My name is Steve Mills. I'm a new car salesman with Taylor Lexus Toyota. I do strictly new Toyota and I've being doing this for just slightly over a year. I have a love of cars and I like the automotive industry so I thought, well, what the heck, I'll give it a shot. I mean, I enjoy selling and I like working with people, so I thought there's no better place to do it other than here. So, I gave it a shot and was hired and the rest is history.


[Typical Work Day:]

My honest average day starts out at 8:30 am in the morning with a cigarette, a cup of coffee and the Leader Post. I start making some phone calls from customers that I've talked to earlier in the week, last week, and people that I'm working with to hopefully close the deal. And that sort of continues on throughout the day whenever you've got time.

There are more slow [times]. There are lots of slow times where you really don't have that much to do but there's a lot of work out on the lot to be done (like moving cars around), and there's always customers around too. And then there's the work when someone walks into the show room and says, "I want to buy a car." Then there's the hour and a half or two-hour long process that it basically requires in order for someone to be thoroughly informed about a vehicle before they buy it. You have to do a full product presentation, demonstration, drive, consultation, find out if this is the exact car that they want and just sort of go from there.

[Personal Characteristics & Attitudes:]

You have to have a very strong work ethic. You have to be prepared to put in long hours. You have to be personable. This job is not a forty-hour a week job. It's more along the lines of fifty to sixty. Days off are a luxury but the earning potential is phenomenal. But you have to be prepared to put the work in to do it.

[Education & Training:]

I actually went to university at the University of Saskatchewan for a year and I decided that the university route wasn't something I was prepared to take at that time. I started as a part-time sales person at a Radio Shack store, in Saskatoon actually, and I worked my way up. By the time I left I was the Assistant Manager of the store and I'd never sold anything in my life. I guess having some previous sales experience and maybe having a degree of some sort (an Arts Degree or something like that) would definitely be a bonus, but the big trick to it all is you have to show the Manager that you're aggressive. And if that means coming back and bothering him eight times a day, then you do it.

[Skills Needed:]

The basic knack to this job is that when you come in you have to be able to talk to people. You can't be afraid. You can't run and hide in a corner when someone comes into the show room. You have to have a natural knack for selling. If you don't have the natural knack then they'll show you what it is and hopefully you'll develop it over time. You have to be personable I guess is what I'm trying to get at (saying it the long way like a typical salesman does); but you have to be personable and be able to have a good attitude about it and it all falls together.

There's none of the guys in checkered suits running around any more with cigars hanging out of their mouths saying, "So, you want to buy this baby? It's a pretty snappy little automobile." You know, there's none of that any more. It's a lot more professional. Today's buyers are a lot more informed than they were fifteen, twenty, even ten years ago. A lot of the times a customer will walk into the showroom knowing more about the car than you do. So, you have to be very informed and you have to be sure that you know what you're talking about - your own product as well as the competition's. There's nothing worse than an uninformed salesman. There's nothing worse than standing there, looking at someone who doesn't know what they're showing you. So, there' s a lot of research that goes into that.

You have to adapt to each customer. There are not two people in this world that are alike and you have to adapt to the way that they want to be treated - perceptive is a good word.

You have to have a very good instinct of what your customer wants, what he needs, when he's going to buy a car. You know what you have to do in any situation is you have to take control as a salesperson, but the trick to it all is letting the customer think that he's got the control and you have to be very subtle. But you still have to have leadership qualities in order to do this.

And if you want to succeed, if you want to go any further than a salesman, you have to have leadership qualities and strong sales numbers. And if you want to get into management or in eventually owning your own dealership, that's the way you have to do it.

[Attitude & Positive Behaviour:]

It takes a certain breed of people to do this and you have to have a good attitude. You have to have a positive outlook on life. If you have a bad attitude, it's immediately passed on to your customers and that's the quickest way to scare someone off. And there're times when you don't feel like it and that's a good time to take a day off.

[Most Satisfying Aspect:]

It's fun. It's fun to be able to come to work and know that I can make $500 or $1000 a day if I want to. It's fun with the guys I work with. I wouldn't say I love the job but I love what I'm doing. Does that make sense? I love the fact that I'm working in the automotive industry because it's sort of a dream that I've always had and this is a lot of fun. But there are other areas I want to pursue too, but you've got to start somewhere and this is a good place to start.