I want to leave my high-paying job to sell BMWs -- am I crazy?
August 13, 2013 8:51 PM   Subscribe

Long story short, I graduated two years ago and broke into a prestigious industry with high pay and high stress that I thought I would at least find interesting Very soon after joining, I quickly realized the job was not interesting at all. I believe my role does not have as big of an impact as I initially thought it would, and most of all, I don't believe in the industry anymore. I'm tired of the politics and I started off on the wrong foot, which ultimately tainted people's perception of me early on. As a result, I've had motivation issues from early on and my performance has been average. I am one of the few people in my class of hires who was not promoted this last cycle. Oh, and I had been dealing with social anxiety and depression for the longest time, which had a huge, huge, huge impact on my performance.

I have no future at this gig anymore and you'll see in my posting history that I am deeply passionate about cars.

I've been looking at new jobs for a couple months, but there just isn't anything within the corporate world that really gets me going. Instead, I want to indulge in my passion for cars and sell BMWs (my favorite brand).

The strengths I now have, now that I've successfully treated my social anxiety and dysthymia, ironically enough, are social skills. I'm naturally an introvert and I have excellent communication and listening skills. I'm so much more confident and no longer have those mental roadblocks that in the past literally prevented me from speaking like a 'normal' person with a healthy dose of self-esteem / confidence.

It's almost as if I've channelled all the negative patterns I developed from being socially anxious (reading body language, reading people's emotions, etc.) into core strengths. I can so easily connect with people now and open them up in conversations by being an active listener while also contributing my own personal experiences / opinions to conversations. As a result, I'm finding that I'm actually a really likable guy that people want to be around.

So... now I want to combine these interpersonal skills and my passion for cars into a 'career' in selling cars. I'd most definitely be supremely over-qualified in terms of education and work experience, but I don't have any sales experience. But, sales are a skill I do want to develop and I firmly believe sales skills can help ANYONE.

I want to quit my job ASAP and apply for a job at my local BMW dealership. For the first time ever, just thinking about it makes me tingle with excitement and all the negative aspects of car sales that I've read up on simply look like 'workable' obstacles that I can challenge and surpass. My past, old, mentally-ill self would have interpreted these obstacles as firm roadblocks that ultimately would prevent me from even considering such a career.

Am I crazy for wanting to do this?
posted by 6spd to Work & Money (25 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
No. It's your life, it's something you're passionate about, and you've thought it through. Do it!
posted by Unified Theory at 8:57 PM on August 13, 2013


No, but apply for the dealership job before you quit your current job. General good life advice is don't willingly leave a job without another job to go to.

Also, you might want to research job conditions, satisfaction and compensation before you assume that it's going to better at a dealership. You might love it, but you might find it just as competitive and status-driven as your current job. Learn a bit about it first.
posted by Miko at 8:57 PM on August 13, 2013 [8 favorites]


How is your ability to handle stress? I have worked above a dealership for 3 years now and not a day goes by that there isn't a shouting match down there. Everyone else I know who has worked car sales corroborates that it is incredibly high-pressure and high-tension.

Also, someone who has never seen a car but knows how to sell is a lot more likely a hire than someone who knows everything about cars and has never sold anything. It is a lot easier to teach the selling points of a product than it is to teach someone to sell (in the active, salesmanship sense) something.

Long story short, if you've never been comfortable in an intense (not just simply stressful), personality-driven environment, and never sold anything professionally, don't quit your day job to sell cars. Literally.
posted by griphus at 9:10 PM on August 13, 2013 [9 favorites]


I think if you want to do it, why not?

That said, a lot of your problems at your old job are things that are problems at lots of jobs. It might be the case that you love working with cars so much, and you are such a natural salesperson, that the politics, dealing with people's negative perceptions of you, getting jaded about the industry, realizing the day to day isn't that interesting, etc. will never be a problem for you. But it could also be the case that the grass is greener on the car dealership side. So I would think very seriously about that before making any decisions you can't change your mind about.

Then again, you're (I'm assuming) in your early 20's and it doesn't sound like you have any big commitments like a mortgage, kids, etc. So even if you end up making another career transition in a couple more years, so what?
posted by Sara C. at 9:27 PM on August 13, 2013


selling cars is high stress and long hours. i have a family member who has been successful in the car business, so i see this second hand. if you are really good at it, it can be high paying, but probably not high paying if you're mediocre or bad.

it's interesting that you don't say what your current industry is. what are the skills involved exactly? for example, if you're an engineer now, most of that knowledge will not be useful as a car salesman.

... also, there is politics in the car business. selling cars at the lowest level is probably not something you want to be doing for the next 50 years. it's a young person's game. ideally, if you want to get to the "high pay" part, you'll want to work your way up to manage a sales team and eventually manage a whole dealership.

i don't know if you should or shouldn't make this move, just that these are things to think about. if it's the right move for you, it will be the right move in one month and the right move in 3 months. if you are not terrible at your job, and if your social skills have improved as much as you say they have, your current situation may change.

another thought: is it only BMWs you're interested in, or selling cars in general, and BMWs sound like the best place in the industry to be? if it's the former i would really question your motivations.
posted by cupcake1337 at 9:32 PM on August 13, 2013 [1 favorite]


you went into your current job thinking it was going to be interesting and found it wasn't. not to rain on your parade but you may be doing the same thing with the car sales. what about getting a part-time job selling cars in the evenings or weekends to see if you even like it before quitting your existing job? also, do some informational interviews and ask these sales people how happy they are doing this day in and day out for years on end. chances are your idealism and expectations are what is causing your discontent in your first job and that may repeat in a car sales job. sales is extremely stressful. your thinking seems a bit all-or-nothing to me so i think it would be good to not make any rash decisions. have you considered getting a job in your existing field in a new company? entry level jobs are not typically known to be all that fascinating, especially ones in prestigious/conservative industries where there isn't much creativity. you might want to think about talking to a career counselor to get some professional feedback.
posted by wildflower at 9:55 PM on August 13, 2013


You might want to read Edmund's Confessions of a Car Salesman for a take on that career.
posted by meowzilla at 10:20 PM on August 13, 2013 [2 favorites]


You want to sell cars. Fine. But an important question to ask is: even if you are good at it and sell a lot of cars, will you make enough money? And what will you do during the next recession when car sales in this cyclical business go into deep hibernation? And how do you want your career to evolve? Do you want to be a sales manager? General manager of a dealership? Or have a corporate role?
posted by Dansaman at 10:31 PM on August 13, 2013


From having had a job for several months that put me inside a car dealership, as well as suffering some of your same psych issues, let me just offer this: Someone with social anxiety is not a good fit for car sales. I mean, it could work if you had a way to cushion your learning curve (many people doing floor sales start out -- swallow hard -- commission only, meaning you don't eat until you sell a car).

And anyway, the thing is that new car sales are still down. There are a lot of experienced car salesmen and women who could jump in ahead of you anywhere you want to go.

And yeah, being focused on BMWs means you'll only have a handful of dealers in a given metro you could work for. It's a territorial (literally) business.

I know what it's like to re-evaluate your career -- believe me, I wish I could still earn the big bucks in IT like I used to, but I hate the idea of going back to the industry. I switched gears and I'm trying property management and historic rehab (sort of picking up my parents' business) and prefer the challenges (creative and physical) immensely. But if I were you I'd think longer and harder about exactly what it is that has made you a poor fit for this job and perhaps this career.

That is, start from the job and consider whether it would be the same in other organizations, and then consider whether the industry itself turns you off and you can't move laterally and be happy, and then consider whether your education, training, and experience qualify you for a just different enough job in another industry.
posted by dhartung at 12:46 AM on August 14, 2013


What makes you think your "depression and social anxiety" (otherwise known as being a normal human, and I recommend you avoid the 20-something and AskMetafilter craze for self-pathologizing every failure and unhappiness as not your own fault because you are "depressed" or "anxious," because in truth who the hell isn't?) won't interfere with selling cars?

Have you ever sold anything that depends on salesmanship to convince people to buy intangible expensive "luxury" versions of commodities like cars or wine? I have. It takes a relentless level of feigned good spirits and fake friendliness, often towards odious people, and is as intensely social as any career in the world. Selling is not for those with self-proclaimed "social anxiety."

Selling cars is especially brutally competitive and has a long apprenticeship curve (and also entails more knowledge of fashion and finance than actually loving cars as machines).. You are not going to walk into a floor sales job at BMW. Have you considered that you might have to sell Kias for ten years first?

You aren't "overqualified" to sell cars (or do any other trade), by the way, and I recommend dropping that superior attitude before you find yourself on a floor with fifty year old guys who could sell circles around you and have military experience or an engineering degree. It's an eclectic profession, but the only qualification that matters is *can you sell*? It has nothing to do with knowing about cars, but everything to do with understanding people.

My advice: buck up, pull yourself together, see a therapist if you are really depressed more than the average working stiff, focus on doing your current job better so you can leave with good recommendations and your pride intact, save some money, learn about the car business, and don't be a quitter just because things aren't as easy as you hoped they'd be. They never are and that won't change from starting over. You're talking about running away from something, not toward something else, so man up and don't do that. No Beemer dealer wants to hire someone who quits when things get tough. Nor does any other job worth having.

/old man advice
posted by spitbull at 4:33 AM on August 14, 2013 [12 favorites]


//What makes you think your "depression and social anxiety" (otherwise known as being a normal human, and I recommend you avoid the 20-something and AskMetafilter craze for self-pathologizing every failure and unhappiness as not your own fault because you are "depressed" or "anxious," because in truth who the hell isn't?) won't interfere with selling cars?//

Quoted for double emphasis. If you really have a diagnosable anxiety problem, you will hate, hate, hate, selling cars. And if you don't, buck up and deal with life. We all fail at most of what we attempt in life. That is how the world operates. Some people find their calling at 21, some of us are 45 and still don't know what we want to be when we grow up. The idea that we all "deserve" to love our job is horseshit. It's called a job for a reason. It's a nice bonus if we love our job, but I'm pretty sure our fathers and grandfathers who worked the lines in manufacturing plants of went down into a coal mine every day didn't love their jobs. But they did them, kept a decent attitude, and found fulfillment in their family, friends, and community.
posted by COD at 5:53 AM on August 14, 2013 [4 favorites]


I just re-read your question and wanted to add something building on the above comments: your interpersonal skills, while a great asset, aren't going to get you far in sales. Active listening and in-depth knowledge of what you're selling only works when you encounter a person who knows what they want to buy and just need some guidance around the details. People who know what they want are quick, easy and rare, and most likely someone with seniority will get their sale.

Entry-level sales, most of the time, you'll have some clueless shmuck who knows the general shape/number of doors of the vehicle they want, how much they want to pay (under cost), and couldn't give a shit about the details. And that is the person you have to convince to put food in your mouth.

And "convince" in this case doesn't mean telling them how great the car works, because they don't really care how great the car works. Either because they know they're buying a (possibly luxury) car and it damn well better work, or because they're putting their trust in you not to completely screw them. Convincing them means proving, by any means you can, that this car, right here, at this price, will make their life better, their day sunnier, their sky clearer, guaranteed.

And all that doesn't even cover the amount of pure aggression customers walk into dealerships with, for very good reason.
posted by griphus at 6:44 AM on August 14, 2013 [3 favorites]


Apply for a job at a dealership part-time and see how it goes. I'm willing to bet that it's NOTHING like you think it is.

Selling cars is a very hard way to earn a living. Half of the people who do it, never make a dime (it's almost always 100% commission.)

I know a guy who hung out at a dealer for 3 months, every day, 12 hours a day and never sold a damn thing.

Liking cars and selling cars are two completely different things.

Selling luxury automobiles is the dernier cri of selling cars. No one walks into a BMW dealership and says, "HI, I'd like to sell BMWs. I've never sold anything, let alone cars, but you can hire me and I can learn on your prospects." Correction, the guy who DID say that was laughed out of the joint.

Start by selling Hyundais or Kias. Learn the rhythm of the sales process. Get out there and do it successfully for a few years and you MIGHT have a chance at selling at a luxury dealership.

I wouldn't say that you're crazy, but I will say that you sound incredibly naive and unrealistic in your expectations. Because you have a degree and a tony job now, you think that being a car salesman will be money for jam because shit, uneducated people do it.

The fact of the matter is salesmanship is an art and a science. Those of us who are good salespeople were born, not made. Being likable is only a sliver of it.

By all means though, try it part time and see how it goes. But don't make the mistake of giving all your possessions to the guru to sell flowers at the airport.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:54 AM on August 14, 2013 [1 favorite]


As for your day job: Don't let your bad experience at one company sour your love for the field or industry. I grew to loathe hi-tech due to the nerd machismo and politics. Then I met a mentor who was passionate about perfecting the craft, and it reminded me why I went into it in the first place. I learned so much. So try moving to another company, and then another, before you call it quits on the field you've trained for.

If you like cars, apprentice a mechanic or a paint/body shop. Write a BMW blog. Join a BMW driver's club, meet at the race track etc. There are ways to transform this passion into a fabulous hobby or side business, but have a good plan, and execute the plan patiently. Try not to react to the shitstorm at work. (I know, I know, easy to say.... especially when it IS a shitstorm!)
posted by St. Peepsburg at 7:09 AM on August 14, 2013 [1 favorite]


You've gotten a ton of good advice about the life of selling cars in general. One of my questions would be - do you have social connections, perhaps at the existing high-paying job, into people who buy BMWs? I do sales of a sort that is both B2B and B2C, and on the B2C side I can tell you - you sell who you know. At least, those are the ones you'll be calling to come take test drives while you're trying to build clientele.

Also, can you handle the role-strain that sometimes emerges when selling to friends? I can tell you - my friends are not always my best customers...

If all your friends drive Cavaliers and Camrys, this will make it a bit harder.
posted by randomkeystrike at 7:21 AM on August 14, 2013


I am deeply passionate about cars.

Everyone I know who is deeply passionate about cars is a mechanic and/or does restoration - full time, part time, or as a hobby.

Everyone I know who is or was a car salesman is deeply passionate about making money and seems to intrinsically enjoy the sort of "semi-combative persuasion" aspect of selling things. Many of them have sold boats, planes, shoes, company services, steel ingots or whatever either before or after they sold cars. Being knowledgable about what you're selling is useful. Being passionate about what you're selling is not necessarily an advantage or a requirement. Being passionate about selling is definitely an advantage.

I'd most definitely be supremely over-qualified in terms of education and work experience,

Well, no, you're not, because,

I don't have any sales experience.

Not to put salespeople on some kind of pedestal, or to claim that they're necessarily some unique sub-species of human being, but sales work experience is definitely different from many other kinds of work experience. You are under-qualified. Your enthusiasm might work to your advantage to get your foot in the door, but I'd be willing to bet that a dealerships' hiring manager would be more interested in a guy who sold mattresses for three years and doesn't know shit about cars.

I firmly believe sales skills can help ANYONE.

I think you're not totally out of your gourd, here - a few years working music instrument retail (which included a certain amount of commission sales work) did quite a bit for me in developing my own social skills. But even that relatively laid-back, low-key sales experience was enough to convince me that I Am Not A Salesperson.


So, in all seriousness, good for you for overcoming your various negative attributes, and good for you in thinking about applying your new skills and attitudes to a different job. And if you're young, footloose, and fancy-free, then on some level I'd say, "Sure, fuck it, give it a shot. You might get lucky, you might love it."

But you're getting a lot of cautionary advice because you also seem fairly naive and uninformed about the practical realities of sales work - not least of which is that going directly from "no sales experience" to "selling Beemers" seems about as likely as going from "I just bought a bass guitar" to "Rock Star" in a matter of days. So you might not be crazy, but you might be setting yourself up for crushing disappointment when the real world doesn't match your dream.

So in practice I'd second all those above who suggest applying before you quit your current job, or give car sales a shot part-time to see what it's really like, or be mentally prepared to get a car sales job for a "lesser" brand, or think of other ways you can use your newly-acquired social skills, possibly in your current industry.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:44 AM on August 14, 2013 [2 favorites]


//Being passionate about what you're selling is not necessarily an advantage or a requirement.//

It might even be a detriment. If you are passionate about cars you'll know when the company line you are expected to fish with is complete bunk. And in the car business, that line will always be complete bunk. When I was selling Sun servers the most successful sales people on the team frequently needed my help just operating their laptops. Meanwhile, I had a hard time looking my clients in the eyes and pitching them on $25,000 4-CPU servers to use as web servers, when I knew damn well a $1000 pizza box server would be just fine for them. I've done fine in tech sales, but I hate myself some days when I know I just sold a solution I never would have bought myself.
posted by COD at 9:57 AM on August 14, 2013 [2 favorites]


Give a lot of thought to the answers above, and read spitbull's advice twice. The new job will have some of the same problems (politics, you will become disillusioned, etc) and you're starting at a disadvantage.

Once you've got a chance to leave your current job with some good recommendations in hand, and plenty of money saved up, then sure, keep in mind the advice but go ahead and try it. You're young exactly once. But have your backup plan in place first. What do you do if you hate it, or if you can't make any money at it?
posted by KAS at 10:14 AM on August 14, 2013


Response by poster: Thanks all for the responses.

To be quite honest, I'm going to have to get a little defensive here and say that I've been unhappy at my job for pretty much the entire two years and have been wanting to quit since over a year ago. But I stuck it out and committed to two years. I'm now at the two year mark. I absolutely loathe being perceived as a 'quitter' when I stuck out my two-year commitment at my firm. Most people in this role are expected to go to business school or to a different firm at the two year mark. No one ever stays longer than three years, and even staying for three years is perceived as a bit strange as people begin to wonder what the hell your plans are.

As for my social anxiety / depression -- that absolutely did have an impact on how I was perceived at my job initially as I came off as awkward, nervous, and lacking confidence. It was still tolerable to the point where I wasn't an absolute mess, but it definitely impacted my performance negatively.

Two months ago, I had to take a leave of absence due to my mild depression developing into full-blown depression. During those two months, I sought a lot of therapy, have been taking an antidepressant, and have successfully combatted my depression and social anxiety. I feel so much more confident and comfortable in my skin than I have ever before and I have posted so many anonymous questions in the past on AskMeFi pertaining to my social anxiety and depression.

As for when I said I was 'over-qualified,' I meant that in the sense that I have a college degree from a good private school and have been working in a "prestigious" industry (management consulting) -- two things you don't typically find in car salesmen. I never meant to say that I was over-qualified in terms of sales skills. I already know that I am under-qualified in that skill set.

All-in-all, I KNOW all these perils of car sales that you all mentioned. I already read the edmunds report. I'm already aware of all this and I'm disappointed in myself because the way I phrased my original question definitely makes me come off as you are all describing: weak, naive, unprepared, delusional.

As for all the posters who have had sales jobs before, I can't help but imagine that you took those jobs more out of necessity / desperation than pure 'want' and drive like I do. If not, please correct me. But that definitely makes me think, "no surprise you hated it."

I just don't think I'm cut out for corporate. I hate the politics. I hate all the bullshit. I hate all of that because there's so little I can do to control those aspects. As a junior guy, I'm expected to just take shit and smile.

"No shit! You gotta pay your dues, kid!" you say.

Yeah? What about my superiors who are so intelligent and so accomplished, getting the same kind of shit on top of bigger, nastier shit out of my pay-grade from their bosses. I don't want to be that guy 20 years from now. It's an endless fucking cycle that never ends until you're literally the top dog.

Call me a naive, entitled Millenial, but I absolutely detest the idea that a job is just a job that kinda sucks so you can pay your bills. No -- EFF THAT. I want a fulfilling job I love and I honestly believe that trying out car sales is a step in the right direction of figuring out what it is that gets me going.

I want to get off this cookie-cutter corporate path that the overwhelming majority of society expects everyone to take. I see it in all your responses and no offense and I'm not at all surprised at the overwhelming "you're making a mistake; reconsider and apply for other corporate jobs" responses I'm getting.

I'm financially secure and have sizable assets, investments, retirement accounts, and cash. I have enough money saved up to live without a job for over a year. I'm smart with my money and I really truly believe that if this sales job clicks for me, that I can be wildly successful at it and eventually run my own dealership in the future. It's a hell of a pipe dream, but it's a dream. In fact, it's the first career-related ream I've ever had in my 24 years of existence that actually is fueled from some source of organic passion.

Does this still make me sound crazy?
posted by 6spd at 4:07 PM on August 14, 2013


Does this still make me sound crazy?

Well, since you asked...yes.
posted by like_a_friend at 5:09 PM on August 14, 2013 [2 favorites]


I mean, dude. Fine, follow your own drum bliss and yadda. But, uh, don't be surprised that when you ask "should I do this," well-meaning people might actually attempt to point out--from personal lived experience and authoritative sources--possible blind spots and booby traps. And others might even say "no, you shouldn't."

In fact, it's the first career-related ream I've ever had

If the experiences of people posting in this thread are any indication, this could be the best Freudian slip ever.
posted by like_a_friend at 5:13 PM on August 14, 2013


I feel obligated to point out that you will still have to take "shit" from people, although it will probably be coming from both your bosses and the customers that you deal with.
posted by PrettyKnitty at 4:06 AM on August 15, 2013 [1 favorite]


I think the point that you are missing is that car sales is not "getting off the cookie cutter corporate path." For all the stuff you listed as not liking about your current job, 75% of that is going to be worse in car sales.
posted by COD at 5:20 AM on August 15, 2013 [1 favorite]


By all means, leave management consulting. Maybe it isn't right for you. Maybe it is, but you won't know it until you've tried a few more things. Chances are, whatever you do, it isn't what you are going to do for the rest of your life.

But selling cars, excuse me, BMWs, well, why not, but you asked if it was a good idea, and you got some damn good reasons why it isn't, and given your follow-up, it still sounds like sales, paricularly car sales, isn't a great fit for you.

If you are bound and determined, consider some other options, like selling used cars at a place that specializes in higher-end cars because it is going to draw on and exercise your knowledge and enthusiasm a lot more than trying to move the years or last years models of a company with a relatively narrow lineup.

Or see if you can talk yourself into something at an independent shop that specializes in BMW service. Pitch your management consulting experince as an asset to help them growor streamline their business. You can also do hands-on sales work for aftermaket mods, service packages, etc. Once you have your foot in the door, get some shop experience, because that has to be more satisfying than just selling new cars, right? Run track days, etc, whatever floats your boat.

And, for now, do you really need to quit your job? You've got weekends, right, evenings? A lot of cars get sold outside of normal office hours. Why not keep your savings intact for a while longer so you have more time to pursue your dreams, because everything takes longer than you think it will. I'm sure your bosses give you shit to do on the weekends. Start saying "no," no, not actually "no," but something that makes it clear that they need to find another way to get it done because you aren't going to. It'll be weeks, maybe even months before they start take action to discipline or terminate you and that is money in the bank. You might even find that you get treated with more respect when you say no, particularly if it gives you room to think of and suggest alternatives.
posted by Good Brain at 2:05 AM on August 16, 2013 [1 favorite]


As a junior guy, I'm expected to just take shit and smile.

welcome to the world of junior sales associate! but seriously, there's politics and bullshit in every job, though not necessarily the same amount in every industry, at every level. if you sell cars you will have to take bullshit from your boss and the customers.

you should check out the BLS occupation finder.
posted by cupcake1337 at 5:02 PM on August 19, 2013


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