Role-playing with your sales team will give them the confidence and inspiration to know what to say when handling objections from potential customers. Just like in sports or the fine arts, honing your craft involves practice. Through role-playing, your sales team will master professional and effective responses to the most common objections.

In …

It's not enough to think about optimizing for desktop and mobile anymore. With voice search, Siri, Google Now, and Cortana are just the beginning.

By the time we reach 2020, over 50% of daily searches will be through voice searches. So how can you optimize your business and brand to get ahead of the curve? Watch this week's Hard Facts with Samantha for more info.…

Do you shy away from giveaways and win-a-prize type mailers? If you’re like most dealers, you probably do. Giveaways are frowned upon for fear of attracting customers who are more interested in winning a prize than buying a car.

Customers come into your dealership daily. When asked if they need help, the normal response is: “No, I’m just looking.”…

Great leaders and organizations inspire people because they are good at explaining why they do what they do. Their why gets people motivated. Their why makes people want to work for that company. Their why makes people want to buy their products.

For auto dealerships, your purpose is your “why buy” or “value proposition” message. The goal of this message is…

One of the biggest challenges facing the automotive industry is the way consumers feel about buying cars.  Their overall dispositions have changed, the reasons they purchase and lease have shifted, and the ways in which they want to buy are moving from the showroom floor to the digital world.  All these things are causing a major shift in the way…

Most companies view content marketing as a means to rank higher in search engines, establish thought leadership and engage with their audience. Content, such as newsletters and blogs distributed via email and social media channels, enables businesses to stay top-of-mind with clients and prospects. It can be used to educate existing customers and any prospects investigating a…

There’s a big push in our industry right now to bring as much of the car buying process online as possible. Startups are entering the space believing that consumers want this ability and automotive vendors of all sizes are creating products to facilitate that.

However, some dealers are afraid to adopt these solutions for fear of loss of control and decreased…

| by David Metter

“Just because it can be counted, doesn’t mean it counts,” said Tom O’Regan, CEO of Madison Logic in a recent IAB study. “As you rise up the…

In most dealerships a dispute inevitably arises between salespeople over a sold customer. Perhaps it’s because one salesperson initially assisted the customer and a second closed the deal and delivered the vehicle while the first was off for the day. And what happens when a customer visits multiple times and perhaps a third salesperson is involved?

Most…

I bet that title got your attention. Imagine a world where automotive manufacturers prohibited dealerships from producing and publishing video content of any vehicles during dealership sales events. That would seem a little ridiculous, right? Social media can produce great results and lead to sales. However, if the manufacturer mandated that dealers couldn’t publish that…

Working retail in the auto industry can certainly be taxing. Salespeople work 60-70 hour weeks to make a paycheck. Sales managers do so while also having to manage the sales team, create multiple reports and handle a multitude of tasks -- and the service department is just as overloaded.

Not surprisingly, frequently the excuse, “there’s not enough time,”…

Finally. Google has recently wrapped up two new updates. Cross-device remarketing is definitely something that has been needed for businesses. It will now allow you to advertise your products across multiple devices.

You might be thinking, “couldn’t we do that on other platforms before?”, and the answer is yes. But now there’s one extra step that is letting businesses tie more consumer information together across devices. …

A recent article in Automotive News reports that the three-year employee retention rate at dealerships reached a new low, dropping by 2%. In fact, the study showed that only 1/3 of sales consultants stay at a dealership for 3 years or longer. The…

You’ve know employees can cost your company a significant amount—much more than most companies want to think about paying.  But what do you stand to gain when you put in the time and effort to truly engage your employees and establish a positive culture throughout your business?

The connection your employees have with your customers is…

Performing these regularly occurring sales manager activities will insure we are investing enough in our dealership’s most valuable appreciating assets – our people.

● Have a notepad when desking deals 

– Take notes for debriefing our sales associates, don’t rely on memory alone.

● Debrief each deal 

– During a deal is…

None of us know anyone who would look back on their first car purchase and say, "Ah, I miss the good old days of buying and financing a car?"

Even baby boomers and Generation Xers recall their first car financing deal with groans more normally associated with root canals. Millennials in particular, with their one second click-to-load screen tolerance, have zero patience for that kind of old school process pain.

Having already blown up the traditional car buying experience with…

This industry will go extinct in 10 years. Can you guess which industry I'm talking about?

Students right now are so excited to graduate and get involved in this field, but they’re having trouble getting a job. Why? The jobs in this industry are few and far between. 

It’s such an exciting and fast-paced environment for millennials to join into. It’s something that we’re actually excited about. It’s given us…

I was asked to share with sales managers some of the common desking best practices I’ve encountered across the country. These are things that, when adopted, should help you help your sales people be more effective. I know that most of these things are already being done in your store but it’ll still be a useful review and you may even pick up one or two new ideas.

I…

In my many discussions with dealers, the one question that invariably comes up is “What is online retailing, really?” They’ll then begin to tell me how consumers can already buy a car online from them. They have a widget with which a consumer can get their trade value. They have an online payment calculator. Customers can submit a lead, get a quote online and even correspond…

As we’re helping people with some of their biggest investments, it’s our moral duty to be there for our customers by following up on services they’ve initially declined. Ethical practices in the car business go a long way in retaining customers and increasing referrals. 

You won’t be setting yourself up for disappointment. It’s not a lost cause. Here’s…