When I first started selling cars I was so excited to go to work every day that I would arrive an hour early and each sale was like winning a hand of blackjack. I made more money than ever before and had dreams of owning a big house and buying a Dodge Viper.
After a few years I bought a lake home and a few cars - none of them a Viper – and each year I took my family on nice vacations. We had a pretty good life going, but with each car sale the high of selling diminished, until I was at the point where I no longer wanted to talk to customers, and selling cars became like digging ditches for me.
Each day I looked around the dealership and wondered what I was accomplishing in doing this job. What was I contributing to humanity? I thought probably nothing, and felt I was not only not contributing, but making things worse for some people. What was my legacy going to be? When I lay on my death bed, what would I have to look back on and be proud of in my career? Nothing I thought. In fact I felt I might be ashamed of myself.
I had always toyed with the idea of becoming a writer, so one day after my boss really pissed me off, I decided I would write a tell-all book about how to buy a car and beat the dealers at their own game. I really didn't want to write about the car business, but they say write about what you know, so that's what I did. The result you see before you now.
The funny thing is that in writing this book I found a new value in what I do. I always knew that the purchase of a car is a momentous event in a person's life. It's the second largest purchase most people will make – second only to a house – and if people don't do it right it can mess up their lives for a long time.
While writing the book I realized I'm in a position to make a real impact on people. I can ease their fear, give them good advice, make sure the car they are buying is sound, and watch out for their financial interests. To me these are important, far-reaching areas in which to help people. I can make sure everyone I work with gets a fair deal, while the dealership gets their fair share, and I get mine.
Now with the publishing of this book I hope to improve people's lives even more, by empowering those customers whom I will never get the opportunity to meet. By doing this I hope to improve a tarnished industry and make it function a little more smoothly, thereby helping the world function a little more smoothly. That's a legacy I can live with.
So I'm a car salesman with a conscience – go figure. My boss would probably fire me if he found out.