by Kathryn Carlson

How often do your sales consultants or sales managers have to respond like this to customers to whom they’ve just presented or demonstrated a used vehicle?

“Don’t worry about that clunking noise we heard. I’ll have a technician get it fixed in a jiffy.”

“That smell will go away as soon as the carpets are thoroughly dried out.”

“After we do a front end alignment, it won’t pull to the right…

The CarChat24 beta test is almost ready to go and we would like to invite you to participate!

We are now looking for enthusiastic early adopters to participate in our beta to help us find bugs, give feedback and feature suggestions to improve our product.

What Are the CarChat24 Beta Program Details?

• Target beta start date is mid to late February.
• Beta testing period…

By now, many of you have verified your dealership’s profitability for 2011.  As most dealers, general managers and controllers understand, until we perform a final year-end reconciliation of each asset and liability account, the YTD profitability displayed on our income statement remains an unproven number.  For some of you, this verification process will result in an upward adjustment to your 2011 profitability. However, experience tells me that most dealers…

Many professional sales and sales management trainers believe that you have not "maxed out" on a vehicle buyer until that buyer initiates one additional sale (additional household vehicle or personal referral) during his/her normal purchase cycle. Mathematically, here's how the "one additional sale" concept works:  

Assume that the normal customer purchase cycle…

Sometime in your automotive management career, I’m sure that you’ve all been asked, “How do you know whether you’re winning or losing without a scorecard?” Scorekeeping and scoreboarding is a discipline that falls within each of the following major Elements of Effective Accountability Managementas discussed in previous blog posts:

• Plan your Work and Work Your Plan!

• Clearly Define and Communicate Your Expectations!

• Measure What You…

Several weeks ago we published an article that discussed the 6 Elements of Effective Accountability Management. The second of these elements, “Clearly Defining and Communicating Your Expectations,” is a critically needed, but rarely well-practiced, discipline within the retail automotive industry. You’ve heard it before: people will rise to the level of performance and/or behavior that is set for them. Mind reading is not a job requirement, in spite of what some dealership managers…

Right now, automotive dealerships across the globe are seeking ways to sell more vehicles in a market that appears to be on the upswing.  2012 will see a majority of dealerships dedicating more resources to their …

You cannot manage what you can’t measure.  As more and more consumers flock to your dealership website, you must focus your attention to optimizing the ease of which your prospects obtain information about you. …

ActivEngage was honored to have its CEO and Co-Founder Todd Smith featured as a keynote presenter as the Ignite! Dealer Summit. Todd’s workshop highlighted more than 17 easy to use and powerful online tools and …

CarChat24 will provide hosted Free Advanced Auto Dealer Chat Software for (“All Car Dealer’s NEW or Used”) after final Beta testing. Expected release in late January to early February. Hosted Advanced Chat software designed for Car Dealers FREE!

Anyone interested in this always free version should go to the appropriate URL below to register. Once we launch we will send…

Mike Martinez Joins DMEautomotive as Chief Marketing Officer

Digital Sales and Marketing Veteran to Drive Brand, Marketing and Sales Momentum of Automotive Marketing Leader

Daytona Beach, FL --…

I have trained this for years to salespeople new in the business as well as veterans and it is a great tool to bypass objections and help when a Manager or fellow salesperson takes a tun on a customer. Now before we go to far, this also is a way to make sure your process is streamlined and you don't have a rogue salesperson on you hands...you know the guy the manager asks " did you ask them about money down?" oh yeah boss they said no money down" then you go in and say we need $3000.00 down…

I try to spend at least a little time each day reading forums and blogs from outside the auto industry because I think there is a lot to learn from other business communities.  Today, I found an interesting question up for discussion, and would like to pose the same to you.

What would it take for you to leave the auto industry?

 …

We All of us at www.AutoLibrium.com are on a mission to reduce the cost of digital internet inventory marketing. It was reported to us that one web that is well known made on an average of over 50 million a month in resent past. Fifty million a month. That is unheard in these times.

There is a dealer in north Scottsdale AZ that told us that they…

Boca Raton, FL - (June 20, 2011) -- PSCars.com  today announced that it is now licensing three core components of its online vehicle shopping technologies to help dealers offer more compelling features for online shoppers on their own dealership websites.

“When we’ve shared our technologies with dealers, we inevitably hear the same question: ‘Can I get this for my website?’” says Dan Kodsi, PSCars.com CEO. “Our decision to license these…

For the past three years I have used my account at Compete, Inc. to monitor sites like DealerElite and ADM... The following charts and monthly traffic analysis is provided by Compete, Inc. which is the same marketing research company that Google frequently utilizes to measure and report on website traffic and engagement by Internet users.…

AutoTrader Acquires VinSolutions – An Auto Industry Insider’s Perspective

While I was working as a speaker at the VinSolutions sponsored “Internet Battle Plan” 3 day dealer training workshop in Kansas City on Wednesday May 18^th, Sean Stapleton (VinSolutions Chief…

Boca Raton, FL - (April 13, 2011) --  PSCars.com today revealed its new Car Configurator package that allows online vehicle buyers the opportunity to build the new or used vehicle of their choice and gives auto dealers an opportunity to interact with buyers during this important stage of the online shopping process.

PSCars.com is offering demos of its Car Configurator and other elements…