Accountability...It is more than a fancy six syllable word. The business dictionary defines accountability as "The obligation of an individual or organization to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and to disclose the results in a transparent manner." Accountability is not a new tool; it is not constricted to the…

I was chatting with a social media marketing buddy of mine in Dallas earlier today when he told me a funny story. He knows that I'm in the automotive industry and he found it humorous that two dealers in his area shared the same image onto their Facebook pages at the exact same time. He followed both as he follows many local businesses and checked to see who posted it first and who reshared it.

To his surprise, it…

As reported today by Mashable, Facebook has started weeding out and deleting “bogus Likes caused by compromised accounts, deceived users, malware or purchased bulk Likes..”

I’ve written countless times about why buying Likes is not only useless but bad practice. There are companies whose entire social media strategy is a numbers game. The more Likes you have, the more likelihood that you’ll reach people who…

Early in my retail automotive management career (back in the late 1960’s), I was fortunate to meet a renowned sales and management trainer. His name was Clint McGhee, and his training disciplines and materials provided the foundation of sales success, not only for my dealership, but for many others as well.  Following is one of Clint’s mantras, with which I may have taken a little editorial freedom:

“Avail yourself of every training opportunity.…

Not doing a walk around every car every time?

Not delivering the right word tracks at the right time?

Not asking for the sales, handling the objection?



Then watch this video!

Merely Surviving Isn't Enough

 …

It seems an overwhelming majority of participants on this network are obsessed with social media channels. While I feel they play a role in a good overall marketing strategy, I wonder if we are putting too much weight on their importance?

Let me ask you this question:

"If a dealership took all their icons and buttons and links to…

Good afternoon Dealer Elite Members and associates,

I have been noticing a disturbing trend in retail lately and I am sure it is also true in other areas of the workforce as well. As we become more and more connected with Social Media, Smartphones and the internet red flags are popping up everywhere for me.

Everyone is becoming more and more distracted and this means productivity, focus and results are being affected. Of course this is happening when driving in…

I don’t think I've ever met someone who says they immediately say “Yes” to all their service advisors’ recommendations.  I've definitely talked with some who always say “No”.  Most of us listen and make a decision.  It’s how we come to those responses and decisions that’s so very interesting.

It’s been said that we all make decisions emotionally and then use logic to…

I've written a lot about the importance of having a mobile friendly auto dealership website given the increase in smart phone usage, but when your dealership sends emails, are you also taking mobile into consideration?

A recent study by Knotice, an on-demand marketing software and agency, shows that 36% of emails were opened on a mobile device (tablet &…

Attitude Determines Your ALTITUDE!   Tell Your Face to Smile Today!

Yeah, I’m talking about baseball, kind of:  When we’re in a rut, or when we don’t get the result we want, or when we fail, we often use sports analogies like “in a slump”, “swing and a miss”, and “struck out”.  And so often, especially in the car business, we are very parochial about who we discuss these issues with—we look to our peers, our friends, our relationships for…

Does your dealership have a BDC or Internet Sales Department?  When appointments show up to the dealership, is there a set process to handle these customers?  Let me let this thought process for a second…

Ok, so right now you are probably realizing that you do have these departments yet they are under performing.  Perhaps you have trained your sales staff in the basic methods of the road to the sale or you might have just hired a few “green peas” and thrown them out…

Shares of Facebook stock are still trading below 40% of the social media company’s initial public offering of $38, but CEO Mark Zuckerburg’s announcement of a Facebook search engine serves as a light at the end of a tunnel for many investors. …

An alarming trend has arisen on the Internet side of automotive sales and it is called "Email Template Theft" (ETT for short). This may be happening to your Internet sales team right now or your team could even be the guilty party. Have you ever received an internet lead who never responded and just seemed downright suspicious? Could these leads have been submitted by your local competition? 

As an Internet Director, it certainly happened to me…

On January 15^th1928 my father, Edward Lockerd, was born. Sometime within the next year his father, my Grandfather, George Lockerd, left and was never to be seen or heard from again.

My father, one of four, two sisters and a brother, all suffered from what both Author John Eldridge and Father Richard Rohr…

Are you just training them OR are you developing a culture?

Facebook and Apple are two of the most influential companies on the internet today, but they’ve never really worked well together. The fault falls mostly on Facebook. Their mobile application has been notoriously buggy and all the functionality it promised was never truly delivered. When Apple released iOS 5, everyone thought Facebook integration would be one of the main…

Mathematically and certainly, the BeBack Fight is dead.  JD Power shows us in the graph below that the average dealerships visited by vehicle shoppers dropped from 4.1 in 2005 to 1.3 in 2010.  Don’t expect 2012 to raise that number.

Why does this “kill” the BeBack fight?  First, logically, it at least kills it as we’ve known it.  If a person left the dealership in…