What business are you in? “The car business” would probably be your normal answer. I would invite you look deeper into that question. Rarely, is your first answer to that question your most accurate answer. The majority of businesses fail, or fail to reach their potential, because the owner and managers haven’t figured out the most important and most basic question: “What business are we in?”

Saying you are in the car business seems logical. However, that answer does not stir…

A.A. Milne’s beloved children’s books featuring Winnie & Piglet & Eyeore & Tigger and the rest of the crew have delighted children for decades. Here are a few favorite quotes from those classics and how they apply to your business today.

“What day is it?"

“It's today," squeaked Piglet.

“My favorite day," said…

For the last 7 years, I've been watching Google very closely. Sure, they are in the news all the time so it's not something that's exactly hard. What has been more challenging is keeping up with their long-standing obsession with social media and understanding why it's so.

They have some big wins (YouTube, Google+) as well as dozens of…

Since its inception the car business has blamed the Internet for leading the new and used car pricing race to the bottom. The OEMs, dealers, and consumers have all had to make adjustments as pricing information has become more accessible and transparent.

The story of TrueCar (version 1) has been a testament to the growing lack of harmony between dealers and vendors on that front.

Yet, plenty of data supports the fact that consumers aren’t just looking for the cheapest…

ALBANY, N.Y. – October 21st, 2013 – Auto/Mate Dealership Systems (http://www.automate.com) announced today that Scott Volkswagen, the largest Volkswagen dealership in New England, has saved more than half a million dollars since switching to Auto/Mate's dealership management system (DMS) in 2006. Scott Volkswagen's employees enjoy Auto/Mate's premier customer service while using the DMS system to streamline processes within their dealership; most…

It may seem a bit counterintuitive, but if an auto dealership wants to establish a successful website live chat program in-house, it is wise to position your chat staff as online operators, and NOT as internet salespeople. There are three reasons this strategy will help create live chat success:

• Allows the operator an excuse to…

It makes sense, and many dealers might suspect, that buyers are willing to travel farther for their car deal than in years past, and those suspicions have been confirmed - again. 

A follow-up study by Autotrader.com to their 2012 White Paper, Have Internet, Will Travel, confirmed this month that “two and a half times more car buyers traveled distances of 30+ miles to purchase a vehicle…

“Market Beyond the Ordinary with Accessories” presented by auto industry veteran and expert Sidney Haider provides new strategies for leveraging accessories as a retention lure while honing social media strategies

San Francisco, CA – October 21, 2013 –Sidney Haider, president of AddOnAuto (AOA), has been selected by the National Automobile Dealer Association (NADA) to present a…

http://www.automotivedigitaltraining.com 856-546-2440 

http://www.dealersynergy.com 

Make Money Mondays with Sean V. Bradley - Social Media & Video…

After watching an amazing video that a client had prepared for their business, I asked how she was going to promote it. She said she already had it set to get blasted out to all of the social networks and posted on all of the video sites. I buried my head in my hands.

There's a big difference between automated video promotion and manual promotion. For those creating massive numbers of…

When something is as hot as an iconic automotive legend hitting dealerships across America, it often doesn't need very much additional buzz created for it. Some would say that this is the case for the new Corvette C7 Stingray, just now landing at showrooms.

I think they're making a mistake by not blasting this machine out there to everyone in the…

Car Dealers spend thousands of dollars a year on third-party leads, non-verifiable advertising slots on third-party sites, and questionable marketing platforms with unproven revenue models. In this content-packed presentation, Amir will provide: best practices you can immediately implement on your website to dramatically increase your lead volume, test cases of how other dealers dramatically improved…

Content has been the big play for over a year now in the world of marketing. It’s the glue that holds social media marketing and search engine marketing together and it’s becoming so prevalent that the old ways (the ones everyone started using this year) are already starting to become obsolete.

Don’t get me…

Closing a sale is a culmination of a sequence of events that lead up to the customer saying “Yes, I would like to buy that car.” A professional salesperson has many tools at his or her disposal to help move a prospect through the buying process. Below are a few power tips that you may want to keep in your toolbox to help you close more deals.

Learn To Listen

Salespeople who do all the talking during a…

A collection of some of the best tweets from the recent Las Vegas Auto Conferences

Tweets broken down into mobile and general categories.

JD…

If you do a search on Google for “search marketing” and compare it to a search for “social marketing”, you’ll see that there are pretty much no similarities. The two disciplines have been separated for a long time and companies usually focus on one or the other (though it seems like everyone offers a little of both). As 2014 draws nearer, the need to keep these two disciplines separate is starting to fade.

In fact, talking about them separately is starting to become…

“Appointment Boarding Pass” from Robert Karbaum E-Commerce Manager, Weins Canada Inc./Don Valley North Lexus wins the 2013 Dealer Best Idea Award; PureCars’ Smart Advertising wins 2013 Innovation Cup Award; presented at 2013 DrivingSales Executive Summit

Salt Lake City, Utah – October 17, 2013 – DrivingSales today announced the winners of the 2013…

Led by PureCars' CEO Jeremy Anspach (far right), the PureCars team hoists the 2013 Most Innovative product of 2013 @ Driving Sales Executive Summit.  The award winning product, SmartAdvertising, is a complete digital marketing solution that is fueled by a proprietary relevancy search engine developed by PureCars. SmartAdvertising is in "pilot" program, and expected to launch nationwide @ NADA, January 2014. For more information, please contact PureCars' Director of Business Development,…