As a business, you always want the great reputation that comes with great sales and service experiences for your buyers, and that always begins at your dealership with great customer service before, during, and after the sale.  However, before they get to a business, …

As car dealers start to test the effectiveness of Google Boost I just want to remind members of this community on an important fact about Google Boost. If you don't have an IRM process in place that gets happy customers to post reviews, you will not be…

Simply having a business page on Facebook is no longer enough to run a successful automotive marketing campaign on Facebook. With a number of companies and brands joining the bandwagon, Facebook has become a saturated market and unless you understand how the market behaves, you might be get lost amid all the noise.

Similarly, filling up your fans’ walls with advertorial posts will be useless unless you’re…

While enjoying the warmer weather with my buddies this weekend, I made a new car enthusiast friend out of a complete stranger.  The conversation got started when he asked me if I had ever heard of the Nissan GTR.  I looked at him and exclaimed, “Of course!  I have a near meltdown every time I see one.”  We both go on and on about where we…

We all have those moments of "This sucks", "Why am I doing this?", "This month is a waste", "Maybe I should just quit". It's human nature to doubt ourselves. Even the Dalai Lama has an internal negative nellie. I'd be willing tobet on it. 

In those moments of self doubt, what do you do? Do you push through those feelings? Do you swallow them? Do you…

When Ralph Paglia sees this blog post on DealerElite and the video at the bottom of the page, he will once again smile and reflect on his favorite Superbee that he once owned. I love my 1969 Superbee and as much as I enjoy the ride, there are a few things that give me reason to be careful when driving this classic.

Today we have grown accustom to air bags, superb braking and handling technology, surround sound stereo, iPod connectors, and the convenience of navigation systems. All of…

I don't find these expectations "harsh" at all.  The old saying is, "do the right thing because it's the right thing to do". 

It seems to me the Standards are set to do the "right thing".  What is harsh about that.  The "weak at heart" as you call them don't have a "Culture of Excellence".  They're…

Philip Zelinger, the President of Ad Agency Online, L.L.C. and the host of the automotive advertising resource / networking portal http://AdAgencyOnline.Net, has scheduled a follow up interview on his blog talk radio show with three principals from eVBDS, (Electric Vehicle Business Development Strategies), -- George Stellweg, Forest Williams and Carlos De La Guardia.  The trio…

Hey everyone!

Check out my Digital Dealer webinar being held April 14, 2011 at 11:30am EST!

“Deliver on your ideas.  Nothing silences critics like success.  Raise the bar for yourself and project a greater vision for those around you.”  When Tony Paragas shared this statement with me, I felt challenged to seize the moment and share a…

The Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition is rapidly approaching! Only 11 days until kickoff and only 10 days until the start of the Digital Dealer Workshops. The conference in Orlando will see record attendance for the Digital Dealer Conference. With 80 sessions and 100 exhibitors, people are really amped and getting excited.

We have all sorts…

You don’t have to be a Baby Boomer to have cracked-up watching M*A*S*H, the medical drama/black comedy that follows a team of doctors and support staff stationed at the “4077^th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital” in Uikjeongbu, South Korea during the Korean War.

The series, which premiered in 1972, was almost killed off in its first season…

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within…

There are good days and bad days.  Just ask the basketball team from Butler University during the 2011 NCAA Men's Division 1 Basketball Tournement.  I am sure they prepared and practiced for "The Big Event" but…

Although the iPhone app was intended to let users stay connected with their Facebook friends while on the go, auto dealers can also take advantage of this technology to make their automotive mobile marketing campaigns more interactive and more in-tune with the social media. With the release of Facebook for iPhone’s newest version (version 3.4), one added feature is particularly useful for business owners: the ability to check-in at actual events.

Checking-In to…

Allowing bad processes and paying for more marketing is much like another American Classic:  How many homes do you know where there’s a nice automobile sitting in damaging sun and weather in the driveway while $300 worth of junk sits protected in the messy garage?  We do the same thing as dealers; buying new shiny things for our marketing and letting them sit outside our…

I am committed to never say a number is bad without providing processes to improve it. It amazes me that when people are trained on ways to improve and want to, how quickly the result goes to the next level. You must develop standards for your company and measure them against…

Google recently announced changes to their search algorithm and included in those changes were efforts to lower the visibility of spammy websites. One of the secondary conversions was will Google lower the weighting of keyword rich domains like "www.buyviagra.com".

Matt Cutts…

I founded Thought Leadership Summits (TLS) seven years ago with the goal of developing exclusive events that enable executives to have high-quality interactions with fellow thought leaders. Having worked in the automotive industry, I knew there was a need for a Summit addressing relationships between OEMs, Dealers, Captive Finance providers, and their shared customers.

With that in mind, TLS launched the Automotive Customer Centricity…