I travel a lot using commercial airlines and had to share an experience this weekend with Southwest. I bordered the connection flight like normal to fasten my seatbelts only to find out the aircraft didn’t move. We sat there with no information or air conditioning for quite a while until finally the pilot came on and explained the aircraft would not be flying because of a…

Most dealers have spent many years in the car business. They know what it takes to sell cars. They know when a customer walks onto the lot, the salesperson must give a professional presentation while being able to emotionally connect with and excite the customer into making that purchase.

To this end, most dealers are really great at merchandising their…

The hiring process can be challenging. You think you're improving your chances of hiring the best person for the job by carefully reviewing résumés, planning interviews, conducting background checks, and incorporating a personality test into your hiring practice. However, not…

Chapter 3: What to Do What When You Get There

There are a few things you can do to make NADA100 a top-notch experience.  If you’ve already got a game plan and know which workshops you want to attend, then you’re ahead of the game.  If not, check out the…

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. Click here to download…

This Week in Social Media

News for the Week of December 19

Instagram Releases Live Video for All U.S. Users

Instagram just announced they will be releasing a new Live Video feature to all U.S. users within…

What would you do if a customer was injured at your dealership and you were at fault? I don’t mean serious injury or anything like that. Perhaps just a bump or scrape? Most businesses would apologize or, at the very least acknowledge the mishap to the customer. Perhaps send some flowers or a gift card. You certainly wouldn’t want to ignore it, right?

Well,…

I was on a trip to New York and met up with a friend of mine (full disclosure: also a happy customer) Richard Hesse, the Dealer Principal at Mercedes-Benz of Nanuet. He has a simple mantra: “It's not business; it’s personal” -- and he means it.  I borrowed a car…

Business and, as a matter of fact all relationships depend upon good communication. If you do not know something it makes perfect sense to ask. When you do, you may get an answer you either like or dislike, but you will have the most powerful thing, the answer.

This is why OEM’s have CSI (customer satisfaction index) and this is how dealers are…

There is a lot of talk going on about car dealership turnover. It seems that everyone has an opinion about it but not a whole lot of solutions. I am going to do some "REAL TALK" in this post because it is time that the sugar coating stops. I have spent a great deal of time between consulting dealers and working for dealers on a case by case basis over the…

Tonkin is the third Top 100 Dealership Group sold by Kerrigan Advisors in the last 12 months

Irvine, CA, December 19, 2016 – Kerrigan Advisors, the leading sell-side advisory firm to auto dealers in the US, represented and advised the Ron Tonkin Dealerships, Portland's largest auto dealership group, in its sale to Gee Automotive Companies.  This transaction will create one of the nation’s top 50…

Terminating someone is never pleasant and not to be taken lightly. As a former service manager I only had to fire one service advisor -and I did not make that decision lightly. However, in most cases it is the employee’s choice to get fired. What do I mean? Certainly it’s the manager’s responsibility to train employees and develop processes. But anyone with experience…

We live in a world of empowered consumers.  They say when, where, and how they’ll buy the products they’re interested in, and businesses everywhere are working to meet their needs and win out over the competition.  Today’s consumers are connected online—to businesses and each other—and your dealership stands to gain quite a bit based on how you interact…

Urbandale, IA--December 19th, 2016--Flick Fusion announced today a new partnership with AutoBase (www.autobase.com), a leading provider of inventory merchandising solutions for auto dealerships. AutoBase selected Flick Fusion's Smart Flicks video marketing platform to provide its customers with a full-service solution for implementing video marketing strategies. AutoBase…

Albany, N.Y. – December 19th, 2016 – Auto/Mate Dealership Systems announced today that its dealership management system (DMS) is fully integrated with the DealerOps Platform, expanding auto dealers' actionable insight into their enterprise-wide analytics. Dealerships that use both vendors' solutions will now receive automatic and seamless updates from their Automotive Management Productivity Suite (AMPS) software into their…

Want to say goodbye to all those travel related hassles that stop you from going on a vacation on whims? How about owning a safari vehicle, with windows in all directions? Your obvious choice, of course, would be to move into a luxury motor home. Now, if you happen to be one of those people who find traditional RVs less-than-fabulous due to their limited style options, you…

There are many different approaches to keeping our names in front of our clientele. Here are just some of my quick suggestions;

1) ONE school of thought is not to ask for referrals at the time of delivery. It’s their magic moment, not ours. Besides our customers won’t care enough to send us referrals until they know how much we care about them. Remember, in the long…

Have you ever heard of Google Tag Manager? If you haven’t, you’re losing customers! There is 1 huge disadvantage of not using Tag Manager - slow websites. 

On this week’s Hard Facts, Samantha explains how you can condense all of your tracking codes in order to get even more accurate results.

Watch this episode for more information.…

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. Click here to download the full report.

This week’s Black Book Market Insights report shows vehicles in the truck segment with much weaker retention values than those in the car segment. However, Sub-Compact Luxury Crossovers in the truck segment have managed to maintain their value since last week.

“So far this…