Bart Wilson

Company: DrivingSales

Bart Wilson Blog
Total Posts: 297    

Bart Wilson

DrivingSales

Jun 6, 2020

An Interview with Mike Darrow, CEO of TrueCar


I recently sat down with Mike Darrow, CEO and President of TrueCar, to chat about the current state of automotive. We talked about TrueCar's direction and where he sees the industry headed.


Bart Wilson

DrivingSales

Director of Operations

1072

No Comments

Bart Wilson

DrivingSales

May 5, 2019

Improving Vehicle Detail Pages

Your VDP is one of the most important aspects of your marketing. Improving your sellers notes will help your customers see the value that is included for that particular vehicle. Price, pictures, and description are the three most important factors that will allow your VDP to stand out. Price can always change, pictures should be a high priority, but often neglected, the description often talks about the brand name and it a copy and paste for every vehicle. 

Improve your VDP by writing a unique description for each vehicle with as much context as possible. That is the best way to stand out.

 

What success have you seen with VDP's with great descriptions?

Bart Wilson

DrivingSales

Director of Operations

1638

11 Comments

Derrick Woolfson

Beltway Companies

May 5, 2019  

This a great post! I cannot tell you how many vehicles I see without descriptions or worse the wrong descriptions that offer options that are otherwise not on the unit. 

Suzanne Laine

Chandler Chevrolet

May 5, 2019  

I would have to argue against posting links on dealership websites that take shoppers away from the website, to 3rd party sites.  I'm also pretty sure that most 3rd parties will not allow links to other 3rd party sites in the description.

Bart Wilson

DrivingSales

May 5, 2019  

I agree with Suzanne.  It's so hard to get visitors on your website, I would think you would want them to convert vs redirect somewhere else where you would potentially have competition.

That being said, there is value in 3rd party validation.  If you are going to link, make sure it opens a new window.

Suzanne Laine

Chandler Chevrolet

May 5, 2019  

I'm all for transparency, but not using a method that potentially undermines a conversion.  If you do want to show comparisons on a dealership website, I believe most vendors have other ways that are more dealer-friendly, such as displaying the Carguru badges on the SRPs and VDPs on your dealership website.

Suzanne Laine

Chandler Chevrolet

May 5, 2019  

I guess the difference is that I want to help sell cars at my dealership, not create my own website and charge dealers for leads.  By the way, great (and short, simple) video, Bart.  We can all add more value to our vehicles with details that set our vehicle apart from all the others similar to it.  3rd party pricing tools don't always reflect the true value of a vehicle:  features/condition that add more value. It's also helpful to sales staff, who can use that description as a quick tool when confronted with customers who are confused about the differences in price on 3rd parties.

Bart Wilson

DrivingSales

Nov 11, 2018

How to Follow Up Without Being Annoying


In this video we discuss following up with an unsold guest and give you some tips to professionally follow up without being a pest.

Bart Wilson

DrivingSales

Director of Operations

2123

4 Comments

Leeann Miller

DrivingSales

Nov 11, 2018  

Great tips! I feel if we put a little more thought into each call it will result in more sales for sure

R. J. James

3E Business Consulting

Nov 11, 2018  

Great Tips!  Likewise, when training on Following-Up, I suggest that each call, e-mail, or text have some information that is an ADDED VALUE to the Customer (i.e., New Inventory, New Pricing, New Incentives, Model of interest just received an Award, We need your Trade, Additional Customers interested in this vehicle, etc).

Also, for Sold Customers, I suggest Call #1 (1-2 Days) be about the Customer's Personal Settings (Phone, Audio, Climate Control, etc);  Call #2 (1 Week) be about Driving Experience; Call #3 (2 Weeks) be about Like and Dislikes; Call #4 (1 Month) Referrals.

C L

Automotive Group

Nov 11, 2018  

LOve it man! 

Derrick Woolfson

Beltway Companies

Nov 11, 2018  

Great video!! Part of the reason the calls are stale has to do with dealers outdated work-flows. Instead, as you mentioned, having something new to say! If they have asked a question, answer it! Otherwise, you will continue to get the same response from the customer again, and again: "yeah, I am not in the market right now. If anything changes, I will let you know. But in the meantime, can you please stop calling me every other day." 

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