Brian Tucker (Internet Director at Swope Toyota) and I (Alex Snyder) had a long conversation about this the other evening and we wanted to hear what you guys have to say.  This is the email Brian sent that sparked the conversation:

I would like to hear some feedback on what is considered “best practice” on listing your inventory with third party sites such as AutoTrader.com or Cars.com. When is the best time to release inventory and what processes do you guys
and gals have in place to ensure that it is done correctly?

1. DMS sends the inventory live without any prices or info and use default stock images until the proper photos and comments can be placed?
2. Send inventory live after initial quick review and use a place holder such as a “out for bath” icon in place of the stock images until photos and info are ready?
3. Do not release inventory till it is completely web ready and all pictures, custom comments and service inspections have been completed.

I have tried variations of all three and have some different opinions on each but would love to hear some feedback from the PROS!

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I almost forgot, the month of May marks the BIRTHDAY for dealerrefresh.com. It’s hard to believe it’s been 3 years.

Dealer.com interviewed me a few weeks back for their newsletter, I figured what better time to post the interview on DealerRefresh.

Thanks to EVERYONE for making DealerRefresh what it is!!

The Interview:
———————————————————————-

DealerRefresh: Straight Talk about “New Marketing”
Interview with Jeff Kershner

Jeff Kershner heads up Internet process training at Mile One Automotive, the large dealership group with stores in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. But that’s not how most people know him. Most people know him as the man behind DealerRefresh, www.dealerrefresh.com, the blog that he started three years ago.

DealerRefresh’s focus is Internet sales and marketing – but don’t call it that if you talk to Jeff, who prefers the term “new marketing.” As he explained when we spoke with him recently, “Calling it ‘Internet sales’ or ‘Internet marketing’ makes it sound like a niche part of the business. Increasingly, it is the business – the fundamental way for dealers to reach and win all their customers. Dealers who don’t accept this won’t survive.”

Helping dealers thrive, and not just survive, has become DealerRefresh’s primary mission. Here’s more of what Jeff had to say.

Dealer.com (DDC): Where did the name DealerRefresh come from, and how did it get started?

Jeff Kershner (JK): It’s like the refresh button on your browser: every now and then you need to hit the refresh button to make sure you’re seeing the most up-to-date version of a website. I found myself thinking about how we dealers need to refresh our thinking in order to be on top of all the change in the business. And that’s what the website tries to provide.

When I came over to the sales side of this business, the Internet was just starting to have an influence on dealers and consumers. Since I knew how to type, I was appointed as the guy that takes care of the “Internet stuff”. The problem was, nine years ago there were no valuable resources for dealers on how to leverage the Internet. There was no one to share ideas and communicate with. So I decided to start blogging about my ideas and opinions.

Since then, DealerRefresh has become something much larger. Over 3,000 people read it every month, and many of those visitors are active participants who respond to the posts and publish ideas of their own. It has morphed into a community of dealers – ISMs, mostly – who are helping one another refine their practices, share ideas and opinions. And it’s a great place for someone new to the whole thing to find basic information and guidance.

DDC: Why do you think it’s become such a supportive community? Don’t dealers worry about giving away their secrets?

JK: Some dealers like to hold their cards close to their chest, but you find that mostly in places where the Internet effort is already very well established. Meanwhile, there are still plenty of dealerships in the U.S. that have no Internet presence at all, and the vast majority are somewhere in the middle, still finding their way. The general feeling throughout the industry is that there’s so much work to be done that it makes sense to help one another.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there’s a certain amount of thinking out loud that goes on at DealerRefresh. In a lot of dealerships, the ISM is a pretty lonely position. You’re at your computer all the time, and there may be no one else at the store who’s dealing with the same issues you’re dealing with. When you share what you know online, sometimes you’re figuring out what you know – you put an idea out there, someone responds, and the idea gets refined in a way that profits everyone.

DDC: By now, most people are aware of the issue of civility – or a lack thereof – on Internet forums. It’s something that started with email, and now we read about “flame wars” on some blogs and other participatory websites. What would you say the civility level is at DealerRefresh?

JK: This is actually one of the things I’m most happy about. Being respectful of others is the number one rule on the site, and people really are 99% of the time. I recently spoke with someone who runs a prominent blog outside of the automotive sphere. He had looked at DealerRefresh and was amazed at the great way that people interact with one another there.

Listen, I don’t want to give the impression that it’s boring. We’re not wearing white gloves and drinking tea; in fact one of the things the website is known for is its no-B.S. attitude. People say what they really think, and there are plenty of critical judgments expressed. But when you get right down to it, most of what contributors have to say is productive and helpful.

DDC: Are you pushing a particular viewpoint when you write for DealerRefresh?

JK: Naturally, I say what I think when I write my posts. But the only consistent viewpoint expressed on the site as a whole is one I don’t need to push. The readership and the people who post all believe that “new marketing” – all the techniques opened up by the Internet – is the future of automotive sales. What motivates me, and what brings people to the website, is a compelling interest in figuring it all out. That can mean something really specific, for example, how to format an email template. But we take up plenty of big issues too: ad spend distribution, the value of third-party leads, and so on. Maybe I have a strong opinion on some of these issues, but it doesn’t dominate the site because people are free to disagree – and, believe me, they sometimes do!

DDC: What’s next?

JK: Wow, that’s really hard to say. DealerRefresh has already become so much more than what I originally envisioned. That’s because of the way that dealers have flocked to it and made it their own forum. I’ll keep writing my posts, of course, but the future of the website itself is really up to the readers. The readership isn’t just growing in size, by the way. I’m hearing from more sales managers and even GMs these days who write to tell me how their dealership has benefited from help they’ve found at DealerRefresh.

DDC: Jeff, thank for your time. Keep fighting the good fight!

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For quite awhile now, many dealerships and trainers have been promoting the benefits of special internet pricing. I am having trouble convincing my GM’s and owner that our department would benefit from having a set price. They are afraid that they will sell a car to a
walk-in and then the customer will go home and see it online for a
lower price.

How are other dealerships handling this objection to
internet pricing?

The way I see it, every other type of major
retailer Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart etc. specifically state on their
website and in the store that the online pricing may not be available
at the physical store. Why is that ok for them, but when we try it we
are scamming the public?

Amanda Marsal
Internet Manager

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Monday, May 12, 2008, I departed for New Orleans to get my fix of DGI, I canceled the Google alert after Jeff Kershner filled me in, thanks Alex for hours of endless search trying to figure that one out!

This would be my first trip to New Orleans and my first attendance to an event of this magnitude. My endless e-mails to Jeff and Sean V. Bradley begging to go finally paid off in a big way! The W Hotel was a great location for the event, and I really dug the contemporary décor of my room. I had Jeff convinced that Sean reserved me a Penthouse Suite on the top floor. All joking aside, Sean, AutoSuccess Magazine, DealerRefresh and Dealer Synergy went above and beyond putting this together for me. Sean, I will be reporting back to you as I build my library of videos with my new Flip Video Camera and utilize some of the tips you presented on Video Search Engine Optimization (No worries — I will keep the end result in mind).

There was so much info presented at this event — I took close to 20 pages of notes — I will have a hard time recapping everything that I found useful in this post, but as Deverl from Franklin Covey put it, I’ll try to give you a drink of water from a fire hose.

One of the speakers from the first day that I thought brought their “A” game would include the people from Dealer.com, I thought that Dean Evans and Mike DeCecco put together a classy presentation that touched on many thought-provoking topics such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) defined within the guidelines of Google Webmaster, content organization, used-car brochures and robust sitemaps.

Sean Bradley and his presentation on Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) rocked! I’ll touch on one of the most impressive stats he brought to our attention: Online video reached an astronomical number in March, to the tune of 11.5 billion videos viewed in the U.S.! It’s not the next big thing — it’s already a very big thing!

The tricky part is coming up with content that will have the viral effect, such as those Badger commercials we have all come to love. I have some video ideas I have been kicking around and I’m very excited to get them into production — thanks for the tips, Sean!

Ken Potter from CarsDirect had a unique style to his presentation — laid back but very informative. One of the points he made, and I am guilty of it myself, is that we are in an industry of copycats (I sometimes refer to myself as the “The King of Copy and Paste”). I liked his suggestion to include a search bar on your homepage to track what is relevant to your customers. I also liked his suggestion to become a servant to your customers and employees, and finding out why your customers did not buy from you via e-mail was a point well-taken by me — I plan on getting that e-mail together very soon.

I will let Kershner comment on the VIP party at the House of Blues, as someone spiked my tonic water with Grey Goose. I will tell you that the party was off the hook and no expense was spared! The Hummer Limo at our beck and call was a nice touch.

The second day at Synergy Sessions was even more impressive then the first day, with high-energy speakers clearing the fog in my head rather quickly (was it the jet lag or the spiked drinks?).

Howard Polirer from Autotrader.com spoke on bridging the gap with Internet customers and brought up so many relevant topics that I found so useful I could write five pages on his presentation. I will just recommend catching this presentation at the next Synergy Session.

DeVerl Austin from Franklin Covey presented “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and did a great job breaking down the process using the formula in the book. I have found this very helpful as I read through the book; needless to say DeVerl is a true professional and a great presenter.

Sean Bradley spun his version of the process, implementing a plan for building a rock-solid Internet Department using the core fundamentals found in the Covey book. I am currently building my action plan for my dealership based on the info that Sean presented.

The last presenter that I really got to interact with the second day because of work commitments was Mark Dubis from Carfolks. Mark had a very compelling presentation, spun off some of the recent hiccups we have seen lately with dealers managing their online reputations. I have spent many hours myself on Google trying to make sure we address those stealth posts that can silently damage sales. We as auto industry professionals must realize that customer concerns must be addressed at quantum speeds – not in days or hours. The old adage about disgruntled customers telling 10 people has been magnified to the beat of about 1 million views on the last PR disaster that I followed involving a dealership and one upset customer. Looks like we will all need to step it up on the customer satisfaction side of things and make sure we are in tune with what is being posted about our dealerships.

In closing, I would just like to thank everyone for the knowledge I gained from the two days in New Orleans, and I apologize in advance for not naming everyone that contributed to my successful trip.

Guest Posting by: Brian Tucker
Internet Sales Director for Swope Toyota

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I know this isn’t an area we typically think about, or talk about for that matter, but it is a very important piece in our arsenal.

Warning:  Some of this article (and any following comments) may get a bit on the technical side.

We talk about vendors, leads, CRM’s, site hosts, and all kinds of other automotive eCommerce tools but fail to ever bring up Intel, Microsoft, Dell, Apple, Adobe, Sony, etc.

Let’s talk about the thing that let’s us do our jobs:

The Computer

First off, you can get a lot more for your money if you build your own.  And you can get extremely specific with how your machine operates too!  I’ve been building PC’s since I got my first 386 machine, and there has never been more options for a PC builder than there are today – on top of that, it is waaaay easier than ever!  Yeah, you can buy a Dell or an Apple and piece-meal some small components, but you’re stuck with whomever those companies are partnering with for the most critical parts that month.  If you go Apple, you’re seriously limited (but their Operating System is impressive).

1.  What are you going to do with it? Build websites, create graphics, splice video, multi-task, monitor things, are you mobile….  how many programs will you be running at the same time?

2.  Processor: Single-core processors are dead.  Dual-core processors are almost dead.  Think Quad-core!  Yeah, that’s basically 4 processors in one!  Intel is currently dominating this area and prices aren’t that bad.  The new Q3000 just came out and it is less than $300.  More CPU cores allow for more applications to be handled faster at the same time.  Of course, there are a lot of other things about a PCU (FSB, clock speed, ability to overclock, etc), but for the average user those items aren’t super important – just buy a Quad core and the rest will fall in place.

3.  Motherboard: This is extremely important.  It needs to be able to handle the communication between all the different components of your computer.  When looking for a motherboard, first look at the Front Side Bus (FSB), which is a measure of the speed communication happens at across the components.  Then look at how well it can handle a RAID configuration or how many components if can handle (USB ports, Firewire ports, PCI slots, sound).  Motherboards can be somewhat tricky too because they come in different chipsets such as P35, X38, X48, 680 with SLi/CrossFire capabilities.  I don’t have the time to get into all the details here, but I will say the P35 chipset is probably the most stable one, and the one I recommend the most.

4.  RAM: this is also tricky because it completely dwells on your motherboard selection.  For the most stable system, check with the company who makes your motherboard and buy as much RAM as you can.  Windows XP & Vista (32 bit) only recognize up to 4GB of RAM, and can get funky based on how many RAM chips are filling the RAM slots.  I recommend buying 2 2GB sticks instead of 4 1GB sticks if you’re going for 4GB of RAM.  In XP & Vista 64 bit systems you can go up to 8GB currently (there is support for much more, but nothing you’ll do will ever take advantage of that).  I recommend staying away from the 64 bit systems right now, unless you really know what you’re doing.  DDR2 is the fastest and most affordable right now.  Take a look at the ones with a rating of DDR2 800 or DDR2 with a higher number – I would not go any slower here.

5.  Video Card: for people that don’t play with graphics or video games, this is usually an afterthought, but I’ve always figured you’re silly to pack the latest & greatest into a machine and then what you see on the monitor is slow.  The real question here is:  do you want to use multiple monitors and how many?  Workstation cards (NVidia Quadro series are my favorite) are built for multiple displays where as gaming cards (NVidia GeForce are my favorite) can do this pretty well too.  Spend at least $200 in this area and you’ll have a plenty fast card for automotive eCommerce.

6.  Hard drive:  you need space to store things on, and you need space for your software to cache to.  Storage is stupid cheap these days.  Super fast 500GB drives are less than $90 now – there really is no excuse in this area.  I like to go with 4+ hard drives in my desktop systems.  I run two drives in RAID 0 configuration for speed and storage, 1 10,000 RPM drive for graphics and video editing (a scratch disk), and an external backup drive, so I don’t lose my important stuff if something breaks.

7.  Power: this is another area people don’t pay attention to, but it is absolutely essential.  Clean power will make your components last longer and operate smoother.  If you ever get into overclocking, you’ll need to invest a lot of time in learning about voltage and the number of rails a PSU (Power Supply Unit) has.  If you’re going for a kick-ass automotive eCommerce system, you should invest in a 650W or higher PSU.  PC Power & Cooling probably makes the best PSU’s, but Thermaltake, Cooler Master, and Corsair make some excellent PSU’s too.

8.  Case & Cooling: Buy a big enough case to fit your components in.  The bigger the case, the more/better fans you should have for cooling (unless you’re water cooling) too.  Most cases in the $100 – $300 are adequate for cooling without needing more fans.  If you’re getting into overclocking, you should also look at upgrading your PCU fan.  The more expensive cases come with a decent Power Supply Unit (which addresses item #9).

9.  Monitor(s): I can’t stand working on a machine with only a single monitor.  I like at least 2.  If you’re developing video or graphics for the web, you should have one really good monitor and one of a lesser quality.  You need to see what your audience will see.  If you’ve been playing on a 17 to 19″ LCD monitor at a 1024×768 or 1280 x 1024 resolution, you’d absolutely love a 22″ or higher widescreen monitor at 1680×1050 or higher resolution.  Look for a monitor with the highest refresh rate:  60 Hertz is okay, but faster is even better.  Response rates are measured as 2ms, 5ms, 6ms, 8ms – the lower the better.  You should also pay attention to contrast ratios 500:1, 800:1, 1000:1 – the higher the better, but this isn’t as serious as it used to be.  Most of today’s monitors are pretty good here.  The contrast ratio is a measure of how well the monitor can display blacks (basically).  Monitor calibration is a good idea too, but that’ a whole ‘nother topic.

10. Going green/conserving energy: Major advances have been made in this area recently.  You can check specs on any component to see the kind of wattage it eats.  Obviously, the lower, the better.  In my house, I have 2 desktops and a laptop.  When I fire-up the 4 year old machine for a long period of time, I notice a difference on my power bill.  When I only use my newer stuff, my power bill is significantly less.  Over time, a newer system will pay for itself!  Microsoft’s Vista OS and Apples OSX are excellent at power saving if you leave your computer on all the time.  By the way, I don’t recommend leaving your computer on all the time.

11.  Laptop: the above components also apply to laptops, but you’re a bit more limited when you want to go mobile.  I don’t suggest building a laptop from scratch.  Buy a laptop that appeals to your mobility.  I use a medium-powerful Sony VAIO from 2005 that is small enough not to be a burden when I travel.  Laptops are mostly about your own needs and budget.  I love Apple laptops though – the new Air is awesome!  But if a laptop is going to be your only computer, the MacBook Pro is damn good for this – especially now that you can dual boot an Apple to handle Windows applications.

I am a heavy Photoshop user and store tons and tons of images for creating new promotions.  I also run about 8 different RAM-intensive applications at once.  I am probably on the extreme of what most of you would use a computer for, but here are some lists based on my needs that you can simply purchase and go to town with:

Build your own desktop for under $4,000 through NewEgg:  Click Here
Pick out a monster at Dell for under $8,000 (not nearly as good as building yourself):  Click Here
-Comparing my NewEgg build and Dell will show you how much money you can save doing it yourself.  It makes me wish I owned Dell – just profiting on people’s laziness!
Apple’s MacBook Air:   Click Here
Apple’s MacBook Pro:  Click Here

Next up:  selecting the right software and photography equipment.

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