THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 29, 1996 TAG: 9609290046
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: SALES JOBS IN HAMPTON ROADS
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 136 lines
You'd think Michael Boston would want them on the lot. Looking at cars. Sliding behind the wheel, seeing themselves tooling down the road.
That's the last place he wants them. On the lot. Where the customer fixes his eyes on a '95 Jeep Grand Cherokee while his wallet screams ``How about that '91 Plymouth Sundance over there?''
Boston will get around to selling the ``up'' - or customer - a car later. Right now, he's interested in finding out what the customer can pay.
But once he gets an ``up'' out there, among the shiny rows of chrome, with American flags flying from every antenna at Charlie Falk's Witchduck Road lot, chances are Boston will close him. A dozen times in the last year and a half he's been salesman of the month. Awhile back, he sold 16 cars in a month.
``All the people can buy,'' says the 31-year-old Boston. ``Half the people can buy what they saw that brought them in here.''
That's why Boston's got to orchestrate the sale. Jack Falvey, who teaches sales management at University of Massachusetts in Boston, calls this a brokered sale.
``Often times a car salesman looks like he's selling a car - wrong, he's selling financing, a deal,'' Falvey says.
Michael Boston's trying to broker a sale right now. He had no problem getting his ``up'' off the lot and into the office. She needs a car. But now she's getting itchy.
She's given him the information. The pay stub. The driver's license. An apartment lease. She came prepared. He likes that.
Now she wants to go outside. Smoke a cigarette and look over the lot. He doesn't like that. This is how you lose them.
``I don't want to say she can't have a cigarette,'' Boston says, ``but I usually try to keep them off the lot.''
Boston's good at this. He's a pro. Dresses in pressed slacks, dress shirts, black shoes and hip ties. He wears a constant smile, even when he's bringing somebody bad news about their credit.
You get the feeling he could sell just about anything. He sold clothes at Military Circle Mall and diamonds at Gordon's Jewelers. He didn't know a lick about jewelry when he started. Gordon's made him watch a tape on ``all that stuff about cut and clarity and color.'' He made salesman of the year.
Boston sells himself as much the product. The way he sees it, a car is a car. The only difference between buying a car from Falk's and buying one somewhere else is the person they're talking to.
``If they don't like the price, maybe they'll like me,'' he says.
What's not to like? There's that perpetual grin and the close-cropped hair. And he's a family man. Has a wife Elizabeth and his ``two livelihoods,'' 3-year-old Christopher and 9-month-old Gianni.
The cigarette smoker likes Boston, but not all the waiting. Her credit report comes back. She can't come up with much of a down payment. Boston tries to sell the credit manager on the woman, but she needs more money up front. He thanks her for her time.
``Strike one,'' Boston says. ``Actually, we could've did those people. She didn't want to do anything today. She had a roast in the oven, that's what she said. That didn't help.''
Boston usually thinks Falk's can ``do'' - meaning finance a car loan at rates that often hit 24 percent - just about anybody. That's one of the things that makes him good, says David Crique, Boston's first manager at Falk's.
Often when Crique would turn down the financing for one of Boston's ups, Boston would go back to the customer and ask some more questions. Maybe he'd find out about another purchase they had financed, or maybe they'd come up with another $200 for the down payment.
``Sometimes he'd come back into my office to show me something else and I'd say, `Michael, are you still working that woman?' '' Crique says.
In most sales, Boston sells twice - he sells the customer on a car she can afford, then he sells his manager on the customer's credit.
``I look at it this way,'' he says, ``if you're the customer, I'm representing you like a lawyer and we're going to court.''
But some weeks, some months, the ups don't cooperate. Everybody's got a roast in the oven, or a kid to pick up from football practice. That's when you'll up five people in a row with no success, says Boston, and a guy will walk in and tell another salesman ``I want to buy a car.''
When a salesman's in a slump, he ends up questioning his technique. He gets distracted.
``You have to approach and reapproach and reapproach again,'' Boston says. ``You can't think, `This woman just doesn't like me.' You don't know, maybe you have the same last name of the guy she just divorced.''
Sometimes he gets on a roll and the ups are easy.
Like the couple that came in one Saturday, looked around, then left. They called back and said they had enough credit on their credit cards to buy a car. Boston told them that if they were serious, be there by 7:30 p.m. when Falk's closes. They came in at 7:45 p.m., but he waited for them. They bought.
Or the guy who caught a cab to the car lot. ``I almost jumped through the window to up him,'' Boston says.
While he never looks anxious, Boston is quick. There are no rules, no turns, among the salesmen at Falk's. If you spot the up and get to him first, he's yours, Boston says. He tries not to be a jerk about shoving past another salesman, but he also tries to be in position.
They used to consider Boston's desk the worst location in the office. It's right in front of the manager's office, and it's the farthest desk from the door. But from his desk, Boston can see all three entrances to the lot.
``I can see them coming in and already be standing up and beat them to the door,'' he says. ``I stand and walk a lot. That's why I wear out a lot of shoes.''
A slow salesman could go hungry. The salesmen work for commission, $200 a car.
``We get a flat rate - it doesn't matter if I sell a jet airplane,'' says Boston. He uses that with the ups - sometimes they think he's trying to push them onto a more expensive car to make more money. He gets a $600 bonus if he sells more than 12 in a month and $1,000 if he sells more than 20. That income doesn't put him in his dream car, an Acura Legend, but it pays the bills.
Boston drives a 1989 Pontiac Grand Am that he bought from a military couple that came to Falk's. ``They were looking to get $2,500,'' he says. ``I talked 'em down to $1,000.''
Earlier this summer, a Falk salesman at another lot sold more than 20 cars in a month. That's all Boston and the other Falk salespeople heard about for a while: Donald Coleman sold 20 cars.
Now Coleman's been transferred to the Witchduck Road lot where Boston works. Even though he doesn't get a bonus for it, Boston wants salesman of the month every month.
He's out of a mid-summer slump, Coleman's there to keep him on his toes, and Boston's working every up, every phone call.
Like this woman. She wants a Miata. It's tough when they want a specific car. Boston wonders if she'd be interested in a '93 Mercury Capri, which is a convertible just like a Miata.
She's thinking. How much?
``It's negotiable,'' he says. ``Everything's negotiable.''
She'll stop in tomorrow, she says.
By then, Boston will have done some arranging. See, Don Coleman drives a Miata. That doesn't help. She'll come in, see that, and - boom - forget about the Capri.
He'll ask Coleman to park somewhere else tomorrow. MEMO: Coming tomorrow: A GE salesman sticks with a customer when no one
else does. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
LAWRENCE JACKSON/The Virginian-Pilot
The way Michael Boston sees it, a car is a car. The only difference
between buying a car from Charlie Falk's and buying one somewhere
else is the person the buyer's talking to. by CNB