Today, I went to Google and did a search on our dealership as I do everyday to take a look at our reviews to see if anything new has come accross.  Well, to my surprise, Google decided to change things up a little on the search results.  I looked at other dealers in my area and it was the same thing. 

Here are my findings:

• First off, you have the main site like before.
• Under the main site, you have specific pages within the website (i.e. inventory, service, used inventory, staff)
• Reviews are a little further down from where they were yesterday.

I am really liking the new format of the page.  What I can see is the customer can go right to the page that they are looking for whether it is service, new vehicle inventory, used, or any of your main pages that are hit on so they don't have to go digging within your website for the information they are looking for.

I am guessing that these are the most visited pages within the site and that is how they came up with what was listed in the separate areas. 

Do a Google search on your dealership and take a look at the new look.  Would love to hear thoughts on what you think on the new format.

Today, I went to Google and did a search on our dealership as I do everyday to take a look at our reviews to see if anything new has come accross.  Well, to my surprise, Google decided to change things up a little on the search results.  I looked at other dealers in my area and it was the same thing. 

Here are my findings:

• First off, you have the main site like before.
• Under the main site, you have specific pages within the website (i.e. inventory, service, used inventory, staff)
• Reviews are a little further down from where they were yesterday.

I am really liking the new format of the page.  What I can see is the customer can go right to the page that they are looking for whether it is service, new vehicle inventory, used, or any of your main pages that are hit on so they don't have to go digging within your website for the information they are looking for.

I am guessing that these are the most visited pages within the site and that is how they came up with what was listed in the separate areas. 

Do a Google search on your dealership and take a look at the new look.  Would love to hear thoughts on what you think on the new format.

I am just finishing up a great family vacation over the last week to Myrtle Beach.  As I think back, I think of the different experiences I had throughout the week and how it can relate to the car business.

One number stands out from the week. $55.67. That is how much we actually spent on 5 lbs. of fudge. That is not a typo.  It was 5 lbs. of fudge.  Crazy, right? I think back on it, and it was a total experience. It wasn't your typical fudge shop where you walk in and just pick out the fudge from behind the glass. It was a whole production. Picture four fudge makers working around the marble tables singing songs that they made up to tunes from the 50s and 60s. They sing, dance, hoot, and holler as they are making the fudge you are about to take home because they know they will have you sold. It was a whole production. They give you samples as they are making the fudge. Then they go for the close and tell you all about the special. Heck! I got $72 of fudge for $56! What a great deal I got! O.K, maybe not, but I was caught up in the moment just like my wife and kids;  but most of all, I was sold.

Now, let's look at this from the car dealer experience.

1.  Are we doing the things and building the value in our fudge (make and model we are selling)?

2.  Are we doing the full walk-around (the whole production)?  Have fun with the customer after building some rapport. That will help you sell the fudge.

3.  Be confident. If you are not confident when you ask for the sale, you are showing a weakness with the customer and they will go for your jugular. Be strong in your presentation and justification in your pricing.

4.  Are we asking for the sale? I have to say that most of the sales that we lose are the ones that we don't even ask for it and give yourself a chance.

5.  Are we closing the deal with the customer? Yes, we have to ask for the sale, but we have to overcome the objections that the customer is bringing up (see Nicki's latest blog postings on overcoming objections).

If we take the sale of a vehicle like these guys that were making and selling fudge, you will be successful in getting to the end of the road on the road to the sale.
 

I am just finishing up a great family vacation over the last week to Myrtle Beach.  As I think back, I think of the different experiences I had throughout the week and how it can relate to the car business.

One number stands out from the week. $55.67. That is how much we actually spent on 5 lbs. of fudge. That is not a typo.  It was 5 lbs. of fudge.  Crazy, right? I think back on it, and it was a total experience. It wasn't your typical fudge shop where you walk in and just pick out the fudge from behind the glass. It was a whole production. Picture four fudge makers working around the marble tables singing songs that they made up to tunes from the 50s and 60s. They sing, dance, hoot, and holler as they are making the fudge you are about to take home because they know they will have you sold. It was a whole production. They give you samples as they are making the fudge. Then they go for the close and tell you all about the special. Heck! I got $72 of fudge for $56! What a great deal I got! O.K, maybe not, but I was caught up in the moment just like my wife and kids;  but most of all, I was sold.

Now, let's look at this from the car dealer experience.

1.  Are we doing the things and building the value in our fudge (make and model we are selling)?

2.  Are we doing the full walk-around (the whole production)?  Have fun with the customer after building some rapport. That will help you sell the fudge.

3.  Be confident. If you are not confident when you ask for the sale, you are showing a weakness with the customer and they will go for your jugular. Be strong in your presentation and justification in your pricing.

4.  Are we asking for the sale? I have to say that most of the sales that we lose are the ones that we don't even ask for it and give yourself a chance.

5.  Are we closing the deal with the customer? Yes, we have to ask for the sale, but we have to overcome the objections that the customer is bringing up (see Nicki's latest blog postings on overcoming objections).

If we take the sale of a vehicle like these guys that were making and selling fudge, you will be successful in getting to the end of the road on the road to the sale.
 

Success....what is success?  Is it getting the sale? Is it making a huge gross on someone? Is it making the customer happy?  Is it treating the customer right even though you may not get the sale?  What is success?

According to Webster, success is "the achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted."

As I sit and watch paint dry at a city swim meet, I look at success as baby steps. Yes, I want my kids and the team to succeed and win, but what is success to them?  Yes, they want to win, but if they are improving their times, they are being successful in my eyes. Their view of success may be different than mine.  I know they want to win, if they don't, they feel like they may have failed because I am such a competitive person and have passed it on to them and they don't want to fail.  When they get out of the pool and look at the board and see their times, they are either elated, or they are instantly in the dumps because of their time either being better or worse than their seed time.  Another thing that they do is practice.  Two a days at the age of 10 and 12 to get to the level of success they need to be at and want to be at.  This brings another question to the table. Are there different levels of success and how do we get there?

There are three key ingredients to success; processes, people, and execution.

Processes

We all want to dominate the market and be successful. We have to make baby steps to get there and make that happen.  It won't happen overnight after putting one process in place or get one product that will change the world and make you dominate.  We have to look at our processes and make sure that they are successful in every step and we are making one more step toward the sale and making a new customer.

I know when I see another vehicle driving down the road with a temporary tag in the window with another dealers' logos all over the backend, I feel like we have failed and take it personal. I look at it like we weren't successful in our marketing efforts to that person.  We have to look at the whole sales process and Internet processes. Do we have the right amount of contact set up in our CRM? Are they quality tasks that we expect our teams to do?  Get insight from your internet salespeople and have them involved.  If they aren't quality tasks and they are 'faking them out,' change them or get rid of them all together.

People

We have to surround ourselves with good people. We have to make sure that we have employees that are wanting to be at their place of work and retire from there. If they don't want to retire from the place they currently work, you may have to step back and make sure that they are a right fit for the dealership. I have let someone go that was a top performer for the store, but he wasn't a team player and was out for #1.

Execution

This all comes down to the management teams. We have to inspect what we are expecting. We as managers have to make sure that the salespeople are doing their jobs in their follow up and accomplishing the tasks set forth in the CRM to make them successful.

The other part of the execution is practice. I think back on when I got in the car business and had to sit in a back room and watch one tape after another of Joe Verde. The one thing that I have retained after all these years in the business is "practice, drill and rehearse." Just like athletes,  have to practice the what if situations with each other so we can be smooth when we are in the steps of the sale (the competition).  When we don't stumble, we will be smooth with the customer and we will be more believable to the customer.

When we have all of these items in place, you will see the success that you want to see. That success will change over time to take you to the next level.  Set the goals, achieve them, and raise the bar even higher to go for it and get that success that you are looking for.

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." -Winston Churchill

Success....what is success?  Is it getting the sale? Is it making a huge gross on someone? Is it making the customer happy?  Is it treating the customer right even though you may not get the sale?  What is success?

According to Webster, success is "the achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted."

As I sit and watch paint dry at a city swim meet, I look at success as baby steps. Yes, I want my kids and the team to succeed and win, but what is success to them?  Yes, they want to win, but if they are improving their times, they are being successful in my eyes. Their view of success may be different than mine.  I know they want to win, if they don't, they feel like they may have failed because I am such a competitive person and have passed it on to them and they don't want to fail.  When they get out of the pool and look at the board and see their times, they are either elated, or they are instantly in the dumps because of their time either being better or worse than their seed time.  Another thing that they do is practice.  Two a days at the age of 10 and 12 to get to the level of success they need to be at and want to be at.  This brings another question to the table. Are there different levels of success and how do we get there?

There are three key ingredients to success; processes, people, and execution.

Processes

We all want to dominate the market and be successful. We have to make baby steps to get there and make that happen.  It won't happen overnight after putting one process in place or get one product that will change the world and make you dominate.  We have to look at our processes and make sure that they are successful in every step and we are making one more step toward the sale and making a new customer.

I know when I see another vehicle driving down the road with a temporary tag in the window with another dealers' logos all over the backend, I feel like we have failed and take it personal. I look at it like we weren't successful in our marketing efforts to that person.  We have to look at the whole sales process and Internet processes. Do we have the right amount of contact set up in our CRM? Are they quality tasks that we expect our teams to do?  Get insight from your internet salespeople and have them involved.  If they aren't quality tasks and they are 'faking them out,' change them or get rid of them all together.

People

We have to surround ourselves with good people. We have to make sure that we have employees that are wanting to be at their place of work and retire from there. If they don't want to retire from the place they currently work, you may have to step back and make sure that they are a right fit for the dealership. I have let someone go that was a top performer for the store, but he wasn't a team player and was out for #1.

Execution

This all comes down to the management teams. We have to inspect what we are expecting. We as managers have to make sure that the salespeople are doing their jobs in their follow up and accomplishing the tasks set forth in the CRM to make them successful.

The other part of the execution is practice. I think back on when I got in the car business and had to sit in a back room and watch one tape after another of Joe Verde. The one thing that I have retained after all these years in the business is "practice, drill and rehearse." Just like athletes,  have to practice the what if situations with each other so we can be smooth when we are in the steps of the sale (the competition).  When we don't stumble, we will be smooth with the customer and we will be more believable to the customer.

When we have all of these items in place, you will see the success that you want to see. That success will change over time to take you to the next level.  Set the goals, achieve them, and raise the bar even higher to go for it and get that success that you are looking for.

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." -Winston Churchill

I was on the phone with a dealer friend of mine in our 20 group.  About a month ago, there was a nasty post on their Facebook page about a deal that went south and the dealer wouldn't refund their money to them.  I just happen to be on Facebook at the time of the post and sent her a text to make sure that she saw it right away.  Initially while she was doing some investigation, she couldn't find this customer anywhere in her system.  She responded to the upset customer on Facebook to contact the General Manager to get this issue resolved.  They didn't hear from the customer right away and thought that this was maybe a bogus post and was going to delete it from their page.  Low and behold, a call came in.  After a message back and forth, they finally got a hold of the customer.

Here is what happened.  The customer wanted out of the deal for some reason.  He called the salesperson and let him know, but he didn't want to lose the deal and said that they couldn't have their money back and actually hung up on the customer.  The hang ups happened a few times.  Since the customer didn't have a Facebook account, he decided to open one up since this dealership has a good presence on Facebook to voice his concerns and that he would never do business there as a result of this incident.  He was heard and the situation was resolved.  The customer ended up deleting the string of comments on his own.

So what is the correct way to respond to that upset customer online?

1. Try not to bring your emotions into the situation.  That is tough since they may be bashing your company publically.
2. Don't delete the comment.  Respond to them publically and apologize for their experience and give them a contact person and number to take this offline.
3. Resolve it offline.  When it is resolved, have them respond to the thread how the situation was handled in a way that was satisfactory to them.
4. If they continue to bash you on other sites, just keep with a standard apology with a name and phone number to contact.

Let's face it, we all will have them come in and it all boils down to how you handle that upset customer.  Not everyone can be happy and it happens.

I was on the phone with a dealer friend of mine in our 20 group.  About a month ago, there was a nasty post on their Facebook page about a deal that went south and the dealer wouldn't refund their money to them.  I just happen to be on Facebook at the time of the post and sent her a text to make sure that she saw it right away.  Initially while she was doing some investigation, she couldn't find this customer anywhere in her system.  She responded to the upset customer on Facebook to contact the General Manager to get this issue resolved.  They didn't hear from the customer right away and thought that this was maybe a bogus post and was going to delete it from their page.  Low and behold, a call came in.  After a message back and forth, they finally got a hold of the customer.

Here is what happened.  The customer wanted out of the deal for some reason.  He called the salesperson and let him know, but he didn't want to lose the deal and said that they couldn't have their money back and actually hung up on the customer.  The hang ups happened a few times.  Since the customer didn't have a Facebook account, he decided to open one up since this dealership has a good presence on Facebook to voice his concerns and that he would never do business there as a result of this incident.  He was heard and the situation was resolved.  The customer ended up deleting the string of comments on his own.

So what is the correct way to respond to that upset customer online?

1. Try not to bring your emotions into the situation.  That is tough since they may be bashing your company publically.
2. Don't delete the comment.  Respond to them publically and apologize for their experience and give them a contact person and number to take this offline.
3. Resolve it offline.  When it is resolved, have them respond to the thread how the situation was handled in a way that was satisfactory to them.
4. If they continue to bash you on other sites, just keep with a standard apology with a name and phone number to contact.

Let's face it, we all will have them come in and it all boils down to how you handle that upset customer.  Not everyone can be happy and it happens.

I am currently reading the book Onward by Howard Schultz. It is about the trials that Starbucks has faced over the years and how they handled those trials and grew through them. There are a lot of great leadership values in this book that can be applied in the automotive business and wanted to share a few with the Driving Sales community.

Part of the book talks about the experience that a customer has when they come into a Starbucks. "We succeed by creating an experience that comes to life, in large part, because of how we treat our people, how we treat our farmers, our customers, and how we give back to our communities." When a customer comes into your showroom, are you giving them the experience that you want them to have? The car buying experience needs to be a good one or the customer will tell all of their friends about it, good or bad. We all have heard that a dissatisfied customer is 9 times more likely to express their experience to a friend than a satisfied customer. We must be passionate about our jobs and what we do. When we are passionate, we will be successful in giving that customer an experience like none other.

There was another quote that he made in the book that he went into one of the stores and the barista didn't know who he was. He thought to himself that barista "this wasn't his job, it's his passion" by the way that he was treated.  When we have a passion for our job, we will make the customer happy by listening to them and helping them find the right vehicle for them. "It's a combination of intent, process, and heart, a trio that must constantly be fine-tuned."  Several years ago, Starbucks closed all of their stores for one day for training.  I know that isn't really feasible in the car business, but the whole point was to train all of their 130,000 baristas from treating customers to making a cup of coffee.  They caught a lot of flack for doing this and lost a lot of money just in that one day, but in the long run, it helped them grow just on the customer service end of things. 

Another part of the book talks about leadership. "It is the responsibility of the leadership team to keep our culture alive, growing, and thriving." This is so true when it comes to our management teams within the dealership. Sales managers are responsible for growing sales, service manager do the same through growing service and retaining that customer with the experience they have in the service drive and parts managers do the same thing and retaining that customer for life.  When the customer has a great experience in service, we hope that they will keep coming back not only for their service work, bu also to buy their next vehicle from us. 

The last part that I wanted to touch on is being an icon in the business. "Icon make sense of the tension of the times, offering hope and even mending a culture in turmoil." This is where management comes in. In the tough times, they will make the cream rise to the top. We are on the way out of a recession, and some analysts say that we may be double dip recession and on our way down again. There a lot of dealers that didn't make it in the last few years, and if you did, congratulations. Some grew, some stayed flat and some did not and just stayed in business. It all comes back to how your teams came through and built their sales force up and got them through.

"Icons assert a 'cultural authority,' helping to frame the way people view the times they live in." When we were in the recession, where your salespeople down and out and asking 'how am I going to make any money?' I know that there were some people out there asking that. I know I was unsure of my future when we lost our GM franchise in the mist of the recession. I was scared to death, but I made it through and still have a job thanks to my employer. Some jobs were created within the dealership and I came out as others did also.

"Icons don't confuse history with heritage, and always protect and project their values.". I work of a dealership that has been here for over 40 years. A lot of it comes back to our values and how we have treated our customers. We have come through the recession growing year over year through our great values and you can also.  Keep treating your customers the best you can and you will continue to rise to the top. 

I am currently reading the book Onward by Howard Schultz. It is about the trials that Starbucks has faced over the years and how they handled those trials and grew through them. There are a lot of great leadership values in this book that can be applied in the automotive business and wanted to share a few with the Driving Sales community.

Part of the book talks about the experience that a customer has when they come into a Starbucks. "We succeed by creating an experience that comes to life, in large part, because of how we treat our people, how we treat our farmers, our customers, and how we give back to our communities." When a customer comes into your showroom, are you giving them the experience that you want them to have? The car buying experience needs to be a good one or the customer will tell all of their friends about it, good or bad. We all have heard that a dissatisfied customer is 9 times more likely to express their experience to a friend than a satisfied customer. We must be passionate about our jobs and what we do. When we are passionate, we will be successful in giving that customer an experience like none other.

There was another quote that he made in the book that he went into one of the stores and the barista didn't know who he was. He thought to himself that barista "this wasn't his job, it's his passion" by the way that he was treated.  When we have a passion for our job, we will make the customer happy by listening to them and helping them find the right vehicle for them. "It's a combination of intent, process, and heart, a trio that must constantly be fine-tuned."  Several years ago, Starbucks closed all of their stores for one day for training.  I know that isn't really feasible in the car business, but the whole point was to train all of their 130,000 baristas from treating customers to making a cup of coffee.  They caught a lot of flack for doing this and lost a lot of money just in that one day, but in the long run, it helped them grow just on the customer service end of things. 

Another part of the book talks about leadership. "It is the responsibility of the leadership team to keep our culture alive, growing, and thriving." This is so true when it comes to our management teams within the dealership. Sales managers are responsible for growing sales, service manager do the same through growing service and retaining that customer with the experience they have in the service drive and parts managers do the same thing and retaining that customer for life.  When the customer has a great experience in service, we hope that they will keep coming back not only for their service work, bu also to buy their next vehicle from us. 

The last part that I wanted to touch on is being an icon in the business. "Icon make sense of the tension of the times, offering hope and even mending a culture in turmoil." This is where management comes in. In the tough times, they will make the cream rise to the top. We are on the way out of a recession, and some analysts say that we may be double dip recession and on our way down again. There a lot of dealers that didn't make it in the last few years, and if you did, congratulations. Some grew, some stayed flat and some did not and just stayed in business. It all comes back to how your teams came through and built their sales force up and got them through.

"Icons assert a 'cultural authority,' helping to frame the way people view the times they live in." When we were in the recession, where your salespeople down and out and asking 'how am I going to make any money?' I know that there were some people out there asking that. I know I was unsure of my future when we lost our GM franchise in the mist of the recession. I was scared to death, but I made it through and still have a job thanks to my employer. Some jobs were created within the dealership and I came out as others did also.

"Icons don't confuse history with heritage, and always protect and project their values.". I work of a dealership that has been here for over 40 years. A lot of it comes back to our values and how we have treated our customers. We have come through the recession growing year over year through our great values and you can also.  Keep treating your customers the best you can and you will continue to rise to the top.