2011 U.S. auto sales figures are hot off the press, and the auto industry is seeing who came out on top. Among the year's clear winners is Paragon Honda & Acura (www.paragonhonda.com) of Queens, NY, which came out as the #1 selling Honda and #1 selling Acura retailer in the country. Paragon was also awarded the industry's coveted Auto Remarketing Certified PreOwned Dealer of the Year award for 2010 for its work in innovative financing and its…

Since we initiated the Up To Speed blog, I’ve received numerous emails that suggest that one of the biggest road blocks to retail automotive success is the dealership (or department) culture. Because this is our first newsletter of 2012, I decided it opportune to tackle this thorny issue. “Culture” can be defined as the shared values and practices of the company’s (or department’s) employees, and it’s important because it can make or break your dealership. Business cultures…

Mercedes, Dodge, Lexus, Lincoln and Chrysler are Top Leaders with Women Buyers

Women-Drivers.com has released its 2011 report showing the top car brands as rated by women. Each year, Women-Drivers.com tracks thousands of consumer reviews with regards to women’s…

VinSolutions unveils their ‘VinCycle’ program for the New Year as their first companywide green initiative.

Overland Park, KS – January 9, 2012 – VinSolutions, an industry-leading developer of Internet-based Customer Relations Management (CRM) and Internet Lead Management (ILM) software, has launched an internal recycling program coined “VinCycling”.  Capitalizing on the New Year, this marks the first sponsored and…

Over the last fifteen years I’ve conducted numerous dealership sales meetings, at which we perform an interactive exercise called “Who Do You Know?” I ask each salesperson to write down just one name of someone they know in each of about 75 categories that I read to them over a twenty minute period. After the exercise is completed, I inspect the pages and pages of names that they’ve written down and I normally say something like, “Don’t talk to me about not having enough…

Man you’ve got a big ole’, good lookin’, juicy But!  To get a But like that, it must’ve taken many years of hard work to get that kind of But.  You’ve made excuses, exceptions, reservations, and countless other adjectives of limitations in an effort to border why you can’t do something. In short, you’ve allowed your But’s to render your…

Dallas, TX – January 10, 2012 – RedBumper, (http://redbumper.com/) a new breed automotive inventory management company, today announced that it will unveil the first true mobile inventory management system at the 2012 NADA & ATD Convention and Expo in Las Vegas, NV, February 3-6.  The new system is entirely Smartphone-centric and enables auto dealers…

2012 is here……and your dealerships soft little underbelly is showing!!!

It is time to modernize your thinking and TAKE CONTROL!!

The time has come to take control of your dealership, your departments, your data and yourselves!!

It’s time to mold “old school basics” with “new school” tools and…

I thought this was awesome!!!!!!!  The concept is the same now a days, stay…

January 6th, 2012 by Kathryn Carlson

• 0…

That Negative Review Can Bite Into Your SEO

 By: Brent Albrecht, SOCIALDEALER

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a staple in the majority of automotive dealers’ marketing budgets for 2012. The industry has fully embraced the Internet, so logically dealers are investing additional money in search engine rankings to get their websites seen as much as possible.  However, Social Media and Web 2.0 have changed the landscape, specifically in the way sites like Google…

If you need a reason to register for DMSC 2012 in Las Vegas, I created a list below that speaks for itself.  

The all-star lineup of industry thought leaders, dealer principals, and educators is the basis for my claim that attending DMSC will ensure that you have the guidance to create a winning operations and marketing strategy for 2012.

In addition to DMSC, immediately…

This is a pretty basic question, right? But when discussing this subject recently during 2012 annual business planning conferences with several client dealership service managers, I discovered that the answers were far more elusive than they should have been. Most of the NCM client dealers continually try to achieve 5% - 8% year-over-year improvement in Fixed Operations profitability. And those that successfully do so fully understand that it doesn’t just happen. This level of…

Most dealership fan pages on Facebook are a lot like really bad first dates, they won’t stop talking about themselves.  The words “I” and “we” tend to be the most used words when dealerships post to Facebook.  Check your last 10 posts or your last 10 tweets. Are they all about you? Are they all about your vehicles, services or whatever you are pushing?  How many are about…

People like acronyms, they always have. Acronyms are easy to understand.

I want to talk briefly about the acronym - “S.E.O. “. This has been the most common "word" found in subject lines, in every dealer’s email inbox this year. It is a very misunderstood word lately, it doesn't mean to "get customers" . It’s fun to say - and hip to talk about, but what does it mean?  

                     …

It was my belief that this site was meant to share your talents, thoughts and relevant material that makes for a community of Car "Guys and Gals" that stay sharp, get educated and have a forum for discussions to better all of our careers.  I have remained very steadfast to those cores and have never that i can remember posted a video or blog post that direct sells my…