When a car dealer has cars that just won’t sell for whatever reason, they used to put “spiffs” on them, (a special incentive to sell those cars). In 1985, I worked at a Buick store and we had three red T-Type Skyhawks left over from the previous year. They were kind of special Skyhawks with 5 speed trannys special buckets seats, special wheels, and some other performance accessories, so they were expensive Skyhawks. And they just sat there. No one ever drove them for test drives, no one ever tried to buy them, and they sat collecting dust and killing their batteries.

One weekend the management put five hundred dollar minimum commissions on the three cars and assured us if there was a breath in a deal they would sell them. And they put a write-up spiff on for those cars. If we got a committed write-up to buy and drive the car home today, they would pay us $25 cash. A committed write-up consists of a test drive, all interested parties involved, (so the wife or husband needed to be there), a commitment to buy it today, and a down payment check with the write-up, or a deposit if they were paying cash. We also had to have a full credit app with a signature to qualify.

My first customer after the weekly sales lobotomy meeting came in looking for a used car. I showed him what we had and nothing lit him up, so I showed him the Skyhawks and told them they were on special for the weekend and they would take any kind of deal to sell them. I gave him the best walk around demo ever in history, showed him all the features, benefits, and again mentioned the need to sell the cars today. He agreed to a test drive, he agreed to make an offer, as ridiculous as he could imagine, and he agreed if we could possibly sell him a new car for half price, he’d buy it.

I did the write-up and got his down payment check and filled out every single blank on the credit app even though he was paying cash. He kept telling me he didn’t want to give all his credit information, so I told him about the spiff. I told him, “You and I both know you can’t buy this car for that much, so help me out, so I can at least get the $25 spiff.” He signed the credit app. I took it to the sales manager. He gave me twenty-five bucks and sent my closer in to make a deal. We did make a deal, so by noon, I had $525 made.

I sold another one of the spiff cars that afternoon to some folks looking to buy a Buick Regal. We couldn’t make their deal on the Regal so on the off chance I took them out and showed them the two red Skyhawks. The wife loved the cars though she had never driven a stick shift. It was considerably cheaper then the Regal and they paid full price for the car and I made another $525 and went home for the day.

On Sunday I came in and went through my list of suspect buyers and called them all. One lady I called had been looking at the Skyhawk a few months before and I figured she had already bought something, but she hadn’t. I told her the deal of the century on the Skyhawk was happening. She came in and she bought it. Another $525.  It was a superb weekend for me. I also sold another used car later that day and made a good lick on it. I made over 2 grand in two days in 1985. I love the car business!

I found out then that when you decide to sell a particular car for any reason, you will sell it. The rest of my career selling cars I always picked out my favorite cars to sell and no matter what someone came in the dealership for, I showed them those cars. I even sold one to service customer who had a brand new Buick. My favorite cars? Whatever cars had the most profit left in them or spiff cars. It’s a lot easier to feel good when you make a big fat commission instead of working all day to make a minimum commission of a hundred bucks.