Throughout my 40+ years in the automotive business, I always thought there would come a time when I would leave and take a 9am - 5pm job with holidays, multiple weeks of paid vacations and other normal job aspects. It never happened. No matter how bad of a day I might have had, I always found myself driving home thinking to myself ow much I loved this business. 

In my years as a mechanic, I love fixing cars. As I rose through management I loved fixing problems with customers,…

Team Velocity Marketing Announces Platinum Sponsorship of AutoCon 2012

Team Velocity Marketing is proud to be a Platinum Sponsor of AutoCon 2012 in what is sure to be the industry’s largest event for the automotive industry.

DULLES, VA – August 9, 2012 Team Velocity Marketingis pleased to join the ranks of several prestigious…

Make Your Pre-Owned Inventory Turn and Burn

In today’s market the pre-owned inventory within your dealership must be bought, sold, advertised and managed better than ever before. Within this article I am going to give you some simple and progressive solutions and ideas to help you get 12 plus turns…

Every time they come on I'm drawn in.  I root for people in sports I either have never seen before or still don't understand.  But, my favorite part of the Olympics is when they share the journey that each athlete had to make to get there.  When they share how obstacles had to be overcome, sacrifices had to be made, and most importantly, goals that had to be set.  When one hears the stories of these special athletes, it's difficult to complain…

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Read this latest blog by one of our Account Managers Hayley Berger, as she talks about how important your relationship as a dealership is with your customers.

When we think of intros we usually think of the song a baseball player walks out to, or a little :10 second clip before a TV…

Google recently released guidelines for their Google+ Local Pages, outlining what you can and can’t do with the main picture on your Local page. It is important to stay on top of these announcements from Google, make sure you read over these guidelines to make sure you aren’t hurting your local page, it could have big implications on your…

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Mayo Clinic as a patient after waiting 3 months for my appointment. Now they don't just take anyone and you can't just walk in the front door to be seen.

I had an appointment for 7:30am on a Monday morning. If any o you have been there, you know it is not a small facility. They have everything under one roof to diagnose and treat almost anything.

We arrive on time and are taken in on time. The doctor arrives on time already knowing…

How many times have I asked a sales person, "Have they driven the car?" Do you have any idea how many times I hear, They drove it at the other dealer or they don't have time to drive it or my favorite. They already own one that is three years old.  Really?  You are going to waste all that time on a write up when your chances of closing a deal without a demo…

Women are the fastest growing segment of car buyers at car dealerships, spending billions of dollars annually on new and used cars, as well as car service and maintenance.

They’re more confident, educated and prepared to make smart car decisions than ever before, and thanks to dealer rating websites like Women-Drivers.com, Facebook, Twitter and other online outlets, women are also voicing their opinions on those decisions in greater numbers.

Car dealerships have to treat women…

Insignia has been shouting it from the roof tops for over 10 years. Auto parts stores and Ebay have heard the word, it’s taken root and produced bountiful profits. And now automakers are recognizing the trend and developing new vehicles with thousands of OEM accessories and customization options. Check out how Dodge is doing this with the Dodge Dart, click the…

Twitter is growing quickly as a social network, and as it does, businesses are cluing into the fact that they can connect with a whole new market by maintaining a Twitter account. It can be tough to get the hang of posting on the site, but remembering a few simple tips can help.

• Think twice about automating your tweets. It’s tempting to…

If youʼre active on social media (and you better be), than recently you may have seen people on your social networks talk about Pinterest. The site is growing rapidly, already ranking above long running sites like LinkedIn. Knowing this, of course the next thing you want to know is if itʼs a…

In the city I live in, there is a run down, nasty looking house taking up some prime commercial real-estate that I'm pretty sure every Realtor in town has taken a crack at trying to sell. Seriously! Every couple of months there is a new sign out front from some poor real-estate…

At last week’s semi-annual meeting of NCM’s divisional directors, 20 Group moderators, Retail Operations consultants, and NCM Institute faculty members a good discussion developed around the topic of Service Advisor Compensation. The common questions that several on our staff were seeking answers for were as follows:

1. Has there been any significant change in advisor compensation…

When it comes to our data and how it affects our business, how we can and must make money with it, retail automotive needs to wake up!  We need an "Internet Moment"--but, first, what the heck is that?  Understand that the "Internet Moment" was birthed this way at a very famous company:  The mid 90’s were a crazy time at Microsoft. The Internet was taking off, and it had left…

Top five social media influencer and MINI USA marketing head close DSES and open JDPA events; discounted combo-ticket pass for the consecutive events available

SALT LAKE CITY, UT – August 7, 2012 – DrivingSales and J.D. Power and Associates today announced that Scott Stratten and Tom Salkowsky will keynote a special session, sponsored by Cars.com, that bridges the 4^th annual…

Dealers United Selects KPA from 70 Website Vendors for August Member Deal 

In addition to the website deal, current Dealers United members can take advantage of SEO services offered by KPA   

Sarasota, FL – August 7, 2012 - Dealers United, the first service to truly leverage the buying power of individual dealerships, launched their August member…

General consensus in advertising today is usually that the most effective advertising is specifically targeted to a narrow field of people that you want to reach. For years this has been accomplished with complicated technology and it has definitely shown performance improvements from non-targeted to targeted ads. This level of targeting has never been available for…