Good morning automotive dealers, Internet Sales Managers and Marketing Guru's,

 

First of all thank you for taking the time to take a look at my post this morning I appreciate it. The BDC experts work with a large number of dealerships all over the world and when I see something that works well I like to share it with the automotive community. I will be doing a more comprehensive post later this week. Here are some tips, which will help you Crush It on Craigslist, or other…

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I'm prepping for a big strategy meeting with a dealer group. So I decide to verify my hunch that there is big opportunity in training the call handlers for better Appointment Set, CSI, Retention and all that good stuff. I decide to listen to a bunch of calls from some of the top performing dealerships in the country, to help identify the skill differences and training opportunities.

 

Then it hit me......How could I have missed this for so long?? 

 

The…

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Glynn Rodean

Mike Schuett…

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http://dongraffautomotive.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/dongraffautomotive

http://twitter.com/DonGraffAuto…

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It’s odd how, in the fortnight that passes between these lite essays, the theme for the next one always appears out of recent dealer visits.  For example, if I write about lead response times it’s because, unexplainably, LRT became an issue multiple times in my visits during the two weeks prior. 

The issue that revealed itself this time is Over-Thinking The Lead.  I had some poor mystery shops, and from stores that should know better and do better.  When we looked for a…

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Last week, while at a dealer client, and while reviewing the mystery shop I had just done for them, I flashed on a story told to me last year by one of my teammates.  First know that this was a pretty typical mystery shop – the shopper received 2 emails and 1 phone call before the store stopped contact attempts.  Now the story:



Bob was 13 years old, in middle school for the first time, and faced with having to ask a girl to an upcoming school dance.  Like a lot of 13 year old boys…

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The OEMs and the vendor/consultant marketplace are more and more teaching dealers all about modern marketing, and I get why:  Generating good traffic these days requires lots more than a newspaper, radio, or TV ad.  We’re all being shopped on the Internet by customers, and we need to be there, and be there strong, in order to win sales.

And, so, if we train and execute…

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Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov famously tantalized his dogs by ringing a bell to alert them that food was about to be served. The dogs, soon wise enough to associate the sound of a tinkling bell with a big juicy steak, began to salivate each time the bell tolled.

This associated behavior is known as “classical conditioning,” and the parallel between the doghouse and the dealership cannot be clearer. Obviously, the incoming…

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Allowing bad processes and paying for more marketing is much like another American Classic:  How many homes do you know where there’s a nice automobile sitting in damaging sun and weather in the driveway while $300 worth of junk sits protected in the messy garage?  We do the same thing as dealers; buying new shiny things for our marketing and letting them sit outside our…

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http://www.dealeretraining.com

http://dealeretraining.tumblr.com



I am amazed at the lack of creativity out there. I wonder if automotive professionals do not think of ideas or maybe they are being lazy. I mean we all know how that goes without saying in the business. The idea here is to figure out more effective methods of reaching prospects, internet, phone, and previous walk… Continue

It is not enough to measure.



That's right, I said it.



Measuring your numbers is a waste of time if you don't do anything with the numbers you measured. In order for the numbers to mean something, you must do something with them. It is not enough to just gather and store the information.



"You must measure what you need to manage".....and...."you must inspect and evaluate the efforts of your people daily" says Don Reed, CEO of DealerPro Training… Continue

“Maintain your hours per C/P Repair Order (RO) at a minimum of 2.5” says Don Reed, CEO of DealerPro Training Solutions.

If you are currently at the national average of 1.5, then this might seem a bit of a stretch. It’s always a stretch when it’s as big as an elephant. And we know how to eat an elephant, right…..one bite at a time.

So, let’s break it down into bite sized pieces.

In the pursuit of HPRO the first thing we must have is well trained personnel. This means…

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