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. …

This week, Jeff discusses how to assess yourself at the halfway mark. We've made it to June, with just six months left to reach your yearly goals! Are you ahead of target, on target, or behind? Jeff covers each category and tips to re-evaluate. Copyright 2018 Wm Jeff Cowan

Website: TheJeffCowan.com

Click HERE to watch!…

Monthly Index Has Declined Just Three Times Over Last Ten Months

Black Book, a division of Hearst that provides industry-leading used vehicle valuation and residual value…

According to the 2017 JD Power CSI survey, only 13 percent of consumers scheduled their vehicle service online. The progress toward online scheduling has been glacially slow, rising only two percentage points over the past three years.

This is despite the fact that nearly all dealerships now have an online scheduler and most service reminders are digital.…

Used & Specialty Vehicle Valuations Data Integrates for Loan Originations

Black Book, a division of Hearst that provides industry-leading used vehicle valuation and residual value forecast solutions, announced today the integration of its vehicle valuation data with GOLDpoint Systems, a leading loan origination system utilized by auto lenders across the United States.

GOLDpoint’s suite of loan management software…

We have been in many shops where the techs and management tell us, “Hey, my guy can beat the clock on every one of these repairs and do it in less than half the time. So now what? Do I have to keep on the job to have 70% time punch?”

So let’s talk about what a labor operation and its associated time include for most manufacturers.

• Time to bring the vehicle into the shop ( except Jag and Rover have a separate operation for this).…

Albany, NY – June 4, 2018​ – Auto/Mate Dealership Systems has integrated its dealership management system (DMS) with Quik Video, a provider of video technology to dealership service departments. With the addition of Quik Video, Auto/Mate customers have the option to create and send videos that can change multi-point inspection (MPI) identified…

Just because people are at work working, doesn’t mean they love what they do and who they do it for.

There are many people who simply hate there job and can’t wait to quit or get fired and don’t even care because they’re verbally abused, made fun of, ridiculed and made to feel inferior and stupid by their managers.…

Buying a car from another person directly is an easy task. You give him your offer and the next words he utters will tell whether you have a deal or not. In automobile showrooms too you can take a survey to look for the car that is of your interest and when you find it you can negotiate the prices then. The cases do not remain the same always. What happens when you are to buy a car at an auction? The word auction does make people think for a good five minutes as to which strategy they will…

Not long ago at a prior job I was severely reprimanded by an inexperienced sales manager for not using a trial close during a proposal. If you are currently in a leadership role and have similar tactics I would strongly advise against it... that’s a conversation for another day.

This article is about why you should steer away from the "Trial Close." By definition the "Trial Close" is a technique used in selling to assess the buyer's readiness to make a purchase decision. It usually…

“We can fix the tickets before the factory comes in. We don’t need the hassle of trying to fix every ticket now.” Joe service manager said.

I wrote this down as Joe said this because I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing. But there it was, and I know there are others out there that feel the same…