Car Business Ramblings

Today, the Internet Sales Manager is one of the most important and emerging positions in your dealership.  Here is some direction to creating a pay plan that will fairly compensate an ISM and insure the success of your dealership’s web efforts.

1. The pay plan should focus the ISM on their responsibilities:

The objective of your pay plan is to align your employees’ job with your dealership objectives, so the employee is compensated for achieving what the store needs in way that generates fair pay in your market.  Thus, the very first step to creating your pay plan is to review your written job description to see the expectations you are asking the ISM to meet.  If you, like most people, do not have a written job description then your fist step is to create one.  Here are the most popular “Roles” ISMs have in dealerships. 

Various ISM roles:

Sales ISM: This ISM is directly responsible to take customers through your process and deliver units.  They are similar to a floor sales person, but rather than take ups they work with Internet leads.

Manager ISM: Similar to sales ISM except in this scenario the store has grown beyond a one man Internet department and has added a team of “Sales ISMs.”  The Manager ISM is given the responsibility to lead the crew.  This person may also desk deals for their team.

Director ISM: In this position the ISM branches out to manage multi rooftops in a dealer group or to oversee multiple dealership departments, such as the web efforts for parts and service.

BDC ISM:  Business Development Centers typically handles the leads, make the calls and sets appointments for the sales team.  The BDC typically does not walk the customer through the sales process and close the deal, but is usually responsible to achieve specific metrics for lead response, appointment setting and revenue generated from their appointments.

Marketing ISM: This type of ISM manages the website, the lead purchasing, the SEM and SEO efforts, email marketing, data base segmentation, publishes the online vehicle data, does the social media marketing and handles the vendor relations.

2. Use various pay structures to align with your ISMs Role:

Not all methods of compensation were created equal.  Every employee deserves to know how their success will be measured and the range of unacceptable, acceptable and outstanding metrics they will be judged by.  This improves the leaders ability to manage and provides your employee with a roadmap to success.  Different compensation methods will better align with the most important metrics that you will use to measure success.  Such as:

Commissions – the most standard pay method can be based off of gross or volume generated. Commissions should be a part of the pay plan for all ISMs responsible to deliver units and revenue.  Be carful though, an ISM pay plan should rarely be 100% commission based.

Activity pay - For those ISMs who dont focus on selling cars themselves, but rather are responsible for the activities that lead to the sales process, should be paid on those activities. The most common “activity pay” in the market is paying for appointments showed or leads generated.  Activity pay is usually best suited for Marketing and BDC type ISMs that control specific metrics that lead to the sale, but in the end pass the customer off to a sales team.

Salary or Base pay, since the ISM’s job, particularly when they are a director, marketing or BDC type role, is very fluid and changing daily, a base pay of some sort is good to cover all the little things these roles do that do not directly result in a measured activity or a sale.  Often times the base is simply a base guarantee, or a minimum monthly total guaranteed to the employee.

3. Putting it all together and finding balance in “Role” and “Pay.”

Look at your written job description and decide realistically how much time and focus should be given towards each objective, back this into the value your market places on this role.  For example, if your role is 100% to sell cars to Internet leads, than a 100% commission structure should be fine. 

However, most ISM roles are a hybrid of roles.  For example, 20% lead generation, 20% site management/vendor relations and 60% sales.  In this situation your ISM role should receive 20% of their pay in SALARY to cover their misc management, 20% of their check in ACTIVITY PAY for the leads they generate and 60% of their pay in COMMISSIONS from to the deals they close.  All totaled, with average results, they should earn average pay for your market.  If they under perform the commissions will naturally lower their pay and when they over perform the compensation will likely naturally rise.  This same theory can match any pay plan to any ISM job description.  Just simply outline what percent of their job should be focused on what activities and match the pay plan accordingly.

4. A couple tips:

Increase performance through EOM reporting.
At the end of each month you do not want to just hand your ISM a check, especially if their pay comes from multiple roles.  Rather, break out the performance of each pay type and let them see how much was salary, how much was commissions and how much was “Activity Pay”.  To go the extra mile, off to the right of their totals, display what the pay would have been had they hit their goals.  If they over achieved, they will know it and receive the proper recognition.  If they underperformed they will have a clear depiction of where, and can see exactly what to focus on next month to improve their performance and thus their pay.

Where do I bill the ISM on my statement?
Another pitfall is many dealers feel their percentages of pay on their financial statement will not support a properly paid ISM.  However, usually they are lumping the entire pay into one account and then complain that the account is over the “20 group” guideline and needs to be cut back.

Depending on the ISM role, it is usually best to split their pay up into multiple accounts to keep things accurate.  For an ISM that is 30% sales, 30% management and 30% marketing, I recommend splitting their pay up into those three accounts to accurately reflect your stores spending.  Accurate decision making starts with accurate data.  Your ISM plays multiple roles across multiple accounts and often against multiple departments, be sure to account for the job properly.

Keep it simple.
The work should be in creating the pay plan, not in calulating it each month.  If your employee needs an oracle database and a super computer to calculate their pay, i guarantee you have an ineffective pay plan when it comes to employee motivation.  Simple and trackable is best.

The ISM has a role that is different from your other sales people and from your other department managers; their pay should be structured differently too.  It is not best practice to pay the ISM like someone they are not.  The best practice is to start with a blank slate, clearly define their responsibilities, the metrics they will be graded on and then to construct a pay plan that meets the dealerships needs while paying a fair wage for your market.  Don’t be afraid to break the mold and have active communication with your ISM, in the end everyone will benefit.

Technorati Tags: Compensation, Internet Sales Manager, ISM Pay Plans, Pay Plans

The Chrysler Bankruptcy is pushing private creditors into a head on collision with the government and the government backed companies. What plays out in New York’s bankruptcy court will largly determine the direction General Motors, and our industry heads.  Will the government keep the playing field level and let the markets rebuild themselves naturally from here, or force their hand to achieve some predefined objective?

President Obama delivered a great speech when he announced that Chrysler would seek Chapter 11 protection.  Despite announcing some really bad news, he kept things very positive and encouraged the public to buy American.  The largest problem facing Chrysler has been, and still is, a steep decline in consumer confidence. The president should be commended for attacking that head on.  However, he ripped a small group of Chrysler creditors for not settling their debt according to the government’s recommendation and thus laying balme on them for forcing Chrysler into Bankruptcy. The media has picked up on that and kept the public beating going, claiming these groups were actng selfishly and even in an "unamerican" way.  Is their condemnation justified?

The creditors being slammed were part of a group of secured creditors owed 6.9 billion, meaning in the event of a BK they are legally to be paid out first.  The government offered them about 30 cents on the dollar to walk away.  Yet the UAW, an unsecured creditor owed 10.6 billion, was given a 55% ownership stake in the new Chrysler and a payout over time of almost half their debt.  People are crying foul; saying that the government is favoring the UAW, a huge supporter of the administration, by illegally moving them to the front of the line and giving them more than their fair share.  Is the UAW being given special treatment?  Perhaps the bigger question is how can we expect the government be a fair moderator and do what is best for our industry when they have converging political and economic interests based on the outcome of the negotiation? 

To further complicate matters, these condemned creditors are also arguing they have been kept out of the government discussion because they are the only party that isn’t tied to the government.  The situation is not as simple as the creditors vs. the UAW fighting for Chryslers assets with the government in he middle.  Sure, the government is playing moderator in the middle, but are they really in the middle? In addition to playing moderator the government is also a direct creditor, Chrysler shareholder, they have political interests to protect the UAW, and have substantial funds (90 billion to be exact) invested in the other banks that have outstanding debt to Chrysler.  Given their broad involvement in the situation, which of their many conflicting motivations will prevail and again, what is best for our industry?

Here are a couple other messy situations:

With the UAW becoming the largest shareholder in Chrysler and selecting one or two of its board members, will they do what is in the best interest for their workers or for the company as a whole?  Sometimes it is in the best interest of the company to cut workforce, use outsourcing or leverage technology to make the company more scalable, all things the union hates.  How will a Union who has proven their sole motive is to benefit its workers even at the cost of the company, help run Chrysler any better?  Who will the union blame now when they have a problem? Themselves?  Would Chrysler be better off without the unions like the imports?

With GM under government control, the fate of Saturn’s employees and dealers are resting in their hands. Will the government be willing to save the jobs by letting a foreign competitor like Renault take over the Saturn brand even if it means creating a GM competitor in the process? On one hand they want to preserve American jobs, but on the other hand they want to protect their newly acquired company.  Cliff Banks of Wards Auto wrote a great article on this conundrum.

It appears as though the free fall in our economy has stopped, and the government has played a big role in that.  However, is the current situation set up to create the most innovative and robust industry going forward?  I’m not sure it is.  

Could you imagine being an NFL quarterback playing in the Super Bowl against a government backed team, with a government referee and with some of your own teammates on government payroll?  The competitive spirit is dampened when it feels like the outcome is decided ahead of time; and unfortunately it’s the competitive spirit that produces the real MVPs.

Technorati Tags: Bankruptcy, chrysler, restructuring

Preparing for a Chrysler or GM bankruptcy is an ugly thought that nobody wants to discuss.  However, if you are prepared for such an incident you could save your store hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If your manufacturer does file BK, your dealership will be hit in two main ways.  First, consumer confidence will fall, making the bankrupt franchise’s products harder to sell and sending ripples through the retail and wholesale markets.  Second, your dealership’s cash flow will be significantly altered in the form of holdback, incentive, warranty and other payments that are owed your store.

Here are some tips I recommend to shield your dealership form the worst.

Manage your cash position daily

Typically a weekly cash meeting is sufficient, but today as a GM you must be looking at the appropriate schedules daily to insure the dealership has as much cash in the system as possible.

A cash meeting is a time when the department heads get together with the GM or Principle to review all the receivable schedules for each department and make sure the cash is being collected.  You should look at your holdback, incentive, finance, and other receivables due the variable ops.  Also discuss your open RO’s, SOP, Warranty receivables and any outstanding commercial accounts in your Parts and Service Departments.  The objective of the meeting is to turn these receivables to cash and to remove any obstacle in the way of collecting your money.

In the event of a Manufacturer BK you will need all the cash you can get to weather the short-term crisis. Free up as much cash as possible now, before the storm hits.

Wholesale inventory

The most likely market effect once a manufacturer files BK is that their vehicles will experience a step drop in value.  If you are a ford dealer that typically stocks a few Chevy’s, it may be time to rethink that strategy for the short run.  If you are holding the vehicles when the BK happens you stand to lose a significant amount of money.  On the other hand, buying that inventory after a BK does present other risks, however it will insure you are buying after the price drops, putting you in a much more favorable position.

Submit Warranty claims daily

After filing BK the manufacturer may delay, reduce or stop all together (for a time period) its payment on warranty claims.  Dont let warranty repairs sit idle in your shop, get the work complete while the OEM is still paying. Once the work is complete, process your warranty claims daily.  The faster you get these claims approved and in the system to get paid, the less risk you will have. 

Process incentive receivables daily

Like warranty receivables, the faster you can process car deals and get your rebate, dealer cash and other incentive claims in the system and paid, the less risk you will have in an OEM default situation.  If there are reasons for the OEMs to deny rebate claims, they will.  Insure the sales team collects any documentation needed at the time of sale to process all student, business and other speciality rebate claims.

Pitch interest rates, not rebates

The manufacturers usually offer the choice of a special interest rate or a rebate for the consumer to choose from.  Often, the difference in payments to the customer is minimal.  When possible steer the consumer to the financing option, not the rebate.  The reason is that the dealership floats the rebate to the customer and waits for the manufacturer to reimburse them. By selecting the financing option, you avoid the risk of another incentive the manufacturer may not pay.  It puts the store in a much better cash position when the consumer takes the special financing.

Create your contingency plan now

How will your company strategy evolve and change in this tragic, but possible event?  Will you switch your focus to being a used vehicle dealer?  What niches/car lines will you focus in?  How will you position your marketing?

By thinking about the tough issues now you can more successfully navigate the stormy waters when they come.  Every good business strategist has multiple plans. You should to.  Committ these plans to writing so you have them fresh on paper in the event they are needed.

Meet with your flooring source

Your floor plan company has a very vested interest in the viability of your dealership since they have millions of dollars loaned to.  If they see on the morning news that your manufacturer has filed for bankruptcy, they will immediately question ability to honor your flooring agreement.  They will call a meeting with you and want to know what is happening in your business.  Many stores are already dealing with audits at an increased frequency.  The last thing you need is your flooring line to be called.

Be proactive.  You should have a contingency plan as to how you will navigate the difficult waters.  Put this plan in writing and take your banker to lunch.  Talk it over with them, let them know you are a good client and will continue to be even in the event of an OEM BK.  By letting them know you are prepared ahead of time, you will avoid additional headaches at a time when you need to focus on leading your store.

Our industry is changing.  Sometimes it is difficult to look up form the day to day grind of running a business to look into the future and strategize on theory’s that may never come to pass.  Most actions needed to prepare for a manufacturer BK are things you should be doing anyways and in the event of a market disruption 5 hours of preparation will save you 30 hours of headache.  Nobody can tell the future to know if something like this will happen and how the market will react.  Sometimes "being prepared" for probable options is the best thing we can do.

Technorati Tags: Bankruptcy, chrysler, GM

This past week I took a couple days off the hustle of office life and traveled back to sunny Florida to attend ward’s Spring Training event in Tampa.  For all those who didn’t attend, I figure Id share a few words and let you know what you missed.

First, I’m a firm believer in industry events.  One problem quite prevalent in the car business is that we tend to have a fairly insular view of our positions within the industry.  As a whole, we do not look outside our companies, let alone our industry, near enough for inspiration and solutions to our issues.   I view Professional events as one way to remedy this problem (participating in a network like DrivingSales is another).  The events allow us to take a step away from the grind, re-evaluate our position, strategy and be inspired for the return.  However, too often these events become such a busy hub for business dev that they turn into a blur of a few days where your feet throb with pain and the messages delivered were hardly retained.  This was not the case with Spring Training.  While I came back to a pile of work on my desk, the event was a refreshing break where I was able to “sharpen the saw” as Steven Covey would say.

The Wards Spring Training event was small, but it had the right people in attendance, so I would count the size as its strength.  It was a tight group of vendor executives, dealer principles and group executives.  The schedule nice, but not overbearing; most of the speakers presented twice, so you could get to all the good stuff you needed to.  Some favorites were Larry Bruce and Shaun Kniffin presenting on 21st century marketing. Essentially thier messaged boiling down to database segmentation and permission based marketing; something ever dealer should be actively involved in, but few do well.  Jeff Kershner and Matt Belk also did a great job talking about branding yourself online; another timely topic given the ubiquitous nature of user generated content that will shape your brand for you if you don’t get involved.  The event topics didn’t drift into too much into next generation strategies, but rather focused on core concepts and how to move them to the next level.  If you went to learn the next big thing that is going to hit the industry I think you would have been disappointed. However, if you had attended to sharpen skills in areas proven to deliver ROI for your store regardless of the economic slump, then this event was a home run.  (Pardon the pun)   I think the approach in topics was appropriate given the state of the economy.

I must admit, I had meetings to attend to and thus missed the Yankees preseason game and accompanying dinner.  This was a big disappointment for me, but in all the event was a good couple days to recharge and refocus through good conversation with some great people in the industry.  I had had a fun time, learned  important stuff, strengthened some relationships and my feet didn’t hurt!  I assume Wards plans on doing the event again, and if so, Ill be back.

I welcome comments or your opinion on the event.

Technorati Tags: industry events, Wards Spring Training

Welcome friends and family of the deceased.

We are gathered here today to honor the life and mourn the passing of the infamous “4-square.”  The 4-square was born at the dawn of the auto industry when vehicle margins were thick, consumers were uneducated and invoice data was guarded with upmost secrecy.  In recent years, with transparency increasing, the four square has been on life support plagued with “old-schooler’s disease, but the time has come to bid farewell. Our beloved 4-square is survived by market based pricing, transparent information exchanges and multi choice menu styled write-ups.  Unless you want to die of old school-ers disease too, I suggest you move on and find a new way of negotiating.

How do you negotiate?

Like many of you, my first sales manager was a master negotiator who indoctrinated me on “4-Square” negotiating.  He would role-play tactics to avoid price and “hit, hit, commit” then move to the next square.  After the customer had autographed the write-up I would head to the tower only to return with the  “atomic” pencil, (numbers so extremely high to “adjust the guests thinking” and raise the expectation so could come in lower and make the deal.)  The 4-square WAS the ultimate negotiation game.  However, the days where 4-square negotiation was the best mode of operations are officially behind us.  Today, “games” don’t get you car deals!

Market Based Pricing:

Successful negotiating should get off on the right foot with market based pricing.  This means your inventory is priced according to real market value for all to see and advertised online.  Your prices should be aggressive enough to put you in the top consideration of the customer.  If you have thousands and thousands to drop from the price at the first pencil, its highly unlikely you are using market based pricing.  Poor pricing will dramatically reduce your phone, email and lot traffic.

Transparency:

Then you must offer you customers a transparent transaction.  If they ask for a price, give it to them.  If they ask for payments, give it to them.  Your customers CAN get the answers they are looking for; the question is will they get them answered from you or your competitors? By avoiding their questions and side stepping the information they want will only push them away.  Yes, this breaks the rules of old negotiation; but being the best never was easy.  If you want to be the best you may need to learn new ways of handling objections.

Menu Presentations:

If you resurrect the “ol’ 4-square” and slap it on the desk in front of the guest you will immediately invoke old school buying emotions in them and they will start shutting you out.  If you want to keep the process moving towards happy customers, you need a write up that is customer friendly yet still leaves them an element of control while helping them come to a decision.  I recommend a menu of various choices, easily presented with 2-4 options that is an excellent closing tool.  It makes life easy when you can present options 1,2 & 3 and say “which one works best?”  If they don’t come back with quick close, you can, in a consultative yet influential way, walk them through the pros and cons of each option.  Menus display information in a quick to read format and facilitate a customer centric negotiation process.

Time to move on:

Yes, the glory days of the 4-square have passed and its time to move on.  Chances are if you still use a 4-square you disagree with what I have written and will argue that it still works well.  My response is that there are simply better ways.  I am not convinced there is only one way to perform a write up. However, I firmly believe the most successful practices will involve market based pricing, exchanging transparent information and giving choices to the customer in some form of a menu format.  What works for you? If you agree back me up with examples from your experiences.  If you disagree, I’d love to hear why.

Technorati Tags: 4-square, car deal negotiations, four square, market based pricing, menu, negotiation, old school, transparency

Sorry, but I have to RANT a bit.  I just read an article by a VC who totally misunderstands the issues our industry is facing. As usual, I experienced the run of emotions when I read the post, but ended up somewhat fired up.  People just dont get it.

I do typically start out intrigued when I see successful business people criticize our industry and offer solutions. I believe we would be wise to look for outside influence in these times of reinvention. Then I chuckle a bit because these brilliant people are often in left field as to our industry’s struggles.  This particular article argues the wrong reasons why Steve jobs could be the savior of the industry.  I contemplate the proposed solutions, fear sets in, then anger becasue this type of ignorance could really do some great damage.  There is a good chance congressional leaders and the Obama task force think the same way, or be influenced by these other wise successful people, but in the end if they greatly misunderstand our industry it increases our odds of having a lunatic driver steering the re-engineering of our industry. 

Our domestic industry is in a short term slump that people are mistaking as the real pain of the industry. We are in an economic downturn, (yes an unprecedented one) and thus sales are lower and capital is tighter than usual.  However lower sales numbers and capital availability are problems not unique to the Detroit 3, they are relative across the board for domestic and import companies.  That argument is a short term problem we face, but not the underlying cause of our frailty.  I believe today’s sales numbers are an acute pain disguising the chronic business model and cost structure problems we have.  Most often people argue that the domestics don’t build cars that people want to buy; this is a horribly short sighted argument.  If people didnt want to by the domestic products, why do they sell?  The question should be why can Honda be profitable and not GM when GM outsells Honda hands down?  The answer is simple.  Honda’s cost structures and business models are in line with their business strategy.  If the nations sales numbers would climb back up to 15 or 16 million today the domestics would still be in hot water because they are not competitive for the long run.

To alter their cost structures they will have to:

a) Renegotiate with the UAW and reduce/eliminate legacy costs and put the current costs in line with the market.  They are carrying too much weight and it looks like negotiations are not moving along too well meaning CH 11 is very likely on the horizon.

b) There are too many dealers.  GM and Toyota sell very similar volumes of cars.  However GM does it with about 6500 dealers, Toyota does it with less than 1500 dealers.  It costs money to service those extra 5000 dealerships, especially considering they do so with duplicate products.

Our industry is seriously bloated with overcapacity, the invisible hand of the free markets will trim that. The situation we dealers face is not pretty.  I come from a long family legacy of car dealers so it hurts me at the core to say it, but the facts speak for themselves.The domestic auto industry is antiquated and needs to take two steps back so it can take three steps forward.  It will do so with less dealers.

The manufacturers DON’T need all new product engineering.  They need new manufacturing and distribution models.  That is how they will reinvent so that we can stay ahead.  Our industry has some breaking down to do so that we can rebuild.

Many dealerships and dealership employees are fighting for survival in a very literal sense.  Dont be a casuality of the restructuring.  Each dealer should have his store in order.  Each professional should be getting their house in order.  You need to be learning new disciplines, honing old skills, and networking all you can.  Our industry will NOT go away, but it will change and contract. 

Those with the innovative skills and the connectivity to put them to work have a great opportunity as the industry evolves through these exciting, yet scary times.  Those resting on their laurels may fall victim to the restructuring of our industry.  I hope the Govt can steer the restructuring ship so as to avoid a huge domino effect of collapsing companies. Regardless of how it goes down, work to get ahead of the game now and you will be fine in the long run.

Technorati Tags: auto industry crisis, detroit 3, industry restructuring, tech crunch

Social Media Marketing is a great way for companies to engage and energize their audience.  Dealerships and other companies are moving to these mediums to extend their marketing.  While the benifits can be big, there are some very common mistakes that businesses so regularly made it’s almost embarrassing to admit.  Commiting these errors could cause a disaster for your brand that will take a while to repair.

Here are some mistakes to avoid:

Mistake # 1.   Interrupting and shouting.

Social Media Marketing is about connecting and creating conversations around your brand or areas of expertise.  However, marketing professionals have been trained to grab the attention of the consumer and insert their message inside the short moment that they have captured. This does not work on social mediums.   I liken this to sitting around the coffee table talking with friends and interruping with your company’s call to action at every pause in conversation.

Constant "call to actions" would be rude in a physical conversation and are considered interrupting and shouting in a social media setting.  Everyone that has had dinner with a sales person who does not stop pitching their product knows how annoying this can be.  The good news is that people are on social mediums because they want to be involved and they willfully give you their attention, just don’t abuse it by shouting back or you will turn everyone away like the annoying sales person.

Mistake # 2.    Using your PR/Corporate voice.  

As an extension to point #1, when you converse with friends around a coffee table you so with YOUR personality.  This is not a time for PR style language, or corporate speak.  When talking with others on social mediums use vocabulary and tone like you do in person, it should NOT feel like your PR manager is speaking through you.  A general rule of thumb: If you would say it over lunch with an associate, the language is ok.  If your statement could be printed on a brochure than most likely it is too unfamiliar and will not resonate well with your audience.  People will avoid you if you talk like a brochure.

Mistake # 3.    Not being a good citizen.

This rule is simple, but so often over looked!  You must give before you can take.  You give by participating and sharing your knowledge.  Be a good citizen by answering questions, commenting posts or rating contents to make the community a better place.  Those who are good citizens in the communities in which they participate always receive the greatest return on their participation.

Often the first step a company makes when getting involved in a community is to leave a response like this, “We have a solution to that question, see it here <link>.”

While this activity will not get blocked on most networks, it may as well be! That is one of the fastest ways to get people to ignore you.  In the physical world, sales people have always been trained that until they build value, they have no right to ask for the sale.   The same is true on social media. Being a good citizen builds your reputation and through that you will earn the right to present a call to action.  Be a good citizen and give before you try to receive.

Mistake # 4    Keeping too much control

Companies like control.  Dealerships have had control for decades but the Internet, and now the social web, has eroded that control. Don’t worry!  This is not the end of business, as you know it.  It just means you have to be a bit more open to succeed in the social, user-generated environment.

Companies should give guidelines to their employees and then encourage them to participate as actively as possible in the communities relevant to your brand.  If you offer good products and are genuinely concerned about serving your customers with value, then you have nothing to fear.  No, not every interaction on social mediums is positive, but neither are they in the physical world that you have already succeeded in! So what are you so worried about?  Your employees (if given the tools,) and your current customers (if engaged properly) will become your greatest ambassadors if you allow them to.  Your message will spread faster, wider and cheaper than ever before.  This requires a more open policy than most companies are use to, but isn’t this why your company is involved in social media in the first place, to extend your brand?  Let your brand grow by allowing your army of greatest enthusiasts spread your message.  You will not succeed without being more open.

Mistake # 5.    Inconsistent participation.

Lastly, if you were to join two customers at the coffee table who were talking about your brand, and you only said one sentence then remained silent through the rest of the conversation, how effective would your communications be?  The same is true on social media.  Engagement requires constant participation or the conversation will pass you by.  Set realistic goals, be involved daily or weekly and stick to the schedule.  Most communities have ways to be alerted and reminded of conversations that you should be involved in.  Staying involved can be a simple few minutes a day, but disappearing when a conversation is about you is not a good way to engage your audience.

Mistake #6  Being too afraid to try.

Most of you are probably reading and thinking, "this is common sense."  I completely agree, social media engagement is common sense!  If you have good “in-person” social skill, then social media marketing will be natural for you, but you have to try.  One this is ceratin, sitting on the sidelines will not make any progress!  Get involved, leave a few comments and enjoy yourself.  Most companies screw it up when they put their "marketing" hats on and look at the mediums as completely transactional or over analyze every comment they leave.  Experience has proven that transactions happen, brands grow and your message will spread best when you treat "engaging your market on social media" as you would if you ran into a customer on the street.

Be yourself, be helpful and be active!  With that, there are many experts out there reading this.  What are some other common mistakes that should be added to the list?

Technorati Tags: advertising, marketing, participation in social media, Social media marketing, social networking

At the conclusion of the convention, a few friends and I were having lunch and discussing the show highlights. We talked about the important stuff, like the coolest new product release; and we talked about the not so important stuff, like the parties.  That conversation led to the creation of the first annual DrivingSales “Attendee Choice Awards”  where we will nominate, and let the users add their own thoughts, to the most memorable moments of the Convention.

The awards are 100% scientifically false.  There is no rhyme or reason here, just fun memories. Add your own, disagree with ours or just simply smile as you read the list: (Naturally you know this is simply a bunch of opinion, and is in NO WAY affiliated with the convnetion or the people who put it on.)

Here it goes:

Best face-off between two vendors:  vAuto v.s. First Look  - They were literally 10 feet across the walkway, you could stand at one booth and hear the other’s pitch!  (and we thought only GM dealers dealt with close competition like that!)

Coolest new product: IzmoIndy – It is actually in alpha, but it’s still worth a mention.  It’s a platform to create as many SEO Friendly websites as you want with a simple editor anyone can use!  No need for programming expertise, or a vendor to do make the changes… more on this later.

The “Are you serious” booth:  Full size custom van conversions?  I thought $4 gas (and the consumer trends this last decade) killed that market… guess not. You learn something new every day. 

Best use of our tax dollars:  GMAC Booth!  -Self-explanatory.

Best Event location:  Tie: OneCommand at the Center of Bourbon Street -or –DealerTrack at the Aquarium,(Charlie called it  “the freshest sushi bar in town.”)  DealerTrack was bigger, BUT OneCommand had Hammer there.  How often do you get to dance with Hammer?

Wildest Executive:  <censored>  If you want the dirt,  I’d have to send you my paypal account.

Favorite Speaker:  Jared Hamilton - Leveraging the Social Web. Build Your Business; Grow Your Brand.  (Sorry Jim, had to nominate myself.  However I will readily admit Ziegler certainly drew a bigger crowd than me… clearly Im biased.)

Busiest Booth: DealerSocket  - Every time I walked by the seats were full and they were doing demos.  They even had an ultimate fighter standing guard who couldnt keep the dealers out!

Iron Man Winner, ie Non stop show go-er - Work all day & Party all night :  Im pleading the 5th on this one, need user nominations.  Add your own below.

Coolest Car on Display:  The Saleen Charger in the Chrysler booth.  It was BEAUTIFUL!!  It even caught the eye of Hammer, the famous rapper -  "Cant touch this!"

Most oddly innovative Vendor:  The people charging for teeth whitening at the center of the convention.  They must have made a fortune.  Strange but creative, it seemed to work!  (every sales person needs a good first impression, pearly whites help.)

Best Hair:  Charlie Vogelheim – Any disputes?

Best Billy Idol/Bono impersonation:  Andrew Price at the Bourbon St Blues Co. 

Best Flashback:  Starship – they played at the Aspen Party, “We built this city on ROOOCK and ROOOOOOOOOLLLL!”

Most Talked About M&A Activity:  DealerTrack purchasing AAX from JM Solutions, announcement came just before the convention begam, lots of talk about that.

 
Biggest smiles/happiest team: Dealer.com – After 10 years of hard work and helping thousands of dealers… these guys deserve to smile! They have a great opportunity now with Canadian dealers.

Strongest Dealer Focus For 2009: 

1: Web Marketing.  Those with solutions proven to cut costs and increase sales through digital mediums were clearly the winners at this year’s show, as they should be.

2: Fixed Operations were also a big buzz.  We are going to sell 5 million less vehicles this year, that means the cars on the road are aging and need more servicing presenting a HUGE opportunity for dealers.

All in all, the show was leaner, but still worthwhile for those there with a focus to get things done.  Dealers are looking for solutions and this industry will come back strong after this economic storm blows over.  There were fewer crowds to fight and some GREAT solutions being presented.  Feel free to add your own “memorable moments” to the awards through the comments. See you next year!

Technorati Tags: Convention, Dealer.com, Dealersocket, jared hamilton, jim ziegler, nada, OneCommand

 President Bush and President Clinton both spoke today as part of the “main event” for the convention.  Personally I was unable to attend, which was the only disappointment for me this entire convention.  From what I heard President HW Bush was hilarious. President Clinton then got up and said something to the effect of, “I couldn’t get away telling the jokes he can.  Could you imagine if I said some of the things he did??”  Meaning Bush must have said something good… and I missed it.

I didn’t realize how good of a relationship these two prior presidents have, I guess they work together quite a bit.  It’s a rather elite club, to be one of 44 men in history to hold the post of  “The worlds most powerful person.”  It’s also a good example to those of us in the car business about sportsmanship.  As President Bush said about President Clinton, “He beat me like a drum, but we can still be good friends.”

Other than the Presidents speaking, and all the security buzzing around outside the convention hall (including the bomb sniffing dogs,) it was quite a regular convention day.  I was surprised with my workshop attendance.  I spoke at 8:30 am and I was not expecting many people to show after a long night of partying. However, that was not the case and the audience was very engaged with lots of questions.  I was very busy this day with on and off site meetings, most very productive but I wont bore you with the details other than to say I did spent time talking with Phil Zillinger, Jim Zigler and Gary May, some loyal DrivingSales community members.

Bart and I had a more dinner meetings and then later met back up with Gilbert Chaves, Joe Webb and Kim Clouse.  Joe has written another funny script about internet sales and wanted me to play a part in it.  We were all laughing and having a good time as we filmed.  They are going to edit and use it at their digital dealer presentation then we will post it to DrivingSales.  It features Ralph Paglia, Kim Clouse and myself; Ill let Joe tell you more details.  Until then you will have to wait in suspense for my Oscar winning performance!

The final day was SLOW, most people had gone home and the vendors were packing up.  Despite that, I had some very productvie meetings.  Overall I would say those that didnt attend the convention this year missed out on some great opportuities.  It was certainly less crowded, vendors were willing to bargan, there was a solid social and networking atmosphere.  In all those that came were there for a reason, I just hope we all have a better economic climate next year in Orlando to attract more dealers.  This was a benificial show, despite the small crowd, Id love to hear your thoughts or feelings, especially if they are different than mine.  More on the convention soon… we have a few things we purposely left out.
 

Technorati Tags: nada, Nada convention, new orleans, President bush, president clinton

As those of you hear can attest, yesterday was another rock solid day of networking and getting things done, not to mention the party scene really picked up last night with some solid events!

I spoke again yesterday, went over my time allotment because we had lots of good questions.

Met some DrivingSales community members, it was great to shake everyone’s hand and get your impressions, feedback and support for some future items.  Steve, we will all be in touch soon!  Thanks!

While on the floor for a few hours I spent some time with the boys from eBay Motors.  Those of you who know Clayton know is he is always a hoot to be around, I’m stoked because he has promised some participation and knowledge from his world at eBay to help the dealers here on DrivingSales… stay tuned.  For those of you who don’t know him, he is a great speaker and knows his stuff.  He is heading up 100 workshops this year in cities across the country.  Ill be attending when he is in my area (assuming he will let me in!)

My most interesting connection of the day was that the Nada Chairman for Southern France invited me to dinner.  It was interesting for me since I lived in France, about 15 minutes away from where he lives there for 2 years.  We spoke some in French (a treat for me) and he explained how it is to be a dealer in France.  He owns several Audi dealerships there; they have a 5-month wait to get their product.  How’d that be?  He is also quite the tech entrepreneur with other deals going on the side.  To top off the conversation we had some amazing food!

They day flew by as I had several meetings on the floor.  Dealersocket had an ultimate fighter in their booth.  He had fought the night before, I thought it would be funny to take a picture with him with me having him in a headlock but as I got close I decided it wasn’t a good Idea to ask if he was up for it.  :-)  Ill tip my hat to any man who makes his living crawling in a cage and pounding someone else’s brains out.  Ill stick to the car business. Another good one… GMAC has a booth.  Its good to know our tax dollars were put to good use.  ☺

On to the evening:

OneCommand threw a great balcony party at the center of Burbon Street.  Hammer (MC Hammer) was there dancing away.  He and I we were neighbors when I was a kid, before he went BK and left the music industry.  The OneCommand event was a big hit, I also spoke with Jeff Kershner of Dealerrefresh and Todd Smith of Activengage, among others, there for a while.  Jeff and I have never really spoken much before but I really respect what he has done with his blog, so it was fun to get to know him a bit.  He does a great job with not just with his blog, but also knows his stuff with Internet departments (he oversees the internet departments for MileOne automotive, one of the most top dealer groups when it comes to web marketing.) 

We left there and went to the HUGE DealerTrack party; they were celebrating the purchase of AAX at the aquarium, it made for an interesting venue for a party.  I saw Shaun Rains and had a chance to speak with him for a bit.  We know each other  from digital dealer conventions, if you havnt had a chance to hear him speak make it a point to do so.  He is entertaining to listen to and continues to be one of the most popular consultants.

After DealerTrack Bart and I headed to the Aspen party…  I don’t know if it was the wildest by design, or because of the time of night… but wild it was.  Not to mention they had Starship playing live.
“We Built this city on Rock and Rooooooll”  (Im not fan, but it was fun to see, great party aspen!)

PS Ive been running so hard today, I have not had time to post this yet.  Tomorrow morning ill post the review of today.  For now we are headed out to dinner...

Technorati Tags: Nada convention