Here’s your dilemma: One of your top performers--maybe a vehicle sales consultant, maybe a service advisor, maybe a technician, maybe an F&I producer--just advised you that he really wants to become a manager. Although you don’t really want to lose his production, you know that if you don’t appropriately address his request and desire, he might quit and leave, or maybe worse, he might quit and stay.

Here is what else probably bothers you about this situation;…

 I gamed it from 30 to 70. Never registered for or received perks.  My stats go a long ways to proving that at worst, Klout has no credibility and at best, it is a game that should not be used for anything other than entertainment. I became…

How many hours do your sales people spend at the dealership on a daily basis?  If you're like most dealers, there will be days when the staff works key to key.  Those 12 hour days can drag for some.  But, for those who have customers, it seems to speed by.

That said, how can dealers tolerate the speed merchants who call themselves…

A salesperson’s favorite letter in the alphabet is the letter “X;” as a salesperson, there is nothing better than the ability to bark out a Hat Trick (3 sales) in a Monday morning sales meeting to the sneers, jeers, and claps of your fellow victim-laden salespeople. If the word confidence could be abbreviated with one letter, it would be…

"Why"?

This is the single most difficult concept for most marketers in automotive to understand.  “Why” is the reason AutoTrader and Cars.com run millions of dollars in ads on TV, then put only a fraction of…

In the second post of this series, Kathryn Carlson discussed two methods to address employee theft once it has taken place. This segment of the series advocates two preventative methods:



Hotline

This is the one thing that the…

Here is a tip for increasing your income immediately!

Have you thought about an advertsing plan? I mean really thought about it.
Showing how interested you are in your customer's well-being and
dedicated in keeping them informed has been a basis for increasing your income immediately.

The original article I had scheduled for today is titled, Tactics for Improving Employee Productivity. But as I was putting the finishing touches on the content, I said to myself, “Self, you’ve skipped an important step! You shouldn’t be presenting tactics until you’re sure that your readers understand the differences between strategies and tactics.”

It’s my understanding that “strategy” is derived from the ancient Greek word,…

Site Retargeting with Facebook from Potratz on Vimeo.

I thought it might be a nice gesture to share what I think are three major mistakes made by dealers when buying direct mail.  

1st.  Buying for the budget.  Many dealerships buy just because they have budget left to spend.  This on it's own is not the problem.  The problem lies in the fact that normally when this is the case they will just buy any piece that has a current theme on it and expect it to win.  An example would be, right now November is coming up and dealers who…

Are you executing your processes???

I am a vocal advocate for leveraging Google Analytics to guide a dealership's online marketing strategy.  Despite my pleas, a small percentage of dealer operators have a consistent process for analyzing Google Analytics data every month to spot trends or to prioritize marketing investments.

So I thought that I would write a few articles that utilize Google Analytics data charts to show hungry automotive marketing professionals and dealer operators how to leverage this great…

This new guidance was posted on August 31, 2012 by the IRS, in collaboration with the Department of Treasury, Department of Labor, and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The guidance explains how employers can use a moving average to determine the status of full time employees, and answers questions employers might have about handling automatic enrollment of new…

I’m not really sure when the first time was that I heard somebody curse or that I even knew that it was a curse word at the time. I assume the first time I probably cursed myself was sometime in my teens, all the knuckleheads I hung around with did so of course I didn’t want to be odd man out… thats when it all began.

Nobody cussed on TV and none of the movies I was allowed to go see had any cussing in them, can’t recall hearing either one…

There's something missing on most automotive mobile websites and apps. Everyone has "Get Directions". Most attach to the device mapping app to allow for navigation, though some still rely on sending people directly to Google maps, not navigation. The portion that's missing from many mobile sites and apps is the…

Getting anyone to recommend a BDC process, lay out a live agent pay plan, and do some comparison between an in-store, centralized, and 3rd-Party BDC at the same time is often difficult.  Especially written down and public--well, here is mine on the link below.



Local Market factors must still…

I have been the Internet Director for a small automotive group here in Moline, Illinois now for a couple months. Before this, I held the same job at another group in West Central Illinois for about two and a half years. It’s been a wonderful and exciting few years, filled with success and fulfillment for me.

Though I have figured a lot of things out, some stuff remains a mystery. For instance…S.E.O. Marketers.  Let me explain: Every week I get 3-5 internet leads from various…

In my 25+ years in the automotive dealership training and consulting arena, I have been exposed to numerous dealership executives, department managers, and sales and service personnel who felt the need to be “on the job” 60, 70, and, yes, even 80 hours per week. And no matter how much you love the retail business and its diversity, excitement and challenges, that level of time investment in your business career will never allow you to achieve any type of reasonable balance between your…

The social media sites were hot last night during the presidential debate between Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and current President Barrack Obama.  Since the election of former President Bill Clinton, our nation has been evenly divided over which man is the best person for the job of leading our nation amongst the world.

As a small business owner who helps companies, specifically automotive dealerships, build their business and "Win Customers for Life"; I have some very…