by Douglas Samuelson

Created on: April 23, 2008   Last Updated: November 07, 2008

I have been involved in the car business for 50 years. I began my career as a mechanic and at the age of 32, I purchased a new car dealership in a small mid-west town. I operated the dealership for 12 years. The first 10 years were successful and rewarding, but the last 2 were disastrous. The 20% interest rate for my floor-planning brought on by the Carter administration, forced me to terminate my dealership and I went to work for one of my competitors, a second generation operation that had lots of working capital and did not have to pay the exorbitant interest rates.

During the 12 years in my dealership and the 6 years with my competitor, I sold lots of cars and trucks and had many repeat buyers. One year I sold 228 cars (that's nearly 1 car a day for every working day). The sales process in our dealerships was relatively simple. A customer would select a vehicle, I would give them our selling price and if there was a trade-in involved, I would give them our trade-in allowance. We did not inflate our selling prices nor did we try to "steal" their trade-ins. I did not have to consult a sales manager; sometimes I would consult with the dealer if the deal was marginal but most of the time I wrote the deal myself and if there was financing involved I wrote up the finance contract. I had heard the horror stories of the big city dealerships but I did not believe them.

In 1988, I moved to Colorado Springs. I thought that I would "set the world on fire". With a population of over 250000 people I figured that I would be to retire within a few years and could bask in the sun for the rest of my life. Wrong!

My first sales position was with a new car dealership that had just moved into a new 12 million dollar facility. The sales offices were paneled with real walnut paneling, the showroom was 50 feet tall with executive offices on a second level, there were exotic plants all over the place, and then there was the sales "tower" where the sales managers resided (or should I say lurked). On one wall of the tower was a huge bulletin board with each salesperson's name and a square for each day of the month to record each individuals sales. I could not wait to fill all of my squares. There were nearly 500 cars in stock and I thought that I had died and gone to heaven. Within a few days heaven turned to hell.

My first day on the job I added several new words to my vocabulary. I was a "green pea" (the newest salesperson). A potential customer walking around the car lot without

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