I don't believe a person could have been more naive than I was about the car business when I decided that the car business was the next logical step in my career progression.  I had only bought one car all by myself leading up to this job, and I actually thought highly of the salesman I bought from three years before.  His name was Chuck Edwards, and he is one of very few salespeople's names I remember, but it should be noted that he should not be flatteredby my recollection.  It took me several years to realize that I got screwed over royally by Chuck, who seemed to specialize in taking advantage of the military, but at the time I thought he was the cat's meow of car salesmen.  I would eventually figure out that I paid more to lease a car than I would have paid to own it, and that he essentially pocketed the $2500 I put down in the beginning.  My monthly payments ended up being higher than the payments would have been to finance traditionally, and since one purpose of leasing is to get more car for less money, I might as well have given Chuck my ATM card and PIN code, while I was at it.  Long story short, there were lessons to be learned from this, and sometime in 1998, those lessons were finally realized.

My indoctrination into the car business began with great hopes.  The first two weeks were spent in training by Chuck Dean Sr., a man I admire and respect to this day.  He taught us all how to sell ethically and represent the industry well.  As I went through his training, I remember wishing that I could work for him, as there was something different about him from the people I worked for at the Toyota store.  This would become even more apparent when, after the training, the very first thing I was told was to "forget everything Chuck taught you".  Wow!  No sense in putting any lipstick on that pig; just put on your mask, grab a gun, and start pointing it at customers.  From my perspective, it would end up feeling that way.  While I would eventually end up in the Internet Sales Department, I started out in traditional sales.  For beginners, that consisted of standing outside on the lot waiting for people to show up, as the result of the dealer's advertising.  We would meet and greet the customer by hovering over their vehicles from the moment they pulled on the property, like vultures over a dying animal's body.  We would then attempt to "assist" them in finding a vehicle that we would eventually try to jam down their throats through aggressive sales tactics that everything one has come to expect from a stereotypical car dealership.  For me, this was an absolute delight.  Well...not really.  This job wasn't remotely fun for me in any way imaginable.  I stayed committed to the job, though, because I wasn't a quitter and didn't realize that there were actually dealerships out there that didn't operate this way.  At the time, my marriage was falling apart, and I sincerely believed the problem with the marriage was based on finances.  Little did I realize that this job would only make things worse, and not because of finances.  So I just kept on doing the best I could to turn this job into money that would pay the bills, improve our quality of life, and hopefully save the marriage.  It really didn't do any of these things, and before I ended up leaving the Toyota dealership, my marriage would completely fall apart.  But this isn't about my marriage; it's about my time in the car business, so I digress.  

The daily routine at the dealership was tough for me.  As a natural introvert, sales is not exactly an ideal profession.  I have learned over the past many years in sales that I am not a salesperson at all.  Nonetheless, I have managed to be successful at what I do.  It is because I represent things that I have a passion for and can speak candidly about.  I am honest and ethical, and I put my reputation and credibility above the sale itself.  If I cannot sell with honesty and integrity, then I don't want to sell it, whatever it might be.  The policies at this dealership did not align well with my core beliefs, and it was here that I learned a lot about myself.  For roughly the first four or five months at this dealership, I was a regular salesperson.  If I were fortunate enough to get a customer into the dealership to talk price and negotiate, that is where the real misery would begin.  After filling out some basic customer information, I would take the paperwork to the sales manager to begin the negotiation.  The manager would generally start at MSRP and instruct me to act as if we did the customer a favor by not adding $10,000 to the price.  If a trade was involved, it would be at this point that I would also be responsible for telling the customer that his/her trade-in is a piece of crap, not worth the paper the appraisal was written on, and then try to determine which of these figures (our price or the trade value) offended the customer the least.  Then, after four or five trips back and forth, there would either be a sale or a customer that was likely never to return to our dealership.  Lucky for us, our main competitor was just as awful, so that kept us in the game more than we deserved.  It reached a point to where I would have the same type of dream every single night.  The dream, or nightmare, involved me being back at work, and in the dream, I would not be able to wake up from my sleep unless I sold a car in said dream.  Simple enough, one might think, except that the sale had to be conducted "by the book", which consisted of lies and other unethical practices that I did my best to work around in real life.  The problem in the dream was that I could not cheat the rules, therefore dishonesty was a requirement.  I hated just about everything about my life at that point in time.  Work sucked, and there was no welcoming committee when I came home either.  

The closest thing to a break that I ever got at the Toyota dealership was when the owner figured out that the leads that were coming off the website were being thrown away by the salespeople.  At that time, the Internet was still very new to the car business, and an Internet customer usually met a single profile...price shopper with a clipboard full of notes and information that most other customers didn't have.  Interpretation:  Pain-in-the-butt customers that never allow the dealership (and thus the salesperson) to make any money.  This is precisely why salespeople would not even put forth any effort on website leads, as they had learned that it was just too much hassle for too little money to try and win over an Internet shopper.  So the dealer decided that he wanted to have a single person that would be responsible for all Internet leads, and thus the dealer's first Internet Sales position was born.  I was one of six salespeople that expressed interest in the position, and to win the position, I had to write the best business plan for the Internet Sales Department.  How would I manage the department, and what resources would I need to see the department succeed?  It would be my business plan that would be selected, and as such, it was I who was the dealer's first dedicated Internet Manager.

I had hoped that the Internet department would allow me to circumvent some of the terrible processes I wanted desperately to avoid, but in the beginning, I would have no such luck.  I was awarded the position of Internet Manager at the dealership, but there really weren't any managerial privileges involved.  I would still have to follow the same process that all the traditional salespeople followed, which meant that people who did not like Internet customers would be heavily involved in the process.  I learned very quickly (although I knew this already) that it would be an uphill battle from day one.  From the first lead that came in under my watch, the battles would begin.  Management would tell me to go away and come back when there were no customers in the dealership, as customers in the dealership are the only ones that matter.  So, sometimes it would take a day or two to get a price on a car from management, and when I finally got the price, I walked away scratching my head.  A car that had a sticker price of $25,000 would be met with an Internet price of $24,900.  WOW!  THAT'S A BARGAIN!  And every request that came in was treated that way.  So, for the first two months of this, I just dealt with it, knowing that 60 days in I could go back to the owner and make a pretty good argument that something needed to change.  For those 60 days, though, I would darn near starve to death.  Selling one car in two months time does not pay the bills.  I was essentially living off of minimum wage during this time, and that wasn't good.  But after 60 days, I went back to the owner and submitted my combination resignation from the Internet deparment and proposal for what it would take to be successful as an Internet dealer.  I did this because I fully expected to be told to go to hell when I provided my list of needs for success.  I stated that I needed the autonomy to run the department without anyone else's involvement; I needed a pricing matrix so that I could price the cars myself; I needed the ability to trade with other dealers in order to get the car that a customer wants (dealers hate dealer trades, by the way, so this was a big one), and I needed access to the leasing system, so that I could quote lease prices (another big deal).  I knew what it would take to do well, and I doubted that I would get it.  But I was wrong.  

So the dealer announced to management that I had been granted the resources I requested, and I remember to this day the delightful looks on their faces.  It was as if they had been told that they had been replaced by poop-flinging monkeys.  So guess what...they were determined to see me fail.  And guess what else...they would not see it.  From the day I was granted my wishes to the day that I left, the Internet department started getting traction.  Customer requests were responded to instantly, their questions were answered, and the Internet department started making sales.  While it would only be 90 days or so before I would leave, those 90 days were productive.  In my last week there, I would sell 9 cars, including several out-of-state customers including Ohio, Mississippi, and Georgia.  

My departure would end up being the result of a dealership-owned car that I drove bumping the curb as I made a left off an interstate exit ramp onto the parkway that leads to the dealership.  As I decelerated to make the turn and applied the brakes, the brakes locked up and the car skidded into the elevated curb.  This bump threw the alignment out of whack and the car wouldn't drive.  Long story short, the dealer asked me how I was going to pay the $2100 to fix it.  There were a number of issues I had with this, including the fact that the dealership had insurance, and the policy required only paying the co-pay.  I was presented with the full bill.  There was also the argument as to whether the accident occured due to my negligence versus whether the car had a mechanical problem that should not have resulted with the blame being placed on me.  But, whatever the case, I chose to walk out, as I wasn't about to sign up to get screwed over, and that is what I did.  

I'm not one to leave a job without a plan in place, but my hand felt a bit forced on this one.  Regardless, I had to find work.  I started making the rounds at various dealerships, taking into consideration some feedback I was given about which dealers had good reputations and which ones didn't.  After visiting three or four dealerships, I went to a Chrysler Dodge dealership, where I learned that they might be seeking an Internet manager at their Chevrolet location.  They had no Internet department, but were looking for the right person to get a department started up.  I made my way to the Chevrolet dealership, and my next employer was found, and found within three days, as best I recall.

My experience working for these two stores was a positive one, so I have no problem naming my employer.  Susan Schein Chevrolet and Chrysler Dodge were great stores to work for.  It would set the stage for me to make the biggest and most successful move of my career, and I cannot complain about the opportunity and experience working for Susan gave me.  

After having worked at the Toyota dealership for about eight months, I would spend the next 14 months at Susan Schein.  The first month would be spend getting websites built and making a living off the sales floor while waiting for the Internet department to be born.  Little did I know at the time, the company I would contact to build the websites would become my employer a year later, but that's another chapter on this website.  

After the sites were built, the marketing of the sites began.  It was a slow process early on, but eventually the sites would drive enough traffic to generate enough leads for me to justify my existence and attempt to make a liviing.  As an Internet Manager, I prided myself on the upkeep and detail of the websites, so I spent a lot of time taking pictures of cars and making sure that customers had a worth-while experience if they happened to stumble across our website.  Feedback would be really positive, and many of those that ended up buying vehicles from the Chevrolet and Chrysler brands would rave about the site and our processes.  I felt really good about what I was able to accomplish with the site, and I was thrilled to later learn that the website provider was showing our website on a national scale because we were "doing it right".  To be showing top-performing dealers in Los Angeles and New York our website was a big deal to me, and I am proud of this acknowledgment to this day.

Once the sites were up and running, we generated a fair amount of business off the sites.  We also proved that many customers walking in the doors were visiting the website before hand.  At that time, most car dealers weren't willing to believe this, but we were able to prove it, and doing so would earn me the privilege of driving a demo.

I was very proud of all the things I accomplished at Susan Schein, and I enjoyed the people I worked with.  

The account representative that would service the account would be instrumental in helping me get my next job.  To this day, she is still the best rep I have ever had at any job and in any line of work.  That statement may lose its credibility when I say that she would become a girlfriend and eventually a wife, but that would be four years later.  At that time, she was just my account rep, and she made me feel like she cared about me as a customer.  Nothing more.  I was going through my first divorce at the time, so another relationship was the last thing on my mind.  But back to the job.  During one of the in-store visits, I asked how one goes about working for a company like Cobalt (the website provider), being a national company based out of Seattle and all, as I had no idea.  I felt like I might have something to offer at that time, but more than anything, I was simply curious, because The Birmingham News wasn't likely to be posting such positions, and websites like Monster.com weren't really much of anything back then.  She basically said that my best bet would be to put my resume in her hands and let her pass it along, so that's what I eventually did.  My resume would get lost somewhere along the way, as Cobalt outgrew its headquarters and had to move into a larger building.  In doing so, some things disappeared, and my resume was among them.  

A few months later, however, as I was becoming frustrated with some things pertaining to the website and the support I was receiving, I was contacted by the regional manager, who explained to me that they were seeking a person to manage their accounts in Alabama, which was contributing to my support issues.  I asked why I had not been contacted, blah blah blah, and the conversation led to me resubmitting my resume.  That would lead to an interview, and the rest is pretty much history.  They did end up offering me Tennessee instead of Alabama (after deciding they would offer another candidate the Alabama job before even interviewing me), but I was so enamored with the prospect of working for Cobalt, I was all too happy to bite on the bait-and-switch.

So in April of 2000, I would give my notice at Susan Schein and inform them of my intentions to go to work for Cobalt.  The owner surprised me by saying that she figured it was just a matter of time before I "spread my wings" and moved on to something bigger and better.  I thought that was an incredibly thoughtful thing to say, and nine years later, it still warms me inside to know that she saw me as a diamond in the rough, as it were.