MANAGING VS. SUPERVISING (“FARMERS” VS. “RANCHERS”)

Management=Participation vs. Supervisor=Observation…

Excellence in customer service is a goal all businesses should strive to achieve. There are many advantages to a business when they reach the point where great service becomes an everyday offering. The strongest benefits being customer loyalty, repeat purchases and the resulting word of mouth advertising. However, even with strict standards and detailed service programs in place, bad reviews can happen. As much as we would like to be perfect,we can’t be 100% of the time. Employees…

"Outraged - How Detroit and the Wall Street Car Czars Killed The American Dream" is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and on Kindle(links below). For more information, videos, photos and press releases about the book you can visit my website - TammyDarvish.com. We have a full account of the disaster created when the unilateral decision was made to take privately owned businesses away from thousands of…

Google just made a big change in how they will track organic visits to your website.  If a consumer is logged into their Google Account and does a search in Google, and clicks on your link, you WILL NOT be told which keyword they used.

This has a major impact in keyword optimization and web content strategies. Google will still show referral website traffic but not the keywords used in search to arrive at your site.

Here is the official announcement from…

Make sure to…

New ‘card-free’ program eliminates usual loyalty program hassles with turnkey process that allows dealers to focus on selling, rather than implementation

Daytona Beach, FL -- October 19, 2011 – DMEautomotive, the industry leader in science-based, results-driven automotive marketing, today announced a new affordable “card-free” customer loyalty program for auto dealerships designed to eliminate the usual…

Phoenix, AZ – October 18, 2011 – Drive Time, the nation's largest dealership with 89 locations specializing in selling and financing used cars to customers with less-than-perfect credit, today announced it has selected Inilex as its supplier of GPS-based…

Over the last several months, really since speaking at the Digital Marketing Strategies Conference in Napa Valley earlier this year, one of the themes that we've been focused on is this:

"What happens on your Facebook, Twitter, and other social media pages is not nearly as important as what happens on other people's Facebook, Twitter, and social media pages."

Every few months I…

Grand Theft Auto – How Citizens Fought for the American Dream

May 14 and 15, 2009 – two days in which Chrysler and General Motors, with the help of the government, literally stole the life’s work from nearly 2,000 business owners.

Two years later, the history from the dealers’ perspective of those days are hitting the bookstores. And they are must reads for anyone associated with the automotive retail industry.

The first book out this…

I am asking everyone in the DealerElite community for their assistance!

I am looking to make my return to retail with a Dealer or Dealer Group that could use my expertise.

It has been difficult getting my consulting business off the ground. It was much more difficult than I originally thought it would be.

So I am…

When you are working a deal, how do you direct your sales people?  Do you insist they follow your steps to the sale?  Regardless of whether you have 8, 10 or even 12 steps, you have a specific process to increase the chances of success in selling and retaining that customer for a long time.  So, why don't you do that when…

CAR-Research XRM Enjoys Unprecedented Growth,

Appoints Patrick Kelly as President & COO

Houston, Texas, October 18, 2011, CAR-Research XRM, a single-source CRM solution uniquely branded as; “XRM, Exceeding CRM”, today announced the appointment of Patrick Kelly, formerly Senior Vice…

ATLANTA and OVERLAND PARK, Kan., Oct. 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Since AutoTrader.com acquired VinSolutions in June of this year, it has made a number of investments in the company to ensure it maintains its position as the leading software solutions package for dealers.

VinSolutions operates as a subsidiary of AutoTrader.com, and the two businesses continue to collaborate on methods of infusing value into both companies and their customers. There are multiple areas that…

Every single time you go to the Doctor’s office, it happens.

They take your “vitals”

They check your pulse, your temperature, your blood pressure and they weigh you.

Your vitals are an indication of how your body is doing “health-wise”.

If any of the “vitals” are outside of the normal parameters, it may…

It is so frustrating when trying to send a legitimate, valuable email to a customer (future or current), and have it be blocked by a spam filter.  While there are some auto dealers that do send emails that might be properly classified as spam, most dealers who have spam issues are sending real emails to real customers.  Their email campaigns are being inappropriately blocked by various spam filters.

Here are some tips to avoid the dreaded spam filter in your customer's email…

Southside Financial Group Launches National Subprime Loan Portfolio Program to Help Franchised and Independent Auto Dealers Achieve Greater Liquidity

Arlington, Texas, October 17, 2011 -- Southside Financial Group (http://www.southsidefg.com), an active purchaser of auto finance receivables, today announced the launch of a nationwide program…

In 2012, there's a person you need to hire if you haven't already. Every dealership or dealer group that wants to succeed MUST hire a Digital Manager. I go into more details about what a digital manager does in a blog post on Techi, but here I want to shed some light on the differences between an internet manager/BDC manager and a…

Good morning,

I have been using Linked in for years to make connections and to build my personal business network. I have also used it as a fantastic sales toll to sell cars and to sell our services as well. I felt that it made sense to share some of the things I had learned, and here is the first in a series of video's on Linked in.

Here is the link: …

Car dealers are participating in the premiere of a major Hollywood film in an effort to improve their customer and employee satisfaction and loyalty. Dealers in New York City and Los Angeles are hosting the premiere for the award-winning film, The Might Macs, a major motion picture that was executive produced by Sean Wolfington. Wolfington and…