"'Twas the Friday Before Weekend"

    by Keith Shetterly

    (with apologies to "'Twas the Night Before Christmas")…

Between endless meetings, work-related tasks and familial responsibilities it probably seems as if you’re continuously pulled in different directions. Our society has devolved into a place where we often fail to stop and notice important things, simply because we’re so busy satisfying the needs and wants from those we love, or to those whom we have to…

Training That Wasn't

By: Alan Ram

Have you ever really trained your people? I don’t mean some of this stuff out on the market that is purported to be training; I mean really training.

Every third call to my office is a dealer calling and telling me “we’ve tried training our salespeople, but it didn’t stick”. Or, reporting that it is impossible to train salespeople. If you don’t think salespeople can be…

“There are two things you must do to get anything in life you want,” my father would tell me. After turning 15 1/2, it became time to test this strategy out.

The first part of the deal, I had already nailed; maintaining an A average throughout junior high school. This first condition, I must admit, was pretty easy to do. For years learning, and learning of any kind,…

Pull the plug? On your CRM?? What???

Yes, you may as well try it so that you are prepared for that Very Eventual day when suddenly you have “no CRM”—I mean, real dealer experience shows (more than once in 2016) that at least two of the top three CRMS will eventually turn THEMSELVES off right when you need them.

And these outages to…

If you’re like most dealers, you may feel that you don’t want to inundate your customers with mail. However, the issue is that your competitors are most likely sending mail to the same customers that you’re trying so hard not to overwhelm.



It’s difficult to decide whether to mail regularly or spontaneously. You may be asking yourself: is there an equation to…

How do I keep productive at work? What should I do when there’s no floor traffic? Who should I spend time calling? I hear these questions all the time from my new clients.

Although most of us do need a little down time to stay sharp, it should never be more than a very small percentage of our day in sales. Once we accept the fact that we are in control of our own pay…

I was live on Facebook...did you catch it? Learn why change is such a necessary evil by clicking the video below.

We’d…

Have you asked yourself this question lately, is my dealership communicating properly? On average smartphone users in the United States send 764 text messages and place 164 phone calls per month. Without a doubt, younger users skew the data, but even people aged 55 to 64 text on average 80 times per month and 65+ text on average 32 times per…

This Week in Social Media

News for the Week of November 21

Facebook Updates Metrics and Reporting

Facebook had reportedly been having some issues with the metrics it provided, so they have…

Today’s automotive consumers are more educated than ever, and that plays an enormous role in how they interact with your dealership.  Shoppers expect even more from your team, and it’s important everyone is prepared to interact with the newest consumer generations—savvy, connected individuals with access to endless information that…

An Insight into Human-Centric Design

One click ordering. Buy it now. Same day delivery. Dash buttons where all you have to do is press a button and the item is shipped. You can even place orders through Amazon’s Alexa with a voice command.

Businesses like Amazon have grown into hugely popular industry giants…

General Managers: YOU, and I mean YOU, are being skated out of dozens (or more) of sales every month by your sales staff, sales that you spend advertising money to get. Essentially, you could feel that you are skating yourself. After all, they work for YOU.

Well, guess what: With no more money spent, if you change your…

Lately there have been some pretty hip writers talking down the old, dusty website lead as if dealers should forego this antique in favor of the more Avant-garde “engagement” or the equally vaporous “VDP views.” Their argument – when they bother to attempt one – basically boils down to “consumers don’t submit leads; they engage.”

Okay. Great. But, um,…

Knowing your audience is important when it comes to creating engaging content. A recent study revealed that those aged…

General Managers: There’s an old joke about ancient times and a Roman galley ship, where the rowers are resting, and the second in command tells them “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you get an extra hour of rest, and double fresh water and rations. … The bad news is … the captain wants to go water skiing!”

That applies to you. How?…

A question that often arises in talking about Multi-Touch Sales Attribution, one of Clarivoy’s core products, is: “How are you doing anything different from what Google Analytics already does for me?”

Well, Multi Touch Sales Attribution incorporates offline sales data and connects ALL the online AND offline marketing touchpoints on a consumer’s purchase path to…

Swapalease.com, the nation’s largest car lease marketplace, reports car lease credit applicants registered a 61.5% approval rate for October, a -4.9% decrease from the previous month (64.7%). A year ago, the approvals rate was just 75% during the same month.

Throughout 2016 the lease credit approval rates have been volatile, fluctuating from month to month. As a whole, this year’s approval rates have been down in comparison to…

How far should a salesperson take the transaction before they get someone else involved? When is the right time to make a "turn over"? What is the best way to make a turn? Should turns even be made?

These are questions common to virtually every car training event I've been involved in. My colleagues and I (in the training field) each have our own experiences,…