Facebook has rapidly become one of the biggest players in the SEO field. Weʼve given you tips on how to make social network marketing work for you in the past, but itʼs time for an update. Facebook is implementing a major change by making their new Timeline layout…

If you didn't get a chance to read or hear about this on Friday, here is a great, legitimate way to fight back with Google's decision to remove dealers positive reviews, leaving behind only negative and damaging a dealers reputation.It was written by Greg Goebel, CEO of Auto Dealer Monthly magazine.

No different than numerous dealers, a client of mine, 25-year dealer Mohammad Ahmed―president of Northend Motors in Canton, Mass., in the Boston area―had numerbous positive…

All too often I see dealers (and just about everyone else) posting images multiple times in the same day using a single tool. It could be Instagram, Hootsuite, Buffer, KPA Local Engage, Path, or any of dozens of great…

Recently Google started offering vanity URLs for Google Plus. The announcement stated that the vanity URLs will start being rolled out with a few verified users but it will soon become available for all users. Finally this is what many of us have been waiting for with Google+ no more massive strings of numbers in your URL now you can just have a simple short URL like…

Do You Know Where Your Business Is Going?

Do You Know How To Get There?

Written by: Randolph S. Lofgren…

You might want to re-think the ask

You want to increase the number of reviews written about your dealership on online consumer and automotive review sites, right? The first step in any review-building initiative is developing a system or process for consistently asking satisfied customers to write reviews. But if you want to accelerate your results, maybe it’s time to take another look at how you are positioning the…

Many times, many of your in store problems can be fixed by doing one simple thing. Change the culture of the store with the customers and with the employees,

I worked at a large Jeep stored that gave out a loaner car for every customer that came into service for anything including an oil change. Meanwhile we had a shuttle van that was used more as a parts van than a shuttle. I noticed many of the loaner invoices showed car being brought back with 10 miles or less on them. At the time,…

That probably sounds like a funny question, but it’s a very important one to those of us on the NCMi faculty.  Many times our instructors have had managers show up for a class, some unwilling, who think they have been around the block enough times to be able to teach it themselves. However, low and behold, those same managers will leave the class with knowledge and understanding they didn’t realize they needed. The concept behind the question is that we all learn to master skills in…

Are you making the most of your customer reviews?

A good customer testimonial offers valuable return on investment and can help push potential buyers through the buying process and into your dealership. 

Unfortunately, when we went to work to find out what makes a good customer testimonial, we found that most dealerships aren’t using the right strategies to…

Seems whenever whatever company I was working for placed an ad for a service writer, I would get a deluge of resume's, phone calls and people walking in.My first test for them was the application. If they came back in one minute or less with their name scribbled on front with "see attached" written across the application. Strike one. 

If they contacted me in some way and asked, "what is a service writer". That was usually a strike two but I wouldn't necessarily toss that one away…

People generally don’t like hearing the word “no”.

“Is there any milk left in the fridge?” “No.”

  “Have you made these copies for me yet?” “No.”

  “I can see you really like this car.  Should we go into my office and get the paperwork started?” “No.”

A "no" can be a "yes" down the road.

The third exchange above is a…

If you have been following my latest articles discussing Google Adwords, you are well aware that Google is testing new ad formats for the automotive industry.  

I have recently discussed the Google Advisor For Cars program which is very controversial.  I recently documented that Google is testing …

The truth is, I think, that www.AutoCon2012.com advertising is out of control.  Now, I *do* support www.AutoCON2012.com, but really that's because I strongly believe in the idea that dealers need great chances for education.  And I think the line-up is very, very…

We all know it's impossible to make every customer happy. There are often confusions in the automotive industry that consumers simply do not understand. They can do unreasonable things to try to get back at the dealership when they perceive that they were not treated properly.

This was a challenge a decade ago and before when word-of-mouth was arguably the most important factor in the success of a dealership.…

The walls are a physical barrier.  The walls also represent a conceptual barrier to many.  The walls, whether physical or conceptual, separate.   And, that is bad!   The           walls act like demarcation lines that shouldn’t be crossed lest you dare enter into foreign or perhaps even enemy territory.  The rules of engagement crossing into or between these walls may be an…

I don’t know about you but nothing ticks me off more than a sales person sitting on their a** waiting for the up bus to pull into the lot and hand deliver them a deal on a silver platter. Let’s face it there are more of these untrained, unmotivated just don’t seem to care sales consultants than ever before.…

Overview

We often forget the best clients are the sold clients in our CRM's.

At last week’s semi-annual meeting of NCM’s divisional directors, 20 Group moderators, Retail Operations consultants, and NCM Institute faculty members a good discussion developed around the topic of Service Advisor Compensation. The common questions that several on our staff were seeking answers for were as follows:

1. Has there been any significant change in advisor compensation…

Having looked back over nearly two decades of automotive advertising from newspapers to niche auto and RV magazines, I find it interesting that nothing has changed. The methodology and strategy has had no improvements which begs to ask: are the results getting any better or are they continuing to diminish?

One of…