CHAPTER 1 : Deal Desking The Travesty is Born

 

​​

 

My customers often asked why I had to leave my office and speak with a manager down the hall every 10 seconds. I've always chalked it up as part of the process. One of them tells me what it will take for the customer to purchase, the other gets the financing for it. At the end of the day, the best way to understand what my dealership expects from the sales position would be to simply change the name from salesman to "Expendable Sales Idiot" Let me explain... For a tiny piece of the pie, the expendable sales idiot, a sacrificed liaison, gets sent out on the front lines for purposes of luring the customer into the dealership to begin the process of deceit. They’re instructed to get anything from the customer (money, depreciate trade value, co-signers, etc.)   that will move the process forward, for the purpose of forwarding anything you acquire on to the Betten/Baker elite. And if you screw it up, you’re messing with their money and you will be treated like your 12 again. As you go up the Betten/Baker "con" of command, each manager (puppeteer) gets a little bigger piece of the pie. I suppose it's good to know that unless you're at the top, there are puppet strings attached to the managers as well. Just fewer of them. That way the overall master of puppets safely remains hidden at the top of the pyramid (a word often followed by "scheme," or "pulling your strings"), as he dangles transparent carrots in front of anyone stupid enough to go after them. Sprinkle in fake management fist pumps and atta boys for the ones that oblige and dirty looks for the ones who won’t buy in. The salesman is simply the one that brings you into the dealership and tries to get from you what the managers want from you. Deal Desking is the first step. Usually riddled with some form of untruth, the salesperson is all but there to just go back and forth being the dealership's middle man and often scapegoat if something goes awry. My suggestion would be to know your credit prior to getting any vehicle, crunch the payment numbers yourself and tell the salesperson that if they leave their office, you’re leaving the dealership. Of course, the only sure-fire way to be sure you’re not getting taken advantage of would be to never pull into a Betten or Baker dealership to begin with. I can assure you that they absolutely do not deserve your business in any way, shape or form. I believe that you will only move up and succeed being employed with Betten/Baker dealerships if you in some way, are part of the “establishment.” Anyone desking any Betten/Baker deal is more than likely part of the establishment. If you’re “in” good enough with that manager, he may cut you and your customer some “scam-slack,” but I wouldn't count on it. Deal desking is the part of the Betten/Baker sales process where my guard always came up. In the end, it was always the customer and I vs. the dealership. From day one I felt that I was standing in between a customer trying to make a wise decision and a company trying to make a sale. That is how it should be, right up until one of the parties would add greed, dishonesty and unethical tactics to the process. A good example would be over inflating the monthly payments, have the expendable sales idiot get the customer to agree to those monthly payments, so that when they offer the warranty, it seems like it’s an inexpensive no brainer to the customer. At Honda, they actually lost a few of their lenders when they were caught using this method. Feel free to message me if you’d like quality, truthful advice regarding your future vehicle service and purchases. If you can't find the vehicle you’re after anywhere else, you’d be smarter to walk, call a cab or take the bus.