I took this photo on the way to work the other morning..what some dealers are doing to get their piece of the Cash for Clunkers pie. I have to admit, it caught my eye. What have you seen? – Jeff

If you’re experiencing some good results with the C.A.R.S. Program you’re probably excited to have a bunch of cash floating in limbo and a back-lot full of junk!  If you’re like us, you’re probably still hitting refresh on the CARS-Dealer-Marketing site for a store or two.  Does that make you nervous?

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Dealix conducts a nationwide survey tracking the activity dealers are seeing from Cash for Clunkers.

Guest Posting by Kevin Hunt

Earlier this week, Dealix conducted a nationwide survey to learn more about what activity dealers are seeing from Cash for Clunkers. Hundreds of dealers responded, and even though the rules about how the program will be administered won’t be issued until tomorrow (Friday, July 24), three out of ten dealers report having made a sale involving a “Cash for Clunkers” voucher.

Despite this early success, dealers expressed to us confusion and frustration over the lack of clarity provided so far around the program. In fact, almost 90% of dealers responding to the Dealix survey said consumers had either low or moderate awareness of the program, and two thirds (66%) said information given to dealers up until this point is “insufficient.”

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DealerRefresh has declared August 14th as National Car Salesmen Training Day. In observance of this monumental event, we are asking ALL car dealers to assign their sales people split shifts in order for this day of national training.

HA! But seriously..’The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard‘ is set to release on August 14th and I’m dieing to see it. Though I have a funny feeling this movie might not shine the most positive light on our dealer industry and it’s people but I know it’s going to be damn funny!

Who is Don Ready? Salesman? Lover? Song Stylist? Semi-professional dolphin trainer? Ready is all of the above, except for a dolphin trainer. When he’s asked to help save an ailing local car dealership from bankruptcy, Ready and his ragtag crew descend on the town of Temecula like a pack of coyotes on a basket full of burgers. Selling, drinking, selling and going to strip clubs is their stock and trade. And they do it well.

Who’s onboard?

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“Social Media Marketing”, “Social Networking” catchy buzzwords used to push new platforms and for dated industry “experts” to claim a new found mastery.

Opinions on proper use of popular platforms vary immensely.

• From one tweet a week to many per day.
• Website providers putting Digg and Delicious buttons on Inventory?
• Ning sites for car dealers?

The real question is what are you using different social media platforms for and what are the methods you are using to promote awareness?

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As someone who has been playing on the eCommerce side of the automotive industry for some time now I find myself having to explain things quite often.  Some folks get it, others don’t.  And that statement can be used for just about any venture I’ve worked on in the past 8 years of doing this.

I also have a degree in History and have always been fascinated with how many similarities can be found since man began recording things (yeah, I know I’m a dork).  We seem destined to repeat ourselves over and over again, but with bigger toys.  I will say that I have struggled to find a similar thread in history that can relate to this Information Revolution we’re in.  The only major event before, when things moved very rapidly, was during the Industrial Revolution, but things are much cleaner this time around.  And you didn’t have two major widespread-philosophies in the industrial revolution.  Yes, there were the workers and the owners, but that was not as global as the users and the doers are in our current revolution.  So, what piece of history can we correlate things to today?

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