In sales, we all have that first moment of truth, or the first impression.  We all want to make a great first impression for not only yourself, but the company you work for.  We want to make sure that it is a positive impression and that will only give you that chance of closing the deal.

There are 7 seconds where a customer can make 11 impressions about you and the company that you represent.  Almost all of them, YOU control.

Cleanliness:  Make sure that you and your area are clean.  Make sure that your shirt is pressed, tie not loosened and hanging down, and your desk is in good working order.  If you have piles everywhere on your desk, you may look disorganized.

Attractive:  This goes hand in hand with cleanliness.  Make sure that you are clean shaved.  If you wear a beard or goatee, make sure that you keep it trimmed and looking good.

Credible:  We all want to be credible salespeople.  When asked a question and you don’t know the answer, don’t BS your way through it.  Customers may know the answer and may be testing you.  Be honest and just say, “I’m unsure on that, but will be happy to check on that for you.”  Being upfront and honest will benefit you more in the long run.

Responsive:  Focus on your customer and what they are saying and asking.  Don’t daze off.  Stay focused and stay engaged with your customer and don’t let other things get you sidetracked.  If you have personal things going on at home, put them in a ‘brown paper sack’ and leave them at the curb when you pull into work.

Friendly:  Be friends with your potential customer.  When you show that you care about their needs and wants, they will respect you more.  Get to know them.  When you do follow-up, ask about their kid’s events or activities that you may have learned about in the sales process.

Helpful:  Listen to your customer’s wants and needs.  When you listen, they will tell you how to sell them.  Give them all of the information that they are looking for.

Empathetic:  Be aware of their concerns.  Use the feel, felt, found scenarios that you have seen over the years in sales.  “Some of my customers have felt that way.  What they found is….”

Courteous:  Be courteous of them and their time.  We all have had that customer that says they only have 10 or 20 minutes.  Those are the best customers.  They know that time is money, and they have money!  Treat their time with you like gold.  They will respect you more when you respect them and their time.

Confident:  You must be confident in what you are selling.  If you don’t have confidence in the product, leave that company.  Why sell something that you don’t believe in?  You have to be quick with you answers and know your product that you are selling and selling against.

Professional:  If you aren’t professional, you might as well not be at work.  The customer wants to be treated with respect.  If you are flirty with a customer, that will cost you in the end.  Yes, you can joke around with the customer a little when you have the rapport in place, but until you have the rapport, you have to make sure that you stay professional in all you do.

With these 11 impressions that the customer can make, they make 3 decisions.  They will decide if they like you, dislike you, or are indifferent.  You are the factor in all of these impressions.  If you fail in one of those impression factors, that may cost you the sale.

Do you want to be on the cutting edge or the bleeding edge? There is a fine line here and it all depends on how aggressive you want to be.  There have been a lot of new products out there in the automotive world that seem to be taking shape and showing success with the results.

The reason this is being brought up is a friend of mine outside of the automotive industry has opened a hair boutique.  She has sculpted her business different than any others and has taken a huge risk and it is paying off and she is seeing great success.  She is now frustrated that a previous employee is taking the same business model that she has and is starting to see results.  I let her know that she is a leader and an innovator and not to let that get her down.  She just has to keep on going and doing her thing and worry about her own success.  When you see others copy what you are doing, you know that you are doing the right things and having success.  

 Now we are seeing companies copy off each other in the industry with different product and services.  There are several gift card offer companies, several chat companies, and now website companies are starting to copy off each other with what they can and can’t do.  But there was always that first one that tested the waters and are seeing the most success.  The key is to stay innovative and not let your product or service get stale.

This comes down to the sales process as well within our stores.  What are you doing different than all of your competition to set yourself apart?  Is it the showroom sales process, the internet process, advertising? 

 With customers only visiting 2 stores if you are lucky, you have to stand out and be a leader.  The question is are you on the cutting edge or the bleeding edge?

We all know that we have to have a handle on Social Media these days to watch what people are saying online about us as a business.  Yesterday, I did my 4square check in at a local establishment and pushed to twitter mentioning Ed, as he likes to frequent McDonalds on occasion on 4square.  Ed had responded where he was eating through twitter.  Within minutes, Chili's responded to Ed and myself. The one thing that took me back was that Ed didn't mention @Chili's; He just said that he was there.  Chili's engaged immediately with "Thanks for coming in! Hope you enjoy your lunch!"

One thing that we all as dealers can learn from this that we have to make sure that we all have alerts set up when 'your dealership' is mentioned.  There are several tools out there to do this.  When someone wants to rant about a bad, or good experience, we can engage sooner than later.

We all have to remember that being involved in social media is just that.  We have to be social and engage with the customer via these medias.  Customers like to be vocal and this is a place where they feel they can vent or praise someone to a large group of people. This is where our customers are and we have to be there as well and not just be posting links to inventory pages. (Yes, dealers are still doing this.) 

What have you done to stay engaged with the customer via Facebook and Twitter and what are your successes?

We all know there is a big push for getting social in the automotive industry, but when is it the right time to hire a company to oversee you social engagement? There are a few companies out there that will oversee your social marketing, but you have to be careful who you choose and how they spend money to gain likes, followers, etc. 

What prompted this post is a post from one of the more well known companies out in the industry. They posted a link that was obviously promoted within Facebook and it looks like a disaster when you dig into it a little bit. On the surface it looks great! They have over 1100 likes on the post and 5 shares, but when you look at the comments and who liked the post, it's a mess. All of the comments are in a foreign language. When you click on who liked the post, it is a ton of people, but a good portion of them are from overseas and have 25 character plus names. 

So how do dealers get true likes to their Facebook pages that will actually engage? 

1. Ask your customers at delivery to like your page. 
2. Ask your customers at delivery to like your page. 
3. Ask your customers at delivery to like you page. 

Yes, you can run promoted posts, but you will see a lot of the same results that this company saw. I have tried it myself, and saw similar results. I was thrilled to see there were 60+ likes on one of our dealerships posts, but I dug in a little, and saw something similar. 

If you want to get social, do it yourself, or with someone that you know and trust. Get involved with your posts. Yes, you can do some advertising, but make sure that it is geo-targeted. If you don't geo-target the ad, you may end up with a lot of likes from 3rd world countries. 

What processes do you have in place to generate more likes on Facebook or followers on Twitter?

Can you believe it?  2013 is almost here.  I am reflecting on the last year and how the business has changed and how it will change in the year to come, that is, if we make it through December 21, 2012.  I am going through goals for next year and thought this would be something to pass along to the community.  How do you come up with your goals?  Are you looking at the last year or two and the different trends that are taking place?  That is one thing that I look at and focus on for our business at our dealership.  

So how do you come up with the smart goals?  What is important to you and the dealership.  When making your goals, this is something to take into account.

S - Be specific in your goals.  Don't be generic and say 'I want to increase sales through more website traffic' or something to that affect.  Be SPECIFIC and how you want to get to that next level.

M - Make sure that they are measurable.  I know that when I look at where I am tracking, I am always looking at how we are doing vs. previous years, months, etc.  How are you going to MEASURE it?

A - Make it ATTAINABLE.  It is one thing to have goals, but if it isn't realistic, then you might as well not have any goals at all.  Don't shoot too high and don't shoot too low.  I know that I like to look at a moderate increase depending on the goal that is set.

R - This goes back to the attainable.  Make it REALISTIC.  If you make it so high, and you keep failing hitting those goals month after month, you will only get frustrated and feel like you are a failure.  Make those goals within reach, but make them so that you do have to work harder.

T - Make them TIMEBOUND.  Put a time limit on these goals and make sure that you are tracking them on a monthly basis.  If you are looking at a year long goal, look at it month after month to see where you are tracking in hitting your goals.  

This is an excersize that I do year in and year out.  I want to make sure that we as a dealership are making strides, but need to make sure that we are tracking in the right areas.  

What are some of the goals that you are shooting for in 2013?

Last month, I had wrote about some changes that were possibly coming to Google Plus Local. (If you missed it, you can read it here.)  I just logged into our Google Plus Local page to check on our reviews and if anything needed to be addressed.  To my surprise, the ratings of 1-3 were gone.  They are now from Poor to Fair up to Excellent.  

Google has listened to the retail environment and they are making those changes that I spoke of last month.  I did log out to see if it was possible to write a review as an anonymous writer, but that option isn't there....yet.  The gal that I sat next to on the plane did insinuate that it was coming that a customer would be able to write an anonymous review of a business.  

I did notice the Zagit 30 point rating system was still in place, but in the review itself, it is in plain English.  Now having words that a potential customer will see and understand will help dramatically instead of seeing the 1-3 rating and then the rating on a 30 point scale.  This should eliminate any confusion for them.  

I guess we will see in the near future what other changes we will have with G+ Local.  I know that I am excited to see this and hope you all are as well.  What are your thoughts on this small change so far?

As I look at the calendar, I can’t believe that October is right around the corner.  Where has this year gone?  It has been the year of mobile, social, and Google Plus and Local.  Now that we are going into the 4^th quarter already, are you getting your strategies together for 2013?  Yes, I said 2013.  It is right around the corner.  Have you seen the growth that you wanted to see this year?  Are your profits down or up?  Where are you at and where do you want to be?  Now is the time to start strategizing for 2013 and an incredible year.

On big thing that I see is salespeople need to get more social.  There are several in the industry that are doing it right, but so many do it wrong.  We all know what the social impact has been in the automotive industry has been. We see dealerships having their "like" pages on Facebook, YouTube channels, twitter accounts, blogs, and the list goes on and on.  Now we are facing another giant that has been a sleeper for the last several year, MySpace. Just one more that dealers may have to deal with.

We all have these tools at our fingertips, but are we using them to the fullest potential?  One thing that I have noticed is that there aren't many salespeople taking advantage of these avenues to their fullest capacity. It is free and I love free! I have a feeling that a lot of people just don't know how to utilize them effectively. I see a few, but they are few and far between.

Youtube- One great example is Elise Kephart from Sunset Honda in CA.  She utilizes her YouTube channel like no one in the industry. She has branded herself as the YouTube diva and deserves every bit of it.  (On a side note, PLEASE DO NOT submit an inquiry on a vehicle with her as she takes her job very seriously and takes a lot of time to produce individual videos for each inquiry.)

Facebook is a very powerful tool for salespeople. I feel that it can be more powerful than a standard dealership page.  When building your relationship with your customer, be their friend. After the sale, become friends on Facebook, or better yet, set up a like page for yourself and have them "like" you. The impact that you can have just by posting a picture of them and tagging them in it is unbelievable. I have seen over 30 comments on one photo and it ended up generating 2 referral sales for that salesperson on one picture just by doing something out of the norm.

I have yet to come across one blog that is strictly for a salesperson.  If you have one, please share below.

LinkedIn is another avenue that salespeople can capitalize on.  There, you can get recommendations from your customers and show your resume to your customers and how successful you have been in the automotive industry.

So, how are you going to make your 2013 the best year ever in the car business?  Get social and do it 100% of the time.  It will pay off.  You have to make yourself stand out more so than ever.  When I mystery shop, I see the same thing time and time again.  Be different and think outside the box and like a shopper.  Start your commitments now.  It takes 30+ days to create a habit.  Do it early and often and set yourself up for an incredible 2013.

Wednesday night, I had the honor of taking a red eye from Silicon Valley to the east coast.  I got to talking to a couple that was sitting next to me while we were ready to back away from the gate. She just happen to work for Google in the G+ Local project.  My eyes kind of lit up.  I was sitting next to someone that is one of the leads at Google for 5 hours on G+ Local.  With all of the changes over the last few months, I knew I had my chance to really try to get some behind the scenes thinking on the change.

I expressed my concerns that we all as dealers have with G+ Local, missing reviews, the requiring of having a G+ account to write a review, and the whole Zaget platform.  As I mentioned all of the above items, she shook her head in agreement and just said we know and there are some changes coming.

Google wants this to really succeed across the board. They are taking the feedback and trying to make the issues that we are all having she had to be very vague with me, but it gave me hope that there is an end in sight and a plan in place.  I asked her as far as timing, and just just said very soon.

Missing reviews: They know the issue and are working on getting that data back. There is hope for those that lost a ton of reviews. I asked why it happened, but unfortunately she couldn't give an answer on that.

Requiring of G+ to write a review:  Things are in process to make it available to post a review without a G+ account. It will show as anonymous, but they will be able to do it.  This was a large win for me.  Since the change over, I think that we have had less than 10 reviews come in. 

I know that this is shorter than my normal posts, but thought I would like to pass along my hope to you.

I love Social Media!  There are times when you throw a tweet or review out there and you wonder if anyone is listening.  Here's my story.  Last month, I was in Indianapolis for a swim meet for my daughter.  I use Priceline a lot when we go out of town for our swim meets just due to the savings that I can get through them.  I have never really had a 'bad' experience until then.  I had booked a room at the Hilton downtown Indy at a heavily discounted rate.  I ended up paying $79/night on one of the busiest weekends of the year in Indy with the Brickyard 400 going on.  I was a little surprised I got a room downtown at that price.  Whenever I book my rooms, I will call the hotel after I get my confirmation to request 2 beds since I am traveling with my family and have never had any problem.  They made a note in the computer system for my request.  

We had gotten done with my daughter's morning session at the Natatorium at 10:30.  I had a feeling I knew what the answer would be if we went to the hotel to attempt to check in since it was early.  I tried anyway just for grins.  With no disappointment, I wasn't able to check in since I was about 4 hours early for check in.  We ended up going to a friends hotel to hang out.  When I attempted to check-in, I had asked about having 2 beds and they said that they were booked and couldn't help out.  I threw a tweet out there with some disappointment and got a response from @HiltonHelp and they held to the story that I had gotten at the hotel.  Below is the DM's that I had with them.  (Read from the bottom up.)

We went to a friend's hotel to hang out until we could check-in, and I had gotten online to see if their story was true.  To my surprise, I was able to get a room with 2 beds for that night for $329/night.  

I had called the hotel and stated what I found online and they responded, "Oh, we do have one room left."  Surprise surprise.  I ended up getting my room that I wanted without backing down.

The story doesn't end there.  Yelp isn't used very much in our area, but I am making an effort to get more involved in reviewing on there since I do go to them when looking at restaurant reviews when we are out of town for swim meets or other occasions.  My wife has gotten in her vocabulary, "What is their rating?"  I wrote a not so great review on the hotel, and to my surprise, an email showed up in my in-box this morning that someone had responded from Hilton on my review.  (Below is my review and their response.)

I was utterly shocked to see a corporation of this size respond to my review.  Yes, it took a little time for it to hit my email, but I will give them the utmost respect for responding the way that they did.  They reached out through the social media avenues, they actually listened and responded.  

We are all small dealerships and companies in relation to Hilton and they were proactive and responded to a complaint online.  They are doing social media right.  The question is, are you?  Are you responding to the good and the bad reviews?  Yes, we want to know the bad because we can learn from it and it shows that we can't satisfy everyone, but you have to respond and not just ignore it.  Respond to the good, bad and the ugly and do it right.