Welcome to this week's edition of Black Book Market Insights, with in-depth analysis of used car and truck valuation trends and insights straight from the auction lanes.…

Consumers have plenty of choices when it comes time to buy a used car – private sellers, independent used car lots and, of course, franchise dealerships. Each have their pros and cons, ranging from price, to quality, to reliability and safety. The one edge franchise dealerships may have over all other options is that consumers, in general, believe that a used vehicle at a…

Your Turn To Drive discusses Top 6 Things Car Dealers Do To Make Car Buying Difficult. Jim Dykstra of www.vinadvisor.net, James Raia of The Weekly Driver and Jaclyn Trop discuss what to watch for when buying a car.

#1

The single biggest reason 99% of consumers expect car buying (and…

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Yet more developments for Beepi, the used car marketplace that had raised $150 million but then went bust: The company has completely shut down and has been sold off in parts to repay creditors. The development comes after a deal to sell itself to…

Influencer marketing. It’s an affordable way to get your brand name out there and increase your sales. But where do you start?

In order to add influencer marketing to your strategy or campaign, you have to iron out the details. In this week’s Hard Facts episode, Samantha reveals what you need to do before you take on key leaders that will promote your brand message.

Watch the video to learn more!…

Millennials are growing in number and their car buying preferences are vastly different than baby boomers or Gen X. There are so many conflicting reports and studies, so I recently read up on the subject and came across several interesting pieces of information that I thought I’d share in this blog:

1. Millennials drive more than any other…

We are a Independent dealer in Hawaii, and have been for the last 22 years. I basically don't have any franchise dealer experience or training. I've had to learn everything by the "seat of my pants", through webinars and through NIADA conventions, Digital Dealer conventions, and through attrition from peers and employees and our HR advisor.

I never really learned how to attract talented sales people. I have a couple of quality ones that have taken me years to attract.

I found…

ALR Panelist Opportunity:

Automotive Leadership Roundtable

Susan Scarola and the Automotive Leadership Roundtable need one more dealer panelist at on March 13th at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach.

The Topic is "Creating stakeholder value: top down…

My 13 year old son has not had the best relationship this year with math. In short, math has kicked his butt so much so that he's almost given up. Last night I saw him sitting on the couch just staring at his math worksheet. Watching him out of the corner of my eye, he kept staring at it, but never would put pencil to paper. Noticing this, I sat down beside…

     Several years ago there was an article written about working for bad dealerships and everyone was able to post a lot of negative insights and experiences. Well it is time to look at the good aspects that the automotive industry has offered all of us! Let us post the good points and make each of us realize just how good we may have it!

When talking to dealers about measuring marketing results from their various vendors, I often hear them bemoaning the fact that they have to log into multiple dashboards, I refer to this as “ADD.” Perhaps not the ADD you’re thinking of – here it stands for “Another Damn Dashboard!” What dealer isn’t fed up with too many dashboards making it impossible to focus on the data?…

No matter the business niche, texting is currently a must, and it promises to continue being useful for years to come. The advantages of texting are numerous, but in a sea of texting apps, it is hard to choose one for your dealership.

“Will it meet my needs? What if it is not TCPA-compliant? What if it does not work? How much money is too much?” These are all…

In today’s competitive marketplace, women buyers are crucial for auto dealer’s success.

As the #BigDataAuthority we are thrilled to publish the all-inclusive 2017 US Women’s Car Dealer Report that shares trends, behaviors, preferences and experiences women have when Purchasing, Shopping and in the Service Drive.

It’s not enough to just ‘know’ women’s habits when purchasing a vehicle at a dealership. ‘Knowing’ doesn’t make a difference.

Dealers that are…

Change is something that is critical to your business. If you’re not adapting to the change around you, you’re bound to fall behind the ranks of your competitors!

Join Paul and Ashley on this week’s Think Tank Tuesday as they give you tips and tricks on how to conquer your fear of change in the workplace and in your personal life.…

Today’s dealerships spend tens of thousands of dollars every month to reach new customers and get them inside the dealership doors. A large amount of these funds are spent on newspapers that end up as a floor mat the next day for a birdcage. I’ve seen thousands of dollars spent on service ads, that promote super low price oil changes to drive traffic that will spend nothing on suggested needs…

Of the lease vehicle being exchanged on Swapalease.com:

• 91.2% of lease transfers exiting Michigan are domestic vehicles
• 93.7% of lease transfers entering Michigan are foreign vehicles

Here are some other additional trends that Swapalease.com has identified:

• The Southeastern region of the country imports the fewest luxury vehicle leases from elsewhere…

Unhappy Car Dealers

If I had a dollar for every time a car dealer expressed their discontent with AutoTrader and a dollar for every time they claimed that AutoTrader failed to address their concerns, I’d be a wealthy man.

Can Dealers Merchandise Their Vehicles For Free?

They can, but most won’t…

By: Laura Madison, National Director of Sales at Alan Ram's Proactive Training Solutions

The most frequent question I get asked by salespeople who want to use social media to sell cars is, “where do I start?” Many salespeople want to leverage social…

Based on our research, the average Internet Manager, Inventory Manager, Sales Manager, GSM, and or GM spend an hour a day checking out the competition. Sure, an hour a day doesn’t seem to be too long when it comes to understanding the current market place, but what if you have 3 sales managers, 1 Internet Manager, 1 inventory manager, 1 GSM, and 1 GM, you can see the amount of time that is spent each day adds up.

Also, you must consider the amount of information you can truly find by…