From the outside looking in, working at a high-end car shop like Verrillo Motor Car might seem like a dream job—and in many ways, it is. We get to spend our days around Corvettes, Camaros, Chevelles, Mustangs, classics, muscle cars, and other incredible automobiles. Customers see the polished showroom, gleaming paint, spotless interiors, and beautiful photographs online.
What they don’t see is everything that happens behind the scenes to make it look that way.
Running a specialty automobile dealership involves a little bit of just about everything. Cars have to be found, researched, purchased, transported, inspected, serviced, detailed, photographed, advertised, demonstrated, sold, financed, titled, registered, and sometimes shipped across the country and beyond.
And that’s just the beginning.
There are batteries to charge, tires to inflate, fluids to check, cars to wash, interiors to clean, paint to polish, keys to organize, paperwork to file, titles to chase, phones to answer, emails to return, customers to follow up with, appointments to schedule, parts to order, repairs to coordinate, transporters to arrange, and vehicles to move—constantly. |
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 | | The “glory” of painting the photo studio to get it ready for the next car to be photographed. |
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Even something as “simple” as taking pictures of a car is more involved than most people realize. Each vehicle first passes through our shop to make sure it is mechanically perfect. Then, our detailing department takes over and works their magic to be sure the car looks its best. Next, it’s off to our photo studio for photos. And, of course, the photo studio itself has to be prepped and maintained. That means cleaning it, painting walls and floors, touching up scuffs and tire marks, maintaining the lighting, keeping equipment working, and making sure the space is spotless before the next car rolls in.
After that, there is the endless work of editing, uploading, creating descriptions for each car, posting them to the website, maintaining the site itself, creating blogs, and creating and updating social media. And so on.
And that’s not to mention the numerous “little jobs” that have to be attended to as well: there are floors to sweep, snow to shovel, equipment to maintain, supplies to order, deliveries to unload, license plates to handle, cars to fuel, inventory to rearrange, dead batteries to jump, unexpected problems to diagnose, and about a hundred other things that weren’t on the morning’s schedule.
Some days you’re a salesperson. Other days you’re a photographer, detailer, mechanic’s assistant, researcher, writer, porter, janitor, painter, troubleshooter, or traffic director.
The glitz and glamour are certainly there. We get to work with some truly spectacular automobiles.
But all the work involved to let them shine and, ultimately, find a new home? That’s the part you don’t see 🙂 |
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