Best PracticesDealership Marketing

The Absolute Best Places you can Trim your Advertising Dollars

“There is no bad press!” has been attributed to a multitude of famous, and pseudo-famous, people that were usually getting bad press at the time but none-the-less were still profiting from the exposure. Is the same true in automotive advertising? Can you effectively throw money at any form of advertising and still sell cars? Yes, you …
Best PracticesDealership Operations & ProcessesIndustry News & Trends

How America’s New Car Dealers Can Prepare – For the Coming Autonomous Vehicle Disruption

As I wrote in 2015’s Self-Driving Cars: the Winners and the Losers, new car dealers will be among the “Obvious Losers” when, not if, self-driving vehicles become ubiquitous. However, I also predicted that this evolution wouldn’t likely begin impacting new car dealers before 2025. My timeline has actually contracted a little in the last year and …
Best PracticesDealership Communication ToolsDealership MarketingDealership Operations & Processes

Mystery Shops: What You Don’t Know Could Be Dangerous!

I’ve often heard top process people say something like “The first step to process improvement is understanding what needs to be improved.” Knowing, they say, is half the battle. We mystery shop hundreds of dealers each year and like to think we learn something new with each shop. Certainly, the shop reports can be eye-opening …
Best PracticesDealership MarketingDealership Operations & Processes

Treat EVERY Lead and Call Like an Order

When I first started working closely with dealership internet teams in 2003, I was surprised whenever a traditional sales manager took any interest at all in their activities. Back then there were two primary types of managers heading up a store’s internet efforts: There was the “guy who was good with computers” and there was …
Best PracticesDealership Operations & Processes

Internet Teams and BDCs Must be Managed Like Call Centers

Because so many dealers and traditional sales managers continue to look at their internet department as this mysterious group of ex-Dungeons and Dragons players who too closely resemble the graduating class at Hogwarts, it’s important to break down the simplest of strategies that truly drive successful internet sales efforts today. There’s no need to overthink …
Best PracticesDealership Operations & Processes

Pay for the Performance You Want and Stop Overthinking “Internet Sales”

The perception of internet sales for many dealers and traditional sales managers is that it’s still a confusing area best left to those who are more technologically proficient. Moreover, industry vendors, other so-called experts and even some trainers continue to profit in keeping internet sales a befuddling mystery for the average dealer’s management team. The …
Best PracticesDealership Operations & Processes

5 Reasons Why Your Sales Department Shouldn’t Take that Phone Call

With today’s connected customer, there really are only a few types of phone calls your team will find themselves involved with. Gone are the days of a customer phoning and saying, “I need something good on gas for under $8,000; what do you have on the lot?” Today’s customer, whether a millennial or a baby …