Dealership Management System/Software (DMS). Customer Relationship Manager (CRM).

They aren’t the same, so stop treating them the same.

We went wrong when we began buying a lot of malarkey from CRM vendors about putting desking in the CRM so that usage of the CRM would be "naturally required". Sounded good, though, to many of us: Instead of building a process and a culture to grow our business, we tried to imprison salespeople and sales management into a CRM gulag. Well, our people are slick—and they avoided proper CRM usage, anyway, by only entering people to whom they showed numbers. We might as well have tried to eat chicken broth with a fork.

The right answer is one of two things:

1) Desk in the DMS and accept the CRM as our framework for sales processes and use it that way—and stop trying to make it One Stop Feature Shopping (which, just before Thanksgiving, became “One Stop Failure” for a major CRM, again);

or

2) Consider a DMS that includes a strong, usable CRM built-in with the DMS.

Is there a third choice? Yes. Continue to fail right along with your CRM. 

So don't fail.

Keith Shetterly
Independent Consultant
281-229-5887 cell/text
keithshetterly@gmail.com

P.S. This is one of a series, but here are some definitions you might need for clarity.

Essentially, we use our DMS to write and underwrite our business, and we use our CRM to chase customers/prospects and build our business.

DMS handles accounts payable, receivables, inventory, floor plan, punching cars to the OEM(s), national vehicle leasing and sales (a much harder crunch than you likely know), your F&I, your service lane, parts, your business office, your sales tax payments, info for your CPA for your federal taxes, payroll, and your Almighty Statement—and is your technology rock for desking a deal.

CRM handles Internet Leads distribution to your sales team, produces lead timing reports to various OEMs, manages email/text/social communications with your prospects, interfaces with your call recordings, orchestrates pre-sales and post-sales follow-up with prospects and customers, interfaces with your DMS for SOLD and SERVICE info, gets your inventory into the hands of your salespeople to send to customers, helps you manage your sales staff’s efforts and time usage, provides methods for data mining SOLDS, UNSOLDS, SERVICED-BUT-NEVER-SOLD, etc.—and is your technology Jello for desking a deal.

It’s ACCOUNTABILITY, not “Attribution”, for advertising. 

Advertising vendors, agencies, verifiers, and consultants are all aflutter about attribution. Whatever. 

It’s not just coming down to “last click”, or “multi-click” . . . because that all sounds like the 21st Century version of “Who’s On First”. And it is. In fact, it's more like a paternity test on Maury Povitch! Sheesh. Who sold the car? Who is the "father" of the sale??

So, let’s cut to the chase. Open the envelope. 

I know damn well “who sold the car”, and so do you: Your dealership sold the car.

Advertising never sold a car. Ever.

For advertising, yes, attribution is very important, but it is only a part of ACCOUNTABILITY. You spent money, and did the advertiser deliver what they promised? That is THEIR accountability. And did YOU do what you needed to do with whatever traffic--online and in the store, leads, calls, floor--that came into your showroom? THAT is YOUR accountability.

So, attend to your calls, leads, and showroom traffic.  Pay attention to what your advertising is doing for traffic, and measure it every way possible.

And don’t be led astray by a singular focus on “attribution”. That will get you nowhere but with a smiling advertising vendor telling you, on a good month, that THEY sold the car, and on a bad month that YOU failed.

Baloney. ACCOUNTABILITY of advertising, and of YOUR dealership, including far more than attribution of clicks, is where it’s at for sales success.

Your dealership sold the car. And you can tell them I told you that without an "advertising DNA test". 

P.S. Much more to come from me on this soon.

Keith Shetterly
Independent Consultant
keithshetterly@gmail.com
281-229-5887 cell/text

To some vendors and industry critics, dealerships are so “in the way” of the consumer with our Road to the Sale, right? We hear that, loud and clear.

It all gets explained like this: The modern consumer sees advertising, reviews inventory, and comes in to buy a pre-selected vehicle. And we don’t need to interfere with that from our sales process, or from any Road to the Sale of any number of sales steps—we just need to serve information and get out of the way. With a smile. No test drives, or fact-finding interviews, or selling the customer in any way are required. 

It would be just like purchasing a jacket, or a dress, on a retail rack. Or, far worse, like a drive-thru at McDonald’s.

Now, yes, of course, the modern consumer has changed, but every time I read some other geek (and I am one, myself) writing about “changing the car buying process” like this they forget the Okee-Carvana Swamp:  Providing what a geek imagines the consumer wants isn’t what the consumer wants, because they make the Classic Geek Mistake of deciding they know better.

This is the “Old Microsoft” Way:  Geeks Know Better. You know this is true and the best way for everything, because, say, Excel features have never confused you. Your cell phone has never failed to make a call. Your CRM software has never left you high and dry on a Friday before a weekend. And your website is clean and easy for you to maintain and for the customer to use. Because success is “Geeks-Know-Better Nirvana”. Right?

Well, NO—of course that isn’t true.

Absolutely, we all know the real truth is that consumers don’t like many parts of the current process at the stores and so like to shop online as much as they can before a visit—but, over and over again, the shoppers will come in to buy a new car or truck  . . . and still change their mind in the store on the vehicle they want.

We lift them to other vehicles with sales efforts, sure, but they also lift themselves. They decide that leather just is too expensive to have. Or too nice to pass up. Or the 3rd row seat isn’t big enough. Or it is just what they need.

The Internet has brought clear consumer pressure to make the purchase at the store that much quicker and better. And much is already afoot in our industry to move the process online into selection, financing, and aftermarkets. However, for most dealerships today, that is not the reality. YET.

And the consumer still needs help in selection, comparison, and purchase at the store—and maybe they always will need that in person, even if it’s “all worked out ahead.” Several experiments by dealer groups and manufacturers have shown that isn’t clear exactly how to do it “all online” with the consumer. At all. To date, NOBODY “knows better”.

So, geeks, it’s not a jacket or a dress: It’s a $25k – to $40k – to $80k, or more, purchase. Convenience in America, which is highly valued by consumers more nowadays than ever, just isn’t ready to deliver a car purchase without some help. In person.

It still ain’t a suit rack purchase, my fellow geeks. Not to the consumer. Not yet.

And maybe not ever.

Keith Shetterly
Independent Consultant
keithshetterly@gmail.com
281-229-5887 cell/text

CRMs break and are often hard to use. Why?

When you look at this Dealership CRM picture at the bottom here, ask yourself:

1) Is it any wonder that CRMs don't see more than 25% average functionality usage at the dealerships, and

2) Is it any wonder they break down at critical points and/or are difficult to use?

The little part on the left about "Desking" is vastly under-represented: It actually takes all the rest of the picture and puts it into a blender due to the issues with different localities taxing and leasing laws and regs.

And I don't mean just the amounts, but even the ORDER in which they are figured, and "localities" means it can vary with state, commonwealth, county, township, parish, city, and town--so the complexity of a "national" CRM trying to get all that right means you deal with the issues and failures as they ripple out into the product (even to it breaking).

Anyway, I thought this picture might serve some of you when trying to figure something out with your CRM or evaluate a new CRM. You're welcome to use it wherever if you attribute it back to me.

Keith Shetterly
Independent Consultant
keithshetterly@gmail.com
281-229-5887 cell/text

The Good Ol’ Boy Network (TGOBN) of the car business limits us in how we apply experienced and/or capable people, how we run our dealership’s business, and in how we approach women in this business for everything from ownership, to manager spots, to sales positions.  And, by doing all that, it limits our success.  And our profitability.  Let me tell you my own experience with the car business TGOBN, and then I’ll address the point I’m making on limits.

I came to the car business in my mid 40’s (I’m now 56) with experience ranging from owning my own business, to Fortune 50 Consulting, to several years at Microsoft, IBM, and Compaq.  I entered the sales floor, as perhaps many do, because I had a financial issue—I had a cash flow problem with my own business, and so I was making an effort to offset that slowdown.

I was privileged to work with several great salespeople who were happy with me until I started selling #1 consistently.  Eventually, they came back to liking me, but what really happened next was inevitable:  I knew so much about sales and marketing, and the dealership group’s attention to marketing and the Internet was severely lagging.  They couldn’t run a marketing program in any coordinated fashion to save their lives.  I tried to help, but I ran right smack into TGOBN:  I couldn’t possibly understand the car business!  And the people they had running all the marketing and Internet were just fine.  Really.  After all, the owner knew them all very well, how could it be otherwise??

And so I sold lots of cars and left to my business when my cash was right again.  The main store’s GM called me a few months after that, though, and he said “I get it even if others don’t.  I need your help in a BDC with phones and Internet; can you come back and help me?”  And so I did.  And a shout-out to my old GM, Mike, by the way:  Thanks very much for that!

He and I worked together and took the BDC—even back then—to running 40% of the dealer’s vehicle retail business.  I eventually moved on to an eCommerce position at a large group for several years, then to consulting, and for me the rest is history as they say: I’m now with a vendor, but I still have all that experience to bear, both inside and outside the car business.  Plus I qualify now for some level entry into that TGOBN.  Who knew??

Though that’s still not true with everyone who considers me and who I am, because I’m not twenty years in this business making all the same mistakes they are making (if not direct business mistakes, then business-limiting mistakes because they are still TGOBN-oriented).

So, what are a few of the most common TGOBN limits that hurt dealership success?  First, that experience outside the car business cannot be any strong help to a dealership; second, that running the dealership AS a business, instead of by TGOBN “relationship decisions", is not possible nor profitable; and, third, that women are never, ever part of TGOBN.

Yeah.  I said it.  Women are limited by TGOBN in the car business.  Still.  Even in 2015. I’ll write more on that in a minute.

First, what I see for TGOBN relationships that hold back their business success is perhaps best given in questions:  Who knows a GM who buys a random direct mail piece because his buddy at another dealership “killed it” and sold “fifty cars” from it last month?  Or has seen the management clearing-out that happens with some GM regime changes?  Or still sees print advertising spend over digital because the GM has a long-standing relationship with the local newspaper?  And so on.  Exactly.

And back to women, then, to wrap up, and so I’ll ask some more questions:  How many women GMs and managers are there?  Why do lots of capable women leave the sales floor?  Why do the ones who stay do so well and yet cause such jealousy?

TGOBN, that’s why. For all of that and more. I see more women than ever, but there’s still TGOBN. And you know it. And more than just women are affected by it.

For success, we need experienced, capable people with new ideas; we need to run our dealerships as businesses, not as clubs; and though we have improved some, we still need more women in sales, management, and ownership. 

And we lag on all these because of the limits of TGOBN, both in business practice and in attitude.  Removing that limit will do more for long-term dealership success than any new efforts on Internet, Social Media, Reputation Management, etc. ever will alone—simply because those are all really most successful when change for business success is really embraced.

And the car-business TGOBN hates change.  Have you noticed?

So did the dinosaurs, perhaps, and they are now encased in rock.  Don’t be a TGOBN fossil and miss modern success and profit.

The Good Ol’ Boy Network (TGOBN) of the car business limits us in how we apply experienced and/or capable people, how we run our dealership’s business, and in how we approach women in this business for everything from ownership, to manager spots, to sales positions.  And, by doing all that, it limits our success.  And our profitability.  Let me tell you my own experience with the car business TGOBN, and then I’ll address the point I’m making on limits.

I came to the car business in my mid 40’s (I’m now 56) with experience ranging from owning my own business, to Fortune 50 Consulting, to several years at Microsoft, IBM, and Compaq.  I entered the sales floor, as perhaps many do, because I had a financial issue—I had a cash flow problem with my own business, and so I was making an effort to offset that slowdown.

I was privileged to work with several great salespeople who were happy with me until I started selling #1 consistently.  Eventually, they came back to liking me, but what really happened next was inevitable:  I knew so much about sales and marketing, and the dealership group’s attention to marketing and the Internet was severely lagging.  They couldn’t run a marketing program in any coordinated fashion to save their lives.  I tried to help, but I ran right smack into TGOBN:  I couldn’t possibly understand the car business!  And the people they had running all the marketing and Internet were just fine.  Really.  After all, the owner knew them all very well, how could it be otherwise??

And so I sold lots of cars and left to my business when my cash was right again.  The main store’s GM called me a few months after that, though, and he said “I get it even if others don’t.  I need your help in a BDC with phones and Internet; can you come back and help me?”  And so I did.  And a shout-out to my old GM, Mike, by the way:  Thanks very much for that!

He and I worked together and took the BDC—even back then—to running 40% of the dealer’s vehicle retail business.  I eventually moved on to an eCommerce position at a large group for several years, then to consulting, and for me the rest is history as they say: I’m now with a vendor, but I still have all that experience to bear, both inside and outside the car business.  Plus I qualify now for some level entry into that TGOBN.  Who knew??

Though that’s still not true with everyone who considers me and who I am, because I’m not twenty years in this business making all the same mistakes they are making (if not direct business mistakes, then business-limiting mistakes because they are still TGOBN-oriented).

So, what are a few of the most common TGOBN limits that hurt dealership success?  First, that experience outside the car business cannot be any strong help to a dealership; second, that running the dealership AS a business, instead of by TGOBN “relationship decisions", is not possible nor profitable; and, third, that women are never, ever part of TGOBN.

Yeah.  I said it.  Women are limited by TGOBN in the car business.  Still.  Even in 2015. I’ll write more on that in a minute.

First, what I see for TGOBN relationships that hold back their business success is perhaps best given in questions:  Who knows a GM who buys a random direct mail piece because his buddy at another dealership “killed it” and sold “fifty cars” from it last month?  Or has seen the management clearing-out that happens with some GM regime changes?  Or still sees print advertising spend over digital because the GM has a long-standing relationship with the local newspaper?  And so on.  Exactly.

And back to women, then, to wrap up, and so I’ll ask some more questions:  How many women GMs and managers are there?  Why do lots of capable women leave the sales floor?  Why do the ones who stay do so well and yet cause such jealousy?

TGOBN, that’s why. For all of that and more. I see more women than ever, but there’s still TGOBN. And you know it. And more than just women are affected by it.

For success, we need experienced, capable people with new ideas; we need to run our dealerships as businesses, not as clubs; and though we have improved some, we still need more women in sales, management, and ownership. 

And we lag on all these because of the limits of TGOBN, both in business practice and in attitude.  Removing that limit will do more for long-term dealership success than any new efforts on Internet, Social Media, Reputation Management, etc. ever will alone—simply because those are all really most successful when change for business success is really embraced.

And the car-business TGOBN hates change.  Have you noticed?

So did the dinosaurs, perhaps, and they are now encased in rock.  Don’t be a TGOBN fossil and miss modern success and profit.

We don't have an "accountability culture" in the car business, and we need one. Badly. For great examples why, just look at the sports we love that are so successful!

The NFL keeps stats on players that boggle the mind and produce hours and hours of ESPN commentary; basketball hinges on free throw percentages that can haunt a player’s (and team’s) season; and, from long ago to now, baseball has led them all with stats that kept the players accountable in a witches brew of information.

These are all sports we know and love in the car biz. And they are accountable in every play they make. Or don’t. Every day in every season.

And yet somehow we don’t have that same Accountability Culture.

What do I mean? Imagine this:

• Every call you make or receive for vehicle sales is logged and followed up on for sales-making appointments using your CRM.
• Every prospect that walks on to your showroom floor is properly greeted, gets a needs assessment, and is logged into your CRM along the Road to the Sale.
• Every unsold prospect that leaves your showroom is pursued with strong follow-up via phone and email, all contact logged into your CRM, to create as many sellable be-backs as possible.

And so:

• You know your true store closing ratio because of these two items inside your CRM along with the SOLD unit number. You begin to see the real state of sales and make adjustments from these facts to grow your business—everything from advertising to inventory goes into this.
• You begin to know what real follow-up call and email methods and schedules work in your market, and you make sales *and* CSI gains.
• You use the unsold and sold customer information in the CRM to create call and email campaigns where every email opened and call made and received is logged and known for sales and service results.
• And the Internet Department grows into even more sales than today, because it is by nature the most-accountable work (lead/call/visit) in the entire dealerships.

Accountability is MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY!

Doesn’t this sound great?? And yet far too many dealerships don’t have the Accountability Culture in place: The owner wants accountability tools and processes but too often turns away to leave them solely in the GM’s hands; the GM may or may not want an Accountability Culture, but gets really uncomfortable if the tools and processes seems to say he or she isn't doing the proper job; and the salespeople in general don't want accountability at all because they want to be judged on the sales they make, not on the UPs they burned through to “make their eight”.

I guarantee most dealerships in the USA don’t use their CRM properly, and they don’t have processes that lead to true accountability to show true results. At all. Replacing the CRM has become almost a hobby at some dealerships, thinking that it’s a tool holding them back.

Well, an Accountability Culture would even work with a pen and paper. Because it starts in the heart and is led from the top, and it flows down to every position from there.

If you lead a store and believe your CRM “is not working”, make sure you look into a mirror before you spend $100,000 to make that change. Because even the simplest-to-use CRM, or even the least-expensive CRM, needs you to USE it. 

For example: Do you even know how to log into, much less use, the CRM you have? And If you lead a department, are your folks truly accountable to you for their work towards sales production— is your “22 car guy” burning through 200 UPs a month and you don’t know?  In other words, as a department manager DO YOU USE THE CRM? As a salesperson, aren’t you trying to be more efficient and work less hard for MORE MONEY? All that is in the CRM if you go there.

Because accountability isn’t a discussion at the coffee machine. And it isn’t just the sales you made this month, either.

It’s the sale you missed.  You know, the ones you’d be accountable for, too, if you really wanted accountability for everyone? The ones you can get with beback efforts of follow-up? Accountability Makes Sales Happen!

Accountability is for Winners. What is your culture?

You know this story: The new GM comes in, sweeps out the current management, and replaces them all with "his" or "her" guys and gals.

Maybe this is smart, but it doesn't seem so. ESPECIALLY with eComm Directors and Internet Directors who are juggling websites, reviews, reputation, lead sources, training, marketing, and CRM, all while very often leading a sales team AND desking deals.

Revolution is a natural affair of human organizations, and--though dangerous and painful--revolution is very different from a radical takeover and replacement of the government by the military in the RESULT. History shows that a coup is hardly ever an improvement.

And just this week a good friend of mine, really an excellenteComm and Internet leader, was swept out. I'm sick of "that's the way it is". Really?

Thank God nothing ever changes in this business. Like the Internet. Do we REALLY have to live with regime changes that decapitate every key department?

I don't think so. That dealership will be a long time recovering from this particular loss. Right about the time the Google Reviews fade, the Internet stops producing, thepay-per-click goes south, and the sales drop off . . . it will be time, sadly, for another GM. And another house cleaning.

House SMASHING, more like it. And we need to stop doing it.

Keith Shetterly
VP of Research, CAR Research
keiths@carxrm.com

You know this story: The new GM comes in, sweeps out the current management, and replaces them all with "his" or "her" guys and gals.

Maybe this is smart, but it doesn't seem so. ESPECIALLY with eComm Directors and Internet Directors who are juggling websites, reviews, reputation, lead sources, training, marketing, and CRM, all while very often leading a sales team AND desking deals.

Revolution is a natural affair of human organizations, and--though dangerous and painful--revolution is very different from a radical takeover and replacement of the government by the military in the RESULT. History shows that a coup is hardly ever an improvement.

And just this week a good friend of mine, really an excellenteComm and Internet leader, was swept out. I'm sick of "that's the way it is". Really?

Thank God nothing ever changes in this business. Like the Internet. Do we REALLY have to live with regime changes that decapitate every key department?

I don't think so. That dealership will be a long time recovering from this particular loss. Right about the time the Google Reviews fade, the Internet stops producing, thepay-per-click goes south, and the sales drop off . . . it will be time, sadly, for another GM. And another house cleaning.

House SMASHING, more like it. And we need to stop doing it.

Keith Shetterly
VP of Research, CAR Research
keiths@carxrm.com

Traffic is everything—traffic is ALL. And I don’t mean traffic to your site, or any digital referrals at all. And I don’t mean phone calls, either.

I mean floor traffic:  folks that drove over, parked, and entered your showroom to consider buying a car from YOU.

THAT is Traffic. And it is EVERYTHING.  Prospects visit, and you sell them a car. If they don’t visit, all the other things you do mean NOTHING.

Yeah, that’s old school. Before OEM's CSI, before online reputation, before SEO, before PPC, before CPM, before websites, before phone training, before Internet leads. Back when you papered the tower with the ads from the newspaper.  Remember what you worried about?

It was Floor Traffic.

And it is STILL Traffic. Throw out any consultant or trainer or company or entity that argues it is anything else. Why?

All dealerships spend effort on CSI, and money and effort on other things like online reputation, SEO, PPC, CPM, websites, cable TV, radio, print, direct mail, email, appointment-setting, and so on—all in order to GENERATE TRAFFIC TO THE STORE.

However, the way some people talk and advise in our business, you’d think all of that is done for some other reason. Like we do these things for some lofty goal, some point of artistic beauty. 

Baloney.  Guess what? We do these things ONLY TO GET TRAFFIC, PERIOD.

Don’t agree? Ask any successful GM or owner if they had to choose only ONE thing to spend money on this month, which would it be: a) train their staff, or b) pay to generate more traffic.

The answer will be TRAFFIC. And don’t split a hair in your own answer—we’re not talking “well, we’ve got to train in order to HANDLE the traffic.”  That’s not the point.

And how do you handle and track all this traffic?  CRM.  However, the worst feature of every CRM out there is the lack of CRM use by the dealership.

Well, you can bury every problem on the floor with good sales from great traffic.  Even that one.

However, a great dealership will generate and marry great traffic with great use of CRM by great, trained sales staff. No doubt. And have great sales and make lots of money.

A good dealership will generate great traffic and let the salespeople and managers sort it out. And haphazardly use the CRM. And still make money.

A poor dealership will spend no money to generate traffic and also no money on training the salespeople. And pay no attention to the CRM. And make little money.

So choose to be a great dealership!  Because it is, and has always been, all about:

Traffic. Traffic. Traffic.

By Keith Shetterly
Vice President of Research, CAR-Research
281-229-5887 cell/text keiths@carxrm.com   www.carxrm.com
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