We are putting together a couple of sales this summer and are kicking around a few ideas for spiff programs for the guys. We are a pretty high spiffing store and we have usually done some pretty cool spiff programs in the past. I feel like bled most of our spiff programs to death and we are struggling to come up with a new one.

I thought I would throw this post up and see if anybody has any recommendations that has been both exciting for the salespeople and helped sell cars. Anybody have any ideas???

We are putting together a couple of sales this summer and are kicking around a few ideas for spiff programs for the guys. We are a pretty high spiffing store and we have usually done some pretty cool spiff programs in the past. I feel like bled most of our spiff programs to death and we are struggling to come up with a new one.

I thought I would throw this post up and see if anybody has any recommendations that has been both exciting for the salespeople and helped sell cars. Anybody have any ideas???

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.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

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.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

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 say those 5 are our best. My question that I wanted to throw out is whether or not your dealership has tried some or all of these and what has the results been with each? What is the most effective way that your dealership acquires used inventory outside of the auctions or trade-ins?

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 say those 5 are our best. My question that I wanted to throw out is whether or not your dealership has tried some or all of these and what has the results been with each? What is the most effective way that your dealership acquires used inventory outside of the auctions or trade-ins?

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???

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???

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....

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....