Tales from Sales: Car Dealer Cannibalism

It’s like an evil paradox. Logically, selling new cars naturally pits you against competitors from other brands; market share is king. Large metro areas often have multiple dealers peddling metal for the same marque, creating a competitive situation that I hadn’t wholly considered when I began selling cars – fighting with another dealership for the same customer interested in basically the same vehicle. From a big picture point of view, it was cannibalism – and I hated it.

A generation ago, the principle behind the idea was probably sound; 30 stores will sell more than 15 stores, even if each sells less individually as a result. The US auto bankruptcies and dealer cull of 2009 proved that is decidedly old-school thinking. Hundreds of dealers have disappeared and, in my opinion, all hands are better off as a result.

I vividly recall – on my very first day, no less – the Dealer Principal in a furious state at the morning sales meeting. The same-brand dealer from up the road had recently received a national award at some sort of event he had attended.

“I had to sit in a room full of my peers and listen to them applaud the achievements of that wretched puke!” he raged, referring to the other owner while making Ozzy Ozbourne biting the head off a bat look like Little Orphan Annie in comparison. Later in the day, he pulled me aside and explained the display of anger was an exception, not the rule. He further expounded that any sales I poached from the competing dealer held special weight and would be rewarded accordingly. In his mind, getting one from “them” was as good as two, since his total would increase by one and theirs would not. Damn the torpedoes; beating them was more important.

All this proved to me that the annoyance of having another store less than 5km away was an infuriation transcending all seniority at the dealer level. More often than not, if a customer revealed that they were considering a car from “up the road”, the proverbial kitchen sink was thrown at the customer in order to secure the deal.

Lesson: when buying a car, it pays to shop around and loudly announce that fact.

In short order, I too fell into the “us against them” mentality. There was one customer who, no matter how much I built the relationship and no matter how much of my considerable sales skills I expended, walked out over a $1/month discrepancy between us and them. I was livid. The Dealer Principal did his best Ozzy impression again.

During a particularly successful month of pilfering customers from the rival dealership, confidence ran high. A customer strolled in and asked for Matthew, conveniently the name of a short-lived salesman who had recently left our rival for greener pastures. Knowing full well for whom he was really looking, I shook his hand enthusiastically. “My name is Matthew,” I answered with a toothy grin. “Welcome to our dealership!”

Good as two, indeed.