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IM@CS Gary May Interviewed By Automotive Digest At #DSES

Chuck Parker and the Automotive Digest team were at DrivingSales Executive Summit and J.D. Power & Associates Automotive Marketing Roundtable October 21-25 interviewing top executives and industry leaders. This is part of my interview, focusing on how mobile is affecting change in the automotive indsutry.

Luke Wroblewski spoke to the DSES crowd about the impact of mobile, however the industry is still lagging behind consumer trends and usage plus analytics and mobile-ready content. This is a huge opportunity for dealerships…


 

 

I fought the law and the law won…? Bullshizzle!

From time to time, it’s good to get a strong dose of
perspective or reality, depending who is describing reality. It’s easy to see
why business owners, and especially car dealers, are so confused when it comes
to doing anything, let alone well, in the digital/online space. Diluted
solutions that favor data over results and backed more by marketing genius than
true muscle are more common than wannabe starlets at Hugh Heffner’s gigs at the
mansion.

Our reality comes in doses while checking out new markets, our
client’s competitors, vendors’ pitch materials or the information the factory
eCommerce rep brings around to dealers, from time to time.

The information age is lacking in one large area for
businesses; in correct information! In a day where so called experts are giving
misleading or incorrect directions, ad agencies are still F-bombing (oops,
errant posts to) client social media accounts, SEO companies are still using
offshore link/content farms and studies show, for some reason, that 2009 data
still needs to be shared on stage as new, not enough people are calling folks
out. No, those companies are still getting hired and you’re still using them!

Reality check is you have to consume large amounts of
correct information at breakneck speed today to keep up. Mind you, we’re not
talking about leading, just keeping up. And most dealers aren’t doing
that.

Sure, everyone knows how to eat an elephant. Right? one bite
at a time. But trying to take a sip of the digital waters, for most, has been
like drinking from a fire hose or the bottom of a waterfall. A little
overbearing! Car dealers…get out of your comfort zone and take a big gulp!!

As you prepare to start 2013, here are a few things to think
about and maybe, just maybe, put to action:

  • Your website should not be the same as your
    closest in-brand competitor. This is not a vendor thing; it’s a content thing.
  • Your emails should not be the same as any local
    competitor. This is not a vendor thing; it’s a people thing.
  • Your social network content should not be the
    same as any local competitor. This is not a vendor thing; it’s a smart thing.

In 2013, the manufacturers clearly want their stores to be
as uniform as possible: experience, showroom, content, website/mobile, email
and more. Fight it tooth and nail.  The
majority of endorsed vendors are not there for you, they are there for
them.  The norm sucks…so don’t settle for
it.

The more consumers expect a unique experience, the more our
industry fights it. Why? Because it’s not easy to do things that way; even
though more of you are just giving in.

The smallest portion of the budgets in our industry, still,
happens to be the digital ones. This is a top-down mentality, starting with the
manufacturers. Oh, and don’t let the desire to govern response times and having
your wrists slapped over a vehicle image with the wrong lug nuts stop you from
having a kick ass digital presence and drive more customers to your front door.
Do things right the first time and get wet. Get really, really, really, really
wet from the digital hose. It’s the only way to lead.

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

 

Digital Signals: Hate The Player Or Hate The Game?

No matter how much it’s discussed, there are still massive
amounts of misinformation in addition to retail kick back in regard to social
media in general and what it does specifically for car dealerships. However the
simple question still remains the same: why?

It’s almost 2013 and some social signals are already making
a significant impact on local search queries and a couple networks are
absolutely affecting search engine optimization. Almost nobody at the OEM
level, not one of the existing enterprise social media providers and most
vendors have demonstrated proper use, understanding or leverage of social to
benefit you. It’s sad, however most dealers aid in this continuing and continue
to buy “services” from them…

If you’ve simply hired a social media company to “manage”
your social network content, you’ve likely made zero or near-zero impact on
local search as well as branding, defending SERP positions and a list of other
benefits. We see this continually via mediocre dealership Facebook pages,
auto-feed only Twitter accounts, automated blog posts copied onto hundreds, yes
hundreds, of other dealership blogs and copied Pinterest photos; the result? Complete
disconnect from people on their networks.

“But it’s not selling cars!” or “I don’t care about that
social garbage, that’s not what we do”, or “When it shows results, we’ll jump
on it properly” responses demonstrate that what’s happening in digital simply
hasn’t sunk in. Yes, there’s lots of talk, just very little good action, let
alone great. So are you going to hate the player or hate the game?

Most simply want to hate the game, not who’s doing it at the
dealership or outsourced to (aka the player). 
Some hate the player recognizing that the game is not to blame. However,
it’s neither. Our focus continues to go, inexplicitly, to BS “traditional”
marketing especially when there’s a sunny financial or industry volume
report.  There’s a near blanket of
ignorance put toward the largest, yes largest, shift in media consumption. And
we all do it. Well, over 90% of us.

How can you book an airline ticket online after checking
Kayak or Travelocity, or buy a pair of boots you’ve never tried on before with
glowing reviews, or even do a stock trade on your phone, tablet or computer
followed by sharing your gain on Facebook and then turn around and ignore
what’s happening with the socialization of media and search?

Digital signals are unavoidable. More importantly,
everything we do affects how others consume products and media, let alone
search.

So hate the player if you want, or hate the game if you’ve
got a louder voice or bigger fist, but when you finally decide to pay
attention, make investments, educate staff properly and turn the tides in your
favor, don’t complain if it’s too late or that someone else is eating your
lunch. It’s already happening.

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

The Difference Is One Letter…And What It Gets You Is Much More

Many times people ask me why IM@CS is not a training company, even though plenty of people call what we do by the "T" word. The response every single person receives, for the last five years – and emphatically – is that people despise being trained. People, more successful ones for sure, love learning. In short, we've never had a staff member at a client that ever deserved such a low pat of the attention span.

Education, however, is what people and businesses that want to succeed tune into. There are plenty of trainers to choke 17,000 new car franchises to death, and then some. There are so very few educators, especially in the digital space. That aren't beholden to vendors they recommend (read: if you take a fee from a client and a commission from a vendor, that's called a conflict of interest). That don't work at a store 40 hours a week (read: that's an employee, not a consultant). That learn from outside the industry (read: recirculating existing data, quotes, white papers and results from others is simply an affront).

Education, for the few that want it, is the only thing that moves our industry forward. "Getting back to the basics" and "blocking and tackling", while called for and part of daily operation especially when things drop through the cracks, is needed. However, you can't increase results from eCommerce, increase your SEO footprint, establish social media signals, improve your email lead response rate or conquest a new market or brand by "doing what has always worked".

This week brought a great opportunity to share what might be considered as more "digitally savvy" dealerships and vendors in a conversation with an industry colleague. He happens to be someone that I respect, having OEM, portal and agency experience including outside automotive. He asked, among other items, what we're most proud of that we were able to do with a now, more-successful client. My response was that he should ask them, not me…

You see, training is something you do everywhere for everybody that "needs it". Education is something that you provide with varying degrees of success, seeing the results later through your clients and only for those that absolutely want or will kill for it.

One thing I've always been passionate about in providing services to different business over the past twenty plus years is watching their growth. By providing turnkey services or an enterprise-wide platform, as needed as those services are, the baseline is so muted. That doesn't get me or the team of people I get to work with up in the morning. What does is making a difference through education and then supporting the education. Anyone call sell or buy a widget. And many will tell you their widget is better or drives better results. Bulls**t. The people using the widget to their best capability win. Remember who people buy cars from? The least educated one, right?

So what's the difference between training and education? Education is one letter longer. And likely the only thing keeping your dealership back from excellence…

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

 

Are You Waiting? Still? Well…..Goodbye!

This is officially the beginning of the end for many. December 27, 2011. There will be a moment over the next couple to handful of years in which you'll reflect back to this post (or others like it) and say "oh crap". Or it may be the longer rendition which usually sounds something like "Why did I allow me to get in my way over and over again? Why did I shut down and refuse to change, giving garbage excuses?"

As time went on from December 27, 2011 Acute Death by Delusional Digital Defiance, we'll call it ADDDD for short, you invested more and more in the comfort zone, allowing vendors to do with you money and brand what they wanted and would essentially squandering opportunities while you were convinced you were actually doing something. Your business was actually disappearing at the same time everything looked the same from your vantage point behind the desk or golf cart steering wheel.

And who could blame you? You read the ads in the trades and took advice from your 20 Group and absorbed the Powerpoint presentations. You wrote the checks. You took the training, however often that someone actually showed up and you attended the conferences. It never dawned on you that everything you relied so heavily on was the white elephant in the room. You took the easy way out instead of asking the tough questions and not believing the hype. Simply put you allowed yourself to fail.

Why did this happen? You didn't take the road less traveled when the paths diverged in the woods. As far as you knew, you believed it wasn't supposed to be about "hard work" anymore: you're senior management or, better yet, a business owner. Add to that the whole "Internet thing" was just too difficult to understand and should be handled by young kids and "people who text a lot and surf the web".

So wind it down now so you don't experience the slow, deliberate march of self-induced death. Ignore the articles from Joe Webb prodding the salespeople that you mistreat (http://bit.ly/rVN66B) and from HubSpot on Harvard Business Review about Google changes (http://bit.ly/ub6iOH) that your website company will not talk about, or some trends to capitalize on (http://bit.ly/rU9VAt) and what's going on with mobile (http://bit.ly/smRSOt) from Search Engine Watch. You've been reading all of these…right?

Nope…"too busy running a business". More like "too ignorant to run a business"

So while you idly wait for the inevitable why don't you ask:

Your website company why:

  1. your pages have the same names and metadata
  2. you don't have model and trim level landing pages
  3. you don't have separate tracking numbers
  4. you don't have original content on your pages (heard of Google Panda?)
  5. you don't have a truly optimized mobile presence
  6. you can't track conversions on Google Analytics or your PPC/SEM
  7. they don't truly offer eCommerce
  8. their proouction team doesn't talk with their marketing team (ie SEO to SEM)
  9. they lack in customer support
  10. they're not up to date on what's happening with Google and social

Your CRM company why:

  1. you can't track email opens, bounces, links, shares, etc.
  2. you can't change headers and footers dynamically
  3. they don't append and integrate for text/mobile delivery
  4. you are still on servers and not on the cloud
  5. they don't offer true mobility
  6. they can't make lead duplication management much easier
  7. data "siloing" still existst (lead based: service/sales/finance)
  8. they're not up to date on what's happening with Google and social

Your social media company why:

  1. they don't actually write content
  2. what they do publish is redundant and automated (ie "Caption this photo" of dogs or cats)
  3. they don't create engagement
  4. they sold you on 20+ "social media sites/platforms" when traffic comes from 4-8 of them
  5. they pitch and don't produce (and not actually active on the networks at all themselves)
  6. they are disconnected from the store
  7. they're not up to date on what's happening with Google and social

Waiting? You've been told your entire life that good things come to those that wait. Well, we're here to set the record straight. Only the leaders thrive. You can wing it today, sure. There will be "those" that still make it with no true effort. However, it is a false existence and leads to ADDDD.

The grim reaper is coming and his sickle has your business' name on it. Are you waiting? Still? Well…..Goodbye!

Thanks to @HarryHaber and @BryanCarGuy for a little insight on the list of dealer pain points… you're great friends and car guys!

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Automotive Online: Let’s Start From The Start

First, this is not a "back to the basics". The basics are constantly changing so anyone telling you to get back to anything likely can't get to the "now" things. So ignore them. If you're online in the automotive world (which should be everyone) there are a lot of things to do, keep up with, pay attention to, understand, investigate and network about. With the ongoing approach of "buy this", "you need that" and other distractions, let's look a quick look at what you should already have done:

1. Brand: The way people identify with you. Not a slogan. Not a mission statement. A brand is something people can experience at your business and take with them.

2. Staff: The right people make all the difference. It's any business's greatest asset, even if your facility cost over $50 million. Educate, listen, compel, challenge, equip and support them.

3. DMS: Are you simply using it or are you getting the greatest value out of one of the most critical pieces of technology? Hopefully you have one that gets development support behind it, provides regular training and updates and allows you to run your business from anywhere.

4. Website: Simply put it should be on technology that is up-to-date, work on all platforms and browsers, have a mobile version, integrates fully with your inventory, has a sitemap, allows full CMS access, has been submitted to all the major search engines, built on real SEO (yes, you have to pay for that), receives real updates, allows for use of video, social media and other necessary technology integration and is not controlled by your OEM.

5. Google analytics: Track your website(s). Track everything about them. Stop flying blind. It even helps you do other things.

6. Phone tracking: Why would you believe you educate and support your staff (anyone who touches a customer) without using phone tracking? You can't identify issues you don't know about and you can't teach (especially role play) without the right tools. Like someone hearing themselves.

7. Google Places: Your location, claimed by you, with all relevant details and descriptions, using photos and videos, leveraging Boost, using all provided analytics.

8. Reviews: Ask for them, explain the benefits in consumer terms (stop saying "would you do me a favor", please), display them, take care of customers that don't feel appropriately taken care of, use photos, use video and promote throughout your facility.

9. Inventory management tools: If you actually sell cars, stop using your gut and start using a tool that assists your genius mind with tools that help market your inventory, shows your pricing in the area or beyond, pushes your cars to your website and other places on the web you choose, has reporting, lets you use technology real-time on the lot and allows you to track performance wherever you are.

10. CRM: Input everything. Track everything. Measure everything. Tie it all together. And remember: the store owns the customer. The salesperson owns the relationship. Not putting all the data you can into the records in your CRM? You might as well cut a hand or foot off. It's what you're doing to your and your store's revenue potential.

11. Social networks: Get the first 10 down. First. Then call someone (not a guru).

These aren't by any means new ideas, bold suggestions, compelling insights or amazing shortcuts to your impending success. At the same time, they are grossly missed. Every day. By most dealerships in the country. It's one thing to have someone hold you back. It's an entirely other thing when you are holding you back.

If your business is not set up right,how can it perform its best?

 

Best Practices: Professional Insights, Powerful Results

 

2011 Will Be A Great Year…Even If You Don’t Participate

It's no secret that over the past three years, some pretty forward-thinking information was provided to the automotive industry franchise dealer body. All 24,000 plus of them (not ignoring the independents here, just making a point). Over the coming weeks, all 20,000 of the franchise dealers will get more critically important data. Just like before, it's up to them to participate.

2011 will be a great year. Fewer than last year will make up the bulk of increases in sales, count on it. The most web-versed, socially-minded, communication-skilled and forward-thinking will win. Many of those dealers will win impressively. So the same question bears repeating: why not more? Has the carnage not been great enough? Is there too much money in the coffers still? Or is it that management is still happy sitting on their "duffs" of the bay?

2011 will be a great year. There will be more talent available for dealers to select their next sales, service and parts teams and management from. Efficiency will increase, while hopefully not at the sake of bottom lines. In other words there should be more people working at dealerships unless dealerships ignore the potential increase to their business.

2011 will be a great year. The product lines continue to get better and consumer demand for a wider array of cars (not the same car re-badged) is greater than ever. Floor traffic at the dealers that deserve it will most definitely increase. Savvier dealer marketing and engagement will increase penetration in service departments, expect it. And many dealers will experience true conquest for the very first time because they did it, not the badge.

2011 will be a great year. Technoloy will continue to becon to a larger and larger customer base so those more comfortable with technology will take advantage of that. Chaging interests in Green and alternatives will compel a few more dealers to become as engaged with those movements as their customers. Building dealership brands will become a more heated conversation than building new dealership facilities (no, that won't go away).

So how great of a year will 2011 be for you and your store? Everyone, yes everyone, is betting their bottom dollar — and bottoms — that the numbers will be up. We even believe that will be the case. Remember: it's not what you make, it's what you keep. So if you didn't like what 2010 brought, you may not really be satisfied once 2011 closes it's doors.

2011 will be a great year. Oh by the way, for the ones that will be successful, 2011 has already begun. For those that want to join us, what's stopping you???…

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Quick, The Shiny Object Just Moved! Ouch, It’s Your Vendor…

Don't read too much into the title, it's not a slam on your (fill in the blank) vendor, although many deserve to be taken to task. This is about what they have to deal with. If you've been under a rock this year or simply have not been paying attention, Google changed significantly three times. Your vendors have had to change at least that many, even though they pitch that they're changing all the time.

So, what does this mean for the shiny object mentality? It's not changed. In fact, it may only get better. In other words, as things get a little more dicey in the online space in regard to results, there will be a larger "sorting out" of who really is prepared from a resource perspective to roll with what could be considered large changes in the way search and results are structured. And when a sales rep is not up to speed and things that happened a week prior, let alone a couple months, it's time to sharpen the pencil and make sure that door that hits them on the way out is primed.

All kidding aside, there have been countless changes since last December that have affected the search engines and how YOU get displayed in results. The biggest one from an overall view would likely be Google Instant, followed by the recent change to the Google Map/Local results that are also affecting the display of reviews and paid ads. There's lots of money, eyeballs and leads at stake.

The shiny object's location is changing, at what seems to be a continuously more rapid pace. Not just search results (and your traditional website) are facing the music, but also mobile: applications, marketing, social and more. And the third party lead market seems to be experiencing a larger ebb and flow in the market today. Just as there is no longer room in automotive retail for "what used to work", there's no room for "let's wait and see" in the vendor world. Rest for just a little bit and your a** will be kicked (but don't worry, dealers will still buy from lots of companies, especially if they keep sending "attractive" reps out to show impressive charts and talk about clicks….yawn….).

It's not easy being a website, CRM, pay-per-click, SEO or social media services company today. Engagement changes regularly and sometimes daily. By the time you send out pertinent information, run some webinars and update your systems and inform the rep force, that earth-changing update is old news and the next revelation has hit the news wires. And yes, even the vendors that do launch 25 updates a week and tweet about it do have to deal with issues outside of their control and fall down regularly.

As fast as the industry is changing, technology is changing many times faster. The balance between being bleeding-edge, leading-edge, between-the-edges and absolutely-no-edge is sometimes no greater than a whisker. Consumers control the content that is controlled by the big engines at such a great level today, what we have to yell about is less and less relevant, engaging and important. Who knows, maybe the shiny object is not even obtainable.

Even with the industry consolidation that we see year after year, it's always refreshing to see the new guy or gal on the block give it a chance. Dealers need much better services than what's been delivered historically and there are companies willing to do it. But the wake up call for dealers is that THEY need to do more in the way of understanding, goal setting and holding staff accountable. Vendor accountability is critical, but still not as important as making sure you can do what you're paying for.

So belive it or not something changed in how well you'll perform online since you started reading this. Maybe it was a vendor, a competitor, a search engine, a customer or even you. No matter what, don't take your eye off of the shiny object!

You did read correctly. Keep one eye on the ball, one on your customer, one on your brand, one on your staff, one on your marketing, one on your process, one on your future, one on your past….and one on the shiny object.

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Gut Check: What Are We Doing? Oh Yeah, Measuring!

Overstated? Maybe….but likely not. What are we doing? If we go by the numbers, and they're estimated but well known, we've got the second largest employer in the Untied States behind our back. The automotive industry is massive, even if you don't consider the associated businesses it keeps thriving. So, let's say we have a few million directly employed in the car biz (which is likely conservative) and had less than 3,000 in Las Vegas recently for the most important events that actually can move the needle. Pitiful. This week's SEMA show will kill that in attendance. And within the first hour.

What are we doing? So add the OEM eCommerce summits, conferences and events (which represent vendors more typically than push owners and general managers into the uncomfortable zone) and you've got at best a few thousand more that are around the discussions of online marketing, online customers, online retention and online success.

Ignore it at your own willful demise. Attack it like people trying the 72 ounce steak at Big Texan, you might go crazy trying to figure out which end is up. So how do you go down the road somewhere in between the two extremes and still try to maintain that "blocking and tackling" BS mentality that makes ownership and management comfortable? Simple: a plan.

While they are in fact out there, the count of dealers who have a written-down, approved, executable monthly strategy for doing and increasing amount of activities to promote success is likely somewhere around the chance of us having a space program in 2011 that lands us back on the moon. It's on the radar, they're might even be some dollars against it but I will venture a strong guess that it won't happen. That's not quite as disappointing as a dealer that is a few months from increasing their results and market share significantly, and does nothing about it.

Folks, the information is out here. And don't be afraid to ask. Yes, you might have to do some digging through the typical crap: an article on one of the popular automotive communities that doesn't answer your question but does have the "expert's" contact information. Or one of our recent favorites: white papers that will confuse the &^@# out of dealers that also end with a signature block that looks more like a proclamation. (Hint: generally speaking, automotive communities are not the place for white papers. Link to your website from the community website. Better yet, if it's a white paper done in conjunction with a company OUTSIDE of the industry, definitely publish it but keep your post on the communities to the synopsis. Please. Tip: not only that, you get back-links!!!!!!)

There have been fantastic pointers and forecasts about what will happen in the digital/online space for the past two years. Over 95% of the dealers missed or ignored them. Maybe it's time to have 2011 be "The Year Of Great Automotive Listening" (do that will your Movie-Guy voice). No matter what, this is the year of honest measurement, in our opinion.

So here's a few places to go to get your feet wet (or immersed) in measurement:

  1. Google.com (Analytics, Trends, Insights, Alerts, Webmaster tools, etc)
    A. If you've never used the above, start with going to Google and entering "links:www.YOURDEALERSHIPWEBSITE.com" or "site:www.YOURDEALERSHIPWEBSITE.com" and see what Google sees!
  2. Hubspot.com (Website grader, Facebook grader, Twitter grader, PR grader, etc)
    A. If you attended DrivingSales Executive Summit, you got more than you need!
  3. SEOmoz.org, Yahoo Site Explorer, etc (Linking and content tools)
  4. Twitalyzer, TwitterCounter, Untweeps, TwitterAnalyzer, etc (amazing tools if you're on Twitter)
  5. FourScore (found this recently for your FourSquare ranking/effectiveness)
  6. Compete, Alexa, etc (even though many dealership sites won't rank, be creative!)

There are so many other great FREE tools available for you to do more than just count on others, like your website company, and actually improve while holding people accountable but too many to list.

It's time for a gut check. How much further can you go down the road mostly (or absolutely) blind to what is essential to grow your business and be able to talk to the main points….without fudging it anymore.

Here's to doing things with more tools than just passion. Here's to knowing what we're doing!

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Crunch Time: Are Your Vendors out To Lunch? Or Are You?

It's very telling, especially today, when a supplier doesn't deliver.
Over-commit, under-deliver. While there is no such thing as 100%
delivery, 100% of the time when there are variables like creative,
interpretation, third parties and even technology changing at a
breakneck, daily pace. However the fundamentals should never change:
communication, expectation, examination and verification.

Being
around the automotive online space for over 10 years, it has been
common to be around or even directly involved with what you might call
"sales coups without production capabilities" or "sell it and then we'll
build it". Most of the time letting clients know you're building
something as they buy it is completely fine. Selling something as
complete or pitching services you provide when you really don't is
something else.

Over the past few years, it's been website and SEO services. Lately it's social media and reputation management. Two sayings to remember: if it sounds too good to be true, it likely is; stupid is as stupid does. In all fairness, the impetus is always on the buyer. While that's not completely fair, everything deserves a second look or opinion. For one example, recently we've been in meetings hearing about services for a few hundred dollars a month promising positive reviews on hundreds of sites.

Even without prejudice, it is difficult to understand the reach, impact or importance of a positive dealership review on some obscure website. About florists. Being read eight states away from you. By someone who has no interest in buying a car.

Numbers are great. Especially transparent ones via Google Analytics or something similar. It's also great to have a string following in the social online around your business. Having 40,000 on Twitter and 10,000 fans on Facebook, most of whom never have or never will buy from you, refer people to you or possibly even realize what your business does. That's irrelevant. People moving into your PMA that own a car from your franchise? Great. Likely a potential customer. Someone on your social network that lives 8,459 miles away from you because you're giving away something for free? Worthless.

What's of less value than that? The people and companies that are selling the services because you don't have the time to know and understand better, let alone put resources against it. And the fact that you can do it for $300 less a month than another company that can do it for you? And you call yourself a business person? Please. The other day at an OEM meeting, we heard about dealers paying $2,000 dollars a month for social media services. There are real companies doing a better job for half the price. Dealers paying $8,000 a month for that?!?!?! Let's not even go there.

This is not about the struggles with real ROI in the digital space. Or people not understanding services. It's not even about pushing companies out of the industry that will intentionally pull the wool over dealers' eyes (that would take years anyway). It is about taking charge of what you want to do in your business, having goals, comparing apples to apples and making sense out of the insane amount of pitches car dealers face.

Many times it's your vendors that are out to lunch. Sometimes, it's absolutely you. Question reps and consultants. Question proposals and marketing materials. Question your staff on what to do. Heaven forbid, question your customers and find out what they want and expect first. And stop buying for the sake of it, because someone in your 20 group did or because a golf buddy (that operates their store completely different than you do) told you they found the magic bullet.

Get back to business. It's crunch time…

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results