You're all well aware of how much noise there is out there when it comes to marketing.  And I'm sure you're all well aware that if you want to cut through the noise, sometimes you need to do something a little...well, outrageous.

One of the owners of Monaco Ford in Glastonbury is a Marine.  While he, a cop friend of ours and I were recently sipping on bourbon...we were discussing this whole narrative about the "toxicity of manliness" and how it's no longer ok to be a real man.

Given the fact that a massive portion of the dealership's demographic is truck buyers...we decided to do something a little outrageous.  And by God is it working.  

Episode one brought in more than 250,000 eyeballs in about a week.  There have been countless messages of support for the company and shockingly, barely any internet trolls.  Episodes two and three have rolled out and also been greeted with overwhelming support.

We've also had nearly 100 messages sent from individuals and groups in the area with epic ideas for the show...and in episode four we'll be expanding to feature other businesses for some insanity that includes everything from extreme roller coasters to blowing up a car with C4.

Click here to watch the premiere episode of The Real Man Show.

Sometimes it takes a .50 cal to make a little noise....

POSTED BY

Kyle Reyes is President and CEO of The Silent Partner Marketing.  He's also an acclaimed Keynote Speaker on entrepreneurship, leadership, marketing and social media.  You can find him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Snapchat (@dasilentpartner).

Just a few weeks ago, I watched what was nearly a fistfight break out between two dealers over the whole idea of being "politically correct".

This ultra PC world that we live in forces us to have a conversation about sex appeal - can we still use it?

I'd love your thoughts on this latest piece.

POSTED BY

Kyle Reyes is President and CEO of The Silent Partner Marketing.  He's also an acclaimed Keynote Speaker on entrepreneurship, leadership, marketing and social media.  You can find him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Snapchat (@dasilentpartner).

It's a debate that we hear every single day in dealerships:

"Our OEM website SUCKS but we have to have it.  So maybe we should have two..."

It's the topic of our new video segment we're producing for dealers here on DrivingSales.  I hope you all find value in it.

If you want some more fire and some more controversial content...make sure to follow me on Facebook!

POSTED BY

Kyle Reyes is President and CEO of The Silent Partner Marketing.  He's also an acclaimed Keynote Speaker on entrepreneurship, leadership, marketing and social media.  You can find him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Snapchat (@dasilentpartner).

Thanksgiving Eve.  Turkeys were being prepared to go in ovens.  Drinks were being poured.  And we were preparing to launch a video that we knew would be shared around even more than grandpa's special eggnog.

You probably heard the story about the schmucks at Hampshire College.  The day after the election, the campus went into "mourning".  They lowered the flag to half-mast (which, as those of us with half a brain know, you aren't supposed to do unless you're the freaking Governor).

The students then took down the flag and burned it - on Veteran's Day.  And the college, in keeping with safe spaces and bubbles and all of that liberal horse shit decided to remove the American flag from the campus.

That pissed off a whole bunch of vets....and many of us who are actually proud to be American.  So...we put together a little video.  You can watch it here.

In less than a week, more than 100,000 people had shared it and we surpassed four million views.

We've received more than 25,000 private messages and emails of support.  

The video also pissed off a whole bunch of tender snowflakes, which was more delicious to me than my smoked bourbon.

What the hell does this have to do with marketing?  Simple - it's strategy.  I want to share with you all the recipe of success when it comes to achieving viral growth.

1) Know your demographic.

Understand that I'm not necessarily suggesting your company take on topics nearly as controversial as this.  Our company doesn't do business by "volume"...so we're not afraid of pissing people off from time to time.  But in our case, when it comes to business, we work directly with business owners and the heads of corporations...and they tend to share one big thing in common with us - they at the very least lean conservative.  Know your demographic and double down.

2) Engage your audience.

We didn't produce this video to grow our business.  Just the opposite, actually, I knew it was risky.  This was produced to demonstrate our support of veterans.  And so when we were blessed with comments left by them, we engaged with them.  

On the flip side....when internet trolls left comments....I had a field day with them.  Why?  The higher the level of engagements - good or bad - the more it shoots the organic reach through the roof.  

3) Tap into cross-promotional marketing.

There are always going to be organizations out there - non-competitive organizations - that share in your philosophy when it comes to cause-based marketing.  Tap into these resources to help spread the message and watch it take on a life of it's own.

4) Be timely and relevant.

Be ready to jump on topics and produce content quickly when it hits the news cycle.  The media - and the internet - was going nuts on the topic of flag burning.  We simply contributed to the conversation. Understand what is trending and do your best to be a part of the national conversation.

5) Have fun.

Allow your personality - and that of your team - to shine in your content.  Don't take yourselves too seriously.  Understand that social media is just that - SOCIAL.  MEDIA.  If you aren't enjoying what you are doing...people will know it.  

FINALLY... stop selling shit.  No, really.  You're so focused on selling your products that you forgot to actually nurture relationships with your audience.  Put them first and everybody wins.

Written By:

Kyle S. Reyes is President and CEO of The Silent Partner Marketing. He’s also anacclaimed keynote speaker on entrepreneurship, leadership, marketing and social media. You can find him on Facebook and of course be sure to follow him here on LinkedIn. 

There's a lot of anger in our country right now - for a variety of different reasons.  

Sadly a lot of that anger is coming out against the men and women who serve our country and our communities.

My agency announced recently that we'd be donating $250,000 worth of video production services to police departments to help combat some of the negative perceptions that are out there.  If you're interested, you can read about that more here.

But when one of our clients heard about it, they wanted to do something special to give back as well.  

Enter: Mazda of Manchester.

In partnership with the dealership, we featured an officer from the local police department and captured his story.

The post on Facebook read:

"We support our local police departments and we are so grateful for the service and constant protection they provide for our communities in order to keep us safe. In this Ride Along video, we interviewed Officer Robert Dwy from the Manchester Police Department and learned a little bit about his story and why he loves keeping his community safe. Give it a share to show your support for the brave men and women who protect and serve."

You can see the video here.

Within days, the story was shared hundreds of times.  The local media featured the dealership.  The backlash on social was, well, surprisingly almost none.

In the comments on many of the shares, we watched as people expressed incredible support for the local police - and for the dealership for standing behind the men and women in blue.  

Community.  It's that little thing that so many of your dealerships have been a part of for years.  Don't give it up as you try and find your identity in the world of social media.

Embrace it.  Double down on it.  Understand your community and the conversations that are happening in it.  Then be a part of them.  Do it right and you'll be glad you did.

POSTED BY

Kyle Reyes is President and CEO of The Silent Partner Marketing.  He's also an acclaimed Keynote Speaker on entrepreneurship, leadership, marketing and social media.  You can find him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Snapchat (@dasilentpartner).

Why am I not surprised to hear from countless automotive executives that their “marketing agency” didn’t tell them about this?  One word: shenanigans. 

Here’s the deal.

Beginning on January 10, 2017, Google is going to deal a major blow to the most annoying pop-up ads.

We’re talking about the mobile ads and full screen pop-ups that take over your phone.  Google is going to start severely spanking companies that use them by lowering their page ranking.

Now to be fair, Google says there are “hundreds of signals” that go into how they rank websites.  But what this ultimately means is that many publishers are going to have to rethink how they’re allowing advertising on their sites so they don’t get slapped.

The goal here is pretty simple.  These ads are pissing people off…and so Google wants to fix that.  And before you freak out, perhaps you should be asking yourself…do you really want your ads to be pissing consumers off?

Now Google says that “reasonable” banner ads will still be acceptable – they just plan on lowering the rank of websites upon which “content is not easily accessible”.  We’re talking about the ads that gray out the content below them, the ads that are nearly impossible to find the (x) and those that generally screw up the user experience.

As a consumer, I say great.

As a marketer, I say awesome.  It’s about damn time we weed out some of the crap that agencies are using to pad the numbers they are giving their clients regarding the “results” of these obnoxious ads.

No wonder why so many ad agencies are calling it ad-maggedon. 

I suppose we’ll see what happens come January 10.  Which, on a side note, is only 10 days before the inauguration…when we hopefully won’t be swearing in someone who will lead us to Armageddon. 

#MakeAdvertisingGreatAgain

POSTED BY

Kyle Reyes is President and CEO of The Silent Partner Marketing.  He's also an acclaimed Keynote Speaker on entrepreneurship, leadership, marketing and social media.  You can find him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Snapchat (@dasilentpartner).

It's a big shift that's ultimately going to have huge implications for traditional advertising.

It's a move that has been years in the making.

And it's a play that's sending Facebook right for the jugular of Periscope.

Today, Facebook rolled out a dual-broadcast feature.

It means that two people can be part of the same live stream at the same time now.  Think of the potential here.  News-style interviews.  Debates.  Dual person tutorials.  

We've seen social media push more and more in the direction of "citizen journalism".  As a matter of fact, Facebook live has become quite the hot topic, with Facebook announcing it has plans underway to prevent abuse of the platform such as the live streaming of crime.  

The ability to broadcast live from multiple locations pits the platform against two competitors - Periscope and Blab.  

About six months ago, we hosted a live conversation with the CEO of Blab, who talked about the success of the platform in bringing people together across the world in a live, interactive way.  In our conversation at that point, we predicted a strong shift in the expansion of live streaming.  Turns out we were right.

It was just last August that Facebook rolled out live.  At that point, it was only available to verified journalists and public figures.  By December of 2015, it had expanded to everyone.  And as Facebook saw usage skyrocket, they went all in.

The media giant added a team of hundreds of engineers to work on incorporating everything from streaming reactions and video filters to live broadcast maps and targeted audiences.

It's not Facebook's first move to try and crush the competition.  Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) recently rolled out it's own version of "stories" to compete with Snapchat.  

What will the latest move mean for Facebook's competitors?  Innovation, if we've learned anything about the natural progression of social media.

What will Facebook's new dual streaming capabilities mean for YOUR competition?  It all depends on how YOU use it...

Kyle Reyes is President and CEO of The Silent Partner Marketing. He’s also an acclaimed keynote speaker on entrepreneurship, leadership, marketing and social media. You can find him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Snapchat @dasilentpartner.

This is one of those moments where I’m going to eat the words I wrote 18 months ago.

In a previous article, I talked about how technology has killed millennial communication.  Bloomberg Business loved it.  And while I still stand by my assessment that many millennials don’t know how to look someone in the eye and give them a solid handshake, I’m going to take a step back.

It’s not that millennials don’t know how to communicate.  It’s simply that they’ve evolved.  And evolution has both good sides and bad sides.

First, let’s look at the stats.

According to a Nielsen study, 83 percent of millennials say they sleep with their smartphones. (I think 17% of them overslept and missed the study).

A Cisco study found that 56 percent of millennials won't accept jobs from companies that ban social media.

An Odesk study found that 89 percent of millennials would prefer to choose when and where they work rather than being in a 9-to-5 position, and 45 percent would rather be able to work from home than make more money.

An Intrepid study found that 48 percent say word-of-mouth (specifically social media) influences their purchasing decisions over TV ads. 63% stay updated on brands through social networks.

A study by Millennial Branding found that 50 percent of college millennials say they don't need a physical classroom. 53 percent believe online colleges are reputable. And 39% view the future of education as being virtual.

How prepared are they to enter the workforce? A 2013 study (which might as well be 100 years ago at this point) commissioned by Bentley University found that 35 percent of business leaders assigned a score of "C" or lower on preparedness to recent college grads they've hired. And get this - 37 percent of those grads gave themselves the same grade range.

A 2013 State of St. Louis Workforce study found that a lack of communication skills and poor work ethic, along with a lack of critical thinking and problem solving skills were the biggest shortcomings of the job applicants - far outpacing a lack of technical skills such as math and computer.

How did this happen??

It's not rocket science, folks. You've probably seen the videos on YouTube. Babies sitting on mom's lap...trying to "swipe" the pages on the magazine that mom is holding as if she were using an iPad.

Entire coffee shops filled with people sitting together and ignoring each other as they text on their smart phone.

People who don't know how to maintain eye contact.

20-somethings who don't know how to properly shake your hand (hint - always touch webbing and never let your wrist go limp).

People who have no interest in attending their class reunion, as I wrote about previously,because they already know what everyone in their class has been doing.

Doorbells? What are those? "Text u when i get there"

Landline? Never heard of it. Text me, bro.

Rock concerts where people don't hold up lighters, they hold up cell phones.

Presidents who can't give a speech without a teleprompter.

People falling in front of trains don't get a hand...they get YouTubed.

Yes, it's a stereotype of an entire generation and how they communicate.

But there’s another reality of it that we need to discuss.  Which is that in some ways, millennials know how to communicate more efficiently than any other generation.

They are adept at integrating digital communication and influencer marketing with their one-on-one engagements to achieve greater results in a shorter time frame, in many cases.

Take a look at the study from Adobe.  It found that at work, millennials put more stock in interpersonal interaction than digital interaction.  Although 81 percent of millennials said "state of the art technology" was more important to a perfect workplace than perks, a full 55 percent of them said they value in-person communication over digital.

Now check this out.  46 percent of those same millennial respondents expected their peers to value IM and texts over in-person communication…but the real number was only 11 percent.

Older generations often use the example of couples who are out to dinner at a restaurant and ignoring each other.

“They are looking at their phones and not even talking to each other!”

True.  Very true.  But the reality of it is that if you took that same couple and replaced them with older people without cell phones, chances are they’d still be ignoring each other.  They’d just be eavesdropping on the table next to them instead of engaging with a world wide audience at their fingertips.

So perhaps it’s time you lay off the millennials and start taking a page out of their book – er – iPhone.  You might just learn a lesson in efficiency.  Just don’t expect them all to know how to shake your hand when you thank them.

Kyle Reyes is President and CEO of The Silent Partner Marketing. He’s also an acclaimed keynote speaker on entrepreneurship, leadership, marketing and social media. You can find him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Snapchat @dasilentpartner.

It’s time to end the insanity.  Really.

Today, I read not one but TWO articles about how millennials are consuming content that were massively flawed down to their core.  And yet, for some reason, you people are sucking this crap down like a glass of cheap vodka after you blew the sale of that $90,000 Corvette.

Here’s one of them.  It’s called “Millennials Spend 18 Hours A Day Consuming Media – And It’s Mostly Content Created By Peers.”

It’s on Entrepreneur.com and so you’d think it’d have some credibility.

Except for one minor detail.  Most millennials aren’t awake for 18 hours a day.  

Hell – half the other articles out there start with “millennials sleep in their parents’ basement for 18 hours a day”.  I’m more likely to agree with that one – at least when it’s talking about the millennials who love Sanders.  

(Author note: I’ll save some of you from having to say this in the comments.  Yes, I made a political joke on an automotive focused website.   You’re car people.  Relax – you’re fine.  Please continue reading.)

Lesson One – Shut Up And Listen

There’s actually a relatively simple little thing you need to keep in mind if you want to successfully sell to millennials.  

Back off the hardcore close.  

Now before you scoff and move on, let’s talk this through for a second.

You’ve been taught that you should always be working towards and pushing hard for the close.  But for some of you, it’s put a mental block in your brain.  You’re so focused on “the close” that you’re not focused on “the listen”.

You keep hearing the 20-something talk about how sexy that Camaro is, but you missed the part where his heavy college debt leaves him with just enough of a monthly payment for a Spark.

You keep hearing that the young woman really likes the Fusion, but she mentioned she’s hoping to be pregnant soon.

These might sound like silly examples – but when you think about it, they have one thing in common.  You stopped trying to be helpful because you were focused on closing the deal.

The reality of it is that this lesson can be applied to ANY generation.  But millennials?  They just happen to be the group that’s less likely to come out and communicate that with you.

Lesson Two – Stop Whoring Out Social Media

You’re slapping ads on Facebook for your cards.  You’re putting up specials on Instagram.  You’re tweeting out promos.  You’re complaining that “SnatchChat is for teens to share porn”.

Stop the insanity.

Stop.  Selling.  Shit.  

I get it.  You’re sales people.  You’re conditioned to sell stuff.

And that’s exactly what you’re doing wrong.  Again and again and again on social media.

Social media is all about engagement.  Interaction.  Unique, creative and engaging content.

Wonder why you’re not selling more cars on Facebook?  Because you’re not supposed to be.

Want some examples?  Look at Yeti.  The North Face.  Red Bull.  Or follow me on Facebook.  I’ll bring you guys some more examples from time to time.

But please.  Stop the desperate scramble for studies on millennials…and start doing a little studying on your own.

Kyle Reyes is President and CEO of The Silent Partner Marketing. He’s also an acclaimed keynote speaker on entrepreneurship, leadership, marketing and social media and has been dubbed "The Millennial Whisperer". You can find him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Snapchat @dasilentpartner.

I'm a big believer that no great idea ever started with a glass of water.  That's why every Wednesday, I have our entire agency come together for a big team meeting over cocktails and lunch.  Sometimes the best brainstorming comes out of those magical lunch sessions.

That's exactly what happened with our latest video.

The idea was to put together a piece about how people "identify".  It occurred to me that as a conservative business owner in a state of liberals, I sometimes feel like I'm 80 - despite the fact that I'm a millennial.  (Relax, liberals.  It's not an insult.  It's just the truth.)

And so we allowed one of our interns to get his feet wet with a video project.  I put him in charge of the production and gave him creative license on this.

You'll see the video in the post below (which was written to explain the video).

We launched it quietly yesterday.  It started blowing up last night when Steve Crowder picked it up.  More than a thousand shares and four thousand likes in just a few hours.  Not bad, eh?

So what's the lesson in all of this for dealerships?  If you want to engage people at an economy of scale...sometimes you just have to stop selling them stuff.

Enjoy the piece.  And give it a share if it gives you a chuckle.

---

I’ve known that I’ve been different since I was a little kid. I never really understood it. It was just something I felt.

In middle school, while other kids were listening to No Doubt and NSync, I was listening to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

In high school, I was hanging out with college kids and adults and was constantly told I’m an “old soul”.

In college, I wasn’t going on dates – I was eating them. (Granted they were wrapped in bacon – but they were still dates, damnit.)

Then, one day, it hit me. I’m not a millennial. I’m a senior citizen.

I’m a trans man. Trans-age.

Before you say it, I know…I know. Biologically I’m not a senior. But that’s how I identify.

Every morning, I go into work where I run a business in a state of liberals. I feel like I’m 82.

My personal trainer looks like a black version of Lou Ferrigno and he makes me feel like I’m about 90.

I listen to business news. I drive a Chevy friggin’ Impala.

My friends, I’m a senior citizen trapped in a millennial’s body.

Trans-age is something you might have witnessed before without knowing what it was.

Perhaps it was the time you saw the 55-year-old woman walking around in booty shorts.

Or the 62-year-old with a 20-year-old in the passenger seat of his brand new Corvette.

All are prime examples of people who are trans-age.

One could argue we’ve all struggled with our identity. Dads of toddlers who have vomit on their shirts and think the young co-eds are checking them out. No, you’re not 21 any more.

Young co-eds who think the 50-year-old sugar daddies are interested in them for their maturity.

Little boys who wear their dads’ ties.

Old men who wear speedos.

In some way, shape or form, many of us are struggling with our identity. Our age identity.

Now that I know who I am…who I TRULY am…I’ve embraced it.

Last week, I went on the road to a bunch of drive-thru restaurants. I asked them for my senior discount. And you may be surprised to see how they responded. You can watch the video here.

What can I say? Seniors are the new millennials.

Kyle Reyes is President and CEO of The Silent Partner Marketing. He’s also an acclaimed keynote speaker on entrepreneurship, leadership, marketing and social media. You can find him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Snapchat @dasilentpartner. Read his past blogs here.