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."