I think we can all begin here with an agreement that stalking someone is bad. Personally, I find it very strange. Why is it then that some of our industry dealers use it as a viable digital marketing strategy, more specifically, email marketing? Now for some, it may be because they don’t realize what they are doing and may need some help with their strategies. Sadly, there are others that are too lazy to approach their digital marketing properly. I am writing this to help bring both sides of the spectrum more towards the center because from each side as they stand, it is hurting the automotive industry and beginning to give our digital marketing efforts a bad name.

Now please understand I am not talking about the nefarious forms of cyberstalking but rather those dealers who generate a list of names email addresses from the CRM and constantly bombard the customer with the same "beginning of the month" or "end of month" email offer. Dealers should strive to become better technicians with their strategies and stop playing the numbers game while chasing that "open rate" or "click through" rate. Is that small percentage so important that you are willing to follow up with something of the same just a few weeks later? It is pushing customers away and creating more work down the road.

If someone walks into your dealership, you would welcome them, offer assistance, hopefully create some dialogue and continue from there. If you followed them around making suggestions on vehicles they have zero interest in or offering unwanted service work, I'm willing to say they would quickly become uncomfortable and leave your store.

From that point, two things are likely to happen:

They probably will never come back into your dealership for one. Then they will take ownership of your brand and begin to tell other people about their bad experience in person and in the social platforms.

This exact same thing happens online. If you bombard them with the same "expected" email campaigns, they soon stop opening and get a negative feel for your brand, which again, they will share with others.

The trap many dealerships fall into is that they think just because a customer has done business, joined your rewards program or registered to win that gift card that they have given you the right to blast them with irrelevant messages each week or month. Of course "opt in" helps you stay clear of anti-spam legislation but it does not diminish your responsibility as professional marketers and businesses.

It is important to remember that your digital marketing efforts are about matching buyers to your vehicles and service. It isn't about throwing stuff at enough of your customer base or potential buyers hoping that some will be silly enough to convert. This matching means understanding who the customer or prospect really is and working out what they need and when they need it. In our automotive world, there are plenty of tools available to present us with the information needed to help us know more about our prospects and customer base. We are dealing with real human beings with real feelings on the other end. Take it serious and deliver relevant offers to the right prospects or customer base at the right time.

Customers have caught on to the auto industry's "broad brush" digital marketing efforts. Dealers are spending more time and money than necessary with this approach. Email is a great communication channel, move away from the loose usage and approach with proper strategy.

I think we can all begin here with an agreement that stalking someone is bad. Personally, I find it very strange. Why is it then that some of our industry dealers use it as a viable digital marketing strategy, more specifically, email marketing? Now for some, it may be because they don’t realize what they are doing and may need some help with their strategies. Sadly, there are others that are too lazy to approach their digital marketing properly. I am writing this to help bring both sides of the spectrum more towards the center because from each side as they stand, it is hurting the automotive industry and beginning to give our digital marketing efforts a bad name.

Now please understand I am not talking about the nefarious forms of cyberstalking but rather those dealers who generate a list of names email addresses from the CRM and constantly bombard the customer with the same "beginning of the month" or "end of month" email offer. Dealers should strive to become better technicians with their strategies and stop playing the numbers game while chasing that "open rate" or "click through" rate. Is that small percentage so important that you are willing to follow up with something of the same just a few weeks later? It is pushing customers away and creating more work down the road.

If someone walks into your dealership, you would welcome them, offer assistance, hopefully create some dialogue and continue from there. If you followed them around making suggestions on vehicles they have zero interest in or offering unwanted service work, I'm willing to say they would quickly become uncomfortable and leave your store.

From that point, two things are likely to happen:

They probably will never come back into your dealership for one. Then they will take ownership of your brand and begin to tell other people about their bad experience in person and in the social platforms.

This exact same thing happens online. If you bombard them with the same "expected" email campaigns, they soon stop opening and get a negative feel for your brand, which again, they will share with others.

The trap many dealerships fall into is that they think just because a customer has done business, joined your rewards program or registered to win that gift card that they have given you the right to blast them with irrelevant messages each week or month. Of course "opt in" helps you stay clear of anti-spam legislation but it does not diminish your responsibility as professional marketers and businesses.

It is important to remember that your digital marketing efforts are about matching buyers to your vehicles and service. It isn't about throwing stuff at enough of your customer base or potential buyers hoping that some will be silly enough to convert. This matching means understanding who the customer or prospect really is and working out what they need and when they need it. In our automotive world, there are plenty of tools available to present us with the information needed to help us know more about our prospects and customer base. We are dealing with real human beings with real feelings on the other end. Take it serious and deliver relevant offers to the right prospects or customer base at the right time.

Customers have caught on to the auto industry's "broad brush" digital marketing efforts. Dealers are spending more time and money than necessary with this approach. Email is a great communication channel, move away from the loose usage and approach with proper strategy.

I have been thinking lately regarding the way we interact with each other online and especially in the social web.  I find myself at times with a heavy daily agenda and certainly know others do as well.  With that being said, I wonder of the attention spans and daily interactions of some are becoming shorter and more superficial.  Let’s be real, some interactions in the social platforms are very involved while others are very light and seemingly meaningless; also perceived as a complete waste of time.

The fact that one can perceive an interaction with another as a complete waste of time and that some do waste time online should not be confused with what our customers are expecting from us as the “brand” they are interacting with.

By now, it goes without saying, that the social platforms and web allow us as brands to cultivate relationships with our current and future customers. Customer loyalty hasn't always been recognized as super important to all of us as brands and developing a measurement for this has been tough other than point of purchases.  This is no longer true ladies and gentlemen.  Those of you that have designed and implemented a strong social media strategy can now locate your most loyal customers.  These are your brand advocates who actively encourage others to purchase from their favorite brand:  YOU.

How are you doing with this effort? Do you as a brand understand that you need to create a genuine relationship with each customer?  It is just amazing now that customers now have more power to voice their opinion about you as a brand and business.  This will happen whether you are participating or not and in my opinion, the customer truly is the one who owns your brand today.  In many cases, customers are treated as something to convert, make the sale and then on to the next.  It is something I never agreed with myself and never conducted business in that manner.  Let me say if you are conducting business in this manner it is no longer good enough.  Why not take a genuine and honest effort to find out what they are about.  What are their interests? How can you truly be of service? What makes them tick?

We hear it every day at some point that we as brands need to be more active and engaging with our current and future customers.  It is time we use the social web to create more long term relationships.  Those who will continue to look at social media as just another broadcast type tool, you are going to have a hard time.  We as digital marketers have a ton of choices on how we will treat and engage with our audience.  Those who currently are looking at customers as a number will continue to find themselves with less and less business as the month’s progress.  A better idea would to understand how each customer wants to be communicated with, get creative with your engagement and build a long term relationship.  Everyone deserves and wants to be treated as an individual.

So those of you out there that view the social web platforms as a “time waster” and don't have much value I hope to change your opinion.  As brands, it is up to us on how we interact with our current and future customers.  This is fast paced and there can be many distractions for both sides. 

The bottom line, you will only stand out if you concentrate turning EVERY interaction into a meaningful experience for both the customer and you as the brand.

I have been thinking lately regarding the way we interact with each other online and especially in the social web.  I find myself at times with a heavy daily agenda and certainly know others do as well.  With that being said, I wonder of the attention spans and daily interactions of some are becoming shorter and more superficial.  Let’s be real, some interactions in the social platforms are very involved while others are very light and seemingly meaningless; also perceived as a complete waste of time.

The fact that one can perceive an interaction with another as a complete waste of time and that some do waste time online should not be confused with what our customers are expecting from us as the “brand” they are interacting with.

By now, it goes without saying, that the social platforms and web allow us as brands to cultivate relationships with our current and future customers. Customer loyalty hasn't always been recognized as super important to all of us as brands and developing a measurement for this has been tough other than point of purchases.  This is no longer true ladies and gentlemen.  Those of you that have designed and implemented a strong social media strategy can now locate your most loyal customers.  These are your brand advocates who actively encourage others to purchase from their favorite brand:  YOU.

How are you doing with this effort? Do you as a brand understand that you need to create a genuine relationship with each customer?  It is just amazing now that customers now have more power to voice their opinion about you as a brand and business.  This will happen whether you are participating or not and in my opinion, the customer truly is the one who owns your brand today.  In many cases, customers are treated as something to convert, make the sale and then on to the next.  It is something I never agreed with myself and never conducted business in that manner.  Let me say if you are conducting business in this manner it is no longer good enough.  Why not take a genuine and honest effort to find out what they are about.  What are their interests? How can you truly be of service? What makes them tick?

We hear it every day at some point that we as brands need to be more active and engaging with our current and future customers.  It is time we use the social web to create more long term relationships.  Those who will continue to look at social media as just another broadcast type tool, you are going to have a hard time.  We as digital marketers have a ton of choices on how we will treat and engage with our audience.  Those who currently are looking at customers as a number will continue to find themselves with less and less business as the month’s progress.  A better idea would to understand how each customer wants to be communicated with, get creative with your engagement and build a long term relationship.  Everyone deserves and wants to be treated as an individual.

So those of you out there that view the social web platforms as a “time waster” and don't have much value I hope to change your opinion.  As brands, it is up to us on how we interact with our current and future customers.  This is fast paced and there can be many distractions for both sides. 

The bottom line, you will only stand out if you concentrate turning EVERY interaction into a meaningful experience for both the customer and you as the brand.

We knew it was coming and now the month end is fast approaching as it always seems to sneak up faster than we would like for it to.

So my question is:  Did you thrive or survive?

Many of us talk with others in the industry on a daily basis. Some of our conversations are with those near us and others in other states. One common question I do know for sure that gets asked is, “How’s business?” I have been thinking about this question and it seems it is a question of validation to judge our current performance.  Would any others reading agree or disagree with this statement?

I find it interesting that many dealers are outperforming their brand, selling more vehicles and increasing gross profit all at the expense of their local competitors while others are finding a tough month going in the books very soon. How are the winners making this happen? I will begin by saying winners recognize that there are only three things in their control:

·         Attitudes

·         Sales Strategy

·         Sales Proficiency

Attitudes:

We have all heard the popular saying that “attitude determines altitude.” Winning dealerships have a “no excuses” culture in their stores.  This keeps them from becoming victims of the market and creates the realization that they are accountable for achieving their results. Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, once said that, “Every organization is perfectly aligned to achieve its current results.”  In other words, we are getting what we are getting, because we are doing what we are doing.  When you question results, do you accept excuses or do you ask, “If you couldn’t use that excuse, what would you say?”

Steve Brown, President of the Fortune Group, identified the “Failure Formula” saying, “People fail in direct proportion to their willingness to accept socially acceptable excuses for failure.”

My question is, “What is the attitude in your store today?”

Strategy:

A selling strategy is the operating philosophy that drives how you sell as a dealership. A strategy should be an exploitation of the things that make your operation truly unique.  What is your selling strategy? Do your people know what it is? In the absence of a clearly defined and well-executed strategy, your people are forced to react to the strategies of your competitors and the demands of your customers. In our industry and markets, there are really only two sales strategies:

·         Lowest Price Provider

·         High Value Differentiation

Your choice of strategy should be formed with an awareness of the strengths and limitations of each.  By definition, there can only be one lowest price provider in any given market and the consumers must be able to clearly determine what that is.  This strategy, although not my favorite, requires a conscious decision to drastically reduce margins to acquire business. To offset the reduction in margins, sales volumes must increase dramatically and costs must be slashed mercilessly or it doesn’t work.

High value differentiation strategies are those where the dealership creates a unique value proposition for the consumer and is where I believe the focus should be for all dealerships.  I believe this strategy will best resonate with the majority of our consumers. 

Let me ask, if a prospective purchaser decides to purchase a vehicle, do they want the cheapest price regardless of content, quality and treatment or are they looking to get the most for their money and do business with someone they like and trust?

Proficiency:

In a customer driven marketplace, how well you sell is as important as what you sell.  We can all agree that today’s customers are better educated, more demanding, less forgiving and in bigger hurry than ever before.  They certainly more likely to have shopped and can force your salespeople to take short cuts at critical junctures in the road to the sale.  Do your salespeople have the tools, abilities and awareness necessary to professionally regain control of a selling situation? Do they have the competence and confidence to use them? Are you measuring the right things? How many and how well?

Winning in today’s climate requires discipline, focus and execution.  Winners look in the mirror, assess their situation and fix the things that are getting in the way of their results.  Those of you dealers that relentlessly focus on perfecting attitude, strategy and proficiency will dominate your markets consistently.  Keep focus on what you can control.

Thrive or survive? Here’s to a strong close for all of you. Happy selling.

We knew it was coming and now the month end is fast approaching as it always seems to sneak up faster than we would like for it to.

So my question is:  Did you thrive or survive?

Many of us talk with others in the industry on a daily basis. Some of our conversations are with those near us and others in other states. One common question I do know for sure that gets asked is, “How’s business?” I have been thinking about this question and it seems it is a question of validation to judge our current performance.  Would any others reading agree or disagree with this statement?

I find it interesting that many dealers are outperforming their brand, selling more vehicles and increasing gross profit all at the expense of their local competitors while others are finding a tough month going in the books very soon. How are the winners making this happen? I will begin by saying winners recognize that there are only three things in their control:

·         Attitudes

·         Sales Strategy

·         Sales Proficiency

Attitudes:

We have all heard the popular saying that “attitude determines altitude.” Winning dealerships have a “no excuses” culture in their stores.  This keeps them from becoming victims of the market and creates the realization that they are accountable for achieving their results. Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, once said that, “Every organization is perfectly aligned to achieve its current results.”  In other words, we are getting what we are getting, because we are doing what we are doing.  When you question results, do you accept excuses or do you ask, “If you couldn’t use that excuse, what would you say?”

Steve Brown, President of the Fortune Group, identified the “Failure Formula” saying, “People fail in direct proportion to their willingness to accept socially acceptable excuses for failure.”

My question is, “What is the attitude in your store today?”

Strategy:

A selling strategy is the operating philosophy that drives how you sell as a dealership. A strategy should be an exploitation of the things that make your operation truly unique.  What is your selling strategy? Do your people know what it is? In the absence of a clearly defined and well-executed strategy, your people are forced to react to the strategies of your competitors and the demands of your customers. In our industry and markets, there are really only two sales strategies:

·         Lowest Price Provider

·         High Value Differentiation

Your choice of strategy should be formed with an awareness of the strengths and limitations of each.  By definition, there can only be one lowest price provider in any given market and the consumers must be able to clearly determine what that is.  This strategy, although not my favorite, requires a conscious decision to drastically reduce margins to acquire business. To offset the reduction in margins, sales volumes must increase dramatically and costs must be slashed mercilessly or it doesn’t work.

High value differentiation strategies are those where the dealership creates a unique value proposition for the consumer and is where I believe the focus should be for all dealerships.  I believe this strategy will best resonate with the majority of our consumers. 

Let me ask, if a prospective purchaser decides to purchase a vehicle, do they want the cheapest price regardless of content, quality and treatment or are they looking to get the most for their money and do business with someone they like and trust?

Proficiency:

In a customer driven marketplace, how well you sell is as important as what you sell.  We can all agree that today’s customers are better educated, more demanding, less forgiving and in bigger hurry than ever before.  They certainly more likely to have shopped and can force your salespeople to take short cuts at critical junctures in the road to the sale.  Do your salespeople have the tools, abilities and awareness necessary to professionally regain control of a selling situation? Do they have the competence and confidence to use them? Are you measuring the right things? How many and how well?

Winning in today’s climate requires discipline, focus and execution.  Winners look in the mirror, assess their situation and fix the things that are getting in the way of their results.  Those of you dealers that relentlessly focus on perfecting attitude, strategy and proficiency will dominate your markets consistently.  Keep focus on what you can control.

Thrive or survive? Here’s to a strong close for all of you. Happy selling.

The discussion still continues today with dealers nationwide on the effectiveness of marketing through social media.  Dealers are still questioning if social media should actually be in their digital marketing efforts and also wondering if it actually works.  These are great questions that should be asked as we work to build a broad digital marketing strategy.

I haven’t commented much on the somewhat recent news regarding General Motors ceasing their multi-million dollar Facebook display advertising but is a perfect example of marketers not asking the above questions early enough. So what really went wrong for General Motors to make such decision?

After reviewing the Facebook page of General Motors, I must first say that it does have a lot of great content in my opinion.  It has some great videos, pictures and the timeline looks great giving a visual story around their brand.  I see engagement and a well-managed page.  Many of us have come to learn with social media marketing is to keep it conversational for the most part and create engagement.  At some point, an opportunity for conversion needs to take place whether the brand or consumer initiates it.  With that being said, I do not see a spot to sign up for a test drive or a way to get in contact.  The point I am trying to make is that there is no real clear conversion goal from the OEM perspective, which is a complete opposite of their websites.  It doesn’t really matter how much of an investment in advertising, it is very unlikely General Motors would see an impact on their sales without a conversion process to back it up.  I would even venture to say that if General Motors directed certain clicks to another destination outside of Facebook to address my above points, it would still have a very small chance of being successful as Facebook users don’t care to leave the platform once logged in.

I think what General Motors failed to do was to understand how Facebook fits into broader social media campaigns.  It is a very common mistake made many times every day in social marketing efforts.  Social media demands corporate communication, brand building, customer service, customer acquisition and often all of these can get confused.  These different organizational objectives often are run in separate departments, which can make the integration poor.  What General Motors and the rest of us in business need to understand is that the customer doesn’t care about any of these differences.  They perceive a brand as a single entity and expect a cohesive message.

Part of a well developed social media strategy is defining what a customer will be doing when they get to our page and what they expect when they arrive.  Something many of don’t think about is the frame of mind the customer will be in when they get to our page.  We can look at this in terms of awareness.  Traditional marketing works well close to the time of purchase for the most part, search works well when your market is researching vehicles you sell and social works best for all of the above.  The customer may not be thinking about making a purchase but by capturing their information we can lead them in the right direction.  What this means is by the time the customer gets to a search engine they are searching for your brand in particular and not just a category.  It’s about taking the tools we invest our money in and using them to their full capacity.

Just as in any marketing venture, spending the time and money to develop a quality social media strategy is very important.  Think about why you are investing in social media.  What do your visitors expect when they arrive and what do you expect of them? There has to be a point when a customer interest is converted into sales.

How are you making this happen? Are you even asking?

The discussion still continues today with dealers nationwide on the effectiveness of marketing through social media.  Dealers are still questioning if social media should actually be in their digital marketing efforts and also wondering if it actually works.  These are great questions that should be asked as we work to build a broad digital marketing strategy.

I haven’t commented much on the somewhat recent news regarding General Motors ceasing their multi-million dollar Facebook display advertising but is a perfect example of marketers not asking the above questions early enough. So what really went wrong for General Motors to make such decision?

After reviewing the Facebook page of General Motors, I must first say that it does have a lot of great content in my opinion.  It has some great videos, pictures and the timeline looks great giving a visual story around their brand.  I see engagement and a well-managed page.  Many of us have come to learn with social media marketing is to keep it conversational for the most part and create engagement.  At some point, an opportunity for conversion needs to take place whether the brand or consumer initiates it.  With that being said, I do not see a spot to sign up for a test drive or a way to get in contact.  The point I am trying to make is that there is no real clear conversion goal from the OEM perspective, which is a complete opposite of their websites.  It doesn’t really matter how much of an investment in advertising, it is very unlikely General Motors would see an impact on their sales without a conversion process to back it up.  I would even venture to say that if General Motors directed certain clicks to another destination outside of Facebook to address my above points, it would still have a very small chance of being successful as Facebook users don’t care to leave the platform once logged in.

I think what General Motors failed to do was to understand how Facebook fits into broader social media campaigns.  It is a very common mistake made many times every day in social marketing efforts.  Social media demands corporate communication, brand building, customer service, customer acquisition and often all of these can get confused.  These different organizational objectives often are run in separate departments, which can make the integration poor.  What General Motors and the rest of us in business need to understand is that the customer doesn’t care about any of these differences.  They perceive a brand as a single entity and expect a cohesive message.

Part of a well developed social media strategy is defining what a customer will be doing when they get to our page and what they expect when they arrive.  Something many of don’t think about is the frame of mind the customer will be in when they get to our page.  We can look at this in terms of awareness.  Traditional marketing works well close to the time of purchase for the most part, search works well when your market is researching vehicles you sell and social works best for all of the above.  The customer may not be thinking about making a purchase but by capturing their information we can lead them in the right direction.  What this means is by the time the customer gets to a search engine they are searching for your brand in particular and not just a category.  It’s about taking the tools we invest our money in and using them to their full capacity.

Just as in any marketing venture, spending the time and money to develop a quality social media strategy is very important.  Think about why you are investing in social media.  What do your visitors expect when they arrive and what do you expect of them? There has to be a point when a customer interest is converted into sales.

How are you making this happen? Are you even asking?

Let’s face it, we have a huge “feel good” mindset problem in our industry today and are failing to address the core issues that keep many of us from being truly authentic to our clients and ourselves.  It’s the last day of the month once again and many will be closing out another huge month while others will justify, once again, why they fell short.  It’s more than missing monthly goals.  It’s also about the clients who have given us the opportunity and we missed their “goal.”  Now don’t get me wrong, we won’t close every opportunity we face, but how many sales are we missing because of something we had control over?  I am speaking dealership wide, not just the sales department.

Those who have this “feel good” mindset, and believe me, everyone reading has experienced it at one point in time or another should recognize it within themselves and work to be better.  I would like to say this could be overcome by just waking up one morning with a 100% positive attitude and going about our daily activities in a good mood.  Sadly that isn’t the case but it is a great start in taking action to become better at what we do.  It’s time now to dig deep within and identify what mistakes we are making the put us in this position.

The “feel good” mindset does not only hurt us as individuals, it hurts the dealerships we work for along with our current and potential clients which is where I want to add more focus.  Having a genuine interest to be of service is something the “feel good” mindset can and will overtake. 

In my opinion, I feel that many of us have forgotten how important an authentic relationship is with our clients.  I know many of you are reading this thinking that you really do value your clients and your clients love you.  I can appreciate everyone’s attempts to defend their commitment to customer service and how much value you place on the customer experience as a whole but I think it may be somewhat over optimistic.  Even those of you who are giving your clients the time and commitment needed; I am not convinced of the sincerity and authenticity put forth in the process.  We are becoming too mechanical.  Anyone else agree?

Again, we are here to learn as an industry and get better as an industry so if my opinions and honesty strike a nerve, I don’t care.

For most of us in the industry, the client is someone who arrives into the showroom, gets the presentation on the vehicle selected, eventually agrees on figures and makes the purchase.  Many clients leave happy while others will have complaints on how we should have done something better and that’s the point when some in our industry shut down to the client and begin to question themselves, “why I am even here?” I find it very sad that the human beings we set out to serve often become the reason we begin to resent our chosen profession.  Once this happens it is very hard to be in any other mindset other than the “feel good” mindset where all of the daily activities are geared toward false accomplishment.  The good news is that we can turn this mindset around with both time and honesty.

Our relationships with our clients require both time and honesty.  Bottom line.  No exceptions.  Thinking about that, I don’t know of any type of relationship that doesn’t.  Do you?  Our clients want us to listen to their stories, feel their emotions and take the time to really get to know them.  That is what is important to them. 

What I am getting at is that it is time we treat our current and future clients like real people.  Giving them our real emotions and our honest feelings.  Don’t laugh because it doesn’t happen near enough.

So how do we remove the “feel good” mindset from our memory bank?  I would first suggest beginning the process by being truly honest, genuine and passionate about your profession, also in how you conduct business.  Then, stop hiding behind the dealership waiting on business to come to you.  Start engaging your clients, current and future, in everything you do.  Get out in the social web platforms, create dialogue and spend time with those who will make or break your business.  They are there waiting for you.  I assure you once you show your authentic self, you just may have a client for life.  Try it, you’ll see and I know you can do it.

Here is to a strong May 2012 closeout friends.  Thank you for reading.

Let’s face it, we have a huge “feel good” mindset problem in our industry today and are failing to address the core issues that keep many of us from being truly authentic to our clients and ourselves.  It’s the last day of the month once again and many will be closing out another huge month while others will justify, once again, why they fell short.  It’s more than missing monthly goals.  It’s also about the clients who have given us the opportunity and we missed their “goal.”  Now don’t get me wrong, we won’t close every opportunity we face, but how many sales are we missing because of something we had control over?  I am speaking dealership wide, not just the sales department.

Those who have this “feel good” mindset, and believe me, everyone reading has experienced it at one point in time or another should recognize it within themselves and work to be better.  I would like to say this could be overcome by just waking up one morning with a 100% positive attitude and going about our daily activities in a good mood.  Sadly that isn’t the case but it is a great start in taking action to become better at what we do.  It’s time now to dig deep within and identify what mistakes we are making the put us in this position.

The “feel good” mindset does not only hurt us as individuals, it hurts the dealerships we work for along with our current and potential clients which is where I want to add more focus.  Having a genuine interest to be of service is something the “feel good” mindset can and will overtake. 

In my opinion, I feel that many of us have forgotten how important an authentic relationship is with our clients.  I know many of you are reading this thinking that you really do value your clients and your clients love you.  I can appreciate everyone’s attempts to defend their commitment to customer service and how much value you place on the customer experience as a whole but I think it may be somewhat over optimistic.  Even those of you who are giving your clients the time and commitment needed; I am not convinced of the sincerity and authenticity put forth in the process.  We are becoming too mechanical.  Anyone else agree?

Again, we are here to learn as an industry and get better as an industry so if my opinions and honesty strike a nerve, I don’t care.

For most of us in the industry, the client is someone who arrives into the showroom, gets the presentation on the vehicle selected, eventually agrees on figures and makes the purchase.  Many clients leave happy while others will have complaints on how we should have done something better and that’s the point when some in our industry shut down to the client and begin to question themselves, “why I am even here?” I find it very sad that the human beings we set out to serve often become the reason we begin to resent our chosen profession.  Once this happens it is very hard to be in any other mindset other than the “feel good” mindset where all of the daily activities are geared toward false accomplishment.  The good news is that we can turn this mindset around with both time and honesty.

Our relationships with our clients require both time and honesty.  Bottom line.  No exceptions.  Thinking about that, I don’t know of any type of relationship that doesn’t.  Do you?  Our clients want us to listen to their stories, feel their emotions and take the time to really get to know them.  That is what is important to them. 

What I am getting at is that it is time we treat our current and future clients like real people.  Giving them our real emotions and our honest feelings.  Don’t laugh because it doesn’t happen near enough.

So how do we remove the “feel good” mindset from our memory bank?  I would first suggest beginning the process by being truly honest, genuine and passionate about your profession, also in how you conduct business.  Then, stop hiding behind the dealership waiting on business to come to you.  Start engaging your clients, current and future, in everything you do.  Get out in the social web platforms, create dialogue and spend time with those who will make or break your business.  They are there waiting for you.  I assure you once you show your authentic self, you just may have a client for life.  Try it, you’ll see and I know you can do it.

Here is to a strong May 2012 closeout friends.  Thank you for reading.