Comments on: 5th Digital Dealer Conference Review by Kevin Frye

By: Shaun Raines

Shaun Raines — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:17:52 +0000

Kevin,

Thanks for the kudos!

To all that attended my presentation… thanks for a fun interactive session. The response has been truly unbelievable. Three dealers called me today just to say thanks and tell me that they already have videos landing on page one of Google. For those that would like a copy of the presentation, go to: http://www.dealeradvisornation.com and sign up. Then look in the forum where you will find a post including the ppt. Shameless plug? Maybe but, it’s actually just the thing that the dealers in the DR community need.

Mission accomplished! I came to deliver something of great value for dealers that need some results oriented cool stuff with a tiny price tag. It’s always great to see so many friends and hang out with folks that are focused on pushing our industry forward.

I was able to hang with Jeff out in Vegas a bit too and he will probably kill me if I don’t write some DR posts soon.

With encouragement,

Shaun

By: Pete

Pete — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:19:50 +0000

Great post and would like to comment on “Text is becoming more and more preferred with folks as a primary source of communication”.

There is no way that I can see that this will ever be a useful line extension in communicating with customer’s with regard to the selling process.

Service? A ++++ on keeping customer’s informed on a vehicles status. That is a great fit.

Who out there wants to be the first in playing text tag with customer’s in price quoting?

The selling model is so diluted as it is with automated e-mail inquiry reply responses and what happened to relationship building?

Customer’s are not “managed”, only the the information is.

That’s all my ramble and hang in there because there will always be a retail automotive industry.

Dealers who still don’t “get it” and make the commitment to innovate and spend the majority of their ad budgets online and stay with the “look at me I am acting crazy on tv and discounting everything $$$’s of dollars” will be gone soon…good riddens!

I am a little salty because I was talking to a dealer that just spent $50,000 on such and ad and 8 out of 11 of his salespeople made minimum wage last month and could care less and told me “no problem” he’s running a job and better if they quit so no comp claims.

Ahhh…

By: Drew Davies

Drew Davies — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:43:24 +0000

Absolutely the best part of the excellent coverage:

“Many dealers are afraid to get into this online arena, as they are afraid that folks might leave negative reviews about them. We need to get over this fear and work to encourage our satisfied customers to leave positive reviews for us, and to honestly deal with those who were not happy and work to solve any problems.”

‘Nuff said…

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By: Alex Jefferson

Alex Jefferson — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:30:48 +0000

Kevin, nice write-up on the conference. It was great hanging and sharing ideas once again.
Chip it was nice meeting you Matt and Heather as well.
Bill me for the .40 cents…LOL.

By: Alex Snyder

Alex Snyder — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:50:00 +0000

Awesome write-up Kevin! Now I feel like I was there.

By: Chip

Chip — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 05:33:09 +0000

Kevin, I think you captured the 3 days perfectly – and it was great to get to hang out with you and Alex Jefferson. The Wyler Group is a true testament for inhouse video creation and marketing (Shaun Raines showcased them in his presentation).

Speaking of Shaun Raines, he definitely put on a very interactive seminar; he is quite funny. The only other seminar I made it to was Ralph’s and I’m glad I did, I picked up a really good SEO tip there in his UGC/Social Networking talk.

Alex Jefferson, you owe me $.40 for those 2 text messages you sent me.

I think if a company like TomTom was selling GPS devices there, they’d have sold out from all the lost people I saw walking around the resort. It was gigantic.

Chip-

By: Jeff Kershner

Jeff Kershner — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:55:33 +0000

Kevin, thank you so much for your review on the 5th Digital Dealer Conference. Lots of great information, insights and of course the photos!! Very very much appreciated.

Your opening statement quoting the one and only Shaun Raines was priceless.

Nice bit on the text messaging. It’s so true, unless I need to have an actual conversation, you’ll get me through a text message before actually calling me.

Video was a huge topic of conversation at the J.D. Power Roundtable along with dealer reputation and customer ratings.

The Flying Monkeys are the shit. Leave it to Todd to have something like that as a giveaway.

Thanks again Kevin.

Jeff