“Earn 70k or more this year selling cars.” That’s the ad Timothy DeJesus saw in the newspaper when he was trying to figure out if he was going to re-entroll in college. He passed his first semester but failed almost everything his second semester. He decided to apply for the job. Listen in as he tells Jonaed what it’s like after 15 years in the business, the lessons he learned, advice and book recommendations.
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NoDegree Podcast Ep 40 Timothy DeJesus Transcript
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Jonaed: Welcome to the 40th episode of the No Degree podcast. Today's guest is Timothy DeJesus. Timothy started his career as a used car salesman. He started earning good money in his early 20s. He got promoted and ended up being the number one salesman at several dealerships. He became a manager and won several awards.
In 2020, he decided to branch off on his own. Today, he consults with dealerships and teaches them how to increase their sales. He also decided to become an author and published his book The Business of Time. Listen to what Timothy did right and what he did wrong on today's episode. Subscribe to our Patreon@patreon.com/nodegree. Every contribution is appreciated. The show is impossible without you. Let's get this show started.
So Timothy, can you tell the audience what do you do today?
Timothy: Hello, everyone. I'm Timothy DeJesus. I'm the author of The Business of Time. It's a book I have coming out November 1st, but I'm also the CEO of Dealer Masters, LLC. And I do some deejaying on the side as well. If anybody follows me on LinkedIn, you guys probably see that.
Jonaed: What does Dealer Masters, LLC do?
Timothy: Dealer Masters, LLC is an automotive training and consulting company. Basically, I spent 15 years of my career in the car business and my way out was to work for myself. So, now what I do is I actually help auto dealers to learn how to sell cars. Like there's a lot of rookie salespeople in the automotive business.
I try to teach them how to sell cars. I actually am able to teach managers because I worked just about every position in the automotive industry from salesperson to finance manager, to sales manager, general manager, operations manager. So, I kind of have a full view of anything that goes on in a dealership and that's how I was able to get out and start my own company.
Jonaed: Nice, nice. So, how did you get into that? Yes you did, you had all the positions, but what made you do what you're doing right now? When did that idea pop in?
Timothy: It was kind of a long drawn out process. What was going on is, you know, the car business, if anybody's ever worked in the car business and you've had a high level position, it can be kind of cutthroat and ruthless. So at a certain point, if you exceed what I call the cap, which is, you know, if you are a commission-based employee and your commissions are higher than the dealership would like to pay you, then the dealerships typically start to have conversations with you about how you're getting paid too much. Which as an employee is a very uncomfortable feeling because you're working your butt off.
You're helping them grow their business. But they want to keep you in a certain level and don't want you to exceed that level. That happened to me on numerous occasions, to the point where I was starting to get tired of it. I said, “Well, why do I want to keep working for one dealer at a time and having them mess around with my pay? I could just start my own company, work with as many dealers as I'd like, and make the choice of who I want to work with and who I don't want to work with.” And so that's how that kind of came about.
Jonaed: Why does that even happen because don't they make money per car? So it's not even like money comes in, like for everything you sell, money comes in. So why does that happen?
Timothy: Yeah, so I mean, my experience with this and I'm not alone, unfortunately in this. What they'd like to do is they'd like to have you build something for them, but have you make a certain amount of money that they're comfortable with. Once you built it, once they have what they wanted, then it's kind of like, all right, well, let's try to replace them with somebody who's less expensive, who's going to fit within our cap. You would think that it would be that way, but hey, you're doing good. I'm doing good. I'll pay you whatever, because you helped me build this thing. But unfortunately that's not the way it works.
And like I said, I'm nowhere near alone on this. Being in the business 15 years, I've gotten to know a lot of people and similar things have happened. It's also caused them to leave the business and go on to do other ventures. Some people just completely escaped the business altogether and go do something completely different, like real estate. And some people might do like me and be in the business, but not inside the business, working for somebody, having to deal with that over and over again.
Jonaed: Let's take it back to high school. How was high school for you and what would you want to be when you were in high school?
Timothy: I didn't know what the heck I wanted to be in high school. High school for me, I was very under the radar. I wanted to get decent grades, decent enough grades to get to pass. But I really didn't know what was next after that. I went to college immediately after high school. I went for business and marketing and I ended up just, I didn't make it. It didn't stop me from having a productive and successful career. But at the same time, I think my pitfall personally was I got right into college, not knowing what I wanted to do, and there's really no motivation for me to kind of finish, if that makes sense.
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Jonaed: What are some things you are good at in high school? What are some things you're not good at?
Timothy: I was pretty creative in high school. So, anything that was kind of arts-related, I was pretty good at. I wasn't good at certain math subjects like geometry, but other than that, I did okay. I mean, I was kind of average at everything in high school, I guess I would say.
Jonaed: During college, when did you stop going? Like when did you realize like, hey, this isn't for me and I got to figure, I want to do something else.
Timothy: That’s a great question. What actually got me out of college was I was in for two years. The first year I went to Rutgers, passed everything, my first semester. Almost failed everything, my second semester. And I just decided that I wasn't going to continue paying that if I wasn't gonna be serious about it. So then I transferred to a community college and did okay at the community college. But while I was at the community college, I had a girlfriend at the time and she was going on an internship to Disney and she asked me if I wanted to go. So I was like, all right, sure. I ended up going on the internship with her to Disney.
I was there for six months, learned quite a bit. I mean, it's a huge company as you're well aware. But when I came back, I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do and I wasn't sure if I actually wanted to re-enroll in college. And that’s when I actually got into the car business. I saw an ad in the paper. It said, “Earn $70,000 or more this year selling cars.”
Now this is back in the newspaper days, right? But I saw an ad, it said “Earn $70,000 more this year selling cars.” And I was like, well, shoot, that sounds pretty good. My other prospect was I was going to go work as an admin assistant for $25,000, $30,000 a year. So he sat down with the general manager at the time and he was just like, “Look, man, you know, I've been making serious money since I was a kid in this business. You can too.” I tried it out and you know, 15 years later, I’m still there, so…
Jonaed: Yeah. So, how was that first shop? What is the first job someone gets at trying to sell cars? How does that work?
Timothy: It's pretty -- I don't want to say it's easy and it's easy at the same time, right? Back in the day, it was a little bit more difficult because the internet wasn't as prevalent as it was now. When I first got it, it was ’05 that the internet was available to everyone, obviously. But at the same time, the car business wasn't as transparent on the internet as it is now. Now you can get pricing, you can get everything, but back then it wasn't. But I mean, basically like you got a desk and you were your own boss in a lot of senses because at the end of the day you had managers above you, but you could bring in your own people. You could sell it to your family, you know, you were kind of your own enterprise, so it's kind of like, here's a desk, here's a phone, go figure it out.
And the dealership brought in traffic and you were responsible for bringing in your own traffic too, but I did okay. I mean, my first real week selling cars, I made $2,000 the first week and I was 22. So at the time I was like, whoa, like it's the best job ever. Of course it was a little bit of beginner's luck and all that stuff, but I did okay thereafter, but it wasn't difficult. The biggest thing you had to learn was just to not try to be so smart about it. And what I mean by that is you want to know the product you want to get to know the people. You don't want to be as involved in the negotiations. Because what happens is then you don't become the customer's friend anymore because you're too involved in negotiations.
So I had to learn that. Outside of that, it was fairly easy. It was new and it was really exciting. I mean, the cool thing is for people who were in sales, completing that transaction is a rush and that's always exciting.
Jonaed: What were some things that made you good at selling cars because not everybody tends to do well, right? There are a lot of people, a few months and they're like, all right, this isn't for me. What made you do well in the business?
Timothy: I was probably stubborn, which is good and bad sometimes. But I didn't want to quit. I wanted to make it so I guess tenacity would be something that would, I'd say helped me out. But I would say the biggest thing that helped me out was just the willingness to learn. The first dealership I worked for, they had a mini training program and I really tried to make sure I learned everything they were teaching me. And then beyond the training, they said, “You know, you really need to get to know the product because if you don't know what you're talking about, then you're going to lose credibility.
Crazy enough, what failed me in college, my study habits was what helped me in my first job in the car business. But yeah, I would say those are the things that really kind of helped me along. And then it's just learning from there and just getting to know people better and how to market yourself better, how to be more personable, do things like that.
Jonaed: Can you clarify how the study habits or lack of study habits helped you?
Timothy: This first job happened and like I said, I didn't want to necessarily fail. So I just really dug in and was like, all right, let me learn the product. So I took the brochure at home.
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Back then, again, it wasn't internet, I don't know if you remember the good old paper brochures that the dealerships used to have, so they were like, “Here, go take this home and study it. This has all the product specifications.” So, I would take those home and actually study. But I think the difference was I was motivated because again, I didn't want to fail. Whereas with college, since I didn't know what I wanted to do, it was hard for me, I think, to stay motivated because I didn't really have a clear path.
Jonaed: What were some of your most interesting moments while working at the first dealership?
Timothy: One of the most interesting moments for me was really like closing my first deal because you learn a lot from it. And I think interesting wise, I mean, there's plenty of stories. I learned how to drive a stick shift at a dealership, which I didn't know how to drive before.
I would say probably if I had to go back closing my first deal, it was probably the most interesting thing because you kind of get to know the steps in the process from A to B to C. And then once you finally see it happen, you're like, okay, this is how this works. And then when you have that first sale happen, it's really exciting. Like, it's a rush. It's like, wow, this is fun. And then from that point on you kind of get hooked from there.
Jonaed: What are some mistakes you made in the first job and what are some big lessons you learned from it?
Timothy: One of the mistakes I had, and this was a -- I'll never forget this conversation. So one of the mistakes I had was, you know, I said earlier in the conversation, I kind of had to dumb it down. In the car business, people don't want you to necessarily be like the sharpest salespeople, because it can be intimidating. So once I started learning about six months in, I really thought I had a good handle on it, and I didn't. The mistake I had was I was just kind of like educating people about things that really had nothing to do with their specific purchase.
It was kind of like I was feeding them irrelevant information because I thought I was smart. You know, my boss actually pulled me aside one day and he's like, “What's going on with you?” And I was like, “What do you mean?” He's like, “Do you want to sell cars?” I was like, “Whoa, what is this?” I was like, “What are you talking about?” He's like, “Listen, calm down.” He's like, “Just be yourself and stop like trying to be so smart.” He's like, “People don't need to know all this stuff you're telling them. What they need to know is what's relevant to them and what they want. So find out what they're looking for, what they need and then that's what you focus on. Don't focus on telling them a whole bunch of stuff they don't need to know.”
And so that was probably a really great learning experience for me, because at the time I probably needed that wakeup call because my sales figures were starting to decline and they kind of hit it right on the head, but that's what was happening. So that was a good learning experience for me. And that was a good lesson that I learned.
Jonaed: Why did you leave that dealership and go onto the next one?
Timothy: The next time I wanted to move on was I wanted to start getting into management, but at the dealership I was working for, the managers have been there for a very long time. There were no openings and I just didn't see any upward mobility. But I knew at that point in my career, I had been selling cars for about three years and I didn't necessarily want to be a career sales person at the time. You know, my views have not changed now and I'll explain why, but at the time I just didn't want to necessarily be a career sales person.
I want to move up. I had actually moved to Pennsylvania and I was traveling quite a distance to go back and forth to a dealership. I found the dealership that was local, that did have a management opportunity and then I decided to take that opportunity in finance, working for the dealership.
Jonaed: How is it different from being the front end sales person to being in management?
Timothy: So being a front end salesperson, you're responsible for showing the car, making a relationship with the customer, explaining the sales figures, things like that. When you're the manager, you're the person responsible for making sure that the dealership is profitable. So as a salesperson, in a lot of dealerships, they're not necessarily responsible for the profits, win or loss.
They're just responsible for getting cars over the curb. When you're in management, you have to make sure that the dealership stays profitable and if the dealership’s not profitable, then obviously it's going to close the doors. So it was a complete 180, because you have to shift your mindset from all volume to selling cars in volume, but at the same time, maintaining a profit level that's acceptable for the dealership so the dealership doesn't go into red.
Jonaed: How was it making that adjustment and what are some things that you lacked in the beginning and how did you pick them up?
Timothy: The adjustment, I think was not that difficult for me and the reason was because I got very close with my managers at my previous dealerships. I would kind of ask them why, as things were happening, I would ask them why this is happening. And they would explain to me, Hey, you know, we can't do this deal because it falls below a profit threshold that we just can't do. You know, we're physically losing too much money.
[0:15:01]
And at a certain point, they educated me like, look, you know, in any deal, if we're letting the customer walk away, it’s because we can't do it. Our job is not to let customers walk away to sell a car. If we're having to let them walk, it means we did everything we could to make the deal.
And so I kind of started picking that up throughout their, you know, just conversations and a little bit of training with them. The transition wasn't that hard. The biggest thing I had to learn was instead of being friends with the salespeople, I had to learn how to manage that relationship because I was friendly with all the salespeople at my previous location. This was a new location I had to earn everybody's respect. And I was young guy at the time. I was 24 when I got my first management gig. I had to actually earn people who are double my age, respect and show them I knew what I was talking about. That was probably the biggest adjustment that I had to make.
Jonaed: How long did it take you to adjust and get comfortable in that position?
Timothy: It took me about a year to really get comfortable. I learned that the position itself probably in a few months. But to really get comfortable and understand my role and understand how to earn people's respect in the way I did it was just by showing them. I showed them, hey, I can help you make money. I know what I'm talking about and I can close the deal. And, you know, by doing those things, I was able to earn people's respect. I've always been a believer of showing instead of just telling and leading by example. That's how I was able to kind of get comfortable in my own skin in about a year's time.
Jonaed: Nice. So you had several manager positions, now you ended up getting promoted again or moving to something else and getting a higher position.
Timothy: Yeah. So, I moved dealerships twice to get to a general manager role. I was promoted from sales manager to finance manager at the same dealership. And then at the same group of dealerships, I was promoted from finance manager to director of finance. That was again the point where I was kind of capped and I wasn't really going to move into a higher role. So the next dealership I went to work for, I was the general manager. That was the next step of my career.
Jonaed: What's the hierarchy like? So, salesperson, manager, what comes above that?
Timothy: It depends on the dealerships. There's a lot of different structures within dealerships and the positions may be the same, but the person themselves may dictate how important they are. And here's what I mean, the typical hierarchy is like the finance manager and sales manager are kind of equilateral. Sometimes one might be higher than the other and again, that just depends on their rank within the dealership, how long they've been there, level of respect they have, things like that. From there, you generally have a general sales manager who is kind of like a sales manager, but he also is responsible for all of the sales managers and finance managers. Then from general sales manager, you have a general manager.
So general manager oversees both sales and service because you have the service manager on the service side too, but the general manager oversees the entire dealership. And then the last position I was working for a dealership was operations manager, which means I oversaw the entire dealership, general manager on down. I worked directly for ownership and I oversaw everybody on down.
Jonaed: How do things change once you are becoming the director, once you become the general manager? Obviously it depends on the person and how much ownership they take, but what are some things that changed for you? What are some responsibilities you picked up as you moved up the chain?
Timothy: The more you move up, the more you have on your shoulders, right? Going from a sales manager to a general manager, say, I mean, the responsibilities are completely different. A sales manager, you just have your group of salespeople. As general manager, you're responsible for the same salespeople you were managing before. You're responsible for the sales manager, you’re responsible for the finance manager, you're responsible for the service manager. So anything that goes wrong at the dealership is on your head and it's your responsibility to fix. That's kind of how it changes as you move up, you acquire more teams, I guess is the best way I can describe it.
And the more teams, the more possibility that things can go wrong. I mean, all it takes is one or two people to really go out of line for the whole operation to start wavering. The responsibility, my responsibility, what I always felt when I was at the top was create a good culture within the dealership. Create a culture where people aren't trying to snake each other and stab each other on the back and have an uplifting culture where everybody's trying to encourage one another. Generally, if you have that as a good starting point, then a lot of other things will take care of itself. But sometimes you have to ruffle a few feathers to get before you can get to the point where people start buying into the culture.
Jonaed: Used car salesman tend to have like a bad rep among jobs. Why is that?
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Timothy: Let’s put it this way. There's no one blanket answer on that. The difference between a new car dealer and used car dealer, if you've ever visited a used car lot, obviously they're smaller. Sometimes people working out of a trailer. Typically the guy who owns a used car store is not as well capitalized as somebody who owns a new car store for obvious reasons, right? You know, a new car store takes millions upon millions of dollars to run, month in and month out. Whereas the used car lot, the guy might have 20, 30 cars on the lot, so it's just different. And the used car store, they're a lot more homely. You're going to have a lot more personalized experience, but at the same time, yeah, it's not as professional, maybe as a new car store.
And obviously with that being said, when you have a franchise store, the franchise puts those protections in place. If you're giving that franchise a bad reputation, they're probably going to pull the plug on you. If you're an independent used car dealer, there's nobody to pull the plug on you. You are your own boss, right and wrong. So I think a lot of those guys get a bad rep because some guys may not service their cars to the best of their abilities, because they're trying to make a profit because the more work they put into fixing the car before a customer buys it, the less profit they might make. But that's wrong thinking because you know, you're going to lose customers long-term. It's wrong thinking and that's why you see a lot more turnover in used car dealerships than new car dealerships.
Jonaed: What would you say is the difference in the used car and the new car dealerships, like in terms of, is it better to work at a new car dealership? Or what do you have to say about that?
Timothy: That's a great question. And to be perfectly honest, if you can find the right used car store, I find it actually better to work at a used car store than a new car store, but it has to be the right one. You know what I mean? You don't want to work for just like I talked about earlier. You don't want to work for somebody who's not fixing their cars, who's not trying to do the right thing by their customers, right? But what I found because I've worked for both new and used car dealership is that the used car dealership, you definitely have a little bit more personalized experience. They’re a little bit more flexible, whereas at the new car store, again, it's about high volume.
You'll find that there's a lot more turnover at those stores. So you might have somebody who works at the same used car dealership for 10 years. Average salesperson working at a new car store is probably there two years, tops. In and they're out and there's, you know, a lot of people who are there a couple of months and gone, and that happens over and over and over and over again. So, it just depends on the ownership of the used car store, but there's a lot less moving parts in a used car store, especially one that doesn't have a service department. It's kind of like, hey, we show up, we sell cars, we have a home, you know, which can be pretty easy if it's the right place.
Jonaed: Now, what are the actual salaries that people make because they're always advertised. Hey, you have always seen the whatever in the papers, unlimited earning potential and all that stuff. So, what are the realities? What do you actually see?
Timothy: Some people make very, very, very good money in the business. I mean, obviously some over million dollar earners. The owners are generally obviously always going to make over a million dollars. Your general managers, they're seeing the mid $100,000. Usually some of them are pushing $200,000 and up and your typical sales manager will make anywhere from $70,000 to $110,000, $120,000. If they're really good, they'll make $150,000. But again, like in the beginning of the conversation, those are kind of the ranges and when you start pushing uncomfortably past those ranges, then people want to make changes one way or another. Maybe you get a promotion and they put you into a role that, hey, they don't have a problem paying you as much money as you're making. But a lot of times, unfortunately just it's like, hey, this is our position. This is how much the position is worth. You're making too much money. We've got to figure this thing out. And that conversation happens way more than it should in the car business, but it's a very, very real thing in the car business.
Jonaed: Now, do you get benefits or it's just all commission and you got to make sure you got to figure that out on your own. Is it like you get a small base? How does that work or is it dealership to dealership dependent?
Timothy: Exactly dealership to dealership dependent. You know, I've worked at dealerships that had very good benefits. I've worked at dealerships that have okay benefits. I've worked at dealerships that basically kind of like you're on your own, the benefits of very much dealership by dealership. I think the larger dealership, the better package they can offer because obviously they're -- number one, once you get over 50 employees, you're required to offer health care. But then also the more employees you have, the more of a group discount you get from the medical companies. So it really just depends on the dealership themselves, but it's very much dealership by dealership. There's kind of no blanket benefits package along the way. Some offer 401k some don't, you know, it’s the wild, wild west when it comes to that.
[0:25:07]
Jonaed: Yeah. Now, as you move to general manager, operations manager at the highest level, what sort of transitioned you to your own and what caused you to do and make that move instead of going to a different dealership?
Timothy: What really caused me to make the move, first of all, it was kind of the jack in one’s salaries really kind of got to me from a mental health perspective because I kept feeling like I had to fight for what I had already earned, which is very, very frustrating. Some people in other commission-based businesses have experienced this, but it's rampant in the car business. So, having to constantly fight for what you feel like you've already earned is not a good place to be.
And the other thing was, I mean, in some situations I was teaching the people who I worked for, the way to do it and then they would kind of take it from there. Like, I was realizing a lot of owners in the car business, they don't know what they don't know. So some owners have inherited their business from family members and they really don't know a lot of the mechanics of the business. So I'd be brought in to help teach them. But then it would become a point where we would clash because I knew exactly what I was talking about and they would be telling me, well, it needs to be this way. I'm like, well, that's going to be counterproductive to everything we're doing. We get into arguments and it was wearing them.
Again, it was just kind of like, I don't want to have to fight you on this. Like you brought me in to do a job. I know what I'm talking about and I'm not going to be a yes, man if it's going to derail the whole operation, which is what a lot of people want. A lot of people just want you to say, yeah, it's my way or the highway, just do it my way and that's it. And that's never been me. So, between that and the salary thing, and that happened more than once, I was like, I think it's time for me to just do my own thing, which I've been incredibly happier for.
Jonaed: How was it making that transition because it's not always easy or was it easy for you since you've had a lot of experience within the industry?
Timothy: It was actually a fairly easy transition for me and the reason was because even before I went on my own, I had done outside sales for a very large Fortune 100 company. So for me, knocking on dealership doors was something I was already doing. So, being able to just go in and say, “Hey, here's who I am. Here's what we do.” Have an elevator pitch prepared and, you know, kind of set up another meeting to discover what's next for that specific dealership, if there's a place for me. That was very easy for me. Not to mention working for that same company I just told you about. I had already met a lot of dealers in the area and had relationships with them.
So, once I decided to go on my own, it was very easy. I had already had friendships within the business. I was able to just walk in and say, Hey, how's it going? As opposed to trying to sell myself, they already knew who I was and I already had existing relationships. So the transition for me was fairly easy. That was part of the motivating factor for me to make the decision as well, was that I had already known so many dealerships in the area and I knew I could help them and do it at a price point that was reasonable. So the transition for me is fairly easy.
Jonaed: What were some mistakes you made along in your career? What were some things now -- It's like, you look back like if you did it differently, it would have helped you a lot more or progress your career a lot more?
Timothy: I would say the biggest thing that I learned and I learned it and I didn't learn, I guess I could say was that, if you have a good gig, it's sometimes better to take it on the chin, but have peace of mind. Rather than trying to just maximize your salary because at one point, one of the dealers was like, “Look, we got to cut your salary.” And I basically refused. I was like, “No, I've built you this nice department. This is incredibly profitable. Why am I being penalized for it?” And so eventually they let me go because I wouldn't take pay cuts.
Looking back on it. It was a good gig. Had the pay cut been manageable? I was making well, well above average salary. I was doing financially pretty good, but I let my pride and give the best of me. So, looking back on it in that situation, I probably would have taken a reasonable pay cut and kept the job instead of letting my pride get the best of me. Now in future positions, it wasn't that way.
Some of the future positions I had, where they were trying to cut my pay, it was a struggle every day showing up for work, in addition to them, trying to mess up my mind. That's a totally different ball game. But the dealership that I just was talking about, it was a pretty good gig. Had I just taken a pay cut and probably stayed, I would have been okay. I would have been probably fine with that, but at the time I didn't see it that way.
[0:30:08]
Jonaed: What are some mistakes in general, a lot of people in the industry make?
Timothy: Well, the biggest thing I would say is that people do not realize how relationship based the business is. I mean, most businesses are relationship based, but the car business, especially, I mean, I can't tell you how many times does the sales person people would say to me, “You know, I actually had a better quote from another dealership, but I bought the car here because I like you and you're personable. You're reasonable. You don't try to tell us anything that's not true. Like we want to do business with you. So we're paying a little bit more, but that's okay.”
I think that's the biggest mistake people make is that they don't realize that if you are friendly on some level and sometimes you actually make friends from customers, if you make a friend while you're making a transaction, that makes a difference. And I think that's something that a lot of people don't realize they don't take the time to make a relationship. They just want to get in, get out, get a sale and get onto the next one. So I think that's probably the biggest mistake that people made in addition to, in today's world, the biggest mistake people are making is not trying to have a personal brand on social media while being in any type of sales role.
Because, you know, I had a salesperson that worked for me for two plus years and his Instagram following was it generated at least 10 extra car deals for the dealership every month. His personal Instagram would sell us at least 10 extra cars every month without fail. I think that's the biggest mistake people are making now is that if you're in the business, you can generate your own sales opportunities. You can keep yourself busy as opposed to just waiting for the dealership to bring traffic.
Jonaed: Nice. So how has the industry changed over time and how has the impact because I know obviously the internet now, it's like used in every search, right? People start off on the internet and online that I assumed sometimes do people the sales made over the phone and they come in to pick up their car.
Timothy: So the sale being made over the phone is more rare than you would think and the reason is because you know, with the car and especially used car -- used car, typically you got to check it out. A new car is a little bit different. Like people do kind of buy cars via email. What'll happen is they'll request a quote from a couple of different dealerships and that's a component of my business that I do sometimes to help people buy cars.
But you know, what they do is, they'll email a couple of different dealerships and get price quotes, and then, you know, the best price quote along with good service is the one that wins. When I first got into the business, that didn't happen at all. There was no emailing for price quotes. We had a “internet department.” But we wouldn't give price quotes over the phone. You know, you would schedule an appointment with the internet department, but you wouldn't actually buy the car via the internet. So, as time progressed, it became more regular for people to email dealerships to get price quotes, and kind of do their homework before walking in.
Jonaed: How did dealerships change with that? Like how did it change from the salesperson?
Timothy: It's not a big change for the sales person because the salespeople at the end of the day, the responsibility is still the same, right? You have to show up, you have to sell cars. If you don't sell enough cars, you're eventually going to get the boot. How it really changed is more for a dealership management and owners especially because the profit margins on new cars shrunk dramatically.
Because now if you can email three or four dealers, they have to put their best foot forward in order to get the business. At that point, when you're doing that, it changes the dynamic of a dealership and how they can profit. If a customer could walk in and not know what a dealership paid for a car, which is the invoice price, then it's easier for a dealership to make money.
Now, people know the invoice price. There's so much information on the internet. And again, you can just get price quotes fairly easily now. So for the dealerships, the profit margins shrunk dramatically, and they really have to focus on making money in service in other places, because there's not a lot of margin on new cars, unless it's like a specialty car, like one of these brand new Corvettes or something like that. There's not a lot of margin in a car and new cars.
Jonaed: What do you see the future of the industry? What are some other big changes you kind of anticipate?
Timothy: Well, the biggest change -- you've heard of Carvana, I'm sure.
Jonaed: Yeah, right. They've been making a lot of moves.
Timothy: Yes. So I think that's probably the biggest change you're seeing is that dealerships are trying to adapt to that but you have to either be in or out if you're going to try to do something like Carvana. What I see happening with a lot of dealerships is they put a Carvana like tool on their website. But then when a customer comes in, like change the dynamic and the customer's like, “Look, I've worked out a deal. The payment set on your website should be $240 a month. You're telling me the payments should be $300 a month. Why is that?”
[0:35:10]
And it's because the dealership's not really committed to the mentality. They put the tool on there thinking it's going to sell them cars. It doesn't, I mean, Carvana is an all online business and that's what they strive to be and that's what they intend to be. They don't market themselves as the cheapest price. It's convenience, you know. I think a lot of dealers get caught in the middle of that because obviously if they give a customer internet quote, that's the cheapest price. But if the customer walks on the line without an internet price, they want to try to make money.
So I think that's where dealerships are struggling right now, because Carvana is, they are who they are. That's not going to change and they're very successful. I mean, they've grown in leaps and bounds and they're taking a big chunk of market share from all car dealers, not just new car dealers, not just used car dealers, all car dealers.
So I think that's probably the biggest change you're seeing right now. We're in the midst of industry disruption, I guess, is the best way to put it. And with that industry disruption, if you don't adapt, you're going to have issues like a lot of new car dealers have.
Jonaed: So, was there ever a time, a lack of the college degree sort of held you back?
Timothy: In the car business, I would say no. Outside of the car business, I think it probably had some impact because there were points when I was in between working for the lender and when I was in between working for the dealerships that I thought about just making a complete exit. And I think maybe having a lack of a degree make people not take me seriously. Despite the fact that my resume was filled with just accolades, but I think maybe the lack of a degree, maybe might've dissuaded some people who don't know anything about the car business. Because there’s really good people, there’s really talented people in the car business. I can do great things outside of the car business, but I don't know.
I think there's probably a stigma of the car guys too, I'm sure. So I think there's maybe a stigma to the car guy thing and probably the lack of degree might've hurt me at some point. I don't know. I mean, I've done okay for myself. So I can't complain about my earnings from never having a degree. I don't think my earnings ever been an issue.
Jonaed: Have you ever felt insecure about not having a degree?
Timothy: I think earlier in life, I did. I don't, now. Because at this point I think people are starting to realize more and more, that skills and experience are more valuable than a degree, unless you're in a specific field that requires a degree, like, you know, a medical field or things like that. But in a sales related field, I mean, it's going to be the person who’s more personable and more well-rounded and more knowledgeable that’s going to win. It's not going to be somebody who is fresh out of college and has a degree. That's doesn't make them a good salesperson. So, I think it depends on the industry. Now in my situation, I don't feel like -- I'm not bothered by it at all, but earlier in my career, I think it may be, I might have felt self-conscious about it.
Jonaed: So what advice would you have for people new in the industry today that like a young kid, right? 18 to 22, they're trying to break into that industry. What advice would you have so they start off the ground running.
Timothy: Definitely, the first thing I would tell anybody who's in that age range, especially is to start thinking about having a personal brand and then leveraging that personal brand to turn the people that you speak to into sales, the relationships you make into sales. Because again, I saw it firsthand. The gentleman I referenced earlier, his name's Justin Brown. When I first met him, he was 21 years old, I think and he had about 4,000 followers on Instagram and he was already bringing in people and you know, selling cars from that.
Now he's got almost 20,000 followers on Instagram. He doesn't sell cars anymore. He's actually running the social media department for the last dealership that I worked for. But when he was selling cars, like I said, he would sell us 10 cars a month and that was just free. We didn't do anything to promote him. He promoted himself. He brought in his own traffic. He very rarely had to take dealership traffic because he had all of his own customers coming in and it was very powerful. He'd never struggled with income as a young guy, because he had this personal brand. He had a following, he had people coming in and asking for him regularly.
So he didn't need the dealership with traffic to be successful and I think for anybody who's trying to get into the business now. It's leveraging your personal brain, because unless you are at a very high volume dealership, which is also very competitive and very cutthroat, unless you're at a high volume dealership, you may struggle to find opportunities, especially in today's economy. You have to create your own opportunities and I think that's the advice I could give anybody right now.
[0:40:09]
Jonaed: What other things would you tell them? So there's the personal brand that's very important. What other things? Also, in terms of what to kind of understand about the industry, right? Because people get in and there's some red flags that they need to watch out for.
Timothy: The biggest thing I could say is to learn and not just learn the product like the cars themselves but learn about people. I think that's the best advice I could give you outside of having a personal brand is if you know and understand people, then you can be successful. In the car business and in sales, it's really kind of as simple as finding common ground, getting someone to like you and not lying to them about stuff that they don't need to lie about, you know, just telling them straight. If a car doesn't have a certain piece of equipment, like a navigation or a DVD player or something, you can't change that.
So you either have to find them a different car or the customer's going to have to make a compromise depending on their budget. So, you have to get to know people and understand what their buying motivations are and if you understand what their buying motivations are and they see that you're willing to listen, then they'll want to work with you and they'll want to buy a car from you specifically. Even if you may not have the specific thing they're looking for, they'll be like, okay, well, can you get me what I'm looking for because I'd like to work with you as opposed to just going down to the next car dealership so they can get the exact car they want.
Jonaed: What book recommendations would you have that would be really impactful for a person in this industry?
Timothy: The best books I've read are by Joe Verde. That's V-E-R-D-E. And he's got a few of them that are really good. I mean, Joe Verde was not a car guy that got into the car business and just exploded. He's very good. He's very sharp and he's been doing sales training for, I don't know. I think it's at least 20 years now. I would definitely recommend almost anything by Joe Verde.
Jonaed: He writes, it's more on like how to sell cars, how to…
Timothy: He writes about the psychology of sales and also how to sell cars. So he's got multiple books just around selling cars. I'm trying to think of a one off the top of my head. It's been a while since I've read this [0:42:21] [Audio Glitch].
Jonaed: Do you have the sort of Earn Over $100,000 Selling Cars, Dealer’s Guide To Recovery, 38 Hot Tips On Selling More Cars In Today’s Market?
Timothy: The Manage Your Career In Sales is a good one. That's a good one. Earn Over $100,000 Selling Cars by Joe Verde. It's also good, but the one that seems to be pretty impactful is Manage Your Career In Sales, that seems to be one of the most popular ones that I've seen.
Jonaed: Okay. So, what are your future goals with your company?
Timothy: My company, I'd like to scale it eventually where I have also paid consultants outside of my region. But for now, I mean, my company is just a small piece of what I do. So I tend to keep my interactions very limited because at the end of the day, you know, I only have so much time in a day. My company is, I tend to work with people who I have known for a while and who I trust, or if they're like, Hey, can you help my friend out?
Then I'll also take on new clients, but I tend to keep my clients close knit. Now, like I said, I'd like to eventually expand. I'm not really there right now. My goals for my company is just to kind of maintain the clients that I have, but my main focus really now and, you know, what I've really been pushing is The Business of Time which is my book that's coming out. The Business of Time I think is something that really, it's not just about car people. It's about anybody can relate to. The book is about building value in yourself so that you can call the shots a little bit more because when you're more valuable, you can ask for more earnings. You can ask for more time off if you're working for someone else.
And if you've learned enough, you can take it out, like I have, which you can work for yourself and replace your income but have a lot more freedom to do what you'd like to do with your time. The Business of Time is really for anybody, whether they've got a degree, whether you don't have a degree, it's about teaching people how to build value in themselves, market themselves, sell themselves so they can earn more over time, retire sooner and enjoy more of their personal time and less time, just, you know, staying in that hamster wheel of work. Work, wake up work, wake up, work, wake up, work, and not really having time to enjoy life.
Jonaed: So, any final words to someone? Like what would you have told yourself when you were 18 to 22 and thinking about it now?
[0:44:56]
Timothy: Well, you know, when I was 18 to 22, the world was a very different place. We've seen the explosion in social media, probably over the last 10 years, really. I can't go back and say to my 18 year old self, Hey, get into social media because it didn't exist, right? But I would say, you know, the one thing I would tell anybody, no matter your age is start working on a personal brand now. Because I think for anybody in this, in today's world, especially, you know, kind of mid pandemic to post pandemic, obviously there's a lot of jobs that were lost. And so if you don't have a personal brand and people don't know who you are and nobody can vouch for you, it makes it that much more difficult to get a job if you're a job seeker.
I think it's so important to have a personal brand because you know, my personal brand was a big reason why I elevated myself into going on my own because I realized that, Hey, I had clients, I had people I could actually depend on to pay me money and support myself. Had I not started my journey on social media and had I not had a personal brand, I don't think I would have been as confident to go on my own as I was.
So I would say to myself, I wish I would've started my personal brand a lot sooner, but I would say to anybody, having a personal brand is such an important tool in today's world. You know, unless you're just set, unless you've got a job that you've been at for 20 years and it's steady and there's nothing going on and you have no stress in your life, that's job related, but that's not the majority of people's experience in today's world. And so I think having that personal brand is so important nowadays.
Jonaed: How would someone get in contact with you?
Timothy: They can find me on LinkedIn, my name, Timothy DeJesus. I'm on every social media platform. So LinkedIn and Facebook is the same Timothy DeJesus. It's my name. Instagram it's @djtechnicality, TikTok is @realtimothydejesus. Twitter is @realtimdejesus.
And it's things that they have all different names, but Twitter limits you on characters. But it's all good, but yeah, you can find me just about anywhere. You search Timothy DeJesus. I mean, there's not too many Timothy DeJesus-es in the world, so you'll find me.
Jonaed: All right. Thank you so much for your time. I know the listeners got a great value and, you know, looking forward to staying in touch.
Timothy: All right, man. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate you, bro.
Jonaed: I know that the listeners will definitely get a lot of value from this.
Timothy: All right. Awesome, man. I appreciate it so much. Have a good one.
Jonaed: You too.
Another great episode. Thank you for listening. Hopefully this information was valuable, and you learned a lot. Stay tuned for the next episode. This show is sponsored by you. No Degree wants to remain free from influence so that we can talk about the topics without bias. If you think the show’s worth a dollar or two, please check out our Patreon page. Any amount is appreciated and will go towards making future episodes even better. Follow us on Instagram or Snapchat at No Degree podcast. On Facebook @facebook.com/NoDegreeInc. If you want to personally reach out to me, connect or follow me on LinkedIn at Jonaed Iqbal, spelled J-O-N-A-E-D, last name, I-Q-B-A-L. Until next time, no degree, no problem. Nodegree.com.
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“No degree, No problem. Any problem, we can solve them. Linked Insomnia keeps us evolving. We’re growing in the knowing. The wisdom is flowing. If you did, you know, now you know where I’m going. No Degree, no problem. Any problem we can solve them.”
“Linked Insomnia keeps us evolving. We’re growing in the knowing. The wisdom is flowing. If you did, you know, now you know where I’m going. Yeah”
[0:49:40] End of Audio