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…

Each year thousands of new-hires sit through a dealer’s orientation and basic skills class to learn how to sell cars. In many cases that is the full extent of focused training they will receive in a career that will be an exception if it passes the 6-month mark.  Even the ones who survive are likely to end up with one year of experience many times, rather than…

An additional area of concern is within the CRM Inventory Tool. In our experience, not every store uses the Inventory Tool to its fullest capability.  The basics of having pictures, custom comments, pricing, aged inventory, hits, leads, etc etc, should excite every dealership sales manager within a store.  All of this extremely valuable information is essential to not only helping drive leads to your store, but also managing and caring for existing leads and converting them to…

When it comes to advertising today, things have changed. In some ways it’s due to social media. Oh, who am I kidding? If it wasn't for social media, most brands wouldn't be held as accountable as they are today. Even local businesses, car dealers in particular, rely on social media and review sites to tell their story beyond the cars themselves.

It's all about relationships.

Searching for…

I read an interesting quote the other day. Its a quote that I have included several times in many of my post's but for some reason this time I actually took it upon myself to meditate on it. It is found in Tim Tebow's autobiography, and it says "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard". One thing that I always found fascinating about Tim Tebow was his amazing work ethic. Here is a guy who is not built for the position of a quarterback, but adopts a take no prisoners work ethic…

Some succeed because they are destined. Some succeed because they are determined!!! Learn something new everyday and get out of your box!!!

You probably answered “no.” Who wouldn’t? I wonder how your customers would answer that question. Do your customers think you, your product and your business are boring? People want to be entertained. Entertainment = Sales. Boring = Broke.

Your customers get their news from FOX News and USA Today, their food from drive throughs, their coffee from Starbucks, their money from ATMs, their exercise from 7- minute abs DVDs and their information from the…

Written by Wayne George

Today's blog post is by Wayne George, an NCM Executive Conference Moderator for several NCM 20 Groups. Prior to joining NCM, Wayne spent 29 years in the retail automotive world. He was also a charter member of the NCM General Managers Top Twenty Group for seven years.

Your service department charging retail rates to recondition your vehicles isn’t really why you aren’t as competitive as you could be. Let’s look at some facts.

Domestic and import…

Back in the days when Yahoo was fighting against Alta Vista, when Bing was still called Microsoft Live, and when Google was trying to get the big Y to buy them, onsite content and meta tags were…

Consumer love online reviews sites. They give them a chance to share their experience, whether that be a positive or negative one. Unfortunately, the negative reivews may stand out more than the positive. But just because you get a bad one, it does not mean that your business is in trouble. Correctly responding to reviews can be effective way to address the problem and hopefully increase your online reputation. We, at chatmeter,…

AutoNation USA, the #1 publicly owned retailer, opened it’s 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 F&I…

One of my many search and social conspiracy theories (of which often turn out to be true) is that the Penguin algorithm update on April 24, 2012, was actually two updates. There was a public update that went after low-quality links, splogs, and other SEO linking tactics. This sent shockwaves through the search engine optimization world. Most…

The use of “big data” (the massive amount of customer information available to companies today) will become an even stronger advantage for the automotive industry. From the standpoint of competitiveness and operational effectiveness, all companies need to take big data seriously. In most industries today, a well-leveraged, data-driven strategy is used to create a…

It is a time, to have a true game plan, for your dealership!!! Understand, no matter what your game plan is, you must remember, all people rely on your plan. The industry has had its fair share of adjustments, but people make it all work. How people handle the adjustments, is the key to each and every organization. We all have to have computers, understand the importance, but have to realize, people implement, people follow-up, people…

 Insights on mobile marketing, online shopping behavior, millennial buyers, mobile and ad metrics to compete onstage at the inaugural DrivingSales Presidents Club event in New York City in April

Salt Lake City, UT – March 19, 2013 – DrivingSales today announced the finalists of the 2013 DrivingSales Most Valuable Insight Competition, which was created to foster the spirit of progress and thought leadership in the auto…

Free webinar on Thursday March 28^th at 2 p.m. EDT provides a detailed how-to session on deploying a highly successful dealership mobile app

Daytona Beach, FL–March 19, 2013 – DMEautomotive (DMEa), the science-inspired, results-based automotive marketing leader, announces the fifth in a series of webinars the company is hosting with Automotive News. The webinar titled…