Tesla needs to figure out how to sell cars. Its salespeople say it's stuck in the past.

• Tesla's delivery numbers dropped for the second straight quarter in July.

• The company has been scrambling to gin up orders and switch up its sales tactics over the past year.

• Business Insider spoke with 14 current and former staff who described Tesla's shifting sales strategy.

Once, Tesla raced to produce enough cars to meet demand. Now the company is scrambling to find customers to buy them.

Tesla's delivery numbers slumped for the second straight quarter in July — dropping below 50% of the US EV market share for the first time in the company's history.

The company's sales team has been struggling to adapt to a much different market, according to 14 current and former employees from Tesla's sales division in North America. The sources, whose identities are known to Business Insider, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Over the past 24 months, the company has offered discounts, reorganized its sales teams (and then backtracked on its reorg), repeatedly shifted sales goals, and vacillated between offering commissions to salespeople and threatening their jobs with performance-improvement plans.

None of it is working.

Tesla is facing weak consumer interest in electric cars and increased competition from other automakers, particularly as it attempts to position its dated vehicles against newer, less expensive models from rival legacy manufacturers and cheaper Chinese upstarts. The carmaker is also attempting to fix a spate of bad publicity surrounding its CEO, Elon Musk — all with little in the way of advertising initiatives or traditional sales strategies.

The electric-car maker made its mark by breaking industry standards with its ad-free, direct-to-consumer sales model. Now, some of Tesla's sales staff believe it's time for the company to begin acting like a traditional automaker.

"Tesla is at an inflection point," a former manager, who worked at the company for several years, told Business Insider. "It's time to throw out the old manual. What's worked in the past won't work now."

'The product should sell itself'

Unlike Tesla, most traditional automakers operate on a dealership model. They farm out their sales to third-party franchisees who are heavily incentivized to offload the product using a variety of tried-and-true tactics, including promotions, financing offers, add-on products, staff commissions, and sales events.

In contrast, Tesla keeps most of its inventory off-site, maintains a haggle-free pricing strategy, and relies more heavily on online sales. Its showrooms are more for educational purposes than selling. At one point in 2019, Tesla even briefly got rid of its sales team entirely, selling cars solely online.

"The idea is simple: The product should sell itself," one sales advisor said regarding Tesla's strategy. "We act more as guides than salespeople."

The ideal sales advisor is a person with a significant interest in tech and a passion for Musk's mission — having a sales background is a nonfactor, five workers said. In fact, Musk has made it clear that Tesla's sales advisors shouldn't have anything in common with the stereotypical "slimy salesperson" at traditional dealerships, one worker said.

That strategy began to flounder in 2022. At that point, Tesla hadn't released a new model in years and had only made subtle refreshes to some of its other vehicles. Waiting lists dried up and production began to outpace delivery. The product wasn't selling itself anymore.

Changing tactics

Three current and former managers told BI that if Tesla wants to move cars off the lot, it needs to ditch the advisor model and hire experienced sales staff.

The company took a step in that direction in 2022 when the sales team began hiring workers with more traditional sales and automotive experience, the workers said. Several managers said they welcomed new hires who could turn curious visitors into buyers.

"We needed people with more of a hunter mindset," one worker said.

But if Tesla wants salespeople to hunt, it also needs to incentivize them, some managers said — namely via commissions. Tesla had largely avoided commissions since the Model 3's 2017 launch, with salespeople relying instead on annual reviews for salary increases. Three workers noted this approach did little to motivate deal closures or boost car sales.

Tesla started experimenting with rewarding high-performing salespeople in 2023, offering $25 to $100 in commission for each Model S or X sold, three workers said. (For comparison, at a traditional dealership, salespeople can bring in much more — usually earning anywhere from