Buy a New Car to Improve Sales.

Ever since I started selling, I have heard a piece of sales advice that has always seem particularly toxic. This becomes even more toxic if it comes from a manager, and that is that a person should buy a new car in order to force themselves to get better at sales.

Sometimes I like to try to play devil’s advocate for ideas I don’t like on this blog, but there is only some much I can take.

The idea behind it is simple. A new salesperson buys a car, and thereby needs to make more money in order to pay for it. That forces them to become a better salesperson.

Let’s start by assuming it works and everything goes according to plan. Here is the problem. In exchange for what? Other than the car itself, what does the salesperson really get from this? They are still living paycheck to paycheck. They are still desperate. The only difference is they now get into a vehicle they resent every. Single. Day.

They are still stuck in the same scarcity mindset they would have been in anyway WITHOUT a $400+ per money lease payment. Sure, they are making more sales, but the salesperson is still eating Ramen noodles and hotdogs until they are either 40 lbs over or under weight.

Let’s be clear, that is pretty much best case scenario.

Worst case scenario that person loses the car, is unable to make it to work, and has tanked their credit score because of the repossession.

This is advice that has been around for decades, but I most recently came across it in print in Sell or Be Sold by Grant Cardone.

Let me be clear, this is horrible advice. You may get more sales, but the only person who will be happier because of it will be your manager. And if it is your manager suggesting it to you, they are no better than a drug dealer trying to get you addicted and desperate.

If you want to make more money, do not use extrinsic motivators. Instead work on finding the right internal motivators. Work to pay off debt, not create more. Work to spend more time with your family, not more time cold calling.

Even if buying a new car works exactly how you want it, odds are you will be miserable. Simply avoid this idea. If you don’t you will be just as desperate as you are already with a larger sword of Damocles hanging over your head.