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Ryan has sent you a message on Automotive Internet Sales

Subject: Frustrations of a New Beginner

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Hey Sean,

I figured I would ask you mainly because I don't really have anyone else to turn to. I've been working at a dealership since February of this year. The dealership I work for is a smalltown dealership that holds an inventory under 200 pieces (used & new) in Western Kentucky. I currently work as a sales consultant while performing duties for our in-house internet department. Our internet department consists of three employees. One of these employees only takes a portion of the internet leads, the other may perform about 5% of the responsibilites of updating prices and changing information on vehicles through Vehicle Details. That leaves the rest to me. My job duties include:

Sales Consulting
Taking pictures of all newly added inventory on a day-to-day basis
Manually adding layovers through Photoshop to the first image of each vehicle
Individually loading each vehicles set of pictures onto Vehicle Details, who then dispurses to online website such as Cars.com, etc.
Stock tagging, key tagging, printing vehicle information stickers, and buyers guides for all new auction units and handing them off to service for PDI.
Maintaining all of our Social Media for the dealership
I'm the go to person when things need to be gathered, vehicles need to be pulled around, and checking vehicles for dealer trades.
I'm also the go to person to be the guide for county police officers when vehicles brought in from out of state need to be checked for possible thefts, mismatched VINs, etc. I'm sure you are familiar with this process.

I'm sure there are some other tasks, but I'm jsut trying to give you an idea of what all my job duties are. I'm not sure if these duties may fall on a sales consultant at other dealerships, but I feel like it's a lot on my plate. I do not mind the extra work, however I'm certain my sales have suffered and will continue to suffer as long as I have these other duties consuming some of my time. What I am mostly frustrated with is the fact that my sales are pitiful and I am not leaving myself completely blameless.

I have not received the least bit of training aside from the small training regiment that Chrysler puts together in order to remain "Certified". What I have learned about selling vehicles has been largely due to being on this website and some other research I have done to only find very little resources with actualy substance. This website has been the most informative, by the way.

Our dealership is family owned, it's not a large operation, and they are not going to spend out any kind of extra money to send me off to seminars or training of any sort. At this present time our 6 sales consultants and one sales manager is operating off two computers and one printer with partial access to a third computer and second printer. That gives you an idea as to how unwilling to spend money on things are here.

My frustration comes from the fact that I feel like I have no starting point and no direction, no compass with a true North. I know it's not my employers fault necessarily, because I suppose the information is out there somewhere that can get me on the right track from a good basic starting point, I just can't seem to find it. I love the concept of this job, I love the things I'm learning, and I enjoy the people I work with, but honestly, I am tired of going home day-after-day feeling like I've failed myself, my employer, and those who have high expectations of me because I didn't make a sale. It's to the point that I feel like I need to look for a different career path, because I'm not excelling, yet I hate to think I'm going to have to do that because I don't feel like I've had a fair shot, nor taken a real shot at this career.

My current sales record is:

February- 5 cars

March- 2 cars

April- 4 cars

May- 1 car

Maybe, right now, I'm not going to be able to sell a car every single day, but I feel like I could at least be selling one every other day even though some of our better and oldest sales consultants barely break 20 cars once or twice per year. I've seen very watered down explanations of the "Road to the Sale" due to my own findings, not having been taught or given a piece of paper with them in their. I just feel like I have no foundation and no direction. Whart do I need to do?