A little over a month ago, when Illinois governor Rod R. Blagojevich was first accused of trying to sell Obama’s vacated senate seat, LTMB contributor Juan Luis Gutierrez posted an article asking an important question: What’s going to happen to the Open Road Tolling Signs?

Well now we have the answer, less than 24 hours after Blago was impeached, my buddy Pun managed to grab this pic on I-355 on his way to lunch:

Bye Bye Blago!

As you may remember from Foto Friday #1, #2, and #3, the concept here is pretty simple: we post a pic and leave the bitching up to you. Here’s today’s pic, don’t forget to comment and submit your Foto Friday pics to FotoFriday@listentomebitch.com for consideration. 

As many of you know from a previous post, I am in the market for a few cars. That however, does not make me qualified to write this post, what does qualify me is that I have bought and sold at least 30 cars in the last 10 years or so (realistically there were probably even more that I am unable to remember).

These are in no particular order unless otherwise mentioned:

1. Don’t ever assume anything about the customer’s financial situation

Once you start thinking about the customer’s financial situation you begin to make invalid assumptions. Yea the customer may have shown up in worn jeans and a tank top, but that doesn’t mean he can’t afford a new BMW. In fact it may mean that he’s a high-powered executive who takes advantage of not having to wear a suit 2 days a week. When you treat a customer like they can’t afford something, you’re losing the sale because your customer is headed up the road to the next dealer where he or she will receive the treatment he or she deserves.

2. List the options on the car

When dealers don’t list all the information about the car, there is one of three reasons behind it. First, the car may have just gotten there and the dealer themselves may not have the information sorted (if the car appeared on the site you’re looking at within the last 7 days, this is possible). The second option is that the dealer simply doesn’t have any idea what options are on the car. The third and final reason is my favorite: the dealer did it on purpose. What? Why? Well it’s simple, you don’t have access to the information, so now you have to contact them to find out; it’s a sales tactic. When you contact them they gain valuable information: that John Doe is shopping specifically for a Hyundai Santa Fe in addition to your phone number and/or email address which they can use to harass reach you. The biggest issue with this in my experience is generally when you call the dealer, the guy who answers the phone will have no knowledge of the car you call about. Which leads me to my next two points.

3. Options are Optional

When a customer asks about the options on the car, lets say a MINI Cooper for example, and you respond to them by listing standard equipment (or list only standard equipment in your ad), you’re just wasting everyone’s time. When the ad lists power windows, power door locks, power mirrors, and front airbags you only aggravate the customer because although those may have been options on cars in 1985, or even on some lower priced models now, they’re standard equipment on all MINIs from 2002 onward, and if it’s standard it wasn’t an option! Also, stop listing information about your dealer in the options field in your ads — believe it or not I’m looking to buy the car, not the dealer.

3. When a customer emails you a question about a car you’re selling, respond to that email instead of calling them back; chances are they emailed you for a reason.

The contact email address is generally just as accessible as the phone number; so If a customer chooses to email you there’s a reason behind it. Recently while in the market for a car I emailed several dealers, each of them responded back to me by phone. Why? because it’s easier to sell to someone by phone than by email. Here’s the problem: I emailed 20 dealers specific questions about the car they were selling. When they called me back at 9:00 the next day while I was on my way to the office, or at 11 when I was in a meeting with a client, or at 3 when I was racing to get a hold of my broker before the end of trading for the day; not only did I not have time to talk to them, but I also didn’t have any idea what the questions I asked about their specific vehicle were.

Email makes it easy to keep track of the conversation, but they insisted on calling. The problem is each time they would say hi this is John Doe from John Doe Imports calling in response to your email, please let me know if you have any questions I can answer for you. I ALREADY DID! I also got an average of 4 follow up emails from each dealer; some personalized, others automated. Each of the follow up emails said pretty much verbatim “if you have any other questions or concerns please let me know, I’d love to answer them for you” I already asked my questions, you didn’t answer them any of the 5 times you’ve contacted me, I don’t remember what they were, and you’ve blown the sale.

If you want to use the phone, first respond to my email and answer my questions. Once you’ve responded give it a day then call to follow up. “Hi this is John Doe calling from John Doe Honda, I was calling to follow up on the response I sent to your email. Did  your receive it? Are there any other questions I can answer for you about our 2005 Honda Accord? When can you come by and take it for a test drive?

4. Dealers contact the customer to the extent of annoyance

This should perhaps be 3.5 rather than 4, but I think it’s important enough to stress it as it’s own bullet point. If the customer does not respond within your first few attempts at contacting him or her, the customer doesn’t want to talk to you, likely for one of three reasons: the customer is very busy (in which case you’re annoying them already), they purchased another vehicle, or you’ve already blown the sale (likely because of something on this list).

Also, don’t EVER contact the customer using information they didn’t give you. A friend of mine sent a question to a seller through ebay about a car he was thinking about buying for his wife. The seller decided to call him rather than respond to his email so he looked up my buddy’s ebay account details (which were not provided to him by my friend) and called the listed number, which happened to be his home (as is true in most cases). So his wife got home from the grocery store, played the messages, and heard “Hi Bill, this is John Doe calling from Stupid MINI Dealer about the yellow Cooper you emailed us about on ebay”…so much for the suprise, not to mention the fact that Bill felt like his privacy was violated.

5. You better know more about the car you’re selling than your customer does

In sales, if you don’t know more about the product you’re selling than your customer does you appear to be incompetent. Additionally, you are very likely to aggravate your customer because you won’t know the answer to his or her questions. This leads to a secondary annoyance of one of the following: either the salesperson has to go and ask somebody else then report back to the customer or the salesperson will make stuff up.

In the first situation, the salesperson should cut the knowledgeable person into the conversation (splitting the commission if necessary) rather than continuing as the annoying middle man and losing the sale. The second situation is a no-brainer: we’ve already established in this situation that the customer knows more than you, and unfortunately he already walked in the door assuming the false stereotype that you’re a liar so the last thing you want to do is prove that to be correct.

As you probably understood after Foto Friday #1 and Foto Friday #2, the concept at play is that every Friday, I’ll post a photo for you to bitch about, this gives us a break from bitching while providing you with an easy way to bitch via commenting.

New this week is the Foto Friday email address. If you have a photo you’ve taken that you’d like featured on Foto Friday, please email it to us at FotoFriday@ListenToMeBitch.com Additionally, I’d like to remind everyone that if you’d like to become a contributor here at Listen To Me Bitch, or even make a guest post, check out this information about posting on Listen To Me Bitch.

Now, here’s this week’s photo, straight out of my freezer:

NEW YORK, the original TEXAS toast! Come on marketing, think about it

*Disclaimer* This is not a political post, it doesn’t take stance with any political issues and isn’t at all intended to be partisan toward democrats or republicans.

Like a lot of people, I sincerely hope that the most powerful man in the world-elect is a good president, because that’s what America needs. However, I have a very realistic concept of how much one person (and his team) can fix, despite the power they may have. I’ve met an extraordinary number of people who seem to think that his election to the presidency is on par with the second coming of Christ if you believe in that…this isn’t a religious post either, and that we will all be ’saved’ by his presence in the oval office.I hate to break it to you, but the last administration proved that it is much easier to muck things up than to fix them. Regardless of political standing, this country has more problems now than it did 8 years ago. The metaphor that I like to use is that of a little kid who can throw a fit, and completely trash his bedroom in 15 minutes (or less). Then the mother (or father for you politically correct fools) has to come in and may spend hours cleaning the place up and getting everything back to the way it was. This is the equivalent of the Bush vs. Obama administrations. There is no way, that in 4 years, they will be able to undo all that is wrong with the country today. The media has made this man out to be the solution,painting the picture that we will live in a Utopian society when it’s all said and done. No one can live up to that hype, not even Barack Obama.

So my bitching is this: Stop setting yourself up for disappointment. Be happy (if you’re a Barack fan) with the fact that we’re at least shifting power to a man that completes sentences most of the time. Don’t tell me that I’m a pessimistic moron for not thinking that all of my problems are magically going to vanish in 4 years. Do not tell me I am “Un-American” for writing this entry, I stand by my country despite its shortcomings at the moment, but our current President-Elect is not the only missing link in the chain.-Nick

Just in case you missed it, we began with Foto Friday #1 last week. Foto Friday provides an easy way for Listen To Me Bitch readers to contribute by simply commenting on the posted photo taken by one of our contributors.

If you would like to contribute a photo or do some bitching of your own on Listen to Me Bitch, you can find more information here.

This week’s photo was taken of a gas pump credit card reader, with a sticker that should not be necessary because those people who are dumb enough to require it should have to fave the embarrassment of going inside to ask why their card “isn’t working”

Oh, THATS why they put the picture of the card there...

Yes, I know stupid is spelled with a U and not two Os, but email scammers don’t and the post title was addressed to them. With that out of the way, I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that I have an AOL account. It’s my tether back to the 1990’s when I (along with everyone else) actually used AOL. Don’t worry though, i just keep the (now free) email address alive, but don’t actually use it or AOL for anything.

For years AOL sent out emails ad nauseam saying that any official correspondence from them will have a blue envelope icon in your inbox. The purpose was so that anyone who doesn’t have their head in the game when it comes to email scams would be able to easily spot fraudulent emails.  This never made any sense to me because in my experience, they’ve always been easy to spot, even for me a dumb kid of two Latin American immigrants. Nonetheless, there must be people who either don’t watch enough TV or spend too much time smoking something illegal that still can’t spot the scams.

Here’s an edited copy of the email I received with my comments in orange, hopefully it will provide people with a droplet of common sense.

I was originally worried about scammers using my tips to improve their email scams, but lets be honest, they won’t understand anyways. Let it be a guide of common sense things to look for (in an email that should seem like a scam to anyone with half a brain) before sending them your credit card or banking info.

Ciao,
Juan Luis

I present to you the first Listen To Me Bitch Foto Friday: every Friday, rain or shine we will present you with the photographic depiction of something we wanted to bitch about, but have decided to leave the bitching up to you.

I’ll post a picture every week complete with back story, and leave the bitching in your hands.

A friend and I uncovered this monstrosity while trying to grab a quick bite to eat at a restaurant in a local strip mall, click here to comment and tell us what you think.

What Tipping Once Was
Once upon a time ago (in a decade I certainly don’t remember) tipping wasn’t a required part of daily life. If a waiter performed extremely well, a maitre d led you to an exceptional table, the delivery guy stacked the firewood instead of simply dumping it in a pile in your yard, or the garbage man took the extra can of refuse they received a tip for going above and beyond the normal call of duty.

Why The United States is Stupid
Nowadays in the United States, tipping has lost its true meaning. It is customary (no matter the service) to leave a tip for the waitstaff in a restaurant of approximately 15%, leaving more for exceptional service, or less for sub-par attention. This is stupid, while it allows restaurants pay the waitstaff a below minimum-wage, it defeats the whole purpose behind the “tip”. In most European countries, there is no expectation of a tip, rather it is awarded by choice as a way of saying “thank you” for a waitstaff that goes above and beyond the call of duty…you know, the way it should be!

Tipping Becomes a Shitshow
The other day I arrived downtown via train while it was raining outside. I walked through the outdoor station to the main entrance to get a taxi so that I could reach my final destination. The second I exited the door, I was bombarded by a series of presumably homeless people asking if I needed a cab. Caught off guard I replied yes and seconds later was led to the first cab in the taxi line (where there had been 15+ cabs waiting).

The cab was there, I  knew it was there, and I certainly didn’t need this guy’s help to get into a waiting cab. Then of course the inevitable came. I knew I would have to tip the guy for his unwanted, unneeded, and unappreciated “service”; but then became further annoyed when he said “come on man, make my new year” as if I was going to get into the cab without slipping him some cash.

Please don’t misunderstand, I have absolutely no issue with giving money to homeless people. In fact, I do it all the time. My issue lies in the fact that this gentleman acted like he did me a favor, when in fact he did me a disservice by delaying my departure from the train station thereby keeping me outside longer…in the rain.

This is just one example. In Europe and the USA alike, homless people often point you towards a parking space expecing compensation in return. Although I have seen this be helpful once or twice, 95% of the time it’s been useless. You’re traveling down the street looking for parking, you’ll find the spaces on the street with or without the homeless guy.

While I conceptually admire the fact that they are doing something for money rather than sitting on their asses with a cup begging for it, I would prefer they actually focused their energy on doing something potentially useful like selling newspapers or cleaning windshields, rather than essentially extorting money by making me fear for the well-being of my car while inside the restaurant if I don’t tip them.

I spent a great deal of time traveling this past month, and while waiting for various means of transport, I was inundated with people asking me for a cigarette. Maybe it’s the fact that I like to wear black (it’s the new black, get over it) or the fact that I might look like someone from a cigarette ad (they always use the cool and casual type). The truth is that I don’t smoke. I never have, and I’m proud to say I’ve never even taken one puff off of one of those things. However, I do respect peoples’ decision to smoke, so I’m not mean or condescending when I turn down their plea for something I really don’t have, it just makes them smug (smog?).

When I tell you, No, Sorry I don’t have a cigarette, don’t get all pissy and make a face like I just gave you the finger. It is not my fault you did not pick up another pack of cigarettes when you realized you were running low. It is also not my fault they cost almost $8.00/pack in this city. Additionally, making a face will NOT get you a cigarette from me, because I never had the damn thing in the first place.