How many times have I asked a sales person, "Have they driven the car?" Do you have any idea how many times I hear, They drove it at the other dealer or they don't have time to drive it or my favorite. They already own one that is three years old.  Really?  You are going to waste all that time on a write up when your chances of closing a deal without a demo…

Throughout my 40+ years in the automotive business, I always thought there would come a time when I would leave and take a 9am - 5pm job with holidays, multiple weeks of paid vacations and other normal job aspects. It never happened. No matter how bad of a day I might have had, I always found myself driving home thinking to myself ow much I loved this business. 

In my years as a mechanic, I love fixing cars. As I rose through management I loved fixing problems with customers,…

Read this latest blog by one of our Account Managers Hayley Berger, as she talks about how important your relationship as a dealership is with your customers.

When we think of intros we usually think of the song a baseball player walks out to, or a little :10 second clip before a TV…

Twitter is growing quickly as a social network, and as it does, businesses are cluing into the fact that they can connect with a whole new market by maintaining a Twitter account. It can be tough to get the hang of posting on the site, but remembering a few simple tips can help.

• Think twice about automating your tweets. It’s tempting to…

When it comes to our data and how it affects our business, how we can and must make money with it, retail automotive needs to wake up!  We need an "Internet Moment"--but, first, what the heck is that?  Understand that the "Internet Moment" was birthed this way at a very famous company:  The mid 90’s were a crazy time at Microsoft. The Internet was taking off, and it had left…

General consensus in advertising today is usually that the most effective advertising is specifically targeted to a narrow field of people that you want to reach. For years this has been accomplished with complicated technology and it has definitely shown performance improvements from non-targeted to targeted ads. This level of targeting has never been available for…

Is It Time To Reevaluate Your Opinion About TrueCar?

I have seen many issues polarize dealers, and at times energize them during my 30 years in the car business. Very few issues have rallied so many people in the auto industry to cry out than the advent of TrueCar’s advertising…

Former General Motors U.S. sales and marketing boss Mark LaNeve has been named chief operating officer at Ford's agency Team Detroit.

Mark LaNeve…

AutoCon 2012 Announces TrueCar Sponsored Full Ride Scholarship Program

Automotive Media Partners, LLC and First Class Educators are proud to announce the creation of a scholarship program sponsored by TrueCar of Santa Monica, California. TrueCar’s pioneering sponsorship of this program provides the…

Like buying a car, your customer has a choice when it comes to service. Your odds of winning that business dramatically increase, if you are on the phone with your customer, at the point the need for service is created. AutoMBrace was created to fill this void.. Contact us through Dealer Elite.  

Fewer cars, lower margins – AutoMBrace understands that the dealerships profits come from the service department. Service revenue depends on selling service to your customers and,…

THE  INTIMIDATION NETWORK ZEROING IN ON CHICK-FIL-A

By James A. Ziegler

Recently I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with the concentrated attack on Chick-Fil-A regarding statements made by CEO, Dan Cathy concerning his views on Gay Marriage.

I have seen blogs and social media attacks on Chick-Fil-A stating they discriminate against gays and mistreat gays, which is TOTALLY untrue. Chick-Fil-A has NO policy concerning their gay employees or gay customers.

And, now we’re…

    In the beginning, there were only customers, and all were good. 

    You expected to sell about one out of four customers, and sometimes you even sold one out of three.

    You did a great greeting and then ran through the steps as far as you could.  If they didn’t go ahead, you just had a manager talk to them, shook it off and went to get another one.

    You did this a lot, people bought cars,  and they called your success beginners luck.

    After a while…

Where have all the cowboys gone?

That was a great song from the ninety’s right? Well maybe not such a great song but it was the song played over and over and over. For some reason on my way to the dentist this morning this song popped in my head because I’ve really been wrestling with the fact that the cowboy…

"Dealer traffic volumes are expected to decline 20% by 2013, causing a 25% drop in revenue that will force car dealers to adapt to an *increasingly difficult environment and try new methods to keep customers coming back." says J.D. Power

This information was published on the home page of Yahoo News in the fall of 2010.

Have you established…

Does anyone remember when car dealers thought the Internet was not going to impact their business and that they did not need it? Heck I sure do because I was behind a desk at a store and remember it like it was yesterday.  Well now we are faced although in a smaller scale a similar question, “Do I really need a mobile website”?

My goal of this blog is to give you some statistics and patterns that will certainly open your eyes as to what is happing in the automotive segment and what is…

Facebook page posts can now target multiple audiences with many more options.

Over the next few weeks, Facebook Page admins might start to notice a strange button that looks a lot like a deer-shooting-target from a rifle gun. Could this possibly be a new targeting feature? Yes, yes it is. This targeting feature, called Page Post Targeting, is similar to…

Whether you are teeing off on the way to a 300+ yard drive or you hit a baseball deep to center field 420 feet. It took seeing where the ball will go before even swinging, it took practice in order to hit the ball straight toward the area you wanted it to land and it takes a continued commitment toward training to become better each and every day.

In our industry a lot of sales consultants and managers rely on luck rather than perusing their wants and desirers through dedication,…

Last week I attended NCM’s semi-annual meeting of all its divisional directors, 20 Group moderators, Retail Operations consultants, and NCM Institute faculty members, who, along with our CEO set aside two and a half days to dialogue about what’s happening around the industry and within the company, and how best to address the needs of our clients.  As usual, it was a great encounter, with far too much agenda content and discussion for the overall time allotted.

One of the topics that…

The “7 Habits” of a Strong Internet Sales Process

Why our Internet Sales Process matters more now than it ever has, and the seven key points we must execute to be successful.

By: Henry Staniecki

Advanced customer-attracting tactics like SEO and Social Media Marketing are a big focus in the retail automotive industry right now. A great many tools are being developed by every vendor imaginable to take advantage of the latest…