There’s no better story about the perils of loyalty than that which played out in the summer of 2010. At the time, Lebron James was the most desired free agent in all of basketball. For the prior two seasons, he had been pressured by fans to announce whether he would stay with the Cavaliers, or leave for another team. Cavalier fans were intensely loyal to James, who was a…

One of the things dealers constantly have to battle with is the consumer trust factor. Historically, some auto dealerships have kept information away from consumers. So, as is human nature, consumers then thought these dealers had something to hide.

To add to this issue of trust, in many dense markets, dealers participate in a fierce race to the bottom --…

In this industry we often do things simply because they have been done before. Why not throw out the rulebook and do things because we SHOULD or WANT to? You don’t need anyone’s permission to pave the way for your dealership. It all starts with an idea that becomes a plan to present to those who need to buy in. You need to be that voice. I know it seems far fetched…

I believe without any question the service advisor makes the difference in regards to the service and parts department’s profitability. The day of handing a service advisor a pen and saying “here’s your terminal” should be well behind us. The lack of training service advisors allows for processes to never be standardized. 



The new…

For most Customers the pinnacle part of our sales presentation is the Demonstration Drive.  This is where they are given a chance to take the car for a spin and hopefully take mental ownership of the vehicle.  The problem is…

Worried About Your Business's Reputation? These Tips Can Help!

Businesses that have great reputations attract more customers and produce more sales. Customers will be happy, and they will tell others about their experience with you. Safeguarding your business reputation is necessary for real success. Managing your reputation is crucial; continue reading for some helpful tips.

Always offer…

Today's market dictates that to succeed as a dealer, you have to create a great customer experience. You have to provide value and give the customer a reason to come back. A great customer experience is now one of the strongest value propositions any dealership can use to increase customer loyalty and retention.

 …

For most technicians, their goal is to become a qualified VOSA MOT tester. It is not hard to see why either. After all, all vehicles require an MOT on a yearly basis, and thus this is a service that is always going to be required. This allows technicians to make money and ensure that they are continually in high demand. Also, having ‘qualified MOT Tester’ on your CV looks impressive. It will make you attractive to any potential future employers, and it will show…

What happened to phone etiquette?   Is texting to blame for our apparent lack of interest in voice-on-voice interaction, and our apparent amnesia about how the conversation should flow?  I’m blown away every time I call a business and receive an answer of “Hello?”  It happens fairly frequently and each time I’m sure the recipient can feel my discomfort when I have to…

According to Wikipedia* Reputation Management is the influencing and/or control of an individual's or business's reputation.

Reputation Management - Do You Know How Your Business Is Perceived? 

To better your business reputation, make sure you follow up with your customers. This is especially the case if your business is larger. You need to make them feel important. Consider…

For the first time ever, important vehicle research is directly embedded in the Vehicle Detail Page through CarStory Market Reports; DealerOn to make new inline reports available to their entire dealer network

Austin, Texas – June 17, 2015 – CarStory, the industry’s largest provider of search and inventory data and analytics on used vehicles, today announced a…

I don't enjoy calling out vendors. It's something that I think is unprofessional in most situations. Sometimes, when a vendor is truly hurting the automotive industry, it must be done and I have to do that today.

We have a client being hounded. This other vendor has been telling them that our philosophy of using onsite and offsite content to…

AutoAlert is the industry’s leading automotive data mining and sales opportunities platform that helps dealerships identify high-quality leads in your sales and service database, increase volume of retail trade-ins and improve customer retention.

Our proprietary data mining software enables you to anticipate your customer’s needs and leverage critical information based on the six types of alerts shown below. Our extensive training program trains you on the sales and marketing…

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dealership-next-door-data-mining-you-ryan-mayo?trk=prof-post

You Can Start Selling More with the Right Guerrilla Marketing Tactics

Guerrilla Marketing has made a lot of changes in the last year alone. If you're not utilizing this marketing tool properly, you are losing sales. On this week’s Think Tank Tuesday:

• Learn how often you need to use Facebook and Twitter.
• Know how many videos you need, and what you should record.
• Connect with an email marketing process…

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 Market Insights report includes data, trends and insight showing a broader decline for the majority of…

For reasons known only to God people still struggle with sales training. Rather than spend hours digging into why that is, I wan too just bullet point the ones that stand out.

• The store changes their process/training too often
• The desk doesn't buy in so they detrain their people every time they work a deal
• The training is boring
• The sales person feels like they can't use it to make money TODAY

Good bad or…

Swapalease.com, the nation’s largest car lease marketplace, reports lease credit approvals for May were down -11.5% from the month before, with 69.6% of car lease shoppers gaining approval by the bank to proceed with a car lease transfer compared with 78.6% during April. 



The year-to-date (67.4%) lease credit approval rate in 2015 has performed slightly better than same time a year ago when 65.9% of car lease shoppers were gaining approvals. And despite some…

Some of the finest people I know are in the retail automotive business.  Many of them are folks I’ve met as I travel throughout North America and Canada doing car sales training or teaching our Dealership management training courses.…

We've all heard the phrase, "content is king." The question that you should ask about your content is whether or not it's worthy of being the king of something important or the king of crap. Unfortunately, much of what is pawned off as content turns out to be ruling over nothing important.

I've said it in different ways in multiple articles and videos in the…