I'm very proud of the study our team just released that tracked and graded over 400 Automotive Mystery Shops for 30 days. In the study, we read every email and listened to every voicemail. Also, we graded dealers' REAL response time: that is, the time it takes them to actually pick up the phone and call the prospect. Since we used a valid, working…

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I recently read a fantastic article that an HR Professional wrote about her experience buying a MINI. The article itself focused on lessons in leadership she had…

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Cedar Falls, IA, August 18, 2014; Team Toyota was featured in the cover story of the June 2014 Edition of AutoSuccess Magazine titled, “Winning The Loyalty Game! The Retention Strategy That Added $3 Million To Team Toyota’s Bottom Line.” 

Paul Muller’s Team Toyota Auto Group includes Team Toyota Princeton, Team Toyota Langhorne and Team Toyota Glen Mills.  All three of these highly respected operations have collectively received 70 Toyota Excellence Awards for…

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Late last year I was reading the Sunday paper and came across a story that was a collection of quotes from Nelson Mandela, who had passed away the previous week.  Reading those quotes made me very reflective both personally and professionally. One of his quotes that really struck me…

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Written By: Dennis Kane

 I have seen a significant number of high value claims as a result of contractors or subcontractors not carrying insurance or inadequate limits of insurance.

Examples of high value claims against dealerships include:

• Claim against a dealership’s workers’ compensation carrier or general liability carriers due to an injury of a subcontractor’s employee and the subcontractor doesn’t carry workers’ compensation…

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Written by: Steve Hall

Dealers know you must provide fast, convenient, and competitively-priced service in order to retain your customer base. They also know that oil changes and light maintenance are the most requested service items by customers. Knowing this, why do dealers continually fight express service?

I’ve heard all the excuses: it hurts my hours per repair order; it hurts my gross profit percentage; it hurts my effective labor rate; I can’t make any money in express…

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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…

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Did you ever perform this calculation for your dealership Service Department? Whenever we do this exercise, either in the field with one of the NCM Retail Operations clients or in the NCM Instituteclassroom, the result always knocks the socks off the dealership management team. Here’s how the math works:…

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You knew retail was changing, right?  Who is ahead of the game at retail today are those staying ahead of Consumer Changing Habits.  “The next five years will bring more change to retail than the last 100 years” says Cyiac Roeding, CEO of Shoptick.  “Within 10 years, retail as we know it will be unrecognizable”,…

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Team Velocity Marketing Announces Platinum Sponsorship of AutoCon 2012

 

Team Velocity Marketing is proud to be a Platinum Sponsor of AutoCon 2012 in what is sure to be the industry’s largest event for the automotive industry.

 

DULLES, VA – August 9, 2012 Team Velocity Marketingis pleased to join the ranks of several prestigious…

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Former General Motors U.S. sales and marketing boss Mark LaNeve has been named chief operating officer at Ford's agency Team Detroit.

 

Mark LaNeve…

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You have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to build or beautify your dealership.  Your advertising budget equals or exceeds that amount.  Your inventory has been posted online, and there are plenty of choices for potential customers to make a great selection.  CSI scores have never been higher at the dealership than they are right now!

So why are your salespeople standing around wondering why there are not any customers to sell a vehicle to?  Is there grumbling going on in the…

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When I was a child, I was the question asking machine.  Now that I am an adult, I am the question asking machine.  Not because I want to be annoying.  I really want to understand why.  Knowing the why helps me deliver on the expectations.  Knowing the why gives me the follow through to see an opportunity to completion.  Understanding why gives me access to understand the process and how each…

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Here’s a question I hear a lot at my Internet Sales 20 Groups: “How many phone calls should my department make per day?”

This question is huge, because simply dialing the phone can dramatically change the outcome of your dealership’s Internet Sales. Your Dealership’s Internet Department and BDC are, after all, a numbers game. Let me break it down for you:

• The more people you dial, the more people you get on the phone.
• The more people you get on the…

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The sport that so many predicted I would excel at due to my size was actually the sport where I floundered.  When it came to the hardwood, the only skill I had was shooting free throws.  My coaches could have just given up on me and focused their attention on the superstars on the team, but instead they invested time and energy into the one thing I could do well.  In place of teaching me to drive down…

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As a sales manager, I hosted a daily sales meeting like every good sales manager should.  Like all good salespeople do, the sales team would come to the meeting with their list of “should-haves” and “could-haves” if only “blah-blah” was true.  This would often take the wind right out of my sails and tarnish the…

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Most dads’ have a toolbox.  Some fathers actually use their toolboxes and other toolboxes collect dust.  Some fathers have giant roll around toolboxes and others have small handled boxes.  When you open up a father’s toolbox, the variety of tools varies from father to father.

 

As salespeople and management, we all have a toolbox so we can “fix” things. Our toolboxes may…

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Process improvement initiatives and change projects have become major milestones in many organizations’ history. Due to the dynamics of the external environment, many organizations find themselves in a continuum of change. The scope reaches from smaller project changes in particular sub-business units up, to corporation-wide transformation processes.



Unfortunately, not every process change leads to the expected results. There are multiple reasons for potential failure. Typical… Continue