Dealers still playing the PRICE GAME on Classified Websites.

Are dealers still playing this game? …ofcourse they are!

I was hoping this shit would stop as print continues to diminish, but it’s obvious that some of the classified sites allow it to happen as well. Maybe it’s OK. Maybe at the end of the day there really is nothing wrong with it. After all, its the customers responsibility to read the print..RIGHT?

As dealers struggle, it only makes sense to find that “trick” that gets the phone to ring, more leads into the inbox and more people through the front door “We’ll deal with the objections once they’re in the showroom”..right?

I just don’t like it and think in the long run it makes it more difficult to brand your dealership as a reputable place to do business with. I also think it brings a bad image to the classified sites that allow this type of pricing technique to happen on their websites. IMO it’s taking away from the “consumer centric” appeal and again provides a disservice to the customer.

What do you think?

Are you providing the customer a disservice by pricing your inventory like this on the Online Classified Sites?

Should the Online Classified Websites allow this type of pricing technique (knowing consumers initially search by price) ?

What are your thoughts?

Guest Posting by Ryan Gerardi

For the past 3 years, the auto industry, specifically the dealer community, has inched its way into blogging and social media. It is actually safe to talk about these things whereas fewer than 2 years ago I purposely avoided using such terms in my conversations with dealers and auto insiders because they were still a bit taboo. Now with the unveiling of such companies and services like DealerFeeder, I think we can say that the past is officially behind us.

Of course this day would come, it was only a matter of time. With the efforts of people like Jeff Kershner of DealerRefresh and Ralph Paglia of Automotive Digital Marketing, dealers and auto insiders are becoming increasingly more emerged in the idea and practice of blogging and social media. But what are these things really?

Let’s be clear about something. Setting up a Twitter account or a Facebook account takes 2 minutes, literally. Setting up a blog takes 5 and it is free. If you are paying someone to do this for you without a master plan and direct correlation to your marketing strategy then you are wasting everyone’s time and money. The set up of these things is the least of your concerns. Utilizing them and incorporating them effectively into your sales process is the real challenge.

Kbb.com adds new Classified Inventory Listings for Dealers

Ahhh, another classified inventory listing website for dealers. As if all the other sites are not enough, we now have another option/site to list our dealers inventory on. Just what we need, right!

Starting July 2009, Kbb.com is launching their new inventory listings program. Dealers will be able to sign up to list their New and Used car inventory in KBB.com (Kelly Blue Book).

What ever happened to the Kbb.com and AutoTrader.com Strategic Partnership?

That sure was short lived. It’ll be interesting to see how this play out.

Below is a C/P from Kelly Blue Book about their new service.

As auto manufacturers and suppliers grapple with tough economic times, understanding consumer preferences becomes even more important for near-term survival as well as future viability.

J.D. Power and Associates’ Web Intelligence Division utilizes social media to help the auto industry gain consumer insights, mining the blogosphere for unvarnished insight and unbiased opinion.

We invite you to join us for a webinar to discover how J.D. Power Web Intelligence can take the blogosphere beyond monitoring and turn social media information into action.

This webinar delves into the opinions found social media on topics like the following:

• What are short- and long-term auto industry trends, such as consumer purchase intent?
• How are consumers responding to recent OEM incentive and marketing programs such as job-loss insurance?
• How can automakers more successfully approach Gen Yers?
• How has J.D. Power’s newest spin on segmentation – Tribe ReportsTM – helped other companies gauge marketing effectiveness?

DATE: Thursday, May 28, 2009
TIME: 2 pm Eastern
SPEAKER: Chance Parker, Vice President & General Manager
J.D. Power Web Intelligence

Streamlining your Email, Instant Message and Social Network Communications

I picked up the recent edition of MaximumPC Magazine while I was in the airport the other day and they were showcasing some “Must have free apps”. A few things in that magazine intrigued me, but the only one I’ve followed-up on so far is Digsby: Digsby = IM + Email + Social Networks

It combines all of your email applications, social media stuff, and instant messaging accounts into one place. I doubt I’ll ever launch Tweet deck again now.

I use it for:

Instant Message

• AIM
• MSN Messenger
• G-Talk
• Yahoo Messenger

Email

• Hotmail
• GMail
• POP3 & IMAP accounts not yet setup

Social Networking

• twitter
• facebook
• MySpace

Here are some screen shots:

The application itself – looks like your regular IM app – and it shows you what that particular person recently did on another media if they’re on your other social media accounts:

Here is a Twitter timeline and see how it docks into your open application list in a Microsoft OS:

I’m definitely digging Digsby.

Warning: when installing, make sure you accept just Digsby and Decline everything else. It is pre-packaged with a bunch of junk.

What is your “must have free app” for Email, IM and keeping up with your Social Networks?

This was posted on the DealerRefresh Dealer Fourms as well. Feel free to comment over there!

Visiting Dealer.com HQ is one of my favorite business trips to make.  No, they don’t throw a bunch of “good times” and “perks” out there while you’re visiting (even though they aren’t too far away from some Canadian craziness).  What they have is an amazing atmosphere and energy that is unsurpassed in any other workplace I’ve ever seen heard of.

You’ll find DDC HQ in the heart of Burlington, Vermont.  This town can be considered quaint to people from the city, but once you get to know it, you’ll find a technologically savvy industry mixed with the fun of college life.  Burlington is a young professional’s haven.  And the scenery isn’t terrible!

Don’t wear a tie, don’t wear slacks, don’t even dress business casual – you’ll feel very out of place.  The dress code matches the one your local gym probably sets and that could be due to the fact that they not only have a gym in the office, but a basketball court, ping pong table, tennis court, and locker room right in the office.

Your future manager is a multi-tasking fiend. She or he will embrace every form of social media and communicate with staff by email or instant messenger.  Technology use will be first and foremost on his or her mind, with an understanding that it doesn’t always work perfectly, but incorporating technology into processes is crucial. They will demand it!

I am the oldest of 6 and also have quite a few younger cousins that I’m very close to.  They range from 5 years old to 26.  The females spend a lot of their free time on MySpace and/or faceBook and are texting fanatics.  The males also spend a lot of time playing XBOX Live.  They all play team sports, take lessons for a particular musical instrument, read books, and do fairly well in school if they’re engaged that semester. They all have a cell phone (except the 5 year old), a computer (or three), their favorite flavor of social media, and over 900 channels of television to chose from along with an arsenal of movies to watch & videogames to play.

WHITE MARSH, Md., May 5, 2009 – XIGroup (www.XIGroup.com), the website industry’s leader in providing the best user interface for car buyers, and a division of Dominion Enterprises, now provides car buyers and car dealers with real-time inventory updates for all XIGroup customers using Dealer Specialties services.

Inventory updates—such as a change in price, photos or dealer comments —made using any Dealer Specialties tool will appear automatically on the dealer’s website(s).

“For years the industry buzzword has been ‘real-time’—now it’s a reality,” said Joe High, XIGroup general manager. “Dealer Specialties is the largest provider of inventory collection services in the industry and we are proud to offer our clients instant updates of their data and photos.”

Al Hess, general manager of Dealer Specialties, said of the integration, “In choosing Dealer Specialties inventory management and XIGroup websites, dealers now do not have to worry about manually updating their website with mid-day price and inventory changes. Those changes on a dealer’s XIGroup website will be seamlessly done through the Dealer Specialties IVM tool. We believe this makes the combined offering between our two companies the most unique in the marketplace today.”

Real-time inventory updates are available free of charge to all XIGroup website clients using Dealer Specialties for their inventory and requires only a confirmation call from the client to turn on the service. Interested clients should call 888-924-6448

About XIGroup
XIGroup is an industry leader in providing website value and customer support. For more than 10 years the company’s proven online services have empowered franchise and independent dealerships by helping them interact effectively with potential Internet car buyers. Easy-to-use, SEO friendly and cost-effective tools and superior customer service are the hallmarks XIGroup. For more information, visit www.XIGroup.com.

Guest Posting by Grant Cardone

I have studied successful people for over 30 years and I have identified many differences between the successful and unsuccessful- Most of the differences are very small but make incredible differences.

You can change where you are in life by (1) being honest where you are and (2) getting the knowledge to get you in a position to take the actions of successful people. Each one of the categories below are impacted ONLY by KNOWLEDGE!

Successful	Unsuccessful
Can Do Attitude	Can’t Do Attitude
I Will Figure it Out	See’s Solutions as Impossible
Opportunity Focused	Problem Focused
Loves Challenges	Hates Challenges
Seeks to Solve Problems	Wants to Avoid Problems
Persist until Successful	Quits When Challenged
Willing to Take Risk	Actions are Conservative
Unreasonable	Reasonable
Willing to be Dangerous	Must Be Careful
Interested in the Creation of Money	Interested in Conserving Money
Takes Action	Talks about Action
Says Yes	Says No
Commits	Never Fully Commits
Goes All the Way	Half Attempts at Everything
Now (immediate)	Later – (procrastinates)
Courage	Fear
Change	Stay the Same
Right Approach	Hard Work
Interested in Change	Not Willing to Change
Breaks Traditional Ideas	Adopts Traditional Ideas
Goal Oriented	Work Oriented
On a Mission	On a Job
High Motivation	Low Motivation
Career Focused	Job Focused
Interested in Results	Interested in Work
Big Goals and Dreams	Realistic Goals
Creates Reality	Deals with Reality
Commit First – Figure Later	Figure First – Commit Never
Highly Ethical	Unethical
Interested in the Group	Interested in Self
Dedicates Time to Learning	Dedicates No Time to Learning
Seeks and Values Knowledge	Denies the Value of Knowledge
Willing to be Uncomfortable	Must Stay Comfortable
Reaches Up	Reaches Sideways and Down

“THE BEST INVESTMENT YOU CAN MAKE DURING TIMES LIKE THESE ARE IN YOURSELF.” – Warren Buffett, April 2009

About the Aurthor: Grant Cardone is a speaker, author, sales trainer and CEO of Cardone Training Technologies. Author of Sell To Survive and other Audio, Video, and training programs, for more information on Mr. Cardone visit grantcardone.com

ContactAtOnce! delivers intelligent routing of auto dealer chat leads to trained staff when dealership personnel are unavailable.

ATLANTA, GA – May 5, 2009 – ContactAtOnce!, (contactatonce.com) a leading provider of auto dealer
chat and other internet marketing tools that move online shoppers into live conversations with car dealers, today announced the immediate availability of its chat rollover feature and managed live chat service. The ContactAtOnce! auto dealer chat service gives dealers the industry’s most popular tools for answering their own chat leads and intelligent routing of chat leads to trained staff when dealership personnel are unavailable.

Adding auto dealer chat to a website has been shown to increase the number of site visitors with whom a dealership is able to set appointments; however, dealerships using chat have had to choose between answering their own chat leads, or outsourcing to a call center, both of which presented challenges. Dealership personnel are more informed and effective at engaging potential customers and setting appointments. On the other hand, outsourcing assured that someone was always available to answer in a timely fashion. The ContactAtOnce! auto dealer chat solution gives dealerships the best of both worlds by allowing dealership personnel to answer when available, and automatically rolling chat messages to a qualified answering service when dealership personnel are not able to respond immediately.

“Sales people in the dealership are very effective answering a shopper’s questions and setting appointments, so we strongly prefer that they handle our chat leads,” said Drew Fitchett, Owner of North Penn Imports VW Mazda in Colmar, PA. “That said, there are times during the business day and certainly after-hours, when our sales people are not able to answer, yet we still want our prospects to be able to connect with someone immediately. The ContactAtOnce! rollover feature intelligently forwards leads during those times, and ContactAtOnce! managed live chat personnel have demonstrated excellence in handling rollover leads exactly how our dealership wants them handled.”

The ContactAtOnce! auto dealer chat rollover feature works by automatically forwarding inbound chat
requests to an answering center if dealership personnel do not answer within a specified period of time.
The ContactAtOnce! rollover feature can forward chats to any answering center, a unique feature,
according to founder and executive vice president of products for ContactAtOnce!, Marc Hayes. “We
have many dealers with existing outsourced call center and business development center (BDC)
relationships. As a company, we welcome the opportunity to work with those providers and have designed the rollover feature to support multiple partners.”

“The fear of ‘not having someone to answer all the time’ has kept some dealers from adding live chat to their website,” said Hayes. “To them, I say ‘fear no more’. Now every dealership can set more appointments by giving shoppers what they want – the ability to chat.”

Both the auto dealer chat rollover feature and the managed live chat service are available immediately
from ContactAtOnce!.

About the Auto Dealer Chat Provider ContactAtOnce!:
Contact At Once!, LLC is a leading provider of auto dealer chat and internet marketing tools for
automotive sales, apartment leasing, and other industries where consumers conduct research online
before visiting a dealership or office. The ContactAtOnce! service typically moves at least 25% more
website visitors into live conversations with sales people by utilizing a suite of technologies such as
presence, IM/chat, VoIP telephony, video chat and text messaging, resulting in increased revenue and a better return on marketing expenditures. ContactAtOnce! is the only solution with features specifically for vertical search websites and over 35 such sites, along with thousands of merchant businesses, are using it today.