(first posted 6/9/2016) He was a salesman at the company where I had gone to work after graduating from engineering school. And he routinely made my life, and the lives of the other engineers and programmers with which I worked, crazy difficult as he made wild promises during the sales cycle that we then had to fulfill in our product on impossible deadlines.
It was the classic tension between sales and engineering. There should have been a class on it when I was in school. I might have called it “Sales Douchebaggery 101” but perhaps the topic would better have been wrapped into a larger course on life as a working engineer. Cost constraints out the wazoo. Adding features to a product without doing necessary redesign of existing features to keep them resilient and performing well. Being bogged down by the avalanche of customer support that follows releasing such a product. And all the while, sales promising crazy stuff to prospects to get them to sign on the line. Sales happily wrote checks, if you will, that engineers then had to figure out how to cash.
This particular salesman was the king of signing us up to build stuff on impossible deadlines. He seemed to take special glee at doing it. Cynically, we all grumbled to ourselves that it was about making his commission check as fat as possible. One of the engineers delivered this classic line: “He’s in sales. That means he’s coin operated.” I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that one.
And then one day he showed up at work in a brand new, first-year Lincoln Mark VIII. It was a stunning car in a pearly white. I believe Lincoln called it “white opalescent,” and it was the first time I ever noticed a white like that on a car. Such a deep white, almost liquid. I expected that if I touched the car, my fingers would ooze into the body and come back wet. It was mesmerizing.
Yet I was filled with anger and jealousy. Here was this guy blithely, happily making engineering lives miserable and making a metric crap ton of dough while doing it. I wasn’t going to make that kind of money anytime soon as an engineer. Now, my money was good enough to pay the rent and put me into a brand new Chevy, so I knew better than to plead financial injustice. No, this was about not having to suffer the consequences of his actions and living a lifestyle that reinforced his bad behavior. Such bullshit.
That was 23 years ago. Since then I’ve worked for many other companies, successful and not, and have learned a few key things about sales. First and foremost: celebrate every sale, because they keep your paychecks from bouncing. I’ve lived through that and never want to again. But second, that company simply had a lot to learn about successful product marketing and sales. The sales team was left to fend entirely for itself, with no coherent story to tell about our product line and nothing that generated qualified leads for them to follow. Every sale they made, they earned from the ground up – cold calls, relationship building, and then doing what they had to do, even making stuff up, to get a yes so they could meet their quotas. It had to be brutal. So no wonder this guy was so giddy every time he closed a sale. He worked his butt off to make it happen. And so now I don’t sweat him his Lincoln.
Seeing this one in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel recently in sort of sad condition reminded me of that fellow. I looked him up on LinkedIn. He’s still selling in that industry, for a company we all derided then as being a bottom feeder, the last place in our industry for which you’d ever want to work. Looks like his career had a similar trajectory to this Lincoln: still going, but not looking all that great. Fortunately, I’ve grown up enough to feel a little sorry for him.
Despite being a large car with polarizing styling, there was also a subtlety about the Mark VIII that seems lost on this one, with the big dual pipes, the red-painted badges, and the aftermarket rims. And yet, I still like it. If it was for sale it would be saying to me “take me home and restore my elegance.” But I could see the current owner being a kid who thinks his black with red accents, “hot rod Lincoln” is the greatest thing on 4 wheels, and if so, good for him.
My ’96 was that same white opalescent (paint code WK if I recall). And to this day every time I see one, I miss that car.
At least the red accents are better than gold ones.
The Red accents give it a 87-88 Thunderbird Turbo vibe, which I actually like. Takes away some of the classiness I suppose but there was a little too much of that in the VIII vs. the VII for my taste anyway.
You know, with shiny rather than oxidized paint, the red accents could work. Especially if they were done in the same metallic red that forms the background of the Lincoln badge.
It’s really the wheels that bother me the most. So many of the stock wheel designs were quite attractive, and these seem much more generic without even adding much size (stock are 16″, these might be 18″ but I sort of doubt that).
I had (well, it was the ex’s car) an ’88 Turbo Coupe in Sapphire Blue with those red accents. I loved the car’s color, but always thought those red accents looked weird. Perhaps due to the fact that the human eye has trouble seeing red and blue touching each other. There’s strange optical illusion there caused by the differing wavelengths I think. (Engineer here, so I’m always thinking like this; and I feel the author’s pain, and subsequent understanding with respect to dealing with sales types).
Ironically, we traded in the Turbo Coupe on another Thunderbird in the very color of which the author speaks a ’94 4.6L-V8 in “Pearl Opalescent”… I believe this was what Ford called the color, but I may be wrong. That car was really pretty, especially at dusk when you just had a nice sunset.
The Marks had two variants of the color–white opalescent and opal opalescent. Both had the deep pearl, but one looked whiter (the one I had) and one looked more tan; almost pinkish in the right light.
A friend’s father had a ’95 T-bird in the Ford variant, and as I remember, it was the whiter shade (he sold that car 2 years before I bought the Lincoln so I couldn’t do a direct comparison.)
Yes, that “vanilla pudding” kind of pearl white – that was the color on my father’s last car, which was a 97-ish Lincoln Continental.
Lot of name calling and presumptions here. One might think the tone might have been different if he had chosen a Lexus SC300 or 911 with his earned bonuses.
Hardly, please re-read it. The author comes around to seeing the point of as well as the frustration of a sales career. Having been on both sides of that aisle myself I totally get it. The car itself has nothing to do with it, if the salesman had a Lexus SC300 then this same article would have been written if the author found one of those in a WalMart parking lot with only the name of the car swapped out. The author actually intimated that he liked the car, especially the color, it just reminded him of a particular person that rubbed him the wrong way.
I personally get flashbacks every time I see a 1992 Cadillac Seville in Forest Green. One Friday in late 1991, my company was called together for a meeting where it was announced that due to the recession, there would be no raises for anyone as the company was struggling. Then on Monday the owner of the company shows up in a brand new Forest Green Seville. Yeah, completely tone-deaf although I now realize that just because that company was going through some tough times, doesn’t mean that the owner was or that they didn’t also have other, more successful ventures as well. Their timing did suck and it sticks with me.
For me it’s a 1984 or so Cadillac Brougham. No wonder I have a problem with them.
Dark blue W108 here – nearly got run over by one back in ’71.
Business owners sometimes are tone deaf. My boss addressed a group of employees. He made a point and used his $85,000 swimming pool he just bought for his new $million home as an example.
This meeting contained some $35k/yr clerks. It was the height of indiscretion, to discuss a luxury expense that represented the equvalent of 10 years of discretionary spending for some.
I found the salesman.
Years ago, my manager and I used to review specs, and sit in on final bid reviews. He said to me “We are the voice of reason, we’re the last line of defense before these idiots sell something impossible”
The company grew and got a lot more “corporate”, now engineering has no input on bids and we have some interesting surprises because sales doesn’t read the spec. That HVAC system you budgeted $12k for? To make a custom one that’s spec compliant is over $300k…
Boss Cars have a special place inside our memories.
For me, the equivalent car is a 4-dr. BMW 325, driven by a former boss of mine with may of the same qualities as your Mark VIII driver. Just seeing a similar car still makes me shudder. On the other hand, the best boss I’ve had drove an ’89 Taurus with peeling paint — really a down-to-earth person from whom I learned a lot.
In the late 1960s I used to work for a guy who drove an MG 1100 equipped with the infamous in-sump 4-speed automatic transmission. I guess he wasn’t too much into conspicuous consumption. (Or reliably arriving at his destination!)
Have not seen one of those, or even the later Austin America, in many years.
The most successful business owner I’ve ever met and worked for, built a company from a 3-person shop to a 4000-employee (last I knew) software company, and the entire time I worked there, drove a somewhat ratty 1st-gen Subaru Legacy wagon. Then, right before I left, some 16 years ago now, she bought an Audi A4 wagon. The last time I visited the company HQ, in 2012, the A4 wagon was still parked in the lot well into the evening. She’s worth about $2.5 billion now.
I don’t remember you working for me? Glad you liked me!
Lol sorry I couldn’t resist.
I have mixed feelings about these cars. These were the last Lincolns that could credibly make a claim to being a legitimate premium product, one of the first in a long while that was not merely a rearranging of Ford parts.
However, all of those dedicated parts made the car a horror to own as it got old. I remember those flourescent-style taillights on these and on Cadillacs, thinking at the time that they were the future. Wrong, the just became the crazy-expensive past.
It is good that you have come to a place where Mr. D no longer occupies a place in your Angry Zone. Some (most, actually) folks just aren’t worth that.
I see him as a whole person now, not a type. That’s what maturity brings.
To own one of these cars, one pretty much should to do a quick sweep of a dozen or so junkyards and grab spares (at least one) for everything unobtanium from the obsolete electronics to the taillight strip/headlights etc. Outside of that, like the Mk7 it’s got a very reliable drivetrain. One just needs to remember that the air springs are a maintenance item designed to go 10-15 years or 150 miles. Just think of air springs as tires with x3 the lifespan.
And it’s not that crazy expensive. One could be restoring an XK Jag… now that car quickly drains a wallet, until you drop a 350 in it.
The headlamps are only a problem on the ’97-’98 cars which had early projector HIDs. Those are out of production and nearly impossible to source. The ’93-’96 cars used standard halogen bulbs, though due to the headlamp design they do a poor job of actually lighting up the road! (The ’95-’96 LSC used a completely different type of primitive HID lamps which are probably also NLA…)
The neon element in the taillights is not strictly necessary as I understand it–it was more of a decorative piece as the piece of the taillights that did the brake and marker lamps used regular bulbs. It looks much cooler with the neon piece though!
DOHC 4.9 was a beast. I experienced it not in a Mk8 but in a Marauder. Wicked stuff. I’ve seen it apart too, and I would never want to maintain one, what with the timing chains galore etc. But it’s well worth experiencing and I think it destroys the Deathstar in its viciously smooth attack.
They’re complex, yes, but surprisingly reliable. If you can resist the tempation to strap a blower to it one can get 200K+ out of those engines easily. I’ve had two of them (a VIII and a Marauder) with the only actual engine problems being very minor (a faulty coil pack and a vacuum leak due to a torn hose boot).
Only 2 little chains more than the SOHC, and they’re almost equally as bulletproof. Yes it puts the Northstar to shame, it’s quite a bit less of a Rube Goldberg design.
LOL I am used to just one!!! 🙂
Btw, are you finished building your engine? We should meet and swap car stories.
It really isn’t bad, if you’re just aligning the dots mod motors are very easy to time, whether 2V or 4V, and there’s no adjusting rockers or anything afterwards. The not so easy part is handing over the very large hunk of cash if you want to buy FOUR camshafts haha
Having said that, let me answer that with a very recent picture
nevermind the horror shows that are Audi’s V6s and V8s. yes, let’s design an incredibly complex timing chain setup with some failure-prone components, then put it on the BACK of the engine so when the tensioners fail you have to take apart the entire front end of the car.
why people buy German cars is beyond my comprehension.
My neighbor drives one. I love hearing that V8 fire up every morning. It sounds very aristocratic…the sound one would expect from a Bentley or Maybach. He purchased it new in 1996 for around $40k. Other than the suspension airbags and compressor replacement, it has received only routine maintenance–and the brake light switch I put in for him. Now has 140k miles, still very reliable and good looking.
I worked for a market research company from late 1995 through March, 2008; essentially this company tested television commercials (and concepts) for national advertisers. I was a peon on the operations side of the business and we were constantly bedeviled by the customer service and sales types. As has been stated above they were constantly promising things and leaving it up to operations to figure out how to deliver. I worked many 60-65 hour weeks meeting the timing promised to the customers (yes, I was on salary). I learned early that it wasn’t worth complaining or worrying about, it was just the way that it was.
I have a deep internal drive to do things well. I have always struggled with “this is just the way it is.” My life would be so much easier and I would have so much less stress if I could do that.
I’ve really learned to compartmentalize “Dumb things that I can’t do anything about” which has helped a lot.
I changed to a place where at least they don’t expect you to do the 60-80 hours a week thing, and where I managed to train our sales people to – generally – give us a heads up long enough before any deadlines.
Good article indeed and a nice looking Lincoln though the Midwest has been a bit hard on it.
A very good and insightful story, A young man and a *mature* man look at the world in such different ways. Along with the aches and pains we all eventually acquire a bit of wisdom.
I loved these cars when they were new but really the last place I seen a nice one was at the Carlisle All Ford Nats.
Interesting; today’s NPR Fresh Air was about HBO’s “Silicon Valley”; the creators aired a clip in which the execs wanted the coders to take features *out* of their product, at Sales’ behest, to make the product easier to explain and thus sell. They talked about how in order to get the best sales people you have to have a product that’s easy to sell.
Some things are the same across all industries…
Others, on the other hand, are very different. Comparing and contrasting, tech has its’ sales force out there selling products that don’t even exist yet while car salesmen are laser focused on selling what they have on hand TODAY and even getting them to take a special order is difficult, let alone getting any more information about a forthcoming product than what’s already on the internet.
Having recently retired from a near 50-year career in engineering in an industrial environment, I can appreciate Jim’s feelings regarding sales. I can add one little wrinkle: Sales to upper management: “Boy! If we could only make XXXX (names a product well beyond current production capability) I could sell $100 million a year of that!” Next is a phone call from the VP of production: “I want to know by Monday what it would take to make XXXX!”
But evenings out with customers and the sales guys almost made it worth it.
My co worker owned one. Was a very nice all round car. It did everything well, nothing too outstanding, but no weak spots. It was a reasonable performance car, reasonably luxurious, decent space and fairly practical. Lots of cars do that now, but it was pretty rare for a domestic in ’93.
I borrowed it and promply did a heads up drag race with my buddy and his ’69 Impala with a 427.
Surprisingly we were neck and neck up to 100 mph.
I agree that the Mark 8 was just about the last premium product from Lincoln. I thought that the Mark 7 was a little better looking, more aristocratic and upscale. The Navigator has kind of carved out it’s own niche of identity though it falls a little short of the Escalade, I read that both the Navigator and Aviator had interior styling that recalled 1960s Lincoln Continentals. I had seriously considered getting a Mark 7 or 8. I’d better hurry though as good examples are getting harder to find , even around the Bay Area.
With these cars, you hope you don’t lose a headlamp or tail lamp as when available they were very expensive and they went out of availability very quickly.
The yards are still filled with them…. harvest harvest harvest
I love Mark 8’s. I find that they’re a nice sort of gateway design between the 80’s and 90’s, and still look modern. With a few modifications, the 32V engines can make some really good power, though the torque peak is at 4500 rpm, so they need to be revved to feel the power. Agreed that they can be a nightmare to find parts for (and the bolt pattern for the wheels are an odd pattern that is shared with the MN12 Thunderbirds and little else), but there’s some places online that specialize in parts for them. Thank goodness for the internet.
Mark VIIIs = doner for parts to upgrade my MN12 Cougar 😀
I bet the seats swap out (should be the same power rack underneath, no?)… I also bet you went with the ’91 SC buckets instead… I would have. The Mk8 seats are way too underbolstered.
Underbolstered, yes, a bit, but they also are the most comfortable highway seats, bar none, that I’ve ever experienced. (I’ve never experienced the SC seats though so I can’t compare directly.)
They’ll swap, I more seek out Mark VIIIs for their mechanical stuff though – aluminum rear LCAs, aluminum carrier, 1 piece aluminum driveshaft(93 only) engine of course, etc.
Interior, I prefer the Tbird SC, those are the seats I have too, black leather out of a ’93. I’ve taken some very long roadtrips in them too and I can’t say they wore on me.
My last boss and owner had that tone deafness mixed with a dash of deceit. He always made a point of driving to work everyday in a beater Neon with a manual transmission (he knew nothing about cars except how to drive them). He always let everyone know how little he kept for himself every time someone asked for a raise. Then one day his son comes over to get a key or something driving a mint condition sixties Mercedes. Turns out that was his father’s daily outside of work. It wasn’t even his showpiece – he had other high end cars he paid someone else to find parts for and repair. The national weather service became concerned about the stormy looks on everyone’s faces.
How the boss spent his/her money never bothered me. The woman who was the president and COO of the market research company I mentioned before owned at least three houses, including one in Key West and another on Martha’s Vineyard. She also owned at least six different vehicles, including a 1957 Thunderbird and a Harley Sportster. I always figured that she could spend her money how she wished; I was more concerned with my working conditions and how they affected my life.
I worked for a dealership chain that was cutting staff, freezing and cutting pay, and having meetings with the dealer principal about how we need to suck it up and be happy we had a job at all. One of the dealerships he owned was a Ford dealership.
Morale got a lot lower when a car carrier arrived one day at the dealership across the street from the Nissan dealership he also owned and we saw his new Ford GT roll off the truck. A few months later the Ford dealership closed with no warning or final paychecks. Not long after the Nissan dealership was sold, luckily the new owners kept most of the employees including me. In 2008 the dealership was sold once again, this time I was not so lucky.
Years ago we had a douchebag overbearing and annoying car salesman that everyone hated. One day a customer came in and bought a new taillamp for his GTI, and left the broken one on the counter. I installed it in the salesmans demo and brought his original back into parts. He came to the counter to buy a replacement, so I sold him his taillamp back to him for about double list price. He paid cash and didn’t need no stinking receipt. We had a great after work food and beer binge at his expense. He thought I was great as I was kind enough to reinstall his taillamp for him. I think everyone but him found out what happened and all agreed it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never had a car ruined for me based on someone I personally know that I hate. There are some cars I won’t drive, due to either stereotypes that refuse to go away, or from bad drivers I’ve both seen and experienced. But, I’ve never let my hatred for someone that I knew day in and day out affect my feelings about a car. Maybe it’s just because I’ve never seen what kind of car they drive, but I prefer to keep my feelings toward the person themselves rather than extend it to a car. I of course can understand that some people have that association stick with them, and there’s nothing wrong with that, it can be hard to separate stuff you associate from a person with the person themselves. I just never extended that to cars.
As for the Mark VIII, it’s a car that I like, but not a car I adore, unlike some of the other Lincoln products. It’s always a bit sad to see a beat up luxury car, like the example in the photo, but I really like the red accents. They look surprisingly good.
It happened to me, and I’ll never own Mk I Golf/Rabbit convertibles. The car jelled with said person’s whole being so well that I simply cannot separate them whenever I see one…
Hmmm, I thought you were going to find a clever segue into talking about a different set of bags, the four that hold up the Mark VIII’s suspension. That is the specific reason why I have always held back from pulling the trigger on buying one of these. I can imagine the whole system going Tango Uniform within a week after I buy the car, leaving me with an involuntary lowrider until I fork over a sum that probably exceeds what I paid for the poor beast in the first place.
douchebags succeed because our society rewards their behavior.
Sorry, but sales people are not douchebags. They get unrealistic demands and have to work with scope-creep. They get paid by selling, not arguing or compromising. Owners often enjoy the friction between sales and support. I’ve been in computer programming for almost 30 years but I know how hard it is to juggle demands between reality and expectations.
My beef is with project managers and marketers. I don’t recall any of them ever being worth their wages. They are either lazy programmers or lazy salespeople, but they are lazy. They created this niche that gives them a salary higher than either a programmer or a salesperson, but all they have over either of those hard working folks is a college degree. These people can suck it.
As to the car – I love them. I wish they were more dependable because they are beautiful road things. The low swooping lines, the wrap-around luxury interior, the nifty visual touches, are so great. I also love the final generation of the Buick Riviera, which was even worse as a dependable auto, based on my experiences. Sorry, but I expect more from Cadillac than their version of this car – perhaps my expectations for that brand are higher? I suppose there are some foreign brands out there that I like as well, but I stick with US brands.
In my maturity, I have learned to appreciate the youth I see around me. It makes me happy to see a striving young man on the go. They will make huge mistakes, and if they are blessed, they will learn from them. What’s important, (I’ve learned), is humility. It is as important to permit a differing opinion, even if you disagree. I’m better at learning to shut the hell up when I disagree with someone. In engineering and in programming, it isn’t bragging if you can do it. Reality is a tough taskmaster, and you can only grease the wheels for so long before they fall off if not done correctly, right?
I believe today’s youth term a response like yours as:
“Tell me you didn’t read past the headline without telling me you didn’t read past the headline.”
Wow – your assumption is far greater than what you claimed mine was. I read the entire posting. Try to be nicer.
I read your whole post. “Sorry, sales people are not douchebags,” reads like you’re arguing with the author. The article, in its entirety, demonstrates that the author came around on his opinion of sales people with the wisdom he’s accrued as he’s gotten older. Hence, why I snarkily (very admittedly) remarked that I really didn’t think you actually read the article.
My apologies if that was not your intention, but it read that way to me.
Not sure if you meant me in your reply about “the earlier post,” but I actually like these cars. I’ve also worked in sales. 🙂
How much more dependable should a luxury car that old be? The drivetrain is reliable, the air suspension has to be done probably once in the cars life, maybe twice. The headlights on the later cars being almost impossible to get is a good point, but “dependability” is not one of this car’s few weaknesses.
I think the earlier post snarkily attempted to make a similar point. Got it. You disagree. I like these cars. I think they’re beautiful. Their reliability concerns me. Sorry to have mentioned that.
I’ve heard of the Mark III referred to as “the chairman of the board’s Mustang.” Which is a pretty good description. The Mark IVs and Vs would have stretched that description more than a polyester leisure suit, but by the Mark VII things had returned to the proper perspective. The Mark VII is just a bit too plasticky inside, it reminds me of my ’96 Mustang. The rubber rear window moulding always gets wavy with age, haven’t seen a straight one in years. The Mark VII interior is a nod to earlier Lincolns but is a nice place to spend time.
Because of my expertise, I use the lighting system as an indicator—a fairly reliable one, I’ve found—of the general level of thought, care, and rectitude in a vehicle’s engineering and construction. This pathetic garbage Ford proudly put on their expensive, de luxe Lincoln speaks ill of the car as a whole.
Halogen or HID; pre- or post-facelift, these cars have always been don’t-drive-at-nightmobiles, even when they were new. The headlamps—early small and late large, halogen and HID—performed poorly; failed early and often, and the parts were discontinued even while the cars were still pretty common on the roads.
The headlamps, especially the early ones, are far too small to do more than just barely meet the minimum legal intensity requirements, even though the halogen version used one of the highest-output bulb types—its output was severely curtailed by voltage drop from underspecified wiring and switches. Moreover, because they’re so small, the reflectors and lenses run very hot, which makes for fast and severe deterioration of the cheap, low-grade plastic materials they’re made of.
The HID system was, on top of all that, also a different kind of lousy. It was co-developed by Ford and GTE-Sylvania, with that duo’s customary priorities: cheap; cheap; legal-when-new, and cheap. It is a DC system nothing like the AC system that was already well standardised in Europe and Asia (which was fine for use in the USA; Ford just chose not to use it). That Ford/Sylvania DC system was only ever used on the Mark VIII—No other make, no other model, no other years. Component reliability and durability were staggeringly poor.
When Osram bought Sylvania from GTE in ’97, they quickly discontinued this troublesome system. Repair parts dried up in a fast hurry, but kept failing on vehicles in service, whose owners were outta luck ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ford offered a very expensive retrofit kit for the ’97-’98 cars: new left and right halogen headlamps, not very good ones, to replace the failtronic HID ones. They didn’t make many of them, and once they were all sold out, well, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If one can find a set of the HID lamp housings in good condition (hah!), then with a couple of small custom-machined parts a world-standard D2S bulb and its AC ballast can be effectively installed and everything works properly until the cheap lenses cloud up terminally, then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Similar situation at the rear with the neon central tail/brake light panel: unreliable Ford + Sylvania componentry, always impossible to repair; always expensive (and now impossible) to replace. At least its failure doesn’t render the car unusable; the left and right stop/tail/turn lights are conventional bulb-type items that actually, y’know, work.
So yeah, these are the Ford-Has-a-Better-Idea™ lights that disgraced the Mark VIII. “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I almost laughed out loud after reading this. I’m surprised my wife didn’t wonder why I was giggling.
This and the unobtanium air suspension componentry are what prevent me from getting one of these. Shame on Ford, they coulda had a contendah. Also should have made a 4 door sedan on this platform, and it would have been light years better than the Taurintental. The 32 valve intech is a sweet engine, and there was no transaxle at the time that could deal with it. The AX4N was only slightly less fragile than the AX4S.
Regardless of the field, sales reps are the same. In my field, they’d be writing cheques that warehousing and tech support ( I was across both) had to cash. Got bloody annoying.
Interesting to reread this, as in the time since this was originally published I have gone into a sales role in my company. While I don’t doubt the events portrayed here, I feel my experience has been a bit different – we are given our expectations based on what management thinks production can deliver (not what sellers think we can deliver), and when they invariably fall short because of unplanned events we are left trying to save face with our customers by making up convincing stories on why we now can’t deliver. Or, production gets taken taken on a whim by higher value products after commitments have been made.
I appreciate the subject car for what it is, and love a good pearl white paint job, but I prefer a more subdued approach in business and cars. Of course nowadays, it’d be easy to get a Ford that’s fancier than this Lincoln.
I see one of these, in white, everyday lately. It belongs to someone I have known 40 years in an ancillary profession to mine. I knew he has a 79 FJ4 Land Cruiser as the original owner so this seemed out of sorts over the last few years when I learned it was his sitting in the parking lot. Apparently he got it after his 2005 Taurus was hit head on, on the Bay Bridge west bound, before the Yerba Buena Tunnel, in traffic, by a car going the wrong way, which totaled his Taurus of 26,000 miles. Clearly a reaction to the head on not to mention WTH someone is thinking when they pull such a maneuver in traffic.
There are those salesmen that are sly or clever and once in a while it bites them in the ass. Back in the early 2000’s one dealer got the bid for the plow truck chassis by grossly under bidding some options on the contract. Going buy past purchases they had thought this was a safe way to get the bid. Thy were successful at getting the bid but when they received our order which included a dozen trucks with the grossly under priced transmissions things got interesting. We had discussed the transmission option with the manufacturer to get their opinion on using it in our application. They thought it would perform just fine. The salesman wanted a meeting with us to go over the order before submitting it to the truck manufacturer. At the meeting he dropped a bombshell on us that the transmission we had ordered in those dozen trucks was not available in our application. His faced turned a very dark red when we mentioned that we had talked with the transmission people and they were fine with us using it in our application.
Well we got the trucks with the transmission we wanted and it wasn’t long after that the salesman was gone. As a final note on this story the transmissions ended up being very problematic for us.
There were several known players in the business that had to be watched very carefully as they were always trying to screw you one way or another.
Lastly I will say it always seemed like a battle between the bidders and the agency putting out the bids, a rather bizarre chess game, both sides trying to figure out what the other side was up to.
Old Truck Salesman who sold light- medium- and heavy-duty trucks. I worked on commission ONLY, not even minimal monthly stipend. Building relationships is very important. Jim’s comments are sparked by seeing the successful salesman’s automobile. I agree with Jim in that salespeople should not promise the world to close a deal. I never did. FIRST, I ASKED THE ENGINEERS at the truck manufacturers what they could produce. Then we discussed IF something could be engineered. Then I returned to the customer with a proposal to meet the needs requested. There is no need to be brazen and promise the world without full knowledge of capability of the engineering people. Sometimes I had to coax engineers but that is all part of sales. We listen, we ask questions and then we act. So, the Lincoln brought back memories that enable us to hear Jim’s story. As for the car itself, no comments. Thanks, Jim
I was in outside sales for 40 years with a solid customer base whose relationships spanned a decade or more.
Douche bag salesmen are a dime a dozen and come and go like gypsies as their ways almost always catch up with them.
I lived by many axioms, these two included; “the customer is always the customer” and “no sale is complete until it is paid for”.