Price cutting is a self-inflicted wound. Nobody holds a gun to your head and makes you cut your price. I know that many of you are thinking right now: "There is so much competition today that you can't maintain profits," "Everybody is giving everything away," "The salespeople can't negotiate," and "Everybody knows our pricing from the Internet..." Blah, Blah, Blah. Stop whining about price!

Only about ten percent of buyers buy on price alone. For that ten percent, you can decide to lower your prices or let your customers buy elsewhere. Every person who has ever sold anything knows that the happiest customers are the ones that pay you profit, whereas the unhappiest customers are the ones that you gave everything away to. Here's a news flash: You don't have to do business with them. It's your choice.

All things being equal, money will be the customer's final decision. It is your job to make everything unequal. Customers consider the 3 M's: Money, Machine, and Me. What are you doing to elevate the "me" part of the equation? The "me" part of the 3M's stands for you: your process, the dealership, the service, and the reputation. It's the easiest part of the equation to change. Your dealership is unique and your customers need to know why. You have to believe that you are the best and that you are worth more. Many salespeople and sales managers have a flawed, weak belief system. If you don't believe you are outstanding, you will make yourself a replaceable commodity.

Every day you must work as hard on yourself as you do on sales. When you get better, your customers will get better. Do you work on yourself every day in the area of attitude, education, motivation, sales skills, customer follow-up, and marketing? Let's be brutally honest and forget about being politically correct...most sales people stink at their profession. The majority of salespeople never work on the above skills. Can you really tell me that those unmotivated and uneducated idiots are the tough competition? Your only competition is in your own mind.

Recently, while in Las Vegas, I shopped for shoes at Caesar's Palace. At the first store I went to, I noticed the salesperson looked agitated to have to hang up the phone to wait on me. He was extremely rude and did nothing to add value to his store or differentiate himself from other run-of-the-mill salespeople.

The second store I went to, I encountered a sensational salesperson that created rapport, sold value, and quality. He knew his product and made a high price seem like a bargain.

The first store lost two sales and the second gained from the first salesperson's stupidity.

Is the first salesperson and his inadequacies the norm, or was it an aberration? My experience says that unfortunately, he's the norm. My hunch is that your experiences are the same as mine.

Work every day to get better and show it to your customers. Work on your belief system.

Don't be a commodity, and stop whining about price. Price is the easiest problem to solve in the sale.

For your free special report “10 Ways to Overcome the Best Price Questions”, email me at info@tewart.com with Best Price in the subject line.

Price cutting is a self-inflicted wound. Nobody holds a gun to your head and makes you cut your price. I know that many of you are thinking right now: "There is so much competition today that you can't maintain profits," "Everybody is giving everything away," "The salespeople can't negotiate," and "Everybody knows our pricing from the Internet..." Blah, Blah, Blah. Stop whining about price!

Only about ten percent of buyers buy on price alone. For that ten percent, you can decide to lower your prices or let your customers buy elsewhere. Every person who has ever sold anything knows that the happiest customers are the ones that pay you profit, whereas the unhappiest customers are the ones that you gave everything away to. Here's a news flash: You don't have to do business with them. It's your choice.

All things being equal, money will be the customer's final decision. It is your job to make everything unequal. Customers consider the 3 M's: Money, Machine, and Me. What are you doing to elevate the "me" part of the equation? The "me" part of the 3M's stands for you: your process, the dealership, the service, and the reputation. It's the easiest part of the equation to change. Your dealership is unique and your customers need to know why. You have to believe that you are the best and that you are worth more. Many salespeople and sales managers have a flawed, weak belief system. If you don't believe you are outstanding, you will make yourself a replaceable commodity.

Every day you must work as hard on yourself as you do on sales. When you get better, your customers will get better. Do you work on yourself every day in the area of attitude, education, motivation, sales skills, customer follow-up, and marketing? Let's be brutally honest and forget about being politically correct...most sales people stink at their profession. The majority of salespeople never work on the above skills. Can you really tell me that those unmotivated and uneducated idiots are the tough competition? Your only competition is in your own mind.

Recently, while in Las Vegas, I shopped for shoes at Caesar's Palace. At the first store I went to, I noticed the salesperson looked agitated to have to hang up the phone to wait on me. He was extremely rude and did nothing to add value to his store or differentiate himself from other run-of-the-mill salespeople.

The second store I went to, I encountered a sensational salesperson that created rapport, sold value, and quality. He knew his product and made a high price seem like a bargain.

The first store lost two sales and the second gained from the first salesperson's stupidity.

Is the first salesperson and his inadequacies the norm, or was it an aberration? My experience says that unfortunately, he's the norm. My hunch is that your experiences are the same as mine.

Work every day to get better and show it to your customers. Work on your belief system.

Don't be a commodity, and stop whining about price. Price is the easiest problem to solve in the sale.

For your free special report “10 Ways to Overcome the Best Price Questions”, email me at info@tewart.com with Best Price in the subject line.

Do you feel like you are missing out on something? Are you confused as to what the next step is in making your dealership successful? It’s a different ballgame than it was even just a few years ago. The traditional dealership is dead and you must bury it to prosper in the future.

            For years the car business could be a very forgiving business. There was room for a lot of error in a dealership and yet a dealership could still be profitable. Those days are gone. Dealerships cannot be run in only a “seat of the pants”, entrepreneurial fashion anymore. To be successful dealerships have to be measured intensely in four areas – People, Process, Product and Positioning.

People – You must choose a path that works for your dealership philosophy. You must recruit people on a full time basis based upon want, not need. The leadership of a dealership must have a written and executed game plan for recruiting that utilizes online services, job fairs, colleges, tech schools, high schools, web sites, micro-sites, social media, newspaper, mass media and more.

Each dealership needs a detailed plan that includes a) interview questions, b) number of interviews c) personnel trained to interview d) testing methods for potential job skill match e) screening methods f) follow up methods g) initial and ongoing training methods for new hires

Process – Each dealership should have a written and executed process for every part of the dealership – sales process, internet lead process, marketing process, service process, parts process, manager process, used car inventory process etc. As an example, the selling process must be reviewed to make sure it is up to date and matches today’s marketplace. Most sales processes being used today were created in the 50’s and 60’s and have changed only slightly. Meanwhile, for the customer, everything has changed. Information gathering, overall knowledge, shopping process, volume of choices, expectations, value perceptions, lessening of brand loyalty are all things that have changed dramatically.

Every dealership needs to review their process based upon TLC – Think Like a Customer. What are you currently doing in your dealership process that lessens customer trust or ease of shopping/buying. Most dealerships are living in the stone-age when it comes to something as simple as the meeting and greeting of the customer. Nothing in your current process is sacred and the mantra for many things should be “just let it go.”

Product – The days of “Stack’em deep and sell them cheap” are over. Your new and used inventory must be monitored daily using analytic systems and technology that measures not only your inventory but others and market conditions. Many dealers have fought using any type of turn system even though simple mathematics proved you would be better off doing so. Well, the tide has turned again. Turn systems by themselves are now outdated and can even lower your dealerships ROI without other factors involved. Each vehicle is an investment just like a stock or mutual fund and must be analyzed, bought, priced, marketed, sold and eliminated using several conditions. Just saying that you have a 45 day turn system is not good enough anymore.

Positioning – Gone are the days of running display newspaper ads and waiting for traffic to arrive. Your dealership must have a dealership strategy that combines market positioning. Selling vehicles based upon price only will not create long term success. Successful dealers will no longer be able to delegate all of their marketing to an advertising strategy without educating themselves on the marketing and positioning aspects of their dealership.

Dealers will have to massively educate themselves on things such as, direct response marketing methods, copyrighting, multi-step campaigns, integration of on-line and off-line methods, social media, continual customer relationship building strategies, and sales to service continuity programs and retention. Dealers will learn that many advertising agencies do not understand any of these things and simply create lousy to mediocre production and buy the media. Without a well thought strategy using intentional congruence with all of the above mentioned factors you cannot be successful in this and future marketplace.

In the last year, I have asked hundreds of dealers the following questions:

#1 - What are your overall sales to service retention numbers and percentages beyond a first free oil change?

#2 - What are your number of inactive customers and what percentage is that to your overall customer base?

#3 – What is your planned and executed strategy for a continuity program to keep your customers for sales and service?

Here is the sad result. Out of hundreds of dealers, only one knew the answer to these questions. I continually find that dealers and managers do not really know what is going on in their own dealerships and are not doing anything to educate them to change that.

The reality is that the future belongs to dealers who educate themselves more, execute better and understand the value of speed in today’s marketplace. The marketplace of today and the future will continue to be very unforgiving with little room for margin of error, inattention or being slothful. The traditional dealership is dead but the exciting news is your new dealership is waiting to be born.

For a free special report titled “10 Things You Must Do At Your Dealership To Be Successful” email me at info@tewart.com with 10 things in the subject line.

Do you feel like you are missing out on something? Are you confused as to what the next step is in making your dealership successful? It’s a different ballgame than it was even just a few years ago. The traditional dealership is dead and you must bury it to prosper in the future.

            For years the car business could be a very forgiving business. There was room for a lot of error in a dealership and yet a dealership could still be profitable. Those days are gone. Dealerships cannot be run in only a “seat of the pants”, entrepreneurial fashion anymore. To be successful dealerships have to be measured intensely in four areas – People, Process, Product and Positioning.

People – You must choose a path that works for your dealership philosophy. You must recruit people on a full time basis based upon want, not need. The leadership of a dealership must have a written and executed game plan for recruiting that utilizes online services, job fairs, colleges, tech schools, high schools, web sites, micro-sites, social media, newspaper, mass media and more.

Each dealership needs a detailed plan that includes a) interview questions, b) number of interviews c) personnel trained to interview d) testing methods for potential job skill match e) screening methods f) follow up methods g) initial and ongoing training methods for new hires

Process – Each dealership should have a written and executed process for every part of the dealership – sales process, internet lead process, marketing process, service process, parts process, manager process, used car inventory process etc. As an example, the selling process must be reviewed to make sure it is up to date and matches today’s marketplace. Most sales processes being used today were created in the 50’s and 60’s and have changed only slightly. Meanwhile, for the customer, everything has changed. Information gathering, overall knowledge, shopping process, volume of choices, expectations, value perceptions, lessening of brand loyalty are all things that have changed dramatically.

Every dealership needs to review their process based upon TLC – Think Like a Customer. What are you currently doing in your dealership process that lessens customer trust or ease of shopping/buying. Most dealerships are living in the stone-age when it comes to something as simple as the meeting and greeting of the customer. Nothing in your current process is sacred and the mantra for many things should be “just let it go.”

Product – The days of “Stack’em deep and sell them cheap” are over. Your new and used inventory must be monitored daily using analytic systems and technology that measures not only your inventory but others and market conditions. Many dealers have fought using any type of turn system even though simple mathematics proved you would be better off doing so. Well, the tide has turned again. Turn systems by themselves are now outdated and can even lower your dealerships ROI without other factors involved. Each vehicle is an investment just like a stock or mutual fund and must be analyzed, bought, priced, marketed, sold and eliminated using several conditions. Just saying that you have a 45 day turn system is not good enough anymore.

Positioning – Gone are the days of running display newspaper ads and waiting for traffic to arrive. Your dealership must have a dealership strategy that combines market positioning. Selling vehicles based upon price only will not create long term success. Successful dealers will no longer be able to delegate all of their marketing to an advertising strategy without educating themselves on the marketing and positioning aspects of their dealership.

Dealers will have to massively educate themselves on things such as, direct response marketing methods, copyrighting, multi-step campaigns, integration of on-line and off-line methods, social media, continual customer relationship building strategies, and sales to service continuity programs and retention. Dealers will learn that many advertising agencies do not understand any of these things and simply create lousy to mediocre production and buy the media. Without a well thought strategy using intentional congruence with all of the above mentioned factors you cannot be successful in this and future marketplace.

In the last year, I have asked hundreds of dealers the following questions:

#1 - What are your overall sales to service retention numbers and percentages beyond a first free oil change?

#2 - What are your number of inactive customers and what percentage is that to your overall customer base?

#3 – What is your planned and executed strategy for a continuity program to keep your customers for sales and service?

Here is the sad result. Out of hundreds of dealers, only one knew the answer to these questions. I continually find that dealers and managers do not really know what is going on in their own dealerships and are not doing anything to educate them to change that.

The reality is that the future belongs to dealers who educate themselves more, execute better and understand the value of speed in today’s marketplace. The marketplace of today and the future will continue to be very unforgiving with little room for margin of error, inattention or being slothful. The traditional dealership is dead but the exciting news is your new dealership is waiting to be born.

For a free special report titled “10 Things You Must Do At Your Dealership To Be Successful” email me at info@tewart.com with 10 things in the subject line.