On May 22, 2012 I wrote a blog asking the public if GM made a wise choice dropping its 10 million dollar advertising spend from Facebook.  (For the entire blog visit: http://deliverymaxx.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/did-gm-make-a-wise-decision-dropping-facebook-as-an-advertising-medium/ )  My position then as it is now is that GM and many automotive dealerships are…

Prizes totaling $10,000 to be awarded to the auto dealers who develop the most innovative strategies in 2012

Salt Lake City, Utah – July 18, 2012 – DrivingSales  today announced the call for entries for the 2012 DrivingSales Best Idea Contest which recognizes the most innovative auto dealership strategies of 2012. Five auto…

Company receives UVEF Top 25 Under Five Award for second year in a row; wins Silver Stevie® Award for Innovative Company of the Year in 2012 American Business Awards ^SM

Salt Lake City, Utah – July 18, 2012 – DrivingSales today announced that it has received two prestigious business awards: a 2012 “Top 25 Under Five” award from the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum…

At the conclusion of the NCMi webinar on “Finding the Missing Pieces to Improve Service and Parts Gross Profit,” one of the attendees questioned our recommendation as to the necessity for sub-accounting for automotive dealerships. Robin Cunningham, the NCM Institute faculty member who presented the webinar, suggested that our next Up To Speedarticle attempt to clarify this recommendation. So, here we go!

A meaningful sub-accounting process is a primary ingredient of…

Orlando, Fla – Strathcom Media, Inc., a leading online automotive solutions provider, has selected ActivEngage, Inc. as their preferred provider of automotive live chat and business intelligence. As one of the largest automotive marketing companies in Canada, Strathcom has provided its…

The Automotive Industry has been posting and engaging on Facebook on the wrong days at the wrong time. According to Buddy Media, the automotive industry should be posting on Facebook on Sundays stating, “Engagement rates spike significantly for Posts made on Sunday, but the automotive industry is slow to capitalize on this trend, with less than 8% of all posts being made on this day.”

Don’t get discouraged dealers! I’m here to tell you how…

Update:  July 19th - The partner that CarWoo! has selected is NOT Yahoo Autos rather they have selected AOL Autos.  Read the full story:  AOL and CarWoo! Partnership 

On July 5th, Jason Stein Editor at Automotive News broke…

http://www.applehonda.net

Congratulations to Eric Nichols, Internet Sales Manager in Riverhead Long Island! 

Eric is Delivering 52+ units per month in a 2.5…

Do You Want More Leads From Your Website? from Potratz on Vimeo.

3 Reason Your Delivery Coordinator holds the Keys to Your CSI Scores

Your delivery coordinator is the resource who will help yourcustomers through the delivery process. This person will work hand in hand with customers to make sure…

The 2012 AutoConnections Conference & Exposition (aka AutoCon 2012) is brought to you by Automotive Media Partners, LLC. (AMP). AMP is a company led by Ralph Paglia, Chris Saraceno and Mike Myers who represent the largest online communities for Automotive Professionals.



The conference will start on September 5, 2012 at …

I visited a couple of restaurants in the last week and was not particularly happy with the service.  These are places I have been to before.  I had a particularly difficult time getting a server’s attention in both of these visits. Off and on in the past I had good service and/or good food but was not as impressed as I had been before. It made me less likely to eat there again.

Ask yourselves, how do companies produce customer loyalty if there is not a consistent basis on…

In the automotive sales industry, we sometimes get so wrapped up with adjusting/tweaking our own approach to the sales process (internal critiques) that we often forget to look at how our customers are approaching us with each potential sale.

The cliché, “…it takes two to tango...” comes to mind.

What kind of research or tips do they look for before coming to the car lot?…

Good morning Dealer Elite Members,

As i visit retailers of all stripes I find an interesting problem happens again and again. Simply put it prevents the sales, service and part department from creating happy customers and generating more sales service and parts sales as well.

Here are the details:

One: No customer really cares about why a request is not possible.…

It can be a challenge to keeping track of every visit, contract in transit, trade appraisal and every follow up call due. While technology improves our ability to manage these processes, nothing takes the place of a well structured save-a-deal meeting.

Here is…

In our business we hear the word no from our clients, managers and pretty much everyone that we come in contact every day. In life most of us growing up heard no for our parents, grandparents and teachers.  Our brains are more conditioned to the word no more than the word yes.  The mistake that most of us make is we get discouraged and overwhelmed by the word no and we either quite trying or just plain give up when no is spouted off in our direction. Have you ever heard the quote “God will…

AutoCon 2012 Announces TrueCar Sponsored Full Ride Scholarship Program

Automotive Media Partners, LLC and First Class Educators are proud to announce the creation of a scholarship program sponsored by TrueCar of Santa Monica, California. TrueCar’s pioneering sponsorship of this program provides the…

Many of the dealers I talk to are extremely concerned about the conversion rate of their dealership website, and rightfully so.  Converting website traffic into leads should be a priority of everyone involved with your site, from your vendor to your Internet Manager to your GM.  One way to affect your conversion rate is by optimizing the contact forms you use to collect leads.…

If you’ve seen AMC’s Breaking Bad, you already know about the radical transformation of Walter White, a chemistry teacher who turned into a drug kingpin when he found out about his terminal cancer. You already know about last season’s epic chess match between Walt and Gus Fring, a respected restauranteur who used his business savvy to front an extremely successful methamphetamine…

Solving the Eternal Sales and Marketing Riddle

For over 30 years I have worked more than 40 hours a week on creating, managing and measuring various strategies and tactics designed to optimize the results from sales and marketing investments in planning, people, tools, technologies, procedures and…