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Don’t Practice

That’s right, don’t practice…

Most sales people will practice in one place, and that’s on the lot with a customer.

That’s by far the absolute worse place to do any type of practice.

You should practice with other sales people and management.

You should be  SELLING with your…

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It seems that so many dealerships are wanting to increase their sales so they end up throwing more dollars at advertising.  You can do that, but it's going to give you Bad Gross...

Gross that you had to buy...

A better way to handle this desire for more sales and increased gross is to Train Your Sales Staff.  With a trained sales staff you will…

First, I’ll preface by saying I have great admiration for managers, upper management and dealers.  They are usually very intelligent, courageous, and have worked hard all of their lives.  They are usually great stewards of the money and got where they are making a lot more good decisions than bad.  Read further…

Here is an excerpt from my new book:

"I’m always amused when I get around a bunch of car guys and they start talking about “gross average”. Most of the time, they are omitting pack from this discussion. The reason is that it’s assumed that a dealers pack only affects gross when it’s too low. Who is making more money, Tom Turner or Gary Grossman?

Tom has a $500 pack and a $1500 front end gross

Gary has a…

Most of us grew up in the industry where PUVR (or Per Used Vehicle Retail) was the key metric we were looking for to determine how successful we were on each vehicle we sold. As we all know, things have definitely changed since the Internet has become the primary way our customers begin their search for a used car.

For the last two years, I have had the privilege of teaching and coaching our NCM dealer-clients’ managers at the NCM…

Written by: Rebecca Chernek

EMBRACE CHANGE

The glass ceiling for women’s acceptance in the finance industry was shattered over a decade ago.

According to the 2012 Catalyst Census of Women Executive Officers and Top Earners, which counts the number of women in upper management in Fortune 500 companies, women comprise over 18% of all executive officers in the finance industry, and 19% of board directors in the finance and insurance industries in…

Written By: Steve Hall

When we ask service managers how important technician efficiency is to profitability, they most often say that “it goes hand-in-hand” or “if they aren’t efficient, you won’t make money.” I agree with their comments, but am constantly amazed with how they quantify “efficient.”

It seems that we have become accustomed to thinking a technician is efficient if they hit our flagged-hours goal for the week. At times this is true. Everyone can have a bad day, or…

Written by: Steve Hall

When we ask service managers how important technician efficiency is to profitability, they most often say that “it goes hand-in-hand” or “if they aren’t efficient, you won’t make money.” I agree with their comments, but am constantly amazed with how they quantify “efficient.”

It seems that we have become accustomed to thinking a technician is efficient if they hit our flagged-hours goal for the week. At times this is true. Everyone can…

At last week’s semi-annual meeting of NCM’s divisional directors, 20 Group moderators, Retail Operations consultants, and NCM Institute faculty members a good discussion developed around the topic of Service Advisor Compensation. The common questions that several on our staff were seeking answers for were as follows:

1. Has there been any significant change in advisor compensation…

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…

At the conclusion of the NCMi webinar on “Finding the Missing Pieces to Improve Service and Parts Gross Profit,” one of the attendees questioned our recommendation as to the necessity for sub-accounting for automotive dealerships. Robin Cunningham, the NCM Institute faculty member who presented the webinar, suggested that our next Up To Speedarticle attempt to clarify this recommendation. So, here we go!

A meaningful sub-accounting process is a primary ingredient of…

Wow, that’s a lot of acronyms, but you know what they all mean, right? Following are four recommendations from John Gilbert, the Fixed Operations specialist with NCM’s Retail Operations division. To increase your effective labor rate (ELR), reduce your cost of sale (COS), and improve your gross profit margin (GPM) on customer-paid repair order (R.O.) sales:

1. Check…

When I was teaching the Sonic Dealer Academy from 2001 through 2008, my co-instructor, Steve Hallock, became famous for asking each class why they thought we spend so much time talking about the service department. He would explain that it’s because, at a 75% gross profit margin on labor sales, the service department offers, by far, the greatest incentive to increase sales. "So why bother?" Steve would ask. "Because it’s only75…

DeliveryMaxx has been the industry leader in creating innovative solutions to help Automotive Dealerships converting the one-time customer into a life-time customer.  

However, never one to rest on their laurels, DeliveryMaxx has made it possible for dealerships to talk to the world utilizing the most up-to-date technology.  Just imagine, a dealership customer leaves finance and gives a review talking about how great the experience has been in purchasing a…

Your Customers are Mad as Hell, and They Won’t Take It Anymore!!

Conquest and Retention are both driven by the Caller’s Journey

Great new is...we are clearly in recovery. The risk is, as Jack Jackintelle, President of the Rick Case Automotive Group, recently stated in his presentation to the Automotive Leadership Roundtable, is that we go back to reading our financial statements from the bottom up. There has…

If I wanted someone to just take my order and deliver, I would go to a fast food drive thru.  When I go to have my car serviced, I want service.  I believe that service advisors are more than just order takers or the message delivery system between a consumer and a technician.  Think about it?  An advisor according to …