Steve Stauning’s 100% Biased Gift List for Christmas 2020 2020 has been a strange year (to say the least). Though despite the on again/off again restrictions, your family, friends, and coworkers still expect a gift from you this holiday season. Instead of the clothes they’ll never wear or the ever-impersonal gift card, why not give […]
Ridiculously Simple Sales Management: The Blame Game (This post is one of 24 short and ridiculously simple chapters from Ridiculously Simple Sales Management. The book was written to help any sales or BDC manager quickly build and maintain a truly high-performing sales team. Each chapter concludes with Key Learnings and Chapter Exercises that make implementation […]
The Future is Not Online Car Buying; The Future is Omnichannel Digital Retailing I dislike the term “omnichannel digital retailing” because it’s a smash-up of buzzwords meant to make vendors sound cutting edge and smart. Of course, “omnichannel digital retailing” certainly rolls off the tongue easier than saying, “using a tablet or kiosk in-store to […]
Should You Buy an Extended Warranty When Purchasing a Used Car? I know there are lots of online opinions written by “experts” telling you whether it’s a good idea to purchase an extended warranty. Add my opinion to this long list. However, understand that mine is an opinion I would give my children if they […]
Hey Digital Marketing Vendor: Where are My Google COVID-19 Ad Credits?!?!? Quick question: Did your digital marketing vendor send you an email detailing the hundreds of dollars Google just credited to your Google Ads account? What? No? Hmmm… Well, then you must be paying Google directly and you got the credits directly applied to your […]
Sell One Today For many valid reasons (too many other duties, too many subordinates, wrong pay plan, etc.) and some invalid reasons (lazy, apathetic, schadenfreude – look it up), automotive sales managers often struggle to properly motivate their charges to reach stretch goals. Of course, this should be their primary duty. That is, ensuring their […]
The Dirty Dozen – 12 “Secrets” of Successful Salespeople As we start to ramp up to our new normal, one thing that isn’t likely to change is the difference between the top and the bottom of any sales organization. While every industry has its relatively few true superstar sellers, a third of the remaining group […]
Should I Cancel all Advertising? Marketing in An Uncertain Environment (This post is an updated summary of advice I provided my clients last month.) I’m getting a lot of questions from clients about what to do with marketing budgets during the current crisis, so I thought I’d share with you what I would do if […]
Automotive Retail Disruption: How Process Would’ve Made a Difference We all know good habits are learned in bad times, and bad habits are learned in good times. For virtually every car dealer in America, the good times started sometime around 2011, and ended suddenly in mid-March 2020. An industry disruption no one could’ve predicted. So, […]
Dealers: Beware Artificial Activity Targets I get it. The dealership sold zero vehicles on a Tuesday. Salespeople spent the entire day in the vaping circle or surfing the web. No one was making their calls. Fifty Calls Per Day! To combat the lethargy, someone on the leadership team demanded action. “I want each salesperson making […]
Playing Real Moneyball in Automotive Retail Carvana is playing Moneyball. CarMax is playing Moneyball. All the other publicly traded dealer groups are trying to play Moneyball (and a couple might actually figure it out). If your direct competitors start playing Moneyball, you’ll soon find yourself at a disadvantage you won’t even recognize. Besides stealing market […]
Dear Ford: I Cannot Believe I’m Still Writing About This in 2020! (No time for a long post this morning. However, if you want to read more on this neverending issue in automotive, go here: DEAR TOYOTA: HERE’S $108 MILLION TO SPEND IN YOUR FIGHT FOR SHARE AGAINST FORD.) This week’s headlines for the Ford […]
(Forgive the long post, but there are some important lessons in here. If you don’t have the patience to read 3,200+ words, then you’re going to have to learn to be happy with treading water this year. However, feel free to skip the first 300 or so words and jump to The Two “Secrets” … […]
Automotive Internet Sales: The Difference Makers I see all kinds of internet sales structures; from high-performing BDCs to cherry-picking internet sales teams to the hot-mess-convoluted-no-one-is-accountable combinations. To be clear, any structure can work (some, of course, better than others) if the store leadership drives the activities. That’s a big if. Some automotive sales managers, in […]
Texting While Selling? Even I Was Shocked by This Behavior! This one is hard to fathom. Sure, I’ve been in an Uber while the driver carried on an extensive (and dangerous) text conversation with his friends. Of course, he wasn’t trying to sell me anything (though, perhaps, he should’ve tried to sell me on leaving […]
Hiring Automotive Salespeople: We’re Way Beyond Sink or Swim I was working with a client recently (essentially helping train their sales team to sell more vehicles at higher grosses to today’s connected customers) and on the first day of the engagement, one of the managers pulled me aside and told me not to bother with […]
(This series is an edited excerpt from Assumptive Selling: The Complete Guide to Selling More Vehicles for More Money to Today’s Connected Customers, which is available on Amazon for $49.99. To begin with the first article in this series, visit How to Sell Cars via Facebook – Real Social Selling.) Social Selling Guide for Automotive […]
(This series is an edited excerpt from Assumptive Selling: The Complete Guide to Selling More Vehicles for More Money to Today’s Connected Customers, which is available on Amazon for $49.99. To begin with the first article in this series, visit How to Sell Cars via Facebook – Real Social Selling.) Successful Social Selling – Part […]
(This series is an edited excerpt from Assumptive Selling: The Complete Guide to Selling More Vehicles for More Money to Today’s Connected Customers, which is available on Amazon for $49.99. To begin with the first article in this series, visit How to Sell Cars via Facebook – Real Social Selling.) Social Selling Through Storytelling – […]
(This series is an edited excerpt from Assumptive Selling: The Complete Guide to Selling More Vehicles for More Money to Today’s Connected Customers, which is available on Amazon for $49.99. To begin with the first article in this series, visit How to Sell Cars via Facebook – Real Social Selling.) Social Selling Warriors – Part […]