“There are two reasons people fail in the car business; they’re either lazy or they’re stupid.”  Those were the words of wisdom and inspiration I was given in a letter by my mom's second husband, Phil  when I first got into the business.  He was in his fifth decade in the industry, a dealer principal/owner on the East Coast.  I was a green-pea in the Pacific Northwest.  No pressure, if I fail, I’m either lazy or stupid.  I guess of the two, stupid would be…

OK, the title of this story is intentionally cheesy, but rest of it is real.  I mystery shopped some Dallas Region Ford-Lincoln eCommerce Elite (Top 100 stores in USA for new Ford-Lincoln Internet sales) stores recently and was surprised to discover that their response processes are similar.  This piqued my curiosity, so I called my DMC teammate in southern California to ask him how the  #1 new Ford Internet sales store in the country does things.  Turns out they work much the same as the…

I was fortunate to sit in a dealership advertising planning meeting. Participants included the Dealer Principal, GSM, Internet Manager and representatives from the ad team. All of whom are good folks. However, I have been a bit critical about the efficacy of recent cable ads. This most recent planning meeting did nothing to change my opinion.

After the primary agenda items were addressed, I had the opportunity to engage the ad team members. Although I am definitely not a…

A Car Dealer Call to Arms

 

Sales managers: help your sales staff to gain customer commitment!



When was the last time a salesperson came back from a demonstration drive and told you (the sales manager) that he or she has gained commitment from the customer, so you stacked up a 4Square presentation (or whatever it is that you use) – only to see the prospective customer walking out the door a couple of minutes later?



Do you find this happens quite a lot or even some of the…

Just a quick update for everyone!

The agenda for the 10th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition has been posted. You can check it out by clicking here! This is a great time to start planning your sessions! What speakers do you want to see? What times and days are they speaking at?

Still cooking up some fun challenges for our…

I have always taught that seeing is believing and it is a must to involve customers visually. Seeing is also buying and when customers see their issues they buy more often than not. It is also retaining the customer this will improve trust and never allow the dealership to have integrity questioned. I have been asked how to do this with drop off customers and now believe Chris had a…

In today's Potratz online workshop, Dan talked about ways to enhance the look and features of your auto dealership's Facebook business page. One way to give a page a true "custom" feel is to add custom tabs with branded images, content, etc. In our experience with automotive advertising on social media, we find that the more customized the page, the more people like…

It is easy to give up at times - easier than most things in life. NO its NOT too late!! NEVER say NEVER!! You deserve to be SUCCESSFUL!!!

Your level of success in terms of your happiness, emotional well being and anything else you desire is a direct result of how you talk to yourself. The most important relationship you-ll ever have is the one you have with yourself. In order to motivate yourself to success, to the levels of happiness and joy that you want, you have to understand that…

7 Habits of Completely Useless Managers

Due to the overwhelming response to The 7 Habits of Largely Ineffective Salespeople I was compelled to write a follow up piece on Sales Managers. These 7 habits will be beneficial to those already in a management role as well as those aspiring to become to be managers. If you are a Largely Ineffective Salesperson these additional habits will put you on the fast track to the abyss of poor management…

Your website is your online Sales Department.  From that perspective, what does your dealership Sales Department do with a new potential customer? 

• Welcome them to the store.
• Find out what they’re looking for – sales, service or parts.
• Help them get what they need.

Your website can’t “talk”…

Last Wednesday a marketing employee from New Media Strategies, Chrysler’s former marketing company, mistook the Chrysler Twitter account for his personal account and posted on the Chrysler Twitter page, ““I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to drive.” Between “to” and “drive” was an unfortunate word. The impact was felt immediately when followers began to retweet the post. Chrysler quickly responded by posting “Our apologies-our account was…

The Calgary auto show I visited last week probably has the same format as other auto shows across the country.  It provides a great opportunity for manufacturers to strut their stuff - lots of glitz, some glamour and plenty of consumer interest.  After all, this is one of the few events where consumers pay for the privilege of being qualified and sold to.

I’m not…

By now, most automotive professionals are aware of the need to crack down on hiring practices in their dealerships-the mirror-fogging test just won’t cut it anymore. The question of course is how to do this. Below, the experts at ADP Digital Marketing shares four best practices for vetting potential employees.

Four Tough Hiring Practices to Employ in Your Dealership Today…

Do you have a social media strategy for your dealership? Maybe you’ve met with your marketing department or your management team to discuss how you should go about posting to Facebook or Twitter. The discussions and the opinions can be endless- who should post, how often, what to post and what time of day and on and on and on.

Unfortunately, during all this planning and strategizing we often forget the key to…

If you have ever been to a farm, one thing that stands out are these zigzagging baths that seem to randomly crisscross the pastures, these are cow paths. These cow paths are created by cows, which are creatures of habit and when one cow starts to walk across the pasture, the second one follows and the third and soon the rest of the heard follow. After a short while, the cows have created a crooked path, a well worn route from point A to B. Often their destination is to fulfill their basic…

What is a Car-Guy?

     When my, then girlfriend, now wife Bernadette and I announced to our families that we were going to get married it was met with let’s call it muted approval (concern and disapproval really).  First off, we were thousands of miles away from either of our kin, stationed on the island of Guam.  Secondly, we were young, 19 and 21.  Finally, we hadn’t known each other very long (I proposed on our second date!).  We had met in…