There are those who were hurt by the recent Penguin 2.0 update by Google. If your rankings fell in the last month, there’s probably a black and white flightless bird reason for the drop. Thankfully, there are things that you can do to make things better.

Even if you weren’t affected by the change, you should still take note. There are nuances and…

Lost! Bought Elsewhere

Famous last words from the customer to help you be better next time. What value are you actually getting from a customer who bought a vehicle at another dealership? I say very little because at this point they are venting or pointing out where you failed in your sales process, but the truth is despite your best efforts to improve…

Bad management runs rampant in organizations. For my discussion I will focus on Automotive Sales and Finance Management. I say this because this is epidemic in many Industries and I don’t want to appear to be singling out Automotive Dealerships.

All emotions stem from insecurity and must be controlled because it has no place in a work Setting.…

I was consulting with a potential client yesterday and started looking at their Facebook and Twitter pages. Once a day, every day, they would post a question that had very little to do with anything at all. "What was the last movie you watched?"

Once a day, every day, they wouldn't get a response from anyone. It was awkward…

I'm "that guy." You know, the one who thinks that 4-stars is an amazing review coming from me, the one who hasn't rated anything a 10 out of 10 since my wife's Mediterranean pasta, the guy who wonders why his kid only got an "A" and not an "A+" on a test. There are more of us out there than you think, but there's a benefit to what I call…

The managers in your dealership must have a written job description with clearly defined responsibilities and expectations.

Having specific goals for the department is required. Daily action plans for selling, training, appointments, one-on-one coaching, save-a deal meetings, deal structuring, follow-up, etc will increase sales by 20 percent without spending more for advertising.

If you read biographies of successful people or businesses, one common thread…

As we all know over 90% of consumers are online when researching and deciding which vehicle that he/she want's to purchase which leads to the inevitable that we must fish where the fish are.  Research reveals that effective Internet advertising not only provides dealers with greater reach to car shoppers but can also successfully attract car buyers from outside the…

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Take the investment advice or not this powerful video puts into perspective the evolving revolution that is upon us now.



On October 30,…

What do you think about: The government has acknowledged tapping into servers of nine Internet giants?—including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and YouTube—even though the companies deny giving direct "backdoor" access

"All we have is shadows of information," he said. "We are finally learning some things. We need more whistleblowers."

 …

Dear General Manager or Owner,

There is a good chance that you are reading this because you were given the link by your internet manager or marketing manager. That's a really good sign - it means that you have someone on staff who is keeping up with the cutting edge automotive digital marketing strategies and best practices that are discussed on the top…

There are always going to be those who are real experts offering real products or services with proven strategies and the ability to make changes to their techniques as the market and industries change. There are also always going to be those who put on the uniform, slide on the…

Are you a hunter or farmer For so many years, we have struggled as an industry when it comes to follow up. Then, companies like Clients for Life and came along and started sending our follow up letters for us. All we had to do was sign it and mail it. This gave us more time to focus on working with the customers who were on the lot and calling in.

Basically, it gave us the ability to focus more time on hunting for new business and the farming was something we were able to relax on,…

  A study done by J.D. Power and Associates found that 82 percent of car owners with smartphones have an interest in an in-vehicle device/application link to connect their smartphone to their vehicle's infotainment system. That's up from the 78 percent in the 2012 U.S. Automotive Emerging Technologies…

In my 30 years in the business, I have never seen such a lack of civility, leadership and professionalism in the automotive industry. You can find managers anywhere, but developing leaders is a much more challenging task. Managers are integral, but leaders are essential. It does not take character, guts or vision to manage things, but it takes all three to lead people.

Here are common characteristics I see quite often from managers in dealerships…

VinSolutions announced today that it has completed its acquisition of Haystak Digital Marketing, the marketplace leader of digital marketing products and services for the automotive industry.

The transaction was first announced on May 7.

Haystak will operate under its own brand and continue to provide digital products and services direct to dealers nationwide.  In addition, Haystak’s digital marketing toolset will be integrated with VinSolutions CRM and website products to help…

Traffic is better, sales are up, profits are high, dealers are buying at NADA and the whole world is rosy. Don’t drink the water. I am not saying you should not be optimistic, and I am certainly not an economic forecaster coming with claims of doom and gloom. However, I am saying that your fortunes in the future will have a whole lot less to do with the economy than what business practices you put into place.

There is an over exuberance in dealer-land right now,…

COMMUNICATION!

I just got through reading “Is the dealership sales call center obsolete?”on autonews.com. I got the article from Andy Warner on twitter. This article highlights dealers that…

Automotive Web Marketing "Really Connected"

 Everyday you wake up and you have your list of reports to update and spreadsheets to fill out with the same old numbers, but what do these numbers really mean? Most car dealerships nowadays have an internal BDC (business development center) and…

Stop the madness! I, unfortunately, might be part of the cause of the recent trends happening on dealer Twitter profiles and for that, I am truly sorry.

For years, I've been harping on the concept that Twitter is something that no dealer should avoid because of how quick and easy it is. There's no huge investment of time required to have a strong Twitter presence. This advice and the…