The 2012 NADA convention isn’t even here yet and we at DrivingSales are already thinking about the DrivingSales Executive Summit. One of the things the makes DSES the leading automotive event in the industry is that we focus on bringing in some of the world’s most prominent authorities in various fields, from OUTSIDE automotive retail, to talk about trends that are taking shape in the auto industry. And because our event is centered on serving the most progressive dealership executive teams, we feel it’s important to be inspired to create the future, not just live it. So who do you want to hear from?

It’s an exciting day here at DrivingSales! I’m pleased to announce that we are acquiring Revenue Guru, a boutique Research and Consulting firm, and its affiliated web properties. Dennis Galbraith, the founder of Revenue Guru, will head up our Research and Data divisions. This is a big deal for us, and frankly for the industry as a whole, as it will further our capabilities to serve dealers with some very needed “vendor-neutral” business intelligence tools.  We’ve been working on these exciting initiatives in stealth mode for a long time, and bringing Dennis on-board to lead these projects is a huge win for the dealer body.  Were not quite ready to share more details of the projects just yet… but stay tuned, I promise you will love them! The current clients of Revenue Guru will see no change in business.  They will continue to receive the same high quality service they have come to expect of the Revenue Guru team.  As yo...

Next week at DSES we will have a special treat for the DrivingSales Community.  We will be giving you direct access to a few of those CEOs whose companies touch the highest number of dealership in the country.  We felt is was important go give you access to these leaders to hear their vision of what 2012 will look like, and most importantly to ask them direct questions about the issues that affect your stores. Please share the questions you would like to see asked, and we will be sure to get you answers...

DSES is meant to be a different kind of event. You can go to other events to visit booths and meet with sales people from all over the country – and there’s value in that. But at DSES, you don’t come to meet the sales people from these technology companies; you come to meet their CEOs. We’ve created a fireside chat where dealers can get some face time with a few of the most influential CEOs in the auto industry: Mark O’Neil from DealerTrack, Mitch Golub from Cars.com, Mark Bonfigli from Dealer.com, John Holt from ADP/Cobalt, and Chip Perry from AutoTrader.

Subaru of North America today is announcing that Dean Evans will take over as their Chief Marketing Officer.  Evans will report to SOA Chief Operating Officer and EVP Tom Doll and will be responsible for the company’s marketing, corporate communications and customer service operations.   No doubt his proven digital expertise will benefit Subaru and all their dealers. It’s a GREAT day to be a Subaru dealer!

What topics would you like to see discussed at DSES 2011? One of the things that sets the DrivingSales Executive Summit apart from other events (besides being designed specifically for progressive dealers) is that ALL of our event speakers and topics are driven by you, the dealers.  Unlike other events, we do not sell speaking spots to vendors nor do we let sponsors dictate the agenda.  We want you to come get inspired, not pay to hear a sales pitch. We let the dealer community suggest the topics they need to learn about in order boost their bottom line, then we let speakers apply for those spots and finally we let the dealers vote on who will deliver what messages.  Also, by not requiring speeches to be written months in advance, we make sure DSES is the most cutting edge and relevant event in the industry. So, now is your chance…  What would you like to see covered this year at DSES? Here are some ideas that have been suggested so far, please tell...

Dear Honda, Toyota, BMW, Ford, GM and all other vehicle manufacturers: Having good strong relationships with your dealer network is a top priority; just as maintaining a good relationship with you is a high priority for your dealers. Neither party can exist without the other and when the tide rises, all boats in this relationship lift together. It’s disappointing to me that vehicle OEMs are making three huge mistakes in digital marketing strategies that are shooting your dealers in the foot, and thus hurting everyone involved.

BIG Announcement: Gary Vaunerchuk is going to Keynote DSES this year! Not only will he be our main Keynote speaker, but Dealer.com (who helped us arrange Garys’ participation) will be providing his new book, Thank You Economy, to the first group of dealers who register. If all that wasn’t cool enough, Gary has also agreed to hang out after his keynote, perhaps drink some wine and even sign some books.

I personally believe CSI is a waste of time. We all know of dealers who bend the CSI rules in various ways... heck, i bet we could even debate right here what cheating on CSI actually is.  Everyone seems to have a different belief on what is acceptable in encouraging, requesting, or flat out incentivizing customers to give positive scores.  All it takes is one dealership to work the system and the data set is ruined.  Until scores are collected in a more uniform and verified manner, the information will remain tainted. Unfortunately, dealers must “encourage” customers to submit positive surveys because there is simply too much pressure from OEMs who use CSI for ranking and rewarding stores that dealers cannot afford to let natural results come in.  Face it, CSI is not about measuring customer satisfaction, its about keeping in good political graces with your manufacturer. Sure OEMs have written rules, outlined consequences and published memos...

 

We are pumped at DrivingSales to announce another new member to the team!  I’d like to introduce you to Paul, our new Production Manager.  Paul will be in charge of DrivingSalesTV.com and is also overseeing the production of our quarterly magazine the Dealership Innovation Guide.

Paul has been serving the DrivingSales community since before it really was... In 2005, I wanted to open up DrivingSales to the industry (at that point it was a private community for my dealer academy class), so I hired some college kids to go door to door and invite dealers to join and participate in the community.  Paul was attending Cal Sate University Fullerton at the time and was one of the guys I hired to help kick off DrivingSales.  Overall, dealers loved the concept of the DrivingSales community, but people didn’t know how to interact on social media, so it didn’t catch.  We decided to put DrivingSales on the back burner until social media usage

DrivingSales is Hiring Hey everyone – I’ve got some great news! We’re looking to hire a few passionate dealership pros to help us manage and lead the world’s largest automotive social network! If you are an industry leader, passionate about serving dealerships and have a thing for social media, we want you on the team.   The other day we introduced everyone to Lindsey Auguste and briefly mentioned our plans to create a stream of premium content for DrivingSales. Bringing on a few Dealership Editors/Community Managers is the next step in this process.   Your Role would be: 1.   Work with Lindsey and the others from the team to create premium content. You will produce 3 posts per month regarding different aspects of dealership life.  2.   You will help manage the community, IE moderate discussions, assist others in the community and keep the culture focused on serving the dealers needs above all els...

I’m very happy to announce the latest member of the DrivingSales team, Lindsey Auguste!   Lindsey will serve as our Editorial Director and will oversee some exciting plans we have to develop a stream of premium content for the community. (More on this later…)   Lindsey is amazingly smart and lots of fun, she will fit right in with everyone here on DrivingSales.  Prior to joining us, she worked at Stanford University, where she did research for their Psychology Department.  She is originally from the Bay Area, in Northern California and she graduated from Chapman University in Orange County. While in So Cal she got her first taste of the auto industry by working part time at a local dealership. As you all know, no matter how hard we try, one the car business bug bites you you’re a lifer! As mentioned earlier, Lindsey will be working to manage some streams of premium content that we are developing. We will be doing regul...

I know it seems like the next DrivingSales Executive Summit is a ways away, but planning has already begun. In fact, in the coming weeks we are going to announce the date and venue. Just waiting on a few final details.   In the meantime I have been giving a lot of thought lately to who we should bring in as the keynote speakers.   One of the thing the sets the DrivingSales Executive Summit apart from other events is we focus on bringing in some of the worlds foremost experts in various fields, from OUTSIDE the industry, to talk about trends that are coming into the auto industry. Since our event is geared to serve the most progressive dealership executive teams, we feel it’s important to be inspired to create the future, not just live it.   Who inspires you? What would you love to learn about? Many of these speakers get booked MONTHS in advance so its important that we start inviting some of them now.   Last year Deal...

Which fall event should you attend?   With so many great choices in industry conferences this fall, many dealership managers are asking which event to attend.  It’s a fair question that I want to answer publically.   Personally, I will try to attend all of them.  If you can do the same, you will certainly benefit.  However, if you have to choose it’s not a matter of selecting which is good and which is bad.  They are all good, but each has its own flavor and serves a different audience. Deciding where to go is an issue of learning which event is right for you and your goals.   JD Power Internet Round Table: JD Power Internet Round Table is a high level Internet marketing event.  It has a big audience, mostly made up of executives from OEMs, Agencies and Vendors.  A very small percentage of the audience is dealership personnel; this event will have the fewest dealers in attendance of any.  I assume that i...

Q&A with DrivingSales’ Founder and CEO, Jared Hamilton   Tammy Darvish, owner and vice president of DARCARS Automotive Group, discusses DARCARS’ strategy for addressing today’s key dealership challenges and DARCARS’ results from implementing their new strategy.   Jared Hamilton (JH): Great to talk with you today, Tammy.DARCARS is known for being an innovative dealer group. Let’s discuss how you’ve overcome some of the biggest challenges that dealers are facing today.   Tammy Darvish (TD): Because of the obstacles the whole industry has faced with sales overall, DARCARS, along with virtually every other dealership in the country, has turned to fixed operations to drive revenue. But this has created another challenge – heightened competition for service business, not just from other dealerships, but also local mechanics and national light repair chains. Consumers buying fewer cars coupled with increased competit...

Leading a dealership through a recession is nothing new to the veterans in the industry. Because the economy is cyclical, every so many years the market contracts and dealers have to manage the scaling back of their business to meet the realities of new market conditions. Fortunately recessions don’t last forever, so the market always rebounds, and as it does dealers reinvest and grow. We are currently seeing signs of positive growth in many dealerships signaling the time to reinvest and grow is upon is. However, rebuilding from this recession will be different than any other and its not just because this was one of the worst downturns on record.    Typically, if you are cutting expenses to match market conditions you focus on variable expenses, as they tend to be the most manageable. When you reduce costs you start by cutting those items that are the least important to the store first and cutting the more important items later, only if neces...

Facebook just launched "places" which promises to change the way local business interact with their customers. Location based media is not an abstract approach to creating fuzzy dealership ROI, but rather a direct connection between customers interacting in the virtual world and connecting with them directly in the physical world where the cash registers ring. This has huge implications for car dealers. Here is where I think the market is going and where dealers need to be involved.

Dealerships are putting too much emphasis on social media and its not healthy for the stores, the consumers, or the industry. Marketing is not the problem. Despite the fact that most dealerships are still operating on an old marketing paradigm, most dealers are fairly decent marketers. They tend to manage large budgets and get predictable results with acceptable ROI. (The ROI part is semi-debatable, but that’s for another time.) The biggest problem hindering most stores is not the marketing, it’s that they don’t deliver on their marketing promises.  It’s sad, but our industry standard for customer service is doing just enough to get the job done with today’s fresh customers but stops way short of creating an experience that customers can rave about. In other words, the root problem holding dealerships back is not what you are doing in 140 characters on twitter, it’s what you are doing on your showroom and service dr...

Why is President Obama focused on forcing expensive regulation onto dealerships as if they are banks?  President Obama is on a mission to make sure a financial collapse like we recently experienced does not happen again. I think we can all applaud this greater vision. However, he is making a serious miscalculation in executing his reform that could affect us all in the auto industry. We all know that dealerships help customers get financing for their car purchases, but that dealerships themselves are NOT the lenders who underwrite the loans.  Dealerships help consumers by connecting them to banks, credit unions and manufacturer lending sources. Most dealerships simply act is a customer liaison to the loans; the dealers themselves are not banks.   The President's financial reform bill regulates big banks; however the way it is written it also includes dealerships in the regulation. This would be expensive for dealerships to comply with an...

To combat what I feel is a growing problem on Facebook, I’m experimenting in a big way with my strategy. I believe Facebook at its core is a personal tool, not a business one. Like many of you, I joined to connect with personal friends back before it was really the hot marketing play in our industry. I have been watching the company since it was a startup and early on I liked to play with it when it was open just to university students (admittedly I would get in under my brothers account just to understand it.) Today there is so much business talk on facebook I feel its squashing my personal space. I cant help but wonder if potential customers are getting turned off feeling the same way.    As one who likes to share auto industry information this has created somewhat of a personal dilemma. Half of my facebook friends are personal friends from home, people I went to school with or soccer mates who I played ball with for years. These peopl...

Dealerships across the country are jumping into Social Media, and that’s a good thing. However, as I talk dealers around the country many, perhaps even most, are not seeing any ROI from their facebook pages, twitter participation or any other social media assets. Chances are if you are not seeing ROI from social media it is due to one of two reasons:   1. Dealerships are not leveraging their social assets properly   The genesis of social media is user generated content, so naturally to be involved means that you need to join the communities where your customers are, or create your own destinations, and share quality content. This is a problem for dealerships because historically the only content dealerships have created are their marketing collaterals such as TV and Radio spots.    Most dealerships are not geared up to be content producers so they do what comes easy, sharing inventory and sale information. This is bad, in fact...

As most of you know I’m a third generation dealer. My grandfather started his first Lincoln Mercury dealership in the Bay Area in 1964. My father took over the dealership later on and added an independent lot and a Jeep Franchise.   I’ve grown up in the business, mostly working for other dealer groups and have attended NADA’s Dealer Candidate Academy in preparation to buy my own store.  As a child when my friends would say they were going to be policemen or firemen when they grew up, I always answered, “I want to be a car dealer when I grow up.” I’ve been passionate about the business long before I understood it.   Its been almost 2 years since I left the day to day dealership world and have focused on building DrivingSales. My objective is simple: give all dealers 24-7 access to proven best practices and industry innovations. Those on the front lines need better information than they currently get, ...

It's no secret that the core of online marketing is quality content.

Good content increases the time visitors spend on your pages, keeps them returning to your site, and engages your audience with your message.  Good content gets linked to, increasing your authority in the search engines and bringing you more traffic.  Good content gives you the ability to place valuable contextual links on your site, making your property more valuable to those sites you link to.  Consumers are hungry for information and they seek quality content, create quality content and your customers will find you.  Make no mistake; going forward your success online will be directly proportionate to your ability to create good content.

In the world of the social web (which is the world we live in if you haven't noticed) you don't have to work hard to find the best content.  You simply login to your favorite community and it finds you.  In the social web your job is to share the content that you like wi...

I wanted to extend a special invitation to all DrivingSales community members to come join us in Orlando for an action packed advanced marketing workshop. Our NADA Conference workshop is about the "Proper model for advanced dealership marketing."  This workshop is geared for Dealer Principles and GM's who are looking to really understand trends in the online market place and translate that knowledge into a working strategy for their dealership to get to the next level.

Inside the workshop we will cover:

How the web has evolved into a social ecosystem and the power (and pitfalls) that come with it.
We will discuss the business case for increasing traffic at your dealership while reducing your spend and lowering your ad costs PVR.
We will outline the strategies and tactics your dealership should be using to drive and measure online business in both Variable and Fixed ops.

Each participant should expect to leave pumped up but most importantly with a higher level of underst...

WOW! The video below is a sad but somewhat familiar occurrence in the auto industry.  It's video of a real sales meeting where the manager is insulting his people into motivation.  He tells his people they suck, failure is their fault and that he, the manager, refuses to be part of the problem.

Unknown to the manager, one of the sales people whips out his phone and records the incident, then posts it to YouTube for all to see. No doubt we will write about the social media implications to the dealership's brand, but for now I want to talk about the huge gap in management skills that are demonstrated in the video.



What do you expect?
We have all been in meetings similar to this.  Most of us promised that when we became managers we would do a better job.  Sadly, without being taught the skills of proper management many in the industry become a product of the environment and poor management perpetuates itself.

I will be the first to say a manager's job is to hold his/her...

Five Strategies for Social Media ROI
Social media is relatively new and critics often state it does not produce concrete measurable results and thus is not worth your time.  This is false.  Here are five concrete, value-boosting strategies that your store can use to benefit from social media.

Social CRM
Your dealership should already have a storewide Customer Relation Management system to help you track and transact with your customers.  Social CRM has a parallel goal to your CRM system, to maintain and strengthen ongoing relations with your customers.  However, Social CRM is much less focused on creating transactions, and much more focused on creating strengthening relationships.  These relationships are built and maintained through efficient conversations on social media sites.

High quality content that engages customers and creates ongoing dialogue is the key to social CRM.  When your customer has a question about a 60k mile service, the answer should be found on your ...

Why your Internet Sales Process matters more now than it ever has, and the 7 Process Points you must execute to be successful:

Advanced marketing tactics like SEO and Social Media Marketing are a big focus in the industry right now. These marketing tools are very successful at moving the bar forward and YES your dealership needs to be involved.  However, if you are growing your arsenal of marketing tools you are also being more wasteful if your process is not nailed down.  Your store should not be investing more marketing dollars unless your customer funnel is proven to convert the customers into deals.  As the economy rebounds and you look to grow your marketing it's a perfect time to do a dealership process check up.  How does your store stack up?

The Correct Internet Sales Process
A successful Internet sales process is not rocket science.  There are 7 things every process should accomplish.  By executing these seven points consistently and with your dealerships brand, y...

At about 5:30 am yesterday morning I was woken up by a twitter text from Jeff Kershner at DealerRefresh.  He told me about a contest he was running to help get dealers involved in using social media and asked if DrivingSales would participate.

Naturally we are game to support anything that helps the dealers get involved in social media.  (Plus I was half asleep and would have said yes to just about anything.  Looking back, buying two flip cams is a commitment I can handle!).   So here it is, DrivingSales is donating a couple extra flip cams to the cause so your chances of winning just doubled!

If you want one of the sickest ISM tools on the market, the Flip Cam MinoHD, here is what you have to do:

1.     Sign up on twitter and follow @dealerrefresh (jeff) and @drivingsales (me)

2.     At four random times during the digital dealer event we will Tweet our location.

3.     First person to come to us from the tweet gets the Flip Cam.
*fine print at the bot...

DrivingSales has been re engineered from the ground up to be faster, offer more features and help you easily find the profit building information you need to maximize your success.  I wanted to offer a quick tour of the new features so you can get the most from your experience in the community.  If you are not a member yet, join us by creating a profile here.

Filters: We have added filters (in the left column) so you can organize the steady flow of content by dealership department and action.  For example, you can view best practices relating to "Growing Sales" in the "Used Car" department, "Cutting Costs" in "Fixed Operations" or an unlimited number of options.  Simply click the departments and actions you wish to view.

Content Creation: Creating and sharing content is the foundation to social media and communities like DrivingSales.  We have added a "Create Some Buzz" box in the top right corner of every page to allow for one click content sharing.  Ask a question in the ...