A majority of us in the dealership consulting community, together with many client-dealers to whom we provide services, have long recognized a need for changes in salesperson compensation plans. The traditional plans which have been employed over the last several decades no longer effectively match the operating strategies being implemented in many dealerships today, particularly in those stores that are committed to “market-based pricing” their new and used vehicles on the Internet. This…

 Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success! Henry Ford…

Our company has published it’s second annual report which showcases women are having empowering experiences at progressive car dealerships in the United States.

Women are responsible for buying over 13 million cars at new car dealerships; that’s an impressive 36,000 vehicles a day. Dealerships have to literally change gears, advertising, amenities and their sales strategies to attract this powerful buying force. “It’s a very competitive industry” shares Women-Drivers.com President,…

Social media kicked off the New Year with some interesting updates geared toward increasing content exposure and diversifying communications tools. While some automotive professionals have expressed thatsocial isn’t selling cars, these updates may yet give us hope!

So far, here are 2015’s five social media updates your dealership…

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the Used Car Market Report from Black Book. As you can tell we are again recording this market video blog via Skype while on the road. Where has the industry taken us this week? We are coming to you from the exhibition hall floor and the Black Book booth at the 98th annual NADA Convention and Exposition in San Francisco. Unfortunately there is…

Once you get over the beauty of the 1970 Dodge Charger in the picture, you might ask yourself, "What does a 45-year-old muscle car have to do with automotive content?"

We've been asked the same type of question multiple times pertaining to content we publish on dealer websites. Sometimes, it's dealers asking. Other times, it's other vendors wondering what…

Automax Recruiting And Training And Recruitment HQ Partner Up To Bring New Hiring Technology To Automotive Recruitment

Automotive Recruitment Has Gone From High Technology And No-Touch, To High Technology And High Touch With The Inclusion Of A First…

The most important process COACHING

More Important than the latest greatest technology, the right inventory, advertising, hottest brand, and most importantly, the key to sustained long term growth in today's competitve market.

*Coaching = A training or development process

*5 Point…

WE ARE ENTERING AN ERA OF CRM DOMINATION



- BY JAMES A. ZIEGLER, THE ‪#‎AlphaDawg‬

Third party Vendors are waking up to their worst nightmare. The party is almost over and we're turning the lights on. They…

On January 11, the New England Patriots faced the Baltimore Ravens in a contest that would dictate which team moved onto the AFC Championship game. Going into the game as heavy favorites to win, the Patriots quickly found themselves losing the game 14-0 quickly. Undeterred, they powered through trading touchdowns with the Ravens for the remainder of the game to ultimately…

Are Your Phone Skills Costing You Money?

In reality when someone picks up the phone to call any business they have just taken the first step toward buying.  If they lose confidence in your dealership on the phone, chances are you…

The arguments used to avoid trial closes are "pressure"and "turning customer's off". Rather than teaching the associates not to trial close, there is greater benefit in teaching them HOW TO TRIAL CLOSE.

After reading David's blog, and Grant's reply I pondered and decided to throw my hat in the ring...

For the past two decades it has been popular for trainers and manufactures to attempt to take selling out of the equation. By falsely…

Imagine a customer that is in for a routine oil change at your dealership. As part of the complimentary inspection your store provides, it is discovered that the vehicle’s brake pads are severely worn and it would be unsafe to continue driving the vehicle much longer without replacement.  The service advisor brings this to the customer’s attention. Rather than making the…

Below are some stats from a recent survey you might find interesting from a December online Swapalease.com survey that was presented to 2,500 people across U.S. and Canada.



54.8% of men said they do not look forward to environments where negotiation takes place (66.7% of women).

However, while 32.5% of men said TV shows like Pawn Stars, Storage Wars and American Pickers have made them better negotiators, 78.2% of women said the…

When considering the successful use of social media by a business, the first thing that pops into many people’s minds is quantity. Not necessarily quantity of posts, but how big their audience is. Many judge social media success by the number of fans they have on Facebook, or followers on Twitter. If that number is large and/or growing, they feel as if their efforts are a…

Welcome to this week's used car market report, with insights from Black book. The overall market activity and market movement that so non-traditionally trended in November and the non-holiday weeks of December have mostly carried over into the first two weeks of January. The trend that has continued is the steady and consistent fall in gas prices at the pump. Now at $2.21 a gallon, down…

The Seven Most Important Words in Closing

By David Lewis

Whether you are a Salesperson or Sales Manager, your main goal is to close sales.  Everything we do up to that point is all just set-up and preparation, yet so many of us fail when it comes to this final step.  In actuality, we fail approximately 75% of time.   You may ask how I came up with that…

In the world of automotive retail, dealerships are always searching for ways to increase leads. Whether they choose to pursue that goal through third-party lead providers, increase page rankings through better SEO, or various other ways, if there is a customer in their market who wants to buy a car, dealers want an opportunity to earn their business.

When a…

 Have you ever noticed that all head football coaches seem to say the same thing at a press conference? When boiled down, they invariably say something like "They're a good team; we have our work cutout for us; we'll be ready to play."  That's it! It makes you wonder why there are press conferences anyway-they give no insight into the challenges,…

On December 31^st, noted marketing consultant Dan Kennedy published an article titled “Change is a Matter of Choice.” He began his message by stating that now is the time when millions of people make utterly empty New Year’s resolutions. He went on to say, “the truth is, most are empty of resolve all year long,” and although I hate saying it, this phenomenon is far more prevalent than it should be within our great community of retail automobile dealers.

Way too many…