I have repeatedly been told by sales personal that they do not need to mark there deals sold because the system automatically does it. I have also heard this is why some customers are not logged.

This is on premise a horrible idea that you are relying on technology alone to give you one of your best contacts you will have.



I want you to consider something. This person liked you, the dealership, and the deal so much that they invested thousands of dollars with you.…

The Oldest of all celebrations...

A History of the New Year A move from March to January The celebration of the new year on January 1st is a relatively new phenomenon. The earliest recording of a new year celebration is believed to have been in Mesopotamia, c. 2000 B.C. and was celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox, in mid-March. A variety of other dates tied to the seasons were also used by various ancient cultures. The Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians began their new…

I recently had an experience at my store about a girl trying to buy a car. She came in to our store and had all the typical defensive walls up. She seemed to be very cautious and deliberate with almost every action and word she said. It just seemed as if she was nervous and intimidated with coming to a car dealership on her own. But little did we know, she had a plan and was prepared to "do battle" with us when it came time to discuss the…

Equal Share

What if you paid the sales people their commission by splitting a percentage of the bottom-line? They would be paid as one group  split equally on the gross profit. There would be unit bonuses paid for sales people selling more than ten units.Paying a split of the gross bottom-line would promote team work. The manager's job would be to get to as close to…

As we look forward to the coming year, I believe there will be five key challenges that confront every dealer in their used vehicle operations.

Challenge 1: Creating a vehicle segment-specific investment strategy. This means regarding each segment of vehicles (e.g., compact cars, SUVs, vans, etc.) as distinct classes of investment opportunities, and managing them as an investment manager would a client’s portfolio.

Challenge 2: Lower cost sourcing of vehicles.…

The last quarter of the year rolls around and you begin to hear some common refrains:

• "We are waiting until the first of the year"
• "Starting in January I am going to..."
• "We have to wait until spring when business picks up"
• "The first of the year I am really going to get into it."

Here's the reality for most people who make these statements: The calendar is the only thing that changes.

If you are waiting for the calendar to change…

Car dealers have been perfecting the best strategies to implement paid search campaigns.   It is common for dealers to ask me how much of their budget should be allocated to Google Adwords, Automotive SEO, Cars.com, or Autotrader.com.

In…

Take a look at most dealership websites and you will notice that the vast majority of them are weighted heavily in favor of sales. In fact, if you take a look at their digital fixed-ops content you will notice that it accounts for about 5-15% of the websites real estate. Why do you think that is?

Take this statistic from Google Automotive: 40% of automotive searches are for service, parts, repair, and maintenance. Taking that into consideration and the fact…

Technology has a double edged sword and equally can be "our killer" as much as it can be our "life savior". It also holds opportunity and our success at hand.

The biggest and most important problem I see for many car dealers is that most fall into being a "follower" and not "leader". Our concern and effort to what others are doing has much time, money and focus invested…

There are many mistakes made by dealers on Facebook. We detail the most egregious ones here from time to time in an attempt to help others not make the same mistakes. There's one mistake in particular that is almost unforgivable for the simple reason that it's so darn easy while being pretty darn effective. Dealerships are so…

Exploring the benefits to car dealers from partnerships between website suppliers and Google...

There are many people in this world who would rather do time than to update the Apps on their tablet or smartphone. The conspiracy theorist in many of us feel if we elect to hit the Update All button, life as we know it will all come crashing down…and they couldn’t be more right. We may be dogmatic in working to protect our…

This is a story about a phone call I received several months ago from a service director who had recently attended our NCM^® Institute class, Principles of Service Management I. Although not her real name, I’m going to call her “Debbie” throughout the…

As social signals continue to rise in prominence when it comes to search engine rankings, there has been a revival in the need for retweets. Google and Bing are assigning a certain level of importance on the sheer organic numbers that are gained when it comes to social sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, and Twitter is the…

It's the Christmas season and Santa Claus is everywhere you look. It's also the time of year to reflect on the year past and look forward and plan the new year. Santa Claus is a great sales model in both cases.

First of all, Santa Claus rewards you based upon the past year. If you were a good boy or girl you get rewarded. Ask yourself if you were a good boy or girl…

We teach,closing, if i could would you, build value, demo demo demo!, Well they are going to take what they are told and apply it in the least painful way for them. We need to make sure that they are well rounded and skilled at all of the steps in the sale not just certain sections. The rah rah meetings are not building skills.....and Skills make the dealership profit, Good CSI, and make life much easier for them and us!

Most of them are good people who really try hard, but in…

Is Bad Advice Costing You Money?

Watch this message on how to avoid Bad Advice.

Ed & Lon Safko Speak To Social Media For Auto Dealerships from Lon Safko on Vimeo.

This time of the year was always interesting to me, I would get to sit back and watch the salesman cruise through December because they are all convinced that everyone is on vacation or they aren't buying cars becuase they are out Christmas shopping and that this was a month to just get what you can get and move on. Well I changed all that by  taking the philosophy that they will not work on GOALS anymore. Instead we implemented a system of monthly Expectations. The difference being that…