Want More Real Test Drive Appointments? Finally, Someone Brought Some Technology to the Table! I’ve written many articles and produced more than a few videos showing car dealers how they can set more sales appointments that show and buy. From creating an Appointment Culture to detailing the four steps of The Perfect Appointment, everything I’ve […]
Best Automotive Internet Sales Processes: How to Perfect Your Trade-In Lead Handling It’s well known that many buyers are suspicious of the trade values your team provides them in-person; but, what happens when your online trade-in tool provides consumers a value? How can you both reinforce this unbiased, third-party number and keep a prospect engaged […]
Do Your Carfax.com Leads Close at Relatively Low Rates? Let me level set right from the start: I like Carfax. I have friends who work at Carfax. I think Carfax has (ultimately) been good for the industry. Additionally, this post is not intended to encourage dealers to cancel their Carfax.com listing agreements, only to drive […]
Eight-Car Alan & Thirty-Car Theo: What Separates Top Sellers from the Rest While entire books have been (and continue to be) written on what it takes to be a top car salesperson, the fact is that nearly all the differences between your 8-Car Alans and your 30-Car Theos can be boiled down to two very […]
How To Stop Your New Dell Laptop From Overheating & Shutting Down Yes, I know this isn’t a tech blog; I get it. However, in order to be able to function normally again, I recently had to solve a nagging issue with my new Dell Inspiron 13-5378 laptop running Windows 10. My laptop began […]
Stop Memorizing Word Tracks & Start Setting Real Appointments that Show and Buy If you’ve watched my free sales training videos, then you know my advice for you is to be very direct with today’s prospects – especially when it comes to setting appointments. The inspiration behind this approach rests solely with the realities […]
Your Dealership Doesn’t Need an SEO or SEM Expert – You Just Need a BS Detector Mastering “Google,” if you will, is more than a full-time job. It’s an all-consuming odyssey that no single-point dealership – withal, no small- or medium-sized group – can afford to take. The targets move so often that the true […]
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 […]
It’s 2018 and Automotive Sales Leads Still Matter Way More Than Attribution I support those vendors and consultants who want to open dealers’ eyes to the concept of digital marketing attribution – it’s an important topic. However, when they do so by bashing sales leads (as if a website sales lead mattered less than […]
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) […]