Take your service department, auto body, used car, and new car sales to a whole new level. Want your best month ever? Read more: Making Your BEST Month EVER!…

Want to boost your sales 24% and add $106,000 per year to your bottom line? Well, here’s the deal: It’s all about the customer experience.

A lot has been written about how industry disrupters are currently threatening market share. These online auto buying sites provide consumers with an easier, friendlier way to buy a car. This isn’t,…

Deciding priorities when it comes to KPIs and ROI

It’s a conundrum auto dealers face in every aspect of the car business: go for ROI or most affordable?

Go with a factory-mandated…

Honesty is a winning strategy- "We are not going to sell you a dump truck when all you need is a pick up."

- James…

The latest craze to have hit automotive sales where customer engagement is concerned has been texting.  You can scarcely scan any industry blog/newsletter headlines or attend any best practices seminar without the writer or speaker reminding you that everyone is texting these days and therefore you must text your customers.…

When I look at advertising strategies in our industry, one of the most consistently missed opportunities I see is dealerships who are trying to save money by marketing to all their customers through email, and only sending mail to customers without an email address on file.

These dealers often ask me, “Now that I can email my customers, why do I have to send…

An experienced car salesperson knows the value that a good used car can bring to their paycheck. 

With car owners spending more time on the road and keeping their cars longer, used vehicles that are traded in today normally have more miles on the odometer than they used to.  At the same time, most cars made in the last 20 years can remain in…

Yesterday, my 80 year old mother, took her SUV to the local dealer for an oil change.  Even though it is a lease, she likes to treat it like she would if she owned it and have the oil changed every 3000 miles or so.  So, she pulled into the service lane of the store where she has bought a new vehicle every three years since I was 16 (over 35 years), and where she has had her car serviced every three months since then.  My mom believes that the dealer is the best…

For those of you who…

Recently an auto dealership experienced an all-too-common security breach. An employee in the accounting department received an email from someone who he thought was the dealer asking him to initiate a $30,000 transfer from the dealership's bank account to another bank account. The accounting employee complied with the request and it was discovered later that the email was a scam. Unfortunately, there was no way to retrieve the funds.

This dealership has a state-of-the-art…

Our industry does a lot with gimmicks. You’d be hard pressed to drive through an auto mall or other area dense with dealerships and not see balloons, giant inflatable gorillas or wavy tube men. On nice days, we attempt to lure shoppers in with hot dogs and sodas. We incentivize test drives. We offer televisions, iPads and Playstations with purchase. There’s always a gimmick…

Walmart sells a bag of M&M peanuts for $.50. If you’re at a service station the price of that same packet of peanuts jumps to one dollar. If you’re at a five-star hotel and that bag of peanuts is sitting in your room the price jumps dramatically higher to six dollars. Understand it’s the exact same product, yet the prices are distinctively different. Let’s use this information and consider what…

This week, hot-off-the press, we’ve got the 2016 U.S. Women’s Car Dealership Report, showing how progressive car dealerships make a difference in the experiences of women and families. This national report shows what is important to women when shopping, buying and servicing their vehicles.

The information in this report is drawn from over 4,000 women’s reviews and opt-in surveys. Using the reviews, Women-Drivers.com generates a Women Satisfaction Index® (WSI Score),…

Swapalease.com, the nation’s largest car lease marketplace, has new data that shows that Scion vehicles were performing adequately on Swapalease.com, and in some cases had better performance than certain Toyota models and other peers. The analysis was conducted following Toyota’s decision to wind down production of the Scion brand.

Toyota declared that Scion, a division of Toyota Motor Corporation, will be discontinued as of August 2016. The upstart brand was launched in 2002 in an…

Welcome to this week's edition of Black Book Market Insights, with in-depth analysis of used car and truck valuation trends and insights straight from the auction lanes. Click here to download the full…

Do you want to be truly inspirational leader for your team? The leader, who is happy to lead the other people. Then our material is for you.

We bring you the Top Habits of emotionally strong leader. These habits will help you succeed and be more efficient for employees.…

I’m sure that every management team sits down on occasion to discuss ways to improve dealership operations. Whether that improvement has to do with sales goals, employee satisfaction, or simply lot appearance, typically what happens is that everyone is gung-ho about it and it kicks off great. Then, slowly that momentum dies and all of a sudden nobody is making an effort…

How You Can Go Live Today!

Are you a salesperson or a business owner who wants a new way to market for free? Then watch this week’s Think Tank Tuesday.

This new strategy includes:

• The next tool to market for free: Facebook Live Video.
• How to use this new streaming service to sell more.
• Why it’s better than any other streaming service.

And the best comments get a free membership to our Coffee Mug…

Austin, TX - February 09, 2016 -Vast, the data-as-a-service platform for autos and real estate, today announced a $14 million investment from Capital One Growth Ventures. Vast connects buyers and sellers of cars and homes through…

It’s getting more difficult to earn and keep loyal customers. Consumers these days have so many choices for their shopping needs that it only takes that deep discount, or shiny bauble, to lure them to your competition.

As businesses scramble to create positive customer experiences by ensuring superior customer service, consumers increasingly realize they are…