If you’re a lender, you may not know just what goes into selling the cars you finance. In this week’s episode of This American Life, you can hear about some of the foibles of car dealers ― including accidentally selling the same car twice because a salesman forgot to mark it as sold.
The long-running radio show hosted by Ira Glass looks this week at a Jeep dealership in Levittown, N.Y., as the salesforce there tries to reach a monthly goal of 129 cars.
The reporters take listeners inside how deals get done ― how trade-in values are determined, how financing options are figured, etc. For instance, we hear a sales manager panic because a buyer has returned to the dealership to finalize a sale ― but the saleswoman isn’t there, and neither is someone to value the trade-in.
The episode is a unique look inside a dealership sales force, including few Long Island accents and a bit of stress-induced profanity.
Check out the episode here, or download it from iTunes.
