Book Review of Velocity Overdrive, by Dale Pollak
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Public Broadcasting Service PBS Premiere of American Experience Presents Henry Ford Tuesday, January 29th, 2013 9:00 – 11:00 PM on PBS – A...Read post
Velocity Overdrive, The Road to Reinvention – Book Review By David Ruggles Dale Pollak’s third book, “Velocity O...Read post
The automotive world has been jolted in recent months by the pullouts of certain lenders from the leasing business. Wells Fargo has exited leasing alt...Read post
Our dealership is a little behind the times when it comes to how we contract customers and get those contracts to the bank. We currently sign up our customers on a bank contract that gets mailed to the bank. The only lender that we currently do electronic contracting through is Ford motor credit. We would like to get set up with other banks/credit unions and make it to where we can electronically contract our customers and get funded faster. I was just wanting to get some pointers from dealers that are do well with this before I start making some changes. Is there a dms that works better than others in terms of pushing the customer's information? Is route one or dealertrack better? Are some lenders not even set up to do electronic contracting and I would be chasing my tail? Please let me know your thoughts.  ...Read post
A submarine has individual compartments to protect itself from disaster. When attacked, the crew moves through each compartment, closing the hatch of the previous compartment behind them. Selling requires the same procedure: moving completely through each compartment, or step of the sales process, to arrive safely at a successful sale. We all know salespeople who skip steps to get to the close faster, without shutting the other hatches behind them. And chances are, their sale ended up dead in the water.Read post
We are directing our efforts to improve on acquiring used vehicles. We had a meeting about it where we all came with our top 3 ideas on where we focus. Some of our ideas are the following: -Staff a salesperson every morning in the service drive and work the service drive better. Make sure there are processes in place to where we can give them bids on the vehicle and convince them to trade their car in. -Pay our salespeople a spiff to look online and try to attract private party sellers to the dealership to sell us their car. -Get our used car manager to network better with other dealers and wholesellers in an effort to buy more cars from them. -Be willing to "stretch" more on a trade-in to make the deal and get their trade. Not to the point where we will be buried in the trade though. -Establish a campaign in our crm to where salespeople can contact customers with vehicles between x miles to x miles to come in and trade-in their car. We had some other ideas but I would ...Read post
We are looking at cutting one of our 3rd party vendors (I won't say who it is so I don't piss anyone off!) and want to replace them with someone else. We are currently closing 1% of their leads year to date and pay a good amount of money for those leads. We have a couple of ideas of who we would like to replace them with, but I wanted to throw this post out first to see if anyone has some solid recommendations. Just like any other dealer, we won't to receive a reasonably quality lead for the money we are paying and would be happy with around a 5% closing ratio. Any suggestions??? ...Read post
Each year at the start of football practice, Vince Lombardi, the coach of the Green Bay Packers started his season the same way. His opening statement to his players was, “This is a football.” Every year, John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach of the UCLA Bruins started his first practice of the season by demonstrating to his players how to properly put on their socks to prevent blisters. Pretty basic stuff, huh?Read post
Last night the new season of Mad Men premiered, the show that follows the tale of an ad agency on Madison Avenue NYC, garnered much hype last year after the Jaguar episode.Either way, this season opener caught my attention because of the message Don was trying to sell to Sheraton Hotels. “I think we’re not selling a geographical location; we’re selling an experience, “ Don said when he was presenting his ad idea. Don was sent to Hawaii on, “a work junket”. When he returned to the office from Hawaii he told his colleagues, “I had an experience. I don’t know how to put it in words.” The experience Don had in Hawaii was superb, even so much so that he kept thinking about it, couldn’t get the sound of the ocean waves out of his mind. The experience. Now Don might be questioning his existence in this episode but that’s not the point I’m trying to drive home her...Read post
We are getting ready to do a used car event next month. We have partnered up with a dealerhsip next door to us and put quite a bit of money to promote the event. One of the things that is really important to both dealerships is having the lender that we had partnered with on site to buy deals. Due to staffing issues and other disagreements, they couldn't staff the event for us and ultimately backed out. Upon meeting with other lenders to replace them, most banks don't have the staff and don't see the value of having buyers on site for the event. Maybe we are old school or something, but I really feel like having a buyer there makes a difference to us and the guest. Does anybody else agree? Are we being unreasonable to ask for a buyer to be on site and look at our deals? Also, I was wondering if there are dealerships that have faced a simalar dilemna and if they found a good solution. Let me know your thoughts.... ...Read post
You are who you decide to be at any given moment. It does not take money, a degree, a certain age, a certain appearance, tons of experience, knowing the right people, past success or any other qualifying factor that you may be currently using as a subconscious roadblock to your desired success. Your belief system creates your results both past and present. If your current belief system is not what it should be to support your success, you must fake it, till you make it.Read post
Comments
Once again Dale has put out a comprehensive analysis and strategy for Dealers. I'm absolutely honored that he reached out to myself and Driving Sales Community editor Jim Bell and included our input in this Velocity guide. Great job Mr. Pollak.
January 21st
David, thanks for sharing this review. Dale's first two books were so helpful - this is a must have for everyone in the industry.
Congrats again Dale!
January 21st
Yes, excellent review David. Looking forward to getting my hands on a copy.
January 21st
Great review. The one thing that I love how he took so many different industry leaders and used their stories and successes. It's one thing to hear it from an author, it's another to hear it from dealer after dealer with specific examples.
January 21st
If you've been living under a rock the past four years and haven't had the opportunity to grasp the change that is the Velocity Metric, grab a hold and get ready to become part of the future, NOW!
Another very insightful look in to the ever evolving beast that we call the car business. Who needs Shades of Gray, if this book doesn't turn you on, nothing will!
January 22nd
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