Last week, I had the opportunity with about 100 other dealers to attend the Digital Summit at the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA.  It was an experience in itself just to be at the Googleplex.  There was great info at this conference shared by Googlers (employees of Google) and some industry leaders. The week kicked off with Todd Rowe and how are you defining your market.  Are you defining it by the company down the street, the local market, or something else?  The big thing is that there is so much 'stuff' that we are competing against when coming to online marketing.  It isn't just dealers, but also some of the big hitters like Autotrader and cars.com.  We all have to get smart, get involved, and get excited. Next up was Guy Kawaski talking about being "Enchanting."  Guy was a dynamic speaker and I loved everything that he had to offer in being enchanting.  Big takeaway from Guy was achieving ...

We all have an inspiration to be the best that we can be.  I hope that you all read for that inspiration.  We all have a different inspiration and drive to make us the best in the industry.  One thing that I have noticed over the years are how coaches are.  They for some reason give the best inspirational speeches ever.  As managers within the marketplace, we have to be like those coaches.  Take a look in the mirror and think about your sales meetings with your teams.  Here are a few tips that I like to take into account when having meetings with our team.   We have to give your team that inspiration to do better.   Have a plan when you go into your sales meetings. Remember, the goal for sales meetings is to pump your team up, not brow beat them because of what may have or may not have happened the day prior. Give praise to those who deserve it.  When given praise in public, that may just give that extra kick in th...

This week, Facebook acquired Instagram for 1 billion dollars.  So what is the significance of this in the automotive industry or any industry for that matter?  Take a look at it in a different way.  Look at a dealership as Facebook in this role and Instagram as a newbie wanting to be successful in a different profession.  Instagram came out of nowhere and is not a money maker by any means.  It has been one of the fastest growing social networks in the last few months.  It has made zero dollars in the 500 days that they have been available on the market and now a billion dollar business.  So what did Mark Zuckerberg see in Instagram?  He obviously saw something that we didn’t since he just paid one billion dollars for it.  We have been actively looking for that diamond in the rough and have found that hiring outside the automotive industry; we have had some success and grooming that person to what we want them to be.  Take a ba...

  I hope that this caught your attention because I do have a secret.  I was reading this week's issue of Automotive News on Monday and there is an article on page 24.  If you don't get it, or your owner or GM hangs onto it for a few weeks and then passes it around, go find it.  It is about Internet Leads.  It basically comes down to how much dealers are not responding effectively to i-leads. The survey was conducted by Piper of Monterey and shopped 4331 different dealerships and brands.  Here are some of their findings: Nearly 1 in 4 queries went unanswered within the first 24 hours. Only 16% of the leads submitted received an auto-responder.  I know that there is room for argument whether or not to have one, but I was surprised how low that number was. Breaking it down by brand, there were some shocking things brought to the surface.  You would think that Toyota/Scion would be great in responding to leads since it is...

I am hearing across the industry from people all over the country that February was an incredible month. We are no different. Not only did we have a great month, the Parts Department had a record month as well. Living in the snow belt, we would expect that to be with a successful Body Shop. This year has been different though since we have had a mild winter. We have only moved cars 2 or 3 times to plow. Body Shop is holding its own, but has a little less business since mother nature decided to get with the global warming this year. So how did the Parts Department have a great month with wholesale to the Body Shop down? Two words...Accessory Sales. When a customer decides on their new or certified vehicle of choice, the salesperson will get all of the paperwork together for the Business Department and then while waiting, ask the customer how they would like to "personalize their new________." I have no idea what the percentage of customers that decided to purchase accessor...

The other day I was at Panera Bread.  As I was sitting there eating my lunch during the busy lunch hour, I watched 8 people walk in the door within 45 minutes, and every single one said something to the effect of being too busy and “let’s go somewhere else.”  This was all within an earshot of employees that were helping clean tables.  Not one word was said to any of those customers as they just turned and walked out.  What if those employees were able to offer them a cookie or a pastry to keep that customer there and have a great lunch?  Would that have been enough to keep that customer in the restaurant?   Most managers have gotten a call or an email in their career where the customer states, “I was on the lot for 5 minutes and wasn’t helped.  I left and bought a car down the street that same day.”  So what is that first impression when we don’t help that customer?   Most dealerships wi...

DealerSocket hits the market with 3 new products within their CRM to take them to the next level at NADA in Las Vegas this week.  I was able to get a sneak peek of the 3 new features that they are rolling out last week that should bring their CRM up towards the top of the market.   The first part of the CRM enhancement is SocketTalk.  SocketTalk is a fully integratable texting feature within the CRM that will store everything in the history of the customer file.  When you click on the button to text a customer from within the CRM, it will open up a window and look like a text string like an iPhone.  You can also have instant messaging between employees that will pop up on the desktop.  The other nice feature is that it will integrate with your DMS so that when a customer’s vehicle is done in service, it will also alert them when the RO is closed.  Everything is opt in to cover any state and local laws to make sure that they dealership i...

  One thing that some salespeople have a hard time with is trying to stay busy in the slower months. They maybe sitting in your showroom at the window waiting for the next up. Just like a farmer, you have to work on your fields or current customers/prospects. There are so many things that they can do while they are waiting for that 'up' by farming their database. Most dealerships do have a CRM of some sort. The salesperson can go through and see all of their sales for as long as the database has been in place. They can do some of the following: Make anniversary calls - 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 year. Make birthday calls. Call the day before their birthday. So many appreciate that call from their 'car guy or gal.' Make renewal calls with customers that their lease is up within the next 6 months. They have to do something soon so stay in front of them. Make a renewal call when a customer is 12 months from maturity of their purchased vehicle. We need...

We all have to face it; the internet has changed the way our business has been conducted.  It has affected used cars and now with the whole dare I say it, TrueCar (I won’t open that can of worms) movement; customers want transparency. Are you giving it 300% so far this year?  Yes, I said 300%.  What I mean by that is are you presenting to 100% of the customers that you talk to?  Are you presenting 100% of the options to the customers?  And are you doing this 100% of the time?  With transparency taking over our business models, we have to try to stand apart from the others.  What makes you different from the guy down the street selling the same vehicle? I know that this is a lot of basics, but how many times does a customer walk in the showroom and announce, “Who wants to sell a car today?” and go right to a desk and go to numbers without a presentation?  I know we are all guilty of it at on...

I was talking with another internet manager the other day and this video came up.  There are dealers out there still that are flying by the seat of their pants and don't really have a plan like the Underpants Gnomes. Phase 1. Get Underpants (Go out and acquire cars) Phase 2. ?? Phase 3. Profit (or lack there of) Without a phase 2, there will be no profit in the automotive industry and the dealership maybe on their way out.  With the way that dealerships are getting to be more and more transparent, this will definitely knock those dealers out because they have a plan 2 when it comes to marketing and merchandising their vehicles. So if you are a dealership that doesn't have a phase 2, start one sooner than later.  If you don't, you will feel the hurt.  Get a plan in place.  Get the vehicles online as soon as possible with photos, descriptions, and video.  Make yourself stand out from the others.  Yo...

  So how is your 2011 ending up for you?  Did you get to where you want to be in sales objectives?  Did you hit your goals for the different internet sales teams, sales departments, or the BDC? Over the last several months, I have heard from several dealerships from around the country that their internet leads seem to be down.  Sales seem to be up, but not the leads.  I have heard some dealers being somewhere around 10, 20, and upwards of 30% down from where they are "normally" are with their leads.  Yes, leads may be down, but is your floor traffic down? As you are looking at your 2012 advertising budgets, this is something to consider.  I was doing a little research within our back end tools that we have available to us from cars.com and Autotrader.  I came across a report that was intriguing to say the least.  It is the "Sold Inventory Report."  Some of this may connect the dots with your sales.  Here...

  Here we are, it’s already the end of 2011.  Where has the year gone?  We have seen a lot of changes over the year with Google places, how reviews are showing on search results, social media taking the forefront in the automotive business, and much more.  I just got home from the Kain Automotive Workshop in Lexington, KY.  So much information, best practices, and some great ideas were shared over a two and a half day period. One of the big topics was about planning for 2012.  Yes, it is right around the corner.  We as dealers have to evaluate what has and hasn’t worked for us, evaluate our budgets and where to spend our money the most effectively, and we also have to see what areas in the business that we as dealerships have to focus on.  What are those areas?  Is it just some basics like multiple photos, social media, responding to internet leads effectively, online reviews, or any other processes that need tweaked?&nb...

Dale Pollak has made a lot of ripples in the automotive industry over the last few years with vAuto.  He just announced today Provision (the new stocking feature with vAuto) is going to cause not just a ripple, but a tsunami in stocking your inventory to perform at the dealership’s maximum potential.  Last year, vAuto was acquired by Autotrader, which no one really knew why.  Well, today, we know.  He is taking the stocking feature of vAuto to the next level which no one can touch with using data from Autotrader. I was fortunate to see Provision at a 20 group meeting 2 months ago just to get a taste of what was to come.  After the meeting, we contacted Dale to see if there was a way to get on the Beta version of the new stocking tool which he with some hesitation and parameters set forth, he said yes.  We have been able to play in the Beta version for about the last month or so and I will say that it is going to take stocking to the next level fo...

Dear Mr./Ms. customer:   The market is ever changing in the automotive business and you and the internet has driven that for us auto dealers.  No longer can we be deceitful, lie about previous owners and service history, trade-in values, or pricing of vehicles on our lot.  Almost all of the information is out there for you to find.   The internet has changed everything. You can't offer us thousands of dollars off asking price anymore because we don't have the thousands of dollars of mark-up that we used to.  The internet has changed it so that we have to price vehicles to be competitive in the market place or they won't sell at all or you won't consider coming in to look at our vehicle or even click on it to look closer at it on the Internet.   You and the market are driving the price, not the dealership.   We have to be more and more transparent for you before you even walk in the door. That is why you will see 1...

We've all heard the statement "are all your eggs in one basket?"  But are all your eggs in one basket when it comes to online reviews?  A couple of months ago, we all learned that lesson when Google changed the way of the star ratings on the Google Places page and only counting the Google reviews in the star ratings on the search results.  I heard of some dealers go from 400+ reviews to less than 20 Google reviews due to focusing on one review site.  I think we all look at reviews in making a large purchasing decision and we may even hit a few different websites to see what people have to say.  It is no different when it comes to vehicle purchases.  I never really saw the importance of being diversified when it comes to online reviews until this week when I attended a seminar hosted by cars.com. What cars.com found in their tracking within their site was 73% of used car shoppers did consult and read the online reviews of the dealership...

Here we are.  The conference season has ended. Two words may come to mind, information overload. There have been three conferences in the last week and a half that are all noteworthy. Obviously, Driving Sales Executive Summit, Digital Delaer 11, and Jim Zeigler’s Internet Battle Plan. So what is the map to success and get the results that you want after these great conferences? We have all heard and seen all of the conversations and tweets about who’s is bigger, better, better content, etc. Well, I have news for everyone. They are all good. My thoughts have always been if you can take away at least one component from the wealth of industry leaders at ALL of these conferences, you come out ahead. It is perceived value and what you do with it is the key. So what happens when you get back to the store? You have all of these awesome ideas in your head and what you want to do, but when you sit down with upper management, we as dealers are all known to drag o...

  Friday is my 15 anniversary in the automotive business.  As I reflect on the last 15 years, my, how things have changed.  Here I was 3 months before my wedding, and I had no job.  I decided to pull into a well known dealership in our area where I grew up with the owner's kids.  I went in there, and who do I ask for?  The owner of course.  He wasn't there, but his daughter was who graduated a couple years ahead of me.  I ended up speaking with her and the GM and they were looking at adding a position within the dealership; a Lease Retention Manager.  Fifteen years ago, a CRM was just spreadsheets spiral notebooks, and a card file with 3x5 cards.  I digitalized our follow-up with the leases that were up within 3 months of termination, got them in, and got them with the salesperson that sold them the car originally.  If they were an orphan, I would take it cradle to grave. That position lasted a whole 4 months and e...

  So many of us have heard the story of Morton's Steakhouse monitoring their social media and going above and beyond with meeting Peter Shankman at the airport with a full steak dinner.  That is just one example of a small business watching their social media.  I'm sure that Morton's didn't know that they would get the publicity that they got among all the social media channels.  I know that when I am near a Morton's Steakhouse, I will probably hit one remembering the experience that Peter had with it. Now, what about one of the biggest companies in the US watching their social media?  I made a call to AT&T because I knew that I was eligible for an early upgrade.  Little did I know that I would only be able to upgrade one of my phones on my plan, and not the other.  It all started with a tweet.  After I got off the phone with customer service, I tweeted out of frustration.   I didn't know what t...

CarZen just released their new and improved iPad app for their 120,000 consumers that have downloaded the app.  There have been some MAJOR changes to the app from the previous version.  They are claiming it to be your “one-stop-shop, bringing everything you need right to your fingertips.” The new version was just released on September 15.  In the previous version, it was primarily targeted for a new car buyer and just an information gathering app.  They have taken it to the next level. CarZen has teamed up with Vast to receive the feed for inventory on the app.  They are receiving the feed for both new and used vehicles.  They also have incorporated listed dealers with dealer reviews from DealerRater (don’t dump them yet).  CarZen has also teamed up with Evox Images for the most complete package of images.  They teamed up with MotorMouths for 3rd party reviews on different models from consumers and experts.  Lastly, ...

  com·pla·cen·cy kəm-ˈplā-sən(t)-sē an instance of usually unaware or uninformed self-satisfaction It can happen to the best of us as managers, salesmen, service writers, all the way down to the service porter.  We can get complacent.  How does this happen to the best of the best?  It can happen easily and I was reminded of it recently.  The inner businesses (departments) within the dealership starts doing well, and we forgot how we got there. Some love him and some hate him, but I just got done reading The 10x Rule by Grant Cardone.  Reading the book and then watching his weekly online G+ hangouts, I realized that I was getting a little complacent myself.  As a dealership, we are excelling and have some incredible growth in the last year and a half, but I have found myself guilty of complacency.   People will ask me, "How's business?"  I would respond we are "ro...

I have written about this before, but I felt the need to do it again due to an experience we had the other day on Twitter.  I was going through one of my Twitter timelines on my personal Twitter account and noticed someone that I follow asking about repair shops in the area.  There was a conversation going on with her and another person in town and she was about to make an appointment with the service department that was recommended to us.  I chimed in from my personal account to try us out.  We have been known to save people money over the independent shops.  I then started tweeting from the dealerships Twitter account to her since she knew that I was the one actually tweeting to her.  Through several tweets, we were able to set the appointment, and hopefully made a customer for life.  She said that she is going to be in the market for a new vehicle in the next 6-12 months.  After a few tweets, we set the appointment, she came in, an...

  When is it too little too late for a dealership?  Honda of San Marcos recently ran an auction on eBay for a 2009 Nissan GT-R.  The winning bid was at $55,100.  There was a ‘mistake’ on the listing within the auction and the final auction price wasn’t going to be honored by the dealer and they were offering the customer the same vehicle for $59,000.  Later, the dealership said that they would honor the winning bid and it was their mistake.  I am all about dealers being successful, especially Honda dealers since I work at one.  Unfortunately, this dealer is hurt and is going to feel the hurt for a while over this ‘mistake’ on their eBay listing.  Their online reputation is completely shot and currently has 61 reviews with a 1.5 star rating.  There is now a Facebook page with 829 ‘likes’ that is bashing the dealership.  Honda of San Marcos actually shut their Facebook page down and is in...

Today, I went to Google and did a search on our dealership as I do everyday to take a look at our reviews to see if anything new has come accross.  Well, to my surprise, Google decided to change things up a little on the search results.  I looked at other dealers in my area and it was the same thing.  Here are my findings: First off, you have the main site like before. Under the main site, you have specific pages within the website (i.e. inventory, service, used inventory, staff) Reviews are a little further down from where they were yesterday. I am really liking the new format of the page.  What I can see is the customer can go right to the page that they are looking for whether it is service, new vehicle inventory, used, or any of your main pages that are hit on so they don't have to go digging within your website for the information they are looking for. I am guessing that these are the most visited pages within the site and that is h...

I am just finishing up a great family vacation over the last week to Myrtle Beach.  As I think back, I think of the different experiences I had throughout the week and how it can relate to the car business. One number stands out from the week. $55.67. That is how much we actually spent on 5 lbs. of fudge. That is not a typo.  It was 5 lbs. of fudge.  Crazy, right? I think back on it, and it was a total experience. It wasn't your typical fudge shop where you walk in and just pick out the fudge from behind the glass. It was a whole production. Picture four fudge makers working around the marble tables singing songs that they made up to tunes from the 50s and 60s. They sing, dance, hoot, and holler as they are making the fudge you are about to take home because they know they will have you sold. It was a whole production. They give you samples as they are making the fudge. Then they go for the close and tell you all about the special. Heck! I got $72 of fudge fo...

Over the last few years, Cobalt has been trying to win over their dealers and build confidence in them as a website provider.  In the last 12-18 months, they have really switched gears and wanted to focus on SEO.  With the help of Google Guru, Brian Pasche, they made some changes in how they can help dealers with their websites.  The biggest change in the last 18 months is the url’s on specific vehicles are now including year, make, model, and city with Brian’s suggestions which will optimize the search within Google, Bing, and Yahoo.  Fast forward to July 21st.  Cobalt just released PowerSEO.  There are only a handful of dealers on the program right now as it has just been rolled out.  PowerSEO is targeted to generate more organic traffic to the dealer’s website, which we all want.  Each dealer will be assigned an SEO specialist which will monitor and optimize the dealer’s website and pages with the dealer’s ...

  So many internet managers get so overwhelmed with sales end of the business, we forget about fixed operations. I think a lot of managers forget about that since it generally takes care of most of the expenses of the dealership and is a profit center and takes care of itself and we forget to put it under the microscope at times.  Fixed ops are the life and blood of the dealership and sometimes we have to be reminded of that.  How much business are we missing or turning away? The phone is our first line of communication with the customer and IS our first impression with a call to service.  Yes, we have some walk in traffic like sales, but for the most part, people call in for a service appointment or to get a general question answered. We have to be sharp on the phone, if not; we may not ever see that customer in our service drive or even on the sales lot.  If we stumble through our answers to questions, we may look like we don't know what we are d...

  Success....what is success?  Is it getting the sale? Is it making a huge gross on someone? Is it making the customer happy?  Is it treating the customer right even though you may not get the sale?  What is success? According to Webster, success is "the achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted." As I sit and watch paint dry at a city swim meet, I look at success as baby steps. Yes, I want my kids and the team to succeed and win, but what is success to them?  Yes, they want to win, but if they are improving their times, they are being successful in my eyes. Their view of success may be different than mine.  I know they want to win, if they don't, they feel like they may have failed because I am such a competitive person and have passed it on to them and they don't want to fail.  When they get out of the pool and look at the board and see their times, they are either elated, or they are instantly in the dumps...

I was on the phone with a dealer friend of mine in our 20 group.  About a month ago, there was a nasty post on their Facebook page about a deal that went south and the dealer wouldn't refund their money to them.  I just happen to be on Facebook at the time of the post and sent her a text to make sure that she saw it right away.  Initially while she was doing some investigation, she couldn't find this customer anywhere in her system.  She responded to the upset customer on Facebook to contact the General Manager to get this issue resolved.  They didn't hear from the customer right away and thought that this was maybe a bogus post and was going to delete it from their page.  Low and behold, a call came in.  After a message back and forth, they finally got a hold of the customer. Here is what happened.  The customer wanted out of the deal for some reason.  He called the salesperson and let him know, but he didn't want to ...

There are times when a call is in order to a previous customer, but the question seems to be, "What do I need to say to the customer?"  A lot of times, a renewal call is treated like a normal touching base call to keep your name in front of the customer.  That is not the case. The reason for a renewal call is to get them back in the store and get them thinking about a new vehicle.  There are a few steps to do to make it an effective call to the customer. Look at the previous deal.  Most CRM tools will store all of the pertinant information in the system and you should know if they bought or leased, what their payment is, and maturity dates. Maybe do an online evaluation of their vehicle to see if they may be in an equity situation.  We all need nice trades and they are the best source to get them. Check notes and history with the customer.  Make small talk before going for the appointment.  This goes back to making great ...

So the question at hand is "Is the internet a lead generator or is it an influencer?"  This is a great topic for discussion.  I feel that it can be both to an extent, but which one weighs more than the other? Autotrader just released all of their info that they gathered with Polk on Understanding the Influencers that Drive the Vehicle Purchase.  When I signed into the webinar the other day, I was anxious to see what they had to say and found out in their study and how it paralleled with the study that was done for our dealership.  To give a little background, the study was conducted by Polk and commissioned by Autotrader.  They wanted to understand what media sources influence the new and used vehicle buyer last year. Some interesting things came out of the study that hit home and how the internet is getting so big in the vehicle purchase.  Yes, we know that it is big, but HOW big is it?  Well, here are some of their findi...