In the stratosphere of the superrich, buying a car is about the experience

Imagine paying a salesperson a $60,000 commission on the sale of one vehicle. Yes, one vehicle.

What if training sales and service staff consisted of flying them to Europe so they could spend up to three weeks with the automaker, driving the vehicles? No webinars here. When they return, those salespeople behave more like marketers, going to cocktail parties and art shows in search of new clients. A car sale can take months to close. It's a rare walk-in who drives out the same day.

Don't worry about finance and insurance. The ultrarich often pay cash for their cars. Few insurers back ancillary products such as extended service contracts for many superluxury brands. With Bugatti, for example, a single tire costs nearly $10,000 to replace.

That's a sampling of the operational distinctions between a superluxury vehicle dealership and a mass-market brand dealership.

"At this level, nobody needs any of these cars. It's a relationship you have to keep building, to keep selling," said Jennifer Stroup, Rolls-Royce brand manager at O'Gara Coach Beverly Hills, in California. "The majority of our clients are repeat business. I go to dinners three to five times a week with clients. This is my career."

Stroup's career began 17 years ago at a BMW store, a brand she sold for seven years before moving into the superluxury lines, she said.

When she made the change, the biggest culture shock she experienced was the sales volume.

"Sometimes you see three people in a day here, and other times, you might not see anyone for a week. It just depends," Stroup said of O'Gara Coach Beverly Hills, which sells Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Aston Martin, Bugatti, Lamborghini, McLaren and Koenigsegg.

There are two other stores in the O'Gara group: O'Gara Coach La Jolla, near San Diego, which sells Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini and Bugatti, and O'Gara Coach Westlake, north of Santa Monica, which sells Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Alfa Romeo and Maserati.

The Beverly Hills store sells about 10 to 15 new and used Rolls-Royce cars a month, Stroup said. At her former BMW employer, a large sales team sold 300 to 500 new cars a month. At O'Gara Coach, three or four salespeople sell each of the brands, except for Bugatti and Koenigsegg, where one person handles both brands, Stroup said.

During lulls, salespeople at O'Gara work the phones, she said. "You send emails. You go to events. We do a lot of things with the Chamber of Commerce. If they have a cocktail mixer, we send salespeople there."

It takes three months to a year to court a new customer and sell them a high-line car, Stroup said. One subtle objection that salespeople must overcome: Many of the ultrawealthy are business owners who hesitate to drive a car that is "too fancy" to the office for employees to see.

"There are people who walk in and buy a car in a day," she said. "But it doesn't happen very often."

When customers are paying anywhere from $100,000 to $3 million — the price of a Bugatti Chiron — the level of customer service that they expect necessarily rises.

"At a high-end store, you do go out of your way more for them because a lot of very wealthy people can't always come in, so you go to them," Stroup said.

In service, for example, nearly all of O'Gara Coach's customers expect pickup and delivery when their vehicles need maintenance or repair, she said.

Dealer Brian Miller understands that, in superluxury, "It's about the experience."

Miller, owner of Manhattan Motorcars in New York, tells his staff to respond to all customers the way they would "If my mother got stuck in her car," he said. "I want my guys to understand that that's the level of concern they have to have for someone. If someone calls and says their car is stuck in their hangar in Long Island, I send my guys there to take a look. This is why people do business with us."

Manhattan Motorcars sells Porsche, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Lamborghini, Lotus, Bugatti and Koenigsegg. Miller also owns two individual Porsche stores and an Audi store in the New York market. His stores combined sell about 4,000 new and used vehicles annually.

He considers Audi, even Porsche, to be mass-market brands.

"Audi is a straight-up car business," said Miller. "People come in, they want a lease or to buy it, and there might be a factory incentive, and you sell the car."

But in the superluxury market, the sale is more complex and time-consuming because many customers order a custom-made car. Don't worry about F&I and credit checks.

"I would say 95 percent of customers will buy the car and send you a wire," Miller said. "A couple go through a leasing company that specializes in these cars, but when you get over $250,000, a lot of people just want to send you money."

Most of his customers are collectors, and "They'll never drive these cars," he said. So there is little need for such F&I products as an extended service contract, which would be too expensive for providers anyhow given the cost to repair some of these cars, he said.

"You're making money on the sale of the car. There isn't any other place to make money on it," said Miller. "That's the way the regular car business used to be."

That's why Stroup and Miller tend to hire seasoned salespeople experienced with closing a car deal. They have to be polished and dress professionally — and be aggressive. "I think they need to be out of the store more and ferret out relationships," said Miller. "You need to be more proactive, and that will move the needle for us."

He doesn't ask that of his Audi or Porsche salespeople. In fact, Miller is more inclined to risk hiring a rookie from outside the car industry to sell cars at his Audi store than he is at Manhattan Motorcars.

Even the training is distinct. Porsche and Audi provide local trainers and webinars for salespeople and service technicians. But with superluxury brands, dealership staffers typically fly to Europe to spend up to three weeks learning the vehicles and driving them, said Miller.

Stroup has been to the Bentley and Rolls-Royce factories in England "a few times" for training, she said.

"A couple years ago, Bentley did a new product launch in Monaco, so people flew out there for that," said Stroup. "Rolls has training in England, and we send people there. It makes it that much more interesting and easy to talk about the product when you've been there and seen them being made and know everything about the cars."

But the most striking contrast between mainline and high-line dealerships is the clientele. A typical customer at O'Gara Coach is either a professional athlete, movie industry executive, real estate tycoon or manufacturing leader.

At Miller's store, it's a similar group, plus recognizable celebrities. For that reason, he has a non-negotiable rule for his staff: "Do not gawk; do not walk over and ask for an autograph. I'm very strict about that."

How strict? A few years ago, when former heavyweight champion boxer Mike Tyson would regularly come to his store to buy a car, "People outside would see him through the window and want to come in and say hello to him."

So Miller built a new facility that provided privacy from the public on the street. Said Miller: "Our people understand: Gawking is off limits."