Anyone else catch the main page here on DealerElite today?  Joe Webb was playing Where's Waldo in the featured women's section on my main page.  Can you find Joe?

The rise of content marketing and more importantly the focus that Google and Bing have…

Here are the questions and real comments from GM showing how they graded our email and phone calls this past month during one of GM's mystery shops.  This is a real critque form titled "Sales Mystery Shop - Internet Inquiry" (once at the form, scroll to the bottom to see the left to right scroll bar) completed by GM on our performance for one of our lead management clients.  I apologize to DealerElite for sharing this link…

In today’s world, there are many standout companies when it comes to customer service; Zappos and Nordstrom being a couple of examples. These companies focus on providing their customers with world-class service and, because of that, people are willing to pay more while maintaining fierce loyalty. Not only do these companies earn the loyalty of their customers through the…

Just perusing my Facebook and Twitter feeds this morning, and seeing a LOT of April Fool's posts from businesses. For example, YouTube is shutting down after 8 good years; Google has a new scent project out in Beta form called GoogleNose, and Twitter now costs $5 a month if you want to use vowels.

These and many other pranks are seeing a lot of traffic and a huge number of shares. Businesses can definitely get in on this to get fans' attention!

What kind of pranks are you…

People in the world of marketing and businesses trying to use social media for promotions almost always face a paradox. It’s like a Chinese finger trap – the harder you pull, the more trapped you can…

Many times people say they don’t like to negotiate; yet, they still shop around and never pay full MSRP. Most people act in their own best interest. And most people who say they don’t like negotiating, actually still want to.

There are three things you should always listen to in this business:

1. What people say.

2. What people are trying to say.

3. What they really mean.

Often, what people are saying is they ‘hate’ to…

Be a professional specialist and not a “Jack of all Trades”

   My father was a farmer and contractor and was very good at both. But the one piece of advice that he gave me was when you had something important that you had to hire someone else to do, be sure that you hire a professional their field and not some “Jack of all Trades” because it will cost you less in the long run to hire a professional, someone that knows what they are doing rather than to hire someone that just  thinks…

Let’s call it what it really is, shall we? Despite efforts by Bing/Yahoo to stay relevant as well as efforts by Facebook and Twitter to enter the search game, there really is only one. For years, I’ve always had to add the caveat when discussing search marketing that “When I say Google, I mean Bing and Yahoo as well.”

I won’t be saying…

Neil Rackham, author of Spin Selling, blows traditional thinking about features and benefits out of the room when he introduces us to the term “advantages.”   Everyone has heard of the first two, but I love what happens to the sales process when the term advantage is infused  into the equation.  As with all points in Spin Selling, Neil clearly defines the word advantage and provides research to define its effectiveness in the sales process.

 …

On this week's Think Tank Tuesday find out why getting back to consumers immediately is vital to nurturing leads.

In the 1954 classic text, How to Lie With Statistics, author Darrell Huff asserts that there are  hundreds of ways that numbers can lie to you. Statistical interpretation is a subjective business - trends and correlation can be employed by the statistician to support pretty much any hypothesis. Graphs and charts can distort reality. Ratios and proportions can be meaningless comparisons. What we might think as…

Don't commit digital Suicide.   

Sitting in a few conferences over the past few weeks, I have been able to confirm my suspicions.  There are many dealers and vendors that think tradition media is dead.  They are on the road of committing digital suicide for dealers all over the country.  If you are lucky enough not to be infected by this yet, you will be able to dominate your market easier than ever.  I should mention…

Who owns the customers?  Where do your employees work?  Are prospects even being called back?  Some dealers don’t know.  All because we allow some of our sales team members to do it their way.  You’re feeding into their problem. 

I’m asking you to ‘Just Say No’ to…

1)   Letting salespeople use their own personal email addresses when responding back to customers.

2)   Allowing salespeople to make all of their (so-called) follow-up calls to happen from their…

This past week, I had the pleasure of attending two conferences that were completely different from one another. The week started (well, last week ended) with attending the infamous SXSW conference…

AutoNation USA, the #1 publicly-owned automotive retailer, opened its doors as a mega “one pricing” pre-owned operation in 1997. It built elaborate showrooms; county records show one was 218,000 square feet. The showrooms included a café, a playroom and an aftermarket display platform.

Kiosks with computers were placed throughout the store enabling consumers to efficiently check out in-stock inventory or to submit a loan application. Customers were greeted at these kiosks by…

Now that the focus in many industries is on data and behavioral marketing, marketing departments are increasingly better able to pinpoint areas in which they can improve. With the right data, not only can you determine your product’s demographic but now you can discover when and why your customers make that ultimate decision to purchase. That being said, just because you discover what’s wrong, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should share that nugget of wisdom with your consumer.…

Im starting a BDC department and I need some advice on some different techniques i can use to make this operation successful. any advice?

As I watch new episodes of "Bar Rescue" on Spike I am amazed at some of the things that I have learned about the food and beverage industry.  I have been watching this show with a very open mind to understand what I can do to improve my business practices.  What I have found was that this show has business practices that even automotive professionals and managers need to consider taking a look at.  Let's take a look at what I am talking about.

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