I posted this on my linkedin page, but also wanted to share this here...

As I reflect on my time at NADA, I can’t help but get excited about the auto industry.  There are so many amazing products out there serving dealers and helping them be more profitable.  Regardless of any of the widgets and products out there, it still all comes down to giving the customer an amazing experience while having best practice processes in place, and then holding your team accountable through the CRM.

The customer experience starts with proper training of your staff and then having all follow up and communication be driven by your CRM.  CRM’s should be at the heart of any dealership, but many times this is not the case.  Much of this reason is dealerships not seeing the benefit of the CRM and many times it is the fact that some CRM’s are just flat out clunky and hard to use. 

Let me say this, I love numerous CRM’s out there in today’s market, and many were awarded the Sales Process award at the AWA’s this past year.  But with that said, some are still stuck in the technology of yesteryear.

The big players in the game need to make sure they are staying relevant and continue to innovate and update. The reason I state this is the the CRM Evolution is coming.  I am calling it out that there are going to be some CRM shakeups in 2016 and then coming to a head in 2017.  The evolution has been slowly building over the past few years as small group of players have been building out and perfecting their new CRM that are now coming to market.

Many are small and you have most likely never heard of, but watch out for players like Drive360 CRM out of Texas, Avendas by NCC, and Drive Centric out of Indianapolis. These three CRM’s will push the big boys to innovate and shake up the automotive CRM industry.  I foresee these CRM’s being in any dealer’s CRM consideration set here in 12-18 months, and one if not all three of these will be wildly successful helping dealers sell more cars through their CRM.

All three have clean and simple UI’s, their speed is unparalleled, and their forward thinking innovation is astounding.  They are small and nimble able to code with the latest technology, and shift in lightning speed when necessary.  I like all the leadership behind all three CRM’s and I am extremely excited to see where they are at next year’s NADA. 

Again, I love many of the CRM’s in today’s market, but after seeing these CRM’s, I am also nervous for them as I can see potential market share being taken away.  With any evolution, its great for the end user as new companies like Drive360, Avendas, and DriveCentric shake up the current landscape and force others to innovate, stagnate, or just get out of the way.

I look forward to where this CRM Evolution ends up, because at the end of the day, it will help dealers be more relevant to customers today and sell more cars tomorrow.

Being good enough can be the Achilles heal in your organization...

At the beginning of November, there was big ol’ racing going on in the Big Apple called the New York City Marathon.  I had the honor and privilege to run NYC last year with my amazing wife (who by the way likes to remind me she beat me my .01 seconds…we have it framed just to remind me).

Since I ran NYC last year, I have done one other half marathon (in February), and since then have probably ran a total of 5 miles for 2014.  5 miles…TOTAL.  If anyone that knows me, knows I love to lace up my sneakers and just hit the pavement.  I hate to admit, that has not happened for most of 2014.

My problem as of lately is not one of me being too busy, rather it is that I have not made running, or working out for that matter a priority.  I am now starting to “feel” it 8 months later.  That blahness feeling that can come over you after eating too much on Thanksgiving, and just wanting to take a nap.  That blahness of being making excuses of being too tired to work out or run.  The blahness that can be a slow cancer taking your body over.

My wife and I were speaking about why I haven’t been running and I told her that I am just not motivated.  Plain and simple.  I just don’t want to. 

She made a statement to me that took a couple days to sink in.  As any good wife, she encouraged me and stated it was easy for me to not run because in my own eyes, my body looked “good enough”.  Meaning, I am not overweight, I watch what I eat (most of the time), I don’t have a big ol’ belly, and there are no outward signs of any problems with how I look or feel.  For all intensive purposes, I look healthy, when in reality; I know I am not where I need to be.

This same thing can happen in your dealership.  The, “We are good enough” attitude. 

You are selling cars, making money, your CSI is off the charts, your close rate is good enough to make your bosses happy…but deep down, that blah feeling looms over you.  That feeling of knowing you can be better than you are.  That feeling knowing you missed deals in October because you were “good enough”.  Maybe you don’t feel it yet, but you will.  I promise.  Maybe not tomorrow, or next month, but it will happen. 

Slowly but surely, the good enough attitude can steal small pieces of who you are, and all you end up with is being mediocre and average.

I was speaking to one my clients who had their best month EVER in their Internet department.  My challenge to him, and you my reader is to not let yourself fall into a Good Enough Coma.  Don’t ride these last two months out on what you have done for the past 10.  Push harder.  Push for more.  Demand more of yourself and your team.

Take what is yours, and that is knowing you did everything you could do to run this car dealership race. 

If you have ever ran 26.2 miles, there are times during that race where you try to justify quitting.  Your legs are cramping, your feet are numb, you are as mentally and physically exhausted as you have ever been in your entire life…and that’s when good enough creeps in.  You try and tell yourself no one will mind or care, they will understand.  Heck, you just ran, 18,19, 22 miles.  You just want to quit, because it was good enough.

But as a runner, you don’t stop.  You can’t.  You don’t quit because you know how those pride filled goose bumps feel when you cross that line and get that medal around your neck.  You know that you did it, no one else did it for you.   You ran that race, and accomplished that goal and earned all of the pride that comes with it. 

So finish strong.  Run the last 2 months as hard and fast as you can, because on January 1, 2015, you don’t want to look back and say, you were just “good enough”.

I was recently in a dealership and was sitting across from a salesperson that is a top producer.  He consistently is a 17-20 car guy and in November he ended up only selling 7 cars.  I could tell he was down in the dumps.  His happy go lucky energy was nonexistent and just wasn’t himself. 

So we took a look at his current opportunities to see if he was doing anything different that would cause this slump.  We noticed he was hardly following up with his customers.  When he did, it was a half-hearted attempt. This was completely abnormal for him.  

I started asking what was going on to see if we could find the root of the problem.  While we were talking he kindly interrupted me and told me he knew what was going on.  He was discouraged.  Down.  Tired of following up with customers that do not respond.  

He has been selling cars for 30 years and for the past 7 months he has been taking Internet leads as well as floor ups.  As one can ascertain he is not used to following up with customers the way he has been for the past 30 years prior.    

I told him that consistency is key and that he ultimately is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.  By not putting everything into every lead, he was not seeing the return he had been used to…therefore customers were not responding as much, and thus he was even more discouraged and putting less and less effort into giving the customer a great experience.

I told him he wasn’t alone.  This is common for an Internet Sales Manager but somehow someway he had to stay motivated.  He then flat out asked me…

“How do I do that? I spend all this time communicating with customers and I don’t see the results. They don’t respond, they ignore me, they are flat our rude. How do I stay positive in the midst of all of this?”

I went on to tell him how I thought he could stay motivated, but he posed a phenomenal question that almost every ISM or BDC person has every experienced.  How does one stay motivated when their close rate is 10, 12, 15, or even 20+%? 

I will follow up with another blog post on how I responded to this salesperson on how he can stay positive in the midst of day-to-day operations in a dealership.  But in the meantime let me as you the reader.  

How do you and your team stay motivated with 8 out of every 10 Internet leads do not buy from you???  What are some things you wish you were doing that you aren’t?  What have you seen work at your dealership that others can learn from?

I truly am blessed to travel this great country and help car dealerships provide for themselves and their families in ways I could never imagine…but over the past 13 months of traveling I continue to see patterns and habits that permeate our industry.

Over the next several weeks and months I plan to journal, blog, write, whatever you want to call it about my experiences as an automotive consultant.  Maybe, “confessions of an automotive consultant” will be the underlying theme.

More importantly my desire is to share with you the reader how you too can better equip yourselves, your team, and ultimately help you sell more cars.  We work in an amazing industry where we literally can write our own paycheck.  

So let me help with writing your paycheck…

First lesson, and one that I continue to preach from the rooftops, is from the old adage of “knock, knock…who’s there?”

In our Internet and BDC departments we receive knocks everyday from customer’s wanting to know:  Who is there?  Who is paying attention?  Who is listening?  Who is hearing me?  Who will help me?  Who is going to treat me the way I want to be treated?

At the Driving Sales Executive Summit in 2011, I sat listening to Jared Hamilton speak on how as car dealers we must be different from our competition.  He went on to say something that has stuck with me to this day!  

“I know and believe that there are great car dealers in our industry, the problem is that we all just look and act the same way.”

I have the privilege to look under the hoods of countless dealers’ CRM’s and processes and I continue to see the same mistakes from the east coast to left coast; from west Texas all the way up to the Cheese Heads of Wisconsin!  What is happening is that so many ISM’s, BDC Agents, and the likes continue to not listen to the “knock knocks” and pleas from customer begging for answers to questions and to just be treated as a individual…not just a number or to-do in a CRM.

I am as process driven as it comes and believe without great processes, dealers can only achieve a limited amount of success.  With correct processes, procedures, and leadership I believe dealers can easily achieve moderate to good successes in our Internet and BDC Departments.  Where the needle is moved, and dealers can go from good to great is taking those processes and personalizing them.  

Meaning, sometimes these processes can make our agents become robotic and relying too much on the predetermined templates to communicate with the customer.  

Where PCG is finding great successes with dealers is coaching, training, and changing the thinking of ISM’s, BDC Agents, and salespeople to look for the hidden treasures information inside the “lead” we receive and then personalizing the first few emails.

I believe templates are made to create dialogue, and once two-way communication takes place – salesmanship must come into play.  But, in order to dramatically increase that two way communication, we must answer the “knock knocks” we are receiving.

So ultimately I am saying and recommending the following:

Use a well crafted template on a first response to the customer, but in the first 4 sentences, personalize it to the customer.  Not all leads are created equal, but here is a list of tips that anyone can implement. 

• Lose the “Dear Mr./Mrs.” – this comes across too stuffy.  Replace this with something more friendly and personal:  “Hello Brian” “Hi Kristen”
   
• Thank the customer for their inquiry vehicle purchase request.
   
• Confirm the information and reiterate the what you received from your lead provider.  
  • This is especially important on 3^rd party leads.  If you are in the north and they ask for a 2WD SUV, make sure to confirm that is what they are looking for as 90% of what you would sell would be 4WD/AWD.
  • Confirm the package and equipment they are interested in.  Give the customer a link to the entire inventory of that particular model they are interested in.
     
• Answer any and all questions in the same language the customer uses.  Meaning, if they ask for how nice the car on a scale from 1-10.  Let them know it’s a 9, not just clean and nice!  If they ask if the vehicle has tan interior, let them know it has tan interior, not mocha latte pearlized with ebony accents.  
   
• If a customer submits trade information, let them know you are extremely interested in seeing the vehicle…regardless if it is a wholesale piece.  
   
• If no questions are asked, still speak to how nice of a vehicle they are looking at is, especially if it is a used vehicle!  One owner, non-smoker, great miles, etc!
   
• Pay attention to where the customer is located and speak to that.  If it’s some distance to your dealer, address how you serve customers all over the area, including where they live and speak to them how you understand their time is valuable and will not waste their time if they make the trek to your dealership.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but mere examples of how dealers can make sure their customers are being “heard.” Dealers do not have to do every single one of these in the first few sentences, just make sure there are personalized calls to actions.

Dealers do not have the luxury of second chances for first impressions when it comes to our Internet and BDC Departments.  We live in a very competitive world where we must stand out and be different.  Will you the reader answer the knocks you receive and dare to be different?  My plea is just that…dare to be different.

Over the past few months I have had the privilege to work with quite a few dealers and mystery shop even more.  One question I am asked is about templates.  Do we have the right ones?  Is this the right way to send them?  How soon?  How often?  Is this verbiage ok?  These are all valid questions and definitely need to constantly be questioned, evaluated, and monitored.

As I was running in my neighborhood last week I ran across this sign posted in a house that was for rent.  A simple sign.  A simple message.  But one thing was missing.  The most important thing.  Do you see it?

The sign itself is not what caught my eye but the handwritten message on the sign. 

“How much 817-XXX-XXX”

Someone was interested in this house but had no way to contact the owner of the property.  There was an information tube that was empty, but no number for potential renters to contact owner.

This immediately reminded me of the many of the questions I have been asked over the past few months, but more importantly reminded me of the importance paying attention to all aspects of our BDC and Internet departments.

I don’t think there are magical templates that will transform your Internet or BDC operations.  There are great ones, but the templates themselves will not help you sell cars. 

Paying attention will.

No matter how great your message is, if you are not paying attention, monitoring to make sure you doing the right things over and over (and over, and over), constantly improving yourself and your department, as well as making sure the right calls to action are in place, you will not be as successful as you could be.

So as you are moving towards the third month of 2012 are there holes in your marketing message?  Are your calls to action simple, well-defined, and engaging?  Do you have the right message but seem to be missing something? 

If so, please make the change today.  Be bold.  Be big.  Be better.  Pay attention. 

As a GM/Dealer what *digital* reports do you think are THE most important to look at on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis?  Basically if you had your store and wanted a report laying on your desk every morning when you walked in, what information would you want on this report?

I ask this as I am talking and working with dealers and a GM asked this to me today.  I thought it is a great question as I thought how can we better equip those who are leading the dealerships with a 10,000 foot view of the internet/digital operations of the dealership?

Thoughts?

I beg of you to help us, not hinder us.  

Signed,
pretty much every franchised dealer in the country

This is a recent post I made on my personal blog that I adapted for DS.  Hope you find it helpful/encouraging and not too ....  

Today I am daring to believe in something greater than myself.  I am dreaming in such a way that said dreams will change the automotive world.  I am daring to be different and not go with the flow.  I am daring to be “me” no matter what the cost.  I pray and hope that these words might be able to capture these thoughts bouncing around between my ears and heart.

Today I am filled with excitement, dreams, passions, and an unspeakable joy that is pouring out of me. I am dreaming of tomorrow and the opportunities that sit and wait before me.  The automotive world is moving all around me; I just want to shake it up a little bit.

I am not sure how that shaking will all take place, but I *know it will happen.  My dream is to impact those people around me in such a way that my fingerprints of love, compassion, caring, leadership, passion, generosity, and my encouraging spirit will forever change those I come into contact with.  

Life and those in our dealerships lives have a way of knocking us down but as we are picking ourselves off the ground our vision becomes ever so slightly clearer.  The wisdom that is learned from being on the ground is forever invaluable.  The scars on our wounded spirit will forever be a reminder of that times when we were down, but the fact that we are now standing up reminds us that they are just that…scars.

Over the past year multiple people have asked me what my hopes and dreams are both personally and professionally…and to be honest it was very hard for me to answer at times.  Even right now I don’t have a clear “vision” of what those dreams are exactly, but I do know this; I am moving towards making those unknown dreams a reality. 

Are you dreaming today?  If not, why?  What’s holding you back?  What’s keeping you from moving towards what you have always wanted, hoped for, or desired? 

Today history has yet to be written for tomorrow.  Why not take out a pen and starting crafting your great masterpiece of life and begin to allow yourself to dream?  

I never claim to be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I do claim I do my homework on said tools inside said shed.  I am sometimes amazed at how inefficient our industry can be at times.  We have SO much data at our fingertips yet we still operate so much on our gut and the way we feel with absolute disregaData rd and/or sheer ignorance with the data that is available to us.

I am a firm believe in “you can’t fix what you do not know.”  Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be too many others that embrace this philosophy.  I will admit that I do not have 20 or 30+ years of experience but I do have hard empirical data that can help me make wise and prudent decisions. 

Please don’t hear me say to *not take advantage of, respect, or believe in experience.  There is absolutely nothing that time and teachable experience can compete with.  AHHHH SNAP – I believe hard data comes in to close 2^nd!!!!

I believe that teachable experience coupled with sound data is a hard calculation to not believe in or have faith in the decisions that are made based on the aforementioned formula. 

Why does it take us as an industry to work smarter and not harder?  My opinion – the past 40, 50, 60 years.  We have never had this type of data at our fingertips through our CRM’s, DMS’s, ILM’s, appraisal and stocking tools, and just about any other acronym we can come up with.  Our past experience has allowed us to be wildly successful without this information “so why should be we start now.”

I was fortunate enough to get a walk through Dataium’s tool last week with Jason Ezell and my question to him was as follows, “All of this is great but the majority of dealer’s can’t, won’t, or have ZERO desire for this information.”  Jason’s response was pretty startling, as he understands that this is the reality we operate in.  He is embracing the current inefficiencies of our industry all the while helping the minority of dealers in the country work smarter and more efficient. 

Dataium is catering the to minority of the dealers that want to embrace data driven decisions.   Of course they would like to be in every dealer’s arsenal of tools but even he understands many of us aren’t a fan of all of this information.

This isn’t a pitch for Dataium but it is a call to action for those in this industry to work smarter and not harder.  No longer is our “gut feel” enough.  There are so many messages bombarding our customers that the best answer is no longer spending a bunch of money casting a large net. 

We now have data to pin point our audience and message we want to send; zero in on appraising, pricing, and stocking our vehicles; find out where our customer’s are at in their purchase and service cycle, amongst a BAZILLION other things.

Am I the only that feels this way?  How can we move our industry forward?  How can we be more efficient?  What can we influence TODAY to better our dealerships TOMORROW?

And so it begins…

All the hard work, all the logistics, all the planning – it all begins now.  400(ish) dealers and some of the brightest minds all in one room speak volumes for what the next few days will bring to us as dealers.

It’s always fun to see nametags and recognize people that I have never only ever met or talked with online.  Walking into DSES is SO much fun, high fives, hugs, handshakes and the like “hey I know you’s” are always fun.  One of the greatest take aways for coming to DSES is networking and getting to know and meet other fellow dealers.  It’s nice to have folks you know and trust willing to help and bounce ideas off of.

DSES got kicked off with a phenomenal Sunday afternoon and evening with Jared Hamilton, Paul Potraz, JD Rucker, and Jason Falls taking the stage capped off by a nice wine a cheese reception.

One thing I heard virtually all the keynotes speak about was we as dealers need to now start focusing on the customer’s journey in shopping for a vehicle.  We are not longer in a linear sales cycle and need to create an experience for the customer that is consistent and transparent. 

Jared hit on this hard on the fact and that the holy grail of marketing is now more about the power of influence each piece of our marketing puzzle has.  Good dealers do exist, but they just look like every other dealership out there. 

Paul Potraz went on to talk about 2012 is the year of engagement.   We must meet the customer where they are at and how they want to be communicated with.  We must utilize all channels and forms of communication as 50% of adults will be “Smart” by Christmas this year. 

JD challenged us to have a unified search/social/local/mobile hybrid way of communicating and to know Google with be changing the game as they start looking more heavily into social signals and relevancy while on a site.  We as dealers MUST be relevant and take a hard look at how we are communicating.

Jason Falls finished up the afternoon with a no BS social allowed!  I loved his style and way of communicating.  He challenged us as dealers to not be a social media “purist” where all we do is social and never sell.  Jason believes you can sell and gave us countless examples of how others have done it.

At the end of the day I looked up and had a ton of notes but one thing that threaded all of these keynotes together was engagement and communication.  The dealers that will be successful in the coming months and years will be those that embrace and adapt to how we are communicating and engaging with our customers. 

Day #1 is down and #2 just about to get started.  Can’t wait for what today’s going to bring!