How To GET HIRED At A Dealership??

This one, I think this question, which I actually did read ahead of time and it's pretty articulate, should go into how to get hired at a dealership. We should segue right, right in this. So this came off of Reddit, so we pulled this off of Reddit. So it wasn't actually submitted to us, but the user is. Mth281 asked. I've talked to two dealerships who seem interested in hiring me. I. I've never worked at a dealership, let alone as an advisor, so I'm a little cautious about taking the job. I've worked at a little engine shop for the last eight years. I'm the lead tech and basically the guy under the owner. I work on anything from Jaws of Life to hot air balloon balloons.

And fans with lots of mowers in between. However, I don't strictly just work on stuff. I sell equipment, I work up estimates, I call with estimates. I recommend work. I listen to how the customer reacts so I know how to word something and give them options I think they would be okay with. I order my own parts. I'm the guy that can tear apart a blown engine and tell you exactly what failed, whether it was mechanical or failure of maintaining the engine properly. I'm also the guy that recommends things to people to extend the life of their equipment and also small stuff like why an oil change during a the break in period is so important. So what should I expect? Is the pay worth it? How could I excel? The hours don't seem great, but my current hours are great. Both dealerships told me average income is 40 to 100,000. Look at that range, 40 to 100,000. I currently make 32,000 with no benefit. So myth 281 let us tell you a couple things about this and how you would get hired at a dealership. So first of all, the range of 40,000 to 100,000, the most we've seen an advisor make is what, 420,000 in a year?

Yeah.

Is that right for. Is it 420 or 430? There's something in that in that neighborhood.

Mine's a little lower, but yeah, it's around that number for sure.

So I know they're giving you this range with. The truth of the matter is, is what got Mario and I hooked on this industry and we both started out basically as porters and worked our way up is.

We became service advisors. And we couldn't believe that the harder we worked and the more we made friends with customers and the more we perfected our craft the more we made. Like, I remember being 20 years old telling my mom, I make more than some lawyers. And there's, there's a good and bad to that one, is you're, you're making more income than you would at a vocational school or something, like, you know, going to college, that sort of thing. Because it didn't take me long. I was making 120,000 and I'm in my, you know, I'm just a kid, early 20s. That's crazy. And I'm making 120 grand a year.

That's good. The bad part of that is you're, you're stuck in the industry. Like, where else can you go?

You can't think of anything else.

Yeah, right.

But just doing that and making that amount of money.

And so a lot of people like, ask, like about being an advisor and how do you get hired at a dealership? And I always kind of start with listen. Like, the one thing that you have to understand is if you're, if you go into this and you're good, you're going to be stuck. You're not going anywhere. People don't understand the outside of the industry, that waiters and people in other industries work twice as hard and make a quarter of what you can make as a service advisor. It's crazy. Like, people in the food industry that work, literally, they'll work seven days a week and they're making like, you know, $16 an hour. And as an advisor, if you connect with customers and you're good and you really try to, you know, perfect your craft, you approach it like a pro, you can make a lot, you can make a great living. A great living. And so kind of coming into a dealership and the things that you want to think about to get, to get hired in a dealership, the first thing is understanding how life changing it is if you get hired in the right place.

Right.

And that's a part of it too, because some places you don't want to, you don't want to get hired. But what would you say, Mario, somebody coming in from the outside.

As an advisor? What are service managers looking for?

I mean, if the two most things I think service managers are looking for, are you customer friendly? Like, do you have some personality? Personality, Are you charismatic? And people like you? Right. Because they understand that when people like you, trust you or know you, they're more willing to buy you and give you a great survey. But I think number two is you got to have some type of understanding of what you're going to be doing in addition to loving the brand, I think it's important. Right. There's so many different brands you can go into, but I think in picking a brand that you either have some passion for or have an understanding for, it's going to help you kind of get a little more knowledge. Right. Would you not agree with those?

I, oddly, I do agree with you, but then I just want to follow that up by saying, and then as soon as you start riding that brand, forget about the brand, because the car is a commodity. So what Mario's saying really is true and.

Works like, if you love a certain car and you go write service for that, it's going to be an easier path for you.

Right.

Because you're passionate about it. But don't mistake the fact that customers coming in are people and the car is an excuse. The car is a commodity. Anybody can service a Toyota or a Mazda or a BMW. So even if you're a huge BMW fan, that helps for sure. But don't forget that people are the most important part of the whole equation.

Right? Right. Absolutely. Two of the most. Two of my first jobs. Chris, I'm sure we had a side conversation about this, but my first job was selling chocolates door to door. Some people might call it, you know, a side gig. Some people might call it a job. I was getting paid. I looked at it as a job. But it's one thing that I realized right there is you have to be charismatic for people to want to buy.

Off of you because you're walking them to a door.

You are literally selling yourself with a box of chocolate, ringing the doorbell, and you're saying, hey, my name is Mario and I'm with this company called Junior Careers. And, you know, you have this whole spiel and presentation, and ultimately they're either going to decide to overpriced chocolate or peanut brittle or not. Right? And a lot of it was because I'm out there and, you know, I'm looking for something to relate to them and connect with them with before I even start selling. Like, oh, those are really beautiful cars you have out there. Instantly, they felt like, oh, wow, he. He likes the car that I drive. Right. It's a. It's a connection with them. But number two, and I know I've told you this before, is when I worked for Penske at Longo Toyota as a porter, and it still just resonates with me to this day, was it would say at the bottom of my paycheck as a porter. This paycheck was brought to you by Our customers. That right there, I think those two lessons, understanding how our charismatic sells our product and understanding that at the end of the day we have to take care of our customers. I think change the way I look at the business. And it's, I know it's customer oriented, customer first, customer oriented. And so we have to go out and be able to sell ourselves. And I think that's what a service manager is looking for. Are you charismatic? Are you not afraid to communicate? And can I get people to like you, trust you and know you?

Right, yeah, yeah, that's good. So the other thing with that that we might suggest is why don't you go in for service a couple times and get oil changes to see what the process is like.

That's good.

Borrow a car, whatever you need to do. But if you're interviewing somewhere, go in and see what the process is like and then kind of understand, because I did this when I was a porter is I would bring up the cars and the customers were unhappy and I thought, oh, I could do so much better than these clowns until I became one of them. And I realized that it was the dealership that was broken. It wasn't the advisors. Like you couldn't get work done and dispatched. The shop was a mess. And so, you know, don't prejudge too hard because there's other elements, but try to understand what's, you know, what's going on there. And so I think like your personality is the first thing in the door and then your enthusiasm for the brand and for cars is a big deal. And then any accomplishments that you've had previously, like every time I've interviewed an advisor that brought like their trophies from being the top salesperson at AAA or you know, being winning some athletic thing in college or a junior Olympic gold medal or whatever, those, those individuals have always been high performing advisors. And so, you know, in the, in the industry that you're paid on commission and you earn your own way. Anything that you've done previously in life, whether it was in high school or after high school, where you were number one at something, where you accomplished something, is something I would bring up in the interview and talk about and put in your, in your resume, it definitely shows competitiveness and performance and that you stick to something. So, you know, I've interviewed advisors before they were black belts. Anything that shows that you have discipline and that you stick to something is, is a huge asset in the car industry because we're look, you know, we're looking for performers and you don't necessarily have to have written service before at all. But if you have personality and you're a performer, those two things are harder to teach.

Right.

Than anything else.

If you have any, you don't, right?

Yeah.