Who is John Zeiglar ?

How can I find the company he is said to work for, Performance Company?

What is a “performance writer”?

Why would an author allow his name to be mis-spelled regularly in the same publication repeatedly over many months?

Has anyone seen him registered on any Automotive blogs, Facebook,…

In todays Automotive news, the above article, Embarrassed Nissan lifts Sagging Satisfaction Ranking is almost laughable. The article written from interviews with Nissans Billy Hayes and Nissan dealer Mike D'Amato 2012 dealer council chairman is almost laughable. Changing light bulbs, modern facility's, and 10 thousand small improvements that Nissan has created, that Hayes says got Nissan from dead bottom to 7th from the bottom is a success is a joke. First Nissan has intimadated or forced…

Good morning automotive world,

There is a little company called Honda who has sold automotive products for years on it's reputation alone. In 2011 the Earthquake, stronger products from US car companies and a boring product line was changing the playing field. Not to mention heat from Hyundai and it's sister company Kia.

Ford Motor Company had also also proved that it could appeal to the traditional Import buyer as well and even Subaru was becoming more hip.…

    In the beginning, there were only customers, and all were good. 

    You expected to sell about one out of four customers, and sometimes you even sold one out of three.

    You did a great greeting and then ran through the steps as far as you could.  If they didn’t go ahead, you just had a manager talk to them, shook it off and went to get another one.

    You did this a lot, people bought cars,  and they called your success beginners luck.

    After a while…

by Motyka Johnson

I have written about the influence of Jim Lecinski's book "Winning The Zero Moment of Truth" and the data that confirms that consumers are actively researching online during the Zero Moment of Truth prior to contacting a local car dealer.

This first contact, called the…

Google has just announced that beginning March 1 2012, they will be "...getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that's a lot shorter and easier to read."

The updated Google Privacy Policy can be found here http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/preview/.

Google has explained that it wants users to have an easier time of:

-Working across Google  (Youtube,…

Several weeks ago we published an article that discussed the 6 Elements of Effective Accountability Management. The second of these elements, “Clearly Defining and Communicating Your Expectations,” is a critically needed, but rarely well-practiced, discipline within the retail automotive industry. You’ve heard it before: people will rise to the level of performance and/or behavior that is set for them. Mind reading is not a job requirement, in spite of what some dealership managers…

This Wibiya toolbar thingy at the bottom of the screen is very annoying. And in case anyone cares to know. I tried this tool on my own blog because I thought (for about 10 minutes) that it was neat.

But then I did a site test and found that it slowed my site down for my visitors. It made my site load too slow. I realize that for this forum that's not that big a deal because this is a member site. However, am I the only person who…

Just caught up with an old Automotive News Jan 16th. Group One CEO Earl Esterberg article titled Hesterberg to Carmakers: Be Mindful of Margins. Found that to be amusing since Earl was 2nd in command at Nissan back in the mid to late 80's when Nissan was all screwed up. I remember they took us to Disney World to learn the Disney way. We then had a business meeting about one of the new models coming out. At that time dealers were allowed to ask questions. I remember like it was yeaterday. I…

How many ideas that get heard about the internet are really good ones? For most, the answer is: not many.  

  The focus of most internet endeavors on the table for dealers is on the wrong thing, and also the reason the results are unpredictable. For dealers they think the internet is a race to cut in the “up” line and have the first crack at the next customer. This is how we do it on the lot;  but the reason you want to have the first crack at a customer –…

While (I hope) most dealership websites won’t be affected by this, Google has recently announced they will begin penalizing websites that have too many ads at the top.  It's being called the "page layout algorithm" and affects sites that "don't have much content 'above-the-fold'", according to Google's Inside Search blog.

We've all clicked onto a site only to have to scroll down through the ads to actually find the content we are looking for.  This algorithm change will…

The labor sales potential for any franchised dealer’s service department is first dependent on the units in operation (UIOs) for that franchise in the dealer’s market. Unfortunately, very few of the manufacturers provide this UIO information to their dealers. For a fee, vehicles in operation (VIOs) are available by zip code from R.L. Polk, Inc.

Since there are other estimates used in the calculation of labor…

by Eric Schmitz

The notion of a dealership’s employees having ownership of the organizations customer lists or communications is a frightening one. The question of ownership of work product, email and even actual customer lists is being called into question by BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies being adopted by many businesses, including auto dealerships.

A 2010 US Supreme Court 9-0 ruling declared that employees are not entitled to privacy if they use an employer’s issued device. The…

As you get your 2012 marketing campaign underway, don't forget about LinkedIn, a powerful marketing and communications tool with over 35 million registered users.

Savvy business professionals use LinkedIn to connect with other industry leaders, exchange ideas, and participate in relevant groups. The following is a notice to all of you LinkedIn members who connect your…

• Over 80% of lost revenue on repair orders is due to the oldest 10. This program addresses this fact and places them as a target that cannot be ignored. The Target Ten open orders will be on a report from the DMS identifying the oldest 10 open orders. The information will be filled out every Monday and reviewed by the entire team during the week. The mission is to do whatever is necessary to close these orders. Most manufactures now expect warranty to be processed within a month so any…

Sound familiar? I’ve heard this several times during my travels the last few weeks and it didn’t matter what part of the country or what franchises.

I was at a long-time Ford client last week, started working with them in September of 1997.  They are coming off of another great profit year, but January had started off a little slow.

I noticed the Sales staff was a little down and in conversations the main topic was that there was very little traffic and that the Dealer needed…

If you have salespeople, that know how to sell, but the results are not up to the stores expectations, call them out on it!!! Case in point; Just recently, I had a salesman, good guy, works every day, tries very hard when he wants to and a positive attitude when he wants to have one. I just didn’t have that wow feeling with him on a…