I don't have to be a beer-maker to advertise beer. I don't have to have sold beer to sell beer. 

But I had best actually done ADVERTISING myself in order to PROVIDE advertising for beer. Or for cars.

Many of the folks who sell clicks (excuse me, "Digital Advertisers") don't sell you anything they have ever done, and many of them BUY and RESELL click products that they have never USED. Or, in some cases, even seen.

Well, I can definitely tell you I have made this beer. Myself. AND I've analyzed hundreds of dealer's digital ad spend to find those who have not.

Want to talk about your dealership's digital ad spend and get help? Just need an ear? Get a beer?

Call me. The BullCutter. 281-401-9520 cell/text

Keith Shetterly

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

We talked for years in automotive retail about “The Road to the Sale”, and I’m clearly one of the many supporters of that path to sales success.   However, too many of us are still on "The Road Less Profited".  Why?  Because we are not getting more sales (and profits!) from "The Road to Retention”!

Retention sales link the positives of variable and fixed operations together, and their teaming allows each part of the dealership to amplify the other.  Unfortunately, even in 2012, we don’t see that profitable interaction very often, and in fact it seems programs and efforts at retention—which will gain a lot more money for the dealership in both operation and by advertising—don’t get much attention.  Or action for sales.

And that is a huge, profit-abandoning, mistake. 

And the “how” is not complicated.  For sales and service, here’s The Road to Retention:

1. Capture the newly-sold units into service with service walks and with discounted first-service and detail offers, etc. in a programmed, post-sale fixed ops monthly marketing effort.
2. Mine your existing owner base for the locals that still don’t visit for service, and send them service and detail offers in a programmed, post-sale fixed ops monthly outbound marketing effort.
3. Mine your sold-to-service owner base for flips from service to sales, both during appropriately-timed and/or large-service visits and also by making service-loyalty-prompted outbound equity calls and email/direct mail efforts.
4. Mine your service-only customers for flips from service to sales, both during appropriately-timed and/or large-service visits and also by making service-loyalty-prompted outbound equity calls and email/direct mail efforts.
5. Offer notable and marketable customer-facing “ease of use” features for your service drive, to include “loyal customer” loaners/rides, a great service drive and waiting room experience (and market to them there, too), easy mobile and online appointment scheduling, valuable email service reminders with offers (and body shop reminders/offers), timely opt-in text repair status, etc.
6. Perform equity calls to all owner-base customers every month, and email/direct mail the local owners in good equity position, as well.  If they are not ready for a purchase, invite them into service with a good incentive.
7. Concentrate on the fixed-ops up-sell AND CSI!  They go hand-in-hand, generating good repeat customers.
8. Provide great sales and service, and focus on capturing customer reviews to support your position.  And ADVERTISE your great reviews to all your potential and existing customers.  Online and offline.
9. Organize and measure all this with the best DMS, CRM, and 3rd-Party tools you can get.  And use them all!  If you can’t keep track of it, you can’t measure it.  If you can’t measure it, you are guessing—and dealerships are businesses not the Vegas tables!  KNOW.  Don’t guess.
10. Operate all of this as the “Great Turning Wheel of Retention”, because your bestnew customers are always your previous customers.  There is a lifecycle to all sales, and the strongest lifecycle is when the cycle is worked for retention—abandonment chases customers away.  Draw them back into your dealership for sales and service!  They already visited you once to purchase, and they will again if you manage them in a lifecycle focused on retention.

Dealers:  Don't follow "The Road Less Profited” any more.

Instead, follow “The Road to Retention” and make more money than ever!

by Keith Shetterly
keithshetterly@gmail.com

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.

Your website is not advertising--not an ad source. Stop treating it like one. It is like your building, it's for customers to visit. And generate an event. Consider other events:

A showroom visit has an ad source.

A phone call has an ad source.

Even an Internet Lead has an ad source, albeit it is usually inherent in the lead SOURCE itself.

Prospects come to your website for the same reasons that they drive in: Because advertising (and even location is a form of advertising!) eventually drove them to visit. Even repeat customers come because they perceive you are still in business, and for all the lawyers out there we need to stop right there with the exceptions.

Because now you KNOW that your website is NOT an ad source. You spend money to maintain your website for hosting and support, just like you pay for your building and electricity and water. None of that is not ad sourcing! We do, though, need to know what our advertising does. Desperately. 

Yes, I know it's hard. And we can somehow go back to ancient Egypt, I suppose, if we chase advertising far enough. However, one ad source will be the most prominent, most recent "trigger" cause of that visit to your website. Google Search. PPC. Autotrader. Craig's List. Etc. THOSE are advertising spends. NOT your website!

Anyway, let's probe and find the true ad source. You'll be happy to know. And you will be able to spend less on advertising for more effect than ever before. :)

Thanks!

Keith Shetterly
Vice President of Research
CAR Research
keiths@carxrm.com
http://www.carxrm.comwww.carxrm.com 

Your website is not advertising--not an ad source. Stop treating it like one. It is like your building, it's for customers to visit. And generate an event. Consider other events:

A showroom visit has an ad source.

A phone call has an ad source.

Even an Internet Lead has an ad source, albeit it is usually inherent in the lead SOURCE itself.

Prospects come to your website for the same reasons that they drive in: Because advertising (and even location is a form of advertising!) eventually drove them to visit. Even repeat customers come because they perceive you are still in business, and for all the lawyers out there we need to stop right there with the exceptions.

Because now you KNOW that your website is NOT an ad source. You spend money to maintain your website for hosting and support, just like you pay for your building and electricity and water. None of that is not ad sourcing! We do, though, need to know what our advertising does. Desperately. 

Yes, I know it's hard. And we can somehow go back to ancient Egypt, I suppose, if we chase advertising far enough. However, one ad source will be the most prominent, most recent "trigger" cause of that visit to your website. Google Search. PPC. Autotrader. Craig's List. Etc. THOSE are advertising spends. NOT your website!

Anyway, let's probe and find the true ad source. You'll be happy to know. And you will be able to spend less on advertising for more effect than ever before. :)

Thanks!

Keith Shetterly
Vice President of Research
CAR Research
keiths@carxrm.com
http://www.carxrm.comwww.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
Copyright 2013 All Rights Reserved

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
Copyright 2013 All Rights Reserved