We are getting so close to moving in to our BRAND NEW building! We are within a 60 day window and its starting to feel real! We are starting to a moving in timeline together and the contractor is getting close to receiving a lot of the interior things! 

 We are at a point where we are really trying to nail down some of the new processes that we will be using......from taking calls to delivering cars! Take a look at the latest update from Mr Turner! https://youtu.be/ga-4q_kz98Y

So for a few months now I have been blogging about us building a new dealership. I am trying to discuss the things that all of us as dealers have to deal with as we get  more modern. 

 So this past week I took a tour of the site with my owner. Its really coming a long. We are at the spot where we are starting to have to make a lot of detail decisions. We are even starting to discuss things such as what will play on the tvs in the showroom. PLease click here to see the latest video from Allen Turner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRvcXcZ4hno

Both of our Our dealerships have always been somewhat active in our local community. We do lots of things at the stores that raise money for local charities. At one of our stores we do a yearly drive that raises money for a local food pantry. Each employee has the chance to put money in to an account and the owner will match it at the end of the year. At the other store we use the same concept but the funds are give to a local toys for tots program.  We have given them several large checks throughout the years.

 We also participate in a lot of community events that are away from the dealerships. We participate in a lot of charity 5ks , Cancer awareness events and a world of other types. We do make sure that anything that we sponsor we are able to have someone at the event.

 We feel that our efforts have been a success. This is however extremely hard to measure! Our Facebook audience has grown a lot and I can tell you of several people that we have sold cars too that we met at an event.

 This a link to a landing page that we created to hilite some of the  events that our Hyundai store has been involved with.

http://www.allenturnerhyundai.com/Community-Involvement

This is one to the chevy page

https://www.allenturnerchevrolet.com/Community-Involvement

Allen Turner started building a brand new state of the art Hyundai store from the ground up a few months ago. So the construction of the dealership is moving along nicely now. It is actually starting to take shape! You can actually tell where the service department will be as well as the showroom and a few other areas as well.

 We are now also starting to discuss the layout of the show room and the technology that will be in it......Things such as hightops instead of esksand types tv's. we even had the discussion of what will play on the showroom tv's. We will be planning what will go in our bdc department soon. This is becoming an exciting project!

We have also started posting the progress on our facebook page and we are getting a positive response from our customers about it. Click https://youtu.be/dKuAJmFT4Fs for the latest update from Allen Turner.

 Are your Saturdays still as busy at the dealership as they used to be? I have noticed quite a few dealers saying that they dont get that big rush of walk in traffic on Saturdays any more. I can remember in years past that we would have barbecues and all kinds of other community events at the dealerships that I was with. These would drive in insane amount of traffic in to the stores. In fact it was prob too much traffic at times I am sure that there were always people that we missed or couldnt get to. 

 Its funny how tings have changed. I now watch digital traffic instead of walk in traffic all of the time. We just have got to treat those people as if they are in the store! 

 We attended the nada convention this year in New Orleans. This was one of the best conventions that I have attended. We took four people from the dealership to the convention. We went to the convention with a long list of things to accomplish. We made us a list of vendors to see and workshops to attend. Having this mapped out made us a lot more productive. I can't imagine attending this conference without that type of plan. 

 The workshops were very organized and I got a lot out of them. On Thursday I attended a round table discussion on digital marketing for service. It was nice talking to my peers about this. I came away from this with several things that i am implementing at the dealership. I also saw the session that Jared Hamilton did on Human capital management. I can't wait to get that going at our store. On Friday I saw a session that Joni Stuker did on having a blended bdc. This knocked my socks off. 

 On Friday and Saturday I visited many vendor booths between the workshop sessions. We were able to look at a lot of the new technology. It was nice to be able to compare all of the products that we were looking at in one convention hall. We came away with a few new products. 

 One of my favorite things at the convention was The modern dealership display that nada put together with a few vendors. I think the kiosk's were my favorite part of that. 

Our dealership has always been somewhat active in our local community events. We have always supported local charities. we made a decision a year ago to continue this and actually ramp it up. We also decided that every event that the dealership supported should have one of our staff members present. we purchased a tent and lots of swag to give away! We also decided to make sure that we play this up in social media.

 We feel that our efforts have been a success. This is however extremely hard to measure! Our Facebook audience has grown a lot but I can only tell you of a few people that we have sold cars too that we met at an event.

 This a link to a landing page that we created to hilite some of the  events that our Hyundai store has been involved with.

http://www.allenturnerhyundai.com/Community-Involvement

This is a link to our other stores community event page https://www.allenturnerchevrolet.com/Community-Involvement

 We feel that it is important for us to be involved in these events. Please take a moment to share a few community events that your dealership has been involved with.