You may think selling cars is something you just slide in and do, like any other job that involves selling goods to the public. I had assumed the same. As it turns out, "car salesperson" is a position that requires certification and licensing by a state-administered board, as well as a thorough background check. You cannot sell cars if you have committed a felony within the last ten years, and can be denied for misdemeanors as well. Luckily for me, Being Too Hot is a civil matter and charges were dismissed by a judge after I started going on about my opinions on Final Fantasy during my hearing. Today, I have to get fingerprinted.
I also had to take a surprisingly info-dense and stringent exam, requiring memorizing a good chunk of my state's Motor Vehicle Sales Code to ensure that I am free from gross incompetence and corruption. Since my background is not in law nor automotive matters, it was all new to me. I had expected a week or so to study the 355 pages of the Official Motor Vehicle Sales Code Study Guide, to internalize its rules, regulations, and ethical messaging. I was given two days.
Somehow, I passed the exam on my first try.
I will not be able to legally sell a single car until my license is approved by the good ol' Department of Revenue, and won't get sales bonuses until my first chunk of training is complete.
Oh yes. The training. The online, painfully boring, extremely corporate training. The Company budgets four weeks for training, which involves sitting in the office watching slideshows, videos, and doing dinky little quizzes about everything from the company's structure, to sales techniques, to the phone systems we use to follow leads. Luckily I'm a bit ahead of schedule, but actually doing what I was hired for--selling cars--is still a few weeks off. Until then, my working life will be a whirlwind of recommended language for customer engagement and monotonous videos about how to properly make, end, and log phone calls.
Still, I persist.
On a side note, I brought my homemade hot sauce to the office, and my AGM was astounded by both the flavor and the fact that I grew the peppers myself. He half-jokingly suggested I go into business making and bottling it. That was a nice little ego boost.