Are you looking to increase your sales for the 2nd-4th quarter this year?  We are all looking to increase our sales year over year.  Here are 50 creative things you can add to your to-do list to bring in customers to your auto dealership and make that happen.

1. Send hand written thank-you notes to ALL the people who visit the dealership and follow them up.
2. Work EVERYONE-in or out of the market.
3. Be more of a doer.  Make things happen.  Concentrate on the activities that will get results.
4. Concentrate on getting more owners from prospects and bird-dogs.
5. Treat every customer as a buyer for today.
6. Do outside prospecting-‘I must get 3 sales a month from outside sources.’
7. Come in and work the service lane once a week.
8. Catch showroom overflow whenever possible.
9. Do service follow up a day or two after your customer was in for service.
10. Prospect the body shop weekly-get with your body shop manager for leads.
11. Get EVERY customer in the CRM and follow up!
12. Concentrate on following the ‘Road to a Sale.’  Always give a complete feature and benefit presentation 100% of the time.
13. Know what cars are coming in on trade and on ordered cars.  Have or find a prospect for all trades.
14. Work to keep a Positive Mental Attitude at all times (Leave stuff at home).
15. Seek people out, go to their business.  Do whatever it takes to get face-to-face with all prospects.
16. Close everyone you get in front of-stop the shopper.  Now, while they are ‘Hot’, sell…sell…sell.
17. Sell from stock-“Mr./Mrs. ____, I can save you money if you buy from stock, because we can give you a better buy and no price increase on cars in stock.’
18. Work an extra hour on you shift one night a week.
19. Have planned appointments every Saturday.
20. Pick out another salesperson and try to be responsible for keeping each other’s attitudes up.  Remember, Iron sharpens iron.
21. Adjust your attitude to ‘positive/upbeat’ every morning while you are getting ready for work.
22. Make 5 cold phone calls, without fail, EVERY day.
23. Write letters to selected business people.
24. Work owners effectively (bird dog programs).
25. Follow-up on personnel promotions listed in the newspaper.
26. Take a CPO vehicle when following up on owners and prospects.
27. Read and study (through training tests, research on automotive sites)
28. Relax.  Work toward developing a better physical condition and, therefore, being more alert mentally.
29. Have a better knowledge of inventory.  Know what’s coming in and the approximate time and date and walk the inventory EVERY day.
30. During scheduled floor time, be on the floor with a positive attitude at all times.
31. To start the day with a positive mental attitude, get up 30 minutes earlier and play an inspirational CD.
32. On days off the floor, do at 2 hours of face-to-face prospecting.
33. Plan and mail more cold letters.
34. Plan and do more cold prospecting.
35. Review weak points with team captains.
36. Review product knowledge.
37. Walk the inventory more often.
38. Follow-up an owner’s neighbors’ automotive needs.
39. Walk the used car lot and your CPO inventory every day.
40. Sell 75% of the people in the first closes. (Sell completely before you go for the close.)
41. Check family, friends, and neighbors.
42. Don’t forget about your owners-Keep close contact.
43. Review old buyer’s orders and your upcoming lease expirations for prospects (renewals).
44. Mail out-Follow-up with a phone call in 2 days.
45. Effectively use floor time and hawk the lot.
46. Be sure that you don’t shortcut.  Follow the ‘Road to the Sale’ every single time.  Turn over to manager 100% of time.
47. Keep smiling.  It improves your face value.
48. Always look for the positive.  Be a ‘good finder.’
49. Social Network – Let everyone on your facebook and twitter know that you are in the business and let them know of specials or cream-puff trades that are coming in.
50. Last but not least, HAVE FUN!

Are you looking to increase your sales for the 2nd-4th quarter this year?  We are all looking to increase our sales year over year.  Here are 50 creative things you can add to your to-do list to bring in customers to your auto dealership and make that happen.

1. Send hand written thank-you notes to ALL the people who visit the dealership and follow them up.
2. Work EVERYONE-in or out of the market.
3. Be more of a doer.  Make things happen.  Concentrate on the activities that will get results.
4. Concentrate on getting more owners from prospects and bird-dogs.
5. Treat every customer as a buyer for today.
6. Do outside prospecting-‘I must get 3 sales a month from outside sources.’
7. Come in and work the service lane once a week.
8. Catch showroom overflow whenever possible.
9. Do service follow up a day or two after your customer was in for service.
10. Prospect the body shop weekly-get with your body shop manager for leads.
11. Get EVERY customer in the CRM and follow up!
12. Concentrate on following the ‘Road to a Sale.’  Always give a complete feature and benefit presentation 100% of the time.
13. Know what cars are coming in on trade and on ordered cars.  Have or find a prospect for all trades.
14. Work to keep a Positive Mental Attitude at all times (Leave stuff at home).
15. Seek people out, go to their business.  Do whatever it takes to get face-to-face with all prospects.
16. Close everyone you get in front of-stop the shopper.  Now, while they are ‘Hot’, sell…sell…sell.
17. Sell from stock-“Mr./Mrs. ____, I can save you money if you buy from stock, because we can give you a better buy and no price increase on cars in stock.’
18. Work an extra hour on you shift one night a week.
19. Have planned appointments every Saturday.
20. Pick out another salesperson and try to be responsible for keeping each other’s attitudes up.  Remember, Iron sharpens iron.
21. Adjust your attitude to ‘positive/upbeat’ every morning while you are getting ready for work.
22. Make 5 cold phone calls, without fail, EVERY day.
23. Write letters to selected business people.
24. Work owners effectively (bird dog programs).
25. Follow-up on personnel promotions listed in the newspaper.
26. Take a CPO vehicle when following up on owners and prospects.
27. Read and study (through training tests, research on automotive sites)
28. Relax.  Work toward developing a better physical condition and, therefore, being more alert mentally.
29. Have a better knowledge of inventory.  Know what’s coming in and the approximate time and date and walk the inventory EVERY day.
30. During scheduled floor time, be on the floor with a positive attitude at all times.
31. To start the day with a positive mental attitude, get up 30 minutes earlier and play an inspirational CD.
32. On days off the floor, do at 2 hours of face-to-face prospecting.
33. Plan and mail more cold letters.
34. Plan and do more cold prospecting.
35. Review weak points with team captains.
36. Review product knowledge.
37. Walk the inventory more often.
38. Follow-up an owner’s neighbors’ automotive needs.
39. Walk the used car lot and your CPO inventory every day.
40. Sell 75% of the people in the first closes. (Sell completely before you go for the close.)
41. Check family, friends, and neighbors.
42. Don’t forget about your owners-Keep close contact.
43. Review old buyer’s orders and your upcoming lease expirations for prospects (renewals).
44. Mail out-Follow-up with a phone call in 2 days.
45. Effectively use floor time and hawk the lot.
46. Be sure that you don’t shortcut.  Follow the ‘Road to the Sale’ every single time.  Turn over to manager 100% of time.
47. Keep smiling.  It improves your face value.
48. Always look for the positive.  Be a ‘good finder.’
49. Social Network – Let everyone on your facebook and twitter know that you are in the business and let them know of specials or cream-puff trades that are coming in.
50. Last but not least, HAVE FUN!

What is your call to action on your website? Hopefully, there are a few of them on your home page and also on your inner pages within your website. I have looked at hundreds of websites and thousands of pages in the automotive industry, and there are a few things that are common among all of them. But there are some that stand out more than others just because of the dealerships' call to action on the site. It made me want to click more and more, and even give some of my information, well, some of my mystery shopping information.

Trade In Apprasal Tool

About every dealership had some type of appraisal tool within their website. The most common ones seemed to be Blackbook, KBB, and Autotrader Trade-In Market Place. There are some pros and cons to all of them. Of course, you will always have the customer say that the figure is too low.

With Autotrader TIM, the one drawback that I saw was the number that was given. Yes, it is great that the figure is guaranteed by Autotrader, but if it is too low, the customer won't even respond to a phone call or an email wanting to acquire their vehicle. Autotrader says that it is a way to acquire inventory, but it is difficult to get a customer on the phone or via email because the number may be too low for them and they may feel offended by the offer made by Autotrader, not the dealership. Another con is that it can be time consuming for the customer with all of the information that they have to put in the computer just to get the figure. The pro is obviously that the price is guaranteed by them. If you as the dealer don't want the vehicle, take it to the designated auction and get your money back. Also, customer service is great with the Trade-in market place. They are fast on making any adjustments if needed on the phone with you as the dealership.

With KBB, it is a well known name and is where everyone has been trained to go in the past 10 plus years to get a trade in value. Their reputation has been good in the industry and according to KBB, they have 14-16  million hits to their site a month. I have no idea how many trade values are made, but I would guess that a large portion of the 14-16 million do a trade evaluation. The cons is that the customer always thinks that their vehicle is in excellent condition when they need 4 tires, and all of their services up to speed. It is easy to overcome with a customer just by going to their website and going to the condition examples.

Blackbook is the last common tool. When doing a trade appraisal with that tool, it will give you a $1000-$2500 range on the vehicle depending on how you have it set up. The one thing that I like about that is that it gives a range. That give the customer an idea on their trade, but to get a really firm number, they have to come in and have the used car manager look at it to put a firm number on it. You can also set the values to be from rough to average, average to clean, etc. I haven't really found any cons with Blackbook. Their numbers are generally pretty accurate.

Social Network Buttons

Social networking is here and now and it is here to stay so you better get with the program. There are some things that you have to watch when putting buttons to your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blog on your homepage. Yes, it is great to have them there so your customer can connect with you on another level. The thing that you have to be careful about is taking them off your website by click of the mouse. You spend all kinds of money in your digital marketing to get them to your website and they click on your Facebook button, it takes you your facebook page, then they can start playing on Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. and not make it back to your website to do what they originally were there for.  The same thing can happen with your Twitter, YouTube and your blog.  They may never make it back to your site.

Prominent Specials

Make sure that your specials are prominent.  If you don't have them on your website, get them there.  That should be the second most visited page within your website.  Also, be sure that they are current and coincide with any Manufacturer incentives so you don't confuse the public.  If you have something special, put it on there and differentiate yourself from the other dealers.  (Consult your advertising guidelines with the Manufacturer.)  Make sure that you have not only Sales, but specials for your Fixed Operations. 

Credit Application

Your online credit application should be easy to navigate and easy to put the information in.  Also, make sure that you are abiding by all of the new Red Flag rules so you aren't in violation with the laws that were put in place the end of last year.  Also, when the lead comes into the CRM, make sure that they right people within the dealership have access to the information. 

Phone Numbers

Most website traffic to your site is just to get a phone number to contact the dealership.  Make sure that it is in a prominent location on the page.  Generally in the upper banner portion of the page is the best place.  There have been sites that didn't have a phone number on the front page at all.  I would have to dig into the different pages to find it.  Also, if possible, put different tracking numbers when coming from different sources (consult your website provider).

Chat

Chat is an up and coming product in the automotive industry.  More and more dealerships are starting to utilize it.  If you don't feel comfortable in doing the chat yourself, you can have it outsourced to a company and they will do what they are best at.  I have seen conversion rates go up 1%-3% as a result of having chat.  If someone is in their cubicle at work and can't make personal calls, they have another option of connecting with the dealership through chat to ask questions.

If you have all or just a majority of these item on your homepage, you will be at the conversion rates that you need to be at to be successful.  The benchmark that each dealer should be at is between 7%-10% for fixed operations and 2%-4% for sales.  This includes all leads submitted, appointments, chats, and trackable phone calls.  If you have these items in place, you should be in that percentage range and it will make you successful.

What is your call to action on your website? Hopefully, there are a few of them on your home page and also on your inner pages within your website. I have looked at hundreds of websites and thousands of pages in the automotive industry, and there are a few things that are common among all of them. But there are some that stand out more than others just because of the dealerships' call to action on the site. It made me want to click more and more, and even give some of my information, well, some of my mystery shopping information.

Trade In Apprasal Tool

About every dealership had some type of appraisal tool within their website. The most common ones seemed to be Blackbook, KBB, and Autotrader Trade-In Market Place. There are some pros and cons to all of them. Of course, you will always have the customer say that the figure is too low.

With Autotrader TIM, the one drawback that I saw was the number that was given. Yes, it is great that the figure is guaranteed by Autotrader, but if it is too low, the customer won't even respond to a phone call or an email wanting to acquire their vehicle. Autotrader says that it is a way to acquire inventory, but it is difficult to get a customer on the phone or via email because the number may be too low for them and they may feel offended by the offer made by Autotrader, not the dealership. Another con is that it can be time consuming for the customer with all of the information that they have to put in the computer just to get the figure. The pro is obviously that the price is guaranteed by them. If you as the dealer don't want the vehicle, take it to the designated auction and get your money back. Also, customer service is great with the Trade-in market place. They are fast on making any adjustments if needed on the phone with you as the dealership.

With KBB, it is a well known name and is where everyone has been trained to go in the past 10 plus years to get a trade in value. Their reputation has been good in the industry and according to KBB, they have 14-16  million hits to their site a month. I have no idea how many trade values are made, but I would guess that a large portion of the 14-16 million do a trade evaluation. The cons is that the customer always thinks that their vehicle is in excellent condition when they need 4 tires, and all of their services up to speed. It is easy to overcome with a customer just by going to their website and going to the condition examples.

Blackbook is the last common tool. When doing a trade appraisal with that tool, it will give you a $1000-$2500 range on the vehicle depending on how you have it set up. The one thing that I like about that is that it gives a range. That give the customer an idea on their trade, but to get a really firm number, they have to come in and have the used car manager look at it to put a firm number on it. You can also set the values to be from rough to average, average to clean, etc. I haven't really found any cons with Blackbook. Their numbers are generally pretty accurate.

Social Network Buttons

Social networking is here and now and it is here to stay so you better get with the program. There are some things that you have to watch when putting buttons to your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blog on your homepage. Yes, it is great to have them there so your customer can connect with you on another level. The thing that you have to be careful about is taking them off your website by click of the mouse. You spend all kinds of money in your digital marketing to get them to your website and they click on your Facebook button, it takes you your facebook page, then they can start playing on Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. and not make it back to your website to do what they originally were there for.  The same thing can happen with your Twitter, YouTube and your blog.  They may never make it back to your site.

Prominent Specials

Make sure that your specials are prominent.  If you don't have them on your website, get them there.  That should be the second most visited page within your website.  Also, be sure that they are current and coincide with any Manufacturer incentives so you don't confuse the public.  If you have something special, put it on there and differentiate yourself from the other dealers.  (Consult your advertising guidelines with the Manufacturer.)  Make sure that you have not only Sales, but specials for your Fixed Operations. 

Credit Application

Your online credit application should be easy to navigate and easy to put the information in.  Also, make sure that you are abiding by all of the new Red Flag rules so you aren't in violation with the laws that were put in place the end of last year.  Also, when the lead comes into the CRM, make sure that they right people within the dealership have access to the information. 

Phone Numbers

Most website traffic to your site is just to get a phone number to contact the dealership.  Make sure that it is in a prominent location on the page.  Generally in the upper banner portion of the page is the best place.  There have been sites that didn't have a phone number on the front page at all.  I would have to dig into the different pages to find it.  Also, if possible, put different tracking numbers when coming from different sources (consult your website provider).

Chat

Chat is an up and coming product in the automotive industry.  More and more dealerships are starting to utilize it.  If you don't feel comfortable in doing the chat yourself, you can have it outsourced to a company and they will do what they are best at.  I have seen conversion rates go up 1%-3% as a result of having chat.  If someone is in their cubicle at work and can't make personal calls, they have another option of connecting with the dealership through chat to ask questions.

If you have all or just a majority of these item on your homepage, you will be at the conversion rates that you need to be at to be successful.  The benchmark that each dealer should be at is between 7%-10% for fixed operations and 2%-4% for sales.  This includes all leads submitted, appointments, chats, and trackable phone calls.  If you have these items in place, you should be in that percentage range and it will make you successful.

I touched briefly on sourcing your internet leads the other day.  Now to the ROI on those sources.  A lot of dealers spend a lot of money on the internet for advertising and marketing of their vehicles.  You have to really evaluate all of your lead sources on a monthly basis to make sure that you are getting the most for your money spent. 

You have to really dig into analytics on the lead sources at the end of the month.  I know that it takes me about 2 days to get through all of my reports to get all of my ROI results for my providers so it can be time consuming.  I look at an internet sale as a lead that was generated from a third party source, your website, or a phone call that is trackable.  Trackable meaning you have a dedicated phone number from that source.  It is a phone-up, but if it is generated from a third party, I do view that as an internet sale.  DO NOT count floor traffic that comes in the door and says "I saw this car on the (fill in the blank), do you still have it?"  Even though there is room for argument, I don't count it.  Has to be a true internet lead or a phone call from those sources for it to count in my eyes.

Dig into your CRM.  Almost every dealership in the country has a CRM that will generate most of the reports for you.  You do have to take those figures and plug them into a spreadsheet.  Calculate your leads and sales from those leads and you obviously have your closing percentage.  You then have to look at your profit.  I run two reports; one with front and back-end profit and one without the back-end.  You then want to plug in the cost of all of your sources.  Take your total cost and divide the cost by the total amount of leads and will give you your cost per referral.  The benchmark should be under $50.  You then want to look at the cost per vehicle sale.  Take your total cost of your sources and divide that by your total sales.  The benchmark of cost per vehicle sale should be less than $250.

Your spreadsheet should look something like this:

I touched briefly on sourcing your internet leads the other day.  Now to the ROI on those sources.  A lot of dealers spend a lot of money on the internet for advertising and marketing of their vehicles.  You have to really evaluate all of your lead sources on a monthly basis to make sure that you are getting the most for your money spent. 

You have to really dig into analytics on the lead sources at the end of the month.  I know that it takes me about 2 days to get through all of my reports to get all of my ROI results for my providers so it can be time consuming.  I look at an internet sale as a lead that was generated from a third party source, your website, or a phone call that is trackable.  Trackable meaning you have a dedicated phone number from that source.  It is a phone-up, but if it is generated from a third party, I do view that as an internet sale.  DO NOT count floor traffic that comes in the door and says "I saw this car on the (fill in the blank), do you still have it?"  Even though there is room for argument, I don't count it.  Has to be a true internet lead or a phone call from those sources for it to count in my eyes.

Dig into your CRM.  Almost every dealership in the country has a CRM that will generate most of the reports for you.  You do have to take those figures and plug them into a spreadsheet.  Calculate your leads and sales from those leads and you obviously have your closing percentage.  You then have to look at your profit.  I run two reports; one with front and back-end profit and one without the back-end.  You then want to plug in the cost of all of your sources.  Take your total cost and divide the cost by the total amount of leads and will give you your cost per referral.  The benchmark should be under $50.  You then want to look at the cost per vehicle sale.  Take your total cost of your sources and divide that by your total sales.  The benchmark of cost per vehicle sale should be less than $250.

Your spreadsheet should look something like this:

Online advertising in the car business can be a tough at times to track.  We hear the numbers from all of the vendors in how many people search and research on the internet before coming into a dealership.  Some will submit for more info, some will call, and some will just show up in your showroom.  There are some pretty stout numbers out there from Northwood University.  So how true are they?

We had a sourcing done by Autotrader and confirmed a lot of info that we kind of knew, but learned a lot in the process too.  We learned that 75% of OUR used car customers were on the internet doing research before they set foot in our door.  Of that 75%, 61% were what a lot of salesmen would say is 'drive-by' traffic.  Only 29% made contact with us before making the trip into the dealership.  This coincides with the Northwood University studies that have been done over the last few years.  They were using websites that we have not advertised on before and had no idea that they relied on that information that much.  With that in mind, we are now advertising there.  Still a little early to see the results.

On the new side of things, 73% of OUR buyers used the internet.  This may be a little low as we are a single point dealership and we rely heavily on repeat and referral business which was confirmed in our study (35% were a referral from a friend/family member).  69% of those people were just 'walk-in' traffic and didn't make any contact with us through email or phone.

This goes to show that even though some of the online advertisers may be a little pricy, it validated where we were putting our advertising dollars online.  We are now advertising on the top 6 of the 7 websites.  The one doesn't allow for advertising as of yet to my knowledge.  People are looking at you online and you have to look good.

You have to have good photos, good descriptions, and competitive pricing.  You almost have to have a pricing tool of some sort like vAuto, VIN Solutions, or something equivalent.  When you have that combination, you will succeed.  Just about every customer is an 'internet customer.'  So is your dealership an internet dealership?  All of the staff has to be prepared to handle the internet shopper because if they didn't submit for info or call in, 6 or 7 out of 10 did do their research online on the car, and the dealership.

Online advertising in the car business can be a tough at times to track.  We hear the numbers from all of the vendors in how many people search and research on the internet before coming into a dealership.  Some will submit for more info, some will call, and some will just show up in your showroom.  There are some pretty stout numbers out there from Northwood University.  So how true are they?

We had a sourcing done by Autotrader and confirmed a lot of info that we kind of knew, but learned a lot in the process too.  We learned that 75% of OUR used car customers were on the internet doing research before they set foot in our door.  Of that 75%, 61% were what a lot of salesmen would say is 'drive-by' traffic.  Only 29% made contact with us before making the trip into the dealership.  This coincides with the Northwood University studies that have been done over the last few years.  They were using websites that we have not advertised on before and had no idea that they relied on that information that much.  With that in mind, we are now advertising there.  Still a little early to see the results.

On the new side of things, 73% of OUR buyers used the internet.  This may be a little low as we are a single point dealership and we rely heavily on repeat and referral business which was confirmed in our study (35% were a referral from a friend/family member).  69% of those people were just 'walk-in' traffic and didn't make any contact with us through email or phone.

This goes to show that even though some of the online advertisers may be a little pricy, it validated where we were putting our advertising dollars online.  We are now advertising on the top 6 of the 7 websites.  The one doesn't allow for advertising as of yet to my knowledge.  People are looking at you online and you have to look good.

You have to have good photos, good descriptions, and competitive pricing.  You almost have to have a pricing tool of some sort like vAuto, VIN Solutions, or something equivalent.  When you have that combination, you will succeed.  Just about every customer is an 'internet customer.'  So is your dealership an internet dealership?  All of the staff has to be prepared to handle the internet shopper because if they didn't submit for info or call in, 6 or 7 out of 10 did do their research online on the car, and the dealership.

The other day, I popped into my google analytics for the first time a while. Our website provider has great analytics in their back-end tool so I don't go there much, but I wanted to see what our mobile site traffic was looking like. I was shocked to see how many visits we have had in the last 30 days. It got me thinking and wondering how many dealers in my area had a mobile site, and if they did, how user friendly it was. So I popped my blackberry out and started surfing.

I found that 5 of my local competitors didn't have a mobile site. I had to do the pinch to expand their sites so I could see their sites. Navigating was difficult since I had to do some pinching on my screen to see where I was clicking. I then thought of it from a consumer's point of view. I am on their lot and want to see some pictures of the car. If its too hard to navigate on your phone and takes time to load flash, I would get frustrated and just give up.

Here are some necessities that are needed on a mobile website. Easy access to inventory. Make it easy to find what they are looking for. Have specials on there. Some dealers will get a live framed in link of specials from the manufacturer those won't show up. You have to put your own on for it to be visible. Click for directions is important, especially if people are just doing google searches from their phone. Make all your contact information easy to find. The easier to navigate, the better the customer experience is, the better the customer satisfaction level is.

The other day, I popped into my google analytics for the first time a while. Our website provider has great analytics in their back-end tool so I don't go there much, but I wanted to see what our mobile site traffic was looking like. I was shocked to see how many visits we have had in the last 30 days. It got me thinking and wondering how many dealers in my area had a mobile site, and if they did, how user friendly it was. So I popped my blackberry out and started surfing.

I found that 5 of my local competitors didn't have a mobile site. I had to do the pinch to expand their sites so I could see their sites. Navigating was difficult since I had to do some pinching on my screen to see where I was clicking. I then thought of it from a consumer's point of view. I am on their lot and want to see some pictures of the car. If its too hard to navigate on your phone and takes time to load flash, I would get frustrated and just give up.

Here are some necessities that are needed on a mobile website. Easy access to inventory. Make it easy to find what they are looking for. Have specials on there. Some dealers will get a live framed in link of specials from the manufacturer those won't show up. You have to put your own on for it to be visible. Click for directions is important, especially if people are just doing google searches from their phone. Make all your contact information easy to find. The easier to navigate, the better the customer experience is, the better the customer satisfaction level is.