# Get Me Out Of Here



## brendanbrady (Jan 5, 2009)

To whom it may concern,


I have been Managing Director of a successfully multi-franchised motor dealership in Ireland for 8 years. Prior to that I was sales manager for a prominent, multi-site, Mercedes Benz, VW, Audi and Mazda dealership for 13 years achieving the accolade of highest performer for many of those years. We also achieved merit for our CSI score. (Customer Satisfaction Index), I am however, disillusioned with Ireland overall. The rewards in this country are no recompense for the effort put in. The punitive tax system and soaring cost of living coupled with an economy that is in free-fall stifles any enthusiasm one might have in performing to the best of their abilities. 

With this in mind, I have taken the decision to seek new employment overseas. 

My preference is for the Middle East or Spain.
HOWEVER, I am open to suggestion for the right position with the right package at any location.

Within reason, I am able to move at the earliest convenience.


Feel free to contact me for referees and CV. They will assure anyone of my merchantable quality.


If you think I might be an asset to your organisation please do not hesitate to contact me for a more detailed description of myself, my achievements and my abilities.


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## chris(madrid) (Mar 23, 2008)

Forget Spain - car sales are down 49,7%. You'd also need EXCELLENT Spanish (I have had professional dealings with most of the Specialist vehicle companies based in and around Madrid)- and have to accept wages that are MUCH MUCH lower. Factories and dealers are laying off. Managers go before mechanics!


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## brendanbrady (Jan 5, 2009)

chris(madrid) said:


> Forget Spain - car sales are down 49,7%. You'd also need EXCELLENT Spanish (I have had professional dealings with most of the Specialist vehicle companies based in and around Madrid)- and have to accept wages that are MUCH MUCH lower. Factories and dealers are laying off. Managers go before mechanics!


Thanks for that Chris,
My Spanish is ok and what you describe is exactly as it is here in Ireland.
Projected market is down 70% on 2007 sales for 08.
However, I own my property in Spain. I can sell my house here and clear my mortgage which will leave me needing less money to service bills.
I might as well be tight and miserable in the sun as tight and miserable in the wind and rain!! Any suggested websites I might look at?


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## XTreme (May 17, 2008)

Did somebody mention websites?


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

brendanbrady said:


> Thanks for that Chris,
> My Spanish is ok and what you describe is exactly as it is here in Ireland.
> Projected market is down 70% on 2007 sales for 08.
> However, I own my property in Spain. I can sell my house here and clear my mortgage which will leave me needing less money to service bills.
> I might as well be tight and miserable in the sun as tight and miserable in the wind and rain!! Any suggested websites I might look at?


For what its worth, I would suggest you hang on to your UK property and rent it out. that way you will have an excape route if all fails in Spain and an income to cover your mortgage (and a bit more maybe????). 

As for work, I wouldnt hold your breath, bring enough money to tide you over, see what you can find, you never know???? but if all else fails treat it as an extended holiday

Jo x


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## brendanbrady (Jan 5, 2009)

jojo said:


> For what its worth, I would suggest you hang on to your UK property and rent it out. that way you will have an excape route if all fails in Spain and an income to cover your mortgage (and a bit more maybe????).
> 
> As for work, I wouldnt hold your breath, bring enough money to tide you over, see what you can find, you never know???? but if all else fails treat it as an extended holiday
> 
> Jo x


T
Thanks for your help Jo. 
My property is in Ireland, and as all the Polish etc who created the need for rental accommodation flee this fast sinking ship there is approximately 100,000 unoccupied properties in Ireland at the moment. As a result of cataclysmic miss-management of our country, it is estimated that it will be 2012 before our economy turns and it will be 2014 at the earliest before we start to see good times again. And, as the man said, things will get much worse before they get better. All this coupled with Ireland becoming the murder capital of Europe and also the gateway to Europe for human and drug trafficking. I, like many other native Irish, want to get of this barge and leave this cesspit of anarchy and crime (as if our own criminals were not enough to deal with, our illustrious government went out and imported criminals from Africa and Eastern Europe in their quest to get additional labour into the country. Now the ones who came to work are leaving, and what remains are the scum who free-load on our ridiculous refugee assistance and the once diluted pool of criminals has increased ten fold as a proportion of refugee stats. Our most hardened Irish criminals are terrified of this imported faction. Our idiotic political correctness refuse to deal with this with a firm hand and week by week it gets further and futrther out of control).
You may say Spain has its share of crime and this is true, but there is a respect for the enforcement of the law. You don't mess with the Spanish police no matter who you are!! 
Anyway, sorry for getting on my soapbox. I could go on but I don't want to depress you.
If you take all the above Jo, couples with the fact that it could take 10 years in Ireland for me to produce a sunshine photo album like yours, I, and my family, want to get out of here.

Thanks for your help


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## XTreme (May 17, 2008)

brendanbrady said:


> T
> I, like many other native Irish, want to get of this barge and leave this cesspit of anarchy and crime (as if our own criminals were not enough to deal with, our illustrious government went out and imported criminals from Africa and Eastern Europe in their quest to get additional labour into the country. Now the ones who came to work are leaving, and what remains are the scum who free-load on our ridiculous refugee assistance and the once diluted pool of criminals has increased ten fold as a proportion of refugee stats. Our most hardened Irish criminals are terrified of this imported faction. Our idiotic political correctness refuse to deal with this with a firm hand and week by week it gets further and futrther out of control).
> You may say Spain has its share of crime and this is true, but there is a respect for the enforcement of the law. You don't mess with the Spanish police no matter who you are!!


That sounds pretty bad......never thought that Ireland had degenerated to that state.
As people have said, Spain isn't perfect, and there are problems in certain areas....but nothing on that sort of scale.
And there is a still a fear of the Guardia that must come from the Franco days, when apparently they were fairly brutal. Having said that, they don't exactly take any prisoners now. 
If you're law abiding there's not a problem, but unlike Britain, if people cross that line they know they're not going to be protected by the very system whose laws they've chosen to break.
If Tony Martin had shot those intruders over here he'd have been a national hero.


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## brendanbrady (Jan 5, 2009)

XTreme said:


> That sounds pretty bad......never thought that Ireland had degenerated to that state.
> As people have said, Spain isn't perfect, and there are problems in certain areas....but nothing on that sort of scale.
> And there is a still a fear of the Guardia that must come from the Franco days, when apparently they were fairly brutal. Having said that, they don't exactly take any prisoners now.
> If you're law abiding there's not a problem, but unlike Britain, if people cross that line they know they're not going to be protected by the very system whose laws they've chosen to break.
> If Tony Martin had shot those intruders over here he'd have been a national hero.


All very true Jo,
Thanks again!
Cute picture by the way!


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## XTreme (May 17, 2008)

brendanbrady said:


> All very true Jo,
> Thanks again!
> Cute picture by the way!


I'm not Jo Brendan! And stop calling me cute!


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## brendanbrady (Jan 5, 2009)

XTreme said:


> I'm not Jo Brendan! And stop calling me cute!


Sorry about that.


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## chris(madrid) (Mar 23, 2008)

brendanbrady said:


> You may say Spain has its share of crime and this is true, but there is a respect for the enforcement of the law. You don't mess with the Spanish police no matter who you are!!


Erm - it's not quite that good.

There are areas of Madrid where the police will only enter with the army. I've Spanish family who are police - and the number off work due to "agression" is not low!. 

In a village (as the town hall where I work) you'll find the Spaniards are generally more polite with the police (most are from the village and somehow related to the inhabitants) - they do have issue though and certain nationalities give more stress than others.

Messing with the GC is however NOT recommended - EVER.


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## SteveHall (Oct 17, 2008)

The figures for car sales in Spain were issues yesterday for the month of December (see SUR, diario de Málaga. Noticias y actualidad de Málaga) They were even worse than expected. New car sales for the WHOLE of the Málage province were down to just 1,530 (sic) that is a HUGE 70% reduction year on year. 

This is despite Ford offering an enormous 25% discount on most of its models which according to those who know means they are selling at a loss to create turn-over and that as is admitted by the presidente of Ford España would mean they are bust within 4 months! 

The chances of you (OP) getting work are as good as zero - EVEN with FLUENT Spanish, Sorry but that's the way it is.


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## scharlack (Nov 21, 2008)

The Middle East is VERY HOT and if you are married you will need your wife´s "approval" since life won´t treat women as well as a man in most countries there. However it is a place to earn some serious cash. 

Would you be willing to work on something different than what you do these days? If so I would suggest you save some money and go to Australia. Perhaps open a business in a small town? Great weather, no language barriers, lower crisis impact than EU, low crime, etc.

BUT at the moment and under the current economy scenario I would stay where you are if you don´t have a secure income elsewhere. Maybe start planning now and wait until things get more stable?

G´luck!


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## SunnySpain (Jul 30, 2008)

In reply I think the following,

If your Spanish is good, then you have a chance of making it here. I know someone who does exactly what you do in Ireland and he is doing fine, in fact very good !

Sales are down, but thats largely due to less rental cars being purchased.

A lot of dealerships are selling 10 cars a month without any problems.

In fact I know of two people who work in new car sales and thye are both doing fine and say they don't understand why people think differently.

Cheers Dave


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## brendanbrady (Jan 5, 2009)

SunnySpain said:


> In reply I think the following,
> 
> If your Spanish is good, then you have a chance of making it here. I know someone who does exactly what you do in Ireland and he is doing fine, in fact very good !
> 
> ...



At last someone with a positive attitude. thanks for that Dave.
I'm working on my Spanish and its improving every day and will make my move soon.


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## brendanbrady (Jan 5, 2009)

scharlack said:


> The Middle East is VERY HOT and if you are married you will need your wife´s "approval" since life won´t treat women as well as a man in most countries there. However it is a place to earn some serious cash.
> 
> Would you be willing to work on something different than what you do these days? If so I would suggest you save some money and go to Australia. Perhaps open a business in a small town? Great weather, no language barriers, lower crisis impact than EU, low crime, etc.
> 
> ...


Thanks for your comments,
My wife would have no problem with UAE and my children are willing to move as well.
I would have no problem turning my hand to many things and no problem going to Australia. My management abilities could be successfully applied to many industries. However, Australia only want young people with a trade. Apparently, once your over 40 you go way down the desireability list.


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## SteveHall (Oct 17, 2008)

Delighted they are doing well but the FACTS are that the sales of new cars are massively down. 

The rental fleets are just not buying in and the fleet buyers are screwing further and further and further on the prices. One of the biggest Málaga operations was getting quotes from Alicante just to get an extra 10/15 euros per car off the prices ..... but if you are buying x,000 at a time I guess that's a big saving!! 

BTW selling 10 new cars per month will not keep even the smallest dealership happy. They can't survive on that!


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## brendanbrady (Jan 5, 2009)

SteveHall said:


> Delighted they are doing well but the FACTS are that the sales of new cars are massively down.
> 
> The rental fleets are just not buying in and the fleet buyers are screwing further and further and further on the prices. One of the biggest Málaga operations was getting quotes from Alicante just to get an extra 10/15 euros per car off the prices ..... but if you are buying x,000 at a time I guess that's a big saving!!
> 
> BTW selling 10 new cars per month will not keep even the smallest dealership happy. They can't survive on that!


Hi Steve,
Are you in the trade yourself?
Where hire drive business is important to the manufacturer it is of much less importance to the dealer. It only comes into play if the dealer is trying to make volume bonus and inevitably, if it is been done under these stressful circumstances then the buyback is usually wrong creating further problems when the cars return to the dealership and in many cases the losses encored in the disposal of these buybacks often outweighs the extra bonus gained. I would never factor a profit into my budget from hire drive business. So if it is the case that the higher portion of the decline in the registration figures then this will have little impact on the dealers on the street. It will effect manufacturer’s production and government revenue.
True to say, 10 new cars a month for a dealer would be poor but remember, 78% of car sales profit comes from used and not new. I know many successful dealers who would not exceed 120 new cars annually but bottom line is far better than garages doing silly deals to please manufacturers targets which, if they achieve this years, will be increased again next year so they will have to do even more silly profitless deals to achieve targets. Vicious circle and the reason why the car market is out of line with true demand.
Hire drives are and always have been, bad for the dealer. The money and effort put into every hire drive deal would be far more profitable if used to buy in other stock with a decent margin.
If this is the main reason Spanish registrations are down then the Spanish motor trade should be surviving with little disruption to their business unless they are depending on performance bonus for their survival, and if they are the business is wrong and fragile.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

brendanbrady said:


> At last someone with a positive attitude. thanks for that Dave.
> I'm working on my Spanish and its improving every day and will make my move soon.



What you should ask yourself is why is there only one vaguely positive response? I'd love to be positive and tell you that you would get a job easily and you will be successful. But if you could do that here then sure as hell you could do that where you live now - cos you'd at least have language on your side. Maybe do it in Ireland, make a lot of money and then come over here and either retire or see if you can replicate your success

Jo


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## SteveHall (Oct 17, 2008)

Hi Brendanbrady, 

All very valid points but the UNDERLYING issue is that the car hire companies are not buying the cars because they do not expect to have the customers to rent them to and the dealserships are not selling cars to the man in the street as he does not have the confidence (or the job!) to support it! 

Another interesting point is that the car hire companies are now having to deep discount and long term car hire has not been so cheap for a long time. 

We will bounce back - just be good if I had an idea of when this will be!!


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## XTreme (May 17, 2008)

Positive response from me as well! We had a good year in 2008, and in January alone we rolled out four new sites for clients....two from Granada, one from Jaen, and one from Alicante.
And we've got two confirmations of new sites already for February....so no complaints from here!


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## chris(madrid) (Mar 23, 2008)

SteveHall said:


> All very valid points but the UNDERLYING issue is that the car hire companies are not buying the cars


I can vouch for this. The village I work in has TWO major hire fleets based there - The road tax is VERY low.

They've already said they will be cutting the size of their fleets - visible to us as reduced revenue at the town hall. In fact from what we've gathered they'll not be buying any new until at least mid year unless it's for a long term lease.

Sales - the sales model for SPAIN is very different to the UK and Germany (I don't know the Irish model). 

Here Spanish folk TEND to buy a car NEW and run it until it dies or simply has no residual value. Trading up is rarer. 

You see far less used cars on the dealers lots near us than I see on lots near my folks in the UK - and NO specialist "1year old" dealers like in Germany.

Old cars get sold privately or are simply passed on to family or even friends. You'll also find that people you know casually will even ask you to give then a nod when you decide to get rid of something they'd like. Means no dealer markups. 

Spain has (had anyway in 2002) the OLDEST mobile vehicle pool in Europe. I was involved in the trade here (not in direct sales) in 2002-2005. 

One reason btw is that it is financially practical to keep an old car running for longer in Spain - as garage labour costs are so much lower. I use a small local garage for stuff I cant handle on the 15year old Landrover. Always a good 60% cheaper than the equivalent in the UK (maybe not as much since the pound flopped) - I asked the mobile workshop guy who attends my Dad. 

Also INLAND corrosion is near as dammit a NON-issue - even on Alfasuds. I regularly see cars/vans of 20years still rushing around. Not a red spot to be seen.

I mentioned to my wife that maybe we should look at getting a new(er) car to replace our 2003 Citroen (the NEW CAR) - The answer was more or less "What? - it's not 10 years old yet!".

Also a fair number of folk interested in something newer second hand are now buying in Germany. You get a better guaranty of quality - get newer models. My neighbour bought a TT3 in Germany getting the current Spanish model year at a huge discount as it was a year old in Germany. 

This is a possible area of business (EU imports) - but it's already well covered near us - and rather Mafia like. When I did the private import of my then German plated car - I was suddenly surrounded by the Grey dealers until they realised I was not a competitor.


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