Chapter 4: What to See in the City

It’s almost time for NADA100, and that means we’re all about to get a little taste of New Orleans!  It’s a city that’s rich in history, fun, food, and nightlife, so it’s tough to know where to start.  To help you out, I did a little digging, talked to some friends in the know—and, of course, vetted some places…

As we make our New Year’s resolutions and reflect on 2016, which was a less than perfect year for our industry, filled with recalls and declining consumer confidence due to lack of parts availability to quickly fix these recalls, I thought it may be a good time to look ahead to 2017. In that spirit, I’d like to offer some simple tips that can help improve the service…

Today, the Big 3 automakers account for only 44% of the market – a 26% decline from 2 and a half decades ago. In this short amount of time, consumer loyalty is no longer within reach, as the average customer retention rate across the industry has sunk below 50%. This amounts to dealers losing more than half of their customers each year.

Why the sharp…

When looking at the future of the auto industry, specifically retail, it’s easy to get caught up in the “shiny objects” and focus on all the cool technology such as autonomous cars, ride-sharing, virtual reality sales, and all of the “disruptors” that are entering the space.



This can serve as a bit of a distraction and, as a result, many tend to stop thinking…

The customer experience at your dealership is more important than ever before. With start-ups aiming to take away sales by luring customers with promises of a hassle-free buying experience, customers are starting to realize that they no longer have to sit at a dealership for hours. In fact Amazon France just sold a car…

January 1, 2017 — The Mar-Kee Group announced that 10-time National Automotive Dealers Association speaker and President of the Mar-Kee Group, David Martin, will present a sales training workshop, “Marketing Opens the Door: Closing Seals the Deal” at the 2017 NADA Conference & Expo. 

"Yesterday's closing techniques will no longer work with the tech savvy buyers,…

On-demand driver services such as Uber are on the rise. The approaching disruption of driverless vehicles shouldn’t come as a surprise, but dealers need to find a way to keep up with customers who want alternatives to owning a vehicle. It comes down to this: complacency can cause suppliers to lose touch with their customers. To remain successful and compensate for declining…

So many times we talk about using video to communicate your message to your customers. But what’s the right way to make a video? 

YouTube Director will walk you through exactly what you need to do to figure out what type of video will work for you.

This week on Hard Facts, Samantha will show you the steps you need to take after you’ve downloaded the app. Watch the video for more information.…

Most dealers have spent many years in the car business. They know what it takes to sell cars. They know when a customer walks onto the lot, the salesperson must give a professional presentation while being able to emotionally connect with and excite the customer into making that purchase.

To this end, most dealers are really great at merchandising their…

Chapter 3: What to Do What When You Get There

There are a few things you can do to make NADA100 a top-notch experience.  If you’ve already got a game plan and know which workshops you want to attend, then you’re ahead of the game.  If not, check out the…

What would you do if a customer was injured at your dealership and you were at fault? I don’t mean serious injury or anything like that. Perhaps just a bump or scrape? Most businesses would apologize or, at the very least acknowledge the mishap to the customer. Perhaps send some flowers or a gift card. You certainly wouldn’t want to ignore it, right?

Well,…

I was on a trip to New York and met up with a friend of mine (full disclosure: also a happy customer) Richard Hesse, the Dealer Principal at Mercedes-Benz of Nanuet. He has a simple mantra: “It's not business; it’s personal” -- and he means it.  I borrowed a car…

We live in a world of empowered consumers.  They say when, where, and how they’ll buy the products they’re interested in, and businesses everywhere are working to meet their needs and win out over the competition.  Today’s consumers are connected online—to businesses and each other—and your dealership stands to gain quite a bit based on how you interact…

There are many different approaches to keeping our names in front of our clientele. Here are just some of my quick suggestions;

1) ONE school of thought is not to ask for referrals at the time of delivery. It’s their magic moment, not ours. Besides our customers won’t care enough to send us referrals until they know how much we care about them. Remember, in the long…

Have you ever heard of Google Tag Manager? If you haven’t, you’re losing customers! There is 1 huge disadvantage of not using Tag Manager - slow websites. 

On this week’s Hard Facts, Samantha explains how you can condense all of your tracking codes in order to get even more accurate results.

Watch this episode for more information.…

In a past blog, I discussed how AutoNation instituted a policy to not wholesale or retail any vehicles with open recalls until they were repaired. Sadly, as recently reported by Automotive News, AutoNation’s efforts have met with tough consequences,…

Virtual Reality has been quite a craze recently with video gaming and other consumer electronics. However, the high cost of entry and expensive units limited its reach. Even Google’s cardboard VR glasses required smartphones that cost upwards of $700. The Oculus Rift Goggles were even more expensive and required high-end computers to work.

Now, however, Sony…

Potratz, an advertising agency in downtown Schenectady, has started a new apprenticeship program this December.

The program is a 6-month training program that gives insight into the inner workings of a full-service advertising agency.  Each apprentice will gain first-hand knowledge of digital marketing, content development, social media, traditional media, graphic design, video production, strategy building, website development and innovative product…

Customer feedback is important to any business’ growth. That’s why many send out customer satisfaction surveys and managers pay attention to that feedback.

However, sometimes the feedback system is faulty or gets misinterpreted to the point of being useless. Take the feedback system Uber used to have. At the end of each trip riders were prompted to leave…

The famous Albert Mehrabian developed a communication model in which he demonstrated that only 7% of what we communicate consists of the literal content of the message. The use of one’s voice, such as tone, intonation, and volume, makes up 38% of the message and as much as 55% of communication consists of non-verbal factors such as body language.

I’m sure you can…