Is your Dealership concerned about retaining and growing your service business in 2012?

If so I have a question for you that you might not have thought of. How do you mange the service of your customers vehicles for them and retain more customers in your service department?

The answer is very simple, you start managing your customers like a dentist!

Do Dentists call you six months after your last visit to try…

Hello Dealer Elite Members,

I have been working with Dealerships all over North America for quite a while now. The thing that amazes me every day is that dealers, service writers, Sales Managers and Sales people fail to capture the information they need to follow up their customers every day.

Step One: Ask Great Questions

If you don't ask the right way you will not get the information you need.

Step Two: Make sure there is a benefit for…

Are traditional Marketing tactics and sales tactics really dead?

Should your sales and marketing team abandon the tactics they have used for years?

Here is a video that states just that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-lGe5MnBlY&feature=youtu.be

This has been a sore point…

Good morning automotive world,

There is a little company called Honda who has sold automotive products for years on it's reputation alone. In 2011 the Earthquake, stronger products from US car companies and a boring product line was changing the playing field. Not to mention heat from Hyundai and it's sister company Kia.

Ford Motor Company had also also proved that it could appeal to the traditional Import buyer as well and even Subaru was becoming more hip.…

Good Morning Automotive universe......

As I travel around North America setting up Business development centers for dealerships I get asked the following question quite often. How can we convince our current sales team to reach out to more customers and enlist them to help the Business Development Center?

The answer is quite simple really, convince them that in order to make a great living and "work less" over time they need to build their…

Good morning automotive world.......

As a performance consultant for Proactive Dealer Solutions I travel around North America helping dealerships contact their customer base and help them grow their business. These same dealerships ask my advise on a regular basic on CRM's and which one they should select to maximize BDC and make it easy for their staff as well.

This is always a challenging question, but I never back down from a challenge in my life. Here are…

I read an article today on the "Slow Death" of Best Buy despite the fact that they sell 1/3 of the electronics in the USA and the lack of large competitors.

I must say I was a little shocked due to the recent demise of one of their largest competitors last year. You may remember Circuit City went out of business last year. In addition in the Canadian market they own their largest rival Future shop. This is interesting because the business or sales model at…

First of all I would like to wish all my automotive friends, clients, associates, and future clients and associates Happy New Year !



Grant Cardone and other like to spend time exposing the problems in Dealerships, and other retailers and I hate to tell them that TV reporters have been pointing out the problems in retail for years. It is easy to take shots at retailers and film them as they try to respond to the "problems". The question isn't what the problems are it's how that…

Proactive Dealer Solutions has worked with thousands of dealers all over North America for over 20 years now.  We get asked all the time what is the secret to your success with automotive dealers?  The answer is simple we bring processes that work, and dedicated staff that works with dealers to create, rehabilitate, or expand a team of experts who work with management to grow automotive dealerships all over North America.

The bigger question is why have dealers waited…

As an Internet and Social Media nut I love technology. I also love the fact that there are companies in the market who are trying to help Dealerships sell more cars. There have been websites for years that have sold consumers invoice pricing and of course Automotive brokers have also be playing games with consumers for years now.



Before you make a decision on True Car you need to read these articles:…

Looking to reach customers that are in your area right now?

Sick of spending thousands on marketing that just does not deliver the customers?

Think Social Media is a passing fad?

Facebook just bought Gowalla!

I just learned that one of the heavy hitters in Social Media a little known company called Facebook just bought http://gowalla.com/, which is…

Customers never buy things based on price alone........

If you don't believe me take a look at Starbucks or Apple computer. What dealerships need to realize is customers can buy vehicles anywhere and most brands have great product lines as well. The question is what are you doing to attract new customers and maintain your existing customers by creating an amazing customer experience. Think about your local high end hotel, that dry cleaner or grocery store that…

The reality is your staff is failing because there is no process, no game plan and you are leaving money on the table! The question is are you sick of wasting advertising dollars only to have customers choose not to do business with your dealership?

The first impression customers get over the phone is critical and "Making it up", or shooting from the hip just…

We have been helping Dealerships all over North America for over 20 years now. We have been working with Sales, Service, Internet, and of course Social Media departments as well.

The Fantastic thing about "Most" service departments that we work with now is Dealerships have a large database of customers but they are not "helping" thier customers manage the service of thier vehicles. For example if all your service team did was bring all or most of your active service customers in "one"…

Good morning Automotive world.....

The BDC Experts have been training Automotive professionals how to drive traffic and create more business for dealerships across Canada, the United States and Australia for many years now. The question is does your dealership want more sales, service and Internet business?

The next question is do you have a plan to get to that next level or like most dealerships are you just setting a growth target without a "game-plan".…

Good morning,

Like most of you, training is a large part of what I do everyday. Maybe more than most of you since I work with dealers and training is part of my job. Either way in order to manage people, improve what your team does or in order to spend less time micromanaging your team training is critical.

As you may know there are three stages to learning anything in life. The first step is to have an understanding of what the training is about or the Why?…

Good morning,

I have been using Linked in for years to make connections and to build my personal business network. I have also used it as a fantastic sales toll to sell cars and to sell our services as well. I felt that it made sense to share some of the things I had learned, and here is the first in a series of video's on Linked in.

Here is the link: …

As we fly around North America and other parts of the world one of the most common problems we see is cherry Picking and High turnover.

Cherry Picking: When a room is understaffed and the staff really can’t handle the call volume they tend to run through the calls they need to make and pick out the low hanging fruit or the east opportunities. This also happens on the show room floor at most dealerships. Some sales staff and managers believe they can spot the buyers, so they…

First of all thank you for taking the time to take a look at my post this morning I appreciate it. The BDC experts work with a large number of dealerships all over the world and when I see something that works well I like to share it with the automotive community. I will be doing a more comprehensive post later this week. Here are some tips, which will help you Crush It on Craigslist, or other portals.

Tip One: Use some form of software that enables you to…