I promised in my previous podcast that I would cover the MINI car revolution in this episode and I will, but first I need to do a touch more fleshing out of my journey back into the trade.   After the briefest of all breaks after settling the sale of the pub, I found myself in the used car department at Whitehorse Motors in Nunawading.   Once was a client but now, an employee selling a car brand I had come to admire and actually like.    There’s nothing like selling a product that you truly believe in.   It was a Saturday morning, and I was settling in, setting up my d ..read more

The 1960s was a decade of great change and the motor vehicle industry played a major role in those changes.  The decade began with the introduction of the iconic Mini and ended with the arrival of home-grown muscle cars – the Holden Monaro, the Falcon GT and the Valiant Charger. In between, came the beginning of the end of our preference for European vehicles with the arrival of the Japanese. The major styling feature introduced during the sixties was the ‘Coke bottle effect’, in which the boot and rear door panels were swept upwards over the wheel arch creating a profile which resemble ..read more

The 1960s was a decade of great change and the motor vehicle industry played a major role in those changes.  The decade began with the introduction of the iconic Mini and ended with the arrival of home-grown muscle cars – the Holden Monaro, the Falcon GT and the Valiant Charger. In between, came the beginning of the end of our preference for European vehicles with the arrival of the Japanese. The major styling feature introduced during the sixties was the ‘Coke bottle effect’, in which the boot and rear door panels were swept upwards over the wheel arch creating a profile which resembled ..read more

Back in The Trade   The kids were growing up.   The work was relentless and hard. Anyone that dreams of owning a little country pub should have a month running one on their own. Then decide.   The hours just kill you.   So, we decided that one day when we got an offer on the hotel that maybe we should accept it and one day we did.   We moved back to Melbourne.   Plan (A) was to go overseas, do a bit of a tour of Europe or maybe a cruise on a ship and then I’d come back and look for a business opportunity or a good job.   We rented a Villa Unit in Nunawading a ..read more

After about a year of hard slog, we got it into our minds, that we now deserved a NEW car. Something we could take away on a couple of weeks break.  To South Australia or up to NSW.  Anywhere, just to get away for a break. And I remembered whilst I was working for Bill Patterson Motors that we owned a company called Grand Prix Motors – BMW. I loved the look of the little BMW's that they drove as demos. So, I thought, I’ll get on the phone, ring them up, and find out how much the sexy little BMW 2002 coupes were. The call was answered and went a bit like this: “Hi Mr McLeish, where a ..read more

When we needed to finance car, GMAC was the first port of call. Well, for all new cars that is. We had Lombard and others we could use if GMAC if a deal was a so-so type of deal. As well as Lombard there was IAC, AGC, Custom Credit and Avco if you were desperate. With GMAC if we got a contract approved and settled, we received an extra $5 Commission. And believe me, that was handy. I was on about $50 per week. Commissions were structured for volume selling.  Not like today. Where "order takers" think he or she’s a GUN when they hit 10 sales. The average used hack was selling 25 or even 30 ..read more

Before I move on, there’s a couple or so stories that I'll have to share with you.  One involves a great character from Ringwood called AUB M.  One involves Poopy K.  The third involves an incident when I was working in the used car department   I was walking around the showroom one day. I'd come over from the used car department to the new car showroom and Patto was coming down the stairs from the mezzanine floor.  He saw me, and then he saw there was someone on the showroom floor climbing in and out one of the imported Chevrolets.  He obviously thought that ..read more

In my last episode, I said I would cover the road to a sale in more depth. So, as promised, I’ll attempt to entertain you with: The Road to A Sale - Expanded  But before I do,  I’d like to talk about two of the three best trainers I’ve ever seen. From America as lots of trainers were. But these were special Ernie Tex Pritchard. “Jackie B Cooper”. The third being Clint McGee but I never got to meet him in person as I did the other two. They really could sell “the message”. All in your face, and full of energy and enthusiasm. Ernie Tex Pritchard was quite a different person to the othe ..read more

Times were definitely changing and we all had to change our sales process. One of those “new” sales techniques and processes was called  The Road to a Sale. This was also referred to in the USA as the playbook.  They would say “we should consider ourselves a Team and we need a playbook to go by. It consists of a series of steps you needed to take to end up with a sale.  In my next episode, I’ll do a separate Podcast to cover them in more depth and detail but here is a broad brush stroke of the steps. Step 1 Meet and Greet Step 2 Fact Finding Step 3 Select a Vehicle Step 4 Presen ..read more

As a Sales Cadet, my training consisted of all the jobs that most salesmen found either tedious or demeaning.  Running errands, finding missing keys, doing yard changes, making cups of tea for customers, and getting lunches for everyone.  All unofficial, but at the end of the day, it was a good grounding and helped me understand the psyche of a sales team. Then I was sent off to the factory for a sales training course.  As I left one of the salesmen shook my hand and said,  “good luck Gordon, I hope you survive the lobotomy”.  What was he saying? Then, around two thirt ..read more