Do you spend massive amounts of time cold calling leads with little results? There's a simpler, more sophisticated way to reach your prospects on their phones without the time investment that cold calling takes.

This method can also be combined with email and other digital channels to send similar messages across multiple channels,…

AUTOMOTIVE DIGEST BLOG

“TrueCar Seeks the “Truth” about Real Reason for Its Existence”

WHY TRUECAR IN THE FIRST PLACE?

TrueCar was founded on the premise that dealers were exploiting car shoppers on price.

TrueCar was to tell the “truth” about the “price” car shoppers would/should pay.

TrueCar was the great “White Knight” of car pricing for beleaguered car…

@SocialLittleMan with @NextLevelBriggs Talking Lead Generation Strategty on location at Feldman Automotive

Listen on iTunes - Listen on blog

Jennifer Briggs is a…

Written By: Russell Grant

One of the best things about my job is the fact that I get to talk to so many owners, GMs, dealers, sales managers and service directors about their dealership’s owner marketing strategy. Or, in some cases, need for one. That’s when I find my work the most rewarding, when I’m speaking with dealers who are ready to reap the benefits of developing and implementing a strong, sustainable owner marketing strategy.

Because remember, there are only three ways…

Written By: Joe Basil

We just returned from a 20 Group meeting and it was the most invigorating workshop we have ever attended. We completed an assessment of our dealership operations and identified major sales and profit opportunities in all departments. We have benefited from the extensive experience of our facilitator and fellow members. We had the opportunity to compare our operation to other…

Written By: Garry House

In the second quarter of 2012, the NCM Institute (NCMi®) formed a training partnership with Automotive Internet Management (AIM). AIM has conducted five “Bridging the Internet Sales Gap” training workshops under NCMi sponsorship. After personally auditing two of these sessions and receiving client-dealer feedback from all of the sessions,…

Written By: Debbie Hemley

Twitter is a powerful social networking platform and one that has become a go-to choice for businesses of all sizes and industries.

In recent months, Burger King and Jeep’s Twitter accounts were hacked and became the subject of many articles and conversations, online…

If you haven’t already done so, it’s that time to review your 2012 performance in detail. In what areas did you fall short of your goals and why? Where could you have generated greater gains and how? Don’t allow January to slip by without these facts in writing and a discussion of how you can best move forward in 2013.

A common F&I pay plan in the automotive industry is known as the grid. It compensates managers based on their per vehicle retail performance and products sold…

Today's Up To Speed article is contributed by Dave Anderson, president of Dave Anderson's Learn to Lead, an international sales and leadership training and consulting company. Prior to beginning Learn To Lead, Dave enjoyed an extensive and successful career in the automotive retail industry

Self-esteem is defined by the dictionary as: a realistic respect for or…

In the second quarter of 2012, the NCM Institute (NCMi®) formed a training partnership with Automotive Internet Management (AIM). After personally auditing two of these sessions and receiving client-dealer feedback from all of the sessions, I’ve become convinced that dealers and their sales management teams need to “raise the bar” on their expectations for Internet closing ratios.

At NCMi, we have always believed and…

In my 25+ years in the automotive dealership training and consulting arena, I have been exposed to numerous dealership executives, department managers, and sales and service personnel who felt the need to be “on the job” 60, 70, and, yes, even 80 hours per week. And no matter how much you love the retail business and its diversity, excitement and challenges, that level of time investment in your business career will never allow you to achieve any type of reasonable balance between your…

A sound Internet/BDC operation is a key component of every successful automotive dealership. The question is, what makes a sound Internet/BDC operation? When the NCM Institute decided to sponsor a dealership Internet/BDC training program earlier this year, we decided upon one of the recognized e-Commerce experts in the retail automotive industry,…

It’s time for a continuation of the mini case study focused on the objectives established and challenges faced in building processes to develop, measure and manage OTDBs in the operating departments of an NCM client automotive dealership group. In our article titled OTDB Measurement and Management – Part Two, published on March 20, 2012, I discussed the structure of the vehicle sales department and the general expectations that we defined and communicated to the members of the sales…

It’s probably because of my college training in industrial engineering, but I’ve always been fascinated and challenged by trying to define any meaningful relationships between “opportunities to do business” (OTDBs) and sales results. After a half-century of experience in the retail automotive business, I’ve concluded that there truly are consequential metrics associated with selling both vehicles and service at an auto dealership. 

For instance, do you know how many good vehicle sales…

Last week I attended NCM’s semi-annual meeting of all its divisional directors, 20 Group moderators, Retail Operations consultants, and NCM Institute faculty members, who, along with our CEO set aside two and a half days to dialogue about what’s happening around the industry and within the company, and how best to address the needs of our clients.  As usual, it was a great encounter, with far too much agenda content and discussion for the overall time allotted.

One of the topics that…

I am again continuing the mini case study focused on the objectives established, and challenges faced, in building processes to measure and manage OTDBs in the operating departments of an NCM client dealership group. Today, my focus is on one of the greatest vehicle sales opportunities that most dealers enjoy, but fail to capitalize on.

At one point during this engagement, I had asked the dealer principal if he was satisfied with the strategies being employed to develop vehicle sales…

This is the continuation of the mini case study focused on the objectives and challenges of building a process to measure and manage OTDBs in the operating departments of an NCM client dealership group. Today I’ll be focusing on the vehicle sales departments in general.

The sales management staff had decided that OTDBs needed to be first divided into five major categories: (1) first-time walk-ins; (2) Internet leads; (3) blind phone inquiries; (4) proactive salesperson appointments;…

Dealers United Introduces Member Deal for May: Lead Generation Services from HookLogic

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