By now, many of you have verified your dealership’s profitability for 2011.  As most dealers, general managers and controllers understand, until we perform a final year-end reconciliation of each asset and liability account, the YTD profitability displayed on our income statement remains an unproven number.  For some of you, this verification process will result in an upward adjustment to your 2011 profitability. However, experience tells me that most dealers…

Many professional sales and sales management trainers believe that you have not "maxed out" on a vehicle buyer until that buyer initiates one additional sale (additional household vehicle or personal referral) during his/her normal purchase cycle. Mathematically, here's how the "one additional sale" concept works:  

Assume that the normal customer purchase cycle…

Many dealerships today are focused on the quick fixes that will improve car deals and attract clients to service. What they are not recognizing is this is the end game not the beginning of what steps should happen to reach their goal. Have you checked your culture in your store lately?

Many people in General Management positions who come into a new environment are also making these mistakes in getting things started. Here are some suggestions for making the transition:

1) Get a…

Like so many other Americans, I gathered up my snacks and beverages to sit down in front of a television to catch the NFL Big Event.  Having a career in marketing and sales, I paid curious attention to the messages conveyed in the 60 second spots aired between plays.  This year, I heard it loud and clear from the Automotive Industry. 

One third of all advertisements aired during The Big…

A few weeks ago I wrote about how Google was going to include items from Google+ in their regular search results when users were signed in, calling it “Search Plus Your World”. Now that users have had some time to get accustomed to it, I wanted to touch on how this new way of searching could benefit your car dealership’s local search…

The Data War is raging.

Automotive dealers are becoming more enlightened daily as they are being exposed at NADA and through forums such as DealerElite to the very serious matter of consumer and dealer data leakage. By data leakage, I am referring to the unrestricted polling or scraping of their dealership DMS (computer systems) by vendors providing software "solutions" that are suppose to be helping dealers organize and maximize sales. Typically, these vendors have inserted…

The 23,000 NADA Convention attendees in Las Vegas had over 1,000 booths to visit in the exhibitor hall.  The 2012 Convention broke all attendance records according to Stephen Wade, NADA Chairman.  The automotive industry is healthy and the diversity of exhibitors and products on display this year has never been greater.

At the NADA Convention I take time…

I knew there were a lot of unhappy Yelp business owners, but I wasn't quite sure how many. Seems there is a decent bunch willing to complain about it. It looks like similar issues cross industry lines when it comes to disappearing reviews, accusations of false negative reviews, review shuffling, algo filter a joke, and more. Makes for some entertaining reading and…

Is Selling Service to Women Really Different?

Statistics show that over  65% of the clients coming in for service on most drives are women. They will tell you they want to be treated the same as your male clients but this simply isn't…

Summary NADA Ford Franchise Dealer meeting

February 5, 2012

• Average Ford Dealer Net Profit in 2011 was $642,000
• • Up 34 percent from 2010…

We all want to have a better opportunity to take care of ourselves and our needs in life. Where do we start? How do we get the ball rolling? First and foremost, we need to be honest with ourselves. We need to write down, what we want, why we want it and what we are willing to do to accomplish our goals. This must be everywhere you go for 90 days. I mean…

Leaders are Mercedes, Acura, Honda, BMW and Lexus

Women account for about two-thirds of all dealership service visits, and many of these women have spoken. Women-Drivers.com captures reviews about their dealership experiences – and the company has just announced the 2011 top car brands as rated by women.

On the site, dealerships’ scores range from 1.0…

Online Dealers Claim Fundamental Rights

Bill of Rights Provides Foundation For Future of Internet Sales…