During a sales meeting, the question of why the company no longer has a stock pile of tri-fold brochures to hand out to potential clients came up.  I scratched my head and looked puzzled, since we have not used a single tri-fold brochure in over a year.  As a company, we moved away from outdated marketing tools and adopted high tech and interactive tools to meet the requests of our clients.  It was then…

The word “social” in social network can be a bit misleading when building an online brand for your company.  Social networking was born out of the concept of sharing one’s personal life and not professional endeavors.  Today, people as well as companies are using social media to drive personal and professional branding.  Social networking is still a format that is deeply embedded in personal…

To build your personal brand that attract prospects and referrals, gain customers by beating out the competition and ultimately increase yours sales; you must differentiate and stand out.  Here are three focus areas that will help you build your own personal brand: 



Under Promise, Over Deliver.  Many sales people will do less than they promise while chasing a sale.  Their…

I wanted to share some feedback I received from our Chicago Pitstop.

One of the dealers said to me that not only was the education some of the best he received, but the fact that he could bring multiple people from his dealership for less that the price of going to a larger conference was priceless.

His team was able to attend all 12 workshop session and he was so excited for the knowledge his team will be able to bring back to their dealership and impact production…

CRM: “Customized Relationship Marketing” or “Continually Representing Me”. Michael Tyman of Professional Success, Inc. shares his views.

The CRM is a “customer relationship management” tool that works as a large repository of customer information, but it can be so much more powerful if you unlock its true potential. To…

Many new car dealers know that something is not right with their service departments or for that matter with their dealership business model as a whole. Customer loss rates are at all time high, "Right To Repair" legislation is seemingly hanging over like a "sword of Damocles" and profits margins are shrinking across the board. I bet in almost every franchised new car dealership, management meetings are being held to discuss how to tackle these challenges and I can imagine the nature of some…

Friends and Colleagues,

There was some exciting news shared with me, and I think it is going to have a big impact on our industry in the near future.  



Briefly let me explain:  I have been using this system to take care of my automobile clients since October of 2007; and I think it is the perfect tool for a salesperson in the automotive industry to keep track of their clients, send cards to congratulate them on their new purchase (with a photo or…



Word of mouth advertising – it’s not almost a cliché, it IS a cliché. But it’s one we must be mindful of, because it’s the one thing in advertising that not only hasn’t changed, but is even more important today than ever.

With the Internet and digital advertising, Social Media and Dealer Reviews, word of mouth advertising rules. Everything we say and do can…

Remember that girlfriend or boyfriend that was just too clingy for you? Insecure, always seeking approval, or going overboard in trying to make you happy? Or worse yet, one date, and the person treats the relationship as if you're married.

Apparently, Toyota has the same problem -- only it's the one in the relationship being overly clingy, according to Stanley Bing, columnist for Fortune magazine.

He recounts in his latest column,…

The newest keeping up with the Jones’s marketing trend is Social Media Marketing.  Social Networking has found a home in American Capitalism as the twenty-something crowd has become a strong demographic in today’s enterprise.  Business hours have been replaced with 24/7 virtual access to your dealership.  Social Media Marketing has become a channel for customer support, service and satisfaction. …

Social Media is not kids play any longer.  Social Networking has found a home outside of the college dorm and into main stream capitalism.   More and more businesses globally are adopting Social Media Marketing Plans.  Social Media is one of the newest tools available to the global economy, but how does it affect your business?  Why should you invest some of your marketing resources in the…

The Role of On-Page SEO Content: Relevance, Not Rankings

People love to talk about the ways that search engines determine their rankings. I always advise our clients to stay away from trying to find "the edge of the algorithm" or any practices that are manipulative because of the risk these tactics carry, but the search engines continue to have many limitations on what they can do, and how they interpret what they see.

Therefore it is prudent…

Failure doesn’t mean you were dump to try; it means you had courage to explore and experiment to see what would work and what would not.

Failure doesn’t mean you don’t know how to make decisions; it just means you have to make another decision.

Failure doesn’t mean you’re a failure… It does mean you haven’t succeeded yet.

Failure…

Hey what’s up? I wanted to share this powerful lesson with you today.  You see I am a father and husband and a busy man at…

Mobile Marketing – Will it Work for Car Dealers?

By NEIL GALE, Ph.D.

Let’s explore some of the different kinds of mobile advertising that are currently available for car dealers and how they work. Marketing on a mobile phone has become increasingly popular ever since the rise of Short Message Service (SMS) in the early 2000’s when businesses started to collect mobile phone numbers and sent wanted or unsolicited text…