Seasons Greetings from DrivingSales! We are wrapping up another year, and thanks to all of you, 2016 was a great success. We appreciate everyone who is involved in our community to help make the automotive industry a great place to work. Happy Holidays, and we look forward to many more years of great interactions and automotive support!

I’m pumped to introduce the all new DrivingSales Community site.

Our team invested a ton of time listening to you as community members while, researching, building and testing to launch the new DrivingSales community platform. After nearly two years of design and development work, I couldn’t be more excited to have it up and running.

It’s crazy to think that in 2003 this site started as a brain child from my NADA Academy class. Now it is the world’s largest online network dedicated to dealership and automotive retail professionals.  Its pretty cool to look back and see the growth, but even better to see that the notion of connecting dealerships so we could collaborate and help each other solve issues that we all face is so meaningful to so many.

Thank you all for continuing to share your ideas, your successes, and to pitch in and help answer other’s questions and challenges. Your drive to create something better than each of us has built a community much better than all of us.  It truly is the top source for real-world dealer insights and its killer to see.

We’ve rebuilt the new community from the ground up, with a mobile first perspective.  We have made huge improvements with tons of feedback to the vendor rating platform and your ability to network with one another.  We hope you like the progress this platform represents and we would love to hear your feedback about it.  Feel free to email us at: feedback@DrivingSales.com and comment on this blog.  Be sure to rate your vendors, invite your friends and share the community on facebook and twitter.

I cant wait to see what the next 13 years will bring the DrivingSales community!

It’s a big day for us here at DrivingSales, and frankly for me personally, as I’m excited to announce that Kevin Root is joining the DrivingSales family as President and Chief Operating Officer.

DrivingSales is my baby; there is no two ways about it.  I became obsessed with what has become our company’s vision, and gave birth to our first piece of technology, back in 2003 when I was working at my father’s dealership in California.  I was attending NADA’s dealer candidate academy and I hungered for a real time, unbiased source of business intelligence.  I wanted best practices, technology information, statistics and any form of actionable data, fact or insight I could get my hands on to run a dealership more successfully.  While I craved this information to drive my success, I couldn’t get it.  What best practices and business intelligence were available was largely tinted because it originated from someone trying to use the information to sell me something, or it simply came too slow.  The world was changing at 100 mph, and I needed my info at least as fast so I could act on it NOW, and nobody in the industry was providing it how I wanted it.

I knew the best source of info was my peers, so I created a web platform to network my dealer academy class together so we could share information between us in real time, en-mass.  I didn’t build DrivingSales.com because social networks were all the rage like they are now.  The fact is I built DrivingSales even before Facebook existed.  Frankly, when I built DrivingSales I didn’t even know what a social network was, they were not even called that yet.  I just knew I needed real time, unbiased information from my dealer peers to run a dealership successfully and I was going to build the technology to do it.  I knew what I needed and I’m too stubborn to give up.

Its pretty cool to see what a big dream and lots of hard work and sacrifice can become.  Today we connect more than 1 out of 3 dealerships in this country, and have users in 9 others.  We publish a magazine, and host the highest quality conference in our industry, DSES. Beyond media, we built the industry’s first online university teaching vendor neutral strategies to run your dealership’s Internet operations and have partnered with NADA to make it available to all.  We have also built a massive data calculator pulling and analyzing online marketing data from across the market to provide dealers with actionable insight.  There have been lots of all nighters, skipped weekends and holidays, and lots of blood sweat and tears from not just me, but also the awesome “Drivers” on the team who have brought us this far.  The best part is we are just getting started!

Most of you know I travel extensively around the world speaking to dealer audiences and helping them understand the trends in the market place.  I’ve already flown over 241,000 miles in the first three quarters of this year alone!  Traveling that much, with 35 employees and a business that is growing like crazy, it’s a challenge for me to lead our vision, serve our customers and run the day to day operations of the company, not to mention take care of my wonderful wife and 4 kids.  This is where Kevin comes in.

I’m not stepping down, but I’ve brought in one of the people that I look up to the most in our industry, to help execute on my vision.  We are stepping up our horsepower in a serious way.  I’ll continue lead our vision, evangelize our message, serve our customers and ultimately run the company from the top.  Kevin will help create and execute the details of our strategy and run the day-to-day operations to make sure we are over-delivering on our promises to the industry.  

Kevin has been a trusted mentor to me, and has served on our advisory board since 2009.  He comes to us from Dealer.com, where he was Chief Strategy and Chief Product Officer.  He helped build DriverSide and led Cobalt’s research and training divisions.  Back in the day he even ran marketing for a dealership group, and while there built the first Ford website in the world.  It’s no wonder JD Power and Associates named him one of the top 10 automotive pioneers of the Internet.  His research is known around the globe and personally, he is just a really good dude!  I’m flattered he was willing to invest his time and energy into serving you, the automotive community, with us here at DrivingSales.

You can read the full press release here.

Please join me in welcoming Kevin Root to the DrivingSales team.  We hope to see you all at DSES at the end of the month!

- jared

The 2012 NADA convention isn’t even here yet and we at DrivingSales are already thinking about the DrivingSales Executive Summit.  One of the things the makes DSES the leading automotive event in the industry is that we focus on bringing in some of the world’s most prominent authorities in various fields, from OUTSIDE automotive retail, to talk about trends that are taking shape in the auto industry.  And because our event is centered on serving the most progressive dealership executive teams, we feel it’s important to be inspired to create the future, not just live it.

Last year, the DrivingSales Executive Summit was hugely successful thanks to our incredible speakers, attendees, and sponsors.  Our standout keynotes, over-capacity breakout sessions, and an hour and half of Gary Vaynerchuk left attendees inspired, motivated, and simultaneously wondering, “How on Earth will they top it next year?”

We’re constantly looking to push the boundaries, just like our community members are, and we think we’re on the right track to not just match last year’s DSES experience, but surpass it.

Yesterday, we announced a joint keynote presentation with J.D. Power and Associates Automotive Marketing Roundtable with the 4^th annual DrivingSales Executive Summit.  Although the two events will remain separate with our own flair of content and audience, joining the events will allow attendees to have a more impactful and convenient experience, as well as have access to the two most authoritative events in the industry in one shot.  

We’re nowhere near done innovating and brainstorming on how to make the 2012 DrivingSales Executive Summit the hottest event in the industry, but we’re confident this joint venture with J.D. Power and Associates is leading us is the right direction.  But at the end of the day, DSES is a dealer-driven event. We don’t adhere to a pay-to-play model and we’re not about to start now.  Last year, we had outstanding keynotes from Aaron Strout, Jason Falls, and Rob Siefker, and a knock ‘em dead presentation from Gary Vaynerchuk sponsored by Dealer.com, chosen by you, the dealers.  So who would you like to see speak in 2012?  We’re looking into Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, John Maxwell, Julien Smith, Jim Farley, and a number of others.  But it’s your show – who do you want to hear from at DSES 2012?

It’s an exciting day here at DrivingSales!

I’m pleased to announce that we are acquiring Revenue Guru, a boutique Research and Consulting firm, and its affiliated web properties. Dennis Galbraith, the founder of Revenue Guru, will head up our Research and Data divisions.

This is a big deal for us, and frankly for the industry as a whole, as it will further our capabilities to serve dealers with some very needed “vendor-neutral” business intelligence tools.  We’ve been working on a couple exciting initiatives in stealth mode for a long time, and bringing Dennis on-board to lead these projects is a huge win for the dealer body.  Were not quite ready to share more details of the projects just yet… but stay tuned, I promise you will love them!

The current clients of Revenue Guru will see no change in business.  They will continue to receive the same high quality service they have come to expect of the Revenue Guru team. 

As you all know, we are super passionate about connecting dealers with the people and unbiased information they need to maximize their success. Just like bringing Shaun Raines on board earlier last month, having Dennis and the Revenue Guru team join us expands our capabilities to make even more cool things happen!

Dennis has a long successful history serving the auto industry.  Before founding Revenue Guru he was VP of Advertising Products and Training at Cars.com, he ran JD Powers’ automotive Internet division and has taught graduate marketing at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  Needless to say, he is one smart dude!  On a personal note, for those that have not met him, Dennis has a warm and friendly personality and is a man of strong character.  He listens intently before speaking, his insights are thought-out, brilliant and absolutely worth heeding to. 

In addition to heading up our Research and Data teams, Dennis will provide exclusive, analytical content here on the DrivingSales community, so you will all get to interface with him regularly.  You will also see Dennis’ research in the DrivingSales University, on DrivingSalesTV and at the DrivingSales Executive Summit.

I’m grateful that I get to work with such a great team and so happy the pros at Revenue Guru team agreed to join us.  We truly get a kick out of serving you dealers! 

Please join me in welcoming Dennis and the rest of the Revenue Guru team to the DrivingSales family!

Next week at DSES we will have a special treat for the DrivingSales Community.  We will be giving you direct access to a few of those CEOs whose companies touch the highest number of dealership in the country.  We felt is was important go give you access to these leaders to hear their vision of what 2012 will look like, and most importantly to ask them direct questions about the issues that affect your stores.

Those committed to participating at DSES are:

Chip Perry - Autotrader.com

Mark O'Neil - DealerTrack

Mitch Golub - Cars.com

John Holt - Cobalt/ADP

Mark Bonfigli - Dealer.com

We have rounded up a few questions already:

How do you think that buyer behavior will change as users migrate from traditional devices to mobile/portable devices?

With fixed operations such a steady part of a dealers business, why is there such a disproportionate investment in creating technology solutions to help sell cars, rather than focus on service and parts?

In other industries, true technology platforms are much more open allowing third parties to develop apps and services on top of the platform.  This fosters innovation and competition and further cements the “platforms” position in the market. In automotive, most vendors talk about how they are a platform, but nobody really opens themselves up and encourages others to build solutions on top of them.  Why not?

Why with all the advancements in technology why do DMS systems still employ archaic interfaces, why are they not more graphical and user friendly?

Most dealers want the convenience of having one place to login, but a single vendor wont be the best at everything.  Is there a way for dealers to get a single login system yet be able to pick and choose whom they deem to be best in class for any given service?

What is the most important investment your company is making to stay competitive in the future?

How important do you think social media should be to a dealers marketing mix?

Is your company looking to make acquisitions in any particular arena?  Why/why not?

Feel free to add your own questions below, add your two centse the questions listed or email lindsey@drivingsales.com if you would like your question to be anonymous. 

Thanks everyone - DSES 2012 promises to be, once again, the top industry event for progressive dealers.  See you at the Bellagio on sunday!

DSES is meant to be a different kind of event.  When we set out to create the event a few years ago, we wanted a few things to stay consistent with the brand of the event:

#1:  The event is designed for executives within the business.  This isn’t for folks just starting out in the industry.  This is for people who are are decision-makers in the store, who are leading teams and leading dealerships and making important, progressive, strategic decisions. 

#2: The event is all about creating your business plan for the following year.  The reason that we position the event toward the beginning of the 4^th quarter is because this is the time when dealerships should be considering what their strategy looks like for the upcoming year.  DSES is poised perfectly to help create that plan.

#3:  Everything we do is for the progressive executive.  While it’s not only a high level event, it’s also for those people that are at the tip of the spear.  The kind of innovative progress provoked at DSES generates because of the top of the line professionals who attend.

Each automotive event has it’s own flavor.  Many other events are known for being very sales pitchy.  That was one of the biggest complaints I had as a dealer and that I know others have, is that you pay big bucks and fly across the country to go sit in a workshop to hear a salesperson pitching you about their product.  Dealers don’t need to spend and travel to be pitched a product.  You come to DSES to learn and to network with the top people in the industry.

That being said, we’ve just announced an exclusive activity at DSES that speaks right to the previously mentioned points.  You can go to other events to visit booths and meet with sales people from all over the country – and there’s value in that.  But at DSES, you don’t come to meet the sales people from these technology companies; you come to meet their CEOs.  We’ve created a fireside chat where dealers can get some face time with a few of the most influential CEOs in the auto industry: Mark O’Neil from DealerTrack, Mitch Golub from Cars.com, Mark Bonfigli from Dealer.com, John Holt from ADP/Cobalt, and Chip Perry from AutoTrader.  We’re going to give each of these CEOs four minutes to share what their looking at in the market for next year that they think dealers should be focused on.  Then, we’re going to crowd source and let dealers in on Q&A.  Dealer attendees will be able to ask these CEOs whatever questions they like.  It can be a question about M&A strategy, about a technology they’re building, about their customer service, etc. 

We’d like to kick off the discussion here in this open space.  If you’ve got a question that you would like to have answered, you have three options:

1. List your questions here,

2. Submit your question via email to lindsey@drivingsales.com, or

3.  Come to the DrivingSales Executive Summit October 9-11 and ask it in person.

You can go to any event and meet with the sales people.  You come to DSES to meet with the CEOs of the top companies.  

Subaru of North America announced that Dean Evans will take the reigns as their Chief Marketing Officer.  Evans will report to SOA Chief Operating Officer and EVP Tom Doll and will be responsible for the company’s marketing, corporate communications and customer service operations.  

Dean has over 20 years of retail automotive marketing experience and is regarded by many as one of the top marketers in the industry.

“We are very excited to have Dean join us" said Tom Doll, "Dean brings extensive experience in automotive marketing and sales and will give additional focus to our efforts to bring even more new customers to Subaru and to drive higher loyalty with our current customers."

Evans has served as an executive or consultant for a variety of high-profile companies and automotive clients, including Ford Motor Company, Land Rover of NA, Jaguar of NA, Chrysler Corporation, The Cobalt Group, Dealix Corporation, Nextag.com, AutoNation/AutoUSA, and Jumpstart Automotive.

Since 2007 Evans has been the Chief Marketing officer for Dealer.com, and has been a key player in their meteoric growth.

Subaru has also been on a tear the last few years, defying the economy and producing record sales from 2009 and 2010.  Their year-to-date sales are up 5% and I believe their brand is positioned perfectly to capitalize on the current trends in the social web. 

Evans will officially take over the new position on September 7.  

On a personal note, I count Dean as a friend and advisor.  This is a huge win for Subaru and all Subaru dealers.  Dean is progressive, smart, and a very fast moving leader in the digital space.  Look at his track record, he not only gets stuff done, he hits home runs!

It makes me smile to think back on my very first phone call with Dean back in the mid/late 90’s when I called his dealership for a dealer trade.  He was the GM of a dealership, close to my father’s Jeep store, where, even then, he was pioneering one of the industry’s first dedicated Internet departments.  He gets dealers, he gets the web, and his leadership will do great things at Subaru.

No doubt his proven digital expertise will benefit Subaru and all their dealers.  This is fantastic news for both Subaru and their dealers!

Please welcome me in congratulating Dean, Subaru, and all the Subaru dealers who will inevitably benefit.

What topics would you like to see discussed at DSES 2011?

One of the things that sets the DrivingSales Executive Summit apart from other events (besides being designed specifically for progressive dealers) is that ALL of our event speakers and topics are driven by you, the dealers.  Unlike other events, we do not sell speaking spots to vendors nor do we let sponsors dictate the agenda.  We want you to come and get inspired, not pay to hear a sales pitch.

We let the dealer community suggest the topics they need to learn about in order boost their bottom line, then we let speakers apply for those spots and finally we let the dealers vote on who will deliver what messages.  Also, by not requiring speeches to be written months in advance, we make sure DSES is the most cutting edge and relevant event in the industry.

So, now is your chance…  What would you like to see covered this year at DSES?

Here are some ideas that have been suggested so far, please tell me if you like these ideas or not, and add your own to the list.

Conversion Optimization

Working your website to maximize the number of shoppers it converts to buyers is part science, part art form.  Would you be interested in hearing a panel of experts share, brainstorm and debate on conversion best practices?

Top SEO Ranking Factors for 2012

Google and Bing have released a series of updates and are experimenting with many social signals to improve rankings.  Would you like a report on the most important ranking factors to watch for 2012?

Advanced Fixed Ops Marketing

Would you be interested in seeing some dealers show off some impressive case studies of things they have done online to boost fixed ops?

Social Commerce

Real case studies about how social media is increasing conversion rates, strengthening loyalty and driving revenue into businesses. 

Don’t forget, we have already announced Gary Vaynerchuck as one of the keynotes and he will be hanging around to sign books.  Plus, we have lined up three more AMAZING keynotes that were recommended by the community.  We will announce these in the next couple weeks, but I'll give you a hint on one of them… it will deliver happiness.  J

Registration for DSES is open and invitations go out next week so seats will fill fast.  Get registered and let us know what you want to have at DSES!

See you all at the Bellagio!

Here is a recopy of the open letter I published in the most recent edition of the Dealership Innovation Guide.  Let me know what you think...

Having good strong relationships with your dealer network is a top priority; just as maintaining a good relationship with you is a high priority for your dealers.  Neither party can exist without the other and when the tide rises, all boats in this relationship lift together.  It’s disappointing to me that vehicle OEMs are making three huge mistakes in digital marketing strategies that are shooting your dealers in the foot, and thus hurting everyone involved.

Mistake #1: OEMs have forgotten their dealerships in their social media strategies.

Social media allows brands to connect with customers on a personal one-on-one level.  I still brag about how Allan Mulally, the CEO of Ford, had a small conversation directly with me on Twitter. The personal attention he gave me, even through 140 characters, created a personal connection between me and Ford, as do all of the hundreds of thousands of people Ford has connected with through social media. When done right, social media humanizes your brand and forges deeper relationships with the customers.

Social media success largely revolves around starting conversations through the sharing of good content.  Think about how we communicate these days: we share content. When I’m proud of my son for a great T-Ball game, I share pictures on Facebook.  When I’m frustrated with a product, I rant on my blog.  Videos of my daughter’s dance recital can be found on YouTube.  The world, especially generation Y, like me, communicates through sharing content.

You, as an OEM, do an incredible job connecting directly with customers by sharing content.  You are able to create a consistent brand message by creating and sharing content with your customers via social media.  Dealers, however, struggle to do social media well because they don’t have the staff in place to create the content.  How many dealerships do you know that have a content writer or creative department on staff?  Very few.   In addition to participating in local community-related discussions, dealers should be publishing blog posts on your products, distributing local press releases when your incentives change, broadcasting video comparisons against your competition, and more.  It would be immensely helpful if you as OEMs took the content that you already produce and make it readily available for dealers in a format where dealers could easily insert their city/state and share.  And why not?  You already make it available to consumers.  Sharing it with the dealers in addition to the customers would serve to compensate for dealers’ weaknesses, and it would align that dealer better with your brand, creating a consistent experience for the consumer. I know you are focused and doing well at creating and sharing the content with customers, why not make an equal effort to educate and put that content in the hand of the dealers?

Giving dealers easier access to your social media content and making it easy for them to share is a simple solution to implement with technology and would be a big boost in the reach of both you and your dealers.  Think about how many fans you, as an OEM have on Facebook.  At the writing of this article, Toyota, as an example, has about 380,000 people who “like” their page on Facebook.  Let’s say 1200 Toyota dealers could accumulate only 1000 fans each, which is very possible.  This would mean that Toyota stands to increase the reach of their Facebook brand message from 380k to over 1.5 million by adding their dealers to the social media mix.  And not only would it create more reach, but it would tie your customers to your local dealerships, which is where your customers belong.  The car business is still a local retail business, its the people business, but your dealers are totally left out of your social media strategy and that is a mistake.  

Please note that I am not saying to take control of your dealers social media efforts, that would be a disaster.  Simply use technology to make your content readily available to your dealers to add their location, and personal touch and share through their channels.  Your dealers are an extension of you at the local level.  Don’t refuse them the tools they need to be successful for themselves and for you.  Bring them back in the loop.

Mistake #2: CSI is dead, move on and move the market to your benefit.

The concept behind CSI is right on target:  collect honest customer feedback so dealership performance can be measured and customer loyalty can be understood and improved upon. However, given today’s market, CSI needs to be phased out for something much more useful.

There are too many flaws in our current CSI strategy.  For starters, the collected feedback is not an honest representation.  There is too much dealer “encouragement” on customers to give them good remarks, so the surveys do not reflect accurate customer sentiment.  Until the scores are collected in a more verified manner, the sample set of data will remain tainted and not worth the paper it is printed on.  

Before you blame the dealers for tainting the data set, think of why they HAVE to be so concerned with those scores.  It’s because of the pressure they feel from you – the OEMs who use CSI rankings to rank dealers and reward stores – that they can’t afford to let natural results come in. This tells me two things.

First, the fact that OEMs need to reward and incentivize dealers to get good CSI means there is not enough correlation (or the correlation isn’t communicated well enough) between good CSI and a dealership’s success.  If CSI led to a measurable increase in deals, I guarantee you wouldn’t have to do a thing; dealers would naturally focus on it.  I suggest you make the impact of CSI stronger by moving to a model of verified online reviews.  Yes, I mean publish the results for customers to see and aggregate all other forms of verified dealer ratings as part of your score.  Consumers turn to online reviews to decide where to shop and so this is the data you should be watching, after all this is the data your customers are using to make decisions.  By moving to a model of transparently sharing verified scores you collect, or moving to just simply track the verified scores that are already aggregated online you will get a better view into customers’ true satisfaction, and you will move the market.  Believe me, where the customers go, dealers will naturally follow.

Second, today CSI is not about creating happy customers.  Due to the overt pressure from you, at the OEM level, CSI is about creating good scores, not happy loyal customers.  If the result is to grade a dealer on creating happy customers because happy customers create loyalty, reward dealers for selling repeat business.  If customers are loyal, they come back.  Reward dealers who successfully capture the repurchase, not create the illusion of potential loyalty.

CSI is a sticky topic, I know, and the suggestions I have laid out have many details to be addressed, so let’s get to it.  CSI is obsolete.  It’s not accurate at tracking consumer satisfaction; thus, it does not create loyalty and your current incentive structure has turned CSI into a political process, not a happy customer process.  It was helpful before, but its time to catch up with the times and do something that is effective today.  We as an industry, waste too many resources playing this political game that could be successfully invested elsewhere... like in online reviews.  Let’s stop playing politics and do something to benefit the market and all parties involved.

Mistake #3: Your domain ownership rules are killing your online marketing and strengthening your competition.

Too many manufacturers are enforcing stricter domain ownership rules upon dealerships that other online marketers don’t have to follow, creating a disadvantage for you and your dealers.  Many OEMs are sending dealers letters, putting pressure on reps, and even suing dealerships for domain names that they don’t like because it contains the franchise name in it, such as PreownedLexusConcord.com.  Manufacturers can hold dealers to this higher set of rules because of their dealer agreement, but unfortunately for the dealers and the OEM, this is a lose-lose proposition.  The general public does not have to adhere to these rules, so the dealers are at a severe disadvantage in their online marketing strategy.

Many current OEM rules state that a dealer cannot have a second website that uses the franchise name in it, even if it complies with trademark laws.   In our example from above, Toyota will not allow a dealer to have PreownedLexusConcord.com, but the courts have made clear in multiple cases that as long as the content of the website does not impersonate the OEM and cause consumer confusion, anybody can own and operate such a site.  This means a third party lead collector can use the site to collect leads and sell them, and an independent dealer who sells used Lexus vehicles can use the site to capture your customers.  Yes, basically anybody except that dealer who must abide by these arduous OEM rules, can use that domain to steal your customers.  In other words, you are opening up the field for intense competition against your franchised dealerships by holding them back despite the courts having cleared the way for others as long as they follow trademark laws with the content inside the site.

Some may be asking “Why would a website with a domain like this be valuable?” Google has a history of ranking domains based on exact keyword match, so they are likely to rank domains high for keywords such as Lexus, Concord, and Preowned.  Higher rankings gain more traffic and thus more car deals.  But, again, because of your domain rules your dealers can’t compete on this front so your customers are being stolen right out from under the dealers, and all that traffic and those potential car deals are being passed on to Mr. General Public or any seller that is not a franchised dealer. Your domain rules are a big digital marketing blunder made on the part of your legal teams, someone needs to step in and get this corrected asap.

The bottom line is the relationship between OEM and Dealer must be strong.  Its difficult to align strategies when OEMs and dealers don't always have exactly aligned interests and are at different levels of digital marketing knowledge.  Sometimes the dealers are ahead, sometimes you the OEM is ahead.  Either way, the solution starts with education. You can’t fix what you don’t know, but hopefully now that we have brought these three issues to light, there can be some quick resolution, for there is much to gain.

Dealers who read this, I encourage you to share the article with your factory rep.  We need to call as much attention to these topics as possible. Factory reps, if you would like do discuss these topics with me offline, I can be reached at jared@drivingsales.com.