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I am amazed at the lack of creativity out there. I wonder if automotive professionals do not think of ideas or maybe they are being lazy. I mean we all know how that goes without saying in the business. The idea here is to figure out more effective methods of reaching prospects, internet, phone, and previous walk in.

Follow up scenario:

An internet lead comes in. The internet or BDC representative and/or manager have made numerous phone calls and emails to the prospect only to get no response. They think they have done everything to engage the customer and start to blame the customer, the internet, the dealership, and everything else that comes to mind. They fail to take a look in the mirror and think of what went wrong. These people start making excuses and stop looking for other methods. Now, they did all of their follow up and they are done. They go on facebook, twitter, youtube, or any other popular social network site and look for a way to kill time. Meanwhile, the month is getting closer to an end and the dealership has no traffic coming in.

“Help!!! I am not making any money. The economy is horrible. The internet customer is wasting my time. I can’t pay my bills. I am better off going to work for a salary.”
This is an emergency. How do we stop the bleeding?

We stop focusing on the negativity. We stop blaming others for our own failures.

The customer is not responding to emails. The national email open rate is really somewhere around 11%. I got this information from a power CRM/ILM Company. Do you realize how many junk emails people get every hour? We delete so many emails or avoid them because the content in them does not inspire us to open them.
The customer is not returning phone calls or is not picking up the phone. Did you leave a powerful voice message? Did you entice the customer with your enthusiasm? Did you provide benefits for the customer to talk to you? Did you remind the customer of a unique value package for them to do business with you? Did you let the customer know about your strong online reputation? Did you just leave a message quoting invoice or below invoice? Did you do some investigation to find out more about your customer? Can you honestly build a rapport off of the information that you have in the internet lead? What have you done to engage your prospects?

These are questions that need to be considered.

Social Media Follow Up. This is a third way to respond to customers. This is simple and powerful.
Go to google. Search the customer. Find information on the customer and match it up to the information in the internet lead. Find out about what they do for a living. Find out their hobbies. Send them a message directly on facebook. Leave them a voice message and mention something that you know about them in a positive way (things they would not expect you to know about them). When they hear your message, they will wonder, “how did he know this about me?” They will call you back just for that reason alone. “BINGO”. You are in.

If all you are doing is making calls and sending emails, you are not doing your job to the fullest potential. Consider how people communicate these days and learn to adapt. I believe in moving with the times. You cannot change your success until you change your thinking and improve the way that you conduct business.

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As I mystery shop automotive dealers on a weekly basis, I am amazed at the lack of follow up phone skills that are still out there.  Even more, I am amazed at the lack of follow up attempts that most Internet and BDC departments have.  This is either lack of training, lack of motivation, or simply way too many leads coming in to effectively handle the proper procedure.  After all of that we wonder why we are not getting the ROI that we are looking for.

 

I submitted a lead to a Toyota dealership (name will not be disclosed).  This dealership is huge selling around 500 units per month.  I was very impressed with the follow up process when using the phone.  I did not answer calls on purpose just so I can listen to the voice mails and see how many times they will call.  I was impressed because they called me between 2 and 3 times per day every day. The calls came from sales professionals in the internet department as well as a manager.  If that is not powerful, I do not know what is.  This is the only other dealership that I have heard that has a manager get involved in a follow up process.  The other situation is when I work in a dealership as a director for the department because I like to get heavily involved with my leads and prospects and add a second face.  This always helped drive more traffic to the showroom and eventually put more deals out there.

 

This is way more then the average internet department would do.  Some dealerships have a process where a call is made every other day while others call for the first 5 days and stop.  There are dealerships that are trained to call once and stop.  I can argue that some processes out there are just very poor while others are great.  At the same time, different situations call for different follow up methods.

 

If the dealership is staffed appropriately and is able to handle a solid process, heavy follow up is a beautiful thing.  I remember having coordinators complain, "what if the customer tells me to stop and is annoyed with me calling so much?".  I would tell them, "Good, that means you are doing your job.  If that happens, I will give you $20 bucks cash out of my pocket.  Do your job.  The customer called you or emailed you because they are serious about getting into a vehicle.  Help them get what they want.".  As a dealer or manager it is important to appreciate that the Internet/BDC/Retention departments do everything to keep traffic coming in.  Gone are the days where these departments need to be treated like a redheaded stepchild.  We need to start focusing on effective follow up processes.

If I had to change a few things about the follow up process that this dealership used, I would change the quality of the voice mails that they left me.  Let's face it.  It gets pretty annoying when every voice mail has the same message.  It is important to leave a powerful message when a call is made.  A powerful message will get more call backs.  For example, I used to call prospects and leave a message like this "Good Afternoon Mr. Customer, this is Stan Sher calling from XYZ Motors.  I received your internet purchase request for a Honda Accord.  I see here that you are affiliated with Microsoft (or any company their email address represents).  I wanted to let you know that you qualify for our preferred benefits package which includes special pricing along with many other specials that are not available to the general public.  It is important that I speak with you because I want to personally make sure that I give you the right information and make sure that your needs are taken care of.  Please give me a call back at your earliest convenience so that we can ensure that your shopping and purchase experience is not only pleasant but also worry free".

 

This is a people business.  As a consumer we want to be respected and treated right.  If we let our customers know that in a positive way we will improve the chances of doing business with more people.  This voice message has led to more call backs and more car deals (with potential referral business).

 

I always talk about using methods that build rapport.  I always like to feel the customer out before I pull any unique methods.  I listen to their tone on the answering machine.  I also see how they react when initially speaking to me on the phone.  I even go as far as search for them on the internet to find out more about them (hobbies and work information).  I find out their personalities and their sense of humor.  At that point, I leave voice messages like this, "Hello Mr. Customer, this is Stan The Man Sher calling from XYZ Motors.  It is a lovely day here and I hope that your day is wonderful as well.  I just wanted to call and let you know that we just received Honda Pilot Touring that you inquired about.  The good news is that this vehicle is white (your exact color choice) and also has the navigation system that you are interested in for those long trips with the family.  Please give me a call at your earliest convenience at (555)555-5555.  Thank you.".

 

What did I do?  I pulled a funny in some cases when I said, "this is Stan The Man calling".  It used to get people to smile and react in a positive way.  As a matter of fact, it worked like a charm for me.  I also went into detail realizing that this consumer is looking for a specific vehicle and has specific needs.  This most likely came from viewing their facebook profile.  These practices work.  I want to know know who I am dealing with and how to deal with them.
Stop going on facebook just to play games.  Start using it to help build rapport with your prospects.  We have google for a reason.

 

What else would I change in this Toyota dealership.  I would get involved in sending out more emails and more social media engagement.  I guarantee anyone reading this, that if they turned around and sent me a message on facebook I would be way more likely to respond.  Why?  Well they have tried every other way to contact me and at this point I can't avoid them any longer.  In my mind, the dealership was so creative that at this point I am just curious to see what is next.

 

Stan Sher

President
Dealer eTraining

www.dealeretraining.com

(732)925-8362

http://www.dealeretraining.com

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I have been working in the automotive industry for over 8 years as of this month.  The one thing that I felt I could always do better was build value in my presentations.  When I say presentations, I am not just talking about performing a powerful walk around.  I am talking about the things that a professional says to a customer when they are on the phone trying to give them a reason to come in.  I am also talking about what a professional does with the customer when they go to discuss numbers with management.  As a huge advocate of building a "digital rapport" I wrote a successful article about this in the past but would like to take this further.

 

Some value building techniques:

- The BDC/Internet Department remembers to make customers aware of the dealership's strong online reputation.

 

-The BDC/Internet Department informs the consumer of the convenient aspect of considering this dealership over others (Some of us like to call it a Value Package Proposition).

 

-If the customer claims to have a busy schedule, it is a great idea to offer to bring them the vehicle to look at.

 

-Finding out why they are looking at a particular vehicle will allow to demonstrate the benefits of the vehicle when working with customers in person.

 

-When going to discuss numbers with management, it is always a great practice to leave the customer with something to read such as a product information book.  This will keep them interesting in the benefits of the vehicle.  It is also a great idea to have a book of positive reviews and letters of recommendation from previous customers.  Better yet, if there is a computer on the table, save a few positive video testimonials and have the customers watch it.  Too often, sales people leave customers waiting for minutes and minutes which allows them to think about reasons why they should not buy the vehicle.  A lot of customers always think that sales people and managers are in the backroom wasting time.  We need to maintain a professional and positive image of ourselves and our dealerships.  If it takes a longtime to create a book or two books of these tools, so be it.  These tools will help close more deals, build more customer trust, build more customer retention, and allow the opportunity to make more money.

 

-During delivery, a sales professional should keep building value and go over any last minute information that they have not presented before.

 

-After the customer leaves the lot, call them at home leaving them a great message expressing your gratitude for their business.  After all, they just helped you feed your family.  In some cases, remind them of when their license plates will arrive and if they pick them up, they will be installed on the vehicle for them.

 

Some of these tips might sound old school or basic.  However, we forget about them.  I know after selling cars for three years I started to slack off, get comfortable and arrogant.  I realized that real quick when my income was $15,000 lighter that year.  I want to be successful and I want to make more money not less.  Stop taking shortcuts, create a strong process of how you do business and keep doing it with every single customer.  Never be satisfied, always seek to improve.  I once met a sales professional who is the number one Audi sales professional in the country.  The man sells more units in one month then most Audi dealerships in the nation sell as a whole.  He makes more money then his GM.  He is consistent the same way.  He never takes ups or relies on internet leads.  He was consistent for many years and it pays off.

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As I am back to working in a car dealership again in my career I have started to go back to basics and refine myself as an internet director from all aspects.  I put my social networking skills to great use.  I put my car sales knowledge to great use as well.  These skills are all great.  However, I started to see what is great and what is not great from the aspects of handling phone ups.  Being in a 3 month old dealership with a fresh staff that is still growing and learning on a daily basis I find challenges of what I can teach to improve them and skills that are needed to develop. We use scripts and we drill everyday.  My owner/GM has instilled in me the importance of daily meetings and training everyday.  I started doing this a month ago and have seen great success.  These meetings run 20 minutes long every morning.  We drill our phone script two to three times per person.  In addition to that we add new rebuttals and lines to help my reps be smoother and more efficient on the phone. As anyone who has truely done this before understands, you cannot always follow a script 100% because of the objections that get thrown in.  This is why we constantly have to update our skills and come up with new wordtracks.  Ideally, we can build a whole book of things to say and teach how to say them.  I know I have one rep that has been consistently following my lead and listening to how I am on the phone.  She took all of my habits.  Sometimes I hear her and I laugh because she said something to the customer that most people would be afraid to say.  She then tells me that I created the monster in her. I recommend that anyone who is managing an internet/bdc department to be proactive in having these daily meetings and constantly add to the knowledge that is already established.  If we are going to grow we are going to have to be creative and not be afraid to try new things.  When a newspaper advertisement, direct mailer, or email blast is about to be released, go over it with your team.  Teach them the details and how to overcome objections.  Using the typical old school scripts and trying to get them in will result in failure and disappointment on the customers end.  If you do not give them information , someone else will.  But at the same time, give a little information and take a little information.  Make it an even exchange.  This will allow for having more control over the conversation. I sure hope this helped gain some insight and better practices for some dealerships.

 

Everyone knows me as a professional person that likes and appreciates everyone. I am known as someone who can speak his mind and go overboard too. That is how I am constructed and sometimes it is a way to get a point across. However, I made a social networking mistake on facebook and it almost cost me a possibility of landing a job.

I am sure that anyone of us who worked in a dealership has at one point had a manager that despised us because we achieved a lot more in a much shorter time than they did. I know that was the case at my last dealership. I had a 36 year old general sales manager who made as much as me, the bdc manager. He was divorced because he cheated on his wife. He works out and is on steroids big time because he likes to go out to clubs and hit on 19 year old's. We butted heads a lot at work and even got close to getting into a fight. He did pick on me and take a lot of shots and criticize my performance and how I dressed. Meanwhile, I had my own new car, great credit, a lease on an apartment that was in my name, and utilities that were in my name. I say this because he relied on his demo, slept an on air mattress and his bills were in someone's name because he was broke. I will admit it that he did dress sharp though. This is a general sales manager who should be making over $100,000 a year. Clearly, the man is insecure and he took it out on someone younger and more successful.

I made the mistake of accepting him as a facebook friend about a month ago. We never talked and it has been over 8 months since we last spoke. He saw my digital dealer article on facebook and tried to get negative and take shots at me. I defended myself and shut him up. Well today, I made a status that said "running errands and going to a job interview". Nothing harmful there. It is just a simple update. A friend of mine that used to work with me a long time ago decides to ask me, "where are you going?". Normally, I would just write "i will tell you later if it works out". However, I was on the go and subconsciously responded with the name of the company because I was not using my brain or thinking. I forgot that it was not an email on facebook but a status comment. This means all 1,091 friends on facebook can see it. 1,090 love me and respect me and would never ever harm me. I know everyone that is on there. 1 person was negative and against me.

So, I go to my interview which goes great and I might even get the job tomorrow. Things are looking great.
I get home and an hour later, I get a call from the place asking me about a person that send them a nasty email about me exposing me as a fraud and completely trying to make me look bad. They asked me if I know this person whose name was Frederick Douglas and the email was a yahoo email. Clearly someone made up a fake email and decided to try to make me look bad. They even said that I bad mouthed their dealership. So I started to do my research to see who would do it. I came up with a possibility of two people, one of whom I know would never try to screw me like that. Then, I remembered to who the one person is that ever tried to call me a fraud and was my enemy and I remembered that he used yahoo email address and that I accepted his friend request. Based on the wording in the email I knew it was him.

So, what is the moral of this blog? If you answer a question on a public forum or a status on your social networking site such as facebook, you need to watch what you say when you say it and to who you say it. Even a social networking guru like myself can make mistakes. I mean this lesson taught me to be more cautious and pay attention. Social networking is fun and exciting but it can be dangerous and cause problems. Joe Webb was right when he said, "stop sharing". I was confused until I saw what it got me. Luckily, I was referred there by my friend who is a manager there too and I have a ton of amazing references that can vouch for me (Ralph, that includes you too lol).

Yes, this is common sense but being that my job is social networking and I live social networking it is easy to forget sometimes. It pains me that I cannot negatively expose this guy who tried to make me look bad, it really does. However, by not exposing him I am just being the better man. I just hope no one he interviews with ever gets in contact with me.

Qualify Your Vendors

It is very common to work in a dealership environment where different vendors and consultants make frequent visits to sell a product or service which promises to increase business. In fact, many of the people that are reading this experience this on a weekly basis.

This is because we are living in a world of buyers and sellers which makes everyone
want a piece of the pie. How do we handle each consultant? What improvements does
my dealership need? Why is this person out trying to sell me instead of working in a
dealership? Do we really need to spend more money? These are just a few of the
questions that a dealer principle or general manager have when talking to a consultant.

The reality is that the automotive business is changing almost as fast as the speed of light every day. The business
has become so dynamic that everyone has a bright idea and thinks that they have a solution to increase business,
including people that have never been out on the front lines (sad, but true). This raises a problem for many seasoned
automotive professionals because no one wants someone who has never done this job before to try to teach them how
to be better. It is just not right. However, many vendors still try to employ sales reps and consultants from other
industries and try to make them an expert. I know this for a fact because I have been denied jobs working for some
vendors over someone that is a lot less qualified then me. There is nothing more aggravating then having someone
who never sold a car before or who never wrote service work use the same terminology as someone who has worked in
a dealership. When I was a manager at a dealership, I would qualify vendors when I talked to them by making sure that
they knew what they were talking about and finding out their background.

It is very important for dealerships to constantly consider new vendors and new forms of marketing as well as
new workshops on best practices. This is why we have events like the NADA convention and Digital Dealer
conventions designed for dealers and industry professionals. In modern times, dealerships need vendors to
help them do business every day. A dealership cannot function without a DMS, a CRM/ILM, internet leads,
training/consulting, and many other things. At the same token, vendors need dealerships because that is the
only source of income to grow as a company. The more dealerships that a company signs up, the more valuable
the vendor is. It is a simple act of people helping people where both parties need each other to survive. There
are so many vendors out there which allows dealerships a choice of who to do business with and creates more
competition amongst vendors. I always say, “What works for one dealership will not work for another dealership
for various reasons." Which is why it is great to have this healthy competition.

When it comes to qualifying vendors that call on your dealership there are a few things that need to be handled
properly. There should never be any hostility toward the representatives that are calling on you because they might
have the solution that you are looking for. Let’s face it, no matter how great or successful we think we are there is
always room for improvement. There is always room to sell an extra ten cars per month or service an extra twenty cars per month. The automobile business is very competitive and it is about setting goals. The vendors are hired help that should make it possible to reach those goals in many cases. However, we still must know about that vendor's credibility and the credibility of the representative who is talking to us. For instance, if someone is trying to teach me how to sell more cars or improve my sales process they better have at least three years working in a car dealership as a salesperson who has struggled at one point and they better have been a manager at some level with responsibility where they can share their experiences. It is just ridiculous to have someone with no sales or service background sit down and try to have an intelligent conversation with a car dealership. It is also a waste of time for that dealer. There are small exceptions to vendors that are just selling third party leads and different software because they are offering a completely different kind of solution to dealers.

The bottom line is that we should appreciate every opportunity that we get on both the dealer and the vendor side.
While it seems like vendors can get bothersome to dealerships, they are out to make a living and provide a service
that might make numerous improvements. The dealerships that are willing to take the next step and consider their
options will be the most successful, not only because they are operated by open minded management, but because
they will be able to share their success with the public. This will, in turn, give the dealership a stronger reputation
while helping vendors grow. After all, it is very nice to see both parties thrive and grow simultaneously.

By Stan Sher
Regional Sales Manager/Rednumbat
Email ssher@automotivedealersnetwork.com

Stan Sher is Regional Sales Manager for
RedNumbat and has held positions such as Internet
Director, Desk Manager, Sales Consultant, and BDC Manager.

 

As times are getting tougher and dealers are talking about cutting expenses they start to lose sight of what they are giving up. The main focus becomes to stay old fashioned and not spend a dollar until they start seeing profits again. The problem is that dealers forget that they need their vendors to help them keeping selling cars and producing revenue. This becomes a bigger problem as dealerships start to lose even more profits. As the frustration increases there becomes more tension in the showroom.

Thankfully the internet came to the rescue at the right time. While some blame the internet for destroying business others are saying that it made business better. The consumer enjoys the internet because it made car shopping easier. The problem is that they still have a bad taste in their mouth about car buying. The internet has made it easy for consumers to control other consumers buying decisions and offer each other advice. It is unfortunate that the auto industry still has a hard time building trust in customers. As the economy got worse, consumers are adding that as another reason why they are not buying cars and lost trust in dealerships.

The new phenomenon on the internet that is affecting every industry and most importantly the auto industry is social networking and reputation management. While both are different topics they have common elements and can work well one another. Just six months ago, I was getting laid off from my last dealership where I was a successful BDC Manager. None of the readers on here knew who I was. In fact, I found sites like Drivingsales.com and Automotivedigitalmarketing.com where I joined and met most of the people that are reading this. I contributed to discussions and started writing articles for major industry sources. I also made a trip to NADA where I hung out with many people and built lasting relationships. My current position was offered to me because I made connections using social networking. After my trip, a fellow blogger on here and my good friend Joe Webb wrote a blog about me and how I used social networking to create a reputation. This gave me many new ideas and creations. As I am thinking of getting into consulting to train dealers on internet sales and marketing, I started an idea of how to factor social networking into best practices. This came to me after I myself was able to generate leads to work without having to make cold calls.

How will this help your dealership grow when spending is cut? The training and motivation of sales staff and management needs to get serious. Since business is down and there is no traffic, the proper consultant should come in and evaluate spending, sales processes, and business practices to help the dealership thrive in these times. One of these practices is the teaching of social network marketing. There are many dealerships on facebook and myspace with fan pages and dealership profiles where they get industry friends and previous customers to be their friends on there.

(Ok Stan, what is your point here?)

Well, dealerships have processes to get consent from customers to collect email address. Likewise, they should get consent from happy customers to become friends online. A satisfied customer should not have a problem because they want to build a relationship and create trust in their dealer. As time moves on, the friends list increases and more opportunities are created. When the profile changes a status or posts a blog it should be personal to the point where everyone reads it. It should also be business because there is opportunity for free advertisement. We send out broadcast emails and mailers. We can advertise weekend sales or service and parts specials. A satisfied client can use this to refer their friends to your business. Talk about a low cost of sale.

Now take social networking and add videos like John Marazzi Nissan (www.johnmarazzinissan.com) or my friend Tim Jennings from Tomsparks.com utilizes it. These are youtube videos that can be posted into virtually any social networking site. These are not only ways to kill useless time at the dealership but they are also creative methods to attempt to drive showroom traffic.

A huge part of social networking is blogging. Blogs can be used and shown on the dealer website as well as social networking sites. Videos can be added to blogs to enhance the quality of the content. Now we are talking about being creative.

If you are worried that you will be laid off or you feel lucky that you are still employed, stop sitting around and complaining. The world does not need cancers. The world needs successful people; the same people that will work to drive our economy into the right direction. The true bailout starts with us working to improve our situations. While not every buyer will get a loan, many still will and they need to trust you before they consider working with you. Customers are hurting just like dealers, use this as an opportunity to find common ground and build relationships.

Here is the best part. These practices are free. The only cost is time. Why not use it? What else will we do with our time today?

If anyone has questions or comments please share them or email me. I am available for all of you all of the time.

Stan