Tag Archives

Posts with sell tag.
Consulting Conundrum: “You can do whatever you want, as long as…”

Yes, this is opinion. However don't take it as fable.

It’s the consistent vicious circle in consulting: do it all as long as it’s what is wanted at that moment, backed up by someone else, doesn’t bite back at the factory stance, mostly makes sense and when you can grab the proper attention. And don’t blink because all of that can change with one call or a visit from a nice set of pearly whites with a tan and a low-slung top.

In a dramatically fluid world, all of that is a constant.

Meeting with a dealer the other day, their factory (only) site has issues, their SEO/SEM isn’t close to completely transparent in work, reporting or results, their new CRM isn’t installed properly or completely and their sales team can’t seem to do their job. And the store is doing, what most would consider, fine.

In less than five hours, a solution to every hole that was shot in their operation was provided, a path to resolution (in some cases multiple) was drawn out and improvement benchmarks were communicated. All without spending a dollar more in vendors, leads, software or services. And everything was documented.

Very few of us in the consulting world face this; because most aren’t consultants. Most of them are resellers, reps, paid advocates, commission reapers, factory program overseers, old-school trainers with a new world attack and/or recently departed vendor/dealership staff. Consulting, ladies and gentlemen, is a craft rather than a hobby. True consultants create understanding, buy-in, advocacy and results, in that order. And they listen, a lot.

If your costs just went up north of $10,000 per month and you’ll see your consultant one day per month, you should check the other hand of the person you just signed a contract (warning sign) with and see if their fingers are crossed.

As the industry shifted slowly over the past ten plus years, it created a natural recommendation engine that exists more powerful than ever. Don’t believe me? Contact your OEM, ask for a solution or provider for a problem you have in any category, especially digital, and then ask about results for any one or a group of dealerships. And get that preferably in a report with before and after metrics, costs, process changes and net improvement.

Oh, and you might want to hold on to your four-leaf clover.

In a world where businesses still make decisions by how many “covers” or “articles” someone was been on/in or how many times they’ve heard of a potential partner during a golf outing or 20 Group, industry metrics are moving slower than the speed of solutions. Hellloooo, it should be the other way around.

There are no overnight solutions, silver bullets or cash cows, at least legal and/or ethical. Use tried and true sensibilities: ask for more recommendations than someone offers. Look at more live solutions than you are given, dig deeper before you spend deeper. Oh, and if it sounds too good………

Car dealers, do yourself a huge favor. Get a second opinion on everything as if you’d just received a heartbreaking medical prognosis. In both cases your life depends on it.

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

August 25, 2014 by Gary May 0
Four Down, Seventeen Thousand To Go

The last four years have been a blur. Everything has been. From search to social. From template to script. From inbound to outbound. From high line to in line. From DMS to CRM. There have been times where the greatest part of building has simply been the lack of tearing down. It’s been work, even a pain, and it’s all been worth it.

The clients, the information, the partnerships, the alliances, the events, the suppliers, the sources, the reading, the sharing, the confusion, the mistakes, the opportunities, the defeats, the victories. One thing doesn’t stand out more than the other except the constant movement. Each day, all one thousand four hundred sixty of them, has started with an enthusiasm, a passion, a dream, a goal, a commitment, a push, a joy.

Yes, we've been eating the elephant a bite at a bite. One of the most gratifying parts is the tasty pieces. One of the most humbling parts is realizing what you’re doing while you’re in the moment. Our industry now moves at the speed of retail. Which means it moves at its ability to get out of its own way. Much too often there is a focus on moving ahead before there is even an understanding and acknowledgement of a desire to do so. Sometimes the hardest part of moving is the willingness to stop, look and listen.

Obstacles aren’t hurdles, they’re gut checks. They’re sometimes ways that remind us to adjust and sometimes they’re simply a deep breath before continuing on the path. Changing businesses is not a small undertaking. The level of trust required is awesome. Remember that success is measured by how long the changes last, not how fast you simply make change.

Right now is such an incredibly dynamic time. Better said, it’s likely the most dynamic ever. Yet businesses are being led down more paths than ever on guarantees that can’t be made, or measured, or tracked. If you do what we do and you do it more for a check than leaving a legacy, talk with yourself.

Four years later the work is harder, the goals are greater and results are sweeter. Every one of our clients deserves a heartfelt “Thank You” for making us work, keeping us honest and staying committed to their vision. Thank you to the clients that let us go too, as humbling as that is, because is made us think and become better.

And an important thank you to the entire industry. The good, the bad and the ugly. May we raise the determination to learn and change, ridding ourselves of old school mentality, waste and reluctance. Just because something worked for decades doesn’t make it right nor beneficial. Remember that at the end of the day we are all consumers. There a lots of “us” coming through the doors of dealerships. Let’s recognize and celebrate that. Let that fact evoke a stronger calling to improve. Every day.

Four years since IM@CS started. 17,000 more dealerships to improve. Who’s with us?

 

Man isn’t afraid of his own shadow. Just getting out of its way   –Gary May

 

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

 

September 19, 2011 by Gary May 0
What Have You Done For You Lately? (Ooh ooh ooh yeah…)

You're back but your bags (and head) may still be packed from your Las Vegas departure. The whirlwind of powerpoints, data, applications, widgets, speakers, vendors and pitches that opened October 12 with Digital Dealer and ran through DrivingSales Executive Summit at Encore, came to a close mid-day last Friday with the departure of over 1,000 from JD Power's Annual OEM and Ad Agency shindig called Internet Roundtable at Red Rock Resort (where more upfront talks than Internet dealings happen, but let's digress).

So your notebook, FlipCam, voice recorder and brain are packed with thoughts, visions, ideas and goals around everything you heard. But the "back to normal" is so gratifying that you may have not done a cotton-picking-thing since switching off the neon and turning on the flourecents. And besides, it was kind of touching to see that 88-day old unit turn 100 now that you're back (ooops!).

So if you're stuck with not knowing where to start, you didn't leave with goals. If you've got three or four places you want to start at, you may not know what your greatest weaknesses or opportunities are. And if you didn't gather enough information on how to get started and the first steps to take from that high-ranking speaker, call them for a freebie. And you may just want to "x" off that session or conference next year because the value didn't get delivered.

So, what have you done for you lately? (Sorry Janet, it's not about you). It's time to crank that Internet machine thing to the next level, right?! Do yourself a favor and start looking everywhere else but automotive and get your bearings. Why? Because there are Facebook pages selling more Snuggies than your website sells in service. There are blogs feeding more contacts to start-up S-E-O, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E companies than you get leads from $199-a-month leases. And we have ourselves (and many vendors) to blame.

Start Thursday with a goal to add one task from your volume of Notes 'de Las Vegas and start it. Not Friday, not next week. October 28. Haven't secured your Google Places/Maps location? Do that or learn about it. Haven't secured your Foursquare venue? Have 60 domains you registered a bunch of years ago and one is perfect for a blog? Start it and who cares what it says as long as it says something about what your store is passionate about regarding your customers and the products you sell. But what have you done for you lately?

"Good thing I cook or else we'd starve to death…" How appropriate is that today? Automotive retailers must thank their customers for coming in year after year and driving off in new and pre-owned cars with little more than a smile. It was about the badge, the new product, the incentives and the advertisements. Now it's about you. Matter of fact it always was but the industry lucked out for more than a decade. So what have you done for you lately?

Yes there's half-cooked information all over. Yes, there's "experts" who haven fallen into something that, for obvious reasons, they can't quite explain in an hour on stage. Yes, there's going to be more consolidation in the indsutry which means your ____________ company may become part of another company you're not doing (or don't want to do) business with. But what have you done for you lately?

There are many really good, and some extremely good, tools and providers out there to settle for what someone in your Twenty Group has or what your read in an ad or study. Last week it was amazing to watch the Innovation Cup at the DrivingSales Executive Summit. The "let's never settle for me-too" juices were really flowing there. Put easily, if something can't be verified by a neurtal third party, don't necessarily run away, rather gain more information before making a decision. Chances are you're right that it wasn't a good choice in the first place.

Today you have to be prepared to do something for yourself and stick with it. Even though it's so easy to quit and go back to what you knew. It's also more costly than ever. If you invested the time and money to be around that much addictive behavior for a week or two in Las Vegas, everything you brought back deserves to come to life in your store. That is if you can find your notes among the free schwag of flying monkeys, free model cars, light-up bounding balls, mints, pens, flash drives, logo hats, t-shirts, notepads, shopping bags and fliers for products that are pay-for-it-now-cuase-it's-almost-to-market-so-you-can-be-first (wink, wink).

So what have you done for you lately? Come on, we've got to …….uh, wait….come on…..wait for it…..wait for it……you know you want it…..SELL MORE CARS!

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

October 28, 2010 by Gary May 0
Hey, It’s Digital

Another event in the history books. Digital Dealer 8 provided a new round
of talk, perspective, conjecture, ideas and repetitiveness. Well
attended, the eighth iteration of the event made way for a full expo,
some great sessions, loud receptions and the proverbial automotive
industry buzz.

It was a bit funny last week when two things occurred that caused me to
think about what it is to be "digital", take the leap of faith, change
some (ok, a lot) of the broken practices in our business and bring as
many willing people along with us. Brian Pasch and Ralph Paglia both had
digital device "snafus" in front of a bunch of people. And it was
funny. While some loudmouth from the crowd chirped "it's digital"
(please, no guesses) , it caused me to reflect on how connected we are
to everything digital. And what we continue to do wrong, including the
so called education of the dealers looking for assistance.

Automotive retail's entire existence is based on success in the digital
realm. We don't need a bunch of people, many barely versed themselves,
standing in front of rooms of people telling them that the train has
left the station. Dealers need real assistance, in real time, in real
terms, from real people to build real results.

One thing that tends to rub me is the intention versus goal aspect of
the conferences. What's happened to AAISP? certification programs? "put
the dealer before profits" and all of the other chatter over the past
four years? This is not a post meant to call bullshit on everything but
to avoid it completely would be a disservice. At many conferences, more
netowrking and business happens away from the event than at the event.
And…there is a belief structure that has to be maintained.

It strikes me as odd when people attend events that can have a
significant impact, offer extremely relevant information and otherwise
influence attendees in a positive way are charged the most, treated as
less-than-desireables and not invited to particiapte in the most basic
way. Actually it's flat out wrong. The leading events let the audience
and industry decide what's best. Not the promoter.

Changes in the industry are happening at such a rate now that those in
position to create, promote and execute on large-scale events need to be
more in line who they claim to help. Watch the bottom line? Sure you
should make a profit if you're going to be bold enough, especially in
these economic times, to front cash (which can be significant) and put
an agenda together.

Ego and enforcement also have no place in today's events. Protocol,
yes. Guidelines, yes. Omnipotent overlords focused on anything besides
what drives the most value need to, well…be somewhere else. The
digital shift is about practices, assistance, positioning, data and
more. Our industry has been dealt a deserved blow in the digital space
due to ignorance, denial and a refusal to recognize our own customers
and public. How can the auto industry be so large yet engage and learn
so little?

In my opinion, there should be more Internet department directors
(pardon the phrase), field reps for the larger companies and consultants
that are not beholden to vendors on stage. Those are the people moving
the industry digital every day. Attendees don't want pitches. They need
honest answers. They need examples. They absolutely want to understand
what to do. Not being told. Not being sold. Remember, just like a
customer at a dealership, they want to buy from someone they trust, that
listens to them, that can deliver on value and promises. Why should the
B-to-B part of our business be any different?

It time to start doing the work instead of talking the talk. No more
"we do that" and then scramble to execute it for the first time. No more
canceled cook-offs. No more delays in production. And a lot more
customer service. That's what we need at retail. That's what we need
from the companies making the claims and filling the magazines with ads.
The one's retailers are trying not to do themselves anymore. Because
they're listening to us.

Because, hey. It's digital.

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

May 1, 2010 by Gary May 0
Dealeritis or Vendoritis? Has The Game Changed At All?

There seems to be a perpetual struggle in the dealer world between the client needing services, needing to change/improve, needing to stay in front of the competition and the vendors needing new places to hock their wares, prove their value, bang the 'we're the leader' drum and pay back their investors. They're both right while not typically paying attention to each other.

In the course of recommending vendors, after assessing the needs of the client, it is sometimes difficult to pinpoint what services will be beneficial. This is more the case today with some providers offering truly integrated, real-time solutions. There are times when, over the course of an engagement, fitting vendors are brought in to do their jobs, but in hindsight it's realized that one larger provider could have done the work. And likely at a lower price while providing a more streamlined experience.

It is always appropriate to push for the larger picture and achieve more but automotive retail has been hit hard over the years with less-than-promised services at outrageous prices and lackluster support. This has been painfully evident with DMS and CRM systems. Many dealers are numb to the pitch today. But have they turned a deaf ear and a blind eye when now is the right time to hear them out again?

Many consultants have the benefit of working with leading-edge and/or forward thinking dealerships and it is a pleasure. In providing best practice recommendations (i.e. the suggestions are honest and the vendor doesn't pay anyone a finder's or recurring fee) it is always necessary to keep goals in mind while ensuring the possibility of exceeding them. Too often the client feels it's the vendors job to 'perform' and the vendor feels it's the client's job to do so as well.

Getting over this 'dealeritis' and 'vendoritis' type of game is essential. and many think it's not happening fast enough. One event started changing things last year and we need more change.

What suggestions do you have to get vendors and dealers together in not-simply-for-large-profits-for-the-promoter forums around the country? Can it be sponsored so the cost is free-to-low for everyone and vendors pitch or should it be a pay-your-way-and-bring-a-sack-lunch event? This is the year of the automotive community: pitch in so you'll win!

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

January 15, 2010 by Gary May 0
It Doesn’t Matter How Much, You Can’t Afford Not Going All Out On The Web

With the end of the year quickly approaching and a focus on getting as many cars sold as possible, it''s also the only time you have to make sure your plan is right for your web presence in 2010.  We're talking about a plan.  If you don't have one, it's time do something that will really move the needle for you.

It's a bit of Branding 101, Internet 102, Process 201 (we'll say that since you've likely hired a more traditional "get them excited to do more of the same thing after the excitement of yelling at them wears off in 3 days" trainer although not in a while) and a number of other 'class' sounding names.  The long and short of it everything you're successful at will depend on your virtual existence.

So, when you decide to spend $X,XXX to $XX,XXX per month online, and stick with it for the long haul, start with:

WEBSITE: A thorough review of your websites via a true outside SEO review (we use @Grader at http://websitegrader.com), SEO keyword report from a third party (we use AutoFusion at http://www.autofusion.com) and a true review of best practices will have to open to change considering what most website companies offer.  If you're website is 6 years old, has 100-400 indexed pages, less than 100 inbound links and a page rank under 4, it's time to say hello to a more competent provider.

We're not going to list website vendors here this time.  Just start by knowing what you are paying for and (likely) not getting.  The most important part is how dynamic your site(s) and content are.  Yes, SEO is here to stay along with usability and design.

CRM/EMAIL MARKETING: While there has been a lot of focus on social media, email is still an effective tool for engagement.  That is as long as you make it relevant and compelling.  How do you do that?  Start really looking at who is in your database, not just deeming them as customers!  Without getting into the details here, start thinking about your message and what you would want act on instead of not thinking and leaving companies that know nothing about your business communicate for you.  Do yourself a huge favor and read what you're sending out before you simply spend money on someone to spread *&$! out there faster and more efficiently.

When you've got that done, we think that these represent some best-practice partners: VIN Solutions (http://www.vinsolutions.com), Dealer Socket (http://www.dealersocket.com)  and DealerUps (http://www.dealerups.com), which has been going though retooling since acquisition can really help you do your job more effectively with way less effort.

Using an email marketing company is important if you want to have more transparency and control (including scrubbing, deduping, targeting and more), remember to focus on content. Emma (http://www.myemma.com), Ratepoint (http://www.ratepoint.com) and Constant Contact (http://www.constantcontact.com) are leaders in their field in addition to the more auto-industry pervasive IMN (http://www.imakenews.com) in addition to surveys made easy by Survey Monkey (http://www.surveymonkey.com).  the investments made in the services is minimal compared to the results.  Again, your content must be timely, compelling and relevant or your just advertising and most people say 'no thanks' to that.

REPUTATION MANAGEMENT: What are other people reading before they ever talk to or visit you?  It's how a majority of people are deciding on where they spend their hard-earned money!  Will you spend $150 a night at a hotel with a 2-star ranking from guests?  Why spend $30,000 on a dealer that does?  Start by checking Yelp, DealerRater, Google and more.  Then set up Google, Twitter and other alerts to monitor your business' name for free is a great start.  Then there are services for a fee (in and out of the industry providers) from eXteres Auto (http://www.exteresauto.com) to Radian6 (http://www.radiansix.com) that know and understand online reputation and how to stay up on what's being said about you AND your competition.

SOCIAL MEDIA: It's all the buzz.  And for most dealers, It's another avenue to scream "BUY HERE". Start with trying to understand that it starts with social.  Think about how you're social.  If you're selling all the time, you're likely not effective.  And neither is selling all the time on networks.  Be different, unique, compelling (there it is again!) and someone that people want to talk with rather than ignore.  Here's a hint: if you get between 30 and 70% open rate on your emails but no clicks and/or your website visits crash two days later, and you're going to send the same kind of messages out via social media. there's one word for you: don't.

These are merely starting points and things to consider in your online branding.  One thing to keep in mind as well: when you do promote and advertise, make sure that your message is contiguous.  If you're a Toyota store and taking part in the Tent Event, everything you put on the web should be intertwined and you should have your store benefits and unique aspects promoted in addition to proper promotion.

If the above is already a stretch for your current resources and knowledge, get help.  There are dozens of consultants out there.  Don't hire an advertising agency to do this.  Don't take the word of your current providers.  Find out for yourself, ignore reps and figure out what you want from your money.

Get going, your competition already is or will be next.  And don't pay the Internet any more lip service about what you're going to do, start and do it so you can have the Internet paying you.

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

November 29, 2009 by Gary May 0
Come On! What’s Social About A Price? Nothing!

After tip-toeing around this subject
for most of the year, it's time to take a more direct approach.  With more
car dealers using "social' media these days, seeing the overwhelming
amount of non-conversations are staggering!  A quick visit to the majority
dealer accounts on Twitter and Facebook reveal the following:

  • use of what are supposed to be social sites and
    services for essentially 'unpaid' advertising
    • The home of the $199 lease
    • Largest volume dealer in the
      area
    • Amazing inventory
    • More models arriving daily

  • use of auto-follow and auto-retweet programs to 'simplify'
    building followers
    • 30-day old accounts with
      2,000+ followers
    • Retweets of Automotive News
      articles
      • Consumers can't access as
        it's subscription only, and why share?
  • limited contextual links and content
    • video links are exclusively to
      store's site or YouTube inventory/walk-arounds
    • Using same links over and over
      with only slight modifications


Here's the hint that will hopefully get you to use social media for what it's
intended for: it's called social for a reason.  There is absolutely
nothing remotely social about car prices, lease specials, inventory, and 'buy
here!'.

Social is about conversation, influence, sharing, participation and ultimately
growing your virtual community.  And take note: this happens after
time.  It's organic and you have to learn.  It's not about control,
rants (although those can be fun in moderation), telling, limitation or
virtually throwing the keys on the roof.  Nobody cares about 100 tweets
telling how much you'll promise to save them, less the fine print.

Share funny stuff, eye-opening stuff, cool videos, first-to-market stuff,
did-you-know stuff, share fun events, invite people over to do things for free
and ultimately build a relationship around having conversations.  You'll
be amazed at how many customer service situations you can remedy, how many
times you can correct someone's misunderstanding about a capability or spec on
a vehicle and ultimately plant some seeds so that, when it's time, you already
have a customer that doesn't give a rat's behind that you are giving away gross
on "1 car at this price'.

So take some time and learn, understand and start participating instead of just
posting.  Just participating in social media doesn't give you any passes
or kudos.  Be real, be original, be compelling and be relevant.  If
you know you're market, friends, followers and customers, chances are you'll be
more successful.

Dealership staff: Don't talk to people.  Talk with people.  Listen to
people.  Create a valid, unpaid following that is interested in what you
share.  Be fun.  Be intentionally unintentional.

Go ahead, dare to be unique and different.  You might just end up being really social…

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

 

September 3, 2009 by Gary May 1
First Of The Month Syndrome: You’re Not Starting Over

Month end is behind you, save for those few deals that are going to be back-dated to August 31. Hopefully with C.A.R.S. you didn't need to do that. Now it's a whole new month and you're thinking "I'm at zero, clean sheet of paper, time to hit my numbers!"  Since we know so many people that do that, there must have been one parent in all of our families that, when we were infants, whispered in our ears "you'll think like you'll get paid, you'll start over on the 1st, you'll scurry like hell to get everything done on the last day of every month". Man, talk about a dysfunctional     family!

So here you are, 20-40 years later, convinced that a calendar determines your effectiveness and runs your life.  While nobody is here to tell you it's not how you get paid, quotas are set, assessments are handled and forecasts are created, quit thinking that way.  You're not starting over.

Especially in today's Internet-based world, the first of any month is just another day to tackle the 30-100 leads in your queue.  You can let the management and executives control the way a company operates but you don't have to be controlled by a calendar.  When you remove yourself from that process, your vision grows and you can see things in better perspective.  Again, don't start a revolt or fight the way your GM runs your store.  Just start to believe there's people (your customers) that work and believe in a 365-day world.

When you start planning beyond 30 days, in reality most folks hope on 30 and plan less, you can better see marketing effectiveness, referrals building, many leads actually taking 5-12 weeks to buy (rather than ignoring them until the week before and finding out they bought elsewhere), track trends and cycles, even bring customers back for parts, accessories, warranties and more!

If you truly believe that your number is 'zero' when the last month expires and the new one starts, maybe look at how you're holding yourself back.  It might just be your condition, but for those that can change, it might be the most fun you've ever had at a dealership…and possibly the most money too!

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

September 1, 2009 by Gary May 1
I Think We Can…I Think We Can…We Better Think We Can

Boy, things were really humming there for the longest time and then the train ran off the track, or maybe the wheels simply came off. No matter what, we got to find out what it would be like for the industry to have a brake test. But instead of 60 to 0 in 137.6 feet, it was more like 17 million to under 10 million in a blink (try that supercars!)

Add to that the fact that somewhere along the way, we got just a little more than complacent…ok, we got really frickin' complacent! Now we have the choice to do things over the way 'we' did, or go down the road less traveled.

So we have to ask ourselves collectively some tough questions. Do we advertise the same way we did? Do we communicate the same way that we did? Do we build the same way we did? Do we sell the same way we did? If so, how can we expect different results? And for those that want to wait, how can you expect anything doing that?

Many indicators seem to show that we're doing a lot of the old things and just a few new things, and neither incredibly well. To get the results we truly want, it is so important to be realistic, admit when we can't do what's expected, challenge ourselves to new ways of thinking and get out of the way when it's time. If this train is getting back on the track, it had best be a brand new track and the engine clearly needs replacement rather then modification.

No matter what you're doing, start thinking and acting like consumers and start believing that success is our only goal. I'd like to tell you that the latest ads on TV, spots on radio, full pages in the magazine and full-disclosure rant in the newspaper were absolutely effective. Since I don't do any of those activities, I can't. And none of the people I regularly hang out with or talk with do either.

If we start thinking and believing that we can, and it truly shows, it'll likely happen. It's not rocket science. It's not about ignoring other very related issues. If we are going to be successful, we have to do it by ourselves. We have to believe that the results will be there because we did everything we had to…not somethings, everything.

And I think we can, I think we can (insert favorite choo-choo noise now).

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

June 27, 2009 by Gary May 0
One Thing At A Time Online…All At Once

When it comes to the 'new age' of Internet existence for your business, it is important that you appear as good as possible when people find you online. When it comes to reputation, shoppers want to know what your customers say rather than what you say. They want to have transparency in inventory, see the actual cars and features. Online visitors want to know what you'll do for them, to understand how you work, dealership history, who makes up the team, what specials they can get and so much more.

So hop to it…get your blog entries published, inventory fixed, Twitter your specials, text your new inventory, moderate the discussion for your local enthusiast group's site, shoot videos of your CPO vehicles and stream them on your site and push them onto YouTube, get all of your clients to write online testimonials and refresh your website's content monthly and SEO every quarter (if not monthly). Done! Oops…not yet…sell 50 cars a month via the web while you're at it.

Stop the press! We've only be gathering email addresses regularly for a year? We haven't gotten our customers' cell phone numbers and carriers to message them? Nobody has been putting the most valuable client information in the CRM? How do 50% of our leads fall through the cracks, how do you truly track them? And why does the factory blind shop us 10 times a month? Hold on…how do you ask a customer to write an online recommendation? Where do I even send them?

OK, that may be a little tongue and cheek but it's not too far off for many dealers today. So how do you start from zero and get up to 75 immediately on the information superhighway? The best recommendation I can provide here is…act like a customer! What do your customers talk about more and ask from you daily? Consider that one of, if not the greatest influence on consumers is search.

Fact is that you have no choice but to trust more people with your dealership than ever before: vendors, customers and employees. Things are changing at breakneck speed with technology, social media and engagement. One bad customer experience written online may not ruin you overnight but it will affect people's opinion and become pervasive if not offset by more positive assertions.

Make it a goal in January to spread the online responsibilities among all of your front-end staff. Get your people comfortable with your online existence and build your brand, reach and reputation. Become a truly trusted brand with the best advocates out there. Your option is having someone else beat you to it.

It starts with one thing at a time, just do it all at once.

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

January 8, 2009 by Gary May 0