Yes, Jimmy is a fine young man, and he'll make a fine salesman here at Chevrolet! A year later, in December of 1941, young Jimmy answered his Country's call to arms! And fought in the South Pacific with the U.S. NAVY aboard a destroyer and participated in some of fiercest naval battles during the war! And when he returned home with a chest full of medals, there was a job waiting for him at the Chevrolet dealership ! ✌🏻🇺🇸
Jimmy studied hard and applied himself well to Chevrolet salesmanship. Things went swell! He took out loans and bought a new Ford and a home. He married his neighbor's teen-age daughter, and they were expecting triplets. He was on top of the world. Until Dec. 8th, 1941. Seems priorities had shifted overnight, and now selling Sherman tanks door-to-door was a real struggle.
This is a very useful video for any aspiring sales person and sales managers. 70 years old but still current in the things that matter. I really loved the fact that he is knocking doors selling cars.
I liked when he said to his Dad “ starting Monday morning”. Back when people had lives and didn’t work in weekends. Weekends was for family. That’s long gone.
"Jimmy? Always take a gun with you on your calls. If you don't need it, that's swell, but if you do.....I've found a prospective buyer is far more willing to buy if he knows you will shoot him if he doesn't..."
After several successful years of selling Chevrolets, Jimmy decided he needed a major change in his life. On a wild hair, he quit the Chevrolet dealer, changed his name to Darren Stephens, moved to Westport Connecticut and took a new job in advertising sales for McMann & Tate. He then met a woman named Samantha.
Then as now, few people percentage wise reached the century mark...but at the time this film was made, the U.S. government was still paying veterans' benefits to the offspring of a man who fought in the War of 1812.
Best sales tactic for 1940 - "You better buy this new car, they won't make any more for the next 6 years..." Then again, that'll backfire - "I won't need your new Chevrolet, I heard the Government will give me a new Ford or Willys as a company car"...
Joel: "We're gonna have leadership the way my old man told me! You, put a handkerchief on your head! You, swat at imaginary elves! You, rock on the porch all night!"
Door to door cold calling for car sales? Wow, that must have taken some fortitude. But here's his problem, look at the houses, seems that people in that neighborhood would be much more interested in Cadillacs or Buicks.
Not much has changed - 'cept for walking the beat for retail customers. We still do that for business and commercial deals. Shows it was hard even back then.
In 1941, A Car Salesman, or any Salesman of that time, can make a living on Commissions alone - and buy a Home. Consumer goods like Radios and Refrigators were boomin and in high demand with all kinds of cheap payment plans - and "Made in the United States of America" to boot!.
The lessons in this clip are timeless, and easily extrapolated into managing in general with a little variation. Just ignore the acting, the cheesy music, and some other things like selling the middle-age guy his next 10 cars. Of course know-it-all smart asses will only see something to mock. Which is why they are know-it-all smart asses in the first place. Management isn't about making your staff feel good, it's about empowering your staff to do a better job, which will make them feel good.
15:36 the days before auto wholesalers! Today, they'd do an inflated trade gag and then wholesale the customers trade-in, rather than try to sell it on the lot.
Wow! I went to work selling for a high pressure Chevy place with terrible turn over of salespeople (chew 'em up and spit 'em out.) in the late 70s. It should have been like this! This is far superior,
I tried waterproofing sales. I was on the phone with my manager at least 2 hours a day. He'd call in the middle of my appointments. I couldn't breathe.
On foot, no less. With one platform and one engine/trans combo for '41 they could easily have taken a car and offered test drives on the spot. Today, some sort of initial contact via email or social media would be needed to find out what kind of car the prospect is interested in - no point showing up in a strippo Impala when someone wants a Sonic with every option...
Other films showed subsequent refinements, such as keeping a file of car owners and their vehicles, along with the use of mail and phone solicitation--by then it was expected the prospect would go to the dealer.
5:00 Today, the salesman would use the "inflated trade" gag, rather than lose the sale. They inflate the price of the trade-in to make the customer happy and then jack the price of the new car with hidden fees and add-ons, to cover the difference. Pretty primitive sales techniques back then. Today's auto dealers are as efficient as a slaughterhouse!
Be prepared to give up your conscience and dignity; do whatever it takes to sell that car. Nice guys (honest, trustworthy) finish last. They say fill the customers needs; HA! There is a lot of leeway in pricing. You make more money selling used rather than new. In 1992 I sold Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles. I sold a 1992 $27k Olds 98 full sticker price; my commission was $100. sales mgr said it was a "special GM program car". I sold a 1986 Olds Cutlass for $3995; my commission was $400. I lasted 4 months selling cars. I hated it!
Chaleco Salvavides I sold cars for almost exactly one year. It was the same for me, every new car I sold (Chevy and Buick) was a 100 dollar commission which was the minimum deal. It didn't matter if we negotiated or not, I always felt like the dealership was lying to me and cheating us out. Used cars were where the money was, especially on one we got cheap on a trade in, my highest commission was 750 dollars on a used suburban and honestly the guy got a pretty good deal on it, so I'm sure who ever traded it is the one who got the shaft. Selling cars wasn't for me but I think everyone should do it for a bit just to see how people are. I'm not sure who lied and cheated the worse, the sales managers or the customers.
+Vicious Vomit Why would anyone expect workers to show loyalty to corporations that have zero loyalty to their workers, zero loyalty to their country, offshore profits to avoid paying taxes, continually chase the lowest wage workers around the globe, and buy elections so that congress looks out for their interests, while ignoring the will of the voters? Back in the 40s, a good job was supposed to feed a whole family, men expected to keep a job for a lifetime, (and until the war, women were rarely hired except for "women's work" like secretarial and waiting tables), and it was common to promote from within. A lot has changed, and you can't blame the workers; corporations have a far larger role than workers and ordinary citizens in shaping policy, particularly since the sharp decline in union membership since the Reagan union busting era. It is not by accident that corporations and wealthy investors have gotten far wealthier and more powerful, while working people's wealth and power have sharply declined.
Loyalty and care for the company a person works for are not completely gone. I work for a company that delivers packages. Several times I have personally taken packages to the proper department to ensure they are placed in the correct pod or trailer. The customer has trusted my company to get their package to the proper destination in the time allotted. This is important to me.
Yes, Jimmy is a fine young man, and he'll make a fine salesman here at Chevrolet! A year later, in December of 1941, young Jimmy answered his Country's call to arms! And fought in the South Pacific with the U.S. NAVY aboard a destroyer and participated in some of fiercest naval battles during the war! And when he returned home with a chest full of medals, there was a job waiting for him at the Chevrolet dealership !
✌🏻🇺🇸
IF he returned, yes.
Jimmy studied hard and applied himself well to Chevrolet salesmanship. Things went swell! He took out loans and bought a new Ford and a home. He married his neighbor's teen-age daughter, and they were expecting triplets. He was on top of the world. Until Dec. 8th, 1941. Seems priorities had shifted overnight, and now selling Sherman tanks door-to-door was a real struggle.
This is a very useful video for any aspiring sales person and sales managers. 70 years old but still current in the things that matter. I really loved the fact that he is knocking doors selling cars.
I hope I have a boss like this someday. He/she'd earn my instant respect.
I liked when he said to his Dad “ starting Monday morning”. Back when people had lives and didn’t work in weekends. Weekends was for family. That’s long gone.
Especially, in the car sales business as everyone works weekends.
There's more oil in them guys hair than there is in the cars' crankcase! What a hoot! Thanks for uploading - I love "Americana!"
Jam Handy reminding you to keep your preserves in a convenient place.
First draft was called Preserves Convenience
Jameson Handy, Olympic medalist and founder of the company
I know some so called "Managers" that need to see something like this.
14:43 Remember when you knock on a door it’s important that everyone stands in ascending order of height.
"Jimmy? Always take a gun with you on your calls. If you don't need it, that's swell, but if you do.....I've found a prospective buyer is far more willing to buy if he knows you will shoot him if he doesn't..."
This must be how they sell all those crappy Asian cars.
“You can get further with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone.”
Al Capone
Jimmy, do you like movies about Gladiators?
After several successful years of selling Chevrolets, Jimmy decided he needed a major change in his life. On a wild hair, he quit the Chevrolet dealer, changed his name to Darren Stephens, moved to Westport Connecticut and took a new job in advertising sales for McMann & Tate. He then met a woman named Samantha.
amazing to think people were alive then that were born in the 1830's and 1840's! thats only 35-40 years after some of the founding fathers died!
Then as now, few people percentage wise reached the century mark...but at the time this film was made, the U.S. government was still paying veterans' benefits to the offspring of a man who fought in the War of 1812.
Best sales tactic for 1940 - "You better buy this new car, they won't make any more for the next 6 years..."
Then again, that'll backfire - "I won't need your new Chevrolet, I heard the Government will give me a new Ford or Willys as a company car"...
Domestic auto manufacture and sales were not regulated by the Office of Production Management until 1942.
I really thought this was a mockery about car sales.. I've been pushing metal for years and I can really relate to that film. Good stuff!
Little did they know a year later all auto production would stop for the war....
:o My grandmother had a 41 Chevrolet in Cuba when my father was a tot. Car is probably still roaming around down there.
Are you now, or have you ever been, a Ford owner?
So much if this still rings true 80 years later...
This was on MST3K!
They even did their own musical based on the short, and it was a MASTERPIECE, I loved that skit in Bride of the Monster.
Learning to sell cars door to door was good training for selling Fuller brushes.
these ephemeral films are priceless
10:14 Joel:AHH! FLYING ELF'S ARE BACK!
How do these actors not have an Oscar?
1 year later... Drafted!
Those hats absolutely rock!
Love this bit of history!
Joel: "We're gonna have leadership the way my old man told me! You, put a handkerchief on your head! You, swat at imaginary elves! You, rock on the porch all night!"
6:51 a pitcher of nice cold... ‘lemonade.’ I haven’t pee’d in it or anything.
# 1 reason to buy the new 41 Chevy……There will not be another new Chevy till 1946
Ok so I’ve mastered how to sell 1980s Benzes, lets go 40s Chevrolets. Thanks UA-cam....
Door to door cold calling for car sales? Wow, that must have taken some fortitude. But here's his problem, look at the houses, seems that people in that neighborhood would be much more interested in Cadillacs or Buicks.
That's why Jimmy wasn't selling any Chevvies?
Not much has changed - 'cept for walking the beat for retail customers. We still do that for business and commercial deals. Shows it was hard even back then.
Eventually that turned into what “on the job training” should be.
Wow, door-to-door cold calls. I never knew.
If the sales men of today would place a call every now and then to past customers it would be a different sales experience
In 1941, A Car Salesman, or any Salesman of that time, can make a living on Commissions alone - and buy a Home. Consumer goods like Radios and Refrigators were boomin and in high demand with all kinds of cheap payment plans - and "Made in the United States of America" to boot!.
That all ended when women entered the workforce. When you double the size of the workforce salaries get cut in half.
Jimmy reminds me of myself when I first started selling personal massage devices door-to-door years ago.
Door to door car sales. Wow.
I came to see Tom Servo singing "I got a jooooooob todaaaaaay... I'm selling Chevroleeeeeeeet..." :(
Joel was singing that part, the Bots all sang along.
does anyone know where to find the GM training film called "remember me" ? It was about customer satisfaction.. from the 70's or 80's..
Nice video for motivation on leadership😍
10:19 you wanna see my Laurence of Arabia impression?
"Look see I'm only gonna say this once see! Selling is swell see, until you get a Jack, or a beat see!
BUT HE BOUGHT THE FREAKIN' CAR!
Flying elves are back!
Good salesman. Bad salesman. Inka-Dinka-Do! Hahaha!
$390 for new car! Not the car payment, the price of the car! 😲
about a years salary at the time.... So nothing changed...
Well golly gee Mr. Warren, I think I can sell cars too. Hot diggidy dog!
COFFEE IS FOR CLOSERS JIMMY!!!!!
I like the expression on the old guys face when the saleman can't tell why the Chevrolet is better than the Plymouth
The lessons in this clip are timeless, and easily extrapolated into managing in general with a little variation.
Just ignore the acting, the cheesy music, and some other things like selling the middle-age guy his next 10 cars.
Of course know-it-all smart asses will only see something to mock. Which is why they are know-it-all smart asses in the first place.
Management isn't about making your staff feel good, it's about empowering your staff to do a better job, which will make them feel good.
15:36 the days before auto wholesalers! Today, they'd do an inflated trade gag and then wholesale the customers trade-in, rather than try to sell it on the lot.
Wow! I went to work selling for a high pressure Chevy place with terrible turn over of salespeople (chew 'em up and spit 'em out.) in the late 70s. It should have been like this! This is far superior,
I tried waterproofing sales. I was on the phone with my manager at least 2 hours a day. He'd call in the middle of my appointments.
I couldn't breathe.
Thanks Jam Handy!
Adlai Stevenson buys a car!!!
This is a training filum?
5:09
Hard time but also feel leisuring score...
When did Mayberry get a Chevy dealer?
“Agh! The flying elves are back!”
The boy found his roots!
A Walking Door to Door #car Salesman in 1941 without a demo car! My how things have changed in the #automotive industry!
17:02 Better Call Saul
Great.
Door-to-door car salesmen. What won't they think of next?
wait....scanning the comments, I don't see ANY MST3K fans here??? I feel so.....so alone.......
They're there...
I'm here!
They don't work harder they Work they smarter
When selling cars you have at least 10minutes to size customer Up before He walks
Imaging selling cars door to door. I can see a lot of “sorry, not today”.
I used to sell Chryslers door to door was a lot of fun...
On foot, no less. With one platform and one engine/trans combo for '41 they could easily have taken a car and offered test drives on the spot.
Today, some sort of initial contact via email or social media would be needed to find out what kind of car the prospect is interested in - no point showing up in a strippo Impala when someone wants a Sonic with every option...
Other films showed subsequent refinements, such as keeping a file of car owners and their vehicles, along with the use of mail and phone solicitation--by then it was expected the prospect would go to the dealer.
A 1941 Chevrolet? Well actually I was going to buy a Japanese car, it’s not like anything is going to happen to put me off buying Japanese...
Shouldn’t Jimmy be in Germany?
Could be late '40 selling the '41s or it's early '41 and America hasn't entered WW2 just yet
Hired II: Laid Off
I had an old car manager tell me there’s Only TWO reasons a car salesman fails.. # 1 they don’t know how.. He was full of BS
# 2 they don’t want to
@16:40 wow that nigga is like 55 and the manager telling him about selling him "his next ten cars". I guess if he gets one every year...
There are those who trade every year for various reasons
13:30 But he bought the fucking car!!!
11:37 "I'm gonna DANCE!"
The handy dandy evidence manual!!!
1941? Bad year to start selling cars.
A bit...
In 1941 Chevrolet sold 1 million cars for the first time...
@walksinstorms Jeepers, I agree!
2nd place prize in contest? A set of steak knives
5:00 Today, the salesman would use the "inflated trade" gag, rather than lose the sale. They inflate the price of the trade-in to make the customer happy and then jack the price of the new car with hidden fees and add-ons, to cover the difference. Pretty primitive sales techniques back then. Today's auto dealers are as efficient as a slaughterhouse!
DIFFERENT TIMES THEY WERE
People preferred Studebaker trucks for its soft ride under load
woah that dude's chin, it could break walnuts
Be prepared to give up your conscience and dignity; do whatever it takes to sell that car.
Nice guys (honest, trustworthy) finish last. They say fill the customers needs; HA! There is a lot of leeway in pricing. You make more money selling used rather than new. In 1992 I sold Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles. I sold a 1992 $27k Olds 98 full sticker price; my commission was $100. sales mgr said it was a "special GM program car". I sold a 1986 Olds Cutlass for $3995; my commission was $400. I lasted 4 months selling cars. I hated it!
Chaleco Salvavides I sold cars for almost exactly one year. It was the same for me, every new car I sold (Chevy and Buick) was a 100 dollar commission which was the minimum deal. It didn't matter if we negotiated or not, I always felt like the dealership was lying to me and cheating us out. Used cars were where the money was, especially on one we got cheap on a trade in, my highest commission was 750 dollars on a used suburban and honestly the guy got a pretty good deal on it, so I'm sure who ever traded it is the one who got the shaft.
Selling cars wasn't for me but I think everyone should do it for a bit just to see how people are. I'm not sure who lied and cheated the worse, the sales managers or the customers.
He is lucky, no imports to sell against.
So funny... yet... sad but true in some ways.
More Brylcreme please
Jam handy, detroit institution
Strange editing they did. And everyone destroyed the rest of the tapes.
People in general were so much better then
But he bought the car!!
As dorky as this video is....this is back when people cared about their job and showed a little enthusiasm and loyalty to their career.
+Vicious Vomit Why would anyone expect workers to show loyalty to corporations that have zero loyalty to their workers, zero loyalty to their country, offshore profits to avoid paying taxes, continually chase the lowest wage workers around the globe, and buy elections so that congress looks out for their interests, while ignoring the will of the voters?
Back in the 40s, a good job was supposed to feed a whole family, men expected to keep a job for a lifetime, (and until the war, women were rarely hired except for "women's work" like secretarial and waiting tables), and it was common to promote from within. A lot has changed, and you can't blame the workers; corporations have a far larger role than workers and ordinary citizens in shaping policy, particularly since the sharp decline in union membership since the Reagan union busting era. It is not by accident that corporations and wealthy investors have gotten far wealthier and more powerful, while working people's wealth and power have sharply declined.
Loyalty and care for the company a person works for are not completely gone. I work for a company that delivers packages. Several times I have personally taken packages to the proper department to ensure they are placed in the correct pod or trailer. The customer has trusted my company to get their package to the proper destination in the time allotted. This is important to me.
the kid has moxie!
10:14 Flying elves are back!!!
Chevrolet presents Hired part 3 Fired.
Those damn fairies...
And Packard cars were taking the auto market in ride
He might be to honest
Leadership 101