As a former consultant with lots of Fortune 500 sales experience, my opinion is that CarMax is a horrible place to work as a sales rep. Compensation is poor, product quality is inconsistent, and employee turnover is high.

The highest producing sales rep (#1 of 40) in my store earned less than $5,000 a month! That is horrible! He left after a year to take lower paying administrative position with no advancement potential, rather than continue at CarMax. He was very disappointed with the poor management at the store. They never had a clue about how he felt or why he resigned. You would think management would be interested to know why one of their top salesman resigned, but as far as I know, he was never questioned about his reasons for leaving.

High producing sales reps who master selling cars and financing them the CarMax way are often promoted to sales managers. They must be “yes” men and women. Real leadership and coaching skills don’t seem to count for much. In the year I worked at my store (before the recession took hold), I saw managers with obvious hangovers, and negative attitudes show up for work every day. Shaving twice a week and arriving for work poorly dressed and groomed was the norm for many of them. Senior management did not seem to notice or care.

A sales manager should be available to help make a purchase happen for a sales rep. Half the time, I was embarrassed to bring one to my desk mid-deal. I don’t know what it takes to get fired as a sales manager at CarMax because I never saw one get let go. However, I did see lots of high quality, hard working, motivated sales reps leave after six months or less.

Sales managers at CarMax function mostly as statisticians and analysts. They push paperwork forward and work out financing details to help make sales happen. What they don’t do is shadow reps from the time while they serve a customer until the transaction is either aborted or completed. They are not trained to do that. Instead they work calculating performance metrics such as “customers served”, “finance applications submitted”, and “deals closed”. Important indicators to be sure, but their time, skills, and interest could be better spent working hand in hand with reps a few times a week to make sure they were serving and selling correctly.

The car business in America is very sleazy overall. The used car side (“pre-owned”, as they like to call it) is especially bad.

CarMax has high ideals, however they fall far short of achieving them. When they sell a car or truck that turns out to be a lemon, they won’t do the right thing in most cases and take it back after the 5-day return guarantee has expired. The major reason for this is that the sales manager on duty and the store itself will have to take the ding and absorb the loss.

I found it particularly offensive to have to sell two-year old Honda Civics and Accords with 20,000 on them for only a couple of thousand dollars less than brand new ones with new car warranties. In my view every customer who purchased a late model used Accord would have been much better off buying a new one. Selling those models was something I just could not bring myself to do.

CarMax would like customers believe that every car in stock has been carefully inspected and restored to peak operating performance by a master technician. That is what they want the sales reps to believe as well. It just was not the case from what I observed. Cars get put on the lot for sale all the time with obvious defects. Why would a customer believe every car undergoes a 125-point inspection, when the ashtray is full of smelly dead butts, the trunk has leaves in it, and the radio and air conditioner don’t work? No organization is perfect, and I would expect an error or oversight now and then, but what I saw was terrible. Newer cars still under warranty often seemed to be given only the most cursory inspections before being shinned up and put out on the lot. I found one that had obviously come directly from an auction – the item # tag was still attached to the rear view mirror!

CarMax offers an excellent selection of cars, and overall is a better place to buy than the average car lot, but working there is horrible. What they need is a good union. Management hires smart people with high ideals to sell their product, and then treats them as if they were morons. They don’t value feedback, opinions, or suggestions from sales reps or anybody else, although they like to pretend they do. Management thinks they have all the answers to all the questions that could possibly exist about selling used cars. They don’t.

Their motivational get-togethers are strictly lowbrow affairs. The Christmas Party I attended was so tacky, I was embarrassed to be there. If CarMax could just import hordes of poor people from some low income third world country who spoke perfect English, they would have just want, and apparently need to make their system work. Maybe those employees could work themselves into a frenzy over the prospect of the CEO grilling them steaks if they come in #1 in sales for their region. Working there is a prescription for near poverty, especially in high cost of living areas. Thinking sales reps would prefer to earn enough to buy their own groceries!