As I travel around North America I hear it again and again, the service at the dealership I went to was the problem.

I was on a plane yesterday and had a chance to speak with quite a few "real" car customers and I asked them what there experience has been the last time they were at their local car dealership. Here is what they had to say.....

One: The first person I spoke to said he had called his local Honda Dealership and asked if…

I just finished a meeting with one of my long term clients toady and wanted to share some details on how powerful "Accurate" information really is at a dealership.

First of all let me give you a little of the back story on this dealership and the challenges they faced before we started working with them.

This dealership had a service BDC with no process and was essentially a second switchboard handling thousands of calls with limited results.…

The Right Process is the key to success in every industry period.

Most business professionals already know that process is what drives success. most if not all of the worlds most successful companies depend on it. Companies like McDonalds, Starbucks, Disney, Hilton to name just a few. The big challenge facing the automotive industry today is not the "Road to the Sale" it's all the other things we do that are not process driven.

Simple things like…

I used to be a product demonstrator for Soda Stream last spring in 2011 and I had fun talking about the product and meeting every skeptical question dead on with a great answer. Soda Stream is a product where you make your own seltzer with compressed CO2 and add soda and seltzer flavors. I just started up again this Saturday, March 17 2012 and fell right back into the old routine and was just as knowledgeable and…

As a child when your parents asked you to do something, it meant now!!! When you were asked to do something in school, it was right now!!!

If you truly understand people today, we live in an instantaneous gratification society. People decide on something, they want it now!!! Not only now, do they decide to spend money, buy…

Are traditional Marketing tactics and sales tactics really dead?

Should your sales and marketing team abandon the tactics they have used for years?

Here is a video that states just that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-lGe5MnBlY&feature=youtu.be

This has been a sore point…

Good morning automotive world,

There is a little company called Honda who has sold automotive products for years on it's reputation alone. In 2011 the Earthquake, stronger products from US car companies and a boring product line was changing the playing field. Not to mention heat from Hyundai and it's sister company Kia.

Ford Motor Company had also also proved that it could appeal to the traditional Import buyer as well and even Subaru was becoming more hip.…

Good Morning Automotive universe......

As I travel around North America setting up Business development centers for dealerships I get asked the following question quite often. How can we convince our current sales team to reach out to more customers and enlist them to help the Business Development Center?

The answer is quite simple really, convince them that in order to make a great living and "work less" over time they need to build their…

Good morning automotive world.......

As a performance consultant for Proactive Dealer Solutions I travel around North America helping dealerships contact their customer base and help them grow their business. These same dealerships ask my advise on a regular basic on CRM's and which one they should select to maximize BDC and make it easy for their staff as well.

This is always a challenging question, but I never back down from a challenge in my life. Here are…

Proactive Dealer Solutions has worked with thousands of dealers all over North America for over 20 years now.  We get asked all the time what is the secret to your success with automotive dealers?  The answer is simple we bring processes that work, and dedicated staff that works with dealers to create, rehabilitate, or expand a team of experts who work with management to grow automotive dealerships all over North America.

The bigger question is why have dealers waited…

As an Internet and Social Media nut I love technology. I also love the fact that there are companies in the market who are trying to help Dealerships sell more cars. There have been websites for years that have sold consumers invoice pricing and of course Automotive brokers have also be playing games with consumers for years now.



Before you make a decision on True Car you need to read these articles:…

Looking to reach customers that are in your area right now?

Sick of spending thousands on marketing that just does not deliver the customers?

Think Social Media is a passing fad?

Facebook just bought Gowalla!

I just learned that one of the heavy hitters in Social Media a little known company called Facebook just bought http://gowalla.com/, which is…

Customers never buy things based on price alone........

If you don't believe me take a look at Starbucks or Apple computer. What dealerships need to realize is customers can buy vehicles anywhere and most brands have great product lines as well. The question is what are you doing to attract new customers and maintain your existing customers by creating an amazing customer experience. Think about your local high end hotel, that dry cleaner or grocery store that…

The reality is your staff is failing because there is no process, no game plan and you are leaving money on the table! The question is are you sick of wasting advertising dollars only to have customers choose not to do business with your dealership?

The first impression customers get over the phone is critical and "Making it up", or shooting from the hip just…

We have been helping Dealerships all over North America for over 20 years now. We have been working with Sales, Service, Internet, and of course Social Media departments as well.

The Fantastic thing about "Most" service departments that we work with now is Dealerships have a large database of customers but they are not "helping" thier customers manage the service of thier vehicles. For example if all your service team did was bring all or most of your active service customers in "one"…

Good morning Automotive world.....

The BDC Experts have been training Automotive professionals how to drive traffic and create more business for dealerships across Canada, the United States and Australia for many years now. The question is does your dealership want more sales, service and Internet business?

The next question is do you have a plan to get to that next level or like most dealerships are you just setting a growth target without a "game-plan".…

Good morning,

Like most of you, training is a large part of what I do everyday. Maybe more than most of you since I work with dealers and training is part of my job. Either way in order to manage people, improve what your team does or in order to spend less time micromanaging your team training is critical.

As you may know there are three stages to learning anything in life. The first step is to have an understanding of what the training is about or the Why?…

Good morning,

I have been using Linked in for years to make connections and to build my personal business network. I have also used it as a fantastic sales toll to sell cars and to sell our services as well. I felt that it made sense to share some of the things I had learned, and here is the first in a series of video's on Linked in.

Here is the link: …

As we fly around North America and other parts of the world one of the most common problems we see is cherry Picking and High turnover.

Cherry Picking: When a room is understaffed and the staff really can’t handle the call volume they tend to run through the calls they need to make and pick out the low hanging fruit or the east opportunities. This also happens on the show room floor at most dealerships. Some sales staff and managers believe they can spot the buyers, so they…