Albany, N.Y. – December 5th, 2016 – Auto/Mate Dealership Systems announced today that Patrick Reilly has joined its team as the new Head of Marketing. Reilly brings more than 25 years professional experience in marketing research, advertising, branding and strategy for technology companies and agencies.

In his new role Reilly will oversee the…

Are you creating advertising opportunities in your Facebook Live videos? Now, you can have the ability to broadcast commercials or other advertisements in your Facebook Live video. 

In this week's Hard Facts episode, Samantha reveals a way that you can increase the value of your live broadcast. Watch now!…

Don't allow your Finance Department to become average and never take the department to the next level..We often times say, It's as good as it  will get with the staff we have....your staff may have the potential but simply may need the correct coaching!! We consistently send the Finance Department to every Training Seminar and spend money for hiring the best trainers in the business....9 out 10 times..your staff hears the same exact material that they heard at the previous…

Businesses today know when consumers search for things—restaurants, retail locations, childcare, dog walkers, or anything in between—they are most likely to turn to online sources. …

We have all read about employee turnover, and the challenges the industry faces with hiring needs. A recent article in Automotive News cited "Two of every five service advisers leave each year. How can dealers keep their best ones from burning out?"

What struck me the most, and should be a red flag for the Dealer and his/her Fixed Operations Director are the reasons cited by advisers for quitting their job and leaving the industry all together. The following list is per the Automotive…

DMPs are a topic gaining escalating attention as we head into 2017. A dark cloud of big, irrelevant data still lingers above the automotive industry, just waiting to be analyzed. What are DMPs? For those of you that don’t know, the acronym stands for Data Management Platforms. Think of a DMP…

Kerrigan Auto Retail Index indicates auto retail stocks reacting positively to Trump election, outperforming S&P by 240.9%

Irvine, CA, December 1, 2016 – Kerrigan Advisors today announced that The Kerrigan Auto Retail Index was up 11.66% in the month of November, significantly outperforming the broader S&P 500 Index by 240.9%.  With no earnings announcements or other major industry events, The…

Imagine your salespeople starting each day with the most important sales training program available? With The Mar-Kee Group’s new, revolutionary 90 Day Boot Camp, training just got a lot easier for managers…

"'Twas the Friday Before Weekend"

    by Keith Shetterly

    (with apologies to "'Twas the Night Before Christmas")…

Between endless meetings, work-related tasks and familial responsibilities it probably seems as if you’re continuously pulled in different directions. Our society has devolved into a place where we often fail to stop and notice important things, simply because we’re so busy satisfying the needs and wants from those we love, or to those whom we have to…

Many auto dealerships continue to be challenged with finding the most effective method of communicating with their customers. To date, they have been unable to bring their services closer to their target audience, and when they do, retention becomes problematic for their resources.

The resolution depends upon many factors, one of…

Training That Wasn't

By: Alan Ram

Have you ever really trained your people? I don’t mean some of this stuff out on the market that is purported to be training; I mean really training.

Every third call to my office is a dealer calling and telling me “we’ve tried training our salespeople, but it didn’t stick”. Or, reporting that it is impossible to train salespeople. If you don’t think salespeople can be…

This Week in Social Media

News for the Week of November 28

Instagram Lets Users Know When Screenshots Are Taken

Following in Snapchat’s footsteps, Instagram has added a feature that lets users know when someone…

“There are two things you must do to get anything in life you want,” my father would tell me. After turning 15 1/2, it became time to test this strategy out.

The first part of the deal, I had already nailed; maintaining an A average throughout junior high school. This first condition, I must admit, was pretty easy to do. For years learning, and learning of any kind,…

Unengaged wait time in the dealership outpaced negotiation as the biggest consumer pain point in the car buying process, according to eLEND Solutions 2016 Dealer Survey

Foothill Ranch, CA –November 29, 2016 – For the third year in a row, a survey of auto dealers, fielded by eLEND Solutions™, shows a distinct disconnect between actual start-to-finish transaction times and what dealers believe is the “ideal” time consumers should spend in a…

The automotive industry has a sales department staffing problem – and a big one. In fact, NADA has placed the yearly turnover rate as high as 70 percent. Dealerships are in constant hiring mode to keep their sales floor staffed with enough employees to provide coverage for their floor traffic and to follow up with customers and prospects.

Since customer…

Car shoppers still hate to visit dealerships. Ask them why and they'll tell you they don't like pushy salespeople, they're afraid of being ripped off and that buying a car still takes too much time (among other reasons).

In an attempt to banish these customer fears, dealerships come up with marketing slogans like, "No haggle guarantee," and "Your friendly…

Pull the plug? On your CRM?? What???

Yes, you may as well try it so that you are prepared for that Very Eventual day when suddenly you have “no CRM”—I mean, real dealer experience shows (more than once in 2016) that at least two of the top three CRMS will eventually turn THEMSELVES off right when you need them.

And these outages to…

If you’re like most dealers, you may feel that you don’t want to inundate your customers with mail. However, the issue is that your competitors are most likely sending mail to the same customers that you’re trying so hard not to overwhelm.



It’s difficult to decide whether to mail regularly or spontaneously. You may be asking yourself: is there an equation to…

How do I keep productive at work? What should I do when there’s no floor traffic? Who should I spend time calling? I hear these questions all the time from my new clients.

Although most of us do need a little down time to stay sharp, it should never be more than a very small percentage of our day in sales. Once we accept the fact that we are in control of our own pay…