In my opinion, firsthand sales info is always best learned through experience. I didn’t get to go to college. I joined the military right after finishing high school and was stationed away for five years. When I came back from my tour of duty I didn’t have time to go to college. I wanted to get settled down, buy my own house and start a family. I knew that a career in the automotive industry would be my best bet. I took into account my skills and my experience and I decided to enter into the automotive industry.
While I was in active duty I worked as a mechanic for all of our ground team transportation devices. I worked on cars, trucks, tanks, and Humvees all day long. I was especially skilled at working on the Humvees and I gained extensive knowledge of their mechanical composition. They became my favorite transportation vessel to work on and I thoroughly enjoyed my job. I had no idea that I was also building up a wealth of sales info that would come in very handy later on in my life.
When I returned home I looked into working as a mechanic. I scheduled an interview at a local Hummer dealership for a position as a full service mechanic. I was given the job immediately after they reviewed my credentials. While the job and the hours were great, the pay was not enough to cover all of my expenses. I started bartending on the weekends to make up for the difference.
One morning after a long weekend I must’ve looked pretty worn down because one of the salesmen approached me and asked me if I was ok. I explained that I was up late working at the bar and then had to be in for my shift at seven in the morning. He looked at me and said that I could make more money and better use of my skills by becoming a salesman for the dealership.
I started selling the very next week. My mentors at the dealership provided me with all the free sales tips that I could ever need to perform well on the job. After working on them for years, I was familiar with all the models and was very knowledgeable about their performance. In my first week I sold six trucks to customers that were incredibly impressed by my comprehensive knowledge of the truck’s mechanics.