Looking for recommendations for a Sales Person at MotorHomes of Texas.
So with the issues with Sales People - what is the benefit, if any purchasing from MOT versus Private Party?
Thank you for your input.
Lorna
Mel.
I was not happy with jeff
Mel
Mel, but isn't he the sales manager now? Might be hard to get him out of the office.
Wasn't happy with either of them.Especially Mel.
Sorry, everybody else loves them. We were very disappointed.Still feel the burn.
Remember, any coach with a 'C' in front of it, is a consignment coach (read your buying a private party coach, and paying more)
Just my 2 cents
CW
No not really, the seller gets less because they are paying commission.. they sell it for what their going for, company owned or consignment..... if I could have sold mine myself I could have got around what they sell em for and wouldn't have had to pay commission
Keith
Feature, benefit and advantage selling of a Foretravel montohome and the ability to read and get along with every rv customer is a rare talent.
There are 4 basic personality types and most sales people can match with one or two. Rare to adapt to three. All four is a professional chameleon who has been trained or has learned what exact words, gestures and product presentation work with the basic types.
Older people used to not like you to use there first name until asked for their ok.
Mr Smith. Not Don. As an example.
I had 4 different sales people who could do 1 or 2 types. We rehearsed our type presentations. Flip cards. Color coded.
Plus switched salesmen if the customer was nodding their head a lot left to right.
Only ask questions with positive answers helped.
Jacob slew the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. Most sales are killed the same way
No training. Most had never thought of the things I taught them.
Sales comes down to a couple things...
1) understanding the product you sell
2) Find something in common with the customer and be their best friend.
#1) is most important.. knowledge sells.. they can get over the personality for the most part if you know what your talking about
3) Do not lie to the customer.. Why lie.. If you understand the product and you can explain the who, what , when , why...
If the product is good.. It will sell its self for the most part.
Ok sales class is over..
One day I hope to run down and buy a newer one.. Onother point.. I am an old (not realy old but ) saleman and I hate salesman..
Dont try and spoof me with OOhs and AAAhhhs.. I am a carnivore ... Give me the meat and potatoes. I can handle it. ^.^d
Never had to deal with an RV salesman but dealt with plenty of car salesman. And a few boat brokers as well. Has David says, and I hardly endorse it, I hate salesman. I really hate commercials which is just a sales pitch by a video device I guess. When I say hey I mean make my toes curl smoke come out of my ears kind of hate. There's an old joke about how do you know when a lawyer more politician or salesman or insert other personality type, is lying, when they open their mouth. And I'm not saying that all RV sales going to like that or all car salesman but their job is to sell you. A lot of them work on commissions and they don't get paid if they don't sell it. That's why I didn't go to motorhome of Texas even though I'm not that far away. Or any RV dealership for that matter. I was looking at private coaches. Only. Now that's not to say that the owner isn't going to lie either because when it comes down to it we're all just human, and we're all just trying to sell something. I recently had to sell a motorcycle. At no time that I lie about it, and I disclosed everything that was asked. I even told a few things that I probably should know if but in my good conscience I couldn't not do. That's when I found out that I did not like sales. Couldn't do it Don't want to do it. So if it was me buying another RV I would always look for a private sale first through these forums. also I would look at a member that's active not somebody that just comes on to sell something and then leave never to be seen again. Just an observation.
I am not an RV salesperson nor a car or boat salesperson. That said, I am a professional salesperson, in business for over 43 years, starting as a commission only sales person and now owner of a 10 person company I created. Factually nobody cares, but I care about the profession of selling and am compelled to give my 2 cents. I am not going to defend RV salespeople, only to suggest that painting a picture that all are bad does a disservice to the profession.
Are salesmen (and women) worthless? Could it be that they actually provide no value.? Most certainly. That's why when I am interested in a vehicle or rv,, boat etc. and want to explore the product or take it for a spin, I refuse to talk to a person who has not been at the dealership for 5 years or more. Reason, they aren't learning on my time. and if they haven't dedicated at least 5 years of their lives to their chosen profession, I don't want to talk to them.
I have sold my own vehicles and never thought to do anything but to simply state and describe things as they are. Having been victim of the sort who will tell you the ( insert infatuation of the day) is perfect and needs nothing only to drive 2 hrs each way to learn that is simply not the case which can most likely be my bad for failure to ask every question one can think of; for example; "How's the interior?" "It's excellent, looks like the day I bought it." As opposed to, "are there any stains rips or tears and when I get there will I be surprised to find something I won't be happy with?" Guess which question gives you more information?
Perhaps because I am in industrial sales it is a bit different than sales of vehicles, it goes both ways, I'm sure. There are those that would abuse salespeople and of course salespeople that have disdain for their customers. I just recently had a conversation with a salesperson at the Leisure Travel Van dealer in PA. He told me, in no uncertain terms, you will pay full list as there is a waiting list for over a year. If you want a new unit, you order it and agree to allow the dealer to display it at the Hershey show where they will allow thousands of people to walk through it touching everything and anything they desire. When I suggested that was unacceptable to me as there was a potential for damage he stated that one unit had substantial damage but they repaired it and the customer never knew. He also told me that if I didn't agree to allowing it to be displayed, it was not an issue as they sell everyone allocated to them and it didn't matter to him. So there's that- which is certainly consistent with what's been said.
But to my point, one can be a successful salesperson that is actually sought out by prospective buyers who are pleased to do business with that person. It happens everyday in every industry and I am confident everyone who reads this knows one. They are easy to identify. They have dedicated their lives to becoming a deep and wide resource that actually helps others and "believe it or not" or more vested in telling it straight, returning calls when you say you will, learning from others and sharing your knowledge and constantly improving your knowledge base than making the sale. Customers line up for those salespeople. They may be hard to find in the RV business but I cannot believe they do not exist. Successful sales people don't sell. People purchase things from them as a natural evolution of the conversation. Selling does not necessarily have to feel like you're being sold.
I like to say, if you have a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse or significant other, you're in sales, whether you know it or not.
If you have "enough" money, in the same vein as a Roll Royce has "enough" horsepower, MOT makes things easy. They will teach you what you need to know and hold your hand through the process. If you're in the market for a new vehicle remember it will be used as soon as you sign the paper work. If a used vehicle, the previous owner had a reason for selling.
If you're willing to, as I say do the reading, and you know a mechanic whose skill set you trust to survey the mechanical stuff you can provide your own sweat equity by calling and traveling to see for yourself several vehicles on your own, calling on your mechanic when you've found what you like.
We purchased a coach in December 2019. Scott was our sales person. Fell like he did right by us. Going from a 94 Grandvilla to an 2002 320 Foretravel, we had a lot of questions. The staff at MOT were very helpful. Ours was a consignment coach. The frig went out during the test drive so we had to stick around a few days. That turned out to be a good thing. Scott lined us up with shop guys to answer our questions and get us comfortable with the coach.
We have only dealt with 2 sales reps at MOT - David Robertson (the owner) when we bought our FT in 2004, and Mel, who we worked with when we were considering a newer coach. David is obviously not directly involved with buyers these days.
I cannot speak for any of the other members of the sales team, but in our experience, Mel was honest when we asked him pointed, specific questions about a coach (even when the answer would not be favorable about the coach in question) and we have recommended him to several folks. If we were considering a coach we saw at MOT, Mel is the guy we would contact.
Ditto happy with Mel
Bought our Foretravel from MOT in Dec 2018 and our salesman was Mike. He was professional, not pushy and showed us many different motorhomes. Didn't buy anything on first visit, but found something we liked on second visit.
Mike Phillips is no longer working at MOT. He went back to his old job at the car dealership. He was a great salesman.
Mike
Our coach was listed for $65,000 at MOT when the previous owner bought it. That means he paid between $55 or $60 for it. MOT told him that it was in great shape and he bought it, drove 1000 miles home and only put another 3000 on it before before decided by to sell it.
The buyer walked from it, the tires were years out of date, belts were worn out, batteries shot, etc etc.
He then spent $7,000 repairing a whole bunch of stuff and put it back on the market, with worn out original air bags and shocks, failing fuel lines that had been patched etc and we paid $36,000.
Believing MOT made for a $27 to $30,000 mistake!
BUYER BEWARE the salesman's job is to sell it to you as quickly as possible for the highest price possible.
That beautiful Canadian 320 that had the rusted failing bulkheads was the best coach on the lot last year when we were talking to our salesman, then we read about the damage (found by I think Brett doing an inspection for a potential buyer), on the forum and mentioned it to the sales man who immediately changed his tune to, yeah bad, you would not want it.
Why say lie in the first place, we bought from a private party, MOT does have a great selection, get a private third party inspection before buying.
Good luck
David
Mel did not seem very interested in selling a coach to us, so after looking at his sad face touring many coaches we went to FOT and purchased our used coach from Tyle. Your mileage may vary.
I bought my newer coach via private party. I got to meet the person, hear his stories, and learned alot about them and the coach. If you buy from a dealer you may never know the previous owner of the coach or how they took care of it.
If you buy from a forum member you will know a lot in advance.
Our coach and our kids coach both came from Forum members (ours via MOT) and we were able to read much of the history before ever seeing the coach.
Have there been problems? Yes. We both got coaches with excellent bones though and that can save you thousands.
I had a great experience with Mel.
Thanks so much for posting about the C in front of the coach. I am wanting to purchase a Foretravel but the pricing at MOT has had me so confused. Smaller engines, more miles older years are more expensive than better equip coaches etc. I thought I have been missing something But this does explain it - Most of us think what we have is worth more than what others think -
My recent experience with Mel is, well...actually, the whole sales team has become rather lackluster. If you've been keeping your eye on Unicoach sales at MOT, you've probably noticed that their inventory is really aging and getting rather stale. Days-on-lot is climbing sky high. They give every indication of not giving an owls-hoot whether they sell their consigned U295s and U320s or not.
I called about one particular U320, which they admitted...after strenuous grilling...had 13-year-old tires on it. I told them that I wouldn't drive the unit off the yard with such tires. Also admitted that another unit had severe delamination plus a badly cracked (literally broken) windshield - which they had no intention of fixing ($100,000+ coach). They reckoned that I might be better off looking at coaches elsewhere (PPL or MHS?).
Don't know what happened to the 'old' MOT, but right now it's pretty much a second-rate outfit. I do give their service department high ratings, though, and Keith is totally awesome. So is Clyde. in a couple of hours, he fixed an electronic issue for us that FOT couldn't get right after three trips to their service bays.
Larry
Jay was excellent for us. Very knowledgable and no pressure.