Do you believe in luck? Do you consider yourself a lucky person or are you waiting for your ship to come in? There is a difference between luck and randomness. You should create your own luck and remove the randomness of your results.

Recently, I conducted a sales meeting for a business. Before I gave the meeting, I entered the meeting area before the sales team arrived and I taped a $20 bill to the bottom of a chair. During the meeting, I asked everyone to stand up and then…

You probably answered “no.” Who wouldn’t? I wonder how your customers would answer that question. Do your customers think you, your product and your business are boring? People want to be entertained. Entertainment = Sales. Boring = Broke.

Your customers get their news from FOX News and USA Today, their food from drive throughs, their coffee from Starbucks, their money from ATMs, their exercise from 7- minute abs DVDs and their information from the…

Every day in North America, millions of people utilize search engines with the intent to find answers to their implied questions, or identify solutions for their problems.  Think about the last search you conducted online. Was it with the intent to find answers or solve problems? Of course it was.These days, anytime I want an answer for something whether it’s who…

GRAPH SEARCH: FACEBOOK GAME CHANGER!



Facebook has recently come out with an update that will change the way a billion+ users interact with each other on the social site. Facebook Graph Search allows users to easily find information based on their friends’ interests, likes, and comments.
 
Content that users share is currently seen for less than four hours, but Graph Search changes that.

Now, searches will yield a wealth of information more easily, and Facebook recommendations…

For the most part, most dealers understand the importance of having content on their websites. They know that search engines love unique content and if they have any hope of ranking well for keywords other than their own name, they need content to help expand their reach.

Things have been changing a bit for the last year. A new type…

By Robert Cannon

When I was young my father bought a Ford Galaxie Sunliner. Bright red and a convertible to boot. I loved how it looked and I also loved how fast it was. My father was a dentist and so the only tools around our house were for probing and poking inside the mouth and not the engine of a car.

I did not learn about the inside of the car…

According to Rand Fishkin, Founder and CEO of SEOmoz.org, *there is an increase in blog readership as of late but a dramatic decrease in the amount of people blogging. This sets the stage for a powerful…

Currently our dealership advertises on both Cars.com and Auto Trader.  My GSM is convinced we do not need to be on both, and that we will sell the same amount of cars if we drop one.  I have a lot of hesitations about this.  Over the past 6 months we have sold 11 cars from Auto Trader and 15 cars from Cars.com; not to mention the cars we have sold from our website due to the traffic from Auto Trader and Cars.com.

Since we are locked in with lower rates with Auto Trader he…

It looks like everyone wants to be in the automotive lead generation business. Over the last year I have been writing about Google Cars; a program (in beta testing) to present new car inventory to consumers shopping for a car directly in Google search results.  Dealers are charged by Google on a per lead basis. 

Today, I learned that TRUECar has expanded…

What is hidden wealth? Hidden wealth is an unused, dormant or under utilized part of your business that contains great value. All businesses have at least one hidden wealth. Even the best businesses in the world contain hidden wealth. The key is to determine your hidden wealth and begin to mine the potential gold that lies therein. All businesses are different. Each business should require their leaders to conduct a concerted effort of introspection and egoless honesty to determine what…

In the automotive business, we expect there to be critics. We understand that there are detractors to our business. No one understands the value of “the voice of the customer” better than an automotive dealer. In fact, there’s been a whole business built around “relationship management” specifically for the automotive industry.

Social media has taken this concept…

This is part 3 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership.

Let’s assume, for a moment, that you have step one on the path to building your Brand Ambassador…

The ripple effect, do you understand it?

Every action has a reaction, no matter how small or large. Any time we stretch the truth, tell a white lie or right out tell a whopper of a lie there is a reaction.

When a salesperson…

It’s generally a pretty good indication, that if you’re read your Miranda Rights, your legal troubles may be just beginning. Your rights advise you that you have the choice to either remain silent or if you choose to speak, anything you say can and will be used against you. A confession inevitably leads to a prosecution-the question is what are you confessing…

Can the argument be made that today’s car dealership would increase earnings if they fired all salespeople and implemented a new process from scratch?

Let’s start with creating a BDC. We would hire women between 35-50, pay them $20 an hour to set appointments. Most of these women would be moms with kids in school so getting to the dealership by 8:00am would be no problem.

After the BDC confirms the appointment…

CarChat24 receives a "Top Rated" Award for Dealer Satisfaction in Chat Products Category

PALM HARBOR, Fla. – Feb. 11, 2013 –…

This is part 1 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership.

It isn’t what you’re saying on social media that has the biggest effect on your business. It’s what others are saying about you that makes the true impact.

I’ve used those words in various forms since 2008. It’s…

Train your people, and Train yourself!

I am in dealers all over the country and the one constant I find is the LACK OF TRAINING! How do owners and managers expect to grow their market share with salespeople who have no direction or training?

Typically we arrive a day early to set up for our sale, and I will sit down with the managers and do a Q&A session. When their questions and concerns are addressed I will usually ask them for the…

This article was written by: Russell Grant

From speakers at NADA workshops to automotive manufacturers in trade publications to vendor product advertisements online, everyone is talking about how big data is changing the future of marketing in our industry. But most of the GMs I talk to aren’t nearly as concerned with the marketplace and the direction it’s taking, as they are with their business and where it’s going. They want to know two things—how can big data save me money and how…