If you want to improve at anything, you need to put in the effort. And that…

This week, we begin our video series, What’s the Story with Ali Reda? I am happy to call Ali my great friend. He’s an outstanding coaching partner,…

In the last seven years, new vehicle gross margins have declined from four percent to two percent. If that pace continues, profit margins will be wiped out by 2025. It appears that the front-end grosses dealers enjoyed 10 or 15 years ago are never coming back.

F&I profits have made up for some of these lost profits, but this trend is not…

As the old adage goes, no one plans to fail, they just fail to plan. This could not be more true when it comes to service marketing budgets in dealerships.

As new vehicle sales and gross margins decline, it's natural to look for ways to cut expenses. But I've never understood the logic behind cutting service marketing…

This is a real question you have to ask yourself if you want to survive the automotive industry. Are you willing to do what it takes to be successful each and every day to not just work a job, but to build a career? There are many people who started in the automotive industry as a crutch until they found a “better” job. Only a small percentage, however, end…

All businesses need good leaders who know what it takes to be profitable, but also how to retain employees who are valuable to the business. Employee retention is key to profitability, as replacing someone takes a significant amount of time and effort. It can also result in lost revenue as the dealership sacrifices the opportunity to connect with and foster…

Change matters. The speed of change matters. Don’t change for change’s sake.  How to sort through it all?

Change matters and can be successfully and intelligently integrated into your lifestyle and work habits by answering three quick questions:

• Do you know your peak performance times?
• Are you prototyping for…

There are three huge ways to transform the Social Media at your Dealership

Tell Your Story

Telling your Digital Story is a huge step in the right direction. In the most recent quarterly conference call, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg indicated that stories were the next big thing, and he’s a guy that knows the next big…

It’s not my fault – but it IS my responsibility to fix it! This attitude has served me very well in my career.

All too often we get wrapped up in the finger pointing when in reality all the customer cares about is "Who's going to fix my problem?"

Once we can eliminate the blame game, we can identify the underlying issues and…

Sometimes you just need to get punched in the face to wake up. For too many days in a row, I went to work doing the same thing over and over like Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day.

There are two routes to achievement in your life. The first is conformity in which you follow the crowd down a conventional path and maintain the…

Service departments account for and absorb most of a dealership’s losses in sales and fixed expenses. That is not going away anytime soon. With new car front-end grosses declining, most dealerships will increasingly rely on service business to, well, stay in business.

The problem isn’t a lack of service business, but a shortage of qualified…

All too often, dealers are hesitant to make an investment in training new and Preowned salespeople because turnover in the sales department can be as high as 70 percent according to NADA. Service, however, has always been most dealership’s foundation for profitability. That’s where the phrase “service absorption” comes from.

For the most part,…

The word “transparency” gets floated around the automotive industry quite often – especially in the last few years. The days of “the invoice is locked in a safe at the corporate office” are gone and consumers have all of the access to data that they need. Yet some Dealerships are still trying to play the game.

I understand that dealerships need…

Dealers are constantly inundated by trainers vying for their business. These trainers promise exponential success in sales and profits when they do. Many, however, are one-shot wonders in the sense that they come in, perform their training, get your staff pumped up and leave. What happens then? Chances are the lessons or knowledge that they may have learned…

Besides producing industry-leading automotive software, the company has also created a unique workplace that recognizes and incorporates the value of play

CLEARWATER, FL – November 14, 2018 – AutoLoop LLC, the leading provider of auto industry marketing, sales, and service solutions, announced today that the company has received the 2018 “Workplace Culture Program of the Year” award from Tampa Bay Tech, Florida’s largest…

It’s a foregone conclusion that to be successful in any particular skill takes time. A lot of time! Doctors must go to college for decades, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that those graduates enter the medical field after college as an “expert” physician. Ask yourself this question: How much time do I need to invest in myself to master a particular skill?…

Columbus, OH (October 10, 2018) - Clarivoy, a pioneer and leader in automotive marketing attribution, today announced that its new product, ShoppersON™, has been selected as a finalist for the 2018 DrivingSales Innovation Cup Award, which annually recognizes the most innovative dealership solutions. Many…

There are a plethora of training programs and trainers in the automotive industry many of which have different styles, advice, and opinions. Often, those opinions vary widely. While training is indeed something I advocate in dealerships both as an ongoing initiative and for new-to-the-industry employees (no matter which department), no business can function as a…