This past week, I had the pleasure of attending two conferences that were completely different from one another. The week started (well, last week ended) with attending the infamous SXSW conference…

AutoNation USA, the #1 publicly-owned automotive retailer, opened its doors as a mega “one pricing” pre-owned operation in 1997. It built elaborate showrooms; county records show one was 218,000 square feet. The showrooms included a café, a playroom and an aftermarket display platform.

Kiosks with computers were placed throughout the store enabling consumers to efficiently check out in-stock inventory or to submit a loan application. Customers were greeted at these kiosks by…

Do you believe in luck? Do you consider yourself a lucky person or are you waiting for your ship to come in? There is a difference between luck and randomness. You should create your own luck and remove the randomness of your results.

Recently, I conducted a sales meeting for a business. Before I gave the meeting, I entered the meeting area before the sales team arrived and I taped a $20 bill to the bottom of a chair. During the meeting, I asked everyone to stand up and then…

Don't commit digital Suicide.   

Sitting in a few conferences over the past few weeks, I have been able to confirm my suspicions.  There are many dealers and vendors that think tradition media is dead.  They are on the road of committing digital suicide for dealers all over the country.  If you are lucky enough not to be infected by this yet, you will be able to dominate your market easier than ever.  I should mention…

ALBANY, N.Y. – March 25^th, 2013 – Auto/Mate Dealership Systems (http://www.automate.com) announced today that Mike Esposito will be presenting a workshop at the 14^th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition in Orlando, on May 9^th at 11:00 a.m. How to Increase Service Growth Through Auto Dispatching is aimed at dealers, general managers, fixed ops and service managers who want to increase efficiencies and…

Im starting a BDC department and I need some advice on some different techniques i can use to make this operation successful. any advice?

Thor is a god, specifically, he's the thunder god, super specifically, he's the Norse god of thunder, storms, and beating the pulp out of things with his magic hammer, Mjolnir (just imagine I did the umlaut on the o). Thor is an unruly god, short on temper and long on power. When he approached, you never knew for sure if you were getting the clenched fist or the open palm (though smart money…

As I watch new episodes of "Bar Rescue" on Spike I am amazed at some of the things that I have learned about the food and beverage industry.  I have been watching this show with a very open mind to understand what I can do to improve my business practices.  What I have found was that this show has business practices that even automotive professionals and managers need to consider taking a look at.  Let's take a look at what I am talking about.

1.…

Who owns the customers?  Where do your employees work?  Are prospects even being called back?  Some dealers don’t know.  All because we allow some of our sales team members to do it their way.  You’re feeding into their problem. 

I’m asking you to ‘Just Say No’ to…

1)   Letting salespeople use their own personal email addresses when responding back to customers.

2)   Allowing salespeople to make all of their (so-called) follow-up calls to happen from their…

http://www.internetsales20group.com

Make Money Mondays With Sean V. Bradley "How You Can Make More…

This is a topic that has been covered so many times that one might wonder how it keeps popping up. The reality (from a content perspective) is that Facebook posting best practices is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s frustrating to dealers and annoying to bloggers, but at the end of the day there’s one simple…

There’s no doubt that it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to maintain your online reputation, and it may be tempting to look for ways to ease the burden. One way is to hire a company that specializes in reputation management. There are plenty of companies out there that offer seemingly quick and easy ways to improve your online ratings. Unfortunately, some of these…

The car business lost a great man this past Friday in George DuBois. I had the honor of working with George at the Bush Auto Group years ago. He was the GSM at Ardmore and I was at the West Chester Store. George always had a smile on his face and song in his heart. Some of the things I admired about George was that he never spoke a harm word about anyone and he always had something positive to say about everything and everybody. He was truly one of kind is this world, he was the kind of…

I am working late once again and while doing some research I ran into this start-up company.

I found them while doing some searching on Youtube. I was doing searches on Craigslist postings and something caught my eye where the ads are on the right. It read carcopia.com Buy the same place where dealerships buy from.

Obviously, I could not help but do a complete background on what this company is about.

Of course the consumer would be…

There’s something that is often missing in marketing and it’s even harder to find when you put the words “social media” in front of “marketing”. It’s God.

It is politically correct to keep religion away from business. We are part of the all-inclusive society where differences are ignored and disagreements are…

I am a small dealer and I can’t afford to hire a consultant!

Too many times I hear that statement from a dealer that sells less than 75 units a month. It puzzles me to think that a dealer that sell less than 75 units a month does not think that they need to hire a consultant to help them get better. It was just last month that I had the pleasure of helping a smaller GM dealer and after the first week he had to admit that he had already gotten his money’s worth even though I was there…

There are all sorts of tips, tricks, and techniques to drive more traffic to a blog. They usually involve either paying for it in some way, improving an avenue such as through search engine optimization, or building subscribers. The reality is this – all of these things take time. What doesn’t take time other than the effort that is required to make it happen is…