I learned something very important this week. Everyone who has the automotive industry in their blood is a "car guy". It has nothing to do with your gender. In the 21st century, most gender roles are meaningless, even in our industry.

We've had the pleasure of hiring two of the best car guys in the industry in the past year. Last year (almost to the day) we…

Congrats, Auto Professionals -- you made it to Friday! Before going into weekend mode, don’t forget to catch up on the latest automotive news and blog posts!

In this edition, learn what 3rd party vendor is changing its brand identity, how to get ready for Google’s newest mobile update, why your Facebook page should lose…

Salesperson%20Activities%20Tracker_v2.pdf

You cannot manage results; you can only manage activities. When activities are habitually performed and flawlessly executed, the results take care of themselves!

Sound activity-management requires that you do the following:

• Develop, document, and implement the processes that are critical to…

Introducing the new Black Book Market Insights, a weekly report capturing the latest vehicle valuation trends straight from the auction lanes and reported as it happens by Black Book’s team of editors. The data, trends and insights delivered weekly in this report will help you make the right decisions to identify growth opportunities and maximize profit potential. This week is the inaugural issue, covering the latest trends and data impacting the automotive industry here…

CallSource will present “Fine Tune Your Fixed Ops Phone Skills: Inbound Call Handling Secrets Revealed,” based on original research, at the DrivingSales Presidents Club in

New York City March 31-April 1, 2015

Westlake Village, Calif. and Salt Lake City, UT - March 19, 2015 - CallSource, the U.S. leader in call tracking, management and training, has been selected as a finalist for the 2015 DrivingSales Most…

We now have dates for the service manager school in Cleveland Ohio; the dates are June the Eleventh through the Twelfth, we will have the location for you in just a few days! This is a unique course that will provide two full days of coaching for your Managers, by building the right foundation for your team with proven processes to propel your results to new levels. Your…

Connecting car buyers to car dealers

    Today’s car buyer is spending more and more time not only researching their next purchase, but also going deeper into the purchase process on the internet. Today’s car dealer is using the internet more and more to reach and win over those buyers. So…

My primary goal as a PR Professional is to assist my clients in achieving the most exposure possible and build top-of-mind brand awareness among their potential customers, namely auto dealers. To help better understand how to best position my clients for success, last year, I did a little research into how dealers perceive vendors and their practices.

I…

MUNICH (Reuters) -- BMW may surrender its position as the No. 1 global premium brand by unit sales to rival Audi, although it will retain the title if sales of Mini are included, CEO Norbert Reithofer said.

"We would like to remain leading premium automaker, also in terms of volume," Reithofer told journalists today at the company's annual results conference in Munich.

However a push by…

As I approach the completion of my first full year on the vendor side of the car business after spending the previous several years at dealerships, I can say with a certainty that the timing could not have been better. It has nothing to do with me. My circumstance happened the way it was supposed to happen and I'm thankful for that.

The reason that the timing…

As website communication tools go, chat has grown at the fastest rate of adoption on car dealer websites for years. It’s not new, but more dealers are embracing what chat can do for them to engage with people visiting their website.

There are two primary reasons that it wasn’t a fad that died away like so many other website addons over the years. First, it is…

Most dealers understand the importance of customer retention. They’re e-mail-blasting sales messages, sending direct mail, and their salespeople are combing over thousands of client records in their DMS, making phone calls to previous customers and orphan owners. The problem is that many dealers don’t realize that, all too often, those messages fall on deaf ears. Dealerships spend tons of money sending messages to customers that are mostly irrelevant because some vendor promised huge results…

Urbandale, IA--March 17th, 2015--Flick Fusion (www.flickfusion.com) today announced that DealerSocket has selected FlickFusion’s Video Marketing Platform as its primary video marketing platform for their DealerFire website customers. Auto dealerships that use DealerFire as a website vendor will have optional access to the entire FlickFusion video marketing platform, providing them with a fully integrated solution for all their video marketing…

The new Google study reveals insight on the digital impact on in-store shopping. We all know that the growth of smartphones and access to online information has changed the way we shop in stores, but how is this actually affecting brick and mortar retail?

What they discovered:

Today's consumers are more informed than ever before. They want information throughout the shopping process, driving their use of…

Common advice in the automotive industry: "There are very strict rules that dealers should follow when posting to social media, especially as it pertains to timing."

Pop quiz: Who says things like this?

• Companies who post on schedules
• Gurus who want to demonstrate the need for their expertise
• Anyone who wants to automate their…

Regardless what business you’re in the reason we make appointments is to save time. In the dealership world technician time is extremely valuable. However, if you want to grow your business and have consistent customer satisfaction and profits you had better understand the value of your customers time. Click the link to read the full story!…

ALBANY, N.Y. – March 16th, 2015 – Auto/Mate Dealership Systems (http://www.automate.com) today announced that Dave Druzynski, Director of Human Resources at Auto/Mate, will present "Social Media in Hiring and Employment" at the upcoming Innovative Dealer Summit in Denver, CO on April 7th and 8th, 2015. In his presentation Druzynski will share the current laws and practices that impact a dealership's use of social media in the hiring process.…

“We work too hard to come within arm’s reach of the prize only to have our hands cut off just before we seize it. For those of us climbing to the top of the food chain, there is but one rule – hunt or be hunted.” – Frank Underwood, as played by Kevin Spacey in the Netflix television series, House of Cards.

This quote epitomizes the struggle that car…

There is a purge coming from Facebook and it affects all business pages. Various social media outlets have carried out their own version of “swift justice”. Twitter and Instagram recently purged a lot of fake fans and it seems Facebook is joining in too. So what’s going on exactly? Starting March 12, Facebook will begin to purge likes on business pages that are from…