Car Business Ramblings

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 bottom of the page.

Personally I think this is a really cool idea and give props to Kershner for thinking it up.  Social Media is amazingly effective and efficient way to communicate, (especially when waking someone up at 5am) and while this contest represents industry insiders communicating with each other… it’s how we should be comfortable communicating with our clients.

Social media is more widely used than email and if you are not using Facebook, Twitter and the likes to stay in touch, then you are out of touch, simple as that!  For those of you wondering how to engage on social media from your dealership level, be sure to come hear me speak. Ill be covering that very topic in my Digital Dealer presentation.

FINE PRINT: NONE!  Get involved and enjoy! For those of you who have been on the fence about setting up a twitter account, commenting on blogs or otherwise participating, its now time to jump in!

Its the morning of Day 2 of the convention, I actually begin my next workshop in just a few minutes but wanted to update everyone on how the first day was…  BUSY!

The day flew by, Bart and I started the day wandering the floor with Rafi Hamid and saying hello to friends.  The big buzz of the morning was that JM Solutions sold off AAX and affiliated companies .  I dont know the details of the transaction, but rumor had it the JM employees found out on the way here.  The booths are seperate, but there is a sign up notifying people of the purchase.

Another interesting note, the vAuto booth and First Look booth are all of 10 feet away from each other on the floor.  Its funny standing at the vAuto booth listening to First Look Demoing their pricing tool.  Market based pricing is hot and your store needs to be invovled. If you have experience with either (or a competitor’s product) lets us know your review of them in the Vendor Rating System.  Note: this category is not live yet, it is accepting reveiws but we have not contacted all the vendors yet to let them know they are being reveiwed.  It will open up late next week.

There was some discussion about the recent partnering of Dealer.com and AutoTrader.ca (no this is not Autotrader.com… completly different company.)  AutoTrader.ca gave Dealer.com $35 million for a 20% stake in the company.  The big news here is the deal gives Dealer.com access to the 5,000 dealers that AutoTrader.ca serves in Canada…  Interesting.  Those guys at Dealer.com just announced a new mobile platform for dealers yesterday too. They have some great momenitum and have incredible reviews in the vendor ratings system… Clearly they have good things going their way.

I spoke for the first time at the Nada convention.  (Ive participated in the Digital Dealer Conferences many times)  I had a good time speaking and had lots of questions from dealers about the topic.  (I spoke on using social technologies to brand your dealership)

The evening was fun filled, as usual.  I spent some time in the hospitality suite at OneCommand, I had dinner with Ralph Paglia, Phil Zillinger, Jody Devere and the team from sister technologies and everycarlisted.com.  Its was a good dinner, good conversation and met some great new people.  Im excited to see a demo of the sister technologies video tool for dealers, it sounds really cool.

Lastly I shook hands with some friends at Cobalt in their suite then headed over to another hotel and ran into some execs from Izmo.  Izmo has always been one of the most innovative companies in the industry and I spent some time with Dennis Colome (a long time friend) along with Sydney and Mariam.  Sydney is the creator of Add.on.Auto, which Izmo purchased and ramping up.  Its a really cool tool to help dealership sell accessories.  With sales of vehicles down so much, we have to maximize profits any which way we can… I personally belive fixed ops and accessory opportunities are where the money is at today.  Mariam was great to talk to, I especially appreciated her view because she comes from outside the industry with a fresh perspecitve.  She is new at Izmo but I am convinced she is  taking her outside perspective and will apply it in killer ways… expect some coll stuff coming from Izmo under her marketing watch.  She and Sydney both have good things going on.

All in all, my feet hurt (as usual at the convention) but I saw some good old friends that I hadnt seen in a while and met some impressive new folks.  There are some brilliant people inside our industry that never cease to amaze me. 

For those of you who do not know what the "job bank" program for the UAW is let me give you a crash course:

After heavy layoffs of union workers in the 1970’s, and the threat of automation cutting more factory jobs, the UAW and the big 3 negotiated an agreement.  It was clear that the big 3 would (and should) continue building automated factories where robots completed much of the labor to increase quality and decrease costs; as a result fewer factory workers were needed.  As automation increased, so would the layoffs.  Rather than reward the Big 3 for the ingenuity, and despite the quality enhancements and the cost savings, the UAW demanded that the factory workers still get paid even if they didn’t have a job.  The result of the union negotiation was the "Job Bank."

The job bank is an account, funded by the Big 3 that pays factory workers up to 95% of their prior wages if they have been laid off due to restructuring or automation.  According to the source I read they can receive payments until they either retire or get a job at another factory!  This program guarantees obsolete factory workers pay and has been a weight on the shoulders of the big 3 since the contract was put in pace in the 80’s!

Now, call me crazy, but lets say you are a sales manager making 100k per year and the market drops so the dealer reduces his staff from 3 sales managers to 2.  You are laid off.  Are you entitled to receive 95% of your pay until another dealership agrees to pay you 100 grand?  How about if some software tool came out that did your job so you were no longer needed at the dealership and thus you were laid off.  Would you get $95k until you retire?  No way!  We know that our task is to do our job as best as possible, and if we are ever replaced its up to us to go find other means of making a living.  If you are rewarded (paid) regardless of the job you have, or if you even have a job, than what would be the motivation to get better or to create opportunities?

Isn’t capitalism about the opportunity to create our own destiny?  The ability for the strong to flourish, while the weak rebuild to come back stronger?  The American dream is based on freedom to do what we want to do.  This freedom blesses us with tremendous opportunities, but it comes at a cost. That cost is that another force in our free market may replace us with something better; thus our main task is to constantly transform ourselves into better to keep us on top.  America isn’t about guarantees; it’s about opportunities, and the constant cycle of everyone trying to out do one another is what keeps innovation and our economy moving.

Its sad to see the big 3 under such weight that they cant stand on their own.  Its sad to see what was once designed to protect workers, now be one of the causes bringing down the companies who employ these workers.  I know the UAW has good intentions, and I believe that workers must be treated fairly, but in trying to defy the constraints of the market the UAW has strangled, or assisted in strangling, the golden goose. 

an old but good article on the job bank from Detroit News:  http://www.steveharryforstaterep.org/JOBSarticle.htm