Automax Sales Training is a nationwide company that trains people for various jobs. I don't know how they do in other areas but steer clear of their auto sales classes!
It all starts out when you'll see an advertisement online or in the newspaper for a flexible, well paid (up to $90,000) career opportunity at a local car dealership. When you get in contact with them, Jessica Lockerd (an Automax representative and wife of the owner Craig) will contact you saying to get back to her with a time and date you can come in for an interview during the next Monday or Tuesday. She'll also remind you not to forget to bring your resume.
When you get to the interview, they'll tell you the dealership has lots of openings and as long as you maintain eye contact with the interviewer and have some sales experience no matter how small it is you get told you're good enough to make the cut and will be invited back for the Automax Sales Training 3-day class that upcoming Wednesday-Friday. It sounds great and like it's too good to be true and that's all because it is!
Approximately 10 people get invited to the class and at the beginning everyone is told that the host dealership has a ton of openings and are all guaranteed of finding work. The class days are long and while you do learn a few things, they're so condensed that it's basically impossible to retain all the information not to mention pointless since you're not going to get the job anyways. They also make sure you pay the $499 fee up front and also try to sell you an additional $89 lifetime placement option for a grand total of $588. At the end of the third day you get a training handbook, training CD, and a crummy certificate of completion. Not a lot of value at all for the expensive price. But you're told that the dealership will reimburse you the initial $499 fee after 3 months of working there and this is good no matter which dealership you go to.
As soon as the class is over the trainer takes off and the trainees wait around for 2 hours until the dealership will begin to interview them. They talk to you for a minute and then tell you that if they like you then you'll hear by early next week. Not surprisingly, I didn't hear back.
But I got suckered into the lifetime placement opportunity so I figured I could just go to a different local branch immediately. I called Charles Branson at the placement office at (866) 586-7343 ext. 110 and told him I didn't get hired at the host dealership. Charles told me he'd look around and get back to me within 3 days. A week later he called saying a dealership was hiring and gave me the phone number, however the big problem was that it was over an hour away from me. This seemed ridiculous since there's at least 10 national dealerships in my town alone, not too mention all the ones in neighboring towns. I told him this was too far, so he snapped at me, put me on the inactive list, and told me to call back when I was serious about my career.
I called back a month and a half later and came back with the same result only this one was maybe 10 minutes closer but was still too far.
Then a funny thing happened as I bumped into another one of my former classmates a little less than a month after that and asked if he got placed at the host Freehold Ford Dealership. He said he didn't and that only 1 of the 12 students actually got a job offer there when we were all told that there was a chance for everyone. Another interesting bit of information he found out was that the only dealership that'd reimburse you the $499 is the host dealership and even if you went to one that sponsored these Automax Sales Training classes then you were out of luck. Finally it turns out that he found his job on his own, according to him he called the placement office and got tired of waiting so he just looked in the paper and took it from there. All in all you don't need to pay this hefty fee, anything you need to know the dealership will teach you themselves the first week or two after they hire you.
The trainer I had was Jere Conover and can be reached at [email protected]. He is supposedly the slickest out of all of them so definitely beware. He's a liar and a sleazy salesperson. He'll basically tell you anything you want to hear until you pay for the class at which point you'll start realizing he's not nearly as nice as he first came off to be. Jere told our class many fibs but the worst of all was that it's only a 40 hour work week when in fact you find out after the 'training' from the dealership that it's anywhere between 50-60 hours a week. Automax Sales Training is a complete rip-off and I highly recommend that you stay away from them at all costs, as you'll wind up very sorry and short of some of your hard-earned dollars! It's all part of a fraudulent activity and isn't worth a penny of the cost!
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