Check out this blog by Tori Hoffman as she talks all about how important your actions are to customer.

Do What You Say!

Sounds simple enough right? You’d think so, but unfortunately a lot…

The NCMi faculty members and the NCM Retail Operations field consultants have learned that managers who effectively manage the elements of “controllable profitability” within their respective operating departments normally produce a significant departmental net profit. This, of course, assumes that the majority of dealership expenses (limited-control and fixed) are fairly distributed to each operating department.

Many managers, however, lack the proper focus on controllable…

I bet you thought Internet fame means increased sales for your business. Nope. Just ask Chuck Testa. The California taxidermist became an internet phenomenon when he released this comically…

Work the service drive. That’s grist for the weekly sales meeting. The General Sales Manager wants his sales team talking to the service customers. This is smart for a number of reasons:

a) The service customer is familiar with service team and presumably comfortable with the dealership as a whole.

b) The service customer is statistically more likely to buy a car at the dealership where they service their car.

c) There is more information about the service customer and…

Another prediction that I wrote about has come true.  Change is in the air again at Google.  Paid Search just took a big step forward or backwards, depending on how you think.  It's called "Google Cars"

In November 2011, I wrote about a product called "…

I was brought into a discussion today with a dealer who is considering hiring a new digital marketing agency. This is a common occurrence within the automotive community since I offer my advice regarding vendors, products, and services to dealership executives seeking a third party opinion.

This conversation was interesting in that the agency…

Good morning Dealer Elite Members, True Car is back for a second round.....

As I mentioned in my post last week there are big changes coming in the automotive space. True Car has learned from their past mistakes and hopefully has a little more respect for dealerships this time. Their president a former Nissan executive visited the Auto News office last week and was featured on their site this morning.

Here is the link:…

A traveling salesman had come to the end of a long day and was very hungry. He had not made many sales and was feeling a little frustrated with his results. He decided to stop and get something to eat and mull over his next step.

He stopped in town, parked on Main Street and looked around. He found two restaurants side by side.  Above each there was a sign.

The one on the left said “Food, more…

Today, more than ever, online reviews can make or break your month selling vehicles.  We can search for online reputation management companies and we will get hundreds if not thousands of opinions on how to manipulate the system of posting positive reviews.  Many of these companies state that they have a secret to help your dealership look like they are flawless.  This is done utilizing a lot of smoke and mirrors.

Studies by consumer behavior and search experts say that 7 out of 10…

(Please read Part 1 if you missed it)

Retention is critical for increasing your sales and continued sales growth. First, one of the important factors is designing a program (payplan) that will support a new hire for the first 90-120 days as this is the most critical time of their employment.…

After watching this 60 Minutes bit on The Age of Millennials, I thought to myself- oh great, apparently we are the doom of civilization. Being born in the 80’s lumped me into the Generation Y category, but I felt insulted when we were described as narcissistic praise-hounds that didn’t know how to cope with…

The truth is, selling cars and becoming a True Professional is not easy.  Yes, selling cars is easy for some and tougher for others.  With a great desk manager and some superior training you can even make good money, this series is more about how to make great money every day, not just a few time a…

It’s easy to become distracted by information junk food at work – especially when your work is the Internet. Last Friday I found myself passing the time at ActivEngage by watching an endless Youtube stream of “Call Me Maybe” mashups. My eyes glazed over as I counted down the minutes until I was free for the weekend. Suddenly I felt my…

The most trusted name in live chat brings the top ten blog posts, trends and auto news stories right to you! We monitor industry trends, current events and the auto dealer community every week to bring you the top blogs and automotive stories from around the globe. This weekly edition – driverless cars, a foolproof blog formula, and AutoTrader goes…

Hello Dealer Elite Members......

It looks like Auto Trader needs money much like Facebook did a while ago, and you know how that has gone so far!

As I travel around the country ans work with dealers on maximizing leads, traffic and driving more sales I have noticed more and more that dealerships are looking for "FREE" or low cost ways to promote their vehicles. Sites like Craigs's List and kijiji (Ebay), are currently changing the online marketing…

Just in case you missed the recent announcement, from the Google Adwords console, car dealers can now target Mobile Apps as part of their paid display advertising campaigns.  

Google's purchase of AdMob in 2009 gave them access to AdMob's network of over 300,000 mobile apps.  The app categories that can be targeted are part of Google's Play and Apple's App…

Today, a good friend and associate Karry Moore passed away after a brave fight with Cancer at the age of 40.  

Karry Moore (left) and AJ LeBlanc (right) were co-founders of Car-Mercial, a company that serves the automotive industry with cutting edge video marketing and SEO solutions.

I spoke with Karry recently and his passion for…

Auto sales are recovering because of the superior value offered by manufacturers -- not because of the economy. What else explains why auto sales recovered in 2011 while so many other economic indicators remain poor? Do increased sales volumes in 2011 mean that the US economy is recovering or is it indicative of the automobile's value proposition to the consumer?

While most agree that the economy is slowly improving, unemployment is still north of 8.3%, the real number is 11% when you…

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Check out this blog by Dan…