Success with Social *Engagement* Media depends on the elimination of Sideways Energy. After you’ve established your game plan, selected the Social Media platforms you’ll have presence on, and identified the…

I think it's about time we take steps to more accurately represent the strength and assets of women in this country.

Fuel cell cars have the potential to reduce the demand for foreign oil and lower the harmful effects it has on our climate. Fuel cell cars run on hydrogen rather than gas and their exhaust doesn’t put out any harmful fumes, just water and heat. A lot of challenges will have to be overcome before these vehicles can compete with hybrids technology and regular gasoline…

Ford has opened their ordering books on its first ever electric car.

The Focus Electric is priced at $39,995, the same as the Chevrolet Volt plug in hybrid and $3,945 more than its closest competitor, the Nissan Leaf. All three cars are eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit and various state incentives available towards purchase of an electric car.

The Focus range has not yet been revealed. Ford has previously said that it would be competitive with the…

Unfortunately, the news from Volvo isn’t good for the U.S. It seems Executives at Volvo don’t think the U.S is ready for a plug-in diesel hybrid. Therefore we will get a gasoline-electric hybrid, but everyone else will receive the diesel-electric hybrid.

Volvo confirmed that the V60 Plug-in Hybrid will go on sale during 2012. The Hybrid made its debut earlier this…

Over the past eight-years I have read tens of thousands of emails.  I have written and setup over a thousand emails for clients in the auto industry.  When it comes to email marketing, I am very proud to be consider by most, an expert in the field.  My expert knowledge of email…

What ever happened to record players? How about Beta tape players? Anyone remember pagers? Here's a good one,typewriters.

One thing is for sure nothing is forever. No matter how useful or advanced, it too will one day be obsolete.

Now in my mid 30's, (o.k. late 30's) I remember thinking how hip and cool my…

Centuries ago, before elaborate bottling processes and wineries, wines were transported in wineskins. It was advised to never pour new wine into old wineskins because old wineskins were contaminated with fermented bacteria. New wineskins lose their pliability as they age and burst when the new wine is poured into old skins, the skins no longer have the…

In an effort to help dealerElite reach 7,000 members and more I have done a little research and with some help from the home office in Barrow, Alaska here are:  The Top 10 Best Things About dealerElite

10) Tons of great ideas from the industry's best that you can steal and claim as your own!  After all * "Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism"

9) Top 5 "posters" each week receive a coupon for a foot massage by Chris Saraceno

8) New subscribers get an autographed…

 He who gets 10 men to do the work of one gets 10 times the return. J P Getty said I would rather have 1% of 100 men's effort than 100% of my own. Jesus started with 12 men and look how big that got. There is nothing better to be successful than prospecting and word of mouth. You agree?

Google recently announced a new update to their search engine algorithm that puts a greater emphasis on recently published, fresh content. "This change...promotes fresher results...so that we provide users the most relevant answers to their queries," according to a Google spokesperson.

Regularly updated content has always been a positive ranking factor in SEO, but this announcement from Google makes it that much more important.

So how can your dealership use…

The NCM Institute just posted this article on the Up To Speed blog.  Written by NCM Institute Director and retail operations specialist, Garry House, you'll find a good, basic plan for how to start a personalization program in your store... 

Since the 2011 Specialty Equipment Market…

Everyone knows that Facebook is good for branding and customer relations, but so few in the industry are using it to generate actual sales. Here's a tip that I'll be presenting at next week's AMP UP conference in Vale, Colorado. It's arguably the best single piece of Facebook advice for aggressive car dealers that I've ever given (and I'm doing so exclusively on…

A "twenty something" couple came into the dealership on Tuesday.  Great kids...I follwed the steps of the sale and landed her on the perfect car.  We negociated and came to an agreement.  My finance manager was off that day, so the desk manager ran the credit and decided that my customer needed a cosigner and sent them packing!  I thought about it all night long.  On Wednesday, I went to the desk manager and asked him if I could have a look at the deal jacket.  He said, "Did you get the…

Arthur Ashe, Muhammed Ali, Elvis Presley and Free Booze

It was 1966. A group of West Point cadets was taking a PE class, volleying tennis balls on the courts in the south east corner of The Plain, opposite the old stone library. A skinny, black second lieutenant moved among them offering words of encouragement…

Hi again,

I wanted to post another article, in regards to the partnerships we develop. Paul Long wrote this a while ago, and I wanted to get the opinions of the community. 

Ok, we admit, the subject line is a bit high-minded. And that's not a bit surprising considering the source of it is Dr. Emmett Murphy, New York Times best-selling author of 

"…

vAuto announces the release today of Provision, a powerful used vehicle inventory management engine that will eliminate the pain of finding used vehicles and optimizing inventories for profitability for auto dealers.



“This is a business intelligence break-through for the automotive industry, made possible through our alliance with AutoTrader.com and Manheim,” says Dale Pollak, vAuto founder. “Provision brings game-changing insights and tools to help dealers efficiently and…