were friendly and affable. She continued her tact of not caring and pretending to be ‘on our side.’ Given the other stories she told us, and the way she interacted with the manager as we were driving away, that was obviously an act. I’m sure there are people that feel that they can trust her and feel comfortable with her, but I was not one of those people. The showroom was messy and they didn’t have any brochures for the car we wanted. The brochure racks were half-full and disorganized, like everything else in this place.

Did I mention that my husband told her exactly what he wanted? No? He did. When we told her the second time what we were looking for and referenced cars we had seen in her lot, she got frustrated and made us go back outside to look at the models. Even she didn’t know where they were and couldn’t find them. She took the number off of one of the cars (not one that we would have bought, mind you), just to “run the numbers on the financing.” My husband had shown up with credit score and loan pre-approval with APR in hand, but they didn’t seem to believe any of it. We made sure they did not run a check, risking a hit to the score. They went into the manager’s office and she came back with $2800 off the sticker price. When we asked what that was, she said she didn’t know, but it included the trade-in and “some rebates.” We made her go back and find out what those were, knowing the deals that the other dealerships were doing, and knowing the resale value of the trade-in. She came back to say the trade-in was $1500 and the rest were “rebates.” We told her that we knew there was a $500 loyalty rebate and a $500 summer sale rebate, so really he was discounting the sticker price by $300. Also, the resale value of the car was nearly 5 times what they were offering.

The manager came out (I forgot to mention that she was in jeans and a casual top, and the manager was in a too-tight red polo shirt and jeans. I saw one man in a shirt and tie.) to see how we were doing. I was done being there, and it was time for lunch, so I told him that we knew what the rebates were, and that the trade-in was worth more. He blustered that he used to be a cop, so he was always clear and transparent with everything. Right. We had to go back out to the parking lot to find the actual car that my husband would consider, which was $2500 less. So they went back to his office to talk some more and go through those numbers. After a few minutes, they came back out and told my husband that they would sell him that car for $— per month. Period. No discussion. He was happy, because that’s what he wanted. I, of course, would have none of that.

“How did you come up with that number?” I asked the manager. “Well, I moved some numbers around, and I gave you some other rebates and discounts.” he said, not answering my question. I pressed him, but he would give the same answer. “So you gave us more for the trade-in, or you found other rebates?” I asked, knowing he didn’t, and he admitted that he was giving us 1800 for the car, and the two 500 rebates. So… the same deal. Anyway, the answer was enough for my husband, so they promised to hold that offer for 24 hours. The saleswoman told us that she was off the next day, so it would really be held for 48 hours. That’s when she took us outside for her unprofessional stories.

Here’s what the manager was doing: He refused to commit to a price, and that is where I knew he was not dealing fairly. If he guarantees what your monthly payments are (in this case, 72 months), he controls what the final price of the car will be after you’ve already agreed. If you take this deal, he will work to get the lowest % on your financing, because then he can declare a higher cost on your car, giving them more profit and higher commission. It could turn out that we get 2.5%, which would mean that we are essentially paying the sticker price for the car, and not getting any trade-in value or discounts at all. That, to me, is crooked dealing. If he was as honest and transparent as he says he is, then he would have answered my questions and told us what the new deal price would be, not take us for suckers.

As we were driving away, they watched us, talking and laughing with each other.

So I would be happy to be in a Sales position, but not at the cost of my integrity or soul. Car dealerships, being naturally much more competitive than other industries, tend to breed a culture that is sickening to me.

Tag: Sales

Experience

Why I won’t be a car salesman…