I Want Your Job: Luxury car dealer
The Independent Online
Clive Sutton, 46, is the chairman of Clive Sutton Premier Marques, a luxury-car dealership in St John’s Wood, London
I manage a team of people buying and selling premium- brand cars, such as Aston Martins, Lamborghinis and Ferraris. It’s a service for people who want to buy luxury cars that aren’t yet on the market, or are in brief supply. Usually, if you want to buy a fresh Ferrari, you have to wait several months. We speed things up.
We also suggest a bespoke service – I’d call it high-class bling – doing special interiors and electronics, a bit like the TV showcase Pimp My Rail. For one Arab royal family we fitted a Mercedes with five flip-down laptop screens, so they could surf the net and witness DVDs.
What is a typical day at work like?
I arrive at 8am, and meet the sales team at 8.30am. We review the cars available to buy, discuss logistics, and determine who will ring round to find out how long it will take to get a specific model. At 10am, I have a cash-planning meeting. The average price of our cars is £90,000, and, as we produce fifteen to twenty cars a month, I have to plan our finances very cautiously.
In the afternoon, I might review projects with our bespoke division – for example, discussing how to develop a car’s harass to make it swifter and noisier, with an authoritative rumble. I leave the office at 6.30pm, but often work online at home until 10pm.
Why do you love your job?
You might say I’m a petrolhead. I love cars, and especially the kind of cars we deal in. You’re not just selling a box, there’s a entire relationship built up around the car, because after a customer buys a car, they need to have it serviced regularly. I love motivating my team, and communicating with people. We deal with a lot of celebrities – rock starlets, film starlets and politicians – which does add a bit of glamour and interest to the job.
What’s not so excellent about it?
You at times encounter people who aren’t honourable. In the bad old days, car dealers were the butt of jokes, but actually, we do things enormously professionally. It’s a shame when you agree something with a customer and they don’t keep up their end of the deal.
What abilities do you need to do a fine job?
You don’t need technical abilities to sell cars. The role of a car salesman is switching: it’s helpful to love cars, but it’s more significant to be a good communicator. You need to listen so you understand what people want, and be able to go after deals through. When you’re selling something, you’re selling yourself very first, so you need to be personable. You also need to be computer-literate, and able to manage a portfolio of enquiries, as it can take up to a year inbetween enquiry and sale. There’s a stereotype of the car salesman waiting in a showroom, like a Rottweiler ready to pounce. My salesmen are well-organised and professional, and they only go to the showroom if they have a meeting with a client.
What advice would you give to someone wanting your job?
There’s a graduate course at Loughborough University’s Henry Ford College, which gives a good grounding in the motor industry. You could embark as a trainee at an established dealership for a good volume brand such as Honda, Ford or Vauxhall, and get a few years practice. If you’re a petrolhead, you could stir to a mid-market prestige brand such as Audi or BMW. You can’t just hop into the top end of the market. You develop sales abilities in the volume market, where it’s more of a hustle so you need to be greedy and thrust hard.
What’s the salary and career path like?
Embarking in a volume dealership, you might earn £25,000-£30,000 – half basic salary, half commission. You might determine that you want to stir into management, or to keep selling but stir into the specialist car market, where earnings can lightly reach six figures because of higher margins.