We have gone back and forth on Christmas bonus' over the last few years. We currently pay our sales consultants a Christmas bonus based on them acheiving a certain level of sales for the year. We also pay them an extra bonus fors CSI if they are in the top 10 percent. I'm curious to know what other dealerships pay in terms of an annual bonus for their salespeople.

Also, we currently don't pay a Christmas bonus to any of our sales managers or finance managers. They used to get an annual bonus that was linked in to their monthly one-on-ones and their average scores from those reviews. It wasn't a ton of money, but at least it was something that they could look forward to at the end of the year. Again, I was wondering if the norm is to pay year end bonus' to sales managers and finance managers? If so, what type of bonus do you pay out and how is it earned?

We have been making some changes to our internet process lately. We are evaluating our closing percentages to make sure we are capturing enough deals during each phase of the buying cycle. We do a really good job tracking accurate data, so I feel like our closing percentages are close to accurate.

     The problem that we are having is that it has been 5 years since we have done a complete overhaul of our internet process. We feel like the data for national averages that we collected back in 2006 is potentially less accurate than it once was.  Here are the #'s that we have according to Polk reports:

• 56% of new vehicle leads will purchase a new vehicle
• 42% will purchase a vehicle in less than 30 days
• 16% will buy between 31-60 days
• 10% will buy between 61-90 days
• 32 % will buy in 91 days or more

     I was hoping you guys could clarify to see if those closing percentages are still accurate.  Also, I had a few more questions:

    At what point in the buying cycle to they eventually switch interest to a used vehicle?

    What % of the leads actually buy the same make/model that they inquired about?

    Do you guys offer any giveaways at any point of the internet process to entice them to make a decision sooner?

We are trying to plan our first annual executive summit next month. Our dealer principal got the idea from an Entrepreneur group tthat recommended that we do it each year. It is basically a company wide retreat that is separate from any normally scheduled meetings and separate from your annual forecasting. It is done once a year somewhere off site and is supposed to be a 1-2 day retreat. The purpose of it is to define yourself as a company, set goals, and strategize for the following year so everyone from the company is on the same page.

We are doing it in about a month. I was wondering if any dealers out there do something similar and if they have seen any positve or negative results from it. If so, what was covered in the meeting and what do you recommend?

  I have been brainstorming a lot lately on ways to rally the troops. Anybody that has worked in the car business knows that November is the start of 4 pretty slow months in a row. The guys are already starting to feel the affects of the downturn in traffic and as a result are already starting to complain. I want to try to do everything I can to help keep them motivated and to keep things somewhat interesting around here.  The only thing is that I am on a limited budget.

     We have tried Christmas at the dealership during December as a fun way to compensate and spiff the salesguys.  We would go buy like $6,000 worth of stuff (tv's, laptops, digital cameras, and basically anything else they have at Costco!)  The response that we got was always really good, but the problem we had the last time was that everyone needed the cash more than they needed the gifts, so they returned like 90% of the stuff to Costco. I'm pretty sure the guys are in the same boat this year and would rather have the money vs. the gifts. It is way too much work to go buy all that stuff and get it here to the dealership if they are going to just take it back the next week.

     With that said, we need a fun, affordable way to keep things interesting around here during the holiday season. Like I said before, we can't break the bank because the owner of the store keeps us on a budget. So we need a really good idea. Let me know what you guys have tried in the past that has been successful.  Keep in mind that the program needs to be tied to selling cars and needs to reward productivity for the guys that are pushing hard during the slow months. I don't want to just hand out free money! Let me know what you guys think.

     I recently attended a class where we brainstormed on ideas on how to acquire more cars for your used car department in an effort to become less reliant on purchasing vehicles at the auctions.

     One of the ideas that was brought up was to staff a salesperson every morning in the service drive from 7-10 a.m. The salesperson would make contacts during his shift and make appointments to get the car appraised during the day. That would give the customer the option to trade the vehicle in rather than pay for a potentially expensive repair on an older vehicle.

     I loved the idea when I first heard it. Conceptually, it sounds like a beautiful thing. My only concern would be getting all the salespeople bought-in and excited about it. They would have to get here an hour and a half earlier than they are normally scheduled and I'm guessing I wil get quite a bit of resistance from the guys. I'm hoping once they see the benefit of it and start making some car deals, they won't care any more.

     Just wondering if anyone out there works at a dealership where they have had some success doing this. Also, was it hard to get the guys committed to doing it?

We are getting ready to fill our General Sales Manager position at the dealership. We haven't had that position filled since 2008 when the bottom fell out. Like most stores, we had to consolidate positions and our GM has been doing both positions since then.

We feel like our GSM pay plan might be out of date a bit so I thought I would see what other stores are paying that position and what the pay plan structure is. The more specific you could be the better. Meaning, what are the guarentees/salaries paid? Do you pay a percentage of the gross front and back? Do you pay a percentage of the selling gross? Does it include the fleet department gross?

Any feeback would be extremely helpful. Thanks for your input....

     I attended a NADA class recently and the concept of level recon costs was brought up. The way we do reconditioning at our store is each vehicle stands on its own. Meaning whatever the actual recon costs for the given unit is gets billed to the car. I had never really considered the fact that there might be a better way to account for recon.

     It was mentioned in the class and several of the class members work at dealerships where they have a set amount of recon that is billed to every unit. Meaning, service hits each car the same amount of money regardless if the actual recon is more or less than the set amount. They mentioned that the benefit to doing it this way is that service is less prone to try to take advantage of the sales department. Also, service is then on the hook for any repairs that need to be done after the sale in the event that they missed something in the reconditioning process. They also mentioned that it is nice to have a predictable amount attached to each car so you don't have to worry about getting buried in one.

     I see a lot of disadvantages to this program as I have been thinking about it. I was wondering if there are many dealers out there that currently account for their recon in this way and what there experience has been. Or, if there are some dealers out there that have tried it and found that it didn't work well. Any feedback would be appreciated.....

     We are considering making another change with our internet process. First I will tell you a quick history of how we have handled internet leads in the past.

     We started by having all of our sales consultants take each lead.

     We then went to having 2-3 internet salespeople that handled all the leads and the normal salespeople didn't take any of the leads. The problem is we had a lot of turnover in that position.

     We then went back to having all the salespeople take the leads again. We have handled our leads that way for about 6 years. I think we have a great internet process compared to a lot of dealerships and we have closed as high as about 10% when we have things dialed in. The difficult thing that we are facing is to get our guys to be consistent and commit to following all the steps to our internet process 100% of the time.

     We are now considering hiring 2 BDC agents that don't sell at all and have them handle all the leads. Their only job would be to take the leads, follow our internet process, and make an appointment for the salespeople. We have talked to a couple of dealerships that handle their leads that way and they claim it is the only way to go. Any thoughts (positive or negative)????

     We have been in a rut the last 6 months with our customer survey scores. We usually are in the top 10% of the nation and have never really had any major issues with our scores. Our store has always taken the stance that we don't need to bribe the customer to give us a perfect survey if we provide a great experience and train our salespeople on how to ensure they get a good survey.

     Even though we still have happy customers and trained salespeople, I can't seem to get back where we used to be. I know there are stores out there that are basically "buying there perfect survey" and it drives me crazy because it is making me look bad. I know we take better care of our customers than these other stores but unfortunately we aren't getting the recognition from the manufacturer.

     Just wondering if most stores out there "buy" there surveys to make sure they are perfect or if they actually work for them? Also, is there any middle ground strategies that might be worth considering?

     We are in the process of making some changes to our new car pricing strategy. Thanks to a lot of feedback, it looks like we are going to move forward with implementing a completely different strategy for pricing cars online.

     As we have been ironing out the details with these changes, we have questioned whether or not it is a good idea to keep our prices for our new inventory on the dealership's website. Being a bottom-line-price store, it has always seemed like the logical thing to post your best price on our website along with photos and info on the car. We now feel like our competition is using our prices from our website to determine where we have certain lines priced and they are using those prices in order to one-up us with their internet pricing. We are pretty sure we want to take our pricing off our website so we can keep them guessing but we are reluctant because we know having that information posted is a big deal to most consumers. Another reason why we think it is the best route to go, is because one of the biggest online dealerships in the state ( different manufacturer ) don't price their cars on their website either. But who's to say we will see the same success.

     So.... What is the best solution? I know that most local dealers keep their prices posted but I would be curious to hear about any success stories on the contrary. Let me know what you guys think.