The bulk invite can grow your network and save you a bunch of time in the process. We know you have a number of colleagues in the auto industry that you associate with and you want to use DrivingSales.com as one more avenue through which to maintain those relationships. Instead of inviting one person at a time to join your network, we'vesaved you time by allowing you to invite them all at once. This way, you can spend your time maintaining your relationships instead of building them.

The collaboration tool allows you and your associates to organize tasks that you both contribute to; together! All too often we delegate tasks to others and have a hard time remembering to follow up on them, and probably even forget who we delegated them to! Maybe someone works on a task and finishes just in time to find out his partner completed it the day before. Well, no more! The to-do manager has a handy dandy feature that allows you to share your projects and tasks with individuals of your choosing. When the complete a task you'veshared and update it in their to-do manager, that information is automatically updated in your to-do manager as well! You pick and choose what to share, so your privacy remains intact while cutting out the possibilities for a few of those communication errors that always creep up when group work is involved.

If you thought DrivingSales keeping track of all your contacts and associates took a weight off your shoulders, we'd like to introduce you to the To-Do Manager. This feature is the perfect electronic way to manage all of your projects, tasks, and deadlines—basically, it organizes your life! All you have to do is indicate a role or job for which you have something to do and enter in what it is you have to complete, and the To-Do Manager will keep track of it for you and remind you when the deadline is near. And if you juggle multiple projects at one time, or are just neurotic about to-do lists (like me), you can list multiple tasks for different projects, keep track of deadlines, and write notes about the task itself. You can even share the tasks with other associates (if you choose), and when they update the progress they'vemade on the task in their To-Do Manager, that information is shared with you! The To-Do Manager can keep your life as organized as you want it. It's like having your very own personal assistant, who's one step short of doing the work for you.

so, you know a bunch of colleagues in the industry, but how do you know if they are members of DrivingSales? It's easy to find out with the Member Search. You can search by first name, last name, company, or job to see which of your associates are clued in to the hottest new networking resource on the web for the automotive industry. If you're looking for current associates, old colleagues, or experts in the field, the Member Search is they way to find them. And it's easy, too. We made the search bar big, bright, and blue for a reason—this is the first step to growing your automotive network!

Salt Lake City, UT, May 5, 2008 Auto industry research and production company Accelerate Automotive announced that company president Jared Hamilton has been awarded the 2008 Association of Automotive Internet Sales Professionals' (AAISP) Distinguished Service Award. The award was presented during a ceremony at the 4th annual Digital Dealer Conference at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando, FL. AAISP recognizes industry leaders and outstanding contributions annually. Mike Roscoe, AAISP Chairman commented, "Jared really goes above and beyond. He is well known and respected in the industry because of his significant contributions to improve dealership performance and adaptability to the changes created by the Internet. He is a pioneer whose research and innovation has helped countless dealers. Recently, he has been instrumental in developing the forthcoming AAISP Certification Program." Hamilton has an extensive background in retail auto sales, which began with odd jobs at his father's dealership. He came up through the ranks working in sales for a number of dealership groups. He is a graduate of NADA's Dealer Candidate Academy and was most recently the General Sales Manager for a large Ford store. Hamilton has devoted his career to making dealerships more profitable by emphasizing effective leadership through proper financial statement management, and leveraging technology and e-commerce opportunities. He is President of Accelerate Automotive, Inc., which recently completed a two-year research project, "The Masters Series: Automotive eCommerce," a ground-breaking documentary that explores the impact the Internet has had on the car business and how the most successful dealers are leveraging the web for growth. "It is a great honor to receive this award. I am happy to be a part of the industry and work with such great individuals and organizations. Moving forward, I will continue my work to help dealers improve their operations and leverage technology," stated Hamilton. Hamilton is currently focusing on DrivingSales.com, an industry-specific network and online best practice sharing community that connects auto industry professionals with the people and information they need to take the industry to new levels. The site began as a way for a group of dealer academy classmates to keep in contact with each other.DrivingSales.com is the original dealer online network, and as dealers increasingly see the value of social networking sites, it is growing into one of the industry's most valuable resources. Visit www.DrivingSales.com for more information. About Accelerate Automotive: Accelerate Automotive was founded to research the issues facing dealers today and to produce unbiased educational media on the opportunities and proven practices that are moving the industry to the next level. The company leverages the collective genius of the entire industry in a way that has never been done before, all to the benefit of the local car dealer. Accelerate Automotive creates truly non-biased dealer reports and information that drive results and profitability. Visit www.AccelerateAutomotive.com for more information.

The phone book is a great tool that is unique to DrivingSales.com. Most social networking applications have you share everything in your profile, but not us. Here is why: Every user has a business card holder in their desk with the contact information of associates whom they might need to access when they are away from the office. We'vegiven you a way to always have access to this important information, and still keep it private. Everyone you invite to your network and everyone you connect with are added to your phone book. You can also click on the "Add Contact" icon and add information directly into your contact manager. These people are not invited to your network unless you expressly invite them otherwise. You now have a complete business card book at your disposal anywhere, anytime. Nobody has access to it but you, through your DrivingSales login.

This is one of the best and most under-utilized features on the site. To use it is simple: All you have to do is login and/or read your DrivingSales.com messages regularly. Here is how it works: Every one of your associates who create a profile has the chance to put in the month and day of their birthday (we are not interested in embarrassing anyone by asking their birth year). Any time someone you'veconnected with has a birthday approaching, you are notified when you login to the site through the networking section. It's a handy reminder to place a call to that associate and wish them a "

Our messaging tool allows users to send and receive private messages between associates. The messaging tool is simple to use and can be accessed from the "My Messages" page and at the top of the "My Home" page, both in the Networking section. When sending a message, you will have the choice to either send it directly to a user's drivingsales.com account, or to their email address. You will be notified of your new messages by an indicator on your "My Home" page of your network.

The networking utility is the foundation of our community. It is similar to other networking utilities in its theory, but the DrivingSales.com platform was developed exclusively to connect auto industry professionals and facilitate information sharing. To network, one must first create a profile by completing a simple form about their career experiences, objectives, and other auto industry related items that may be important. The profile is your ticket to participate in various community features and also acts as your proxy to connect with other professionals.To connect with others, you can search them out on the site or invite them directly by sending them an invitation. Anyone who accepts your invitation (or any invitations you accept) puts a link to their profile in your "My Network" page to help you manage relationships with these associates. You will receive network updates if they get promoted, change employers, or share updates to their network.The more people you are connected to, the more opportunities that will come your way within the industry, including job offers, hiring resources, collaboration partners, referrals, etc., etc. The bottom line is that it's not really what you know, it's who you know. We'vegot the best tools to connect you to the right people in the industry to keep your successes growing!

When we set out to discover the most important principles to success in transforming one's dealership to maximize the Internet opportunity we were struck by the importance a dealerships organizational structure played into success. Equally as amazing is how most dealers still ignore this foundational piece to successful transformation. In the research and documentary project we witnessed 5 org structures being used in varying degree of success to attack the Internet opportunity.

5 Structures Proven to Work

1. Single ISM: Most stores simply designate one sales person as the ISM. They get the leads, work them and usually are required to work the deal through the desk.

2. Team ISM: This structure is almost identical to the single ISM, except here the dealer has realized that by adding more ISMs the department can scale better. Again in this structure the ISMs work the deal from “cradle to grave” but are often required to use the desk.

3. BDC: Business Development Centers go by many names, but the concept is similar: leads get processed by a separate team who is trained to specifically handle connecting with the customer and setting the appointment. Once the appointment is set, the customer is passed to a sales person to actually “sell the car.”

4. Reverse BDC: In this case the ISM handles the lead up front but after a certain amount of days if the lead is not sold, it goes to the BDC for long term follow up. When the BDC makes an appointment the customer is passed back the ISM for closing. This way the ISM stays focused on the immediate deals and the BDC with its trained phone skills can focus on executing a long term follow up process.

5. The Internet Store: This in many ways is the pinnacle for a dealerships Internet efforts. In this case there is no separation between the retail floor and the Internet Department. In this environment everyone from the GSM on down is trained to focus on handling Internet deals.

Things to consider:

Having seen each of these structures in place, and after interviewing dozens of professionals nationwide about their particular structure a few things were very clear:

a) The market is moving toward there being no differentiation between the retail customer and the internet customer, thus why have a separate department to handle each type of customer?

b) Despite the Internet store being the ultimate goal, it is not always wise to jump right into it. This is an evolution and it takes time. Its important for General Managers to look at the his/her particular store and make the determination as to where they are at and make the changes needed to move them to the next step.

c) Those stores that learn to evolve and adapt faster will be those that come out on top.

What org structure does your store use?  Is the really the best for what you are trying to acheive?