Ever wonder how you should handle a particular business situation? Everything in Business Situations is indexed to help you find the assistance you need quickly and conveniently. Leadership Development, Management Training and Business Ethics (among other topics) are covered in this category.
What being late says about you (One of the 83 quick and practical life & work lessons from Sh*t Sandwich: Quick & Practical Success Lessons for Practically Anyone.) 5 Minutes Early is 10 Minutes Late Packers’ Coach Vice Lombardi is famously quoted as saying that “If you are five minutes early, you are already ten […]
Offering Alternate Vehicles in your Email Responses – Should You or Shouldn’t You? There’s some debate today on whether to include alternate vehicle choices in your email responses to leads. Some OEMs demand it; and many internet trainers tout it. In fact, the default processes in the expensive CRMs include some random automation that […]
How to Spot and Stop SEO Fraud! Last week, we published some guidelines to help you uncover and stop the SEM theft we’re seeing in nearly every dealership visit. Today, I wanted to tackle the potential Search Engine Optimization (SEO) fraud that also appears to be fairly ubiquitous. SEO, as a quick reminder, refers […]
It’s Time to Stop SEM Theft If you’re an average car dealer – and I do mean just average – you’re likely wasting $50,000 or more every year on basically worthless Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (sometimes interchangeably referred to as SEM or PPC). For some of you, you’re actually the victims […]
What Not to Say in Your Automotive Lead Responses I understand teaching your team what not to do is considered negative coaching; and negative coaching, as most of you know, almost never works. For example, teach a young hockey player to “never shoot the puck at the goalie,” and they’ll hit the goalie square […]
Customer Service at the Counter – How to Manage the Unmanageable A reader asked a few questions that included coping with angry customers at a service counter recently that I thought made sense to share with all. When you are working at a busy place where there are constantly overcrowded lines, and impatient people, we […]
Pigs get Fed and Hogs get Slaughtered I’ve written a few times about the adage ‘pigs get fed and hogs get slaughtered.’ The meaning (as it applies to business) is simply that it’s okay to make a profit, but when that profit is the result of price gouging and/or taking advantage of people, you’ll […]
The Coming Automotive Retail Disruption Explained on a Cocktail Napkin As I’ve written previously, the real disruption to the automotive retail model in America will not come from the Carvana’s (NYSE: CVNA) of the world. That is, “a better customer experience” won’t matter if there’s no price and convenience advantage. (And, Carvana won’t be […]
Buckets and Your Internet Sales Processes For most automotive sales managers, the internet sales and other CRM follow-up processes their store employs can seem confusing on the surface. Some “computer guy” manages the whole “CRM thing” and creates these “complicated algorithms” that keep the processes firing as designed. Except that CRM processes – especially those […]
Automotive Lead Response Strategies: Stop Overthinking the Auto-Response! The primary goal of your internet sales process – that is, the process you use in response to a new sales lead arriving in Web Control (or whatever CRM you use) – is to reconnect with the prospect. That’s it; just get them on the phone or […]
Automotive Internet Sales Processes: The DISC Test and the DIR Test If you’re involved in your dealership’s marketing decisions, you’ve probably heard about the DISC Test, right? Does It Sell Cars? For many dealers, every marketing decision comes down to this simple test. Does this or that sell cars? For some, it’s not just a […]
How to Solve 99% of Customer Service Issues: Empower your Front Lines If you’re in the service business, there’s a simple way to solve nearly every customer issue that you’ll ever create: Empower your front lines. Many of the issues, in fact, are created specifically because your front line is not (or does not feel) […]
The Car Dealer’s Step-by-Step Guide to Getting More At-Bats First a WARNING and a DISCLAIMER: WARNING: This is a freakishly long article that’s chock full of valuable information, so give yourself plenty of time to digest it and be prepared to share parts of it with different people on your team. DISCLAIMER: There is […]
In a recent CBT News interview (that aired this week), Joe Gumm asked me the following question: “We’re about two months from wrapping up 2017; and some dealers are already thinking about 2018. So, if you had a top five list of things dealerships need in order to be successful from this point on, what […]
Why Bosses are Proudly Serving Shit Sandwiches to Their Teams Recently, three different senior managers I respect asked me where they could buy extra copies of my book, Sh*t Sandwich: Quick & Practical Success Lessons for Practically Anyone. All three were looking for the same thing: a success book their respective teams would read, […]
The Coming Automotive Retail Disruption? It’ll be about Price and Convenience (and Nothing Else) (This is a follow-up to an article I posted on DealerRefresh a couple of weeks ago that focused on the myth that dealers are behind other industries in terms of tech, marketing and the customer experience.) Can we please stop talking […]
The Best Gift for College Students Looking for the very best gift for that college student on your list? Want to make sure that your gift will be appreciated? Would you like to know that your gift made a difference? Today’s college student doesn’t need more electronics! Today’s college student doesn’t need another gift card! […]
Okay, so you know you need to employ a conversion button strategy on your websites, but did you know you can have too many buttons? You can. It comes down to choices for your site visitor; and research shows that when consumers are presented with too many choices, they punt. They make no choice. […]
The Entire DIY Marketing Movement is Misguided I was on a call with a vendor the other day as he pitched his product. He wanted my opinion on their offering, so I asked that he show me his company’s solution as if I were a dealer-prospect. His pitch was compelling and his company has […]
Pull Out Your Moneymakers So much of success in sales is tied to activity, that I find it odd when I hear salespeople complaining about their lack of opportunities all while their heads are buried in their smartphones. There is no secret formula for selling; it’s pretty simple, in fact: those that are the […]