As we all know over 90% of consumers are online when researching and deciding which vehicle that he/she want's to purchase which leads to the inevitable that we must fish where the fish are.  Research reveals that effective Internet advertising not only provides dealers with greater reach to car shoppers but can also successfully attract car buyers from outside the…

I have learned a lot during the 25 years that I owned my own business. Shortly before I retired from the salon/day spa, Facebook was becoming mainstream and the discovery process of how it could benefit the business was evident.

 The opportunity to market on every level through client engagement…

We all have listened to the untrained sales professional or Internet Coordinator spend half an hour selling the car to a customer over the phone; and the worst part about it is once he/she gives away all the info the majority of the time you never see the customer show up that he/she was talking to.  The sales professional or Internet Coordinator of today must have a…

We all are aware of the fact that we only have a 11-14% connection ratio when contacting Internet leads.  And we also know that the hardest part of the job for Internet Coordinators is getting people on the phone which leads to a very valid point that we must ask and that is are we maximizing all avenues for reaching out to consumers versus just calling the…

Okay, you got me! This article has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with you.

On a daily basis I analyze dealer websites which I’m convinced had the same content writer. Have you ever seen websites with sentences that read like this, “Our team of…

Are you building value during your presentation/demonstration?

In Part 3 of this series I'll go over the issue of spending some time outside of work perfecting your skills.  As we know in the automotive industry when you start your career most never receive any real training or if there is…

I had the pleasure of watching a very informative webinar last night that really brought home the importance of having a robust dealership presence online.

I truly enjoy studying the shift in advertising from the traditional way of doing business to the modern way of doing…

Most companies are paying to rank for some keywords, but many ignore their own brand name when setting up their pay per click (PPC) system. On the surface, this makes perfect sense. Why would you pay to rank for the one term you’re pretty much guaranteed results for? If your company name is fairly unique, you are going to be on the first page for a search of it, right?…

There is a combination of hope and fear in the automotive industry. On one hand, many dealers and vendors are really starting to "get it" when it comes to automotive internet marketing. Dealers are finally embracing the internet as the primary arena through which to market their dealerships and vendors are starting to…

I don't think I will find an argument for readers that the marketing and compliance knowledge needed to operate a dealership profitability has been increasing exponentially.  The challenge for Dealer Principals and General Managers is how to best keep up with the changes in our industry.

Executives need to be able to have productive conversations with vendor partners which in turn will allow…

Greetings, everyone!



I often hear this in dealerships and it drives me crazy: “Today with the Web, clients know more about cars than the salespeople!”

And the sad fact is that this is often true… How can this be?  Do sales staff not have the same access to the Internet and do they not have the latest information at all times?

It’s an open secret that consumers have drastically…

Http://www.seanvbradley.com 

Lets keep it as "real" as possible... We are in the car business for one reason... TO MAKE MONEY!!  If you want to hug trees and save the earth, you are in the wrong industry. Don't get me wrong, you can make a ton of money…

There are a ton of numbers in the various analytics programs out there. Many are worthless. Others are even misleading. The concept of analytics is to help us to analyze the performance of our websites. Unfortunately, they often do little in the way of analysis and more in the way of promotion.

It's for this…

An alarming trend has arisen on the Internet side of automotive sales and it is called "Email Template Theft" (ETT for short). This may be happening to your Internet sales team right now or your team could even be the guilty party. Have you ever received an internet lead who never responded and just seemed downright suspicious? Could these leads have been submitted by your local competition? 

As an Internet Director, it certainly happened to me…

http://www.internetsales20group.com 

AutoByTel Is Sponsoring & Attending The Internet Sales 20 Group... Are You Going…

The time for transparency has arrived.  There are no more secrets online, and consumers know that filtered and manipulated dealer reviews only confirm that a dealer is not being candid on their website. 

At Carfollks.com we enable good dealers to leverage "the truth" in their marketing to create powerful connections with customers to establish real…

One day a received a call from Paul Sansone Jr., a well known name in the New Jersey car business.   He operates a dealership near my offices and he reached out to tell me about a new product he was developing for car dealers.   I love entrepreneurial passion and Paul has leveraged his lifelong experience in the automotive industry with a cool new…

http://www.pinebeltauto.com/

Congratulations to Martin D'Amato, Internet Director of Pine Belt Automotive in Toms River, NJ! 

Martin oversees 4 dealerships that are Delivering…