Every morning we wake up-shower-dress-fix our hair(if we have any) and hopefully get a protein based breakfast light on carbs.  ;)  We abide by a schedule. 

This daily regimen is ultimately about doing the little things.  You can’t be great without nailing the little things.  Without a solid "daily regimen" and consistency of achieving it, we are doomed to be inconsistent.  Inconsistency is the father of failure.

As a cardog, your thinning wallet may be attributable to inconsistent marketing.  You’re bigger than the economy right?  Now matter ‘how bad it gets’ you must still advertise…. You must go on by investing in the places where you customers are most likely to find you:  ONLINE.

Do you have a solid “Digital Regimen” that carries you through the day?

• Are you Geo-targeting your store on all the Local Auto Portals with relevant ad campaigns?
• Do you have pictures of your Inventory(New and Used)across all shopping verticals?
• Do you have Video Content engaging both the eyes and ears of your consumers?
• Is your website interactive and measurable by engaging and involving your visitors?
• Are you positioned to benefit from the traffic of the search engines?
• Are you reaching the millions of eyeballs offered by the consumer generated content sites-Facebook-Ebay Motors-Craigs List-Youtube-Myspace?

If you said yes to at least HALF of these things, then YOU’RE ALMOST THERE.  If  you said yes to all of the above…. You’re a ninja, and I apologize for wasting your time. 

If you are deficient in any of the above mentioned criteria, you should investigate further or perhaps give us a call!

You’re about to lose the bricks.  It’s not about Clicks.  It’s about pushing Iron through fiber.

Today’s consumer doesn’t care about your website.  They don’t care about your sweet flash intro, your nifty online credit app, or even your ‘next-generation’ inventory page.

They only know Google.  When they’re confused, they visit KBB.com, if frustrated, they visit Edmunds.com, and when hammered over the head by saggy saturated  OEM advertising and glitzy superbowl ads…. They visit AutoTrader.com or Cars.com and visit the possibilities.  One day, they might end up on your lot.  How do you part the sea and provide a clear path with all this overlap?  Oops, that was a question for 2005.

Face it, this is 2008.  Your neighbors are going out of business.  Your buddies are leaving the trade.  You shake your head as you leave it to the Green Peas….. Am I done?

OR

You take this for what it is.  Opportunity.  You embrace digital with the understanding  you will never, ever, pay for something that sounds like a lead.  You pay someone to sit at a desk and blog, facebook poke, myspace grab, and beebo about the day-to-day….   You embrace the day-to-day relevancy of the consumer. You use technology to track purchase cycles. 

Each “digital lookey loo” eventually becomes a buyer.  Make them yours by steering them for their 6 months in the purchase funnel.  Make friends through their friends via social media.  As they research a purchase, push them to microsites and landing pages for every single model you sell.   It really is possible.   Stop allowing traditional media’s “bygone” ways to dictate your future media mastery.

You’ve already cut the trees on the street to make your lot more visible.  At first, you did it so customers could see you better, but now, from your office, you see the Forrest through the trees.  YOU can bring customers into the showroom by making yourself visible on the places where your customers live…. ONLINE.

This is not about Pay Per Click…. Stealing your neighbors’ names for sponsored top of the page.  It’s about an organic effort to make yourself transparent.  You make your inventory transparent via mass distribution, and make your people relevant via social awareness/networking.

Remember, your customers don’t care about you:  They  only know Google, and visit the trusted resource when they need advice.   It’s up to you to fill in the gaps.

How you do you dominate both channels?  You call us.

Selling anything today is difficult.   There is so much competition in the marketplace and it comes from every corner of the globe.   How do you set yourself apart from your competitors?

It’s not going to be due to your superior product or superior product knowledge.   In today’s fast paced digital world, the people who respond quickly and efficiently will close the deal and out perform their competitors 9 times out of 10.

So how does one become a “First Responder”?   To start,  you have to be able to use all of the latest technologies to your advantage.  Email, Instant messaging and automated voice mail companies like Youmail.com or Phone Fusion are great ways to be able to control your first contact.  But the simplest and most effective tool at your disposal is a PDA.   If you aren’t using a Blackberry-iPhone-Palm or Windows Mobile device, you are at a serious disadvantage.

Is there anything better than being able to answer a clients question within 5-10 minutes of receiving it?  How much trust and rapport is built between your clients and potential customers when they feel your chief concern is also their own?

Think about it for a second.  You get an email from a frustrated client or a potential customer on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday evening out with your family/friends enjoying your weekend.   Contemplate the wonder on their face when you fire a rapid –professional reply addressing and identifying their concern and promising to solve their issue first thing Monday morning?   If you aren’t using a PDA, there is no way you could build this kind of trust with your clients and  potential customers.   Being a ‘First Responder’ will always set you apart from the competition.