Trust is your business's biggest asset today. With the ability to easily publish reviews of businesses, products, and services, customer satisfaction is more important than ever before. Because one of the first things a potential customer does before visiting you in person is search for reviews…

The end of month is here and if you’re excited and ready to embrace it chances are you are having a good month.  If you are on the other end of the spectrum, well then most likely you have already given up.

If you have been trying to find the “secret” to massive success by “hoping” that it will arrive on your “someday ship”…                           

What…

This article was written by Robin Cunningham and originally published on the NCM Institute Up to Speed blog.

I think it is safe to say that every business operator is planning, forecasting, or at least hoping to increase their sales and profits in whatever business he or she is involved in.

In the retail automobile business, that growth can come in many forms, such as:

• Selling more new or used…

You dedicate at least an hour of your day on your dealership’s Facebook business page. You chime in on posts about the auto industry, you change your profile and background photos, you post 8 times a day - YOU ARE COMMITTED. So why aren’t people liking your page?

The most successful businesses follow these 6 easy steps to ensure they aren’t sucking on Facebook:

1. When it comes to posting, less is more.

Facebook is not Twitter…

Welcome to this week’s edition of Beggs on the Used Car Market, with analysis from Ricky Beggs and Black Book. As the calendar is closing out the month of July the market is indicating a variety of actions. The smaller and more fuel efficient models are getting some attention again after softening for just over a month once the tax season expired. Even some of the six to eight year old…

One of the most disturbing trends we're seeing on dealer websites is when they use chat areas as another contact form. It's true that chat is a way to generate leads, but when collecting contact information is the primary goal, the whole point of chat is missed.

Here are some things that we have found to be true with chat that dealers should keep in mind when…

I am sure many of you have heard about the recent customer service debacle involving Comcast over the past week. In case you aren’t familiar with what happened, a customer called into their service center attempting to cancel his service after almost a decade. He was transferred to a customer retention…

What?

It is time to talk about the F&I department in the dealership and how the BDC (GRC) department can help improve product penetration. The typical discussion with regards to business development is always about lead handling and appointments. The BDC discussion is one that can go on for hours and even days because it is interesting to hear different…

Just what does a 10% increase (in any KPI you choose) really mean to your dealership?

Today's Women’s Wednesday we are focusing on the new top reason women are buying from their sales advisor. Trust has always trumped price when it comes to buying from a sales advisor, but now, in our latest mid-year #bigdata report directly from women's reviews, “trust” no longer has the top spot.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T! Aretha Franklin couldn’t define it better. Respect is now the #1 prerequisite to trust in the formula to selling to women.

The top 5 reasons women buy from their sales…

Greetings Friends,   

The price of your services is not what keeps your customers coming back to your dealership. It is the amount of care you give them. When we are directed by the discounted price alone, we are developing the wrong kind of culture.

Click the link below to find out how to develop a caring culture in your dealership.

 …

Las Vegas, NV – The Third Annual AutoCon reinvents the automotive conference with a new and innovative format unlike any other industry event, which is attendee driven.  The majority of AutoCon’s speakers and trainers are actual dealer…

Here are the latest trends and insights on the used car market according to Black Book data and Ricky Beggs. The market continues the more traditional seasonal movements and for the first three weeks of July the average change amount has increased within the cars and trucks. This past week the cars average segment change was -$68 as compared to the previous two weeks of -$56 and…

Motivation is a psychological feature that induces an organism to act towards a desired goal and elicits, controls, and sustains certain goal-directed behaviors. It can be considered a driving force; a psychological one that compels or reinforces an action toward a desired goal. For example, hunger is a motivation that elicits a desire to eat. Motivation is the purpose or psychological cause of an action.…

Depreciation rates on used vehicles are nearing levels not seen since the recession, though the trend will soon reverse and likely lead to marginally higher losses for U.S. auto ABS, according to the latest joint vehicle depreciation report from Black Book® and Fitch Ratings. Click here to download the full report.



According to Black Book, both new and used vehicle markets are seeing…

Last week, Automotive News highlighted Redlands Auto Plaza, a Southern California dealership that is doing some pretty creative things within their service department to increase absorption. General Manager, Loren Campbell, recognized that becoming more…

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

I reached out to…

This post was originally written by Paul Stowe for the NCM Institute Up to Speed blog. Click here to view the original article.

Mr./Ms. Dealer:

There continues to be a great deal of misconception in sales managers’ thinking about why they’re not able to increase used vehicle volume. Industry metrics confirm that those…

Today, using the “free” social media platforms as a marketing tool without spending money on them is about as useful as playing the first level of the freeware version of iPad game.

It used to be so exciting to think about how to market a business on social media. We would read articles, watch videos, go to conferences, exchange ideas, try things out, and come…

It’s unfortunate that so many members of the automotive industry when approached with a genuine request to be of assistance, are prone to wondering  “ What do you want from me?” or “What are you selling?”  I blame the all too common and frequent hidden agendas that often occur in B2B and B2C interactions.

We already understand that a single loyal…