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TESTOSTERONE PIT Kindle Edition
His tie is loosened, his collar unbuttoned. His gut that hangs over his belt strains his shirt. He has puffy eyes and is full of mean energy, ready to explode, ready to force things to happen. Forty salesmen work for him, and some of them have formed a dope ring by the plate-glass window: Whacker Packer, Hackman Jones, JoAnn Delouche, Freddie T, Oiler, and a girl they call Meat Grinder out of respect. Massacre gesticulates on the phone a closing booth. He’s talking to a customer about a fifteen-passenger van that came out of the rental fleet. There are ten of them. They’re scratched and dented and have too many miles on them, and they’re overpriced, and no one can sell them. But he’s king of sales, and if he can sell them all, it’ll prove he can sell anything.
But Ferronickel is losing his grip, and he’s going to hell.
Edgy, cynical, and loaded with insider-only details about the car business, Testosterone Pit will change the way you think about dealerships, their people, who struggle to survive in their sometimes funny and often nasty world, and their sales processes, which are older than dirt.
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateOctober 8, 2012
- File size266 KB
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From the Author
About the Author
He has twenty years of C-level operations experience, including turnarounds and startups. He lived in six countries, but has now come to rest in San Francisco, where he founded Wolf Street Corp and WOLFSTREET.com.
He earned his BA, MA, and MBA in Oklahoma and Texas, worked in both states for years, including a decade as General Manager of a large Ford dealership and its subsidiaries. But one day, he quit and went to France to open himself up to new possibilities, which degenerated into a life-altering three-year journey across 100 countries on all continents, much of it overland, which almost swallowed him up.
Product details
- ASIN : B009NOFGXA
- Publisher : (October 8, 2012)
- Publication date : October 8, 2012
- Language : English
- File size : 266 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 148 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #418,167 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2,541 in General Humorous Fiction
- #4,087 in Humorous Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Wolf Richter is the publisher of WOLFSTREET.com, where he muses in his tongue-in-cheek manner on economic, financial, and business issues and entanglements in the US, Europe, Japan, and China. His articles are frequently republished by other media outlets. He appears regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.
He has twenty years of C-level operations experience, including turnarounds and startups. He lived in six countries, but has now come to rest in San Francisco, where he founded Wolf Street Corp and WOLFSTREET.com.
He earned his BA, MA, and MBA in Oklahoma and Texas, worked in both states for years, including a decade as General Manager of a large Ford dealership and its subsidiaries. But one day, he quit and went to France to open himself up to new possibilities, which degenerated into a life-altering three-year journey across 100 countries on all continents, much of it overland, which almost swallowed him up.
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The book depicts the circus atmosphere on the sales floor orchestrated by the enormously talented but deeply flawed General Sales Manager Ferronickel. A psychological mudwrestling match between Massago, the king of sales, and Tamela Ash, a litigation lawyer, who comes in to buy an Explorer and trade in her BMW (that has a laundered salvage title) is alone a great page turner. And for anyone who has ever bought a car, it's an intriguing and sometimes shocking peek at what's going on behind the scenes.
The dialogues are vibrant, often comical, full of male energy in a metaphoric way (whether "salesmen" are male or female). The characters are colorful, funny, and very real - in every sense -- with disturbing weakness and uplifting strengths. Even the meanest among them are somehow impossible to hate, including the truly nasty and alcoholic Ferronickel.
The story is set in an unnamed oil town after the oil bust, and yet I see some parallels to the Great Recession and its impact on people who are struggling to find their way. Some of them had been let go by society, and the dealership, like a safety net, caught them on the way down. And some spiral down further, as the title hints. As Ferronickel descends into his own hell, and as sales are going south, the big boss, Trucker steps in. There is a new beginning of sorts, and chaos too. As salesmen and sales managers disperse to go look for the greener grass, you feel the melancholy, but also hope.
Testosterone Pit is a great read, a workplace novel with plenty of laughter, with deep insights into the art of selling and into the car business.
Unfortunately, I was always one of the B-Backs the author wrote of. Had no idea I was so hated! But I did really go back and buy the car! On second thought...maybe I didn't.
The most profound story in the whole book was how one upstart young, gorgeous female lawyer drove up to the dealership wanting nothing but a black Explorer, but drove out with a cranberry red Explorer. The cold reading employed by the salesman was just amazing. This alone made the book worth reading.
You also come to realize that although the salesmen sold the cars, it was upper management who had to sell the salesmen on selling cars. What a job! And what a bunch of colorful characters.
This book appears to be a "prequel" to his other terrific book "The Big Like".
I breezed through the sample and kept going. I read 75% Friday night, finished it Saturday morning.
Terrific book. The guy can really write!
Just downloaded the sample of his other book. I've not looked at it yet but this book will be a tough act to follow.
I hope he keeps writing!
The whole tone of the book is negative, with no one to root for or empathize with. This makes the book difficult to read. I used it as more of a time filler than a primary desireable read.
