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LAY 'EM AWAY

Each of us had a Vegas-like act that we had created to not just sell the car -- any order taker could do that -- but to ''slay 'em, put 'em to sleep, lay 'em away,'' so we could make more profit for ourselves and the dealer.

A lot of people didn't like us as a breed, but we were good for the economy. We were making our mortgage payments and we were incredible consumers ourselves, carrying wads of cash to drop off at the nearest electronics store.

Jim sold by emphasizing the reliability of the car, going over it inch by inch as if it were the precious rifle that saved his life in 'Nam. He made his customers feel that if they left the lot without the new car, they might expire in their old car. Watching him ''stop'' his customers by staring into their eyes in order to gain their confidence was a thing of beauty. He was brutally effective.

Lebanese Eddie was a philosopher and entertainer who won people over with his deliberately broken English. ''Teach me what you want in life?'' he would say, initiating a Socratic dialogue.

The Fabulous Mr. Z from Pakistan would throw himself on the hood of trade-ins in mock desperation if people tried to leave without buying.

Clad in cowboy hat and boots, Joe the Closer would sit down slow, like John Wayne, and say, ``Now, folks, why not just buy the car from Rich? You don't want to look around anymore, do you?''

It was Joe who would remind peddlers who would come in complaining about a customer trying to get the upper hand, ``Ya better strap on a set and go back out there.''

That phrase, known by all car peddlers back in my day -- the 1980s and '90s -- simply means, man up. Dig in. Don't quit. Get audacious. Get the commitment to buy now even though they are telling you they want your business card and want to go home!''

I sold cars by making my customers the absolute center of my universe for four hours. I drew out their life stories. I would pretend we were on Larry King Live and I would interview husbands and wives about how they met. Was it love at first sight? What makes their marriage work? All that stuff.

We all had something special inside us that enabled us, as salesmen and women, to turn on our powers and not to get down. This was not a job that any schnook could do. To get to Jim's swimming pool on your days off, you had to have your act together big time. And I did.

Jerry was our god. As our general manager and the most powerful of peddlers, he was the last line of defense after the customers couldn't be stopped by me or one of my fellow salesmen.

Jerry would tell customers, ``I am going to make a profit from you. I'm in business. And I am going to make at least $1,000. Out of that, I will pay my salesman.''

I would always shudder hearing him tell them he was going to make profit on them. But the customers loved the strength and honesty. And they would close. That probably wouldn't work today. Today, tell a customer you will make $1,000 on them on a car deal and they will laugh in your face. Customers get the invoice of new cars on the Internet from a wide range of sources. They even know the dealer ''holdback,'' or what the dealer gets from the manufacturer and they try to get some of this money as well. They will offer below-invoice as often as not. And, they will often get it or, at minimum, a few hundred bucks over invoice.

The Internet has killed profit, and somewhat neutralized the salesman's tool kit.

THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

It was Jerry who designed our whole universe, the circle of life for making profit. The universe was called the ``Ten Step Selling Program.''

I don't remember the exact order of the steps, but they began with ''meet and greet the customer'' and ended with ''follow up for more sales.'' In between were, among other steps, ''sell self and dealership'' and ``get a commitment to buy now.''

In weekly sales meetings, Jerry would stress that we could never skip or switch a step. That would cause the house of cards to crumble. On a hot day, there was temptation to skip from step one to the test drive. One had to fight the temptation.

''Profit,'' Jerry would say in these meetings, ``comes from building value. If they don't see the value, it's all about the price. We don't want it to be about price. And building value comes from where?''

''Doing all the steps in order,'' we would repeat, like members of a cult.

I hired on at Jerry's after I flamed out in a journalism job. I had botched a story about a successful college basketball coach and not only was I out of a job, I was radioactive. I went to the mall looking for a sales job. No one would hire me. Then, I happened to walk into the dealer where I had bought a truck years before.

Marsh, the sales manager, said, ``You're the guy who wrote that (bleep). You got (bleep) You can work for us.''

They put me in a two-week training class. Trainees were called ''green peas'' by the veteran car salesmen, and most didn't last a month. The new hires included old guys who had taught chemistry in high school, former insurance salesmen, bankers, single moms -- black, white, brown, men, women, Indian and Pakistani working side by side.

I took the lot for the first time on a Saturday in 1985. I spent half a day with a man who ended up buying a brand new white pickup truck from me. I remember I kept saying ``Today is my first day and you are my first customer. You've got to buy or I will shrivel and die.''

I will never forget the feeling of the handshake from the customer after the close by Joe. He was mine. I had slain this buck. I asked him for his driver's license and credit card and he handed everything to me. After four hours together, I held his life in my hands like a doctor. He trusted me. I think we made $500 on the deal. It didn't matter. I was elated. After it was over, Jerry said nothing. But Joe gave me a big high five in the sales hut.

I looked at myself in the mirror in the bathroom in the hut when my customer was signing his paperwork with our finance man. Sweat rimmed my face. I felt triumphant.''

``Does it always take this long?''I asked Joe.

''Sometimes longer,'' he said.

``Joe, am I allowed to tell my next customer that he's my first customer?''

''Whatever works,'' Joe said.

In the years I sold cars, I earned from $50,000 to $80,000 annually without fail, when that was real money. It wasn't unusual for me to make $2,500 on a weekend on just three car sales. Today, salesmen have to know more and they earn less. They mostly earn a living on $200 per car, which is called a minimum or ''minnie,'' that the dealer pays them because there's not enough profit for them to get a percentage, as we did. I think of Jim, and Ed and Joe and Mr. Z often, and about how to get the industry that fed us and clothed us out of the ditch.

If you ask me, President Barack Obama should require General Motors to take those billions and build an all-new, small American super-car that Americans can buy for $3,000 to $5,000 right now. You could call it The Aristotle, after the great Greek philosopher. The hatchback version could be The Plato.

Yes, GM will lose money. But they are doing that now. It will get people back onto the domestic lot. You can't sell customers if they won't go near your dealership because they are hooked on foreign cars.

GREENER PASTURES

The characters I worked with have long since headed to greener pastures, God knows where. They exist only in the pages of a book of poems called Moving Iron.

You won't find Moving Iron, which I wrote and self-published in 1989, on Google or Amazon. The owner of the lot decided, after a quick scan of the contents, that the poems were shockingly honest and hence, unflattering, and, as a result, had to be squelched. He threatened to sue if I had the book published by a legitimate publisher or solicited publicity about it. Of course, it didn't help that I had naively decided to use the real names and pictures of some of the salesmen and women in the book, without their explicit permission.

So I backed off on the book, stopped churning out the poetry and continued to move iron at that same dealership. I have no regrets. The peddlers each got one of the roughly 200 books in existence.

The book's opening poem, My Lot, is a proud tribute to car salesman. It describes me, as I was then, a 30-something, smiling machine with some hair left and rings on several fingers.

It is an ode to all peddlers, those amazing charmers. I am a decade removed from their world, but I still love them.

Richard Dymond is a reporter with The Bradenton Herald.

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